The Big Bad Wolf

positive by being somewhere else—anywhere but
here in the horrid closet. With this complete madman bursting in two, three, sometimes five times a day.
    Mostly she got lost in her memories. Once upon a time, and it seemed so long ago, she had called her girls Merry Berry, Bobbie Doll, names like that. They used to sing “High Hopes” all the time, and songs from
Mary Poppins.
    They had endless positive-energy thoughts—which Lizzie called “happy thoughts”—and always shared them with one another, and with Brendan, of course.
    What else could she remember? What? Anything?
    They had so many animals over the years that eventually they gave each one a number.
    Chester, a black Lab with a curly tail like a chow, was number 16. The Lab would bark constantly, all day and all night, until Lizzie merely
showed
him a bottle of Tabasco sauce—his kryptonite. Then he would finally shut up.
    Dukie, number 15, was a short-haired orange calico who Lizzie believed had probably been an old Jewish lady in another life and who was always complaining, “Oh no, no, no, no.”
    Maximus Kiltimus was number 11; Stubbles was number 31; Kitten Little was number 35.
    Memories were all that Lizzie Connolly had—because there could be no present for her. None.
    She couldn’t be here in this horror house.
    She had to be somewhere else, anywhere else.
    Had to be!
    Had to be!
    Had to be!
    Because he was inside her now.
    The Wolf was inside her, in the real world, grunting and thrusting like an animal, violating, raping for minutes that seemed like hours.
    But Lizzie had the last laugh, didn’t she?
    She wasn’t there.
    She was somewhere in her memories.

Chapter 91
    THEN HE WAS FINALLY GONE, the terrible, inhuman Wolf. Monster! Beast! He’d given her a bathroom break, and food, but now he was gone. God, his arrogance in keeping her here in his house!
When is he going to kill me? I’m going mad. Going, going, gone!
    She peered through teary eyes into the pitch-blackness. She’d been bound and gagged again. In a strange way, that was good news. It meant he still wanted her, right?
    Good God, I’m alive because I’m desirable to a horrid beast! Please help me, dear God. Please, please, help me.
    She thought about her good girls and then she turned her mind toward escape. A
fantasy,
she understood, and therefore
escape
in itself.
    By now, she knew this closet by heart, even in total darkness. It was as if she could see everything, as if she had night sight. More than anything, she was aware of her own body—trapped in here—and her mind—trapped as well.
    Lizzie let her hands wander as much as they could. There were clothes in the closet—a male’s—
his.
The closest to her was some kind of sport coat with round, smooth buttons. Possibly a blazer? Lightweight, which reinforced her belief that this was a warm-weather city.
    Next was a vest. A smallish ball was in one pocket, hard, maybe a golf ball.
    What could she do with a golf ball? Could it be a weapon?
    A zipper on the pocket.
What could she do with a zipper? She’d like to catch his tattooed dick in it!
    Then a windbreaker. Flimsy. Strong, sickening smell of tobacco on it. And then, her favorite thing to touch, a soft overcoat, possibly cashmere.
    There were more “treasures” in the overcoat’s pockets.
    A loose button. Scraps of paper. From a notepad?
    A ballpoint pen, possibly a Bic. Coins—four quarters, two dimes, a nickel. Unless the coins were foreign? She wondered endlessly.
    There was also a book of matches with a shiny cover and embossed letters.
    What did the embossed letters say? Could they tell her the city where she was being kept?
    Also, a lighter.
    A half pack of mints, which she knew to be cinnamon because she smelled it on her hands.
    And at the bottom of the pocket—lint, so insignificant, yet important to her now.
    Behind the overcoat were two bundles of his clothing still covered in plastic from the cleaners. A receipt of some kind on the first packet. Attached by a staple.
    She imagined the name of the cleaners, an identification number in red, writing by some dry-cleaning store clerk.
    All of it seemed strangely precious to Lizzie because she had nothing else.
    Except a powerful will to live.
    And get her revenge on the Wolf.

Chapter 92
    I WAS A PART of the large surveillance detail near the house in Highland Park, and I thought we were going to take Lawrence Lipton down soon, maybe within hours. We’d been told that Washington was working