Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(70)

His shadowy hand beckoned. “Come on, then,” he said.

“No.” Her voice sounded like a door creaking.

Gosnell’s black form moved closer. “What did you say to me, girl?”

She gathered what little saliva there was in her mouth, swallowed and said, “I said, NO.”

His laughter was like a foul smell filling up the tiny space. “Girls don’t say no to me, honey.”

He came at her then, faster and more agile than she anticipated. Or maybe she was just weaker and more dazed than she thought. She struck the soft flesh of his torso but it had no effect as he grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her out of the cell. The wound at the back of her head threatened to pull open and tear her scalp apart. She screamed in spite of herself, her feet scrambling to keep up with him. Outside the tiny cell, he tossed her and she landed on something high and soft. A bed, she realized once she had a chance to take in her surroundings—a king-sized, four-poster bed.

The room was large and oblong, with the bed taking up one corner of the rectangle. From it, Josie could see the entire length of the room. It was windowless and decorated like a living room; couches lined one wall with at least three small end tables, and small lamps sat on each, casting a soft, golden glow over the room. The floor was covered in an old brown shag carpet. Along the same wall as the bed, to her left, was a door slightly ajar, revealing a toilet and what looked like a shower curtain. A bathroom. The wall across from the couches held four doors, each one wallpapered in an outdated floral purple and white print to look as though it was part of the wall. Only the seams and the lever handles on each one gave them away. Mortise locks atop reinforced steel panels were affixed beside each door handle. Above them were sliding deadbolts.

Four doors.

Her heart stopped, beat twice, skipped and then kicked into overdrive. Four doors. That meant there could be four women there at any given time, possibly more if they were sharing cells. How many women had Gosnell kept over the years? How many women were here right now?

She blinked, trying to get the soft blur of the room to come into sharper focus. Gosnell was on the other end of the room, leaning over a small refrigerator that she hadn’t noticed. Next to it was a heavy exterior panel door. That must be the exit. On the other side of the fridge was a white cabinet with glass doors holding what looked like vials of medication and unused needles. The sedatives.

He turned and sauntered back to her, a beer can in his hand. He opened it with a snap that sounded oddly muted. There was a strange absence of sound in the place. As if every noise was instantly absorbed by the walls and the earth beyond it. No wonder her screams had been useless. As he came closer, into the circle of light cast by the bedside lamp, she saw just how dark and ugly his black eye was. It looked even worse than when she’d seen it on television.

“Did Isabelle Coleman do that to your eye?” she asked.

The leering smile playing on his face collapsed. Anger flared in his eyes. He took a long swig of beer and looked her over, as if deciding what he wanted to do to her first. She never felt such revulsion in her life. It was like a thousand insects trying to crawl out of her skin. He held the can of beer in one hand and, with the other, loosened the belt of his jeans. Did she have the strength and stamina to rush him? Her eyes panned the room again, looking for weapons. She could use one of the lamps, perhaps. They didn’t look heavy, but the cords could wrap around his disgusting fat neck. Gosnell was big though—husky and round and probably strong with it. She realized she would have to get him talking if she was going to have time to figure out just what the hell she was going to do, and how she was going to do it.

“Did Sherri watch?” she asked.

The fingers fumbling for his zipper paused. He smiled at her. “What?”

“Your wife. She helped you. Did she like it? She brought you the girls, right?”

“She brought me girls because that’s what I told her to do. She didn’t like to watch. I made her watch sometimes, but she didn’t like it. She knew better than to say anything. Sherri was a good girl.”

His hand moved away from his pants and motioned toward the wallpapered cell doors. “How about you? Do you like to watch?”

Her head turned in the direction of the doors. When she looked back at him, she noticed his face was flushed. He looked excited, hungry. He put his beer down and came to the foot of the bed. One of his hands touched her ankle, his fingers sliding under her pant leg to touch bare skin.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said, kicking at his hand.

He moved quickly for a large man, climbing onto the bed and straddling her. The weight of him on top of her crushed her hips. She tried to buck him off but she was too weak. He held her wrists in his hands, squeezing so hard she could feel them bruising.

“I said, don’t touch me,” she gasped.

“Nobody tells me what to do,” he said.

Get him to talk, a voice in her head commanded. Against every fiber in her body screaming to fight, she forced herself to relax a bit. He smiled down at her, his hands still gripping her wrists.

“I do whatever I want,” he said proudly. “Not just in here. Out there too. I never pay for anything anymore. Never get a speeding ticket. I punched some guy out in a bar last month and never even got arrested. Cops came and saw it was me and let me go.” He laughed. “Guy needed seven stitches in his face. Get my taxes done free. There’s one bar I drink at—always drink for free there. Everywhere I go, it’s like I’m a king.”