She looked at Zee, who was preoccupied at the moment, talking to herself. Natalie had been awake the other day when the poor girl was dragged down the stairs, her head thumping against each step.
Their abductor, a skinny man with a pale face and big blue eyes, stood at about five foot ten. His wheat-colored hair was straight, cut short and at odd angles. He’d struggled with Zee’s deadweight, huffing and puffing until he’d finally left the girl in a heap in the middle of the cell next door before locking her in.
When he’d returned the second time, Natalie had been shocked to discover that he blamed her mother for what he’d become. He’d said he’d met her mother, Sue Sterling, on May 14, 1999. He was gone now, but Natalie knew he’d come back sooner or later.
She still couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said about her mother. Natalie would have been seventeen at the time. Mom and Dad had divorced two years before that. Her mother used to come home exhausted, overwhelmed by the sheer number of children who were being abused and needed help.
But that Friday, May 14, 1999, was especially memorable to Natalie for another reason. That was the same day her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
And that was when it came to her. Her heart raced as she realized she knew who he was. Mom had talked about him often, more worried about the abused boy than her cancer diagnosis. She’d made multiple phone calls until a caseworker had assured her that she would follow up.
His name wasn’t Scar, as Zee referred to him. His name was Forrest Bloom.
With renewed determination to get out of there alive, Natalie got to her feet and walked around the cell, examining every nook and cranny. She pushed the straw away from the walls, making a pile in the center of the room. Then she examined the cracks in the floor, looking for anything that might help them escape.
She ran her hands over the rough metal, looking for flaws. In the cell next to her, Zee still stood by the door, her fingers curled tightly around the bars as she rocked back and forth. She hadn’t moved since the last time the madman had marched from the room.
“He never should have done that,” Zee said when she saw Natalie walking around. “He’s a very bad man and will be punished.”
Natalie glanced at Zee. “What did you say?”
“Shut up, Lucy,” Zee said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who are you talking to?” Natalie asked.
“Nobody,” Zee said as she continued to sway back and forth, causing the metal bars to squeak in protest.
Natalie looked up. There it was, about a foot above Zee’s right hand. A fragile link in the rebar. How much effort, she wondered, would it take to break one of the bars? Would Zee be able to shimmy her way up the rebar and squeeze through the space?
“Zee,” she said, “look up. Every time you shake that bar, it squeaks. There’s a weak point above your right hand. If you can break it loose, you might be able to get out of here and save us both.”
“I could be a hero,” Zee said.
“That’s true,” Natalie agreed.
Zee’s eyes narrowed. “I really thought he liked me.”
Natalie didn’t say a word. Zee was obviously at war with the demons inside, muttering to herself, her body tense.
Zee’s face turned red, and she began to shake the bars again, harder this time, the noise deafening.
Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the spot Natalie had pointed to. She stared, her eyes narrowing, and then shook the bars again. She did the same thing again and again, stopping, looking, shaking.
The bar was loosening.
Zee looked over at Natalie and smiled.
TWENTY-EIGHT
After driving to the Wild West in Auburn and being told that Leanne Baxter had the day off, Ben drove to the apartment building where he knew she lived, since he’d talked to her landlord a few days ago. Calling it a shithole was being kind. Trash, piles of it, littered the parking lot and the edges of the property. Windows were covered with sheets, and more than one rat scurried past him before he made it to the stairs. A shouting match between a man and a woman was taking place inside one of the apartments.
He stopped in front of 5B and knocked.
The curtain moved. A few seconds later the door opened, but only an inch. He recognized Leanne as the one peeking through the crack. A TV blared in the background.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you get my home address? That bitch at the bar, the one who—”
“I found you on my own,” Ben said, cutting her off. “I talked to your landlord, remember?”
“Oh.”
“I want to show you something, and then I’ll leave. I promise.”
Reluctantly she opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in.
He stepped inside, but when he turned to shut the door behind him, she stopped him. “Leave it open.”
She obviously didn’t trust him. He pulled the skull ring from his pocket and held it out for her to see. “Is this the ring you saw that night?”
Her arms were crossed over her chest. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “That’s it! How did you get that?”
Ignoring her question, he said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind working with a forensic artist to identify the two men who left with Sophie Cole the night in question.”
“No need to hire a forensic artist,” she told him.
“Why is that?”
“When I saw you yesterday, there was something about you that looked familiar, so I looked you up on the Internet. I read all about the accident you were in the very same night Sophie Cole disappeared. You have amnesia, and you don’t remember anything. But I do.”
Ben knew Sophie had gone missing around the same time of his accident, but until now there had been no reason whatsoever to connect her disappearance to what had happened to him. Sophie Cole had gone missing on a Friday. His accident had happened early Saturday morning.
“The man driving the car,” Leanne said, “the one who died that night, was Vernon Doherty. I saw more than one image, and I can guarantee you that it was him. He was the one wearing the skull ring, the man Sophie attacked with the broken bottle. And you,” she said with an accusing finger, “were the other man in the parking lot that night.”
Ben looked her square in the eyes. His heart skipped a beat. “You’re sure it was me?”
“Positive—tall, broad-shouldered, square jaw. The accident obviously did some damage, but you haven’t changed all that much.”
She took a tentative backward step. Was she afraid of him?
“Did I dance with Sophie that night?”
“I told you yesterday. Oh, that’s right—something was wrong with you, and you ran off. You and Sophie never danced. She approached you at the bar, and the two of you talked for a long while.”
“And you’re certain she left the bar first?”
“Definitely. She whispered in your ear, but you didn’t respond to whatever it was she told you, and that’s when she left. She looked annoyed. I figured you turned her down.”
“Turned her down?”
“Oh, come on. You know, turned down her offer for a quick lay. She was one of those girls. Like I said before, that wasn’t her first time coming to the Wild West. She came alone, but she always left with someone.”
He said nothing.
“You really don’t remember—do you?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing.” But then he saw Sophie’s face in his mind’s eye, and he knew that wasn’t completely true.
TWENTY-NINE
“I’m going to take Higgins for a walk,” Jessie told Olivia. She needed to get out, get some air. She didn’t want Olivia to know she was still wound up after thinking she’d lost her.
Olivia waved a hand above her head to let Jessie know she’d heard. She was watching TV and eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
“Maybe you should work on your report.”
Another wave of the hand.
Jessie sighed, grabbed the leash, and called Higgins’s name.
The dog lifted his head and scurried around, his cast slipping on the floor before he finally got to his feet. Less than a week, and the dog already responded to his new name. He didn’t seem to know he had a broken leg, either.