Psychological Thriller Boxed Set

by Addison Moore

  Monica blows out a hard breath. “I drove by one day a few months back and he had the entire street lined with box after box. I couldn’t bear the idea of this stuff getting thrown out. I figured I could give it back to you one day. Probably after your daddy died.”

  I take a hard sniff, trying to hold it together, but I catch a glimpse of my mother’s silk scarf and I pull it under my nose and lose it. Her scent is still there, alive and present with or without her. It’s as if in some small way she reached out through the great beyond to reassure me miracles still happen. She’s still with me. It’s going to be okay.

  Monica rubs my back, softly, gently grazes her nails in a circular pattern between my shoulders the way she used to and it feels good, comforting, something that I’ve needed.

  I tell her to hang onto the stuff for me and offer a heartfelt hug, then issue an apology for playing drunk mind games with her. She walks me out, and just before I’m about to drive off I notice a flicker of a light coming from a partially subterranean window.

  The Ghost Ship has a basement. I drive out a good two blocks before getting back out and jogging my way over once again.

  “Leave no stone unturned,” McCafferty’s voice comes in clear as I pant my way through the night.

  The flickering of the downstairs television is gone, and the lights upstairs switch off one by one like illuminated dominos.

  I head around back and find a stairwell that leads down to the basement. I jump to the bottom and land on my toes, freezing a moment as if expecting a fallout. The small red door is locked so I try the dusty window, single-paned glass with a lightning bolt crack in the corner. The light still flickers from inside so I flash my phone through the glass, but I can’t make anything out. I set an elbow against the fractured shards, give a slight push, evicting the glass from its base and pulling open the window with ease. I crawl in and flash my phone around the room erratically in an effort to illuminate the place. If anyone in the street saw it, they’d think it was a dance party taking place. One thing’s for sure, I’d make a lousy thief.

  The room is barren, old moldy carpet, the kind you can put indoors or out. An old table, a bed in the corner, smaller than the twin upstairs, and my heart freezes. It’s a child’s bed. White with pink covers. I shine the light over the pillow and note a single dark hair, curled in the corner. My heart thumps unnaturally. Could be Reagan’s. Could be Monica’s for all I know. A wicker nightstand with a basket lamp and a matching pink shade sit next to it. The entire room has a nursery appeal about it. There is definitely something unsettling about this space. A framed picture sits above the bed, a child’s hand dipped in pink paint. The hand looks no bigger than Reagan’s, and my eyes widen in the dark trying to take in the bizarre scene. Scrawled in a child’s penmanship up above it reads Angel.

  Angel. I shake my head uneasily. That’s what Monica called Reagan when I arrived. At first I thought it was a cute little backwoods quirk with the undertones of strangulating sarcasm, but this? What the hell?

  I do a quick scan of the four corners of the room. Not a body to be found, not another hint of my baby girl.

  There’s no way I’m getting back out that window, so I let myself out the door instead.

  All the way home I wonder who the hell Angel is and whether or not I should care. The only angel I care about is my own. It’s going to take a miracle for us to find her, though.

  But if those boxes in Monica’s attic remind me of anything—it’s that miracles still happen.

  I can practically feel my mother winking down at me.

  Now if she’d only point me in the right direction.

  I get home and let myself in through the kitchen door in the back. Not only won’t I have to face the scrutiny of the sleepy fucks that are squatting at the end of the street just hoping to catch a glimpse of something salacious, but it’s closer to my new bedroom, otherwise known as the doghouse.

  The night runs through me in jags as I rinse my face off with the ice water from the sink. I head back to change before realizing the only clothes in the downstairs bedroom are that of my father’s. They smell of a fresh kill, so I opt to sleep in my own clothes. No sooner do I flop down on the bed and turn on the TV than a light knock comes from the back door.

  My chest seizes as I mute the television, my breathing turns shallow as I strain to listen for it again. I might have hallucinated it. My head feels as if I have a boxing match going on inside it and my brain is getting pummeled in the process.

  A quick knock explodes over the kitchen door once again, this time losing its friendly cadence, and I hop to my feet, scrolling through the possibilities on my way over—my father being the prime suspect. But it could be Monica armed with porn flicks. I did leave her in a randy state of distress. Or God forbid, Hailey. Please, God, don’t let it be her. Maybe it’s Allison. She could have gone out for a walk, a quick run. God knows we suddenly live in the world’s safest neighborhood. A child abduction is a surefire way to beef up security—after the fact being the preferable method of employment.

  A light scratching comes from the door, but there’s not a soul out there as far as I can tell. The door window remains headless. I swing it open quick, hoping to scare off whatever creature is trying to claw its way in, and a breath gets caught in my throat.

  It’s not anybody I remotely thought it might be. It’s not an animal or an angry ex. Instead I find those dark alien eyes staring back at me, that soulless hint of a smile flirting on her lips.

  “Ota,” I bark out her name like a reprimand. “Where’s Reagan?” I do a quick scan of the vicinity and come up empty. “Is Reagan with you?”

  The little girl with her impeccably smooth ponytail, her short yellow dress and wide coal black eyes looks up at me and shakes her head a solemn, heartbreaking no.

  So I do the only thing I can think of and yank the little demon inside.

  Allison

  There is a certain comfort listening to your sister’s voice at close to eleven o’clock at night while sitting on the closet floor among winter coats and an impressive boot collection. Jane isn’t allowed calls after curfew. Jane isn’t allowed out of bed after curfew, but she’s assured me she’s worked out an arrangement with the guards—men, two of which she claims to have slept with. As glad as I am to speak with my sister, a part of me worries she’s trading blowjobs for the opportunity. And selfishly, I’m glad about it. I need her. Ironically, I need her levelheaded guidance. My sister has always been akin to a magician to me, capable of rearranging reality with her sleight of hand—but more importantly, her impressive cache of weaponry.

  “Well, shit, Ally.” She pushes a heated breath into the receiver and clots up the line with its static. “Heather, Monica and Hailey all need to go. They’re dead weight you don’t need in your life right now. And sorry to say it, but so does James. In fact, I might schedule a visit out there just to cut his dick off myself. I’m pretty good at it, you know.”

  A small laugh gets buried in my chest. “I know.”

  A muffled cry comes from downstairs. A masculine familiar voice muttering something my way.

  “I think James is calling me.” A horribly long sigh escapes me. “He probably needs me to turn down his bed,” I tease. James has always felt like a second child, and I never seemed to mind it. Until now.

  “Don’t you dare—unless you plan on putting a scorpion in it, then be my guest.”

  “Allison!” The hard thump of footsteps making their way up the stairs startles me.

  “I’d better go.” It takes far more energy than I’ve got to get on my feet. “Thank you for listening.”

  “Hey, I’m a captive audience. I’m glad to help. Look, don’t worry about the nut job or the nut job you’re married to. I’m going to fix all of this for you. The only thing you need to worry about is getting my niece back.”

  The door to the room rattles and in comes the sound of anxious breathing, of my name being repeated on a furious loop.

 
“I’ll talk to you later.” I kill the line, and just as I’m about to exit the closet, the door bursts open, but it’s not James and his mile a minute chatter I focus in on. It’s the little girl he’s got a death grip on shivering next to him.

  “Ota?” I sink to my knees and take in her pristine smooth skin, those large pits she calls eyes, that familiar yellow pinafore, her dark ponytail looking clean and glossed. My entire body explodes with every emotion all at once. “My God, where’s Reagan?” I look to James.

  “She wasn’t out there. I’m going to look around. Don’t you let this little witch out of your sight.” He pushes her into me and takes off thundering down the stairs. “And don’t call anyone just yet!”

  In seconds, I hear the back door slam shut, and it’s just me and this pint-sized being that ushered in so much hell into our lives.

  “Ota?” I give her shoulders a quick rattle, but the little girl doesn’t make a sound. Her eyes gaze up at mine as if her silence were a game she’s determined to win. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” Maybe if I come at this from another angle. I mean, it’s not as if she was old enough to pull this off on her own. “Is your real name Allison?” My voice shakes as I say the lunacy out loud. “Is your mother Heather Evans?” My mouth hangs wide, anticipating something, anything, but her eyes examine me, her mouth remains sealed. “They hurt you, didn’t they?” I ease up my grip over her frail arms. She looks well. Her skin tone is good—not pale as if she were hidden from the light of the world in some dark closet. She looks just as healthy as I remember, and her cheeks are fat and filled. There is not one outward sign of abuse, not a bruise, not a hair out of place. “Ota, you have to talk to me. Reagan is your friend, and she’s in danger. You’re our only hope of getting her back.” My chest heaves with heartache that I won’t give into.

  She blinks up at me, hard, haunted doll clicks that make me wonder if they’ve damaged her in other ways, irreparable damage that has stolen her childhood, her innocence, and her sanity forever.

  “I can take you to a doctor.” I bring my voice down to a whisper. “I can get you the very best care. Those people who did this to you—who are still doing it to Reagan”—my voice grows tight—“they can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe.” I caress the top of her head with my hand, and she nuzzles into it like a cat.

  “Yes.” I wrap my arms around her and marvel at how solid she feels. “It’s okay. It’s all over. You’re here now. You’re never going back there. Please, help me bring Reagan home.” Her body tenses beneath me. “You can live here with us.” I pull back, desperate to bargain the moon and the stars. I’d give her anything in the world if she helped me find Reagan tonight. “You can be my little girl.” My voice trembles as I hold back tears. “You’ll be Reagan’s sister.”

  The back door slams, and the heavy rustling of James’ footsteps come barreling up the stairs.

  I spring to my feet, my heart and my eyes hopeful to see my little girl again. “Did you find her?”

  James comes in empty-handed, out of breath, his hair windblown. “There’s no trace of anyone out there.” He drops to his knees and grips the little girl by the arms. “Is Reagan hurt?” Her tiny frame rattles in his arms. “Is she alive?” His voice roars over her like a fire, and it takes all of my strength to pluck her free.

  “Stop! You’re scaring her!” I pull her out of the room into the cool of the hall and try to catch my breath. “Would you like to see Reagan’s room?”

  The little girl looks up at me intently before offering a solemn nod.

  A flood of relief fills me. Progress. “There.” I look to James as he comes in close. “We just need to get her settled. Get some food in her belly.” I lean into Ota once again. “Do you like peanut butter and jelly?”

  She gives an enthusiastic nod. Her hungry eyes affirm this.

  A smile tugs at my lips as the weight that’s pressed against my chest for weeks begins to ease. “Get to it, James. We’ll be playing in Reagan’s bedroom.”

  It feels like a dream as I make my way down the hall. I stopped going into Reagan’s room the last few weeks because the pain was too unbearable. But with Ota here, I can feel this nightmare slowly drawing to a conclusion. I open the door to the pink sanctuary, the scent of my daughter’s hair still thick in the air. Ota takes an apprehensive tour of the room, fondling the stuffed animals that line Reagan’s bed, picking up a framed picture of the three of us—Reagan, James, and me—from off the desk. She cuts those dark eyes my way a moment with a sobering expression that if I didn’t know better come very close to hate.

  “That’s okay.” The words come out breathy, Marilyn Monroe style, only my octave isn’t punctuated with lust. It’s dominated with fear. “As soon as you help us bring Reagan home, we’ll take a new picture.” Lies. The last thing I want to do is commemorate this nightmare. There’s something undoubtedly creepy about Ota, something I can’t quite pinpoint, but it puts my better judgment on notice to watch my back around the little girl.

  James breezes back in, and I help Ota take a seat at the small white play table that Reagan and I used to sit at often for our famed tea parties. I take a seat across from her, and James sits on the floor, docile like a Golden Retriever. Too bad he’s not as loyal.

  “You get anywhere?” He scoots in close, his hand has the nerve to thump over my thigh. But it’s warm. His thick fingers have always had the ability to make me feel safe.

  I shake my head. I’m starting to lose faith we’ll ever get anywhere with her. “But she looks great.” Ota looks up at me, mean and disconcerting between bites. I clear my throat. “You look healthy. So very clean and neat. I—I’m proud of you.” What I meant to say was I hope Reagan is healthy and clean, so perfectly unsoiled looking. My heart wrenches for what she must be going through. For what they’ve both been going through.

  I spot Reagan’s crayon bin in the corner. “I know!” I reach over and pull it open before plucking a handful of construction paper from off the floor. “You can color all night if you want to. Draw any picture you like. No bedtime.” My heart thumps so loud I’m half-afraid she’ll hear it, sense my fear and desperation.

  “Yes.” James gives an exasperated sigh of relief. “That’s a great idea. If you can’t tell us where they held you, maybe you can draw us a picture, give us an idea of what these people look like.”

  I kick him from under the table.

  Moron. It was supposed to have been subliminal, something her subconscious pulled out without her knowledge. He’s probably frightened her out of the idea. There’s too much damn pressure attached to it now.

  He leans in, his panting still unbearably loud. “What are we going to do?” He whispers so low, hardly audible.

  Ota pushes aside the plate with her half-eaten sandwich, a dime-sized dollop of jelly still adhered to her cheek. In its place, she lands a fat stack of paper, baby blue, a color she fished out from the bottom. I push the crayon bin her way and she carefully examines them, the solemn expression on her face unchanging. She reaches in with her right hand and pulls out a red crayon—with her left she pulls out black.

  An unnerving combination, blood and darkness.

  “Ota?” I swallow down the nervous ball clenched in my throat. “Would you be okay if James and I left the room for a minute?”

  She nods without looking up, both her hands already dancing across the page as a pattern of swirls emerges beneath her.

  James takes my hand and we head back out to the hall, closing the door silently behind us. And just like that, we’re both back to panting, sweat beading at his temples, my body exploding with heat.

  “Where did you find her?” I pull him in by the shirt. There is something comforting about his strong frame pressed to mine, and I wish to God he had never slept with Hailey. I don’t know if James and I have ever felt closer than we have these last few hellish weeks, and yet now Hailey and her swollen belly will forever wedge a distance between us.

  “She knocked on the doo
r.” He winces. “I went out to see my dad earlier.” His gaze shoots around the hall, the stairs, the floor. “He hinted that Monica might have something to do with Reagan’s disappearance.”

  “What?”

  “I went there and basically searched the house.”

  My stomach bottoms out. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised, why the visceral reaction. James has a hobby of paying other women visits. It’s apparently his thing.

  “You find anything?” For so long I never thought to look to my husband’s harem as people of interest in my daughter’s disappearance, and now I wonder what took me so long.

  He shakes his head, but that distant look in his eyes lets me know he’s not telling the truth. “Actually, I did find something. Remember a couple of weeks ago I discovered that my father wiped the house of any trace of my mother, my brothers, and my sister?” His dimples press in, but you can see the pain in his eyes. A part of me is glad about it. A very large, childish part of me wants James to hurt just a little bit more than I do at the moment. Not that my pain can be trumped by anyone—certainly not someone willing to break their wedding vows for three weeks straight. “Monica had them stored in her attic. It was eerie. It was as if she didn’t want me to go up there, but the more she protested, the faster I ran. And there it was. Every last box of crap my mother had spent a lifetime piecing together.”

  His heart riots against my hand and I step in another inch. “And your father? How is he?” How is the killer I want to ask. McCafferty all but called him out on it. As much as I like Charles, it doesn’t change the fact he could be culpable for the deaths of his child and his wife. If it’s true, he’s psychotic, and when Reagan does come home, I don’t want her to have anything to do with him.

  James looks dazed as if the question is enough to set him back emotionally twenty-five years. He looks every bit the lost little boy.

  “I don’t want to focus on him right now.” He pinches his eyes shut a moment. “How old do you think that little girl in there is?” His lower lip pulls down with a heavy tick as if he’s about to bawl.