Cruel Abandon

by S. Massery

  “Here she is,” he says, unlocking a silver sedan. “My pride and joy. When you get older, you can appreciate the little things. Cars, the roof over your head, like that.”

  I nod slowly. “Right.”

  “I have two boxes,” he says. “One’s in the back seat on the driver’s side, and the other is up front. You mind grabbing the back seat one? We can go back to the cafe and go through it all.”

  “Sure.”

  I pull open the door and grab the box. It’s lighter than I was expecting—no weight to it at all. I set it on the seat and lift the lid.

  It’s empty.

  My internal alarm blares to life, and I spin around.

  Detective Masters is right there, and he forces me against the vehicle. His hand covers my mouth.

  “Easy,” he says. “Just a pinch.”

  I notice the needle in his hand too late.

  Too late. Too late.

  He inserts it into my neck and presses down on the plunger.

  Familiar ice spreads through my blood, and a conversation with Liam from just yesterday jumps to the front of my mind.

  “I don’t know why you’d think you were given a sedative here,” he said, kissing my throat. “There’s no medical evidence to suggest that would be a good place to inject it.”

  “I just have a feeling,” I replied. “I don’t know. Ever since I first heard, I’ve had that sensation. I don’t know where else I would’ve picked it up from.”

  I scramble at Detective Masters.

  He pushes my face to the car, my cheek smashed on the cold paint. I can’t get to him now, not with my whole body contorted.

  “It’ll be over soon,” he says.

  My limbs get heavy, but it doesn’t completely knock me out. I sag, and he hoists me up. The trunk is already open, and he sets me down gently. My head still bumps on the floor, though.

  With quick efficiency, he pulls my wrists together and zip ties them, then my ankles. Every one of my muscles is weighted with lead, and my feeble attempt to kick him off is met with a soft grunt, then… nothing.

  “Just in case you get any ideas,” he says, almost as an afterthought. He pries my mouth open and jams something soft inside, then puts duct tape over it.

  And then he slams the door shut, and I…

  I can’t breathe.

  Panic constricts me, and I roll until I’m tipped forward, my head angled for the floor. If I puke, I’ll probably asphyxiate. I take slow, deep breaths. My eyes won’t stay open.

  His SUV makes a series of sharp turns, and I slide a bit, bumping my head hard against the plastic. Colorful spots dance in front of my eyelids.

  I just want to lose consciousness.

  But I don’t.

  40

  Liam

  I flash my phone to Eli. We left Caleb and Theo at the latter’s apartment. I couldn’t be there anymore, and I think Eli was getting frustrated, too.

  “Who’s McAdams?”

  “The detective investigating the dead girls. Missing girls. Missing and then dead… Whitney is still alive,” I say hurriedly.

  He rolls his eyes. “You could’ve just said the case, and I would’ve known what you meant. Boston is under a microscope lately.” Then, “Are you going to answer it?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. I didn’t know she even had my number.”

  “But you have hers,” he points out.

  That’s fair. I only entered it into my phone after she called Sky. I didn’t want to be caught unawares.

  And yet, here I am, staring at her ID and having no idea why she’s calling.

  “Answer it,” Eli says.

  “Fine.” I slide the green bar and say, “Liam Morrison.”

  Eli glares at me.

  “Liam, this is Detective McAdams. Is Skylar with you?”

  I frown. “Um, no. She should be at the apartment.”

  I’ve been with the guys for an hour. An hour too long, if you ask me, since all we’ve done is bicker.

  “Listen, Detective, I’ll be back there in two minutes. Can you not get ahold of her?”

  I can think of a number of reasons why Sky would want to dodge McAdams’s phone calls, but I can’t think of any reason she actually wouldn’t answer the phone. She’s a rule follower like that… and I think she secretly feels guilty about not being able to contribute more.

  “Her phone is going straight to voicemail.”

  I shake my head. “No, that’s not right. Maybe she’s in the shower or something…” She already showered today, but who knows? Anything is possible. “She had met with Detective Jim Masters from Rose Hill, maybe they’re still talking?”

  McAdams is quiet. “Masters, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  Eli glances at me. We’re only a block away from my apartment, but we both pick up speed.

  “Call me back when you get home,” she says firmly, then hangs up on me.

  “Skylar?” Eli asks me.

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  We’re both openly running now, shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk. I try to dial her number, but like McAdams said: straight to voicemail.

  “Where the fuck are you, Sky?”

  We get to my apartment door, and I struggle to put the key in the lock. My hands are shaking, and I don’t even know why. It’s not like anything bad’s happened.

  There’s a perfectly reasonable answer for the questions plummeting around in my mind.

  “I’ve got it,” Eli says, taking the keys from me and unlocking the door. He follows me up the stairs to my apartment door and repeats the process.

  It’s still locked. The bolt gives an audible scraping noise when it turns.

  He goes to the alarm pad while I scour the apartment. Every room, while my chest tightens and tightens. She’s not here, and I am going to go mad.

  My phone rings again. McAdams.

  “She’s not here,” I say.

  There’s a commotion in the background. “Normally, we wouldn’t be telling you this. However… I think you’re her best shot.”

  I rush back to Eli, putting the call on speaker. “I’m her best shot at what, Detective?”

  She hesitates, then says, “Finding her.”

  I almost drop the phone, but Eli steadies my hand. “How do you know—?”

  “Jim Masters was asked to leave the Rose Hill department six months ago for drinking on the job.”

  My heart drops… then stops.

  Eli stares at me. “So… he’s been pretending to still be a detective? Why the hell would he do that?”

  “He’s had a singular focus,” McAdams replies. “This case.”

  “The missing girls,” I say. “And Sky…”

  Quickly, I fill in McAdams on what she probably already knew: that Skylar was abducted when she was thirteen years old. Kept for something like thirty-five or thirty-six days until I found her in the woods. The ransom.

  “These girls are looking more and more like a serial killer figuring out his signature. The ransom on Whitney is the first true deviation we’ve seen… and that leads me to believe that she might still be alive.” McAdams clears her throat. “I can’t say much more than that, but if you learn of anything, call me.”

  “Got it.” I hit the end button and shove my phone into my pocket.

  I’m suddenly fourteen again, and Skylar is gone.

  Missing without a trace.

  How the hell am I going to find her?

  41

  Sky

  Run, now, my girl. Don’t look back.

  Pain wracks through me, but I don’t move. I can’t move. I’m frozen solid, colder than I’ve ever been. I’m in danger, lying on my side. Slow inventory of the rest of my body reveals things I don’t want to know: I lost my shoes. My head aches, and my mouth is full of cotton.

  Around me is silence, but maybe my hearing is gone.

  I don’t trust it, so I stay still.

  Eventually, I pick up a tap-tap-tap of dr
ipping water and someone breathing. The quick, short inhales and exhales are almost in time with the water.

  It can’t be Masters—he strikes me as the calm and steady type. He didn’t even flinch when he drugged me.

  “It’s been twelve hours,” someone whispers.

  A girl.

  “Or are you already dead?”

  I peek through my lashes, unsurprised that the room is dark and damp. Isn’t that basic serial killer 101? Concrete floor, cement-block walls painted light gray. There’s shelving off to the side, big metal racks, and not much else. And then I locate the source of the breathing, and the voice.

  My heart skips.

  “Whitney?” I mumble. My mouth is so dry, I can barely talk.

  She nods frantically and scoots closer. “Yeah. God, I am— No, sorry, I was about to say I’m happy to see you. But that just means you’re stuck in this hell with me, and I don’t want that on anyone.”

  I blink a few times and finally work up the nerve to push myself into a sitting position. My wrists aren’t bound, but there are marks on them from the zip ties. I draw my legs in close and immediately flinch at the scrape of metal against the floor.

  There’s a cuff around my ankle.

  Acidic bile rises up my throat.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I manage, rolling away from Whitney. I cough up whatever’s in my stomach—not much, if it really has been twelve hours since Masters took me. Bitter, acidic bile.

  “He left water,” she says. “Here, lean back.”

  I shuffle back until my shoulder blades touch the wall, and I sag against it. She hands me a small tin cup half full of water and helps me take a sip. Then two.

  I wave her off.

  She doesn’t look good. Her hair is dirty, pulled back away from her face but greasy. There’s blood crusted on her temple, a dried trail of it running down and staining her shirt collar.

  “It’s freezing,” I say.

  She nods, then glances up. “I don’t know where we are.”

  I reach for her hands. They’re ice, too. She’s not dressed much better than me: socks, at least, and pants. No jacket.

  “How did he grab you?”

  She coughs into her arm. “He was a driver on one of those apps. Said his name was Ted. Should’ve been a fucking sign, right? Like Ted Bundy. He lured women to his car, too.”

  I don’t know what to say to that.

  “It’s almost funny,” she muses. “You had tried so hard to make me see that Natalie was better off dead. I didn’t believe you until now. I thought if she could just come back, everything would be okay.”

  I close my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be right.”

  There’s a door in the corner, and cool-toned light seeps in from under it. “Does that lead outside? Or to another room?”

  She shrugs and tips her head back. Her eyes drift closed. “A room with windows. I’ve never been out there.”

  “Is… is he here now?”

  She coughs again. She probably has pneumonia at this rate, sitting in the damp cold. “Doubtful. He likes to sing.”

  “Sing?”

  “Yeah. Under his breath, but sort of loud. Men like him don’t know how to live quietly.”

  I don’t respond. She’s right: some men don’t know what it’s like to shrink yourself down. The art of making yourself invisible. But then again, Whitney wasn’t much good at that, either. She drew a crowd—her and Natalie. Their laughter was infectious, it filled a room.

  Tears fill her eyes. “When do we get to go home?”

  I squeeze her hands. “I don’t know.”

  Halloween was eight days ago.

  Today is… Sunday night.

  My thoughts are muddled. The drug feels… gone. Worn off, maybe, or absorbed.

  “I have something to tell you,” I whisper.

  She cracks one eye open. “Okay.”

  “I… I was kidnapped as a child.” It feels good to say it out loud, so I keep going. “The person who took me asked for a ransom, and my parents paid it. I… I don’t know the specifics, but I was returned. But I think my parents regretted not letting the police handle it. They always fought about money after that.”

  “What does that have to do with this?”

  I open my mouth to answer her, but somewhere outside our room, a door squeals as it opens.

  “He’s back,” she says urgently, then seems to retract into herself.

  “Does he hurt you?” I jerk my chin at her temple.

  “Only if you resist,” she whispers.

  Masters opens the door and steps inside. “She’s awake. How are you feeling, Sky?”

  I glare at him and keep my mouth shut.

  He smiles, then turns to Whitney. “Guess what time it is, darlin’?”

  Her face goes white. “It’s Sunday already?” she whispers.

  “It is.” His gaze goes to the mess I made on the floor. “Damn it, Skylar.”

  “Bad reaction to whatever you injected me with.” I rub at my neck and wince. It’s sore to the touch. “Why are you doing this?”

  He laughs. He actually laughs as he steps farther into the room.

  Whitney doesn’t so much as put up a fight as he unlocks her ankle cuff and hauls her upright. She’s barely able to stand on her own.

  For the first time since I woke up, fear pools in my belly.

  We might die here.

  “I’ll tell you a story.” He glances over his shoulder, to the windows I can barely see. The sun must be setting, because it’s getting darker by the second. “Catch.”

  He tosses me the key to unlock my cuff. I stand, using the wall to support me. He guides Whitney out and leaves me to stumble after them. We go down a narrow hallway, and I follow him up a set of metal stairs into an office, where it’s blessedly warm.

  “Sit,” he orders, pointing to a chair by a little space heater.

  There’s a lamp on the floor next to the door. It doesn’t have a shade on it, and casts the room in harsh shadows.

  “Please let us go,” Whitney pleads.

  He shoves her toward me, and I barely manage to grab her. I give her the chair and crouch in front of the heater, rubbing my hands together. I can’t feel my fingers.

  “Once upon a time, someone stole little Skylar Buckley,” the detective says. “She was only gone a day before the ransom note was emailed to her parents.”

  One day. Shock radiates through me.

  I’ve been trying to make sense of this, to figure out the puzzle Detective Masters is building. Has he been insane all along, or is this a recent development?

  He’s been running loose in Rose Hill for years. Hell, he investigated my disappearance six years ago, but before that he was involved with Caleb Asher’s family. He has a history with the Alistairs—Theo’s mom, I think.

  What made him do this?

  “Your poor parents.” Pity fills his face. “They were heartbroken, terrified. And my superior told them to let us handle it. We asked them to wait and not pay, because we were so sure we could catch your abductor.”

  “You didn’t, obviously,” I snap. It’s his fault that I was gone for so long?

  And he’s right: my poor parents. How long did they keep their faith in the police before taking matters into their own hands? How long to arrange the money transfer and get me back?

  “No. Because the email was a fucking dead end, and once that initial trail went cold… Poof. You were as good as gone.”

  I shake my head. “So you weren’t the one to take me the first time.”

  He frowns and comes closer. “No, Skylar. I only wanted to help you back then.”

  “And now?” I’m proud that my voice doesn’t tremble.

  He straightens and moves away. There’s a desk in the corner with an ancient computer monitor on it. The whole place is covered in dust except the fabric case on the edge. He unzips it carefully and opens it.

  There’s a row of different-sized hunting knives laid out. T
hey gleam in the dull yellow overhead light. Whitney doesn’t react. Her eyes are closed again, and every once in a while her whole body lurches with a coughing fit.

  Me, though… I can’t take my attention off the blades.

  “Your family went broke to save you,” he says. “But you turned eighteen, and suddenly there was… more money. A trust fund that your parents refused to touch, even if it cost them their marriage.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He lifts one shoulder, then pulls a knife out. The handle is white, polished smooth. “A bone knife,” he says softly. “There aren’t many hunters in Boston. Not in Rose Hill, either. No, to find the true grit you’ve got to go into the wilderness. West and north.

  “Whitney,” he says suddenly. “Your parents didn’t pay.”

  I suck in a breath. “What?”

  “I gave her parents a week. It was more than enough time—but they’re trying to call my bluff. They want me to get caught. Me,” he roars. “They think I’m an idiot. But no one in this fucking town caught on until Natalie Eldridge went missing.” He knocks over one of the other chairs, kicking it against the wall.

  We both cower back.

  “He’s going to kill me,” she whispers. “You have to run.”

  I shake my head, not daring to look at her.

  The detective has gone mad, lashing out at the stupid chair.

  “I’m not leaving you,” I say, barely audible.

  Her finger taps on my thigh. “I’m in no condition to run. Just let me do this for you.”

  I stare at her, then dip my head.

  “Detective,” I call.

  He wheels around.

  “They would pay. They might just think you’re not serious.” I hold my breath and hope he takes my bait. It isn’t even bait, it’s just a single thread of hope that I pitch myself toward.

  “Do you have a suggestion?” He caresses the hilt of the knife. “Something to save your dear roommate?”

  “A photo,” I say. “Of her—”

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “Jim,” I try.

  He stalks forward and shoves me backward, his hand driving into the center of my chest. I scrabble at his hand, his wrist, but his grip is unrelenting.