He laughed, his eyes growing colder and darker than she’d seen before. Reaching over, he brushed his palm along her cheek. “Don’t worry, my love. She’s been there for a long time.”
Fighting the urge to cry, Alice jerked her face away from his hand, her brows knitting together in anger. “You’re not making sense, Max. Just tell me who the woman was. Why was she in our basement?”
Refusing to answer her, Max silently watched as the confusion overwhelmed her. Ideas raced through her mind, questions on whether Max had been unfaithful to her, if he’d somehow been sneaking women into the basement so he could cheat. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of that idea, but then her thoughts focused on the trips he often took.
Were they really so he could oversee his business?
Her voice broken and shaking, she spoke with panic obvious in every word. “Damn it, Max! What are you trying to tell me? I don’t understand.”
Practically shrieking the final words, the pitch of her voice had been a crescendo driven by the emotions that were a vicious deluge inside her.
“Just watch.”
Stepping over to a television tucked into the corner of the room, Max inserted the silver disk into a player. The television turned on.
A closed circuit camera view of a small, well lit room revealed a woman sitting on a bed, her head concealed by the hood that covered it.
Alice’s breath caught at the sight of the chains that hung above the bed where the woman sat, the glint of light against metal striking fear into her heart and mind. Curled over herself, the woman’s shoulders shook on a sob, but the sound didn't carry through the speakers of the television.
Pink paint covered the walls above white chair rails that ran the room. Posters with kittens and rainbows were hung on each wall, a day bed pushed off to the side with a gold frame and white, frilly bed sheets. The carpet was pink shag that matched the paint, and dolls were scattered throughout the room on shelves and perched to appear lifelike on a large, overstuffed chair.
Alice felt sick staring at the contrast of the innocence of youth against the sinister truth of that poor woman’s captivity. Studying her every expression, Max stood off to the side of the television, his shrewd gaze fixed on Alice.
“What am I looking at?” she murmured, asking the question of Max as much as herself.
The disbelief inside her kept her from recognizing what she saw. Horror and denial kept her from considering that the video had anything to do with Max.
However, when a tall man stepped into the picture, when her eyes focused on the wavy, shoulder length hair, the scarred olive skin and eyes the color of an artic sea, she froze in place, terrified of what she’d see.
The man in the video wasn’t in a hurry. He stared down at the woman, angling his head as if in question. Alice knew that behavior well, it was a habit of the man she loved. His mouth moved as he spoke to the woman, but the volume wasn’t high enough for Alice to hear what he said.
The woman opened her mouth to scream, and Max struck out with his hand, clipping the girl upside the head before lunging forward to buckle her hands into the shackles above the bed.
“Open your eyes, Alice. You need to see this.”
Max’ voice was soft when he called out the fact that she’d clenched her eyes shut against the secret her husband had been hiding.
Barely dressed, the woman had no defense against Max’s strength. Her mouth opened on another silent scream, Max hurting her in ways that left Alice crying angry tears. He forced himself on the woman, violating every part of her despite the blood that dripped down her legs, despite the shade of red her face had turned because he was choking off her airway with his hand.
“Turn it off,” Alice begged, her words barely discernable.
“You should watch it, Alice.”
Screaming at him with a strength that came from some place deep inside of her, she demanded, “I said turn it off!”
The picture went black.
Max stared at her with cold calculation in his dead eyes.
“Do you understand now?”
12:40 p.m.
“I can’t do this, Doc.” Her eyes clenched shut, the rims burning from the salt in her hot tears. Alice trembled where she sat, her body thrumming with the terror that crept along her bones, slithered up her spine and trapped her within the crushing weight of memory.
“I can’t,” she whispered, her voice pleading for some relief from the horrifying truth of her life from the man who studied her.
It spoke to the professionalism of the doctor that, even in the face of such a traumatic and gut-wrenching confession, he was able to preserve a gentle expression, sympathy and bits of horror obvious behind his eyes. His voice remained studious, his body relaxed in order to provide a safe place for his patient to come to terms with the nightmares that haunted her.