by Lisa Gardner
“I’m giving you all two hours,” she announced. “Whoever brings me the address first gets to lead the charge. We’ll go the moment we’re cleared. If Flora’s abduction was a matter of revenge, God only knows how much time she—or any of the women—have left.”
Chapter 40
I KEEP YANKING AT THE LOCKED DOOR. Twisting the knob. Jerking harder. As if this time the heavy metal door will magically swing open. And I will plunge down the stairs, out some side door, and straight into the fresh air of freedom. I’ll find help for Stacey. I’ll call my mom. I’ll get away from an entire corridor of black-painted rooms forever.
The door. The damn door. Why won’t it open? I just want out of here.
I pound at it with the flat of my hand. Another useless motion, waste of effort that does nothing but exhaust me further.
I gotta pull it together. I gotta focus. I’m not a terrified kid anymore. I’m the new and improved Flora, who has training and experience and knows better than this.
The windows. It comes to me as I stand, shoulders slumped, forehead resting against the stairwell door. In my room there had been two blacked-out windows. Break them, and I can get a hand out. Call for help. Isn’t that what the girl in Cleveland did, got part of the front door open and yelled until a neighbor came?
Okay, windows it is. I leave the locked fire door, force myself to walk away from it, past Stacey’s unconscious form, and back into the room I loathe. I snap on the bare bulb, then close my eyes until they adjust.
All my blundering around, roaming from room to room, opening some doors, pounding on others, surely must be broadcasting my newfound freedom upstairs. I don’t know if this is a good idea. At any time, maybe the stairwell door will open. And this time, some hulking beast with a gun, a knife, a Taser will come rushing through, and I’ll find myself locked up all over again. Someone must still be in the house, right? Someone in charge of the care and feeding of the inmates?
Except maybe that’s the point. The person in charge of care and feeding went out for supplies. Hence, no one has been home to respond to all the racket coming from upstairs. Meaning any moment now, said person will return. Walk into his evil lair, catch the first unexpected noise from above, and . . .
I guess I’ll find out.
I open my eyes slowly, still struggling with bright light. Remembering what Stacey had said about the sedative-laced mattress, I cross to its mangled form, grab one corner, and gingerly drag it out into the hall. I’m tired and overwhelmed, but this is no time to sleep. I gotta keep sharp.
I have to get both of us out of here.
In the hallway, Stacey’s fallen form is illuminated by the slash of light from my room. Her side is puffy and red. Her abdomen appears more swollen. She needs medical attention. She needs me to get help.
Deep breath. Back to the room, which under the harsh glare of the bare bulb looks tired and dingy. The black paint covering the walls and ceiling might be new, but that’s about it. And now, more alert, I can catch the faint odor of must and mildew. The house is old. Maybe even abandoned. Makes sense. You can hardly hold prisoners in a bustling neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences and soccer moms. A derelict building, however, in a not-so-great area of town where the residents are already trained not to report any screams . . .
I trace my fingers around the windows, feeling the plasticky nature of the paint. Thicker than regular paint. More like a spray coating. It reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what. I can dent it with my fingernail, so it’s not a hard shell. More like rubbery. Breakable, I think, with enough force.
Resources. I have the plastic bucket, the wire coil from the mattress. In the end, however, I decide I am my own best tool. My elbow, to be more precise. Driven in a backward strike, the hard point of an elbow can be a very efficient weapon.
I should cover my elbow with something, to protect it from the breaking glass. I’m still dressed in the ragged remains of a silk negligee, the torn hem and thin straps offering little cover. I could take Stacey’s shirt, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s too morbid, like stealing from the dead.
I return to the hall and the shredded mattress. Holding my breath, I reach down with both hands, grab an edge of the worn cover, and tear off the piece of flapping material. Not a huge piece and nearly threadbare, but the best I can do.
Back to the window. I stick the scrap of fabric in the middle of the lower windowpane. Then, I twist around, and moving quickly, before the fabric falls to the floor, I hammer my elbow back.
Pain. Instant and sharp. I suck in a breath, will myself not to scream as the pain ricochets down my arm, turns my hand momentarily numb. I bounce on my feet, bob my head, flex my fingers, and the moment passes. I can breathe again. Better yet, I can turn and inspect the window, which I would swear, beneath the Teflon coating of paint, has started to crack.
It takes me three tries, three little dances of pain, and then I hear it. Sharp, definitive. The glass gives way. My elbow has won.
The paint proves the tougher opponent, resiliently holding the fractured window together. I use my fingers to pick at it, dislodging the first small piece, then, in rapid succession, several larger shards of glass to make a hole.
I’m so excited by this success, I don’t notice the obvious. The lack of fresh air. Or sounds from the outside. Or any hint of daylight, streetlights, something.
It’s not until I bend down and attempt to peer out my escape hatch that I realize the error in my ways.
I’ve broken out the glass . . .
Only to discover the window has been boarded up from the outside. Three elbow strikes later, I have exchanged a glass barrier for a piece of plywood.
I am as trapped now as I was before.
* * *
AM I HUNGRY? Yes. Am I tired? Very much. Am I thirsty, scared, cold, hot? Sure. I am everything. I am nothing. I’m a stupid girl who once lived in a coffin-size box and now is trapped in a boarded-up house.
I’m a daughter, I’m a sister, who destroyed her family once before, and now is ruining their sanity all over again.
I am a survivor who has yet to figure out how to live.
I’m an overwhelmed person who wants to sink to the floor and feel sorry for herself.
So I do. I let myself sit in front of the boarded-up window, surrounded by shards of glass. I wrap my hands around my knees. I study the scars on my wrists.
And I think of Jacob.
It’s crazy. He snatched me, drunk and stupid, off a beach. He stuck me in a box. He drove me all over the South. He raped me, he starved me, he beat me. He took me out dancing. He introduced me to his daughter. He gave me clothes, and on occasion, he called me pretty.
I hate him. I miss him. He is, and always will be, the most influential person in my life. Other people have first loves, dysfunctional families. I have Jacob. No matter where I go, what I do, I carry him with me. His voice in my head. His smell on my skin. His brains and blood in my hair. He told me it would be like that, and in his own crazy way, Jacob never lied. Even at the bitter end, he warned me I’d never be free of him.
He advised me to kill myself instead.
Now, I picture Jacob and I know he’s laughing at me, lips pulled back from his nicotine-stained teeth, hand rubbing his swollen belly. Stupid, stupid girl, he’s laughing. Gloating. He always told me I’d be nothing without him. The world is too big, too harsh, for a silly little thing like me. Stupid is as stupid does and stupid is me.
Thinking I would actually be the one to find poor lost Stacey Summers. Thinking I could actually be the hero this time around instead of the victim.
I pick up a shard of glass from the floor beside me. I finger it absently, studying the way the light reflects off the razor-sharp edge.
It’s not that I haven’t tried, I tell myself. When I first came home, I swore the air smelled sweeter, the sound o
f my mother’s laughter was brighter, my brother’s quick grin the warmest sight I’d ever seen. All those days of captivity. All those nights of horror. And now this. I’d survived. I’d done it. Jacob was dead, I was alive, and I’d never go back again. I’d forget everything. Even that last day. I’d forget it all, the things I’d said, the things I’d done, the promises I’d made.
People told me I was brave and strong and amazing.
Samuel told me I was resilient and to never doubt what I had done. Survivors survive. I am a survivor.
But the air can’t stay sweet forever. And eventually my mom stopped laughing and grew more concerned about my screams at night. And my brother stopped grinning and eyed me with open concern. All the things I thought I could forget. I didn’t. All the things I wanted to leave behind. I couldn’t.
It’s not that survivors aren’t entitled to happily-ever-afters. It’s just . . . After surviving comes living. And in real life, some days are gray. And some nights are hard. And sometimes you cry for no good reason, and you feel sorry for yourself, and you look in the mirror and you don’t recognize the girl looking back at you.
Who am I? A girl who once loved foxes? Or a girl scratching her fingers raw against the inside lid of a coffin-shaped box? A girl holding a gun, looking down at the man she despises, depends upon, fears?
Knowing this is her moment. This is it. Just move her finger on the trigger and it will be over.
Feeling herself hesitate. Why is she hesitating? Who hesitates at a moment like this?
“Do it,” Jacob ordered that day, his face a red blubbery mess. “Pull the fucking trigger. I ain’t ever going back, so come on now. End it. Put us both out of our misery.”
My own face hidden behind the cloth he’d tied around my head. Protecting me from the tear gas. The moment the first canister had fired through the window, Jacob had leapt into action. He’d tended to me first.
And now, here we were. Both of us. One bullet from freedom.
Who am I? Who is anyone? We all try so hard. And we all accumulate our failures. From I should never have drunk so much that night, to I never should’ve fought so hard to live. Seriously. Truthfully. If I had just gone ahead and died in the beginning, other girls might be alive right now. Except, of course, after I died, Jacob would’ve snatched another pretty young thing. And then she would’ve died. Or maybe she would’ve been an even better assistant than me, helping him target and kill even more women.
How do you do the math on that?
How many more predators do I need to kill, how many more potential victims do I have to save, in order to balance those scales?
Five years later, I don’t have the answers to these questions. I just know every time I see a case on the news . . . I can’t let it go.
Especially after Florida.
The things I don’t tell Samuel. The activities I never admitted to anyone, because Jacob told me I’d go to jail too, and Jacob never lied.
So I stay alone with the ghosts that send me out each night, until here I am, trying to save Stacey Summers, and instead am just as trapped as she is.
Now I curl my fingers around the shard of glass. I take a deep breath, and I let myself remember the rest of that final day. The swarming commandos yelling at me to drop my weapon. Jacob screaming at me to shoot.
Who am I? Who is anyone?
I’m the girl who leaned down. I’m the girl who didn’t even recognize my own voice as I whispered one last promise in Jacob’s ear. And watched his expression change. As in an instant, I became the one with the power, and he became the one who was terrified.
Then, I pulled the trigger.
Because I’m not just a girl locked in a coffin-size box.
I’m the girl with promises left to keep.
Now, I force myself to rise to standing. I remind myself that I’m not hungry, I’m not tired, I’m not scared, I’m not terrified.
I’m not even okay. I’m more than okay.
I’m a woman prepared to do whatever it takes to complete her mission.
Okay. I can’t break a window to go out. I can’t open the door to the stairs to go down. That leaves me with one option. I will go up.
Somewhere, there must be attic access. I will find it. I will get Stacey Summers help.
I will live to fight another day.
And then . . .
I will return to my mother? I will live happily ever after? I will never seek out shadows again?
I don’t have those answers. I have only my mission.
Time to get to it.
Chapter 41
JACOB WORKING WASN’T A BAD MAN. We’d cruise down the highway, container load in tow, playing the license plate game. Driving, Jacob laid off the beer, weed, God knows what else. He talked instead. About anything, everything. Sometimes he’d rant, about government and politics and all the ways a hardworking guy like himself would never get ahead. But he was just as likely to get fired up about something he saw on the Late Show and wasn’t that Letterman a funny bastard.
I got to sit in the front seat. His audience of choice. He’d talk, I’d listen, and then it would be time to pick where we wanted to stop for lunch, and hey, I remembered this cute diner from the last time we passed through, and he’d agree. That was the thing about Jacob. He wasn’t opposed to making me happy. He’d even started watching Grey’s Anatomy.
Of course, most of these moments occurred as we drove west, away from Florida. But eventually, in the way long-haul routes worked, we’d get a new assignment, sending us back. I would fall silent first. Watching the signs go by, not bothering to read them out loud. Or care if we came upon, of all things, a license plate from Alaska.
Jacob, on the other hand, would become nearly feverish. His eyes brighter. Hands tighter on the wheel. More sex. Way more sex. Because he was anticipating now, except it wasn’t me he wanted.
It was what would happen once we were in Florida again.
I begged him to let her go. She wasn’t good for him, I tried to say. She goaded him into more and more dangerous behavior. He already had me. And look, he’d gotten away with it. Why couldn’t he be happy?
But he couldn’t. The closer we came to Florida.
He would drive to her place the second he delivered his load. Didn’t matter if it was forty minutes away or three hours. If we were in the state of Florida, he headed to Lindy’s house. Sometimes, she’d arrange to meet in a new location. Had to spread their hunting around to keep the locals from getting suspicious.
“Please,” I would beg, even as he turned in the direction of her house. “Let’s just crash someplace. Have a quiet night. We deserve a quiet night. You’ve been driving for days.”
“Nah. I’m fine.”
“You’re gonna get caught. She doesn’t care about you. Second the police catch on, she’ll throw you under the bus. Say you made her do it. And the police will believe her. You know they will.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t have a kid.”
“She doesn’t love you.”
“Love me?” He frowned. “She’s my kid. Love’s got nothing to do with that. It’s bigger than that, better. Love comes and goes. But she’ll always be my daughter.”
“She’s just using you—”
“Using me? Maybe I’m using her. Ever thought of that? I’m the one who found her first. She didn’t know nothing ’bout me. Her mama hates my guts, didn’t even include me on the birth certificate. But I heard rumors. Went looking. First time I saw her, I knew. A father always recognizes his own. I watched her for years, always from afar. Such a pretty little thing. Then one day, when she was eight or nine, a birdie flew into a window beside her. Fell back onto the grass. I watched her pick it up. Figured she’d fuss over it. Maybe cry. But she didn’t. No. Not my kid. She picked it apart. Feather by feather. Oh, she’s my daughter all right. After that,
I knew we’d find a way.
“I introduced myself to her the first time when she was thirteen. Not sure if she believed me or not. But then her mama came home, saw me standing there. Went into a rage. Told me if she ever saw me again, she’d call the cops. Put me away. She’d do it too. She’s that kind of woman.” Jacob chuckled. “’Course, what she didn’t realize was that by hating me, she made me interesting. Lindy might have turned away altogether. But after that . . . each time I came around, Lindy was waiting. She wanted to hear more. She wanted to learn more.”
“Her mother hates you?”
“Her mama’s dead. That house she’s in? Used to belong to her mama. But she’s gone now. It’s all Lindy’s and I can stop by whenever I’d like.”
“How did her mama die?” I asked.
Jacob merely smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“It’s going to end badly,” I tried. But he didn’t care. When we were in Florida, it was as if I didn’t exist. Jacob didn’t care about me.
But Lindy did. She knew I hated her. She knew their evenings together left me sick and shaking and dry heaving.
My revulsion excited her. Sending me trembling and pale into the next bar to help select their newest target turned her on.
Can you miss a coffin-size box? Because I did, I did, I did.
Eventually our time in Florida would end. Mostly because Jacob had to earn money. And paychecks came from the big rig, so sooner or later, he’d roll back into the sleeper cab and away we’d go. Me exhausted and strung out in the passenger’s seat. Jacob subdued and chain-smoking behind the wheel.
Neither of us would speak until we crossed state lines. Then, it was as if it never happened. Florida became our Las Vegas. What happened there stayed there, never to be spoken of again.
