My eyebrows go up in hope.
“Some guy in Alliance, Nebraska.”
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
“Well, she said no to the suspicious people and all that. She said yeah, she remembers that camp trip because all the leaders that year were women and Grace was the only girl in archery. There was a rift in a group of friends who all hung out together and five of them took swimming instead of archery. Grace was a good archer, she won prizes at the fair every year. So she split up from them and went to the camp.”
“What else? That can’t be it, that’s not enough.”
“Well, that’s it for camp. But then I asked her about the special effects stuff. Did she know anyone who was into that sort of thing. And she said yeah. A 4-H club up in Alliance, Nebraska had an excellent theatre arts program in the high school for almost a dozen years. Some stage manager from Hollywood was from there when he came home after his father died, he stayed and taught theatre in school. She said he was gifted in that sort of thing.”
“Bingo. That’s our guy.”
“I don’t think so. He’s too old, V. That’s not him. But we can see him. Maybe he knows someone else who fits the profile?”
Fuck. “Fuck!” I say it out loud. “It’s gonna be dark soon and I swear, I just have this really bad feeling, Felicity. If it gets dark and we don’t find her, she might be gone forever.”
“We’ll just keep moving forward then, V. That’s all we can do.” Felicity picks up her cell phone and calls Conner to tell him what we found, but has to leave a message.
We ride in silence back to the airport and that lingers for the hour ride up to Alliance. Conner calls back and we check our name with his list, but this old ex-theater person is not on the Invisible Man roster.
Felicity is right. He’s probably not our guy. We can only hope that he gives us another clue once we talk to him.
Chapter Fourteen
AS soon as the video begins playing on the TV, I know I can’t watch it. I spring up off the couch, catching my captor off-guard, and lunge for the camcorder that’s plugged into the TV by a cable. My hand clenches around the cord just as he grabs my hair and flings me backwards. I crash into the coffee table and a sharp pain shoots up my spine.
The Invisible Man leans down into my face, spittle shooting out the hole he’s using as a mouth, and he seethes. “You. Will. Pay. For that.”
I spit in his face and he slaps me. Once to get my attention and again to make it hurt. My lip is split open in three places now.
He yanks me to my feet by my hair and pushes me face forward into the couch, straddling my waist.
“Get off me!”
“Listen to me, Daisy. You have forgotten the rules, but I understand. It’s been a long time. So I’m going to be very patient with you. I’m going to be very patient and start your training all over again. Tell me,” he whispers in my ear. Chills run up my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Tell me the first lesson you learned.”
“You need to be trained,” the man tells me from behind the mask of Danny. “So you know how to behave. So you know what’s acceptable and what’s not.”
I say nothing. I’ve got that part down. Silence is my friend. The first few times I tried to talk to him, he slapped me. The next few times he gagged me. When I moaned out a single complaint as I was gagged, he punched me.
Silence is my friend.
There are many other things that set him off, but I don’t know what they are exactly.
This one I know.
So I give him what he wants.
Nothing.
“Tell me!” he screams.
“No talking,” I croak out. The punishment is a swift smack to the back of my head. No talking means no talking. He did this to me often back when I was a girl. Make me answer a question then punish me for talking.
I can’t avoid the first hit, he makes sure of it. But as long as I stay silent, I can avoid the rest.
“OK.” He settles a little on top of me, his weight pressing me into the couch cushions so hard I have difficulty breathing. Maybe if I turn my head—
He yanks my face back with a firm grip on my hair. “I remember that trick.”
That trick, as he calls it, was me trying to smother myself when he was pushing my face into various things. The floor. The mattress in my closet. The pillows on the couch. I almost succeeded once, early in my captivity. But he caught on.
I lived. Again.
And again, living was not all it’s made out to be. It’s not always better to live.
“Tonight is our night, Daisy.”
He’s going to rape me.
“I’m going to show you how much I love you.”
After all this time, he’s finally going to get what he’s always wanted.
“And you’re going to respond with me the way you did with Asher.”
I don’t react. I can’t react.
“I saw you in the forest, Grace.” The venom spells out with my new name. “I found you a few weeks before that trip. I found your secret whore life on Twitter. And when you told the world about your honeymoon to the Caribbean, I had to go see who your new husband was. Imagine my happiness when I realized you were not on a honeymoon.”
He eases himself up off of me and then pulls me up by my elbow. It’s bent at a weird angle and I twist to relive the pressure and pain he’s inflicting. When I turn, we are face to face.
His mask is gone. His face exposed to me for the first time. It’s not a memorable face. It’s neither handsome or ugly. Brown eyes. Fair skin. Stubble that is not the least bit reminiscent of Vaughn’s sexy five o’clock shadow.
My stomach turns and I have to swallow down the bile as I avert my eyes. I’m relieved when I realize I don’t know him. I was always afraid I’d know him. He’d be someone I trusted. But he’s not. Just a psychotic stranger.
“Look at me.”
I don’t want to, but he grips my chin hard and yanks my head up. I force myself to meet his gaze.
“I was so happy when I figured out you were single. But then… all that died when I saw you with him. I’m going to kill him too—”
Too? He’s going to kill me first, then Asher?
“And I’m going to make him suffer. Even more than you.”
I chop him in the side of the neck, hammer-fist style, then follow it up with another one to the back of his head. He sways, but does not go down. Fuck! That shit’s supposed to work! I kick his feet so he loses his balance and he goes down, but he grabs my calf and takes me with him. I fling my fists wildly, but he’s so much bigger. So much stronger. I’m overpowered within seconds and a closed fist crashes against my temple.
“Some guy in Alliance, Nebraska.”
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
“Well, she said no to the suspicious people and all that. She said yeah, she remembers that camp trip because all the leaders that year were women and Grace was the only girl in archery. There was a rift in a group of friends who all hung out together and five of them took swimming instead of archery. Grace was a good archer, she won prizes at the fair every year. So she split up from them and went to the camp.”
“What else? That can’t be it, that’s not enough.”
“Well, that’s it for camp. But then I asked her about the special effects stuff. Did she know anyone who was into that sort of thing. And she said yeah. A 4-H club up in Alliance, Nebraska had an excellent theatre arts program in the high school for almost a dozen years. Some stage manager from Hollywood was from there when he came home after his father died, he stayed and taught theatre in school. She said he was gifted in that sort of thing.”
“Bingo. That’s our guy.”
“I don’t think so. He’s too old, V. That’s not him. But we can see him. Maybe he knows someone else who fits the profile?”
Fuck. “Fuck!” I say it out loud. “It’s gonna be dark soon and I swear, I just have this really bad feeling, Felicity. If it gets dark and we don’t find her, she might be gone forever.”
“We’ll just keep moving forward then, V. That’s all we can do.” Felicity picks up her cell phone and calls Conner to tell him what we found, but has to leave a message.
We ride in silence back to the airport and that lingers for the hour ride up to Alliance. Conner calls back and we check our name with his list, but this old ex-theater person is not on the Invisible Man roster.
Felicity is right. He’s probably not our guy. We can only hope that he gives us another clue once we talk to him.
Chapter Fourteen
AS soon as the video begins playing on the TV, I know I can’t watch it. I spring up off the couch, catching my captor off-guard, and lunge for the camcorder that’s plugged into the TV by a cable. My hand clenches around the cord just as he grabs my hair and flings me backwards. I crash into the coffee table and a sharp pain shoots up my spine.
The Invisible Man leans down into my face, spittle shooting out the hole he’s using as a mouth, and he seethes. “You. Will. Pay. For that.”
I spit in his face and he slaps me. Once to get my attention and again to make it hurt. My lip is split open in three places now.
He yanks me to my feet by my hair and pushes me face forward into the couch, straddling my waist.
“Get off me!”
“Listen to me, Daisy. You have forgotten the rules, but I understand. It’s been a long time. So I’m going to be very patient with you. I’m going to be very patient and start your training all over again. Tell me,” he whispers in my ear. Chills run up my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Tell me the first lesson you learned.”
“You need to be trained,” the man tells me from behind the mask of Danny. “So you know how to behave. So you know what’s acceptable and what’s not.”
I say nothing. I’ve got that part down. Silence is my friend. The first few times I tried to talk to him, he slapped me. The next few times he gagged me. When I moaned out a single complaint as I was gagged, he punched me.
Silence is my friend.
There are many other things that set him off, but I don’t know what they are exactly.
This one I know.
So I give him what he wants.
Nothing.
“Tell me!” he screams.
“No talking,” I croak out. The punishment is a swift smack to the back of my head. No talking means no talking. He did this to me often back when I was a girl. Make me answer a question then punish me for talking.
I can’t avoid the first hit, he makes sure of it. But as long as I stay silent, I can avoid the rest.
“OK.” He settles a little on top of me, his weight pressing me into the couch cushions so hard I have difficulty breathing. Maybe if I turn my head—
He yanks my face back with a firm grip on my hair. “I remember that trick.”
That trick, as he calls it, was me trying to smother myself when he was pushing my face into various things. The floor. The mattress in my closet. The pillows on the couch. I almost succeeded once, early in my captivity. But he caught on.
I lived. Again.
And again, living was not all it’s made out to be. It’s not always better to live.
“Tonight is our night, Daisy.”
He’s going to rape me.
“I’m going to show you how much I love you.”
After all this time, he’s finally going to get what he’s always wanted.
“And you’re going to respond with me the way you did with Asher.”
I don’t react. I can’t react.
“I saw you in the forest, Grace.” The venom spells out with my new name. “I found you a few weeks before that trip. I found your secret whore life on Twitter. And when you told the world about your honeymoon to the Caribbean, I had to go see who your new husband was. Imagine my happiness when I realized you were not on a honeymoon.”
He eases himself up off of me and then pulls me up by my elbow. It’s bent at a weird angle and I twist to relive the pressure and pain he’s inflicting. When I turn, we are face to face.
His mask is gone. His face exposed to me for the first time. It’s not a memorable face. It’s neither handsome or ugly. Brown eyes. Fair skin. Stubble that is not the least bit reminiscent of Vaughn’s sexy five o’clock shadow.
My stomach turns and I have to swallow down the bile as I avert my eyes. I’m relieved when I realize I don’t know him. I was always afraid I’d know him. He’d be someone I trusted. But he’s not. Just a psychotic stranger.
“Look at me.”
I don’t want to, but he grips my chin hard and yanks my head up. I force myself to meet his gaze.
“I was so happy when I figured out you were single. But then… all that died when I saw you with him. I’m going to kill him too—”
Too? He’s going to kill me first, then Asher?
“And I’m going to make him suffer. Even more than you.”
I chop him in the side of the neck, hammer-fist style, then follow it up with another one to the back of his head. He sways, but does not go down. Fuck! That shit’s supposed to work! I kick his feet so he loses his balance and he goes down, but he grabs my calf and takes me with him. I fling my fists wildly, but he’s so much bigger. So much stronger. I’m overpowered within seconds and a closed fist crashes against my temple.
