Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(101)

“How was Martin with the baby?”

“Awful,” Amy replied. “He became so much worse. Gideon wasn’t a happy baby. He cried constantly. Martin refused to get me anything I asked for, anything that might help. Things I saw in commercials or on morning shows. Martin never touched him, only me. I knew if I didn’t get away, he would kill me. When I left Gideon with him, I didn’t think he would ever hurt him. He took more of an interest in him when he got older and cried less. I know it sounds absurd, but I was just a kid. A really stupid kid.”

“You got out. Why not just go to the police?”

“And tell them what? I couldn’t even remember my old name. Well, I knew my first name was Penny. But that was it. He told me my mother was dead at some point. I had no reason not to believe him. She’d already nearly died several times before that. It wasn’t a stretch to believe she had overdosed for good. Besides, I didn’t want to be that girl: the abducted girl, raped for years on end, who had a baby in captivity. My face plastered over every magazine and newspaper in the country. Returned to a family who had wanted nothing to do with me my entire life, who didn’t care that my mom was a drug addict or that I had gone missing. I went with him. Do you understand? I went with him. He used to tell me that I couldn’t go to the police because I went willingly, that I let him do all those things to me. I thought the police would blame me. I was so stupid, it never occurred to me that he would be in trouble. He must have been pretty sure of himself—you know, that I wouldn’t tell—because I don’t think he ever tried to come after me or find me.”

“He manipulated you,” Josie said. “Just like Gideon and Natalie Oliver manipulated Lucy. That’s what people like Martin do.”

“But it worked. I knew it was wrong to leave my mother, but I went anyway. I was so stupid. I just wanted to go on an adventure. I wanted to be with Martin because I was never hungry when I was with him.”

“You were a child.”

“Yes,” Amy sighed, eyes turned toward the window. There was a resignation in her voice. “I was a child. But what happened to me—it happened to me. Then I was an adult, and I wanted to start over.”

“How did you know what to do?” Josie asked.

Amy laughed. “I didn’t. I hitchhiked out of Buffalo—only taking rides from women. Someone dropped me off in Fulton. There was a laundromat there that was open twenty-four hours. It was warm and no one bothered me. I walked around during the day and at night, I slept there. That’s where I met Amy. She used to bring her washing there. I think she felt sorry for me. She gave me some clothes. Eventually, she took me home with her. Dorothy took one look at me and said I’d always have a home with her. She was so kind to me. So were Amy and her younger sister. Only Renita didn’t like me. But it was wonderful. Then the car accident happened. I was devastated. I loved Dorothy like a mother. Everything I know about being a mother, I learned from her.”

Josie felt sadness sweep over her. Amy had had a few months with the woman. That was the extent of her knowledge of parenting. At least Josie had had her grandmother as a stable loving force her entire life to offset the horrors she had endured.

Amy continued, “I knew Renita wouldn’t let me stay. I was packing my things—I stayed in Amy’s room with her. Renita was at the funeral home. A police officer stopped by with some personal effects they’d taken from the car. Amy’s driver’s license was in there. It was a spur of the moment decision. I took it and left before Renita came home. I took the cash from Dorothy’s wallet—that was also with the personal effects— and I took a bus to New York City. By then, I had learned enough to survive. I found a shelter and stayed there until I made enough working odd jobs to get an apartment with a couple of other girls. I was Amy Walsh. I even used her high school transcripts to get into Denton University. No one ever asked any questions. Until Lucy disappeared.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Gideon?” Josie asked.

“I never thought even for a moment that he was behind this.”

“Did you ever look him up?”

Amy shook her head. She reached over to the side table, grimacing in pain, and snagged a tissue. She dabbed tears beneath her eyes. “I only ever looked Martin up to see if he was still alive. It wasn’t until he passed away a couple of years ago—I found his obituary—that I finally felt free. The obituary didn’t say anything about Gideon. I thought… I thought he was dead, too, but I couldn’t find anything online. But I didn’t look that hard, to be honest. I wanted that part of my life to be over. I never thought it would come at such a high price. I’m so sorry.”

Josie thought about the lives lost, sadness weighing her down. As if reading her thoughts, Amy said, “I will live with the guilt of what I did and what Gideon did for the rest of my life.”

Josie nodded, unable to speak. She couldn’t help but wonder if any lives could have been preserved had Amy been completely honest with them from the very beginning. Josie knew it wasn’t her job to judge Amy. Her job had been to bring Lucy home, and she had done it. She hadn’t walked in the shoes of Penny Knight or Tessa Lendhardt or even Amy Ross. It wasn’t her place to second-guess Amy’s life choices, and it wasn’t worth wondering what might have been. They all had to live with the aftermath of what had actually happened.