And then, just as I’m beginning to give up hope, I feel her hands curl against mine.
“M-m-molly,” she whispers in the dark. “My name is M-m-molly.”
Seven years later, that’s all it takes.
My blood turns to ice.
My hands flinch, recoil protectively to my chest.
And I know . . . and I remember . . . and I feel . . . and I . . . and I . . . and I . . .
“No,” I whisper.
But this poor girl, my pain, my punishment, has finally found her voice.
“My name is Molly. Molly. Molly. Molly. My name is Molly.”
I don’t look at the viewing window. I don’t look to the sealed-up wall where I now know there is a door.
I look down at the carpet. I look deep into myself. And I think, all these years later: Oh my God, what have I done, what have I done, what have I done?
Chapter 27
GO OVER TO HIM. Go on. Do it. Walk right over and tell that drunk-ass cowboy you’re a kidnapped girl. Let’s see if he’ll rescue you. No? Don’t think he’ll believe you? Or afraid that he will?”
Standing beside me at the bar, Everett’s voice held an edge. He’d already tossed back several shots, not that it mattered. He’d been on a streak lately. Angry, surly, demanding. Nothing I did was right, and nothing I gave him made him happy.
I didn’t know what had changed, but . . . something had.
Three days off before the next transport. He’d found us a cheap strip motel. In the beginning, I’d liked the time away from the rig. A floor that didn’t constantly rumble beneath my feet. A view of green trees that didn’t blur as they flew past on the interstate.
But Everett . . . Less driving meant more drinking. More sex. And none of it was ever enough. He just got angrier and angrier and angrier.
Tonight, he’d returned to the room with a bag in his hand. Thrown it at me.
“Clean yourself up. You look like a fucking loser and smell even worse. What’s with the hair anyway?”
Most of the time I wasn’t allowed to shower. Let alone shave my legs. But tonight, I’d cleaned up. Then looked in the bag to discover a dress. Kind of. Not a pink-flowered or yellow flowy sundress, like the kind I might have worn a lifetime ago, heading out on a summer afternoon in Maine or enjoying a spring afternoon in Boston.
No. This dress was red and slinky and very, very tiny.
I’d trembled when I held it in my hand. And for a moment, my gaze drifting up to the reflection of a girl in the steamy mirror . . . pale skin, gaunt cheeks, gray eyes so huge and shadowed in her face.
Ghost girl, I thought. Then my entire body shook.
Everett was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom, tugging self-consciously on the hem plastered to the top of my thighs. No bra or underwear. Everett didn’t believe in such things.
He didn’t say anything as he eyed me up and down. Just grunted, drained the rest of his beer, then shouldered by me to scrub his face, slick back his hair.
I tried to practice sitting while he was gone. Fiddling with the halter top to cover more of my chest, plucking at the clingy fabric. In the bag, I found a pair of platform sandals, strappy black. Not right for the dress, I thought, before I could help myself. But in another life, with another outfit, I would’ve liked these shoes.
Again, that strange sense of déjà vu.
Ghost girl.
It came to me: the new dress, new shoes, combined with Everett’s fresh rage. This was it. He’d always warned me, the day he grew bored, that would be that.
He’d shoot me. Strangle me. Stab me. I couldn’t even remember anymore. So many methods he’d discussed. But it all ended the same. My body dumped in Gator Alley. My mother never knowing what happened to me.
Bathroom door opened. Everett stalked out, hands fisted at his sides.
“We’re going out,” he announced.
I trailed out the door behind him.
Ghost girls didn’t argue.
Ghost girls never stood a chance.
*
BAR WAS A SMALL HONKY-TONK. Peanut shells on the floor. Alan Jackson on the jukebox. Crowded. Was it a Friday night? Saturday? Days of the week challenged me. As well as cities, states, basic geography.
I saw men in jeans and T-shirts, women in tighter-fitting jeans and T-shirts. Definitely, no one in a clingy red dress.
Patrons stared at me when we first walked in, gazes flickering to Everett. But no flashes of recognition, no twinges of suspicion. After all this time, I didn’t expect anyone to look at us twice. Even now, one by one, they shrugged off the sight of a too-pale, too-skinny girl in a hooker’s dress and resumed their drinking.
Everett, after all these days, weeks, months of instructing me to keep my head down and my mouth shut, actually beamed at my side. Which only heightened my tension.
Ghost girl drifting through the bar. Ghost girl ordering a beer.
Did my head nod along in time with the music? Did I tap my fingers against the shiny wood top? Old habits from a former life, when bars were fun and life was meant to be lived and you never knew what good time waited just around the corner?
Beside me, Everett chugged his beer, tossed back a shot, then demanded a second round. He could drink. Hard. Often. But rarely at bars. Too expensive, he’d complain. Why pay some assholes four times more for something he could buy cheaper on his own?
But tonight, he was running up the bill. Drumming his fingers relentlessly against the scarred bar top. Gaze roaming the room.
“You’re the prettiest girl here,” he said.
I paused, gaze fixed forward, hands wrapped tight around my sweaty bottle of Bud. I took a sip.
“You heard me.” He tossed back his whiskey. “Prettiest girl here. You should keep your hair red. I like it.”
He set down the shot glass, placed his fingers on the bare skin of my neck. I didn’t flinch. All this time later, I just stared at him and wondered what he was going to do next.
He laughed. He ordered another round. And he kept his left hand curled around the nape of my neck, that hard, glittering look in his eyes.
I sipped my beer. Ghost girl just trying to get through.
Then, I made a mistake. Glanced up. Happened to spot a guy at the end of the bar who was staring hard at me.
Everett, who missed nothing: “Go on. Walk right over to him. Tell him you’re a kidnapped girl. See if he’ll save you.”
I shook my head slightly, reverted my attention back to my beer. My second, my third? The night was moving too fast. And Everett was scaring me.
“What’s your name?” Everett leaned down, his drunken breath whispering across my cheek.
I didn’t answer.
“Seriously. I mean it. What’s your name?”
“Molly,” I murmured, gaze fixed on my bottle of Bud.
“Nah. Fuck that. Your name, your name, your name. Your real name?”
I looked up. I couldn’t help myself. I stared at him a very long time. His flushed face, his overbright eyes.
He’s using, I realized. Something other than just alcohol. The mood swings, tension, all-night sex marathons. He was on something. Everett on a drinking binge was scary enough. This, I couldn’t imagine.
“Please,” I whispered. Pleaded. Though what did it matter? When had my begging ever made a difference?
“Do you know what today is?” he asked abruptly.
“No.”
“It’s our anniversary, sweetheart. One year. One full year. Just you and me. Now how about that.”
He clinked his shot glass against my beer bottle, tossed back the whiskey, and twirled his finger for a fresh round.
I couldn’t breathe. I found myself staring at him, his red-flushed cheeks, bloated face, greasy hair. But in my mind, I was somewhere else. Far and distant, where the wind in the trees blew clean and crisp, and there, just for an instant . . . a fox darting behind a bush.
“You’re dead.”
He spoke the words matter-of-factly, jarring me out of my reverie.