by Lisa Gardner
Once you are there, no one can hurt you. And once no one can hurt you, you never have to be afraid again.
* * *
IT’S THE DARKNESS THAT GETS TO ME. I keep thinking that my eyes will adjust. That there will be a lessening of the gloom. But no. The pitch-black depths remain absolute. I hold out my bound hands time and time again to test; I still can’t see them.
I’m left in a land of sound and feel. So I put both to good use.
I don’t understand the purpose of the tethering chain connected to the handcuffs around my wrists. Best I can tell, I have full range of the room, so it’s hardly limiting access. Is it to keep me from bounding through a suddenly opened door? Racing toward the light? I don’t know, then force myself to put it from my mind. Motives aren’t worth worrying about yet. Tangibles are.
I explore the room. Nine steps form the width, side to side. Twelve long strides provide the length. Contents appear to be three items: A twin-size mattress, flat on the floor, covered in a simple cotton blanket. A standard-issue plastic bucket sans handle. And a coffin-size box.
I still hear breathing. Slow and even. In and out. In and out. It becomes the background noise for my endeavors. Like the sound of ocean waves, the rhythm of my heartbeat. I already hate it.
Windows. Three of them. With my fingertips, I can make out the trim. Two upon one wall, both modest in size. Singles, I believe you’d call them. Classic New England architecture. The larger window is on the wall across from them. Twice as wide as it is tall, its dimensions remind me more of a mirror. When I run my fingers along it, I feel cool glass. In contrast, the smaller windows across from it are textured and rough, as if painted or otherwise obscured. I try to scratch at the coating with my fingernails but can’t make a dent. So not residential paint, but maybe something more industrial such as powder coating or enamel. These windows must be outer windows, thickly covered. Hence my lack of light.
As for the larger, unpainted glass surface across from them . . .
I’m guessing that’s an internal wall. Which doesn’t make sense for such a large picture window. Unless, of course, it’s not a window at all. A one-way mirror? That’s what I’m thinking. I can’t be certain, of course, but why construct such an elaborate setting for his playthings if not to watch the festivities inside?
I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the lights come on. Blinding, disorienting. And the UNSUB (ask Samuel; that’s unidentified subject in FBI-speak) will take advantage of the chaos to check in on his charges.
Or maybe he’s watching even now. Military-issued night-vision goggles, anything is possible.
You must understand: Whatever demented thing you’re too scared to consider, that’s exactly what they’re already fantasizing about it. The big bads out there . . . Denial won’t help you. Suppression won’t save you.
Best to meet it head-on. Understand the enemy. Accept their depravities. Then find the void and soldier on.
Breathing. Still so relentlessly even. In. Out. In. Out.
How can she remain asleep? How can she not hear me bumbling around in the dark, tripping over the mattress, stubbing my toe against a wall here, the box there?
I can’t think about the coffin-size box. I can’t consider its possibilities, its contents. If I do, I lose the void. Because I’m good alone. I understand alone. I intended, always, forever, to be alone.
So the box. The fucking Darth Vader wannabe, not part of the equation. A totally unwelcome addition to my plan.
Is she drugged? That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. How else to explain unconsciousness lasting this long? Of course, I’m not sure how long this long has been. I fell asleep early afternoon. I woke up to an intruder in my apartment after dusk. And now?
I hate the damn dark. It’s disorienting.
I center my thoughts. I comb the room. Using sight and sound, which can be more helpful than you think.
Above the larger window—the viewing window?—I identify a high wall-mounted object. Smaller, soft, and foamy to the touch, it’s situated to the left of the smooth-glass mirror. A speaker, I’m guessing. He watches, and then, eventually, he’ll talk. Orders, taunts, whatever.
But sooner or later he’ll make himself known. And when he does, it’ll be all about him asserting control.
Breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
I should use it. Roll it into the void, turn it into part of my separation. Like focusing on the wind in the trees, or utilizing the toll of a bell. I can’t fight it. I can’t change it. I can’t block it. Hence, use it. Make it one with me.
I hate the damn breathing.
I find myself standing over the box. Tracing its shape, noting the roughness of the edges. A crude job. I’d like to say I recognize the craftsmanship. But cheap pine boxes are a dime a dozen. I never learned if Jacob crafted his own or purchased it elsewhere. I never asked the question before, and I certainly can’t ask it now.
She’s dying. I know that, kneeling over the box. Because that’s what happens to girls trapped in coffin-size boxes. Physically, mentally, is there a difference?
This girl, whatever made her her, is ebbing away, leaking into the wood, the floor, the black-painted room. Bit by bit. Inch by inch. Soon, Evil Kidnapper will pop open this lid and she’ll do whatever, say whatever he wants because it won’t matter anymore. The person she was will be gone. Only the shell will remain.
Girl Bot. Ready for programming.
The type of automaton ready to give up her own beloved father’s name.
I hate this girl in the box. As I discover myself slowly but surely shredding my own fingernails, a habit hard broken four years ago.
I fist my hands. Feel the pressure of my nails digging into my palm. And will myself into the void once again.
While she continues to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Padlock. Standard issue. That’s what secures the lid.
I have a moment, tracing the metal latch, where once again I’m in a filthy, food-stained, sex-soaked basement, studying my own box from the outside in. The sense of déjà vu unsettles me, makes this whole thing feel way too personal. More like Evil Kidnapper went looking for me than I went looking for him.
Back into the void, back into the void, back into the void. Feel nothing. Analyze everything.
Her breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Stacey Summers? Could it be possible? Have I found her at last?
Suddenly, the void is gone. I feel only panic instead. I hate her, this girl, Stacey Summers, whoever, I don’t care! She shouldn’t be here. I left behind this fucking box. I dealt with the devil; I bargained my soul; I did what, according to Samuel, survivors do in order to see another day.
So how dare some girl get herself trapped in a box again? How dare she ruin this for me?
In. Out. In. Out. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.
And just like that, moving before I even know I’m going to move, I fist my bound hands together and smash them against the top of the box. Again. And again and again.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
Wake the fuck up!
Breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
What the hell? Who can sleep through this? It must be drugs. The only answer.
I bang again. I can’t help myself. I’m furious, at her, at me, at him? I don’t know anymore. The box, I think. I’m furious at the fucking box. It must go. I need it to be gone.
I find myself shaking the whole thing. It’s cheap enough, wobbly enough, to move beneath my angry ministrations.
While she breathes. In. Out. In. Out.
I pound the box. Its corresponding shudder gives me another idea. Under different circumstances, I would pick the lock. But having been abducted from the comfort of my own bed, I lack the tools I would normally have on me: two very tiny, innocuous-looking black plastic clips that are actually universal l
ockpicks. But maybe I don’t need them. The box shudders and shakes every time I hit it. It’s definitely cheap construction.
I batter against it with fresh determination. I shove it side to side, feeling the top loosen, the joints give. Until, with a horrific scream, I toss it onto its side, roll it all the way over, a full 360. When it rights itself again, rocking beneath my fingertips, I can feel the lid is ajar.
Breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
How can that even be possible? I grab the lid, wrench it further, until it dangles from its metal latch. Take that, Mr. Amateur Hour.
Breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
I can’t see. The darkness encroaches. The darkness obliterates. So I reach my hands in, fully prepared to grab the occupant from its depths and yank her to salvation.
Except . . .
Nothing. No body, no warmth, no solid mass. I find emptiness, emptiness, emptiness. And yet I can still hear it.
Breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Forever steady.
The rhythm of my heartbeat.
I search the entire coffin-size box. With my wrists bound together, my fingers fluttering like butterfly wings. Empty, empty, empty.
Until finally, at the base . . .
A tiny recorder. Taped to the bottom of the casket. Apparently playing over and over again: Breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
And in that instant, I’m sure the breathing is mine. Prerecorded while I was unconscious. Just as the box is mine.
There is no second victim.
There is only me.
Always me.
I look up at the glass window. I can’t see it in the dark, but I can feel it before me. I know he’s there. Watching. Waiting. Enjoying the show.
So I smile. I lift my wrists. I offer him one middle finger. Then I rise from the demolished coffin. I head to the single mattress.
And though my heart is thumping wildly, and my pulse racing uncontrollably, though I understand now that this isn’t a matter of a simple kidnapping, that this man seems to know things he shouldn’t know, that I am even less in control than I thought, not just another victim but perhaps the intended victim, I force myself to lie down and turn my back to him.
Find the void. Live in the void.
In the void, no one can hurt you. And if no one can hurt you, then you never have to be afraid again.
* * *
IF I COULD GO BACK IN TIME, if I could do one thing, I would drive to my mother’s farm. I would sit across from her. I would eat her homemade muffins, accept her sun-brewed tea. And I would let her love me.
Except, having spent so much time in an empty void, I no longer know how to feel again.
Chapter 19
ONCE THE DECISION WAS MADE to take me with him on his trucking route, “Everett” swung into full preparation mode. He adopted my father’s name, while I would be called Molly. He drilled me. My name, his name, made me sign another postcard for my mom. I wrote what he said, signed what he wanted. I thought my handwriting looked foreign and strange. Maybe this is what handwriting looked like for girls named Molly.
When I was done, fake Everett handed over stiff blue jeans and an oversize white T-shirt declaring Florida the Sunshine State. He’d included underwear and a bra as well, but the bra was several sizes too large and looked like something only a grandmother would wear. When I held it up questioningly, he just shrugged and knocked it to the floor.
He ordered me to shower—on account of the close quarters, he informed me. I noticed he had also recently bathed, hair actually combed, and was wearing one of his less-stained T-shirts.
He watched me in the bathroom as I quickly soaped up my dirt-encrusted skin, scrubbed my long, matted hair. He continued staring as I awkwardly sorted through the cheap, oversize clothes, doing my best to pull them up over my still-damp skin. My hands shook. I kept my gaze on the dirt-brown carpet, certain at any moment he’d snatch the clothes away, toss me down, and . . .
But he didn’t. If anything, he seemed irritated by my clumsiness.
When I finally dragged the T-shirt over my dripping wet hair, he produced a comb from his back pocket and ruthlessly dragged it through my hair himself. Next up from his back pocket: scissors.
I flinched. In response, he chuckled.
“Hair’s a fucking mess,” he said, his way of making conversation.
I wanted to tell him, of course it was a fucking mess. No hair, and certainly not my fine blond hair, was meant to be shampooed with a cracked bar of ancient hand soap. My locks were accustomed to a soothing regimen of tea-tree-oil-based shampoos and citrus-scented conditioners. Then there was the weekly deep-conditioning hair masque to add volume, and the monthly highlights for shine.
Once upon a time, I’d been a teenage girl. With standards. And gorgeous, glossy California-inspired long blond hair.
Now . . .
I kept my gaze lowered, feeling the stiffness of my new denim jeans, as he fisted the first clump of hair, then went to town.
Three snips. That’s all it took. Three giant handfuls. Three decisive cuts. The wet strands rained down onto the carpet.
“Crap,” he said. “I think I made it worse. Oh well. That’s what hats are for.”
I didn’t say a word. Just like that, I’d become Molly and we both knew it.
But we weren’t done yet. He forced me to turn around, covering my eyes with a black strip of cloth—smelled like a musty old T-shirt—then tied it behind my head, obscuring my vision.
I never got to watch myself leave the basement prison. Best I could do was track the tops of my bare feet as he pulled me across the dirty carpet to the far door. A creak as it opened and then, much as I’d suspected, stairs leading up.
He pushed me ahead of him. I stumbled once, twice, three times. He whacked me in the back of the head hard enough to make me wince, and I found my balance.
At the top, a brief pause as he reached around me to open another door. Then a change in flooring from cheap commercial-grade carpet to peeling gray linoleum. Was this his house? I wondered as he yanked me forward into what I assumed must be a kitchen. It smelled like the rest of him: disgusting.
I tripped over my own feet, again. Trying to slow things down, or honestly uncoordinated? I didn’t know anymore. I’d agreed to my new identity. I’d given up my father’s name rather than be left alone down in that horrible place. And yet . . .
Funny how you can fear change, even when already surrounded by the worst of the worst.
Fresh air. Suddenly, I could feel it. Stumbling through the kitchen, out another door, we’d exited the house. To the outside. Front yard? Backyard? Who knew, who cared? I was standing outside with the wind on my face. And for a second, I couldn’t help myself. I dug in my bare heels. I lifted up my face.
Outside. Fresh air, the rustle of trees. After so, so long. (How long?) So, so long.
Fake Everett paused. He gave me one moment. I used it to peer straight up, over the top of my blindfold, and then I could see them. Trees soaring high above me. Thick and dark against a dimly lit sky. Woods, forest, freedom. Maybe I really was only miles from my mother’s farm.
“Georgia,” Everett said, as if reading my mind. “Found this place years ago, my own little mountain hideaway. ’Course, old geezer who owned it died, and now his no-good kids want it back. So, we’re outta here. Life on the road, that’s more fun anyway.”
Trees, I was still thinking. Forest, woods, just like my mother’s farm.
And then I couldn’t see anymore because there were too many tears blinding my eyes.
* * *
WITH THE BLINDFOLD ON, I couldn’t see my way around the house to his big rig. He had to help me step awkwardly onto the wide running board, then grab my arm as I tripped over the driver’s seat. I’d never been in a semi before. Knew nothing about them. Long-haul trucks were merely vehicles I’d seen on the highway,
carrying goods this way and that. Definitely, I’d spent more time and attention on my hair.
Now, fake Everett chattered proudly about his raised-roof sleeper cab, his home away from home. Came complete with a top bunk, coffeemaker, and of course a portable DVD player for entertainment. He dragged me around to the driver’s captain chair as he was talking. I could feel carpet beneath my bare feet. Thicker and nicer than what had been in the basement. It smelled better in here too. Still tainted by the lingering odor of greasy food, but with an overlay of pine-fresh scent. As if at the least the truck had been cleaned recently. It deserved that much effort.
When I first heard the screech of a latch opening up, I didn’t understand it. Then, fake Everett gave me a push, and I pitched forward, as if falling off a step or two. Before I could recover, his hand was squeezing my shoulder, forcefully pressing me down.
Too late, I realized I was now standing on a hard wooden surface. The smell of pine . . .
And just like that I was back in a coffin-size box, fully clothed this time, with a blindfold over my eyes.
“What’s your name?” he demanded from above.
“Molly,” I whispered, too disheartened, too defeated for anything more.
“Mine?”
“Everett.”
“Who am I?”
“Whoever you want to be.”
“I’m your uncle. Uncle Everett. Where are you from?”
“Florida?” I guessed.
“With that accent? Hardly. We’ll say your mama raised you up North, but now you’re staying with me.”
I didn’t say anything. He’d get his way; he always got his way. What did I care? Maybe I really was Molly now, because surely the girl I’d been . . .
“Loading up, dropping off, you’re in the box,” he stated.
I didn’t respond, feeling more confused than rebellious. Locked in a box with a blindfold on, what did it matter?
He tugged sharply on a ragged lock of my hair. I nodded belatedly, if only to show I was paying attention.
