In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(85)

And they had been horrors. Times ten.

And just as with her sister, there was nothing Tracy could do about what had happened to Lindsay Sheppard. She couldn’t change the past. Lindsay had gone from a drug-addicted home into the depths of hell. She couldn’t change that. But maybe she could make sure Stephanie Cole didn’t suffer the same fate. If she wasn’t already too late.

“In high school, Ed started to lock me in the basement for periods of time. Evan would sneak down with board games and a deck of cards. No one else ever knew. Carol Lynn bought them for him, but no one ever played with him, or taught him how to play. I taught him. At first, it was because I loved him for his simplicity and his sweetness in a house that had none. We’d play those games for hours, until his mother or father called him upstairs.”

“The mother knew what happened in the basement,” Tracy said.

Lindsay nodded. “She knew. Ed used to beat on her too. She was as afraid of him as I was. He threatened her, and he threatened me. He said if I told anyone, if I said anything, he’d make it bad for me, and he’d make it bad for Carol Lynn and for Evan. He said he’d kill me and bury me in the cellar, with the others.”

“There were others?” Tracy said, feeling both sickened and angry.

“Ed said there were. He said they were women no one cared to look for, women who could just disappear and generate no interest, no concern. He said I’d be just like them. He’d tell anyone who came looking that I’d run away. He said no one would ever find my body; no one would give a shit to look for me. He said I’d just be gone.”

She smiled for the first time. “And that’s when I first got the idea of running. Getting away. Figured if I could, no one would come looking for me. That maybe Ed would just act like I had died.”

“How did you get out of the restraints?”

Her smile faded. “I didn’t want to use Evan. I didn’t want to take advantage of him the way everyone else did. They made him clean the house, do chores for them and others in the neighborhood, then they took the money he earned. But I also knew Evan was my only chance. He had a conscience and a soul the others didn’t have.” She took another sip from her straw. “It took months to convince Evan to take off the shackles around my legs. He was terrified of Ed, and Franklin too. Franklin had started to assert his dominance around the house. He was as big and as strong as Ed, more so. Ed stopped beating him because he had to.”

“How did you convince Evan to remove the shackles?”

“I made up a game. I made up the whole thing in my head, and I convinced Evan it was real. I used what had happened to me; I said the game had a dark castle with a dungeon where an evil king kept a princess captive. I said this king had two fire-breathing dragons who guarded the castle, but also a son, a prince, who was kind and gentle, and felt compassion for the people who lived in the village, but especially for the princess, Jessica. I said the prince wanted to help the princess because he loved her, but he feared the king and he feared his two dragons.”

“It’s brilliant,” Tracy said. She had a sense Lindsay was bright and resourceful, that under other circumstances she could have done almost anything she wanted with her life.

“Evan used to get so excited when I’d tell him.” A smile leaked onto Lindsay’s lips. “I told him he could never mention the game to anyone, not to Carol Lynn and especially not to his daddy or his brothers. I told him they would think it was a dumb thing to spend money on, and they would never let Evan buy the game. I told Evan I’d stop telling him about the game if he told them. As the weeks went on, I could see his desire to play the game growing stronger and his fear receding. When he asked how we could get the game, I said that I knew where to get it, but that we needed money. I told him that if he hid some of the money he earned for doing his chores around the neighborhood, maybe we could save enough to buy the game. Each week he’d tell me how much money he had hidden. After several months, he had sixty dollars. I told him it was enough to buy the game, but that we had another problem. No one in his family would ever drive him to buy it. I made it seem like an insurmountable problem, but I told him I’d try to come up with a plan to get the game. Each day he would ask me if I’d thought of something, and I kept telling him I hadn’t, which only made him more agitated and desperate. Finally, I told Evan I’d thought of a plan. I told him I could sneak out and buy the game while his father and brothers were at work. I told him I’d sneak it into the basement and hide it, and no one would ever know we had it except him and me.”

“And Evan removed the shackles,” Tracy said.

“And left the pantry door unbolted.”

“The pantry door?”

“It’s a false wall. Ed had the boys dig out the basement and reinforce the walls and ceiling. That’s where I was kept. That’s where Ed said the other women were buried.”

“What about the mother? Did she work?”

Lindsay shook her head. “She was a lot like Evan, I think. Maybe a little slow. I didn’t love her though. I hated her for not stopping what was happening. When I walked up the stairs and came through the door, Carol Lynn stood at the stove making coffee. When she saw me, she dropped the pot. She just stood there, staring at me, like I was a ghost, or like she knew this day would eventually come. I think she thought I was going to harm her, but I just wanted to get away before Ed killed me.”