Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(39)

“Flash cutting,” Josie said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s called flash cutting. In movies. I dated a pretty serious film student in college. What you’re describing, it’s a form of film editing.” Josie could remember the boy vividly. She’d been enamored by his creativity but tired after she’d had to sit through film after boring film, pausing to discuss what clever thing the filmmaker, director or editing team had done and the overall quality of the film.

Ginger smiled at her. A genuine smile. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Josie said. “It’s a real thing. So, tell me about your flashes. What did you see?”

“It’s so hard to piece them together, you know, in order.”

“Then don’t,” Josie told her. “Don’t try to put them in order, just talk about them as they come to mind.”

Another smile, this one both genuine and full of trepidation. Marlowe lumbered to a standing position, turned in a circle and placed his head in Ginger’s lap. She cradled his large, droopy face in her hands. Stroking the sides of his face with her thumbs, she spoke quietly. “I was walking through a wooded area—not walking, being marched. I could see my hands in front of me. They were tied together with plastic zip ties. There was nothing but trees. Not even a real path. Then this rock—it looked like the shadow of a man standing there. Well, not standing so much as leaning against the rock face. I thought it was a real man until we passed it and realized it was just the way the rocks looked from far away.”

Something about this sounded familiar to Josie, but there were strange rock formations all over the forests of Alcott County—and beyond. They were like clouds; the more you looked at rocks, the more shapes you could identify.

“Then it ends,” Ginger said. “Then I have flashes of men. Not faces, just men. Two-to three-second flashes of feeling hands on my body, seeing them on top of me, feeling them doing things to me. I think I was raped. Well, I know I was. They did a rape kit at the hospital after they found me. There was evidence there—evidence of… other men… more than one. Ed said they also found drugs in my system which would account for how disoriented I felt. That’s why Ed and I were so furious when they said the whole thing was a hoax. I guess they thought I just went out and found a bunch of men to sleep with.”

Marlowe whined again as Ginger’s fingers massaged the fur behind his ears. She looked like she might cry. “Those flashes are dark. All the rest is dark. I have this recurring feeling of waking up, feeling truly awake but being in total darkness, panicking, feeling my way around some kind of box. A black box. It’s so hazy though. Like I was drunk, or sick. Tired all the time and achy. Then the next thing I know, I’m lying on the side of the highway, and it was so bright I thought I had gone blind.”

“The news reports said you were tied up.”

Ginger nodded. “They practically mummified me in duct tape.” She motioned toward her chest. “My whole upper body, but left my legs free. That was the other reason we were so angry when they said it was all a hoax. I mean, how could I have done that to myself?”

“Who said it was a hoax?”

“It was that district attorney investigator they appointed. There were some jurisdictional issues because I was found in Denton, but on the interstate which was state police territory. Ed talked to everyone involved. They all said there wasn’t anything to go on.”

Josie’s brow furrowed. “But it’s a big leap from nothing to go on, to hoax.”

“Yes, it is. After several months, the district attorney’s investigator issued a report saying there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest that anything criminal had happened at all. Immediately, the press started calling it a hoax. That was a much more interesting story than me being abducted and raped.”

She closed her eyes. Josie saw a slight tremble in her lips. “It ruined our lives,” she said finally, opening her eyes to let tears spill onto her cheeks. “People we had been friends with our whole entire lives turned on us. Neighbors, friends. We weren’t welcome in our church anymore. People called me a whore, a liar. Our girls were teased at school. Ed lost his job. It was just unbelievable. That Trinity—she was the only reporter who believed we were telling the truth. Ed talked to her a lot. She did a piece about why it couldn’t possibly be a hoax, but her producers wouldn’t air it. People aren’t interested in the truth, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry,” Josie said.

Ginger gave her a wan smile. “Ed talked to a lawyer. He wanted to sue the DA’s office for defamation of character or something like that. The attorney said it would be a tough case to prove. Everything that we thought made it obvious that it was not a scam could be explained away. The results of the rape kit? I went out on a three-week bender and slept with a bunch of men. The duct tape? They’d say that Ed helped me do it.”

“My God.”

“Yeah, we were helpless. Powerless. I think that was worse than anything that happened to me in those three weeks. I don’t really know what happened to me, I can’t remember. But what happened to us when I was released, it was hands down the worst experience of our lives. We knew we had to move. Then Ed suggested changing our names. A fresh start. That has its issues as well, but all in all I think it was a good decision.” She lifted a hand from Marlowe’s head and waved it, indicating the room around them. “We’re doing pretty well, I think.”