“In the parking lot?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone unusual. No one approached me. I loaded up my bags into the back of the car and drove off.”
“And then you got a flat tire on the way home?”
Ginger’s eyes sharpened and she peered intently at Josie. “No. I didn’t have a flat tire. I know that’s what was reported, but that’s not what happened. There was a woman stranded on the side of the road.”
Forgetting Marlowe for a moment, Josie scooted to the edge of her seat and leaned toward the other woman. “What?”
“Yes, in a black car, and before you ask, I don’t know what kind. Honestly, I can’t remember. It had four doors. It was black. That’s all I remember.”
“Okay,” Josie said. “You said she was stranded. Her car broke down?”
Marlowe’s long, sloppy tongue slid out of his mouth and swiped around his jowls. With a snuffling sound, he inched his front paws forward until he was lying down. He rested his face between them, eyes still on Josie. Ginger folded her hands in her lap. “Yeah. She was by the side of the road. She just had this look about her, you know? Like something was wrong and she couldn’t figure out what to do?”
“What was she doing?”
“She was pacing and she kept putting her hand to her forehead. You know, like something was wrong.”
“You stopped.”
Ginger nodded. Her eyes took on a rueful, faraway look. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? A woman stuck on a rural road? In Bowersville? Did you know Bowersville hasn’t had a homicide in fifty-three years? At least, they hadn’t when we left.”
“Yeah, it’s safe.” A lot like Denton, though Denton was a lot bigger than Bowersville.
“Anyway, I pulled over. She said her car just died.”
“Died?”
“Yeah, I can’t remember what else she said but that was it. Her car was dead. She needed a ride.”
“Did you offer her one?”
Ginger grimaced. “I don’t remember. I don’t know. That’s where things get… foggy, messed up. I’m sure I did. That’s what I would do—what I would have done back then.”
“It wasn’t the woman from the hair salon? The one who came forward later to say she found your car unoccupied?”
Ginger shook her head. “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it Ramona, by any chance?”
“I—I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I don’t remember her telling me her name. It’s possible she did, but I really don’t remember.”
“What did she look like?”
“Like a cancer patient.”
Josie couldn’t keep the surprise from her face. She had to make a conscious effort to close her mouth. It wasn’t the story she had expected.
“She was pale and she had on one of those, you know, turban-like things. Like a headwrap. A scarf. There was no hair sticking out, so I assumed she was sick. One of the girls’ teachers at school had cancer; when she was going through chemo, her hair fell out and that’s what she wore. This woman, she had sunglasses on. That’s what I remember. She was average size, about my height. Maybe a little on the chunky side but some people gain weight during chemo, you know, because sometimes they give chemo patients steroids for nausea, or whatever. Anyway, who knows? Maybe that was just her natural weight. She wasn’t huge. Just a little overweight.”
“What was she wearing?” Josie asked.
Ginger’s hands made a motion like she was pulling a coat on. “She had on a gray sweater. I can’t remember what was under it.” She laid her hands on her thighs. “And slacks—like polyester slacks, I think. I’m pretty sure. She was older.”
“Older?”
“As in elderly. It was hard to tell but I would put her in her mid-seventies to eighty.”
“Are you sure?”
Ginger nodded. “Yes. I remember her for sure. It’s after that that it gets weird.”
Marlowe whined softly. Ginger made a soft whispery sound in her throat and he stopped.
“Weird, in what way?” Josie asked.
Ginger’s left hand searched out the fingers of her right hand. One by one, she squeezed the fingertips on her right hand. “Like… all I have after that are these… I can’t—it’s so hard to describe. It sounds ridiculous.”
“Tell me.”
Ginger’s hands fanned out, palms up, like she was making an offering. “It’s like clips of a video. Like, if you took a movie and you cut out small sections of it and then pieced it back together. Each clip is only a few seconds, sometimes just a flash or an image. Nothing sustained. The problem is that when I put them together, they don’t make any sense. There’s not enough there.”
“Flash cutting,” Josie said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s called flash cutting. In movies. I dated a pretty serious film student in college. What you’re describing, it’s a form of film editing.” Josie could remember the boy vividly. She’d been enamored by his creativity but tired after she’d had to sit through film after boring film, pausing to discuss what clever thing the filmmaker, director or editing team had done and the overall quality of the film.
Ginger smiled at her. A genuine smile. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Josie said. “It’s a real thing. So, tell me about your flashes. What did you see?”
“It’s so hard to piece them together, you know, in order.”
“Then don’t,” Josie told her. “Don’t try to put them in order, just talk about them as they come to mind.”
Another smile, this one both genuine and full of trepidation. Marlowe lumbered to a standing position, turned in a circle and placed his head in Ginger’s lap. She cradled his large, droopy face in her hands. Stroking the sides of his face with her thumbs, she spoke quietly. “I was walking through a wooded area—not walking, being marched. I could see my hands in front of me. They were tied together with plastic zip ties. There was nothing but trees. Not even a real path. Then this rock—it looked like the shadow of a man standing there. Well, not standing so much as leaning against the rock face. I thought it was a real man until we passed it and realized it was just the way the rocks looked from far away.”
Something about this sounded familiar to Josie, but there were strange rock formations all over the forests of Alcott County—and beyond. They were like clouds; the more you looked at rocks, the more shapes you could identify.
“Then it ends,” Ginger said. “Then I have flashes of men. Not faces, just men. Two-to three-second flashes of feeling hands on my body, seeing them on top of me, feeling them doing things to me. I think I was raped. Well, I know I was. They did a rape kit at the hospital after they found me. There was evidence there—evidence of… other men… more than one. Ed said they also found drugs in my system which would account for how disoriented I felt. That’s why Ed and I were so furious when they said the whole thing was a hoax. I guess they thought I just went out and found a bunch of men to sleep with.”
Marlowe whined again as Ginger’s fingers massaged the fur behind his ears. She looked like she might cry. “Those flashes are dark. All the rest is dark. I have this recurring feeling of waking up, feeling truly awake but being in total darkness, panicking, feeling my way around some kind of box. A black box. It’s so hazy though. Like I was drunk, or sick. Tired all the time and achy. Then the next thing I know, I’m lying on the side of the highway, and it was so bright I thought I had gone blind.”
“The news reports said you were tied up.”
Ginger nodded. “They practically mummified me in duct tape.” She motioned toward her chest. “My whole upper body, but left my legs free. That was the other reason we were so angry when they said it was all a hoax. I mean, how could I have done that to myself?”
“Who said it was a hoax?”
“It was that district attorney investigator they appointed. There were some jurisdictional issues because I was found in Denton, but on the interstate which was state police territory. Ed talked to everyone involved. They all said there wasn’t anything to go on.”