When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(19)

Flora and Keith nodded at her.

“I still want to go into the woods tomorrow,” Flora said quietly.

“Why?”

“I just . . . I need to see. I need to know.”

“Torturing yourself doesn’t accomplish our mission, Flora.”

“I know. But I keep thinking about what Dr. Jackson said. All children just want to go home. If I could find anything, even a single rib, bring that piece of her home . . .” Flora stared at the table. “I need this.”

“Okay. Tomorrow we play with the taskforce. Then—”

“We go rogue!” Keith burst out.

D.D. stared at him. “You are entirely too excited about that.”

He smiled. “It’s the company I keep.” Then he flickered another glance at Flora that made D.D. shake her head.





CHAPTER 8





THE MOTION CATCHES MY EYE. Furtive movements. Someone trying to do something unseen. I can’t help but glance over.

Immediately, the girl glares at me.

She has a small paring knife tucked against the skirt of her uniform. At her scowl, I quickly look away. At the opposite end of the kitchen, Cook bustles away, pulling trays of food out of the fridge to prep dinner. Soon I will begin my kitchen duties: fetch this, tend to that. Right now, I finish pulling scalding hot plates from the still-moving conveyor belt of the commercial-grade dishwasher. You must unload quickly, before the plates reach the end and crash to the floor. In the beginning, the steaming dishes would burn my fingers and I would slow from the pain. Then things would break, earning me even greater punishment. Now, after all these years, I don’t feel the heat.

The girl wanders over, trying too hard to look innocent. Cook glances up. I want to shake my head at the girl, tell her to stop, but that will only call more attention. Instead, I focus on my work, the row of shiny white plates, lined up on their edges, marching toward me.

“You saw nothing,” the girl hisses in my ear as she wanders by. She sounds cruel, but I understand. She is very beautiful. With smooth almond skin and thick black hair. This life, these people . . . beautiful only makes things worse.

Cook is watching both of us. The help aren’t supposed to converse. Then again, it’s me. How much conversing can a Dumb Girl do?

I want to tell this girl to put the knife away. I want to describe to her the first time I managed to sneak a knife out of the kitchen. How the Bad Man found it and took it from me. I thought I would inflict some damage, or at least go down fighting. Instead, in the blink of an eye, the butter knife had gone from my hand to his. I never even saw him move. So much effort and risk on my part. Preparing myself mentally, determining how to sneak a knife out of the kitchen, starting to plot the next stage of my escape.

Then the Bad Man was standing in my doorway.

And a moment later . . .

It was done. Just like that. I don’t know if I even opened my mouth to grunt a protest. One minute I thought I was so smart. The next . . .

Sometimes, I think the Bad Man knows things before we do. Like he’s not human. This is why I need my name. So my mother’s love can help me, because surely nothing on this mortal earth can defeat a man who moves like smoke and punishes like an anvil.

That day, the Bad Man had pulled out his own weapon from the sheath of his boot. Not a butter knife at all, but a hunting knife: smooth on one side, serrated on the other.

I remember staring in mute horror as he took my hand and gently extended my arm toward him. Then, using his blade, he started to draw on the clean brown skin of my forearm. Blood welling up, forming fine red lines while I hissed and trembled and did everything in my power not to flinch. His knife carved sinuous patterns into my flesh. Mesmerizing. Beautiful, even.

We both stared. Bound by the winding forms and the knowledge that if I jerked away, that sharp ugly blade would gouge into my arm, sever my arteries, and destroy the first pretty thing about me.

Later, he said I should thank him for turning my arm into a work of art.

I wear long sleeves now. But at night, I still trace the ridged lines. And right or wrong, I can’t help but admire the pattern. I am a Dumb Girl with a shattered temple, scarred hairline, and distorted eye. There’s nothing attractive about me. Except for the intricate scrollwork on my right forearm, a road map of his power and my pain.

Now this beautiful girl with her big dark eyes . . . He won’t make her pretty. He’ll carve away an ear. Take an eye. Draw a crude V down her cheek or create thick ridges in her neck. He’ll steal her loveliness from her. I’ve seen him do it, heard the girls scream, caught the evidence of his handiwork later, walking slowly, brokenly down the halls.

Cook lets me wash the knives unsupervised now. She knows I’m defeated. She knows there’s nothing to fear from a weak, brain-damaged thing like me.

But I can’t tell my story, deliver these warnings to the girl, standing here.

Instead, I risk a single look under my lashes. I try to beam out: “I know. I’m afraid, too. You’re not alone.”

And just for a moment, the beautiful girl falters.

She will die tonight. We both know it. The stolen knife is too little, too late. Not a last stand, but an admission that all is lost. Sometimes fear is like that: It leaves you with nothing but the desire for it to be done.

The girl is trembling now. My eyes have said too much. She crosses herself, and from across the room, Cook barks, “You two! Back to work.”