by K Larsen
“Thank you for the warning.” Mom’s voice is tinged with something I can’t place. Some emotion I’ve never heard before from her.
“Here we are,” the nurse stops. Gestures to the door. “Just so you know, it’s common that sufferers of shock appear shaken and disoriented.”
The nurse looks to me and I swallow thickly. I look to my mom. She shoots me the fakest smile I’ve ever seen. It sends chills down my spine.
“Be positive Aub, that’s what she needs from us right now.”
I nod my head rapidly but can’t push the fear I feel down quite far enough as we push through the door. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if I will be able to look at my best friend the way I used to, the way she needs me to right now. I don’t know what to expect at all.
My mother stops short and releases my hand on a gasp. I force myself to look at my best friend.
Nora
“Aubry!” My pulse skyrockets, sending the monitor beeping crazily next to me.
Salve returned me to my room at four past four. I’d thought the time was worth noting because it was so unusual. I didn’t give him much of anything after the nurse came to move me. I didn’t want to talk until I was sure Aubry was safe and now I knew . . . I was bathed, and left in my room. I feel almost human now.
“Oh, my God.” Aubry, flanked by a nurse doing rounds and Aubry’s mother, Angela, stand in the doorway. Angela wipes tears from her cheeks. She looks good. Glowing, actually. “I thought you were dead,” she sniffles. Angela walks right up to me, inspects my current situation and starts bawling. “You stupid, stupid girl.” I reach out and take her hand in mine.
“I didn’t know,” I say. But a part of me wonders if I did.
“Of course, you didn’t know. I should have told you you weren’t allowed to go. Oh, God, look at you!” I rub my thumb over the back of her hand and look to Aubry. She’s at the end of the bed. Her wide, innocent eyes scared. I used to be innocent. I was a little girl who believed in magic. I was sure that when I fell asleep at night, my stuffed animals came to life. I spent days swinging and reveling in the way the sky looked as I swung up toward it. I jumped in piles of leaves. I hunted for faerie houses. I chased rainbows. My parents were my heroes. I was convinced my mom could read minds. My dad had superhuman strength. I sang myself to sleep at night for the sheer joy of it. Even after my parents died, I still knew the world was a good place. That people were kind. That I’d find my true love and live out my days feeling like a princess claimed by her prince. I knew it in my gut. Then Anton happened. But still, rainbows and puppies and good fortune would be mine. I would be okay. I had hope. Maybe a little of life’s sparkle dulled then but the thread of innocence didn’t actually snap, until Holden. He stole my magic. He decimated my innocence swiftly and succinctly. And let me tell you something, innocence is like hope—a necessary element for survival. Without hope, I couldn’t be me, if I wanted to survive. But sometimes, when you have to change, the metamorphosis is so profound, that the old you can’t look the new you in the eyes.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“You.”
“Aubry,” Angela scolds in a near whisper.
“You’re so thin and . . . and . . .” I look down the bed at myself and bite my bottom lip. I knew I’d lost some weight but I didn’t think it was so bad. I do look a little worse for wear in this gown and the traction contraption for my leg doesn’t help. Maybe a few new scars too. I furrow my brow. Aubry comes to my side. I reach out my arm and hook her neck to pull her close and hug her. Smell her. Remember her. Revel in her safety.
“What did he do to you, Nora?” she asks. Angela has already pulled a brush from her purse and is attempting to untangle my damp hair. Hair that used to be long and luscious but is now chin length and ragged.
“It wasn’t all bad, Aub and I made it out, didn’t I?” The brush stops. Aubry looks past me to her mother and they share a look that I can’t decode. “What?” What is it?” I ask.
“It’s nothing, honey. Let’s get you cleaned up a little and then we can chat,” Angela says.
“I want to go home with you,” I say.
Aubry sighs. “We want that, too,” Angela answers.
“When can we do that?” I ask. Aubry looks away from me at the floor. That’s a bad sign. She never denies me the truth.
“Not for a little bit. You have to get better first and Detective Salve needs more information from you.”
“About what? I told him I was held against my will. And that he needs to find Charlotte. And Holden’s name and stuff. I just want to go home. What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Angela says, “but we’re here for you, honey. We’re here.” She swipes her thumb across the back of my hand gently.
“Aubry,” I say. “Tell me about your summer.” Her head snaps up. A smile creeps across her face as I pat the bed next to me. She sits, hesitantly, and takes a deep breath. “Is my house still standing?”
This makes her laugh. Angela, too. “Your house is fine. I wrote you a letter every week. Didn’t you read them? I’m not that bad.”
“You’re not generally that clean either,” I say, ignoring the rest of her statement.
Her eyes well with tears that beg to spill over. “I missed you so much.”
I grab her hand. “I missed you, too.”
Him
The silence was too loud. Boots crunched in the snow; but no birds chirped, no water rushed, the girl did not even whimper. No one waited at home for us. The realization hit me with physical force. With a yank, I moved us through the evening like river water, unhindered and invincible. The girl cringed away from me as I pulled her with me through the brush and snow. She whimpered and squirmed while tied to a tree once the coast was clear but there was no other option. I had to clean up the scene and once the accident was reported it wouldn’t be long until the police arrived. I could only do so much before the ambulance arrived.
“What now?” she said, her voice revealing a hint of hysteria. She never did like it when I was quiet. The rain and sleet slashing the sharp mountain ridges looked like a river spilling over a ledge. Trees stood so close together and thick, that they look ominous, like an army protecting the dark secrets they hid. My dark secrets.
“I don’t have much use for you.” I’d grunted at her.
The girl’s face formed three perfect O’s. Then it morphed into something else. “She won’t want you without me,” she snapped. Her small hand trembled. I glowered at her but she was not wrong. I stopped and picked her up so that we were face to face. “Then you live with me.”
Relief washed over her face. Tears flowed freely, softly from her eyes in the shadows of the forest. Then she smirked. She smirked at me through her tears and wriggled from my hold.
Sprinting as best she could through the snow that was hip deep on her, she shouted she would jump as she neared a cliff. She shouted she would never let her come back to me. In giant strides, I caught up to her. She was close. Too close to the edge. I grabbed the back of her and yanked hard. The girl’s scream echoed off the mountain.
I parted tree limbs, fresh snow pelted me from the branches as I hauled her with me toward home.
Nora
I am tucked away in room 304. Three times a day, someone brings food. None of it looks appetizing. It’s not home cooked. It is not organic—from the land. The noise here kept me up all night. Or maybe I just can’t sleep. At 10 A.M., the morning nurse wheels me into a room with a table and two chairs. Salve is trying to get me to talk. To tell him details. The paper-thin slippers Aubry bought at the gift shop do little to warm my ever-cold feet. The door opens and Salve strolls in. Instead of taking his normal seat across from me, he drags the chair around the table next to me. The sound of the legs on the floor makes me cringe. I don’t know why the sound doesn’t bother him, too.
“How are you?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
Salve sighs but his eyes tell me
he’s not giving up. “Anything other than fine?”
“I’m good. Is that what you want to hear?”
He cracks his neck and moves on. “What is Lotte’s last name?”
I stare at him in confusion. “Douglas. She is Holden’s little sister.”
“I’m going to show you some pictures, Nora. I need you to tell me if any of these men are Holden Douglas.” I watch him set out several photographs. Not that I need one. I could close my eyes and recount every detail of Holden’s face at any point from memory.
I shake my head. “Nope. None of those are him.”
Salve rubs his head, forehead to neck and back. “Do you think you could give a sketch artist a description for us?”
I stick my hands between my legs and nod. I think I’m safe, since I didn’t say anything relevant.
“That’s great. I’ll get a sketch artist in here as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have some bad news.”
Anxiety courses through my veins. Aubry. Angela. “What? What is it?” I ask.
“Our search turned up nothing on Holden Douglas. In fact, when we dug around more, there’s no trace of anyone named Holden Douglas anywhere near Pocketville.”
My face wrinkles in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Holden Douglas doesn’t exist.”
I feel outside of myself suddenly, like my world isn’t adding up and so I’ve removed myself from it until it sorts itself out. “What about the registration in the truck? Who does the truck belong to?”
Salve snorts. “There was no registration in the truck.”
My breath quickens. “But . . . but the license plate. Who do the plates belong to?”
“Nora, there were no plates on the truck either.”
I close my eyes and keep them squeezed shut. There were plates on the truck. What else could there be? “The VIN number.”
“Scratched off,” Salve says.
“Oh, come on!” I blurt. “This is insane. The truck had plates, I saw them.” I know I saw them. So many times. What was the number? I think Salve is a captious man. My credulity to believe anything he says is dwindling fast. Salve is calling my name but I tune him out.
Out, out, out.
I think hard.
“SK10 . . . ugh, I can’t remember.” I hit myself upside the head; angry. Salve reaches out and restrains my fist. The contact startles me and I flinch, yanking my wrist from him and instantly dropping my eyes to the floor.
“Nora, don’t hurt yourself,” he says, sincerely.
I shudder. “Don’t touch me,” I whisper. I’m not to be touched. I’m only his to touch.
I shake thoughts of Holden from my head.
“I’m sorry.” He throws his hands up in retreat.
“It had plates. I know it did. I almost remember them,” I say.
“Okay. I’ll run SK10 through the system and see what hits come up. But don’t beat yourself up over it. You have a concussion and serious other . . . traumas.” I turn my head away from him. I can’t look him in the eyes.
“Where are Aubry and Angela?” I ask, not looking at him.
“They headed home, as far as I know.”
My eyes snap to his. “I thought they were staying another night.”
He shrugs. “Sorry, kid, you’ll have to ask them.”
My breath leaves my lungs. I feel helpless. I need them here with me until . . . until it’s over. Until I’m sure they’re safe. This is my comeuppance for escaping.
“We need to focus on Charlotte. She’s only eleven, you said?” I nod. “And you’re sure she was in the truck with you when you crashed?”
I scowl at him. “How would I not be sure? She was sitting right next to me. I couldn’t leave her there!”
“With her brother? You couldn’t leave the girl with her brother, Holden?” he clarifies.
I sigh. “It wasn’t safe.”
“For you or for her?” Salve quirks an eyebrow.
“How is that even a question? Look. I don’t care if you don’t believe me but you’ve got to find Charlotte and make sure she’s okay. And she’s twelve now. Please,” I say. Lotte is not safe, she’s even less safe than Angela and her kids at this point. I can’t protect everyone.
“Nora, I want to help you but Holden Douglas doesn’t appear to exist and you haven’t told me anything outside of his name and an approximate location. You’ve got to help me out here.”
I shiver, despite having a blanket on my lap today. “If I tell you, you have to promise me that you will protect the Clark’s.”
Salve cracks his neck again. He looks tired. His eyes are dull and his hair looks like he just rolled out of bed. “What do the Clark’s have to do with this?”
“Nothing—that’s the problem. If I talk . . .” my voice fades. I clear my throat, try again. “If I talk, he will know and if he knows . . . he will find Aubry and Angela and Anton and Aimee.” I say their names like little prayers. “And he will kill them.”
Agent Brown
If this girl is anything like Eve when I first met her. I’m in for one horrific story. I mentally steel myself for the details I’m about to hear. Absorbing the traumas a victim has gone through is exhausting and it lingers with you for a long time after a case is closed.
“Detective Salve,” he says.
I shake Salve’s hand. It is cold and clammy.
“Agent Brown.” I smooth my hair and ask, “What do we have?”
“Nora Robertson, twenty-one, says she took a summer job and he held her captive for the last six months. The information she gave us doesn’t check out regarding the perp.”
“How so?”
“We ran his name through our databases. Got no hits. Truck had no identifiers. No VIN, no plate, no registration. And the location is state property, so it’s highly unlikely someone’s living up there.”
“Trust me, Salve, I’ve seen stranger shit. She isn’t the first one to report this.” He wrinkles his face up at me. “Do you remember The Tutor?” I ask.
“Vaguely,” he says. “Happened up north.”
“Yeah. If what she has to say adds up, she may be the fourth victim. If she is, it’s FBI jurisdiction.”
“Why?” Salve asks.
“Because she’d be one of two living escapees from a serial abductor. And if it’s him, we have reason to believe he has a girl with him.”
Salve drags a hand over his face and grunts. “You think this is linked to Eve’s case?” I nod. “Let’s go chat with her then.”
Nora
Salve left the room. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who got worked up. He seemed like the unflappable sort. Unflappable. Another excellent word. But he pushed his chair back, stood and excused himself. Which really set my nerves ablaze. Can he be trusted? I rub my forehead, pinching the skin between my thumb and fingers. Salve is gone a long time. My leg aches from being stuck in the same position. The skin itches under the cast. I resort to counting ceiling tiles again. When he returns, he’s accompanied by a woman. She’s blonde with a slender figure but skeptical eyes and a straight line of a mouth. She is the kind of woman who would never be in my situation, I think.
“Nora, this is Agent Brown.” He gestures to the woman. I stare at her silently.
“Hi, call me Sam. I’m with the FBI,” she says, while extending a hand to me. I don’t take it. I take in her shoes—practical, her pants—too tight, and her blazer—plain.
“Hi,” I say. “What does the FBI want with me?”
“Nora, we believe you aren’t the first to be taken by . . .” she glances at Salve.
“Holden Douglas,” he says for her. My heart skips a beat before pounding.
She adjusts her shirt and sits. “Yes, Holden. There have been other women who’ve gone missing after responding to a similar ad for summer tutoring.” A shiver wracks my body. I didn’t assume I was the first, of course. Not now. Not after knowing how prepared he was, but it doesn’t make the blow any less. “We’ve been trying t
o track—”
“How many?” I interrupt.
“How many what?” Agent Brown asks.
“How many others?”
She bites her bottom lip and studies me briefly. “Four.”
My mind races and one question bubbles to the surface. “How many are alive?”
“One,” she answers, “two, if you were taken by the same man.”
Little successive clicks sound off in my brain. Click. Click. Click.
And then, “Eve?” comes out of my mouth.
Salve blinks. Agent Brown nods. She does not seem surprised.
I curl my fingers into my palm and squeeze until my nails break skin. “Nora,” Agent Brown says, “Charlotte is not Holden’s sister. She’s Eve’s younger sister.”
No.
Wrong.
They are wrong.
My breath falters as my lungs try to pull in oxygen. Tears well until they spill over and cascade down my cheeks.
“She left her there? She left her own sister with him?” My voice sounds weak and insecure and incredulous.
“Eve Johnston escaped to stay alive for her sister. So, let’s start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
“I need to know the Clarks will be safe. They have to be protected,” I say. Agent Brown looks to Salve and says, “Get a detail on their home for the next week. I want 24–7 surveillance.” Salve nods his head. “Now, Detective.” Looking slightly peeved, Salve stands and exits the room. “Alright, Nora, let’s go. From the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
Nora
The bus ride to Pocketville was uneventful. I spoke to no one. I saw nothing exciting from the window and the TV’s were broken, so we didn’t get to watch a movie. Not that I would have. I read almost the entire time. Holden had instructed me to only bring necessities. I packed six books, three pairs of shorts, three tank tops, flip flops and sneakers, one sweatshirt, underwear, my journal, birth control pills and toothbrush and a photo of my parents before they died. I was used to living on next to nothing.