Tess watched without comment, a plastic cup of water in her hand.
“Yeah, we’ll call you tomorrow once we have more information,” Ramsey said. “Love you too. Bye.”
“Mom’s mad,” Tess said.
Ramsey gave a “so so” wave and said, “I think she’s more concerned than mad. And confused. She wants us to call the roadside help number on the insurance card. I told her it wouldn’t do much good, but she doesn’t seem to get it. I mean, what are they going to do, bring us a windshield tonight, in the dark, and install it on the car so we can then drive home?”
“How are we going to get home?” She didn’t like the idea of staying in the high school. Not when they would be surrounded by tons of people they didn’t know, all of whom were probably friends with each other and would have all their own little groups.
“I don’t know,” Ramsey said with a sigh. “Most likely we’ll have to have it towed somewhere. I’ll call the roadside line on the insurance card tomorrow and see what they say. If worse comes to worse, we’ll have to simply drive it home the way it is.”
“We can’t do that,” Tess said.
Ramsey didn’t reply.
“You’ve seen what a tiny rock will do to a windshield when kicked up on the highway. Now imagine that is your face.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“And you have no mirror.”
Ramsey nodded.
She took a sip of her water and once again thought about the high school and cots. Would everything be sterile, or had the cots, blankets, and pillows been used before and then just tossed into a storage area?
She shivered.
“You okay?” Ramsey asked.
“I just want to go home,” she said.
“Yeah, me too.”
“I told you not to try and catch the storm.”
Ramsey looked away.
“You told Mom you weren’t being reckless, but you were. You were driving over eighty miles an hour and you tried to catch a storm as it hit the area, which you’ve said is the most dangerous thing a storm chaser can do.”
He did not reply.
“And you didn’t even tell her about finding the girl or that the police are now—”
The door to the room opened, a uniformed woman stepping inside.
Silence followed.
“My name is Lieutenant Bell,” she said after studying them for a moment, her gaze lingering on Tess’s outfit longer than was necessary. “I understand you two are the storm chasers that found the girl?”
“Yes,” Ramsey said with a nod.
“Though given the damage to your car, it looks like the storm chased you this time around.”
“He tried to catch it even though he knew it was too far for us to get around,” Tess said, arms crossed. “He drove right into it.”
“Tess.”
“We had to seek shelter under a bridge and then in a drainage pipe.”
“Tess!”
“What?” Tess demanded. “It’s true.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to give everyone we talk to a play-by-play of how I fucked up, okay.” He sighed and then turned to the officer. “When can we head over to the high school?”
“In a bit.” She paused to grab a chair and took a seat. “Tell me about the girl.”
“We already told the first—” he started, but then let out a frustrated sigh. “We were simply driving down a farm road trying to find our way into town when she ran out asking for help.”
“And?” Lieutenant Bell asked after several seconds.
“And then we brought her here.”
“Ramsey, don’t be a dick,” Tess said. She turned to the lieutenant. “We thought she had simply been asking for help because of the storm. Like her house had been destroyed or something. But then we saw the marks on her wrists and thought we should get the police because it looked like she had been tied up.”
“And was this near a house that had been damaged, one that she might have come from?”
“I don’t remember seeing any in that particular area,” Ramsey said. “Some further down the road had been destroyed, and there were lots of power lines down, but the houses themselves were so spaced out from each other, and so far from the road, that it was hard to even tell where they would be unless we could see the rubble in the distance or knew where one should be.”
“What about a vehicle? Did you see any that she might have been in and crawled from?”
“No, I didn’t,” Ramsey said. He looked at Tess, who gave a similar answer.
“How far were you from 39? Do you think she could have been in a vehicle that was thrown from it?”
Ramsey shook his head. “It would have gone the other direction, eastward if it was from the highway.”
Lieutenant Bell jotted that down on a notepad and then asked, “What happened once she was in the car? Did she say anything that could help explain her situation?”
“Not really,” Ramsey said.
“Just asked for help a few times and then got quiet,” Tess added.
Lieutenant Bell nodded.
“Is she going to be okay?” Tess asked.
“Physically, there is no reason to think she won’t be. Mild concussion, likely from a hailstone.”
“What about her wrists? Was she a captive?”
“She says the marks are from a game.”
“A game?”
“That’s what she says,” Lieutenant Bell said.
“What kind of game would leave marks like that?”
Lieutenant Bell shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Kids today are getting into all kinds of mischief, what with the Internet giving all kinds of ideas, and parents exploring weird kinks.” She eyed Tess’s outfit again. “My guess is that she stumbled upon one of those Shades of Grey books that her mother was reading and decided to give it a try with a friend or something.”
“Kinky bondage games?” Tess asked, cocking an eyebrow. “She seems a bit young, doesn’t she?”
Another shrug. “Those marks were created with a rope, something that isn’t that difficult to find around here. A few loops around the wrists and an aggressive pull, and you have rope burns.”
“They looked a bit deep for a simple tug on a rope,” Tess said.
“You have experience with this type of thing?”
“What? No.”
“Well then, we go with what the girl says, that it was part of a game she was playing with her friend.”
Ramsey waited to see if Tess would offer a reply.
She didn’t.
“Anyway,” the officer said, “we’re going to keep her here until we can find out who her parents are and make sure they’re all right. In the meantime, do you think you would be able to pinpoint the area you found her in for us so we can try to narrow down where her home is? We doubt she walked very far given that she was barefoot.”
Ramsey shook his head. “I don’t know. We had no idea where we were and kept having to turn around and backtrack because of power lines and trees and whatnot. And then once we found that officer parked by the fallen tree, she led us here.”
“Okay, well, if you do think of anything that can help, it would be appreciated.”
Bitsy knew she had made a mistake, and now wasn’t sure how to fix it. Or if she could fix it. All she had tried to do was get help, the sight of Misty and the Daddy-man strapped into their seats, both unresponsive and bloody, having caused her to panic. But now here she was, sitting in a plastic chair, in a room that was part of a building filled with people in uniform, people she had come to realize were police officers.
She shuddered and hugged herself.
All her life she had been warned about the police and how they needed to avoid them at all costs. She and Misty were kept away from people in general, the Daddy-man explaining that they were too odd for others to understand, but police were the ones they tried the hardest to steer clear of.
And now here she was, her first time out by herself
and she had ended up in one of their interrogation rooms.
Why?
The door to the room opened, a woman in a police uniform stepping in.
Misty?
No.
This was the one from the car.
Even so, memories of games they had played, ones where Misty wore a police uniform while Bitsy was the prisoner that sat handcuffed in a chair waiting to be interviewed about the Daddy-man, unfolded.
Only now she wasn’t in handcuffs.
And she had a plastic cup of water to drink.
And they had bandaged her head after gently wiping away the blood.
Still, they were probably going to start asking her about the Daddy-man, and if she didn’t answer…
Bitsy hugged herself tighter and started rocking back and forth, wishing she was back in her box. Or in the playroom. Or even hanging in the—
The woman took hold of a chair and pulled it close.
It didn’t squeal against the floor while being dragged. Misty would have made it squeal.
Bitsy stopped rocking and looked at the woman, face trying to mask the fear she felt, all while a voice in her head told her to stop being a baby and be strong.
“Hi, do you remember me? My name is Katie Adams. Those two storm chasers brought you to me after finding you wandering around.”
Bitsy wasn’t sure how to reply to that and simply gave a slight nod to acknowledge the statement.
“I’m probably going to have to head back out soon, but before I did, I wanted to find out your name so that we can help you find your parents.”
Don’t tell them anything, ever!
The instructions were clear, yet so were the tortures that would be inflicted upon her if she didn’t speak. While playing, Misty had always lit one of the Daddy-man’s cigarettes prior to asking her questions, which she would press against Bitsy’s flesh if she did not answer.
No one in the room was smoking.
They even had a No Smoking sign on the wall.
But she knew that could change. And even if they didn’t use cigarettes to make her talk, they might have other items. Misty did. When playing games in the basement playroom, Misty had all kinds of items and devices. Horrible ones. All bought and put together by the Daddy-man. The cigarettes were always only the first step.
She would talk.
Eventually.
She always did.
She always lost the games.
And afterward, as punishment for losing—
A shiver raced through her.
“Honey,” Katie said, a hand reaching out to take hold of hers.
Bitsy flinched and pulled her hand back.
“Bitsy,” she whispered.
“Bitsy?” Katie asked.
“My name.”
Bitsy looked down in shame. With Misty, she typically resisted the first round up until the moment that the cigarette tip was pressed against her nipple, or against the flesh between her legs, her determination to make her playmate proud giving her a resistance that she couldn’t seem to find now.
Misty’s hurt!
I was going to bring help.
But police help?
No.
She had wanted those people in the red car to help, but instead they had brought her here. Why?
“Your name is Bitsy?” Katie said, almost as if a confirmation.
“Yes,” Bitsy said, voice soft.
“Bitsy what?”
“Cole.”
“Bitsy Cole.”
Bitsy nodded.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Bitsy Cole,” Katie said and held out a hand.
Bitsy stared at the hand for a moment and then reached out her own.
“Nice to meet you, Ms.…um…Police Officer Adams.”
“Please, call me Katie.”
Hand released, Bitsy tucked it back up under her armpit, but then, realizing how pitiful such a display was, summoned up the courage to withdraw her hands and fold them in her lap, her back straightening against the chair.
“How is your head feeling?” Katie asked.
“Fine,” Bitsy said. It was a bit sore, but unlike the cigarette tips, she could endure it.
“Officer Leland, the young man that looked at the bump and cleaned it up, feels you have a slight concussion. Do you know how it happened? Did you get caught in the tornado?”
Bitsy nodded. The memory of hearing Misty scream about the twister from the front seat beyond the curtain and then feeling the world tumble as the van flipped end over end filled her head. After that, the only sound was that of the loud siren somewhere off in the distance, followed by a thumping from the wooden box along the rear driver side of the van, one that contained the Daddy-man’s latest schoolgirl.
The padlock on the box was still in place.
“Were you in a house that was hit, or in a car?” Katie pressed.
Bitsy stifled a shiver that wanted to overtake her, one induced by the pain that was sure to follow now that a question had been asked that she would have to make an effort not to answer.
“Bitsy, it’s okay,” Katie said. “You can talk to me.”
Bitsy gave her a weak smile and then shook her head.
“Earlier you mentioned that we needed to help them. Who were you talking about?”
Bitsy felt torn. They did need help. Being unconscious like that probably wasn’t good. Yet bringing the police…
No.
That wasn’t helpful and it would upset both Misty and the Daddy-man. So much so that Misty might decide once and for all to get rid of her. “And no one will ever take you because no one likes a second-rate, hand-me-down toy,” Misty had said.
No, best not to let the police help.
I don’t even know where they are.
While at the red car before she had fallen down, she had known the way to them, but now, even if she decided to let the police help, she wouldn’t have been able to guide them there. Not unless they brought her to the creepy cemetery she had wandered through after leaving the field, one that had led her to another field before she had stumbled upon the road with the red car.
And they don’t know where I am.
This chilled her to the core.
If someone else helped them and they decided to continue on the journey of finding a new place to live, they might leave her behind simply because they had no idea where she was and couldn’t waste time looking for her.
She had to get back!
But how?
Even if she could get out of the police station, she had no idea how to get back to the van.
She had no idea how to get back to Misty.
Tears arrived.
She hadn’t thought any would appear until the pain began, but then realized it had begun, only in a way she hadn’t anticipated, a way that was worse than any physical type they could inflict upon her once the actual torture began.
Katie was staring at her.
Bitsy wiped at her eyes. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Katie said. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Bitsy nodded.
“And if you don’t want to talk to us right now, that’s fine. I’m a bit worried though that time is not on our side, and that those you want us to help might not benefit from a delay, but if you’re not ready or not able to talk about it just yet, I’ll respect that.”
Bitsy stared at her in confusion. The games never went this way.
Were they trying to trick her?
Did they know she might have played games where she was interrogated by the police and therefore wanted to throw her off and not have her anticipate what was to come?
Why wouldn’t Misty have played like that?
Had she not realized things could go this way?
“That’s a nice dress you have on,” Katie said, catching her off guard.
“Thank you,” Bitsy said, looking down at it. “It’s one of Misty’s favorites.”
“Misty?” Katie asked.
Horror
raced through her.
They had tricked her.
Katie had tricked her.
“Who’s Misty?” Katie asked.
Bitsy didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply.
“Is she someone that needs help?” Katie pressed.
Bitsy wanted to cover her mouth with her palms, her panic at not being able to trust herself to answer without revealing something growing. Instead, she gave a slight shake of the head.
“No, Misty doesn’t need help?” Katie asked.
“I think they’re okay now,” Bitsy said. “I was just scared after the van flipped.”
“You were in a van?”
Bitsy’s eyes went wide and this time she did cover her mouth.
“Was it just you and Misty in the van, or were there others?”
Bitsy kept her hands over her mouth.
They hadn’t even started to torture her, and yet she had already revealed three things.
Misty was right: she was a horrible, useless toy.
“Honey,” Katie said, her hands reaching out and gently taking hold of Bitsy’s wrists so that she could remove her hands from her mouth. “Everything’s okay. You have nothing to be scared of here. All we want to do is help you and anyone else that needs help.”
Bitsy shook her head again and said, “I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” Katie said. She reached up and wiped away some of Bitsy’s tears. “I understand. We all do.”
Bitsy nodded and then wiped at her face, the dirty sleeve of her dress soaking them up.
“That is such a pretty dress,” Katie said once again.
Bitsy smiled.
“Is it okay if I get a picture of you wearing it?”
“A picture?” Bitsy asked.
“Yeah, just a quick one.”
Bitsy was confused and a bit wary, her mind thinking this could be another trick.
But how?
No ideas appeared.
“Okay,” she said.
“Great.” Katie pulled out her phone. “Why don’t you stand over by the wall? That way there won’t be anything in the background.”
Bitsy nodded.
“You know, I could take one for you too if you have a phone.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Really? Was it lost in the storm, or you just don’t have one at all.”
“Don’t have one at all.”
“I see. What about Misty?”
Daddy's Little Girl Page 5
