When I began to lose my grip, my sanity sliding through my fingertips, I began to dream I was little again, going to church with Evelyn and her lady friends, bright lipstick and large hats. Sunday best. Lacey socks. Bloody feet. I’d wake up screaming.
I tell her how they left me there for five days—a time I couldn’t discern and would learn later. They might have left me there forever, to rot in the back of an unidentified vehicle parked outside an abandoned construction site. Except I had figured out how to kick the metal floor in the right way to make a racket. Initially, I kicked for hours. Then later, I faded in and out of consciousness, waiting for the right moment, listening for a noise, straining my eyes against the crack in the van door, searching for any faint light. I heard the muted whirp of the siren before I saw the quick glint of headlights, and I hit my right heel against the gas tank, banging hollow and empty, again and again. My left ankle, flopping lifelessly. I don’t remember it hurting. The headlights beaming in after they’d crowbarred the van doors open—that hurt. The noise, the sirens that came later, the ambulance, and inexplicably a fire truck—that hurt. My body did not. My body felt blissfully numb.
The whole time I talk, I rub the thin, pink scar on my wrist, from where the cable ties tore into my skin. I had seven stitches there to hold the flesh back together. It’s barely visible. Lately, I find myself running the pad of my finger along the edge, a reminder of where I’ve ended up and maybe what I don’t deserve.
I tell the entire story, which is something I’ve never done before. Not to Detective Maslow, not to the lawyers, or the cops, or later to a psychologist I saw a total of three times. Everyone knows bits and pieces of the story but no one has ever heard me tell it, all at once in a rush. I say it all, quickly but flatly, dispassionate, almost like it happened to someone else.
Which is true, when you think about it. It happened to Hilary.
CHAPTER 10
Yates promises that she’ll be in touch and drops me off in front of my building. She touches my hand once, a tactile thank you and don’t worry all at the same time, her crimson fingernails flittering.
I stand on the sidewalk, studying my apartment building with Hilary’s eyes. The opulence, the gold and brass. Fear pricks at the back of my scalp and I scan up and down the street, expecting to see Mick or Jared Pritchett leaning languidly against the black stone of the building. Picking his teeth. Grinning like a Cheshire cat. You’re dead now, chatty girl. His scarred face glinting in the afternoon sun. My brain is flinging memories at me, long buried. The curled snake around Mick’s bicep. His nails, cut square and rimmed with black, fingers tap tap tap on his knees, his foot bobbing.
I haven’t relived the kidnapping in years, maybe ever. I buried it, deep and inaccessible. Now, on the streets, the lights seem too bright, the cars seem too loud. I can’t catch my breath and I feel shaky and weak. I think of Henry’s face if I told him, how his eyebrows would protrude downward, his mouth slightly open in disbelief.
Peter is at the door, hunched over and white-haired. He gives me a sympathetic pat on the back. It seems everyone needs to touch me today, but in that quick funeral parlor way—taps and pats.
“There’s a man inside the lobby waiting for you.” He wheezes. My heart lurches into my throat and sticks there. He turns his head to the side. “He says he’s from the New York Post? Might want to write about the break-in? Seems funny.”
Cash. I blow out a breath and shake my fists loose. I need to get a grip. I hesitate in the vestibule and check my phone. No Henry.
Cash is hunched over, elbows resting on his knees on the plush sofa in the lobby, fiddling with his cell phone. At the click of my heels on the marble floor, he looks up and gives me a half wave.
“How do you know where I live?” I halt about ten feet from him and eye him suspiciously.
He half stands, fumbling with something on the sofa next to him and it falls to the floor between us. It’s my wallet. He snatches it up, almost guiltily.
“You, uh, left this. When you ran out this morning.” He extends his hand and rushes on. “I tried to call you a few times.”
“I ignored them. I . . . I didn’t recognize the number. It’s been a . . . hectic day.” I take the wallet and feel a stab of sympathy. He looks flustered and awkward, and he shoves one beefy fist in his pocket.
“So I also had an idea. About our conversation this morning?” His eyes slide over to Peter.
I hesitate. I don’t want to discuss my adoption in the lobby. The apartment is still torn apart, likely streaked with fingerprint powder by now. I’m overwhelmed. At least Cash is a friend. Sort of. I sigh and motion him to follow me. We ride the elevator in silence and I’m self-conscious of the apartment. The flaunting wealth never bothered me before, but now as I slide the card across the top, I view the apartment through Cash’s eyes. The custom designed flooring and rich paint hues, large, European antique furniture, fourteen-foot ceilings. The ransacked belongings.