Kelsey Willard’s bike had been found abandoned seven years ago, with no trace of the girl. Whitney DeVries also appeared to have left her home voluntarily, but they had evidence she’d been targeted. They’d been close in age at the time of their disappearances. Both had once taken dance.
Keeping an eye on the oncoming headlights spearing through the darkness, he reached into his pocket, thumbed Ben’s number into his cell.
“Where you at?” the other agent asked. “I’m ready to head out and get something to eat.”
“Just leaving the DeVrieses. Have you gotten the agency file yet?”
“It was delivered a couple of hours ago.”
“I’ll pick up some sandwiches.” Mark slowed the vehicle as the brake lights on the car ahead of his flashed. “We can eat while we work. I’m eager to get a look at the Willard investigation.”
Whitney DeVries
November 5
5:37 p.m.
The movie flickered on the white-painted concrete wall. Fear kept Whitney’s gaze glued to it. The final scene was playing, the one where the stupid beginning ballet moves she’d practiced all day were strung together in a simple sequence. When it finished, it would start over again, an endless cycle.
The arabesque stretched the barely healed wounds on her back and hips, sending fiery jolts of agony through her system. Each pirouette had sore muscles screaming. If she moved too far from one side to another, a scab on her back would break open. Blood would drip down her spine, soak through the leotard, and make it stick to her. She hadn’t been given a change of clothes. She’d just gotten these back.
Demi-plié, demi-plié, relevé, tendu. Her arm arched up, the skin on her shoulders stretching and pulling. She could hear Tami Jae’s voice in her head: Graceful, graceful, the hand movements tell a story. You’re not swinging a bat, Whitney!
For a moment she pretended she was in Tami Jae’s studio. That she had to get through only an hour and a half before she could go home. Forty-five minutes for ballet, and then the last half of the class spent on jazz, her favorite. She imagined her mom sitting with the other moms in the corner, all talking and laughing quietly among themselves. The image became so real for an instant that she glanced to the side, half expecting to see Susan Paulus practicing next to her, as she had during the weekly lessons for years. They’d smile and roll their eyes as Tami’s voice grew crosser. She always got pissy when they didn’t have a good lesson.
But Susan wasn’t there. Whitney’s mom wasn’t in the corner. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. When she opened them again to fix her gaze on the film, they were blurry with tears.
She wanted to rest. She wanted to curl up in a little ball and sleep until this nightmare was over. But when she was allowed to sleep, she’d be on her stomach because every other part of her body ached.
Whitney had never been in so much pain in her life.
The worst thing that had ever happened to her was when she’d fallen off her bike when she was six or so and broke her arm. That had hurt. Until now she would have said it was the most agonizing thing in the world. But that was before she knew much about pain. Or about the world.
She was learning more than she’d ever wanted to about both.
The cambré had her leaning backward. The movement had fresh tears springing to her eyes. She was lucky the dance sequence was so easy because after her punishment, it had been a struggle just to complete these routines. Maybe that’s why the freak had chosen it. Maybe he’d just been waiting to use that whip on her.
Maybe he was waiting to do it again.
Panic scampered up her spine, and she renewed her efforts. She felt stiff and wooden, but her hands were uninjured. She let them tell a story like Tami Jae had said, wrists cocked, fingers held just so, graceful and delicate. And the next time her mind wandered, she’d imagine them wrapped around the freak’s throat.
It hadn’t just been the beating, although she’d wondered for hours afterward if she was dying. No, the worst had been moments later, when she’d heard him coming up on the stage. She hadn’t been brave then. She hadn’t tried to look up to see his face. At the sound of his footsteps, she’d crawled away, as fast as the pain would allow.
Remembering that had a hot burn of shame spreading in her chest. Because he hadn’t used his whip on her again. He’d taken her clothes instead.
If your behavior improves, you may earn your clothes back, Whitney. But tomorrow you’ll practice without them. Clothes are a privilege earned by good behavior. You haven’t earned any privileges.
The words had been only noise, delivered in that low, hollow voice. She’d just been relieved he wasn’t going to hurt her again. But the next day had been worse than the actual beating.
She’d been naked all day. The bra was hanging on the chain that attached to her wrist cuff, but she hadn’t dared reach for it. She’d had to stand up there in the light afforded by the computer screen and projector, knowing he could see her. Watching her bending and stretching in a way that exposed her body. What made it even worse was that she was having her period. The humiliation of it all still made her stomach lurch. There had been tampons in the meager supplies by the shower, but having to practice all day completely nude, the telltale string hanging down between her thighs . . . nothing in her life had been worse than that. Not the broken arm. Not her first real physical with Dr. Baylor. Not the whipping.
She didn’t dream of being rescued anymore. Not after that day. Now her mind was filled with images of hurting the freak herself. Of breaking free and finding a bat or heavy metal bar and whaling on him, over and over until he screamed and bled and begged. She, who caught ladybugs that had wandered into the house and set them free outside rather than flushing them like her mom did, wanted to hurt another human being.
Except he wasn’t human. He was a monster. The kind her dad had always told her didn’t exist when she’d been a little kid and hadn’t wanted to go to bed at night. Together they’d look under the bed, in the closet, and behind the door to prove that nope, no monsters there.
Now she knew better. Monsters didn’t live in your bedroom. They lived in your town or one just like it. They probably had jobs and neighbors and maybe waved to people passing by as they mowed their lawns. Monsters weren’t the frightening, fanged creatures in the stupid horror movies she watched at sleepovers with her friends.
Even though she hadn’t seen the freak’s face yet, she knew. Monsters looked just like the rest of us. And somehow, that made them even scarier.
She ended the routine with a plié in the fifth position, tendu to second, and assemblé. The simple jump had her bruised muscles screaming. The deep bow at the end pulled at the healing scars on her back. But it wasn’t pain that filled her thoughts; it was dreams of revenge.