18. Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BETSY
B etsy was finally left alone in the apartment. It had been several days since they painted her room and she absolutely loved it. It was better than she had ever imagined.
She had spent several hours every day in there, playing, coloring, and just enjoying her time in there. It was absolute heaven. Daddy made her take a nap every day so she could catch up on some much needed sleep apparently. Betsy disagreed with him about needing a nap. She hadn’t been sleeping well at night, but she also hadn’t had any nightmares.
Maybe it was because Daddy was in the apartment and her mind knew that. She didn’t really understand but she wasn’t complaining. The best night of sleep she had was the other night when Daddy held her. Oh, she loved it when he held her in his arms.
So safe.
Protected.
Loved.
“What am I going to do?” She whispered, looking over at Mikey. “I think I want to stay.”
Mikey just stared at her. She knew he wasn’t actually going to say anything, but she wished he could. She bet if he could talk, he would have some amazing advice.
Was it a little weird for her to be saying that? Maybe. Betsy had struggled on what she wanted to do. Daddy treated her like a princess, better than anyone in her life had. He cared for her, wanted what was best for her, and dare she say, loved her.
Betsy didn’t know if he actually loved her, but sometimes it felt like it with how he acted and looked at her. It was the same way some of her foster parents looked at each other. Something she wanted her whole life and she was finally getting it.
Daddy hadn’t done anything to harm her. Did he come over to threaten her? Yes, but he hadn’t done anything.
Kidnapped her, but besides that, nothing. He had been super sweet and caring, wanting the best for her, even if she didn’t think it was. Who else was going to do that? How many men had she talked to and none of them even thought about doing it unless she asked?
Betsy hadn’t even asked Daddy and he was doing it.
“Because he is the real deal,” she told herself.
But did that negate what he was doing? He kidnapped her and told her she couldn’t leave, ever. That she was stuck with him for the rest of her life. But part of her thought how caring and thoughtful he was towards her made it okay.
“Am I weird for thinking about that?” Betsy asked. “I think I am weird for wanting to stay, but I bet there are a couple other people who are in the same situation as I am. I can’t be the only one this has happened to.”
Mikey didn’t say anything.
“And now I’m crazy because I’m talking to you. You can’t reply to me but I can’t talk to Daddy. Not when he wouldn’t understand. He just seems to know everything there is and be okay with it.”
Betsy did crave to talk to Daddy about it, to talk to him about everything but she didn’t know if he would understand or fully listen.
“I really need to look into who sent me the message and the note, but how am I going to do that? I can’t do it when I’m on his internet, not when he could track what I do.”
She looked away from Mikey and towards the door. Daddy didn’t tell her when he was going to be back. She didn’t even know what he was doing. Probably work, something she wasn’t allowed to see.
But what possibly could it be for work? His computer and stuff were here, not wherever he was.
“You are so smart!” Betsy raised her voice. “I could totally sit in the stairwell and hack into someone else's internet and use it. Daddy would never know!”
Betsy grabbed hold of Mikey and gave him a big hug.
“You are the bestest!”
She got up from sitting on the ground and walked over to her phone. Right as she picked it up, it started going off. Screaming, she looked down to see it was a random number.
“Get a grip of yourself,” she mumbled.
Her phone hadn’t gone off much since Daddy kidnapped her. She was just jumpy because of the note and text message she had gotten from the random person.
“I really need to figure that out,” she groaned.
It was starting to take a toll on her. She had screamed when her phone went off, jumped when there was a knock on the door, and almost punched Daddy when he walked up behind her.
That was not a fun conversation to have with Daddy. The guilt just continued to grow with each lie she told related to the threatening notes. So many lies, digging herself deeper and deeper into the guilt.
“Hello?” she answered the call, full on expecting it to be a spam call.
Betsy walked out of her playroom and towards the front door. She didn’t need her computer to hack into someone's internet, but just needed her phone and her brain.
Breathing was heard on the other end of the call, making her stop walking.
“Hello?” she asked again, nerves bubbling up inside of her.
She pulled the phone away from her ear and saw the random number. Who could be calling her?
“If this is a prank call, you can just hang up,” she put the phone up against her ear again.
But the person on the other end just continued to breathe loudly into the phone. Betsy started to pace up and down the hallway, waiting for the other person to say something.
“Hello?” her voice sounded more shaky and unsure.
Nerves were running rampant in her stomach. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she hung up and stared at it. Who was that? Why were they calling? Was it the person who had threatened her?
Betsy had never received a phone call like that before. She didn’t have many phone calls at all, even random numbers.
“You’re okay,” she whispered, not believing a word she said.
Grabbing one of her shoes, she opened the door and propped it. Betsy didn’t have a key to the apartment but she needed to go into the stairwell and figure out who called but also who left the text message. It had to be the same person.
Betsy stood outside the door and sent Daddy a text.
Walking up and down the stairs for some exercise. Won’t be long. -Betsy
Before he could even text her back, she made her way towards the stairs. How many floors should she go up or down? Would Daddy look at all of them if he found out what she was doing or just the first couple?
“What to do,” she mumbled.
Betsy walked down one flight of stairs and sat down on the last step. Daddy probably would think she would walk several flights down so she was going to do the opposite. But what if he knew she wasn’t going to and just went up or down one or two floors?
“No time to think about this,” she whispered to herself as she opened up her phone.
Betsy looked at all the different wifi options before settling on one and hacking into it. Most people didn’t have good passwords so it was fairly easy to get into it.
“What to do first,” she mumbled.
Should she do the phone number from the text or should she do the call she just received? Betsy decided on the call since it was fresh in her mind but as she was looking into it, she kept hitting roadblocks and ultimately saw that it was a burner phone.
“Shit.”
That was a deadend. There was no way to track the burner phone and she knew whoever did this paid in cash. There was no way the person didn’t.
Betsy pulled up the phone number for the text message and saw that it was the same one.
“Double shit,” she groaned. “Why?”
She took several deep breaths. There had to be another way she could find out who was doing this. She just had to think. Her mind was drawing a blank on anything else she could do. She had tried to find the location of where the person was.
The next step would be to figure out where they bought the phone. But that could be anywhere. New York city was massive and had several corner stores and other places where you could buy burner phones.
Tears filled her eyes and she took several more deep breaths.
“Everything is going to be okay,” she whispered, pushing herself off of the stairs. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ve got this and I’m going to figure it out.”
Or she hoped she would. Betsy didn’t know how she was going to be able to look into where the person bought it when she couldn’t leave the apartment building. She figured she was going to get a lecture for walking up and down the stairs when Daddy got home.
No keys, no safety equipment, and she didn’t wait for Daddy to let her know if it was okay or not. They hadn’t talked about it, but she figured it wasn’t going to be bad since she was staying in the building.
Betsy made her way up the stairs and towards the apartment door. She really needed to get a key for both doors. The people had come soon after they painted the walls to get started on tearing down the one wall to connect both apartments.
Daddy had taken them both out to a different apartment while they worked on it. She didn’t know how many people were working, but it didn’t take them long to finish it. Whoever they were and how many ever there were, they were efficient.
As she got closer to the front door, she realized there was something on the ground. Had she dropped something on the way out? Her shoe was still propping the door open. Maybe she did drop something.
Betsy cautiously walked over towards the door and picked up the note, walking into the apartment and closing the door behind her. She opened the note and read it.
Expose yourself in one week or we’ll kill you.
Her breathing got faster as she read the note over again. They were in the building while she was in the stairwell trying to figure out who they were. Were they in the apartment building with her?
Betsy’s gaze darted around the room, trying to figure out if someone was in the apartment or not. She didn’t hear anything. Looking back down at the note, she reread it.
They were really close to her.
They had been in the apartment building.
They could have hurt her if they knew where she was.
Did they know where she was at the time? Had she heard them without realizing it?
Bety’s breathing picked up as all of those thoughts passed through her mind. Her back hit the wall and she slid down to the ground.
They had found out where she was again. They probably knew everything about her. What were they going to do next?
Her hand went up to her throat as her airways started to close. It felt like someone was sitting down on her chest, not letting her get any little breath in. Her lungs burned as they begged her to take a breath of air, but she couldn’t.
With her other hand, she shakily got it opened and called Daddy. Tears were streaming down her face as she waited for him to pick up. But what could he do? He couldn’t find out about what happened. As her vision was closing in on her, she ended the call and succumbed to the darkness.