Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(75)

When he says you’re his favorite, and he never meant to keep you alive this long, but somehow you’ve grown on him. You’re special. Worthy. Maybe even the one woman who could finally make him happy . . .

You believe that too.

And this girl? Huddled away across the room from me in the dark. Has she also been shut up in a box? Has she also endured hours, if not days, on end of her own pathetic company? Until she too would’ve sold her very soul just to get out.

I can’t trust her. That’s the problem with girls who were once trapped in coffin-size boxes.

Just ask Jacob. You can’t trust any of us.

I scrub at my face with my bound hands. I can’t keep doing this, I think, rocking back and forth. I was stupid for trying to find Stacey Summers, for arrogantly thinking I could take on the big bads of the world. I was misguided. I was . . . I don’t know. Everything my mom and Samuel accused me of. And now, I see the light. I repent. I just want out of this godforsaken pitch-black room. I just want to return to my apartment and resume normal life again.

Except, of course, I’ve never figured out how to do normal. How to settle for everyday routine.

I’m not okay. I’m not okay, I’m not okay, I’m not okay.

“Why?”

The girl speaks. The sound of her voice, so unexpected in the dark, shocks me into paying attention. I wait, ears attuned.

“Why?” she whispers again. “Why, why, why?”

I wonder if what she means to ask is, why me?

I unloop my arms from my knees. One last scrub of my cheeks. One last sniff.

I pull myself together.

I have a headache. That’s real enough. My head feels fuzzy and my body lethargic. I wonder once again about drugs. Misted into the air, injected into the water bottle? I can’t smell or taste anything, but I definitely don’t feel like myself. Of course, trauma can do that to you.

But I’m functional. I can sit, I can stand, I can move. Time to do something.

“We need to get out of here,” I say out loud. I sound hoarse. Raw. And determined. Almost like a woman who knows what she’s doing.

The girl doesn’t reply.

I rise to my feet, shuffle forward to the wall where I know the door is. This time, feeling around with my fingertips, I can easily determine its edges. The door opens out—that’s my memory. The door opening out, the silhouetted form stepping in, then myself lunging forward with my wooden dagger.

I push against it now and feel it give slightly.

I stop, stunned by this development. Surely my mind is playing tricks on me. And yet, another experimental push. The door jiggles. It’s closed, I realize, but maybe not locked tight. Ordinarily, you’d simply turn the handle, retracting the latch from the hole in the strike plate, and voilà, open sesame. Except in this case . . . I blink my eyes several times, contemplating options. On this side of the door, there’s no knob to turn. But if I could find a way to suppress the latch, say, shimmy in a sliver of wood? I might get lucky.

Of course, I need a piece of wood. I think there might be one more tucked in the mattress. I can’t remember. My thoughts are muddled. Stress. Fatigue.

The presence of a girl named Molly.

No choice. I have to do this.

I retreat from the secret door, crawling toward the mattress.

I don’t know what to say. Everything will be okay? So sorry to have stabbed you? Who the hell are you anyway?

What I manage is: “Hey.”

She whimpers.

I don’t want to know her name, I decide. I’m not having that conversation. Instead, it’s time to get practical.

“Do you know where we are?”

Fresh whimper.

“Is this room part of a house? Are we on the first floor, second floor?”

More whimpering.

I can’t take it anymore. I sit back on my heels, inches from the mattress, and make my voice as hard as possible. “Hey! We need to get out of here. You need medical attention. Now start talking. Where the hell are we?”

She doesn’t whimper this time. More like a shaky inhale. Then, just when I’m wondering if I’m going to have to slap her or something, she whispers: “Why-why-why are you making me do this?”

I keep my voice firm. “Which floor are we on? Which level of the building?”

“I don’t know. Why—”

“Were you kept in a room?” I interrupt. “Something like this one?” Or maybe exactly this one, as the previous occupant.

I can hear a shuddering exhale.

“How long have you been here?” I don’t mean to ask that question. It’s not relevant. But I can’t help myself.

She doesn’t answer, and a second later, I realize she probably can’t. Certainly, I’m already confused on timeline, disoriented by the lack of light.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” I ask instead.

“Dancing.”

“You were at a bar, a nightclub? In Boston?”

It takes her a bit, but finally, “Y-y-yes.”

“Did you drink too much?”

A small hiccup I take to be yes. Kids, I think. We’re all so young and fearless once. Nightclubs are nothing but a source of adventure. And a fourth, fifth, sixth rum runner the best idea in the world.

I hated myself for my own stupidity, waking up in a coffin-size box. Minute after minute, day after day, so much time to do nothing but repent.