CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
C HAPTER T HIRTY -S IX
Pain slammed up Claire’s arm as Denver dragged her out of his SUV by the duct tape that bound her wrists in front of her body. A porch light on the small house was the only light. No, wait. It wasn’t a house exactly. It was a trailer. The rest of the lot was dark. Thick woods surrounded the property. Besides the trailer, the only other building was an old barn.
“Move it.” Denver pulled harder.
Claire stumbled to keep up. He opened the barn door. The smell of animals hit her hard. Claire gagged as he yanked her through the door and rolled it closed. He flipped a switch on the wall. A bare bulb cast a cone of dim light in the center of the space.
The barn had a few doors at the back, indicating rooms of some sort, but the rest of the building was open, with metal fencing dividing the space into pens. It looked like large animals, maybe horses or cows, had once occupied the pens. But now the barn held zoo animals in cages.
Something screamed from the shadows.
Denver loosened his grip. “Don’t you dare try to run again.” His voice rang with disappointment. “That scene in the street was enough.”
“I won’t,” she said in a small voice, because that’s how she felt—as small and helpless as the little girl she must have been when Josh took her. Had she cried back then? Had she known what was happening? That her father was dead? Had she seen him die?
Maybe it was best she couldn’t recall the trauma. Or maybe the trauma was the reason she couldn’t recall the accident or her previous life. But either way, she grieved for the little girl she didn’t remember being—and for the relationships with her parents and brother that were missing, as if someone had used an eraser on her brain.
“What was our dad like?” she asked.
Denver shook his head at her. “You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
“He was kind of a nerd. He loved baseball. He liked to gamble too much. He and Mom used to fight about that a lot.”
“Was he a good father? Did I spend time with him?” She really wanted to know.
“Yeah.” Denver’s voice turned wistful. “He was a pretty good dad. There was this minor league team in our town, and he used to take us to games all the time. We’d get hot dogs and Cokes. I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but I really miss those days.”
“I wish I remembered,” Claire said.
“We can go to baseball games. Just you and me, like we did back then.” He gestured around them. “I bought this place last summer, when I found out about Josh—and everything. I wanted to be close, to watch him—to watch you.”
Claire shivered.
He continued. “There’s nothing around. I found a good way to make some quick cash, and I needed the solitude. I had to get away from Mom. But we don’t have to stay here. I put some cash aside. We can go somewhere else.” He turned on another overhead bulb and stood her in front of one of the pens. He’d built a cage inside, and a mountain lion paced behind the bars. It crouched and emitted another earsplitting scream.
“I’m getting ten grand for him.” Pride rang in his voice. He pulled her to the next pen, this one built from plywood. The door was closed. He pushed her forward. “Look inside.”
Three capybara babies scrambled in three inches of wood shavings.
“They go for five hundred each.”
The next stall held two gray puppies in a dog crate. Next to the pups, several baby monkeys filled smaller, stacked cages.
“Wolf pups go for a thousand apiece.” Denver spun her to face him. “I can provide for you. We can be a family. Just you and me. Mom doesn’t have to be part of it. I know she scared you.”
She scared me. She didn’t kidnap me.
Claire tried to school her face into an expression of enthusiasm. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even stop crying. The tears and sobs kept coming. She could barely get air into her lungs in between them. Her entire body was a heaving, snotty disaster.
She sucked in a deep breath and willed her voice to steady. “I don’t want her to be my mother.” Pam Sawyer had made Claire feel sick, like someone was twisting her insides. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—go live with her.
“I don’t either.” Denver stared at her, his eyes hard and mean. “Before Josh Mason killed Dad, before he took you, she was a good mom. But after ...” He shook his head. “Then I didn’t exist anymore. She could only think about you .” He said you with venom.
She could feel his hatred on her skin like a sunburn. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I know.” His voice softened, but the hard look in his eyes remained. He blamed her all the same. “We don’t need Mom. I can be enough for you.” He said the words with conviction, as if he could make it true. He was never going to let her go. But what was he going to do with her? He’d killed Josh and Shelly. Would he kill her too? They barely knew each other, but they were siblings. Could he kill his own sister?
She knew in her soul if she didn’t live up to his expectations as the perfect sister, he could—and probably would. Another sob trembled through her. How could she have trusted him, even for a second?
“Fuck!” Denver yelled and shook her by the bicep. “Stop that, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” He gripped her arm tighter and pulled her to the post in front of the cougar’s cage.
Claire stumbled, fell, and landed on her hands and knees. Her head struck the post. Stars swam in front of her eyes. The pain shocked her body out of crying mode. She sat up and cradled her skull with both hands.
Denver used a rope to tie her bound hands to the post. “You’ll learn. We are going to be a family. I’m going to take care of you.” His face softened. He reached out and cupped the side of her face. “I know you don’t remember me, but you will. You’ll learn to love me.”
His touch made her want to recoil, but she forced herself to remain still. Instinctively, she knew rejecting him would make him angrier.
He stroked her cheek. “But until you do, I won’t let you go. Everyone leaves me. I had no one to help me after Dad died. No one. You were gone. Dad was gone. Mom mentally checked out. She didn’t even remember to feed me. I was the one making sure she ate. How fucked up was that? I was just a kid, and I was worse than alone. But that won’t happen to you. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll live up to my responsibilities. I expect you to do the same. You might not love me yet, but you will in time.”
She rose to her knees. The barn interior swam, and the floor felt as if it were tilting, like the fun house at the annual carnival. She curled her hands around the post to steady herself. Breathing through her nose, she willed her vision to clear.
“You can’t escape.” He gestured toward the cougar’s cage. “If I can keep him, then you don’t stand a chance at getting away.”
Hopelessness swamped Claire until she was weak. What had she done? She should have told the sheriff and Renata everything after she’d received his text. But she’d wanted to keep him from hurting Renata and Teresa. If Claire hadn’t left, then Denver would have come inside for her. Both Renata and her mom would have fought, but Claire couldn’t let them die for her.
Denver wasn’t the loving brother she’d wanted.
He was a monster.
“I saved you,” he said.
“You’re scaring me.” Claire sniffed. “Let me go.”
“Why? I’m your brother. It’s time you accepted that. If you behave, I’ll take care of you. All we have is each other. Mom can’t manage. I’m sorry about that. But I was just a kid when she started drinking. I couldn’t stop her.”
“I want to go back.” Claire felt the tears flow again. “Please take me back.”
“Fucking stop crying!” A vein on the side of his temple pulsed and throbbed like an angry worm.
Claire sucked back a sob and willed her eyes to stop tearing, but it was no use. Her emotions were out of control. She trembled, and the pain in her head made her want to vomit.
“You could be in the trailer right now. I made you a bed and everything.” Denver paced the barn.
The cougar screamed. Claire flinched. The animal’s cries pierced her eardrums like a dental drill. “Please let me out. I promise not to run.”
“I can’t do that. You’re lying. I know a lie, Blaire. I’ve lived with an alcoholic for twelve years. You will run, and you’ll tell the sheriff about me. I can’t trust you yet. No. You’ll either adapt to your new life or you’ll die.”
Claire almost peed her pants when he pointed the gun at her face.
His mood shifted. His eyes went cold and dark. Whatever he was going to say, he meant it. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”