Wicked Obsessions

by Marilyn Campbell

  After the first night, Selena had brought down a small lamp with a dim bulb and plugged it in outside the cage. Teri assumed that she wasn't being allowed access to an electrical cord because of how Selena's mother had killed herself. She supposed that made sense, but it prevented her from having any control over the light, which was apparently the second reason it was placed out of reach.

  This was the second time Teri had been left in total darkness, but it was no less frightening than the first. From the way her stomach and head felt, she guessed lunch and dinner had passed without food. The meals in Selena's hotel were unexceptional, but they were always served punctually, at the same times every day.

  What if Selena never came back?

  Teri had asked herself that question a thousand times since the light had gone out, yet she still had no answer. Nor did she have any idea how long it had been. She might have been asleep for ten minutes or ten hours. Without light, her anchor had been ripped away.

  Gradually her body returned to its normal state and she was able to think past her panic again. Instead of convincing Selena to let her out of the cage, she had probably lost what trust she had gained in the last couple days. She couldn't help but wonder, if Selena did return, how much longer would it take to recover that trust once more.

  With that in mind, she figured it was time to try picking the lock again. She had made an attempt the second night she was there, after Selena had gone to bed.

  Since she could barely reach the lock at the top of the cage, she had used the small table to stand on, then had had to scrunch down because it raised her too high. She had had no trouble slipping her thin hand between the bars beyond her wrist, but no matter how she had stretched or twisted, she could not get the pin into the keyhole. Perhaps she had not been desperate enough.

  Not hearing any footsteps overhead, she hoped Selena was either asleep or out of the house. Feeling her way, she found the safety pin she had hidden in her clothes and again moved the table to the cage door. With light, balancing on top of the narrow table had been awkward. In the dark, she felt like she was performing a dangerous circus act. This time she used her left hand to find the keyhole and, with the straightened pin in her right hand, she blindly searched until she pricked her finger. It took all of her strength to hold herself in her contorted position while she worked the pin into the hole.

  She poked, prodded, and wiggled her makeshift pick, but nothing seemed to be happening. It looked so easy in the movies.

  Suddenly she was bathed in light, her body jerked in surprise, and the pin fell out of her hand. Sheer terror gripped her as she pictured Selena finding her in the midst of an attempted breakout.

  "Wait!" Teri cried out. "Please don't come down yet. I... I'm not decent." As she spoke she got off the table and put it back in place, but everything was not back to normal. The safety pin, bent out of its normal shape, was lying on the white floor, outside the cage. Selena would know immediately what Teri had been up to. "I'll just be a minute."

  "All right," Selena answered testily. "But hurry up. I have your breakfast."

  Teri didn't take the time to ponder what significance that pronouncement had. She was totally absorbed in trying to get the pin back. Lying on the floor, she squeezed her arm as far as it would go through the bars, but the pin was still a few inches further away. Desperately, she looked around her, until her gaze landed on a paintbrush.

  "Teri! Your eggs are getting cold."

  Teri grabbed the brush and laid back down on the floor. "Give me another minute." Trying to hurry without making the situation worse, she extended the brush through the bars until the bristles covered the pin. It took three strokes to bring her precious tool within reach, and by the time she had the pin securely hidden again, she was vibrating with panic. "Okay," she called out, aware that her breathless voice probably betrayed her. The look on Selena's face when she came downstairs confirmed what Teri feared. The girl suspected something.

  "What were you doing?" Selena asked as her gaze scanned the basement and Teri's clothes and settled on her flushed face.

  Teri instantly realized Selena knew she hadn't changed clothes and without water, she couldn't have been washing. "I was... I had to go."

  Selena glanced beneath the bed where the potty chair was stowed.

  "I mean, I felt like I did," Teri quickly amended. "I couldn't, though. It's probably my nerves. I don't like being left in the dark." With each sentence she could see Selena accepting her excuses, and she quit while she was ahead.

  Selena placed the tray by the pass-through and, as she unlocked the door, she told Teri in a flat tone, "When you misbehave, you will be punished. Remember that." After she had pushed the tray through and relocked the door, she stood up and smiled, her whole demeanor abruptly turning cheerful.

  "Juliette and I made a decision last night. I hadn't thought about how your being creative would make you somewhat... eccentric. I want you to be happy, and I know you have to be able to paint to feel your best. I'm afraid I hadn't thought about the lighting down here. I'll have to do something about that eventually. But in the meantime, if you promise not to cause trouble, I will take you outside one morning a week, starting today."

  Teri felt her heart jump with anticipation. She was going outdoors. Out of the cage. Freedom could be only moments away... if she was fast enough... and sly enough. "Thank you, Selena," she said, bowing her head contritely. "I know after what I did yesterday, I don't deserve your thoughtfulness." Her act brought the desired response from Selena. The lunatic was pleased.

  Between her excitement and not having eaten for some time, Teri finished her breakfast within minutes of Selena leaving her alone, then hurried through her morning routine. She didn't want to question why Selena had such a drastic change of mind. It was enough that she did.

  Teri imagined all sorts of escape scenarios ahead as well as how Selena could prevent them. The worst thing she could think of was that since Selena treated her like a pet, she might put her on a leash. The best she came up with—and it couldn't quite be called a plan—was that once they were outside, Selena would be distracted by something long enough for Teri to get a running head start. Since she had never been very athletic, she realized if she went straight for the road, Selena would probably catch up to her with no problem. But if she took off for the trees, she might have a chance of getting away or at least hiding until dark. Spending time cowering in the woods sounded like paradise after the cage.

  In preparation for her outing, she collapsed her easel and placed it with a newly stretched canvas and a selection of supplies by the door. She kept reminding herself not to appear too anxious, to bide her time and get Selena to lower her guard.

  After about twenty minutes, when Selena hadn't returned, Teri began to worry that the offer to go outdoors had been only a tease—a different form of punishment for her bad behavior. Then, Teri was slowly able to see why Selena had been stalling upstairs. She also knew how Selena intended to control her after she let her out of the cage. A leash would not be necessary.

  She had been drugged. She felt the strong tranquilizing effects from her brain to her toes. If she tried to run, she wouldn't get far in slow motion. As the minutes ticked by, she wasn't even sure she could walk.

  When Selena finally came to get her, the fog had completely enveloped her. She tried to talk, but she kept forgetting what she was trying to say before she got to the end of a sentence. Selena took all the art supplies away first, then came back for Teri, but by that time Teri had to fight just to stay awake.

  She knew they were outside, behind the house. She saw the woods and fought to dredge up enough anxiety to counter the drug, but she lost the battle. Selena had given her what she demanded with one hand and prevented her from taking advantage of it with the other.

  Teri couldn't run, but she could still think. If she behaved properly today, there would be another chance. If she pretended not to understand why she felt so strange, Selena would most likely use th
e same control method next week. Then it would only be a matter of not eating or drinking anything Selena offered her before they went out, yet acting sluggish, as if she had.

  With that resolved, Teri pulled herself together sufficiently to apply paint to canvas, but the result didn't bear any resemblance to the trees she had intended to duplicate. All the while, she mentally recorded how she was feeling and acting so she could fake it next week for her farewell performance.

  When Selena announced that it was time to go in, Teri checked her watch. She had been given two hours of fresh air and sunshine and had not appreciated one minute of it. Next week would be different.

  Knowing what was coming helped Teri get through the days that followed. She worked on another portrait of Selena, read a true-crime novel she'd been given and empathized with everything Selena said. She even started criticizing the men she had known in her life, much to Selena's pleasure.

  It occurred to Teri that there still could come a time when Selena would let her out, but she didn't have the patience to keep her act going much longer. Smothering her real feelings of revulsion, while pretending to accept and understand why Selena had committed a string of murders, had Teri's nerves strung to their limit. Watching the minute hand of her watch creep past the twelve and crossing each hour off in her mind became the high points of her days. But thoughts of escape pulled her through one more hour, then another, until her potential Independence Day, finally arrived.

  Selena had told her it had rained continuously the day before, and Teri could barely control her frustration as she waited for Selena to give her a weather report that morning. With freedom so near, she didn't think she could stand having it postponed because of rain.

  The minute Selena unlocked the basement door, Teri was on her feet, braced for bad news, yet praying for good. As she had done dozens of times in the past week, she counted off the fourteen steps as Selena's sandals flapped against each one on her descent.

  "Good morning, Teri. I made blueberry waffles this morning. I hope you're hungry."

  Teri felt as if she were waiting for sentencing. And Selena made her wait longer while she passed her the breakfast tray and fetched hot water. But Teri held her tongue, knowing a show of compliance was more important today than it had been for the past ten days.

  Just before Selena went back up the stairs, she made her announcement. "It's still very overcast today, but it's not raining. I think we could go outside if you'd like."

  If she'd like? Teri took a deep, calming breath before answering. "Yes, that would be very nice."

  As soon as Selena went back upstairs, Teri scraped the meal and poured the juice and coffee into some towels and shoved them far under the bed. She didn't want to take any chances as to which portion might be drugged. If Selena stuck with last week's routine, Teri knew there was no reason to rush, but her anticipation had her hustling nonetheless. When Selena returned, Teri was washed, dressed, and slumped listlessly on the bed, as she had been a week ago. This time, however, it was only an act.

  Ten minutes after Selena had her set up outside, Teri was certain her performance had been outstanding. Selena was watching her, but not with suspicion, and occasionally her gaze drifted away. With exaggerated precision, she daubed her paintbrush onto the canvas, squinted at it, and yawned repeatedly without covering her mouth.

  By the end of the first hour, Selena was clearly bored with the lack of progress Teri was making on the barn she was attempting to create. Out of the corner of her eye, Teri watched Selena move away from her and bend over to pull a clover out of the ground. Her entire body tensed, readying itself for action. Selena looked at the clover then tossed it away. A moment later, she plucked another. Teri felt like shouting with joy when she realized the girl was hunting for four-leaf clovers. Afraid that, like any child, Selena could lose interest in the game any second, and worrying that this might be the best distraction she was going to get, Teri waited for Selena to bend over again, with her eyes on the clover leaves.

  The moment came a heartbeat later, and Teri bolted. She got to the edge of the trees before Selena shouted at her. "Teri! Stop! You'll get lost."

  But the warning only served to spur her faster. She didn't care if she got lost, as long as Selena couldn't find her. Teri knew which direction she had originally driven from and approximately how far away the nearest house was. The woods had a maze of overgrown paths between the trees and she chose the one that seemed to head toward that house. For several minutes she stayed on that path, running as hard as she could, leaping over fallen branches, stumbling on rocks, slipping on the damp pine needles, but she could still hear Selena yelling at her. In fact, it sounded as if she was getting closer with each passing second.

  Teri saw a fork in the path ahead and picked the one that led away from the road, hoping Selena would be fooled. She needed to find a hiding place soon. Her body was in no condition for a cross-country run, no matter how much adrenaline was pouring into it from the fear of being caught. The farther she ran, the denser the ground cover became, until she could no longer make out a path at all.

  The only sound Teri could hear was her own strained breathing as she maneuvered her way between branches. Her face and arms stung from the sharp pine needles jabbing her skin, but she had to keep going. If Selena was still following her, she was being very quiet.

  Suddenly the toe of Teri's shoe caught on a root and she tumbled to the ground. The voice in her head ordered her to get up and keep running, but her heart, lungs, and leg muscles had been pushed beyond their capacity, and now that she had been stopped, there didn't seem to be any reserves to draw on. For a moment Teri lay there, giving in to the exhaustion. Though there had been a good reason for not eating her breakfast, she now regretted that she hadn't had just a little. Her escape had burned what little energy she had stored, and now even the adrenaline high seemed to have worn off.

  Rolling herself onto her back, she determined to catch her breath and get moving again. But in what direction? She had made so many turns onto different overgrown paths, she had no idea where the road might be, or, for that matter, which way Selena's house was. The sky above her was completely blocked out by the thick tree branches, so she couldn't go by the position of the sun. There, deep in the forest's shade, it seemed more like evening than mid-morning. As the pulse pounding in her ears slowed, she listened for any sign that Selena was nearby, but all she heard was the eerie whispering of the wind through the pines.

  When she had thought getting lost would be fine, she hadn't actually considered the reality. It seemed incredible that she could be so near civilization and not find her way out. The only thing to do was to keep moving and be prepared to duck behind a tree or boulder if she heard Selena coming.

  Teri glanced at her watch, stunned to discover that a half hour had passed since she took off.

  Surely by now she should have encountered another house, glimpsed the road, or at least found a suitable place to hide out until nightfall. One thing was certain—she couldn't let Selena get hold of her. Knowing what atrocities she was capable of and imagining what sort of punishment would be in store for her helped push another surge of adrenaline into Teri's overworked system. Forcing herself to stand, she ignored the dizziness that washed over her and the throbbing in the knee that she had fallen on.

  Looking around, she noticed what looked like a path, and limped toward it. Her progress, if it could be called that, was much slower now, but going somewhere seemed to make more sense than lying on the ground.

  Every time a creature scurried through the underbrush or a bird squawked overhead, her heart leaped into her throat. All of a sudden she saw a hint of a clearing a short distance away. Certain she would soon have her bearings or maybe even find a neighbor's house, she pushed herself into a faster hobble.

  Her heart stopped completely when she exited the forest only to see Selena standing about twenty feet away, grinning like a victorious Amazon.

  Teri had been going in circles!
She spun around and headed back along the path. In spite of the piercing pain in her knee, frantic images of what torture might await her at Selena's mercy drove her beyond the pain. She didn't look back, but she heard Selena running after her and she sent up a desperate prayer for God to save her from this madwoman.

  A second later Selena grasped a hank of Teri's hair and jerked her to a stop. Teri screamed out, both from terror and angry frustration. Ignoring the burning in her scalp, she twisted around and swung her fists at her captor. "Let me go! You can't do this to me!" But neither her furious demands nor her puny attack affected Selena, and Teri was too exhausted to continue. Tears flooded from her eyes as Selena yanked on her hair and proceeded to drag her back the way she had come.

  "That was very, very naughty of you, Teri," Selena said in a tone dripping with lethal promise.

  "Please, Selena," she cried, gasping for breath. "I'm begging you to let me go. I promise I won't tell a soul where you are." She tripped on a fallen branch, and Selena jerked her upright by her hair.

  "Your promises are worthless. Just like my mother's were. You promised not to cause trouble, and look what you've done. I warned you, Teri. I love you, but now you will have to be punished."

  Black despair filled Teri's soul as she stumbled along, unable to stop sobbing. "What... what are you... going to do to me?"

  "I don't know yet. I'll have to discuss it with Juliette. She always knows just what to do."

  Chapter 22

  "Welcome back, Mr. Marshall," Ross Parkins said with a smile as he approached the hospital bed.

  "I'm Sergeant Parkins, with the White Plains Police Department. Since your doctor has restricted visitors for a few days, I'm here on behalf of the Tarrytown police as well."

  "Where's Teri? Is she all right?" Drew's voice was raspy from lack of use. He tried to lift his head off the pillow, but the pain that movement caused in his head and chest was more than his weakened body was ready to handle. "The nurse told me... who had come. Teri wasn't one of them."