“Sam told me everything,” I say. It's not a threat, it's not a pledge of allegiance to the officer of the law in front of me. It's just information.
It's instant, the way he goes clammy. His skin going from a pale yellow to a pale gray. He swallows sharply.
“But, I don't know anything,” I add.
His chest sinks with a strong exhale.
I lean forward, centering my eyes onto his. They're nothing like Sam's. They’re a reddish brown. It takes light for his eyes to shine. Sam's eyes seem to thrive in the darkness. “I don't know his name. I don't know where he took me. He never spoke. I was blindfolded the entire time. He blindfolded me and drove me around for hours before dropping me off. I'm sorry I can't be of more help.”
I don't know why I do this. Why I protect the man who did the things he did to me. It's certainly not for the Andrew—Scooter—whatever his name is. I'm free now, out of Sam's influence. He all but gave me permission to tell my story. But if I tell everything I know, Sam will be locked away, and it will be the end. I'm not ready to tell our secrets. I don't want to share this view of me with the world. Let them see me the way the stories on the news say. I'm not done with Sam, even if he thinks he's done with me.
Sheriff Ridgefield sits there for a few moments, weighing all the shit that's been thrust on his plate.
“If you know nothing, then why did you ask for me?” His tone, it's hypothetical. As if to tell me this is what someone else will ask.
“I don't know,” I shrug. “I don't know anything.”
He sits back in his chair and blows out a huge sigh, wrestling with an invisible monster.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks skeptically.
I run my finger along the edge of the table. Dirt has impacted on its edges, like someone who has been living in the wild. They don't know how he bathed me, fed me, fucked me, held me. They don't know about the beautiful dresses and how they swirled when I danced to the music he brought me, how these once manicured hands flipped the pages of books he gifted me.
“Even you wouldn't understand,” I mutter.
He leans in, his face pained. “I had no idea, Vesper. Please understand that. I never thought he could do that.”
I nod.
“I can find ways to make sure you are taken care of …to make up for your …suffering.”
“I don't want it. You're just going to have to trust me.”
“Why are you protecting him?” he asks. “How can I trust you won't wake up tomorrow and tell everything? If I cover this up, I am sinking further into this pile of shit, you understand? All my chips are going into this. Is this what you really want?”
“This isn't for him,” I assure the sheriff. “Or you,” I add, looking at my dull reflection on the pitted chrome poster frame behind him. “If you want to tell them, you go ahead. I can't stop you.”
He scrunches his brow. “I'm going to take you to the hospital and then I'll interview you there. I'll transport you myself. It's a bit of a mess here. The police here want credit for finding you since you were found in their jurisdiction. Fucking Keystone Cops. So, I'm going to have to step out and do a little magic here.”
I nod, sipping the cool, bitter tea as a distraction.
“Vesper. I have a family. A little boy and a girl. Please.” I don't blame him for believing this is too good to be true.
“Does my family know?” I ask. My return has seemed so abstract, this room a place of limbo. I didn't even think about them until he mentioned transporting me.
He looks down. “The station called your parents, no one answered. We called your fiancé and he said they are out of the country and he'd try to reach them. He'll be the one meeting you to take you home.”
A reunion with Carter looming, and I feel nothing.
I remember once watching the news about a girl who had vanished. Her parents left the porch light on for her every night hoping she would return. They wouldn't move from the house for decades, afraid they wouldn't be there for her if she came back. Of course, she never did.
My mother is far away. In that way, things haven't changed. And there's something oddly comforting in that.
When I see Carter after they examine me, I cry. I didn't think I would until that moment. I hadn't shed a tear since I rejoined the world. Not even as I was interviewed; recounted the things that had been done to me by an anonymous man. He had blindfolded me. He had always worn a mask so even during the few times I could see his face, I had no details. He never spoke. All I knew was the color of his eyes. Brown, I told them.
I watched beads of sweat trickle down Sheriff Ridgefield's temple, belying his cool demeanor. On the way down, in the car, we didn't talk much. But we had decided that my insistence upon choosing him came from the fact that I saw his name in the newspapers I used as a toilet in the basement.