by Ragan, T. R.
Justice would never be served. How could it be? So many rapists, like QB, had secure jobs and beautiful wives and happy children. Living the dream while their victims suffered, their lives forever disrupted.
Why couldn’t she and the other crew members seek forgiveness and love for those who wronged them?
Malice closed her eyes and saw her father’s image as he locked her bedroom door and then quickly undressed and lay down next to her. A sliver of moonlight sliced through the blinds, forever capturing the look of lust, love, and torment on his face the first time he’d touched her undeveloped body. “Shhh,” he’d said. “Don’t make a sound.”
Her father was dead now, and she was glad for it. She would never forgive him. Not even in death.
The world was unjust, and those who used manipulation and violence to prey on others deserved to be punished.
CHAPTER NINE
A knock on the door jolted Sawyer awake. She sprang from the couch and grabbed hold of her laptop before it hit the floor. The cat bolted for cover. It took her a second to gather her wits and get to the door, where she saw her sister Aria through the peephole.
“I’m so sorry,” she said when she opened the door. She had told Aria she would go on a run with her this morning. “Give me a minute and I’ll get ready.”
“I already ran. It’s ten thirty,” Aria said, walking inside, peering around. “I’ve been calling all morning. Where’s your phone?”
Sawyer shut the door, rubbed her eyes. “It’s around here somewhere.”
Aria used her cell phone to call her number. They both followed the buzzing sound into the bedroom. Her phone was underneath her backpack. Eight missed messages from Aria. No missed calls or texts from Derek.
Sawyer followed Aria back into the main room. The decorative pillow had a dent in it where her head had been, and the faux fur throw had sunk between the cushions.
Aria frowned. “Did you sleep on your couch?”
“I was working and must have conked out.”
Aria picked up a pile of papers and notebooks from one side of the couch and took a seat. After flipping through a few pages, she asked Sawyer if she was working on the Riley Addison case.
Sawyer told Aria about the bones that were found, the missing girls, and her conversation with Paige Owens.
“Did the bones belong to one of the girls on your list?”
“We won’t know until the lab reports come in.” Sawyer went to the kitchen. Her apartment was small enough that she could still see and talk to her sister as she readied a pot of coffee.
“Would these missing persons be thought of as cold cases?” Aria asked.
“I don’t know. I would assume that all missing children cases would be considered active investigations, but I need to talk to Detective Perez.”
Aria continued to read Sawyer’s notes. After a moment, she set the stack of papers to the side. “What if the same person who tried to kidnap Paige Owens also kidnapped some of these other girls?”
“I thought about that too. It’s worth considering.”
“Definitely,” Aria said. “Think about it. Why would anyone go to all that trouble to try and abduct a child and then simply give up on the idea? I would think once the media stopped talking about the incident, the abductor would try again, don’t you think?”
Sawyer exhaled. “I wish I knew, but it’s all just speculation on our part.”
“But if nobody ever speculates about these things, how do they ever find these missing children?” After a short pause, Aria said, “Let’s pretend the same person is responsible. What if these girls are still alive?”
“Where would the abductor keep them?” Sawyer asked, playing along. “How would he or she feed them and care for them without anyone noticing?”
“Do you remember Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina DeJesus?” Aria asked, turning the computer screen so that Sawyer could see their images.
“I do,” she said. “Those girls were kept restrained inside that man’s house in Cleveland. I also remember hearing that limited resources were used in looking for Michelle Knight because everyone thought she’d run off.”
“But Amanda Berry’s name was everywhere back then,” Aria said. “And still no witnesses. Nothing. It was as if all three young women had gone poof in the night.”
Sawyer rubbed her chin, thinking, wondering. “No matter who abducted these kids, whether it’s the same person or not, if the bones that were found recently belong to one of those names on my list, I’m betting they’re all dead.”
“Which could mean that Riley Addison is running out of time,” Aria said.
It was true. Time wasn’t on any of their sides. “I need to find her,” Sawyer said.
As Aria was consumed by something on the computer, Sawyer thought about how it was so easy for people to get away with shit. Her older sister, Harper, was a good example, repeatedly raped by their father, night after night, while her sisters slept peacefully down the hallway.
And what about Aria and Sawyer? They had both been used by their uncle Theo as a sexual prize for rich men at his high-priced rape fantasy parties. And yet nobody had done anything to help. Not one person had stepped forward and said, “Stop. This is wrong.”
And then there was Sawyer’s best friend, Rebecca. What had happened to her kept Sawyer awake most nights. Rebecca had disappeared when Sawyer was fourteen. The police promised Rebecca’s family that they were doing all they could. And yet all that time her friend was trapped in the crawl space beneath the floorboards in the house where Sawyer grew up. Sawyer often dreamed that she’d walked down the stairs to the basement, unlocked the small door leading into the crawl space, and saved Rebecca. If only she’d thought to look there, maybe Rebecca would still be alive today.
Aria’s brows lifted. “Need some help?”
“Really? You have time?”
“Harper and Nate offered to pay me to take Ella to and from school every day and to help her with her homework, so I quit my part-time job at the coffee shop. I’ll still be working odd hours at the SPCA, though.” She rubbed her hands together. “I’ve got all day.”
“Why can’t Harper pick up Ella?”
“I don’t know. I think her hormones are out of whack. She said she needs to get out more. She’s made a few friends and even joined a yoga class for pregnant women.”
“Harper has friends?”
“Yeah. I haven’t met any of them yet, but I have to admit it’s good to see her getting out of the house and doing something other than scrubbing toilets.”
“Is she still going to therapy?”
“I don’t think so. She’s glad our parents are gone and has never felt so free.”
“What about you?” Sawyer asked.
“What about me?”
It was Aria who had shot their mother in self-defense, leaving Sawyer to wonder if Aria was okay. Taking your own mother’s life, Sawyer imagined, could leave a scar. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Aria’s chin came up a notch. “I don’t feel an ounce of remorse for shooting Mom. I had no choice. Besides, I aimed for her leg, not her chest, but if I hadn’t pressed the trigger, she would have shot one of us instead.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought maybe you were having a tough time dealing with it.”
“I’m fine,” Aria said. “I think you’re the one who’s struggling with everything that happened, and you don’t even realize it. I have forgiven Mom and Dad and all the rest of those assholes. I try to concentrate on the present and appreciate the people I care about. I’ve learned from the past, but I’ve also let it go. It does no good to dwell.”
Sawyer was still seeing a therapist. Maybe she wasn’t going as often as she should, but she was doing her best. Dealing with all of life’s demons, big and small, took time. Which is why she worried about Aria. Her sister was kindhearted and sensitive, not the type of person who could shoot her mother dead, even in self-defense, and
then simply push it out of her mind.
Sawyer knew Aria better than most. She was holding back. But until Aria was ready to talk about it, Sawyer was the one who would need to let it go.
CHAPTER TEN
Riley sat on a stool in the bathroom, watching Bubbles’s reflection as the woman attempted to make a french braid. Riley’s hair was still damp from the bath Bubbles had made her take. The woman had watched her the whole time and insisted on helping. She used a cloth to clean Riley’s back and neck and armpits. Riley didn’t like the woman touching her or looking at her. It was humiliating. Everything Bubbles did was creepy, including giving her a bath morning and night.
Riley had been forced to stand naked in the bathtub as it drained. Bubbles then dried her off and dressed her in a cotton nightgown with scratchy lace around the neck and wrists.
This was Bubbles’s third attempt at weaving Riley’s hair. Each time Bubbles started over, she gripped her hair tight and tugged hard with the brush.
Gritting her teeth, Riley did everything she could not to cry. If she whimpered, she’d get a swat on the arm with the back of the hairbrush. “No tears,” Bubbles said both times it happened, pointing a stern finger her way.
All Riley had wanted to do since she’d been trapped in this place was cry. Telling her she couldn’t shed a tear only made things worse. But in the time she’d been living with the woman, she’d learned there was no use arguing.
Bubbles was insane.
If Riley’s mom met Bubbles, she would argue that “insane” wasn’t an appropriate term to use. She’d say something about Bubbles having a mental disorder due to genetics. Whenever Mom spoke about one of her patients at the prison, she’d usually mention neurotransmitters and hormonal changes when it came to people like Bubbles. Dad would argue that environment most likely played a role in why Bubbles was the way she was, which made Riley suddenly curious. “Do you have a mom?” she asked.
Bubbles lifted her head. Their gazes met in the mirror above the sink. It was easier to look at Bubbles’s reflection than to face her head-on. She wasn’t sure why. But then Bubbles’s eye twitched. “Why do you ask?”
Riley swallowed. “I just wondered if she fixed your hair when you were little.”
“No. She had other things to do with her time.”
“Like what?”
“You’re a nosy girl, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. You asked, so I’m going to tell you. My mother was big, freak-show-circus big. So fat she couldn’t fit in a chair or fly on a plane. And you want to know why she was so big?”
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Riley shook her head.
Bubbles grabbed hold of Riley’s arm and yanked her out of the bathroom and to the folding table she’d brought into the room earlier, where a plateful of food waited. She dragged Riley to the stool next to the table and pushed her shoulders down. “Take a bite,” she said.
Riley picked up the fork.
“Not with the fork. With your hands.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me what my mother did with her time, and so I want to show you. Scoop up some of those mashed potatoes and gravy with your hand and put them in your mouth.”
Riley’s bottom lip trembled as she brought her hand to the plate.
“For fuck’s sake. Like this.” She grasped hold of Riley’s hand, forced it through the middle of her dinner, scooping up a mixture of potatoes, peas, and pork, some of it falling off the side of the plate, and said, “Now open your mouth.”
Riley cracked her lips apart, but it was difficult to do while she was crying. She couldn’t help herself. She’d held back for too long, and the tears were streaming down the sides of her face as Bubbles started cramming food between Riley’s lips, shoveling it in, her fingers pushing against Riley’s front teeth, one scoop after another. Riley coughed, trying not to choke or vomit. She was suffocating. Food dripped in giant gobs down her chin and onto the nightgown. Riley grabbed the woman’s wrist with her left hand and tried to stop her. She couldn’t breathe.
“Drop your hand, or I’ll tie both hands to the headboard and feed you on the bed.”
Riley dropped her hand.
“Stop crying!”
Riley cried harder.
“You asked, so quit being a baby. This is what my mother did all day. She ate and ate and ate. Anything she could get her hands on. If I bothered her while she was eating, she tied me to a chair and made me watch. Just like this. She loved her food more than she loved me.”
Seemingly exhausted and out of breath, Bubbles stopped. She left Riley sitting alone and went to the bathroom to wash herself off. Riley spit everything still in her mouth onto the plate, choking as she sucked in a giant breath of air, and then used the sleeve of the nightgown to wipe her mouth and chin. Her gaze was fixated on the open door where she could see the railings of the staircase. The cuff and chain Bubbles used to clamp around her ankle was in a pile near the bed.
Run, the voice in her head said. Run!
A heavy weight landed on her shoulders. Bubbles had returned.
“Thinking about making a run for it, huh?”
Riley shook her head.
Bubbles snorted. “Stand up.”
Riley stood.
Bubbles grabbed the hem of the nightgown and pulled it up and over her head and tossed it aside. Grasping her arm again, she dragged Riley back into the bathroom where she used a washcloth to wipe the mess from her face and neck.
“Sit,” she ordered, gesturing at the stool.
“What about clothes?”
“Modest, are you?” Bubbles sighed and then left the room long enough to grab a cotton nightgown from the dresser. This nightgown featured Tweety Bird and had pink, fluttery ruffles around the sleeves and hem. Riley wondered who it used to belong to.
Once she was seated, Bubbles said, “Go ahead and ask me anything you want to.” She patted Riley on the arm, pretending to be suddenly friendly, but her fingernails gouged into Riley’s skin, and it hurt.
Bubbles’s face contorted. Her mouth twisted. Her eyes bulged. “Go ahead,” she said louder than before. “Ask!”
Riley’s stomach turned. More than anything, she wished she’d never tried talking to Bubbles. She’d only done so because she’d thought of her dad and how he’d once told her it was a person’s environment that made them crazy. She also remembered a movie she’d seen about a woman who made friends with the man who kidnapped her. The victim in the movie was nice to her abductor. Even when he was mean. She promised the bad guy she would never tell anyone if he let her go. It took days for her to come up with a plan and convince him that letting her go was the right thing to do. And it worked. He drove her back to where he’d taken her and set her free. And she called the police the first chance she got.
Bubbles haphazardly undid the messy braid and then ran the bristles of the brush through Riley’s tangled hair. “Ask me another question.”
Riley said nothing.
A hard tug of her hair made Riley look at Bubbles’s reflection in the mirror.
“Ask me another question, or we’re going right back into that room and you’re going to finish your dinner.”
“Who is Molly?”
“You are!” Bubbles laughed, a quick burst that ended as abruptly as it began. Her hands shook as she reached into the basket of toiletries she’d brought into the room before Riley’s bath and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Time to cut your hair.”
Riley stiffened.
“You’ve been a very bad girl. Now hold still.”
Frozen in place, Riley felt numb as she watched long wisps of hair fall to the ground. A strange rumbling stirred within. She’d thought if she hung on long enough, sooner or later Bubbles might leave the house without chaining her to the bed, or maybe even let Riley go. But that was never going to happen. Posture held straight and strong, she began to strategize how she would escape.
It might not happe
n today or tomorrow, but she would find a way out. And then she would make sure Bubbles spent the rest of her life in prison. When the time came to show the jury who was responsible for the atrocities she would have already described in detail, Riley envisioned pointing at the monster wearing the old, partially buttoned, overwashed red sweater. The one dotted with ladybugs, some of them hanging by a thread, some with their legs missing.
Because what else would Bubbles wear?
Bubbles had been wearing the sweater the day she’d told Riley to call her Bubbles. Every five minutes she would brush her hand lovingly over one of the ladybug appliques and then sigh as if the sweater was some sort of lifeline.
Bubbles yanked hard on her hair.
Riley looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair looked as if it had been cut by a three-year-old. It was all different lengths and angles. She didn’t wince or tighten her lips. Never again would she give the woman the satisfaction of seeing her in pain.
Holding Riley’s gaze, Bubbles made the last snip, chopping her bangs so that nothing remained but little stubbles of hair.
The quiet hovered between them. If this were a staring war, Riley would win.
With scissors in hand, Bubbles pointed out the door to the chain heaped on the floor by the bed. “Put the cuff back on your ankle.”
Slowly, Riley came to her feet. The bedroom door was still wide open. If she ran, where would she go? The only thing she knew, because she’d seen the neighbor’s backyard below, was that she was most likely on the top floor of a two-story house. What if she made a wrong turn, or found the entry door, but it was locked?
Bubbles was strong. The maniac had dragged or carried her deadweight from the car to the bed. If she dared to attempt to escape without a plan, where would she go?
Her insides churned, her skin tingling.
It was as if the woman’s eyes were boring a hole into the back of her neck. This was a test. She felt it in her bones. If she ran, Bubbles would lunge for her, and if she didn’t lunge for her that would mean she had all her bases covered: doors triple-locked. Windows secure.