Girl Last Seen Page 10

  I don’t realize I’m hyperventilating until the room starts to spin. I sit on top of the pile of clothes and cradle my head in my hands. It didn’t seem important before, with everything else that was going on, but now the realization looms, overwhelming: someone was going through my things, and I have no way to tell what he touched. In a cold sweat, I get up and start to stuff random clothes into my backpack. No way am I wearing these until they’ve been through at least three wash cycles.

  Too bewildered to think about what I’m doing, I wander down two flights of stairs as if on autopilot, like I’ve done a million times before. The perpetual overhead hum of neon lights, which I’d learned to ignore over the years, sets my teeth on edge. I think of knocking on the janitor’s door to ask if he’d seen something, or someone, but change my mind. He’s drunk two-thirds of the time, and by now he’s probably passed out.

  Down in the lobby, I blink like an owl in the bright light. The thought of going outside, into the dark, which I hadn’t thought twice about just an hour earlier, suddenly makes me break out in a cold sweat. I take out my phone and look at it, gnawing on my lip; the battery is flashing red.

  Then realization hits me. I’m never coming back. I can’t keep living there. The place that used to be my home now isn’t.

  I could call Sean, like I should have called him from the beginning. I thumb through my short contact list and my eyes mist over. Holding my breath, I turn off the phone. Patting myself down, I find a pack with one last cigarette, along with a set of matches from the club, with that tacky phallic bullet logo in peeling silver. The first match crumples when I try to light it. The second bursts into flame with a hiss, consumed in its entirety in seconds, singeing my fingertips. On the third try, I light up. Holding the door open, I step into the humid embrace of fresh air.

  I don’t even realize what I’ve done until it’s too late. They swarm me. First only one, then three, four others, cameras clicking away, capturing the horror that must dawn on my face frame by frame. I yell something, swat at them, shield myself with my hands. Desperate, I toss the cigarette at the most insistent one, a dark-haired woman with aggressively crimson lips. I recognize her from the conference—she was the one who asked me how I felt when I found out, and in that split second, I fervently wish I could crush that still-burning cigarette into her eye, pushing in, twisting. But she only flinches as the cherry of the cigarette traces an arc and goes out on the damp pavement without ever touching her or singeing so much as a hair.

  But it’s enough to startle her, so I turn away and break into a sprint. The wind whips my hair around my face, blinding and deafening me. My backpack thumps against my lower back in a rhythm, something sharp at the bottom—a shoe, probably—digging into the small of my back. I can’t tell if they’re still on my trail, and I don’t dare glance over my shoulder—I just run, pushing my tired and terrified muscles beyond full capacity.

  My car comes into view, and I grab the keys from my pocket. I’ve never been so damn happy to see this thing.

  Before the reporters catch up to me, I slam my foot down on the gas pedal and take off with a screech. I blow past a stop sign, turn, turn again, and come to a shuddering halt at a traffic light.

  I’m alone. At least I think so. I’m seeing shadows everywhere, encroaching from all sides. Tears blanket my vision and refuse to clear; the traffic light bleeds candy-apple red then emerald green. Clumsily wiping my eyes with my sleeve, I twist the steering wheel. The car zigzags on the damp pavement, the tires screech and spin through emptiness. I feel their vibration through the seat and in the steering wheel that I grip for dear life. While in front of me, the world reels, lights leaving long multicolored trails in their wake.

  The car steadies too late. It thuds as the wheels jump over the curb onto the sidewalk and, with a dull, bone-rattling thump that makes my jaw clack painfully, hits something and grinds to a stop.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The car’s not totaled—thank God; I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my car now. The bumper has a deep dent and the hood looks misshapen, like a soda can someone squeezed too hard. Nonetheless, a tow truck is here, and just thinking of having to pay a fine and to go retrieve my car from God knows where makes me nauseous with anxiety. Before Sean showed up, they made me pass a Breathalyzer test, and I know I can only thank my lucky stars it’s not more serious, that someone else wasn’t involved—just a fucking mailbox that has barely a scratch to show for it.

  Once Sean arrived, I had no choice but to tell him the truth. I thought I was being chased. I reacted badly. The road was wet. The usual plethora of excuses I should have probably saved for the insurance company.

  In the passenger seat of his car, I watch the proceedings with detachment, a silent show of lights and people talking. Sean exchanges a few words with the traffic police, with the tow truck guy. Taking care of my problems for me, again. The police lights flash blue and red, a comforting lullaby, and the tow truck’s lights are orange, solid orange, on and off like a strobe. The Xanax I took before the police got here is the only thing that keeps me from freaking out, and I let myself rest my head on the comfortable leather of the back of the car seat, my eyelids tugging down.

  Next thing I know, Sean is in the driver’s seat but the car is still. The lights are gone, all of them. When did they disappear? God, how long have I been sitting here? My bones feel achy and hollow, my head pounds, and when I crane my neck, there’s no trace of the police car, of the tow truck, of my Neon. We’re not even on the same street.

  Sean is on the phone. He’s talking in a hushed and angry voice.

  I try to speak but my words come out smudged; the consonants bleed like wet paint in the rain. His gaze shoots to me, and he presses his finger to his lips.

  “I don’t care. No, I don’t know if her life is in danger, but I’m not taking a chance.”

  A muffled voice drones inside the phone. I push the seat away and sit up straight.

  “Then I’ll do it myself. I’ll pay for it. I don’t mind.”

  “What’s going on?” I finally manage to ask.

  Sean glares at me to keep quiet. Disoriented, I crane my neck to peer out the window, but I still have no idea where we are. All I see is a low orange-tiled building surrounded by a vast half-empty parking lot.

  Sean hangs up the phone.

  “You’re going to stay here for a while. Not the Ritz, but I prefer you someplace with lots of people and surveillance cameras. And anyway…you can’t keep living in that awful apartment building.”

  “Excuse me?” He can’t just make the decision for me like that. I have a say. And who is he to decide what’s good enough?

  “Trust me. You’ll be comfortable here.” His tone is verging on supplication. “And if you wanted stuff from your apartment, you should have asked me. I would have gone and gotten whatever you needed.”

  The idea of him going through the mess in my apartment fills me with panic. Besides, I don’t have any “stuff.” Everything I have is with me, in my backpack, and I tell him so, no longer caring if he’s judging me. But he only looks relieved.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask as we cross the parking lot. “I mean, really.”

  He half turns to me, but I can’t see his eyes through the inky shadow that falls over them. “Maybe I’m just trying to make it up to you. However I can.”

  “You don’t have to do that. You never did anything—”

  “That’s precisely the problem.”

  I’m still unsteady on my feet, but I follow him into the lobby. He’s right, the place isn’t exactly luxurious, a cheap hotel, a generic version of a Best Western. It reminds me of the loony bin, except everything is beige instead of mint green. The wall-to-wall carpeting muffles our steps, and through the haze of the pills, it’s like I’m walking on clouds. Like I might fall through any moment.

  Sean checks me in. I note that he takes two key cards, hands me one and puts the other in his jacket pocket. A part of me is ruf
fled, another part is ashamed.

  He walks me up to the room and lets me swipe the card in the slot. Behind the door is a small suite, only one room opening into a small kitchen. A flower-print bedspread is smoothed over the modest double bed. I bounce on it—the sheets have a faint antiseptic smell about them.

  It makes me think of powder-blue gowns and needles and loneliness.

  “You’ll be safer here,” Sean says softly.

  I don’t think I’ll be safer here. Maybe from some nameless, faceless intruder, sure. Except the things I need to be safe from are inside my own head. But after all the shitty things I’ve already said and done, I don’t want to add to them, so I strain to smile. “Thank you. It’s nice.”

  I try not to think of the inevitable. That he’s going to go now and leave me here. Alone. As he starts toward the door, I reach out and catch the sleeve of his jacket. My fingertips brush against the wool, soft and smooth, but I drop my hand at my side. We both freeze, startled by the unexpected physical contact.

  “If anything is wrong…or if you just need to talk to someone, you know you can always call me, right?”

  His eyes soften, and I try to memorize that look, the rare glimpse of the way he probably is outside of work. The him I will most likely never know.

  “Can’t you not go? Just for a little while.”

  “I have to.”

  “It’s late.”

  “I’m afraid finding missing people is a twenty-four-hour kind of gig.” But the hint of a smile in the corner of his lips is warm. I can’t help myself: I get up and take a step toward him, self-conscious and aware, like I’m inching closer and closer to a precipice and the vertigo is setting in, but the morbid curiosity is stronger. What will I see if I peer over the edge? How much can I handle without being overwhelmed and succumbing to the pull of emptiness?

  “I wish there was something more I could do,” I say, aware that my words fall flat. Isn’t that what everyone says? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say? And in the movies, it’s always the bad guy who says that sort of thing. My face warms. “Listen,” I say, dismayed at the hoarseness in my voice, “I’m sorry. About what happened at the press conference, and everything else. You just have to believe me. I’m not a bad person. I just never had a chance.”

  “I know that. I never thought you were a bad person. I think you have a good heart, or we wouldn’t even be here.”

  If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be here for sure. If I’d remembered—something—anything, then…

  “I don’t mean it like that.” He takes hold of my chin with just his fingertips and tilts my face up so I look into his eyes. I feel small and fully at his mercy, but somehow it’s not bad. “You can’t help but leave a mark on people’s lives. We all do.”

  Sometimes more than their lives, I think, and my mind goes to my wrists, covered safely by my long sleeves. I think about Olivia, and then about my mother, about blood filling my hand and making my grip slick and sticky at the same time. The thought doesn’t last more than a fraction of a second, but it’s enough to make me shiver, and he notices. He notices everything.

  “I’ve barely been able to leave a mark on my own life,” I say. He’s so close it’s dizzying. “Let alone anyone else’s. I’ve never felt like I was in control of anything. Not before and not after. Never. Like it just wasn’t in the cards for me, you know?”

  “That’s not true,” he says, and that, too, is the kind of thing you’re supposed to say.

  “It is true. For my captor, I was just a fulfilment of some sick fantasy, and then for the Shaws, the source of a baby they could adopt and pass for their own. I couldn’t even die when I was supposed to,” I blurt, and wish I could take it back because the look on his face is that of heartbreak. But it’s too late—the words can’t be stopped. “Sometimes I think that’s why I live like this. I’ve never even decorated any place I lived in because I can’t shake the feeling that it’s all just a temporary layover. Until the next bad thing happens, or until I die.”

  “There will be no next bad thing,” he says. “And you’re not going to die. Not until you’re old and decrepit anyway.”

  I can’t help it—a little giggle escapes me. And that’s when he leans in and his lips touch mine, careful but not hesitant, almost chaste. It lasts for less than a second, but when he pulls away, the wind has been knocked out of me, like I forgot to breathe for a full hour.

  He traces my jaw, from earlobe to the tip of my chin, in a gesture that could be friendly, or tender, or even loving, if that’s how I chose to see it.

  “I have to go,” he’s saying. “You’ll call me if you need anything, right?”

  I make myself nod, not trusting myself to speak. Only when he’s in the doorway do I spontaneously step forward. “I’ll do it,” I blurt. “I’ll revisit my testimony. I’ll do anything you need.”

  As the door closes behind him, I wonder if I just gave him exactly what he was aiming for.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “So you don’t know where you were held?”

  “No.”

  “If you had to guess?”

  “I have no idea. There were no windows. It was a basement, concrete.”

  “What else was in the basement?”

  “Pipes. Rusted metal pipes under the ceiling. And by the wall. There was a heater but it never worked.”

  “That’s where he tied you.”

  “Yes.”

  I blink my dry eyes. I’ve swallowed a handful of Dilaudid in the precinct’s bathroom, and it’s making me drowsy as fuck.

  It might also be the only thing that keeps me from keeling over and puking my guts out all over this man’s shiny shoes.

  “He used rope?”

  “Yes.”

  “No chains? No handcuffs?”

  “No. Rope. Always the same rope.” Rust-colored stains seeped into the fibers, even before the rope rubbed my wrists and ankles bloody. It never occurred to me then to wonder who wore it before me.

  Now I wonder who’s looking at my decade-old bloodstains right now, without knowing.

  And I didn’t take nearly enough Dilaudid for that.

  “Did you see what he looked like?”

  A shake of my head.

  “Ms. Moreno.”

  It’s Santos. Ella Santos.

  “No. He wore a mask.” My lips shape themselves around the words more than ten years old. Not a syllable has changed. But here we are again.

  “A mask.”

  “Leather. Black. I couldn’t see his face. A net where his eyes were supposed to be, and over his mouth.”

  “Did you see anything? What was his hair like?”

  “I didn’t see it. The mask covered his whole head.”

  “Could you pick him out of a lineup?”

  “I just said I never saw his face.”

  “Never once.”

  “Never once.” I feel a rush of vindictiveness and push myself halfway up from my ugly plastic chair. “He usually made me lie facedown on the floor. You know, when he raped me.”

  I watch his expression hungrily for a grimace, for any trace of a reaction. But his gaze remains steely. He’s in his sixties, one of those men with a hairless scalp that became shiny with the years. The lights bounce off it.

  I bet he’s seen worse than me.

  I throw a glance at the two-way mirror, as if I just now remembered that Sean is behind it and he can see and hear every word too. I gnaw on the lining of my lower lip. Shit.

  “What about his voice. He never spoke to you.” He has that way of asking questions, no intonation. Statements of fact. Which they are. I repeated them often enough.

  “Rarely. Only at first. When I still tried to fight back.”

  “Could you describe his voice?”

  “The mask distorted it.”

  “It can’t have distorted it that much.” Tension rises in his voice. He shifts, making his chair creak. “Gravelly? Deep? Nasal? Describe what pops into your head.”<
br />
  What pops into my head?

  The concrete scrapes my cheek. He’s shoving my face into the floor like he’s trying to crush my head. I hear as much as feel him fumbling, the hiss of a zipper. There are fingers, shoving, pushing. Something tears, and I scream into the cloth he stuffed into my mouth. Pressure, more pain. I think I’m going to die; I pray to God or whatever is out there to just make my heart stop.

  Please.

  Please let me die.

  “I don’t know.”

  The detective’s face comes into focus. I blink, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Did I black out from all the Dilaudid? Did he figure out I’m high as a kite? Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  The door bursts open, and Sean storms in. He pauses between me and the man, shielding me with his body. “I think that’s enough.”

  “She hasn’t told me anything I don’t already have in here.” The man taps the black screen of a tablet with a bony finger.

  That’s because there’s nothing to tell, asshole.

  “That’s it. We’re done here.” Instinctively, Sean reaches out and takes my hand to help me get up. We both realize it simultaneously, but he doesn’t let go.

  “I’m going to take her home now.”

  Home never sounded like a better idea. My eyelids are lead heavy and my tongue scrapes against my palate like sandpaper. All I can think of is how soon I can lie down and sleep off those pills.

  I follow Sean out without another word. Outside, I gulp air as I pat down my pockets in search of my cigarette pack. My hands are numb like I fell asleep on them, my fingers slow and useless lumps of meat and bone.

  Sean sighs, reaches into his coat, and takes out a pack of Peter Jacksons. Holds it out to me.

  I look up at him quizzically.

  “I know, I know, all right? I think we both need it, so just take one.”