13
Westport, Connecticut
My dreams follow me as I wake. Images of the chains that shackled me .
. . the sounds I held deep in my throat as he used my body to satisfy his lascivious desires.
Tears I learned not to cry for fear of his punishment.
I am his. He can do with me as he pleases, and I must not resist. To resist means to die.
Perhaps death would be better.
I blink away the memories and remind myself that I am here, not there. He can no longer touch me.
I shudder and force away the past—the things I have done and cannot undo—that have saturated me. I moisten my lips but it does no good. My mouth is so dry. Even my eyes refuse to open and close smoothly.
With effort I force myself up into a sitting position. I recognize this hazy, heavy feeling. The painkillers left me feeling this way. I haven’t taken one of the pain pills in more than two weeks.
This is wrong.
I glance around the room in an attempt to gather my bearings. My heart nearly stops when I notice the time. It’s morning. I slept all afternoon and night? What the hell? I grab my cell phone and confirm this. Unbelievable.
I think of the paranoia and then the paralyzing fatigue.
I recognize this is more than a little disturbing as I struggle to put these events into context.
I suppose the anxiety is amplifying all else.
The article as well as the podcast interview were unnerving.
Abruptly returning here has proven unsettling rather than relaxing.
But none of that explains this drug hangover, and that is exactly what it is. The sluggish feeling, the dry mouth . . . all of it tells the tale.
I brought along the pain medication just in case I needed it. Then the only possible answer hits me, and I move my head from side to side with the realization of precisely what is at play here.
Acacia has drugged me. It’s the only explanation.
A jolt of fury stiffens my spine, and I drop my feet to the floor and stand.
I sway a bit. Once I steady myself, I walk as quickly as possible to the door, open it and listen.
I need to ensure my child is safe. Olivia’s sweet voice drifts up to me.
It sounds as if she and Acacia have already started her school lessons for the day.
Then I brace my forehead against the doorframe.
I have to pull myself together and confront her.
It’s the only way. Knowing that she was put in place to watch me is one thing, but this is a step too far.
This is a whole new level, and Olivia isn’t safe—I am not safe.
Apparently this trip really was a bad idea.
I straighten. A shower will clear my head a little.
I grab new underthings as well as jeans and a tee then head toward the bathroom.
As I pass the bedside table I think of the damned necklace stashed there.
No matter that it can’t be the same one, I photographed it and sent it to the PI if for no other reason than to document the event.
However this ends, someone needs to know all that has happened.
I rush through a shower and dress. The tee I choose sports the logo from Olivia’s school. The jeans are worn soft, my favorites. I grab a sweater just in case. Spring in Connecticut can be cool well into June.
As I pass the dressing table and my laptop, I pause to check my email. When I hired the PI, I created a separate email for sending and receiving information. This one isn’t on my phone or anywhere else.
I swipe at my lips. I need water. I don’t want to go downstairs and disturb Olivia’s schoolwork.
My gaze lands on the bedside table where a full glass of water waits.
Acacia must have brought it up at some point during the night.
I survey the room at large. Evidently she decided to pick up as well.
I can only imagine what she thought when she saw the way I had torn the place apart.
Julia is losing it.
I wouldn’t put it past her to have taken photos to document the lapse into hysteria.
I rally the energy to walk across the room and get the glass, but I hesitate before drinking it.
Who knows what she may have put in it. Instead I go to the bathroom and pour it out, then duck my head under the faucet for a drink.
I wipe my mouth with the hand towel, avoid my reflection in the mirror and return to my laptop.
I enter the passcode and draw in a deep breath, then release it slowly.
If I’m lucky, the news that her father was a veterinarian has helped Archer in his search.
The photos of Olivia stare at me from my home screen.
A smile automatically tugs at my lips. She is such a beautiful child. My heart squeezes with love for her.
I check my secret email but find nothing other than a couple of spam drops.
Before closing the lid, I glance at my other email—the one with the icon in my menu.
When I open it I’m surprised by the hundred and fifty new emails displayed.
Presumably related to the Times article, but I can’t be sure, since they all have different subjects.
Strange. I, of course, don’t recognize the sender of the first email, but I open it anyway. Just call me a glutton for punishment.
An image instantly flashes on the screen and has me rearing back. In my head, where no one can hear, I want to scream as if the person pictured in the image can hear me.
It’s the primary photo used in all the local newspaper’s articles about the abduction just a few days shy of twenty years ago.
The image is one that has haunted me for every one of those fucking years.
My heart reacts. How could it not? This is the part, I rail at myself, that will never allow me to be truly free.
A lump of sticky, sickening fear surges into my throat.
I read the scrawled letters marring the face in the pic—a single ugly word. Liar.
My heart thumps, and a distinct thread of uncertainty weaves its way through me as I scroll down to read the one typed line in the body of the email.
Did you really think you would get away with it?
I draw in a jagged breath. Remind myself that this is to be expected. The article published by the Times has prompted a reaction.
The reality in all this is that one can never undo their pasts or even successfully outrun it forever.
What’s done is done. The real problem is those who rise from it like the dead crawling from cold, cold graves.
That’s the true nightmare. Bony fingers clawing through the years like layers of dirt—layers I have carefully and diligently spread behind me to separate that past from my present.
But that separation is never truly anything but temporary.
I delete the damned email and open the next one without even thinking.
It’s the same . . . same image . . . same one liner.
The next one is from a different address with a different subject line, but the content is the same. As is the next one and the next one after that . . .
I launch to my feet, causing my chair to topple over onto the floor.
But I don’t care, I can’t stop staring at the dozens more emails that keep coming.
Now there are more than two hundred. Then it climbs to three hundred.
The little pings accompanying the delivery of each are like needles piercing my brain.
It’s as if opening the first one has set off some sort of chain reaction.
“Julia?”
I turn too quickly and sway. The room spins a little. I frown at the unexpected reaction. What the hell is wrong with me?
Oh yeah, I’ve probably been drugged. And the bitch staring at me is unquestionably the one who did it.
“Julia,” Acacia repeats, her gaze roaming over me, landing lastly on my face, “what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
Mounting anxiety and a dash of outrage suddenly replaces all else. “Where is Olivia?”
“She’s having a break.” A frown lining her features, Acacia comes closer, her attention fixed on the laptop. “What’s happened?”
I slam the lid shut. “We need to talk.”
“Is something wrong?” She searches my face now.
“We’ll discuss it downstairs.” I need to see with my own eyes that Olivia is safe. I unplug my laptop and tuck it under my arm.
Acacia follows me out of the room without another word.
Downstairs, Olivia is planted in front of the television watching her favorite cartoon. I give her a hug and tell her Acacia and I will be in her father’s study.
The study was once a library. When Phillip and I married, he needed a space here for working from home. He chose the family library and turned it into a very masculine space with lots of dark woodwork and heavy furniture. Even the upholstery and curtains are deep blues and grays.
I take the chair behind Phillip’s desk, more as a statement of authority than comfort. The sleek leather and wood are cold and austere. I place my laptop on the blotter pad as Acacia lowers into one of the upholstered chairs on the opposite side.
“What’s going on?” She asks this with a good deal of nonchalance, but her eyes give her away. She is nervous. Good.
“In the drawer of my bedside table, I found this.” I open the image of the necklace on my phone. While she stares at it, seemingly unfazed, I go on. “It’s very much like a necklace I once had, a long time ago. But it was lost. I want to know how this one got into my room and why.”
She blinks. “Are you asking me?”
I roll my eyes. “I am. You put my things away. You go in and out of my room as you please. Who else would it be?”
Her jaw drops, and a sound of disbelief issues from her mouth. “You’re joking, right? Olivia probably found it and put it there.” She shrugs. “Or it was already there. I have no idea.”
I restrain the building anger. “Olivia did not put it there. Where would she have gotten it?” Not that I asked my child but I know. I’m looking at the person who did this. I am certain of that much.
“Maybe she found it in one of the cottages,” Acacia argues.
“It. Was. Not. Olivia.” I’m confident the glare that accompanies each word gets my point across this time. “I found it before we visited the cottages.”
“Julia, surely—”
“Don’t bother,” I interrupt her. “I know it was you.”
Uncertainty flickers in her eyes, but her expression goes blank. I can see the wheels turning. She’s suddenly considering where I may have hidden a nanny cam.
“I swear.” She leans back in her chair and folds her arms over her chest. “It wasn’t me.”
“All right. If that’s the answer you wish to stand by, fine. We have nothing else to discuss.” It’s her. “I’ll call a car for you.”
Her gaze narrows. “So that’s what yesterday’s so-called scavenger hunt was about.”
I’ve basically just fired her, and still she dares to come at me from a different angle.
“Yes,” I admit, throwing out a bone just to see where this will go.
“I needed an excuse to have a look around—anywhere someone might hide or hole up on the property since getting into the house is not exactly easy.”
“You could have just said that’s what you needed to do.”
Oh the sarcasm. “Given only I, Phillip, you and Helen have access to the house, I had reason not to be fully forthcoming.”
Acacia stands and starts to pace. A move that ensures she doesn’t have to look at me. Lies are easier to hide when there’s no face to face contact.
“I hate to ask this,” she proposes, “I really do, but how well do you know Helen?”
Shift the focus. Nice try.
“I had a very thorough background search done seven years ago when she started working for us. She has other clients in the area as well. All gave her glowing recommendations. I don’t think it’s Helen.
But”—I might as well go all in with this part, let her believe there’s still hope she might slip off the hook—“the delivery guy from the market may have had a few minutes when Helen wasn’t paying attention. ”
Acacia stalls and opens her arms wide as if this is the obvious answer. “There you go. Someone may have paid him to leave that necklace. Someone who knows its significance.”
Before I can decide how I want to respond, she insists, “We’re overanalyzing this.
” She braces her hands on her hips. “We’re going down a path that isn’t even on the map yet.
What we should be doing is calling Phillip to tell him what’s happening.
He can help. He can set up a security detail here at the house if necessary.
And, we need to call your doctor about all this excessive sleeping and paranoia.
You’ve been behaving very strangely almost since we arrived.
Perhaps some medication you’re taking is causing the reaction. ”
Isn’t that nice? She has an explanation for everything.
Just like that. “We are not calling Phillip or my doctor.” When she starts to argue, I hold up a hand to stop her.
“As for yesterday, I haven’t figured that one out yet, particularly since I am not currently taking any medication. But I have a few ideas.”
She stares at the floor, shakes her head. “Whatever you think. Should I pack my things?”
“When Olivia is finished with her schoolwork, we’ll talk more, and I’ll give you my final decision.”
She takes the cue and goes to find Olivia.
I stare after her for a long minute. The accident threw me off balance for more than two months. It was a hard comeback, and I’m still not whole yet. Even as I think this, I remind myself that I have survived worse. Far worse.
Day after day of torture at the hands of a monster. Chained like an animal. Starved, drugged. Surrounded at times by total darkness. There truly are no adequate words to describe what I suffered.
I smile then. But I had my vengeance.
Just one of those parts of the story that no one can ever know.