88
ANSON
Twill was bound to a chair with something on her head.
In her mouth, too. A rubber ball? Some kind of gag?
No. Something to keep her from biting her own tongue.
A shadow crossed over her, someone else in the room.
As I watched, Twill’s body jerked and stiffened, her back bent at an impossible angle, and she threw her head back in a silent scream.
The sound was muted, yet that scream might have been the loudest I had ever heard.
Electroshock. The pain in her eyes. The fear.
Her lips pulled so tight around her teeth, they looked like they might tear away.
And it didn’t stop. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Tucker reached over and pressed the power button on the monitor.
The screen went black.
He took another puff of his cigar and smiled. “Your mother took something of mine and you’re going to help me find it, Mr. Bishop.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The look he exchanged with Hillburn was brief, but enough. Hillburn jerked his rifle around from Vincent and brought the barrel within an inch of Libby’s head. To her credit, she didn’t flinch. Instead, she reached over and took my hand again as if to tell Tucker neither of us was hiding anymore.
Tucker took another puff of his cigar and let the smoke crawl out from the corner of his mouth as he said, “Your mother took something from me. I’m going to take something from you.
” He looked around the room at the others.
“In fact, I’m going to take five somethings from you until you have nobody left.
At that point, if you still haven’t told me what I need to know, I start taking parts of you.
I’ll start with your fingernails. Then your fingers.
I’ve got a guy who knows just how to tie off a wound, cauterize it to keep you from bleeding out.
I’ll cut, he’ll close, and between the two of us, we’ll keep going until you’re nothing but a pile of sloppy wet parts on the floor.
The only thing I’ll let you keep is your tongue, because at some point, you’ll cave and tell me where that fucking woman is hiding. ”
“I don’t know where she is.”
He went on as if he didn’t hear me, his eyes shifting to Libby.
“Maybe instead of a bullet, I’ll cut her up and make you watch.
I’ve seen people live as long as a week while I cut away.
You think you can watch that for a week, Anson?
You think you can watch me cut the life from this girl bit by bit and keep your mouth shut? ”
“I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed, slamming the tip of his cigar down into the ashtray at his side and grinding it out. He shouted so loud that Hillburn jumped. Not Libby, though. She gave him nothing, and I loved her more for it. She might have been the strongest person I knew.
Tucker sucked in a breath and slowly let it out. His scowl twisted back into a sadistic smile. “I’m a patient man, Anson, but the things your mother took . . . even a patient man will only tolerate so much.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I said again. “But I’ll help you find her.”
At this, there was a slight spark behind his eyes. He extinguished it quickly, but I’d seen it. His voice was calm again when he spoke. “I’m listening.”
“You let my friends go and keep me. Put the word out that you have me.”
Mother won’t come for you. You know that. She left you for dead when she buried your knife on the edge of your lake.
Paul, Vincent, the girls, they all began to protest at once, but it was Libby’s voice I heard most. “Anson, no—I can’t lose you again!”
I turned to her and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “She’ll return what she stole.”
She won’t.
“She won’t leave me here. Not with these people.”
She will.
“We’ll be back together soon enough.”
We won’t.
No longer Father’s voice in my head, but my own.
I will never see this girl again.
Libby looked up at me, her eyes pleading.
Tucker clucked his tongue. He turned away from us and paced the room, several slow strides from one end to the other, before he turned and made his way back.
He came right up to me, getting so close I could smell the steak sauce on his breath behind the scent of his cigar.
“If she doesn’t show, you’ll wish you were strapped to a table in hell, because that will be better than the things I’ll do to you. ”
I swallowed. “I understand.”
“No!” Libby screamed out. She tried to get between me and Tucker, but Hillburn grabbed her and pulled her back.
“Get them all out of here,” Tucker commanded.
Hillburn pulled Libby away. Twisted her around and pulled her away until I could no longer see her.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t look. I remained still.
Behind me, I heard the elevator doors open, but I didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t watch my friends step into that elevator.
I knew I’d never see them again. I’d never see Libby again.
I wanted to cover my ears, to block out the sound of it, because I knew the sound of them leaving my life would haunt me, too.
The elevator doors closed and the room went silent. Hillburn, Carmichael, and all the other men with guns were gone, too. Only Tucker and I were left in the room.
I forced myself to speak. “How do I know you’ll let them go?”
Tucker let out a sigh and walked back over to the computer monitors.
He flicked the power on a single screen and the lobby came into view.
A moment later, I saw them step from the elevator, and with Hillburn and the other gunman behind them, they were ushered out the front doors of the hotel.
Not just Libby, Vincent, Paul, and the others, but everyone.
All the kids who came with us in the semi—he let them all go.
Two minutes and they were gone. I was alone.
When the lobby was empty, Tucker flicked off the monitor.
Reaching for the phone, he dialed an extension, simply said, “Send him in,” and hung up.
About a minute passed before the dark red door at the back of the room opened and a little man stepped out.
He wore an argyle sweater and glasses on a silver chain hanging around his neck.
His greasy hair was slicked back from his large forehead, and when he smiled, he revealed yellowed teeth. “Hello, Anson.”
Tucker’s eyes never left me. “I believe you know Dr. Oglesby?”
My gut twisted at the sight of him. I wanted to scamper back toward the elevator like a mouse to its hole. Pry the doors open and jump if that’s what I had to do. Anything to leave that room. To get away from him. I knew I could do none of those things, not if I wanted my friends to live.
All became clear—I recalled the video of the man kidnapping that girl from the street, shoving her into the back of that SUV.
I thought of Andy and Emily and Amanda and all those people up on the wall at the Quick.
Doctor Oglesby had purchased them from Meagan.
It had been him all along, all those years.
He’d tortured them. He’d killed them. It was all in his eyes, the twisted hunger burning there, the flames growing at the sight of me, growing with anticipation. He licked his lips.
“You’d better not disappoint me, Anson,” Tucker said.
Goodbye, son, Father whispered.
Dr. Oglesby turned and went back through the door without another word, because there was nothing left to be said.
I forced myself to follow after him. I walked by Tucker without meeting his gaze. I walked by the computer monitors and tried not to think of Twill, screaming in pain. I tried not to think of the shadow in the room with her, no doubt made by the man I was following.
I left the penthouse behind me as I stepped into the gloom, into a hallway darker than coal. At my back, the door thumped shut and sealed with a click. The twist of a deadbolt on the opposite side.
This door of dark red.
This door, the color of spilled blood.
This door of scarlet.
*