Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

sex, but I knew enough to know that it wasn’t right for Kelly to have done what she did at the wedding when she was only seventeen, and in the baptismal pool at that. I also knew never to get in anyone’s car that I didn’t know. I pulled Kelly’s hand, told her I wanted to go home, to my cat.’
    ‘Fluffy?’ Ford asked in a strained voice.
    ‘Yes.’ She patted her son’s hand. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant. Nobody will blame you if you leave. I’ll be honest and tell you that I don’t want you to hear this.’
    Her son met her eyes. ‘I haven’t left you before. I’m not starting now.’
    Her throat closed. ‘Okay. So . . . Kelly got annoyed. She wanted a ride home and I was making her walk. Her job was to walk with me and maybe she’d figured I’d tell on her to my parents. So she told me that if I didn’t want a ride that I could just walk alone and she got into the car with him. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started walking home. A few minutes later, the car stopped again and the man got out. He wasn’t so friendly looking anymore.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I was eight years old. I tried to run, but he caught me. Pressed a hankie over my face . . .’
    She closed her eyes. ‘I woke up in a garage and it was cold. I was tied up and gagged. There was a trap door that went underground. The trap door was open and I could hear Kelly crying, screaming from down below me. She screamed for help, mostly. Then it was just screams. I don’t know how much time passed. Beckett would go down the stairs to the room with food. Every time I’d hear him say, “I’m back. Did you miss me?” And then she’d scream some more. But nobody came to help. Nobody came but Beckett.
    ‘He took my gag off so I could eat, but stood there, watching me with a knife in his hand. Told me if I made a sound he’d kill me. I believed him. When I’d eaten, he’d gag me again and go back into the basement room and Kelly would scream some more. I wondered why he kept me gagged and not her, then I realized he liked the screaming. But other than to take off the gag, he never touched me.’ She looked at Ford, but his eyes were closed. ‘Do you understand me, Ford? He left me alone.’
    Ford nodded unsteadily. Said nothing.
    ‘For maybe a week, Beckett would go down the stairs saying, “I’m back. Did you miss me? ” ’ She closed her eyes. ‘Always with the trap door open. Eventually she stopped screaming. She must have gone into shock. But I could still hear her screaming inside my head. I still can.’
    ‘God.’ It was a horrified whisper from Agent Novak.
    ‘I think it was at the beginning of the second week that he took me to the cabin. I thought he was going to do to me what he did to Kelly, but he didn’t.’ She shook her head, laughing incredulously. ‘He made me clean his cabin. Told me if I tried to run, I couldn’t get far. The next town was forty miles away and there were no neighbors. If I tried, he’d kill my mother. He laughed and said he knew where she lived.
    ‘He felt confident enough that I wouldn’t escape to go out to the garage and leave me in the house. He’d locked me in and locked up his knives. One day he was in the garage and the phone rang. I wanted to answer it, but was scared it was a trap, that it was him and he’d kill my mother. He had an answering machine, and the volume was turned up. It was the gas company telling him they were coming to fill his tank that afternoon. He had one of those old steel tanks outside the house.’
    ‘He still does,’ Ford said dully.
    ‘I wish you didn’t know that,’ she said, looking at her hands. But then she took a deep breath and went on. ‘It was the first time anyone had come to where we were, the first contact with anyone outside since he’d taken us. I knew that would be my only chance to get away. I didn’t have a weapon, but Beckett kept hornet spray under the sink with the cleaning supplies. I waited until he’d opened the door.’ She cocked her jaw, still feeling the grim satisfaction of the moment, all these years later. ‘He said, “I’m back. Did you miss me?” and I sprayed the hornet spray in his eyes and ran as fast as I could. He was coming, thundering after me.’ Her heart still raced at the memory. ‘I knew there was nowhere to run, so I climbed a tree to hide. I was a tomboy in those days, thankfully. He was still crashing around, screaming, tears streaming down his cheeks. He