“What if she slams the door in our faces?”
“Then we try to convince her to open it up again. If she refuses, we get that cab back here and enjoy another thrill ride back to the hotel, where we’ll get our things together and then fly back to Florida. Even if that happens, you’re no worse off than you were before, so you have nothing to lose,” he said, returning her hand squeeze.
He rang the doorbell. Cait could hear it reverberate through the house, loud and jarring, and she jumped.
For a moment nothing happened and then as Kevin was reaching out to ring the bell again, the heavy wooden door swung open and Cait’s mother peered through the screen at them, dressed in a threadbare robe and holding a cup of tea. Cait knew she was in her midsixties, Arlen Hirschberg had told them her age, but she looked much older. Deep creases lined her haggard face, and her hair, although the same auburn color as Cait’s, had somewhere along the line lost its luster and now looked dried out and brittle, as though it might snap off and clatter away in a stiff breeze.
The woman blinked twice, staring uncomprehendingly for what felt to Cait like hours but was undoubtedly only a second or two. Then she clapped her left hand to her mouth and took a step back, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, my God,” she mumbled through her fingers. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
Tears rolled down Virginia Ayers’s cheeks and Cait felt her own eyes fill and the three people stood motionless, one inside the house and two outside. Finally, Kevin said, “This is Caitlyn Connelly, Mrs. Ayers. This is your daughter.”
* * *
The inside of Virginia Ayers’s kitchen looked exactly as Cait had pictured it since learning she was going to meet her birth mother. A gas stove, decades old, sat against the far wall, its ceramic finish worn and chipped. Next to the stove and of the same vintage stood a small refrigerator with rounded corners, originally white but now yellowed with age.
The threesome sat awkwardly around a Formica kitchen table that had probably been new in the 1950s. The surface featured an unidentifiable pattern that looked a bit like spilled ice cubes and had been dulled by age and use. The same was true of the wooden chairs upon which they sat. The finish had been worn completely off the seats but the chairs were solid and sturdy and surprisingly comfortable.
The kitchen was impeccably clean, spotless, and Cait thought she could probably eat off the floor’s ancient linoleum tiles, which, although worn and faded like everything else, sparkled as though they received a thorough mopping once a day. Maybe twice.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Virginia Ayers said softly, blowing on the steam curling into the air out of her teacup. Identical cups had been placed on the table in front of Cait and Kevin. Both had so far been ignored.
After her initial shocked reaction at the door, Virginia Ayers recovered quickly, and instead of having the door slammed in her face as Cait had feared might happen, the woman had bustled forward, crying, and ushered them inside. She led them down a short hallway to the kitchen where introductions were made again; then she invited her guests to sit while she busied herself boiling water for tea. Cait and Kevin sat silently.
Now Cait picked up her tea and blew away the steam like her mother had done. The delicate porcelain cup was bone-colored with a silver plated rim, clearly reserved for special guests. “Why did you invite us in if you don‘t want to see me?” she asked timidly. “After hearing your response to Mr. Hirschberg’s request for a meeting, we almost didn’t even bother flying up here.”
“Oh, child, I never said I didn’t want to see you. I’ve wanted to see you for the last thirty years. I’ve wanted nothing more than to lay eyes on you myself, even if for just a few precious minutes. This might be the happiest day of my life. I only wish your father had lived to see you, too.”
Cait sipped her tea and shook her head in confusion. “Then I don’t understand...”
Her mother’s face darkened. It was as if a storm cloud had rolled in and taken a position directly over her head. “This is so difficult,” she said. “It’s very complicated, in ways you may not be able to understand. I’m not sure even I understand completely. I…I don’t even know where to begin.”
“I do,” Cait interrupted gently. “Begin at the point that matters the most, at least to me. Why did you give me up? No matter what hardships you were facing in your life—money problems, job woes, personal issues, whatever—how could you believe they would be solved by giving up your newborn baby?”
Virginia held her tea in two hands, elbows on the table, looking into the cup like it was a crystal ball. She shook her head. “I never wanted to give you up,” she whispered. “Neither did your father. My God, we were never the same after the night we…watched you leave. Before you were born, we were a normal couple, at least as normal as possible. But after that horrible evening…”
Cait waited, spellbound. She glanced at Kevin and he was riveted as well. Virginia Ayers’s eyes were red-rimmed, tortured. She said nothing for a moment, composing herself, and then continued. “You were born in this very house, you know, and then taken from it just a few hours later. After that cursed night, your father and I never looked at each other the same way again. We blamed ourselves, we blamed each other, we blamed fate, we blamed God. We laid blame everywhere, even though we both knew we were doing the right thing by giving you up.”
Virginia looked at Cait bleakly. “Eventually your father couldn’t take the guilt. He hanged himself in a men’s bathroom at South Station a few years later.”
Cait gasped and even Kevin seemed startled. “But I don’t understand. If you both wanted me…why?” There seemed to be no need to finish the question.
“As I told you before, it’s very complicated. More to the point, it’s dangerous. It’s bad enough that you’re here, but the more you learn, the worse the situation becomes.”
“Well, it’s too late now,” Cait said. “The genie is out of the bottle. How bad could it be? Please tell me; you owe me that much after making me wonder about my history for the last thirty years, making me wonder what a tiny baby could possibly have done that was so horrible her own mother had to abandon her. Please.”
Virginia Ayers shook her head in mute protest at the words coming from her daughter’s mouth. She had begun crying again and the tears ran down her gaunt cheeks, dropping off her jaw and splashing on to the table around her teacup like a tiny rain shower. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “It wasn’t your fault; none of it was your fault. Of course you didn’t do anything wrong. But we simply had to separate you from your twin, we had no choice in the matter.”
Cait froze, teacup halfway to her mouth, staring at her mother in astonishment. She set her cup down on the table with a clatter and tea sloshed over the side unnoticed. For a long moment, no one moved. Then Cait said, slowly, “I have a twin?”
CHAPTER 18
The chair occupied a position of honor, placed by Milo Cain squarely in the middle of the mostly unfurnished room. Dust bunnies surrounded it like tiny sentries on the scarred hardwood floor. Occasionally a stray breeze would catch one, sending it skittering through the accumulated trash into a corner, only to be blown back to the center of the room with the next air current. The chair looked like a bare-bones throne for a deposed king.
Atop it lay the disheveled body of the prize Milo had won last night. Rae Ann dozed fitfully, her head lolling to the right, resting precariously on her bony shoulder. Her ponytails had been removed and now messy hair partially obscured her face, a clump sticking to her cheek, glued to her flesh by last night’s dried sweat and tears.
Her sweater and short skirt—and her panties—remained undisturbed for the moment. Milo had every intention of relieving the girl of her clothing—eventually—but for now occupied himself by indulging in one of his favorite fantasies. He played with the handle of the long-nose pliers absently, snapping the jaws open and closed while he watched his guest sleep.
Snap…Snap…Snap…
Thick strips of silver duct
tape secured Rae Ann’s forearms to the chair’s sturdy armrests, slapped down tightly by Milo to eliminate any possibility of escape. Her ankles were secured in a similar manner at the base of the front legs. Her torso he had left intentionally unencumbered. Years of perfecting his hobby had taught Milo that if tied up in this manner, his subject’s natural reaction to the pain he was inflicting would be to thrust her hips up and down over and over in an obscene parody of sex—fear and desperation driving her body in a vain attempt to escape the torture—while he played his games. This was what he lived for.
Duct-taped to Rae Ann’s right hand as she dozed was a dingy white dishtowel. Milo had fastened a makeshift cotton mitten last night when he finished playing with her, placing the towel over her hand and then winding a long strip of the tape tightly around her wrist. A tinge of light-pink stain was just visible, indicating the blood had continued dribbling out of her missing fingernails, soaking into the terry cloth for quite some time.
It was no wonder she had thrashed around on her throne, moaning into her duct-tape gag, long after Milo went to bed on his air mattress. He had implored the girl to sleep while she had the chance but had been largely ignored. Eventually he had drifted off to a contented slumber, tuning out her pathetic noises, and slept soundly, as he always did after beginning a new adventure with a new girl.
Now he stepped forward. He slid the pliers into the right rear pocket of his jeans and then cradled Rae Ann’s head in his hands. She groaned and blinked rapidly, her eyes dazed and sleepy. Then they snapped into focus, widening in terror as she awoke fully and the reality of her predicament struck like a sledgehammer.
Milo smiled paternally. “Welcome back from dreamland, darling. Did you sleep well?”
Rae Ann turned her head to the side, avoiding his probing eyes. She began begging into her duct-tape gag, the words indecipherable but their meaning clear.
He shook his head. “We’re not done playing yet, so you may as well forget about being released. It’s not happening. Now, back to my question: Did you sleep well?”
The girl ignored him and kept her eyes glued to the corner of the room, looking at nothing, refusing to give him the satisfaction of returning his gaze. Milo squeezed her head between his hands. “Answer me.”
Still she refused to look. He sighed. He had chosen a strong-willed one this time, which in many ways represented an exciting challenge but in others was just plain frustrating. He removed his left hand from her head and flicked it out casually, smacking it against the bloody towel covering her right hand. The contact was minimal, barely more than a light tap, but his prisoner screamed into her gag, her head snapping back and forth as she tried desperately and unsuccessfully to move her injured hand out of harm’s way.
Milo tried again. “Did you sleep well?”
This time he was rewarded with an enthusiastic nodding of his prisoner’s head even as she whimpered and tears streamed down her now-filthy face. A snot bubble blew out of her nose and Milo shook his head, disgusted. He crossed the room and retrieved a tissue, then held it under Rae Ann’s nose and she blew with gusto.
“Now,” he said softly. “What you need to understand is that I expect you to answer promptly when I speak to you. Things will proceed much more smoothly between us if you do. Is that understood?”
This time there was no hesitation. The young hooker again nodded enthusiastically.
“Much better,” Milo said, reaching into his left rear pocket and withdrawing an X-Acto knife. “See? We’re getting along beautifully now.”
At the sight of the knife, Rae Ann’s eyes widened again in panic and she began breathing heavily, nearly panting.
Milo said, “Relax, before you give yourself a stroke,” and then he leaned down and deftly sliced the duct tape holding the blood-soaked towel in place over her right hand. The towel unwound and fell to the floor, revealing a hand featuring three hideously misshapen digits.
The nails were missing from Rae Ann’s first three fingers. They were gone, torn out last night with Milo’s pliers, and the tips of all three fingers were now swollen and purple, twice their normal size. The blood had more or less clotted overnight but still oozed sluggishly, pooling on her fingertips now that the towel had been removed, then dripping onto the clear plastic tarp covering the floor in fat blackish-red globules.
Milo felt a surge of excitement as he viewed his handiwork. “What have you done to yourself?” he asked with false concern, removing the pliers from his pocket and snapping them in front of Rae Ann’s face to observe her reaction. He wasn’t disappointed. Just as she had done when she saw the knife, she panicked. Her eyes widened and her head thrashed and she whimpered desperately into her gag, her terror complete.
“I’m just teasing you,” he said. “We’ll play again, don’t you worry about that, but the fun will begin later. I’d hate to get the reputation around town of being a poor host, so how does a little breakfast sound?”
His victim gazed up disbelievingly. Her desperate whining noises stopped but her tears continued to fall as she waited to see what would happen next. “Silly me,” Milo continued. “You probably have to go to the bathroom. It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?”
He waited for a response and got none. The girl sat completely still, as if confused by this unexpected turn of events, her eyes locked on his. He bent down without another word and retrieved his X-Acto knife. He sliced the rest of the duct tape from the girl’s limbs and helped her to her feet. He led her unsteadily across the room and down a short hallway, turning into a grungy bathroom. He indicated the tiny stand-up shower with a flourish, like a Realtor showing a mansion to a prospective buyer, turning to her with a smile and saying, “Play your cards right and maybe you’ll get to clean up later. For now, though, just do your business and come back out. I’m going to show a little trust and give you some privacy. Fuck with me at all, even a little bit, and the next time you’ll be peeing in front of me, probably into your clothes.”
He turned and paused at the door of the bathroom. “Oh, by the way,” he said. “Before you get any bright ideas, everything that could possibly be used as a weapon has been removed from this room, as has the toilet, as you have undoubtedly noticed. Just squat over the hole in the floor, do your business and come out. Are we on the same page here?” The duct-tape gag remained in place so she nodded, the seemingly unending supply of tears still flowing down her face.
“One more thing,” he added with an impish smile. “Just kidding about the shower. The water hasn’t worked in this building since before you were born, probably.” Milo stepped through the doorway and pulled the flimsy wooden door shut behind him, waiting on the other side. Moments later the door swung open and his guest appeared, eyes downcast. He took her by the elbow and led her back to her chair where he picked up his roll of duct tape and expertly resecured her in a matter of seconds.
After taping her ankles to the chair, he said, still crouched on the floor, “Now, back to my original question: What would you like for breakfast? I don’t have a lot of choices but I might be able to find something that would be acceptable, unless of course you’re one of those chicks that eat nuts and berries like a frigging squirrel—”
His eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped sideways, his forehead thumping against the arm of his prisoner’s chair. He fell to the floor on his side and then staggered to his feet, stumbling blindly toward the shell of a kitchen, trying desperately to maintain consciousness as a vivid image invaded his skull. It was a vision similar to the ones he had been cursed with his entire life but much, much stronger.
More lifelike.
More real.
A young woman and a man roughly the same age sat at a table in the kitchen of a small house talking with an older woman. The house was near here but not too near; it was definitely farther away than was typical for his visions. He knew this because through the kitchen window he could see none of the tall buildings or warehouses or city hustle and bustle that he should se
e at any location in Boston. The scene was more pastoral; still bleak and run-down, as if the area—wherever it was—had seen its best days decades ago and had been sinking into a state of neglect ever since.
At the table, the conversation revolved around a painful shared personal history. The two women were related. They were discussing details of a baby given up for adoption. The younger woman was the baby and the older woman her mother. The younger woman was asking questions; she could not understand why she had been abandoned so long ago.
Milo chuckled, lost in the vision blasting through his head. He leaned against the wall in a state of semiconsciousness. He could tell the young woman a thing or two about abandonment and loss. The older woman struggled to explain her rationale for giving up her child but the daughter seemed skeptical of the explanation.
As he watched the scene unfold, Milo felt a sense of rage begin to envelop him, a blackness of spirit much stronger even than he normally felt. He wouldn’t have imagined it possible. The sensation was directed at the young woman. He wanted to reach through the vision and strangle the stupid little bitch with his bare hands, to choke the life out of her and cut her up into tiny slivers of bone and flesh and then throw the pieces around the room.
He hated her.
He more than hated her. He wanted to destroy her.
The vision wavered in his mind and then faded as his rage increased, becoming all-encompassing. He could no longer make out the conversation at the table, not that he cared. All he wanted was to get at the young woman, to make her suffer. It wasn’t a sexual thing or even a power thing, like the sensation he felt toward Rae Ann and the other girls he had tortured and killed over the years. This was something deeper, more elemental, originating in the depths of his soulless existence. The intensity was frightening, even to Milo Cain, who had long ago reached the conclusion he was incapable of feeling anything.
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