My trembling hand is still resting on his cheek, covered by his clammy one. I twist my palm and grasp his hand, and then bring it down. I close my eyes with revulsion as I place it over my belly. “This is your baby now,” I tell him. “This is our baby now.”
He sighs and I look up at his face in time to see his eyes close.
Yes, Grace. You have him now. Don’t stop, keep going.
“We could raise this child together. I imagine you coming to the doctor with me to hear the heartbeat.”
In my mind, in order to counteract the vision I’m feeding him, I picture Vaughn at my side. I picture his face when we hear the heartbeat together. And even though I don’t know what he will think of all this if I get out of here alive and my baby is unharmed, in my fantasy, Vaughn is proud and excited.
“You would take care of me. And make sure I ate right.”
I picture Vaughn and I shopping at some absurdly expensive organic food store. I see him checking labels for all-natural ingredients and vitamins.
“You would insist that I not work too hard and get enough sleep.”
I see Vaughn rubbing my swollen feet and plumping up my pillows as we lounge in bed on the weekends.
And then I have a flash from that night we got drunk in Vegas. Vaughn and me, sitting in that restaurant. Him talking about stuff with me. His fantasy life as a normal father. A shitload of kids, he’d said. Cherishing painted macaroni gifts from his three-year-old. Jumping in puddles, and letting them rebel with bad grades. Watching track meets in the rain and coaching football and school plays.
A sob escapes before I can stop it.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” His hand jerks away from mine and grips me tightly by the upper arm.
“No!”
He shakes me hard. “Don’t lie to me, you whore! You cheated on me! You got pregnant with another man’s child and now you want me to raise this bastard as my own?”
“Please.” I struggle to get out of his grip. I can feel the bruise forming underneath his hand.
He pulls me up and heads for the bedroom, pulling me behind him. I trip over the end of the coffee table and go down to the floor, but he never stops. He drags me the rest of the way. And when we get to the closet he kicks me in the side until I roll over and scurry into my prison. I crab-walk backwards until I’m pressed up against the back wall. He grabs my foot and reaches around the floor until he finds the shackles. It clamps down on my ankle with a tightness that tells me these are the same ones he used when I was a teenager. And they are too small. My skin rips and the warm blood pours out as he fastens the lock.
One more kick—this time it catches me in the shoulder—and then the door is slammed closed and the darkness takes over.
“You think I’m stupid,” he seethes from the other side of the door. “You think I want a child you made with another man? So you can fantasize about how he fucked you? So you can replace your reality with me with your fantasy of him?” He kicks the door so hard I hear wood splinter.
It goes silent on the other side but I know he’s still there. His shadow falls across the sliver of light that seeps in under the door and he waits.
My heart is pounding. The blood is rising to my head, making me dizzy. And I’m falling over when I hear his parting words as he walks off.
“That baby will be gone by tonight.”
Chapter Nine
FELICITY is hunched over a table on the far side of the hotel room. It’s set up with five computers. One is the laptop from Tray, the others are all hers from home. She looks over her shoulder at me and gives me a weak smile. “How are you holding up?”
I cross the room and take a seat on the corner of the bed near the window. “I have a really bad feeling about things, Felicity. Really bad.”
Her cheeks puff out as she exhales some air, and then she turns so she can face me. “Vaughn… look… I’m really not an expert in this stuff yet. I’m still a student. But in cases like this, cases that point to a psychologically disturbed individual, there’s only a few ways they ever play out. And even though he let Grace live the first time, there’s no guarantee that he will follow the same course of action now.”
I just stare at Felicity, angry at her for telling me this, but knowing everything she says is true. “We need to find her today. There has to be some clue, some signal that will tell us who he is.”
“I’ve started the search with the hospital she was dropped off at in Nebraska.” Felicity points to a map on one of her screens. “I think there’s a high probability that he’s returned to that house he first kept her at. He was never caught and it was a place he probably felt safe and comfortable taking her to. It’s isolated, obviously. Since this time people would be looking for her right away. The hospital in Nebraska is not that far from here, relatively speaking. Probably within eight hours or so, because he most likely had to drug her to take her captive. Drugs wear off, so he wouldn’t want to chance her waking up while they were driving.”
Felicity continues and even though all of this should make me feel despair, it has the opposite effect. She knows what she’s doing. She’s double-majoring in psychology and criminal justice. This stuff is her life at the moment. She’s been listening to the experts in this field lecture on things like this for years. If anyone can find my Grace, it will be Felicity.
“… might even be someone you know.”
“What?”
“We have to consider it, V,” Conner says. “Whoever took her was inside the theater for your IM2 premiere. He might be someone you know.”
“But how would he make that connection? We only just met a few weeks ago.”
“Grace has been Twitter-stalking you for years, Vaughn. So it’s only logical that this sicko has been Twitter-stalking her.”
“He deleted her account, I know he did.”
“It’s almost guaranteed he deleted her account,” Felicity says. “But maybe we can use that to our advantage. Maybe we can use her social media connections to figure out where she is. Like Facebook, for instance. Is she on Facebook?”
“I don’t know. But we have two private Twitter accounts that I set up when we first met.”
Felicity grabs one of her laptops and hands it to me. “Log in and leave her a message. She might try to access that account and if she does, we need to give her instructions on what to do.”
He sighs and I look up at his face in time to see his eyes close.
Yes, Grace. You have him now. Don’t stop, keep going.
“We could raise this child together. I imagine you coming to the doctor with me to hear the heartbeat.”
In my mind, in order to counteract the vision I’m feeding him, I picture Vaughn at my side. I picture his face when we hear the heartbeat together. And even though I don’t know what he will think of all this if I get out of here alive and my baby is unharmed, in my fantasy, Vaughn is proud and excited.
“You would take care of me. And make sure I ate right.”
I picture Vaughn and I shopping at some absurdly expensive organic food store. I see him checking labels for all-natural ingredients and vitamins.
“You would insist that I not work too hard and get enough sleep.”
I see Vaughn rubbing my swollen feet and plumping up my pillows as we lounge in bed on the weekends.
And then I have a flash from that night we got drunk in Vegas. Vaughn and me, sitting in that restaurant. Him talking about stuff with me. His fantasy life as a normal father. A shitload of kids, he’d said. Cherishing painted macaroni gifts from his three-year-old. Jumping in puddles, and letting them rebel with bad grades. Watching track meets in the rain and coaching football and school plays.
A sob escapes before I can stop it.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” His hand jerks away from mine and grips me tightly by the upper arm.
“No!”
He shakes me hard. “Don’t lie to me, you whore! You cheated on me! You got pregnant with another man’s child and now you want me to raise this bastard as my own?”
“Please.” I struggle to get out of his grip. I can feel the bruise forming underneath his hand.
He pulls me up and heads for the bedroom, pulling me behind him. I trip over the end of the coffee table and go down to the floor, but he never stops. He drags me the rest of the way. And when we get to the closet he kicks me in the side until I roll over and scurry into my prison. I crab-walk backwards until I’m pressed up against the back wall. He grabs my foot and reaches around the floor until he finds the shackles. It clamps down on my ankle with a tightness that tells me these are the same ones he used when I was a teenager. And they are too small. My skin rips and the warm blood pours out as he fastens the lock.
One more kick—this time it catches me in the shoulder—and then the door is slammed closed and the darkness takes over.
“You think I’m stupid,” he seethes from the other side of the door. “You think I want a child you made with another man? So you can fantasize about how he fucked you? So you can replace your reality with me with your fantasy of him?” He kicks the door so hard I hear wood splinter.
It goes silent on the other side but I know he’s still there. His shadow falls across the sliver of light that seeps in under the door and he waits.
My heart is pounding. The blood is rising to my head, making me dizzy. And I’m falling over when I hear his parting words as he walks off.
“That baby will be gone by tonight.”
Chapter Nine
FELICITY is hunched over a table on the far side of the hotel room. It’s set up with five computers. One is the laptop from Tray, the others are all hers from home. She looks over her shoulder at me and gives me a weak smile. “How are you holding up?”
I cross the room and take a seat on the corner of the bed near the window. “I have a really bad feeling about things, Felicity. Really bad.”
Her cheeks puff out as she exhales some air, and then she turns so she can face me. “Vaughn… look… I’m really not an expert in this stuff yet. I’m still a student. But in cases like this, cases that point to a psychologically disturbed individual, there’s only a few ways they ever play out. And even though he let Grace live the first time, there’s no guarantee that he will follow the same course of action now.”
I just stare at Felicity, angry at her for telling me this, but knowing everything she says is true. “We need to find her today. There has to be some clue, some signal that will tell us who he is.”
“I’ve started the search with the hospital she was dropped off at in Nebraska.” Felicity points to a map on one of her screens. “I think there’s a high probability that he’s returned to that house he first kept her at. He was never caught and it was a place he probably felt safe and comfortable taking her to. It’s isolated, obviously. Since this time people would be looking for her right away. The hospital in Nebraska is not that far from here, relatively speaking. Probably within eight hours or so, because he most likely had to drug her to take her captive. Drugs wear off, so he wouldn’t want to chance her waking up while they were driving.”
Felicity continues and even though all of this should make me feel despair, it has the opposite effect. She knows what she’s doing. She’s double-majoring in psychology and criminal justice. This stuff is her life at the moment. She’s been listening to the experts in this field lecture on things like this for years. If anyone can find my Grace, it will be Felicity.
“… might even be someone you know.”
“What?”
“We have to consider it, V,” Conner says. “Whoever took her was inside the theater for your IM2 premiere. He might be someone you know.”
“But how would he make that connection? We only just met a few weeks ago.”
“Grace has been Twitter-stalking you for years, Vaughn. So it’s only logical that this sicko has been Twitter-stalking her.”
“He deleted her account, I know he did.”
“It’s almost guaranteed he deleted her account,” Felicity says. “But maybe we can use that to our advantage. Maybe we can use her social media connections to figure out where she is. Like Facebook, for instance. Is she on Facebook?”
“I don’t know. But we have two private Twitter accounts that I set up when we first met.”
Felicity grabs one of her laptops and hands it to me. “Log in and leave her a message. She might try to access that account and if she does, we need to give her instructions on what to do.”
