Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(31)

“You’re the good girl. The quiet one. The do-gooder. What’s there not to know?”

Reverse psychology. It’s clumsy and stupid, but when her eyes meet mine, I think maybe it’s not so stupid.

“Perfect Ms. Winslow,” I taunt.

“Maybe you’re not the only killer in this truck. How about that?”

I snort. “Did you forget to feed your goldfish one time?”

Abby stares out at the taillights of the car up in the distance, thoughts heavy, lips zipped. Yeah, I know how to wait.

I look back at the road. Back in the foster home, I forgot to feed my two goldfish once and they died. I cried like a baby, and I felt like shit for weeks.

After I got taken, sitting down in that basement in my corner by the metal locker, I’d be scratching designs on the floor with a nail while Stone and the older guys played cards or whatever and I’d think about those fish and I’d still feel like shit. But then we’d hear the footsteps up at the door, and if it wasn’t mealtime, we knew they’d be dragging one or two of us up there.

Or worse, the sound of Dorman’s car outside the window, because that would mean me getting called, and the whole thing would start—making you eat the drugged candy, and then they put you in the creepy outfits—sailor suits and short pants and shit. And I’d think about those goldfish, seeing nothing and feeling nothing with their huge dead eyes, and be all jealous. Like a f*cking idiot, jealous of some dead goldfish. Floating around above that stupid little castle I once saved my pennies to buy back when I was a free kid.

I glance at the dashboard clock. It’s been an hour since we cut the driver loose. I’d meant to switch vehicles by now, but she’s got something on her mind, and she wants to spill. Abby’s eyebrows move inward a tiny bit when she has something to tell. She used to do that in class too. The guys never noticed that, and they’d talk when she had that expression, but I never did. I care about what the f*ck she has to say.

Right at the point where I think maybe she changed her mind about what she needed to tell, she says, “I let a man die.” Her voice gets a little gravelly as she continues. “I stood there and watched him.”

I should keep my eyes on the road, but I’m riveted—to her hate. Her beauty. Her total powerlessness with me. And now she’s telling me a secret.

“He was in a drug overdose,” she continues. “Foaming, the whole bit. My mom told me to call 9-1-1. Paramedics could’ve saved him. It wasn’t too late, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say, but I know she doesn’t hear. The look on her face tells me she’s back there. It’s a look I know real well, having been in prison, a place filled with guys who spend half their time back there. I need her to continue now more than I need my next breath. I look at the darkness beyond our headlights and glance back. “And you refused.”

“No. I grabbed the phone like a good girl.” Her voice is trancelike. “I tried so hard. I always did.” She pauses. “I really did.” She seems badly to want me to believe it.

“Of course. Kids want to be good,” I say, not sure where that came from or even if I believe it, but I’m desperate for her to continue, and she does.

“I punched three numbers. Just not 9-1-1. It was 4-1-1. She made me call because she didn’t want them to know she was there. She goes, ‘Don’t say I’m here. It’s just you, Ab.’”

Ab. It’s no kind of name. I resolve never to call her Ab.

“And I talked into the phone.” She demonstrates, putting her fist to the side of snarly hair, eyes wild. “We need an ambulance—hurry!” she pleads. “My stepfather—he’s not breathing. W-what?” Her voice gets small, scared. “At 247 Larkin. Hurry. Uh—he overdosed on drugs! He has spit on his lips. Kind of gurgling.” She widens her eyes, gets on this mask of panic to match her voice that does something funny to my chest. “He is on his side! No, he is… I don’t know. Make sure his mouth is open?” She eyes me, nodding urgently, just as she must have done to her piece-of-shit mother. “His mouth!”

Chills run up and down my spine.

“Okay!” she says. And then, “He sounds weird! It’s not right! He’s still not right!” She spins her voice even higher. “Wait. Hold on! No, just hurry!”

She pulls her fist from the side of her head and thrusts it in her lap, suggesting she’d simply hung up at that point. The pretend 9-1-1-call she never made. She straightens out, face sphinxlike. “My mom was hysterical. She had to snort a little brown just to even out enough to get out the back door for the afternoon.”

“And you stayed and watched him die.”

“He took a long time. Or I don’t know, maybe it seemed like that. It was the day before I turned eleven. I remember because I thought…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. A birthday wish that never materialized. “The sounds… His body just really wanted air. Rattling, but kind of like a baby animal crying. I sat far across the room, and it was like he knew I was there and he knew what I was doing, but he couldn’t get to me. He just sat there making those sounds.”

“You couldn’t risk him staying alive.”

After a long time she says, matter-of-factly, “He was killing her.”

I nod. Thumping on the mom, feeding her drugs, maybe whoring her. “You couldn’t risk it, then. That’s obvious.”