CHAPTER 30
Lily’s younger brother had been afraid of the dark when they were children. She’d mock him about it, call him a baby and a scaredy-cat. When their mother yelled at them to turn off the goddamn light and go to sleep, Lily would switch off the light and then start to hiss and growl like a monster until her brother would leap screaming out of the bed, only to be punished by their irate mom.
She wished she could go back in time and tell him that she understood now. That she finally realized the dark really was scary. Because when it was dark, really dark, you were left with only your imagination.
She moved her feet, trying to spot the movement, any movement at all, but she couldn’t. She wanted to wave her hands in front of her eyes—surely she would be able to see that. But her hands were twisted behind her back, the metal bite of handcuffs on her wrists. She trembled in the cold, terrible thoughts flooding her about what might happen to her soon. That guy . . . when she rode in his car, he had seemed so normal. So much better than most of her clients. At first, when he put the knife to her throat, she had almost believed it was a joke. A bad joke, sure, but still, a nice guy like that . . .
She’d heard stories, of course. Working on the streets, you couldn’t avoid them. Girls who disappeared completely or were found dead in an alley. But somehow, she assumed the girls had been careless, that they’d gone with the wrong customer, that they hadn’t paid attention to the warning signs.
Now, a bit late, she discovered some guys gave no warning signs. With those men, the first warning sign was the knife against your throat.
He had left the radio on in the other room. She suspected it was mostly to mask her screams. Not that she could scream so loudly anymore. The cold, hunger, and fear had sapped all her strength. The best she could do was moan and sob. The radio played some music, but it was mostly talk shows, the voices of the callers and the host muffled through the door. There were moments when she got confused, suddenly certain those were real people talking outside the door, and she screamed for help through the rag in her mouth, only to recall a second later that it was nothing but the disembodied voice of a person traveling on radio waves to drive her mad.
Something hummed, the sudden sound jolting her. She opened her eyes, realizing she had nodded off. There was a small buzz somewhere inside the room. A strange faded light glimmered, not far from her eyes.
By the time she understood what was happening, the humming had stopped, and the light had faded away, the room sinking back to blackness. It was her phone. Her other phone. She had seen him take her work phone from her handbag, but he must have left her personal phone in it. It was set on vibrate. Customers didn’t like it when her phone interrupted, so she always set it to vibrate when she was working. And the buzzing had been a call.
The handbag was discarded by her clothing. Far from where she sat. Too far. For a moment she struggled against the handcuffs that forced her hands behind her back. The handcuffs themselves were chained to the wall, preventing her from reaching her handbag. She pulled her hand, trying to escape the metal cuff around her wrist, feeling her skin rip painfully, tears springing to her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. It was impossible. The handcuffs were too tight.
The hum began again, the faint light of the device’s screen filling the room with a soft digital light. She could clearly see both her body and her handbag, discarded on the floor. Frantic, she stretched, trying to get her foot to touch the handbag. Perhaps she could pull it over somehow . . .
The hum stopped. Darkness. Toying with her, teasing, a hint of freedom inches away from her bare feet. There and then gone.
A thought suddenly struck her. How much battery did she have left? She had charged the phone before leaving. But she had been in this place for what felt like more than a day. What if her battery ran out? Her last glimmer of hope gone?
She began stretching in the darkness again, groaning. Her shoulder was about to pop out of its socket as she forced herself further, inch after inch, fumbling for the handbag with her toes, screaming with frustration and pain.
The hum began again, and in the light from the phone, she could see that she was almost there. Almost. Screaming into the rag, she pulled against the handcuffs, her skin tearing, shoulders burning, sweat drenching her body . . .
She managed to grab one of the straps of the bag with her toe, and she pulled.
The handbag fell aside, spilling its contents on the floor, her phone, by some divine intervention, facing up. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the battery mark on the screen.
Six percent.
The call stopped, the phone darkened, and Lily whimpered. She fumbled at the phone with her foot but couldn’t get a good grip. Breathing hard through her nose, she tried again. Her foot was barely touching the device. She kicked the phone a bit farther by accident and groaned fearfully. Had she kicked it too far?
The screen turned on again; the hum resumed. The battery indicator was at 5 percent. The phone was still within reach.
She slid her foot against the screen, cursing the design that required her to slide to answer the call rather than tap the screen. Over and over she tried to slide her toe across the screen, managing nothing, screaming herself hoarse.
CHAPTER 31
Zoe was almost finished prioritizing the list when Mel suddenly hissed, “Shit.”
Zoe raised her eyes to the detective. She gripped the phone hard, her eyes scanning the room and its three other inhabitants.
“Lieutenant,” Mel said sharply, “get over here.”
The tense tone got Martinez moving, and he stood up quickly and began crossing the room. Mel hit the speaker button on her phone.
Zoe frowned. All she could hear was the muffled sound of two people talking in the background. She couldn’t figure out what had prompted Mel’s reaction.
Mel hit the volume button, several times, increasing it to its maximum, and then said, “Hello?”
Nothing. Just the faded background noise of a faraway conversation.
“Hello? Lily? This is Detective Mel Parks with the Chicago PD. I just wanted to make sure that—”
Another sound. High pitched, tense, and unclear. A car wheel squealing? No, it kept going, rising and falling. And then, her heart sinking like a stone, Zoe understood what she was listening to.
Muffled screams.
Martinez reached the desk and listened. After a second, Mel said, “Lily? I need you to calm down and try to answer me. Is your mouth gagged?”
A moment of silence. Then a muffled response. It sounded like a woman trying to say, “Uh-huh.”
“Is there some way you can remove the gag from your mouth?”
“Uh-uh.” An almost imperceptible shift in tone, but clearly the answer was no.
“Do you know where you are?” Mel asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Zoe glanced at the list. Lily Ramos. Aged twenty, working as a prostitute, reported missing by her friend, who was supposed to meet her when the night ended. She’d been missing for a day, last seen trying to pick up a customer in the evening. She had been described as Caucasian, with almost no makeup, wearing a skirt and a long-sleeved blouse—relatively modest for her profession. She had only one tattoo, not visible when she was clothed—a black cat on her lower back. Zoe had marked her as number three on the list.
“Can you describe the man who took you?”
A muffled, frustrated grunt.
Martinez took control. Picking up the phone, he said loudly, “Lily, this is Lieutenant Martinez. Do you know the address you’re at?”