Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series)

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Vanna scrunched up her nose. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Da,” the woman repeated. “You eat. You must.”

  Vanna squinted. “So you do speak English?”

  The woman tipped her head from side to side. “A leetle.”

  “Great.” Vanna pasted on a smile. “Listen. I need a ride into town. Can you drive me?”

  The woman’s gaze was cool and direct. She turned away and put the bowl back in the cabinet.

  Vanna was confused. “You understand, right? I need a ride into town. Or Chicago. Now.”

  The woman turned to face her. She held up her index finger. “You stay. Here.”

  Vanna blew out a breath. “Look, I don’t know your name, and you’ve been great to take us in, but we really need to go into town.”

  “Vanna,” a voice called. Vanna spun around. Jenny. In her white bathrobe. “Hey,” Jenny asked, “did you find any clothes in the drawers or closet?”

  “I didn’t look.”

  “Well, I did, and there’s nothing there. Not a thread.”

  Vanna turned back to the woman. “Look, lady, we need our clothes. Where’s the stuff we were wearing last night?”

  But the woman refused to answer. She got out the same bowl she’d offered Vanna, the Cheerios and the milk, and gestured to Jenny.

  Jenny sat at the table. The woman nodded and poured cereal into the bowl.

  “She doesn’t understand a fucking word we’re saying.” Vanna blew out a breath.

  The woman put the cereal and a spoon in front of Jenny.

  “You see a car anywhere?” Vanna asked.

  Jenny shook her head. “The van took off.”

  “Dammit.” Vanna started to pace. “She’s got to have a car.” She stopped and brightened. “I bet it’s in the barn.”

  Jenny dug into her cereal.

  Vanna scowled. “How the fuck can you eat?”

  Jenny shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

  “Yeah, well, if we can’t find her car, we’re up shit creek.” She headed toward the kitchen door. “I’m gonna check out the barn.”

  But the old woman, suddenly as fleet-footed as a ballerina, intercepted Vanna before she reached the door. “No.” The woman grasped her arm and shook her head. “You stay in. No go out.”

  “Let me the fuck go!” Vanna tried to shrug her off, but the woman’s grip was surprisingly strong.

  “You go up now. Bed.” The woman said.

  “You can’t do this. I’m not a prisoner!” Vanna cried out.

  “You stay. You see.” The woman nodded and guided her toward the stairs.

  Vanna opened and closed her mouth several times as if she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to throw a tantrum or cry. The woman’s expression remained stoic. Vanna narrowed her eyes, took another look, and stomped out of the room.

  A few hours later Vanna’s stomach began to tighten. The cramps started twenty minutes after that. She’d had food poisoning from a lobster roll years earlier, but the pains from these cramps were much sharper. Beads of sweat ringed her neck and forehead. She made it to the bathroom just in time.

  While she was dealing with the cramps, diarrhea, and sweat, her skin started to itch. That worsened as well, until she felt as if bugs were crawling over her body. She scratched everywhere, but it didn’t help.

  She staggered into Jenny’s room. Jenny was fast asleep. How the hell could she sleep? Shouldn’t she be as sick as Vanna? Then she knew. Jenny had been on junk for only a week or so, not the five months Vanna had been hooked. Her withdrawal would be easier. Vanna frowned. She wanted to wake Jenny up. Why should she suffer alone? Meanwhile, the urge for a fix, somewhere, anywhere, tore through her. If she didn’t get it soon, she was going to die.

  She hurried down the steps. The old woman was at the table again, earbuds trailing a white cord to her phone. Vanna wanted to rip the fucking cord away from her head and strangle her.

  “Please…,” she wailed. “I need it. I need it bad.”

  The woman glanced up, but her expression was stony. She didn’t even bother to remove her earbuds.

  Despair thickened Vanna’s throat. The morning sun disappeared from the window. It must be almost noon. She tried another tactic. “Hey, what’s your name?” She wondered if her voice sounded as frantic as she felt.

  The woman hesitated, then squinted as if she knew the ruse. She took off her earbuds. “I Zoya.”

  “Zoya.” Vanna pasted on a smile. “Do you have a daughter, Zoya?”

  There was no response. In fact, the woman stiffened as if Savannah had struck her.

  “Well, if you did, you wouldn’t want her to suffer, would you?”

  Zoya pressed her lips together. “You stop talk. Go up.”

  “Up? You mean high?” Vanna, close to the end of her rope, purposely misinterpreted the woman’s words. “Thank God. Where is it? I can do it myself, you know.”

  Zoya rose and shooed Vanna toward the stairs like a misbehaving dog. “Up, up. You go bed. I come soon.”

  “No!” Vanna shouted. Panic rolled over her. Fresh sweat soaked the back of her neck. “You just said I could score. You promised!” She knew she wasn’t making sense, but she glanced around wildly, trying to home in on something, anything, that would stem the overpowering urge for a fix.

  Then she remembered the barn. The woman’s car had to be in there, didn’t it? She inched around the table toward the door, preparing to bolt. This time, though, Zoya didn’t try to stop her. With a shriek of victory Vanna reached the door and twisted the knob. Nothing happened. The door was locked. She looked for the release. She couldn’t find it. She whirled around.

  “Open this door!” she commanded.

  Zoya just looked at her.

  “Open it, you goddammed witch!”

  Still no reaction.

  Vanna screamed. And then screamed again. She screamed over and over until she was hoarse and the screams turned into tears. With her back to the door, she sank to the floor. She couldn’t stop crying.

  Zoya went to Vanna, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Vanna tried to resist, but whatever strength had propelled her this far vanished. Or else Zoya was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked.

  “You go to bed. You sick.”

  Vanna kept crying.

  Zoya half pushed, half dragged her up the steps. She shoved her into the bedroom and locked the door.

  Chapter 72

  Savannah

  The next four days were torture. Excruciating pain pummeled Vanna in waves. Her legs buckled, and she couldn’t walk—even to the bathroom. At the peak, she thought her joints and muscles were going to explode. When the pain did recede, her fingers, arms, and legs felt lethargic and weak. Opening a drawer was impossible. So was twisting a doorknob, assuming it wasn’t locked, which, of course, it was. Then there were the cramps, which gnawed at her gut and radiated down to her crotch but were a thousand times worse than menstrual cramps. The bouts of diarrhea were so fierce she couldn’t control them, and full-body sweats left her wringing wet, except when they alternated with chills that couldn’t be controlled even with three blankets.

  Zoya laid plastic sheets on the bed. She brought Vanna Imodium and vitamins, but Vanna’s lips were so swollen and cracked she could barely open her mouth wide enough to swallow. A sour taste in her throat slithered up to her tongue, making her mouth taste like clay.

  Eating was out of the question, despite the toast and endless cups of tea that Zoya brought. She almost threw them in the woman’s face. After the first day, she didn’t see Jenny at all, but when she heard moans and screams coming from the other bedroom, she knew Jenny was going through withdrawal too.

  There was no respite. Insomnia claimed her and she couldn’t sleep. Occasionally she dozed, but most of the time she lay in a semiconscious state of misery. Her legs had acquired what those late-night TV commercials called restless-leg syndrome, twitching and moving on their own. By the third day, she begged Zoya to kill her.


  “I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to die. Just kill me now. Please.”

  Zoya shot her a pitiless expression.

  That night she was woken by the sound of a car crackling on the snow and gravel. It seemed to be heading past the house to the barn. She thought she heard a woman cry, but it was muffled, and she could have been dreaming. The next morning, the car had vanished, and everything was the way it had been.

  By the fourth day, the symptoms were still there, but they didn’t seem as fierce. Vanna still felt like she had a bad case of flu, but she managed to get down half a piece of toast and a few sips of tea. On the fifth day, although she wasn’t sure how much time had passed, the diarrhea subsided, and she even took a full-fledged nap.

  The next morning she actually got out of bed, unsteady, and was taken to the bathroom. She gazed at herself in the mirror. An ugly girl with ratty blond hair, a gaunt face, alabaster skin, and huge eyes stared back. Vanna turned away. She didn’t want to see the human wreck she’d become.

  Chapter 73

  Savannah

  The next few weeks passed in hues of gray. The physical symptoms of withdrawal subsided, but Vanna’s emotional state was shaky. Bouts of listlessness during which she didn’t have the energy to get out of bed alternated with irritable, manic periods. She didn’t want to live; she didn’t want to die. She spent most of her time in her room, wondering how her life had come to this.

  One morning she was lying on her bed when she heard a voice. “Vanna.”

  She sat bolt upright. The voice was her father’s. She knew it better than she knew her own. She gazed around the room in a panic. Where had it come from? How was it possible? She slid off her bed. It took only about two seconds to search the tiny room—there was only the bed, a chest of drawers, and an empty closet. She looked under the bed. Nothing. She threw open the closet door. Empty. She sucked in a breath. She’d been so sure.

  She lay down again, trying to make sense of what she’d heard. It must have been a dream. She must have been dozing. But it was so real. His inflection, his tone, the underlying warmth in his voice. Was it just a heroin dream? Or was it something else? If felt as if he’d reached down from heaven—or wherever he was—to let her know she was on his mind. That everything was okay. That he was there and he loved her.

  She blinked back tears.

  Chapter 74

  Savannah

  Savannah wasn’t sure whether it was the dream, as she came to call it, or the fact that she hadn’t been hooked on dope for more than six months, but by the following week Vanna was better. The personality changes and mood shifts heroin was known to trigger seemed to ebb, and she felt stronger. More competent and lucid.

  In retrospect, Vanna realized Zoya must have noticed it too, because one afternoon she came back to the house with a Walgreen’s bag and shook it out on the kitchen table. Two pregnancy tests fell out. Zoya made both Vanna and Jenny pee on the sticks. Zoya’s eyebrows rose as she read the results. She eyed Jenny and Vanna from top to bottom. Then she walked out, as she usually did, leaving Savannah and Jenny with the guards. The girls snatched the sticks off the table and studied the results. Jenny’s test was positive; Vanna’s wasn’t. Vanna heaved a sigh of relief. Jenny burst into tears.

  “Crap, Vanna. What am I going to do?”

  Vanna shook her head. “I don’t know. How did it happen?”

  Jenny wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “That’s a stupid question.”

  “What I mean, is, do you think you were pregnant when they were shooting us up?”

  “I think I’m about three months. So I had to have been.” Fresh tears streamed down Jenny’s cheeks. “Which means the baby might be deformed or something, you know?”

  “That’s okay. You not going to keep it, anyway.”

  Jenny stopped crying and looked at Vanna. “What do you mean?”

  “Just tell Zoya you want an abortion. There’s still time. I’m sure they’ll say yes. They don’t want you having a baby any more than you do.”

  Jenny sniffed. “I—I don’t know.”

  “Jenny, you have to. This”—Vanna waved her arm to encompass the kitchen, the farm, their entire situation—“this is not the time or the place to have a baby. Promise me you’ll ask, okay? Tell them you’ll do anything to get it out of you. And then we’ll figure out a way to get out of here.”

  Jenny bit her lip. Then the guards cut them off and took them up to their rooms.

  Vanna was dozing when Zoya returned that afternoon. She came awake when she heard the woman’s heavy tread on the stairs. Vanna frowned. There was more than one person on the steps. Zoya came into her room followed by a pudgy man in a suit. Thin, dark strands of hair in a comb-over failed to hide his baldness. He was carrying a black bag.

  “Who are you?”

  “A doctor.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Sure you are.”

  Zoya cut in. “You no talk. He doctor. Take blood.”

  “Why?”

  “We want to make sure you’re healthy,” the man said.

  “Healthy? You want to make sure I’m healthy? Where were you when I needed you?”

  “I’m just going to take a little blood. Make sure you don’t have any STDs or AIDS.”

  Vanna ran her hand through her hair. “Oh fuck. Just get it over with.”

  Mercifully, the doctor was quick. Once he had a couple of vials of blood, he nodded to Zoya and left the room.

  Zoya closed the door. Vanna hadn’t noticed, but Zoya was carrying a familiar white bag with a red bull’s-eye. She placed the bag on the bed and slid out the contents. Inside was a silver-sequined tank top, the skimpiest black shorts Vanna had ever seen, four-inch heels, and tubes of mascara, eye shadow, and blush. She told Vanna to put on the clothes.

  Vanna’s spirits sank. Was she being sent back to the hookers? Her throat closed up in fear. “But I don’t want to.”

  Zoya squinted and shoved the clothes closer.

  “I don’t want to go back there,” she pleaded. “Please.”

  “You pass test, you no go.”

  “The blood test?”

  “No.” The woman shook her head. “You see.”

  “What about Jenny? Is she having the test too?”

  Zoya shrugged.

  “Why me?”

  But Zoya didn’t answer. She waited while Vanna tried on the clothes. Then she nodded. “You take off now. Rest.” She locked the door and left Vanna’s room.

  Chapter 75

  Savannah

  Sometime after dark Zoya came back up to help Vanna dress. When Vanna had pulled on the skimpy clothes, Zoya motioned her into the bathroom. Vanna had been avoiding the mirror since she’d caught that glimpse of herself, but putting on her makeup required her to look. The sunken-eyed, hollow-cheeked face that had stared back at her a month earlier was gone. Instead her reflection showed an attractive, fresh young woman. Her hair was longer now, and when Zoya pinned it up in a twist, Vanna almost smiled. Even her cheeks had a rosy glow.

  Zoya herded Vanna down the steps to the living room, a large space with no furniture except two easy chairs, an end table, and thick green drapes covering the windows. Track lighting illuminated one end of the room; the rest of the room was in shadow. Almost like a stage. She was aware that a man was reclining in one of the easy chairs near the pool of light, but she couldn’t see who it was. Zoya stopped at the entrance to the room, and a brief conversation took place in Russian. It ended with the man’s voice calling out of the dark.

  “Da.”

  Zoya rotated a dial on the light switch, and the track lights brightened. Then she nodded at Vanna. “You go.”

  Vanna flipped up her hands. “Where?”

  Zoya pointed to the center of the room. “Stand. Turn around.”

  “Why? What the fuck is going on?”

  “Just do,” Zoya hissed.

  Vanna shot her an irritated glance but moved to the middle of the room under the
lights. She paused, unsure what to do next. She was aware that the man in the chair was watching her, and she realized with a start that this was the test. She was on a stage, of sorts. She raised her hand to shade her eyes.

  A voice came out of the darkness. “Put hand down.”

  She hesitated. The man had a thick Russian accent, but at least he was speaking English.

  The voice deepened. “Now.”

  Vanna dropped her hand. Who was this man?

  “Turn around,” the voice said.

  Vanna turned.

  “Other way.”

  She turned back.

  “Put hands behind head. Look up.”

  She tilted her head up, but the glare from the lights was too bright. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Open eyes and walk across room.”

  She felt like a bug under a microscope. She flashed back to biology lab in high school. She and a geeky kid named Stewart were supposed to dissect a frog so they could examine the creature’s delicate muscles and joints under the microscope. She couldn’t do it. She told him she’d give him a BJ if he did it himself. He happily complied.

  “Now back.”

  Pulled back to the present, Vanna backtracked to the center of the room.

  Another silence. Then, “You look better than last time I see you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend.”

  After what had happened to her over the past six months, she knew that was bullshit.

  “You okay now?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “We clean you up.”

  “Why?”

  “I buy you.”

  “You bought me?” Her voice spiked. She hadn’t imagined anything worse than being forced to be a whore. On the other hand, if he’d bought her maybe there was. But something told her she couldn’t show him she was afraid. She pretended to be pissed off. “What the fuck for?”

  The man laughed; a rough, harsh laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. Terror bubbled in her throat, but she forced herself to keep up a front. This was America. “Lincoln freed the slaves, remember?”

  The man’s laughter faded. “You no like? I take you back to apartment, drugs, fucking.”