Once Loa had admitted the man in the drawing was her husband, the rest of her sad story came out. Fletcher listened in awe, knowing if he pushed her too hard she’d shut down. So he let her tell the story at her own pace, only interrupting when he needed to clarify a detail.
“At first it was fun. Defying my mom, being out on my own. The first thing we did was ‘marry,’ if you want to call it that, basically handfasting, declaring ourselves. That was legal in the camp, it was how everyone officially married. Because I’ll tell you, he wasn’t about to mess with God’s will by taking me to his bed out of wedlock. And the moment we were official in his eyes, that’s when things got really intense. He was rather single-minded about the whole thing. He discovered he liked sex. A lot. I did, too, in the beginning. But then it became his thing—finish dinner, go to bed, do it three, four times a night, whether I wanted to or not. Then as soon as we woke up, too, and after a couple of weeks he’d come home for lunch and we’d do it again. I wasn’t allowed to say no. He believed in the concept of obeisance quite literally.
“After about a month, I was a mess. I said no once and he beat me to a pulp. I didn’t bother again. I started realizing I’d made a mistake pretty quickly, wanted to go home, but then I got pregnant. When I told him, he was ecstatic. I’ve never seen anyone so happy. He treated me differently then, reverently. No more forcing me down and having his way whether I resisted or not. He’d ask nicely if I would be willing to lie with him, and if I wasn’t, he’d ask nicely for me to do...other things. It was a bit more bearable, but I would be damned if I was going to have a kid all by myself out in the woods. I asked if we could get a midwife, go to the city for the birth, go to a hospital, but he was adamant that he’d handle it himself.
“I ran away once, but he caught me. I was about three months then, and he beat me black and blue, careful not to touch my stomach. So I started doing things so I would miscarry, throwing myself against trees, hitting myself in the stomach, anything that would give me freedom. He caught me at it and started handcuffing me. We went to town one day and he handcuffed me to the door handle while he was gone. He didn’t trust me not to say anything to someone. As soon as he was gone, I started working on the handcuffs.”
Loa wore a thin white oxford shirt over a tank top. With a sigh, she folded back the cuff to reveal an angry scar across the top of her right wrist.
“Broke my wrist, and slid right out of them. Compound fracture. Hurt like hell. But if I’d known that’s all it would take, I would have done it sooner. Walked to the police station and told them I was a runaway who wanted to go home. No one asked any questions, just got me to the doctor, into surgery, and a cast, and Mom flew out that afternoon. I was back in D.C. the next day. To hot water and television and my pink comforter and dolls. It was like the two years I’d been gone was a really bad nightmare. It didn’t feel real.”
“And the baby?” he asked quietly.
She smiled. “I gave her up for adoption. I couldn’t keep her, I mean, my God, the man raped me four or five times a day, and she was the product of that. Not only was I barely sixteen, I had some pretty complicated feelings toward her. I knew in my heart I couldn’t be fair to her, give her a life that wasn’t tainted by his violence. She went to a great family, they told me, and I got back to my life. Mom went on like nothing had happened, but I had myself declared an emancipated minor and got a job doing hair. Got into therapy. Tried to go to school down south, but I didn’t fit in at all, so I came back and finished college at night. I’m a CPA, by the way. You never asked.”
“And you’ve never heard from him since?”
She paled a little more, and he saw her shudder.
“He found me here in D.C. Confronted me on the sidewalk outside my apartment, pushed his way into my place. Demanded I give him the baby. I told him she was stillborn. It was all I could think to do. He was a crazy, mean asshole, and I didn’t want him anywhere near her. Even if I could have told him where she was, I wouldn’t. But it was a closed adoption. I don’t know who she went to or where she is. I did that to protect her.” She shuffled her feet like a little girl. “He didn’t believe me. He made me tell him the truth. That she lived. That I gave her up. He realized pretty quickly that I honestly didn’t know where she was.”
She was wiping her hand slowly across her cheek, and Fletcher knew exactly how she’d been forced into giving up the information.
“Will you tell us where he is, Loa? Where Ryan Carter might be now?”
“Please, don’t say his name again. Every time it’s spoken aloud it’s like he’s being summoned. Though from what you’re saying, it seems he already has been. I’m not sure I know where he is. I can try to pinpoint it on a map, though. At least give you the right area where we were. But, Detective, remember, this was six years ago. He may have a new camp now.”
“That’s fine, Loa. Anything you can give us, we can work with.”
She shuddered a little again. “Then I need a map of Colorado.”