Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(41)

Elsa is watching, tears in her eyes further smudging the makeup she never had a chance to remove. Once they’d decided they were going, she threw some things into a couple of bags, hurriedly changed into jeans, and they were on their way.

It’s unnerving, seeing her looking so haggard. He can’t help but flash back to the old days, after Jeremy, before Renny, when it was all Elsa could do to wake up in the morning…

“All a-bo-ard!” the conductor calls from his perch in the open door as the train rolls to a stop.

Elsa grips Renny’s hand and walks her toward the door. Brett picks up their luggage and follows, looking around to make sure no last-minute passengers have shown up. Coast is clear: The businessman and the older woman are boarding a few cars down.

The conductor takes the bags from Brett, greeting Renny with a jovial “Hello, there, young lady! Ready to go for a ride?”

Suddenly, Renny looks uncertain.

Brett’s heart sinks. She’s so small standing there, dwarfed by the conductor, the train, even the luggage.

“I don’t want to go!” She shakes her head, holding back.

Elsa tries to coax her, which only makes her dig in her heels, starting to cry. “I want Daddy to come, too!”

Brett pastes a reassuring smile on his face, tells her they’ll see each other again before they know it.

“Come on, Renny.” Elsa reaches for their daughter, her eyes meeting Brett’s. Seeing tears in them, he opens his mouth to tell her not to go. But then Renny is in Elsa’s arms, squirming and crying, and it’s too late: the two of them disappear onto the train, the doors close, and the train chugs away, leaving him alone on the platform.

He wipes his own eyes on the sleeve of the dress shirt he’s been wearing since yesterday morning. This is unbelievable. Did he really just ship his family out of town?

Pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he walks toward the steps, he pulls up his address book and presses the entry that bears Mike’s phone number.



Papa was an American businessman in Mumbai—then known as Bombay—or so he told everyone who asked. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn’t.

Jeremy probably didn’t ask. Mercifully, he doesn’t remember much about that time.

He does recall how relieved he was initially, after living on the streets, to wear clean clothes, and eat hot food, and sleep in a hotel bed—with Papa, who promised to get Jeremy home to his parents as soon as he could. And so Jeremy endured the nights in his bed, and the beatings that came whenever Papa didn’t like something Jeremy did or said.

After a while, there was a long, long airplane ride. He remembers that part clearly: it was terribly bumpy. Things were falling from the overhead bins and people were praying and the woman across the aisle threw up. Jeremy was afraid, clutching his Spider-Man with one hand and the seat arm with the other, until Papa pried his fingers loose and held his hand tightly.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Nothing bad is going to happen. We’re going home.”

It was a lie, of course—though not, perhaps, in Papa’s twisted mind.

Jeremy was still angry with Papa for all the things he’d done to him. Yet he found himself clasping Papa’s hand anyway, glad he wasn’t alone on that scary plane ride.

“I’ll take care of you,” Papa promised. “No matter what.”

And he did. When they landed, Papa bought Jeremy some food at the airport: a cheeseburger in a paper wrapper, French fries in a cardboard carton, a milk shake in a paper cup with a plastic lid and a straw.

Even then, even after all he’d been through, Jeremy recognized that the food was American. He knew he was home, and he was grateful to Papa for getting him there at last.

Papa put Jeremy into a car and drove out onto a highway. After a while, he glimpsed the ocean from the car window. The smell of salt air and the screech of gulls were familiar, and he knew for sure that his house was nearby.

Now, of course, he understands that it wasn’t the Atlantic Ocean, but the Pacific—three thousand miles away from the seaside town where he’d been raised before the kidnapping.

When Papa pulled into a driveway and said, “Here we are, home sweet home,” Jeremy was taken aback. He didn’t recognize the house at all, and he started to cry.

Papa beat him for that.

Later, Papa showed Jeremy around and told him he would have his own bedroom. He even let Jeremy pick out the comforter from a catalog, and some toys and books for the shelves—but he never, ever let him sleep in his room.

No, Jeremy was forced to sleep with Papa every night, in a room where the shades were always down, even during the day; a room where terrible things happened to Jeremy. Things he didn’t understand, back then.

Now, years later, he grasps what happened to him. Now he knows all about abuse, and pedophilia, and the Stockholm syndrome: the psychological phenomenon in which kidnap victims develop benevolent feelings for their captors. He knows that he did what he had to, and he shouldn’t blame himself, and he doesn’t.

Papa was a sick and dangerous man. And Jeremy’s path never would have crossed his if not for them.

Elsa…

Marin…

Face it, Jeremy. They let you down.

The more he hears those words—spoken aloud, or echoing in his own head—the easier it is to believe them…whether he wants to, or not.