“Hello, sir.”
“Hello, Kaylie. I have to say, it is wonderful to meet you after all these years. I’m sorry we didn’t know you had survived your kidnapping.”
“Do you have a gun?” Her eyes were wide, guileless. A child’s question.
That startled a little laugh out of him. “I do, but I don’t have it on me.”
“Good. I don’t like guns. I suppose you want to know what happened.”
“Why don’t we get to know each other a little first? How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Where were you born?”
“Bethesda, Maryland.”
“Who are your parents?”
“Clive and Maureen Rousch. Dr. Owens acted strangely about them before. Is my father still alive?”
“Your father, unfortunately, has passed away. But your mother will be happy to know you’re okay.”
She had that distant look again. “I thought so. He didn’t look well when I looked in the window. And Maureen will not be happy when she finds out. Please don’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
“They both hated me. It was easier for them when I was gone. They didn’t have to deal with my constant crying and attention-seeking. I was a bad child, and it was better for them without me.”
Baldwin’s brow furrowed for a moment. These were words Kaylie had been fed, probably by Curtis Lott, but he kept on. “I have to ask, Kaylie. Can you show me your birthmark?”
“No! That’s nasty. You’re a nasty, nasty man.”
The walls went right back up. She pulled her legs up onto the sofa and curled into a little ball and started to rock, crooning to herself.
Baldwin nodded. “Okay, Kaylie, fair enough. Would you be willing to show Sam?”
“No, no, no, no.”
“All right, that’s fine. We can come back to that. Stay with me, honey. Do you remember what happened the day you were taken?”
She stopped rocking. “Yes.”
He waited for her to continue, then nodded and sat back in his chair, relaxing his arm over the back. Open. Unguarded. Exactly her physical opposite. “Okay, Kaylie. Tell me this. Do you know where you were kept? Before Doug saved you?”
“We were on a farm out in the country. I woke up there and never left until the day Doug took me out, and I was very sick, so I couldn’t tell you exactly where we were. Doug said it was northern Virginia.”
“Did you move around at all? Did the group move from place to place? Or did they stay in one spot?”
“One spot.”
“Did they ever talk about moving to other places?”
“Not to me. But Doug said that they were careful to stay one step ahead of the law. Like we were doing, staying one step ahead of Adrian and Curtis.”
“Tell me about them.”
“How do you describe the moon and the stars?” She shook her head hard and tapped her palm to the side of her head, almost as if she were trying to dislodge water from her ear after swimming. Her voice was suddenly adult again, lucid, a bit abashed. “I’m sorry. That’s something she would say. Adrian is very big, very tall and muscular and mean. He had something wrong with him, and Curtis used it against him. She exploits weakness. It’s her best tool. ‘Learn what the weak points are, my girl, and then you’ll always be able to make them do your bidding.’ She liked to teach me things about people.”
“What was wrong with Adrian?”
“Doug told me his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby, and she felt so guilty about it she committed suicide. He was left alone a lot. His values became warped. Curtis liked that. She liked giving him presents.”
“Presents?”
“People to kill. He liked it. A lot. He told me once, when we were...when he was touching me. He told me how he liked to squeeze the life out of people. He said Curtis had shown him a past life during a ceremony, when he ate the wafer of life with her, and he was descended from a great anaconda snake. He lived in the water and ate things much bigger than he was. He enjoyed it so much. He wanted to squeeze the life out of me, but Curtis said no.”
“Did he do everything Curtis asked?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever act on his impulses outside her view?”
She scratched her nose. “Do you mean did he use me outside of the Reasonings? No. He was much too dedicated to her to disobey. But when he did come, he didn’t hold back.”
“Did anyone else? Use you, I mean.”
She shook her head quickly. Too quickly.
Baldwin stepped carefully now. “Is Adrian a threat to us?”