And the box, the box, the box?
I hang my head. For one moment, I’m not all right. I hate it here, I hate this man, and I hate myself because I did this to myself. Five years ago, I escaped, and yet I’ve never gotten away. Jacob might as well be standing in the dark, laughing his fool head off.
My own brother running away from the person I’d become. And my mom . . . my poor, resigned mother, who gave up so much, only to one day realize the daughter she loved so much will never come home again.
She just gets the shell.
The smell is starting to fade. The chicken, once piping hot, now starting to cool. And that, as much as anything, gets me moving again.
Do you know who I am? I’m a girl who once loved to frolic with wild foxes.
I’m the girl who survived four hundred and seventy-two days in and out of a cheap pine coffin.
I’m the girl who’s going to get out of this alive.
I fist my fingers. I raise my bound hands, and I swing them like a boom against the side panel of the box. It shudders beneath the force of my blow. So I do it again and again. Bashing against the sides, turning my own body into a sledgehammer and wielding it forcefully.
My knuckles bruise. My skin splits, as rough edges of the box catch and abrade. It doesn’t stop me.
Long ago I learned to separate my mind from my body, my emotions from my pain. And these lessons serve me well.
As I batter the box into submission.
When the side finally caves in, there’s a cracking noise. I like it. I can’t see what I’m doing, so it’s nice to hear a satisfying wooden groan. Now I slow, picking my way through shards of wood, till I can wrap my fingers around the edge of the collapsed lid and jerk it up and over. The metal padlock rattles, still intact but now completely useless given the entire other half of the lid has been wrenched from the body of the coffin.
Good luck rebuilding this one, I think, and despite myself, I’m curious what its fate will be.
But first, to the victor goes the spoils.
It takes a minute; then I find it. Styrofoam plate, my first disappointment. Plastic bottle, however, so maybe water. No utensils. I search and search and search. Nada. But the plate . . . In the dark, I poke the contents with my finger. Roasted half chicken, cubes of potatoes, and what feels like some sort of rubbery vegetable.
Finger food. Don’t mind if I do.
I turn toward the one-way mirror. I stare right at it, do my best to peer through it as I pick up the roasted leg and go to work. My fingers are greasy. The chain rattles down from the metal bracelets circling my wrists, rubs against my bare thigh. My satin nightie has ridden up, but I make no move to adjust it.
Does he want me to be refined? Hence the new nightwear? Well, that’s not what he’s going to get. This is me, practical, methodical, efficient as I work my way through the contents on the plate.
The chicken isn’t half bad. Nor the potatoes or what turns out to be green beans. Not that I’m seeking flavor. I chew for sustenance, because now I’m not hungry. And after several cautious sips of the water, nor am I thirsty.
I am fine.
I’m okay.
I am alone in the dark and I’m perfectly all right.
*
LATER, MY BACK TO THE WATCHER’S WINDOW, squatted down to shield my body from view, I fold the Styrofoam plate around my fists and use it as a makeshift shield as I hammer my hands against the shattered side of the coffin. My efforts are rewarded as I break off two, three, four shards of pine. Now I just need a place to hide them. In the dark, dark room, where I can see nothing, but he can see all.
I cup the thin splinters in my palms, then wrap my hands around the two-thirds-full water bottle. Let him think I’m trying to hide that as I shuffle back to my mattress, plastic bottle clutched to my chest.
I lie down with my back to the one-way mirror. Then, moving slowly, I use the longer, sharper wooden shard to work the welted edge of the mattress. I only need a small slit, one inch across does it. Then I can slide in the first wooden splinter, the second, the third.
Pine is a soft wood. I doubt the fragments will be terribly effective as weapons. But then again, jab a sliver in the eye . . .
Resources. What I have that he doesn’t even know he should take away.
I curl my knees up and around the water bottle.
I think, as I start to drift off again, that I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty. I’m not cold, I’m not hot. I’m not in pain, nor exhausted, nor terrified.
I am a girl ready to fight.
Chapter 22
IN A DETECTIVE’S WORLD there was one true blight on society, and it wasn’t the master criminal; after all, superpredators were few and far between. It was the media.
Sunday afternoon, D.D. definitely needed to question Colin Summers. In the comfort of his own home would be ideal, as the less he felt threatened, the more likely he would be to talk. However, given the various media-fueled rumors that Devon Goulding was the same man who’d kidnapped Stacey Summers . . . D.D. didn’t have to drive out to the Summers residence to know it would be a war zone of illegally parked news vans, feisty photographers, and rabid reporters.
The arrival of a Boston sergeant detective known for her past work on several major cases would only fan the flames. Even sending out Pam Mason, the family’s victim specialist, would stir the pot.
So, Sunday afternoon, D.D., Keynes, and Pam Mason sat in Keynes’s office and, instead of actively searching for Florence Dane, brainstormed ways of outsmarting the media in order to get Colin Summers alone for questioning. It took another round of coffee to get the job done, with Keynes sticking to water.
D.D. didn’t trust him. Anyone who could appear that alert and engaged without at least one cup of joe?
Pam came up with the winning plan. She would call Colin. Request that he come to his office for a meeting with her. He would understand immediately she had something to say outside the prying eyes of media. And while the news vans could follow him to his downtown office building, they were shut out of the high-rise itself, given it was private property. Colin could ride the elevator up to his eleventh-floor suite, which should be relatively quiet on a Sunday afternoon.
D.D. and Pam would meet him there. Keynes would remain behind, as three against one would appear too threatening for the kinds of questions they needed to ask.
Keynes didn’t argue, merely nodded. D.D. wondered what it would take to ruffle the senior victim specialist. Or maybe that was the point. In his line of work, at this stage of his career, he really had seen it all.
Pam made the call. D.D. could only hear her side of it, but it was clear Colin was already champing at the bit, demanding to know who what why when and how. But Pam, an experienced handler, kept her voice calm and her request simple. Meet me at your office. Meet me at your office. Meet me at your office.
Eventually, Colin must have given up on beating his head against the iron wall of her answers, and agreed to meet her at his office. Three o’clock.
The hour wait gave D.D. time to check in with her team. Keynes showed her an unoccupied office she could use, and she quickly dialed Phil, filling him in on the game plan.
“So you want me to meet with Colin Summers at three?” he asked.
“No.” She frowned over the phone. “I got it.”
Pause. “Can I ask a question?”
“Maybe.”
“What part of duty are you restricting, I mean, given that you are on restricted duty?”
“I’m not carrying my sidearm,” she informed him curtly. “Why? Think I need one to interview an investment banker?”
“No. I think you need to trust your squad. Let us work while you boss us around. Come on, what’s not to love?”
“I don’t have time for this conversation,” she informed him.