64. Jessica
October, Present Day
Maple Ridge
The cold seepingthrough the concrete floor and walls chills me to the bone, but it’s not enough to numb the pain wracking my body. Every single part of me hurts.
I shiver, which only intensifies the pain. My soaking wet clothes aren’t helping. Dousing me with icy water was Lincoln’s idea. To torture me into telling them what they want to know.
“Where is it, Savannah?”
I still don’t know why he thinks I know where Wayne’s insurance policy against him is hidden. And at some point, I stopped caring.
I also don’t know what it has to do with the other man, who hasn’t spoken to me since the kidnapping. Lincoln has done all the talking. Not a hint of remorse exists in the other man’s eyes to suggest I might be able to convince him to make it easier for me to escape.
I’m not getting out of here alive. I already know that. I’m cold and nausea is my constant companion. My head aches, one eye is swollen almost shut, and I have been beaten and tortured. I don’t have the energy to give a damn anymore.
A shudder grips my body hard and sends a stabbing pain through me. I moan. I can’t even curse the shivering; it means I’m still alive. It’s when the shivering stops that I’ll be in trouble.
Don’t give up. Never give up.
It’s not my voice I hear in my head. It’s Angelique’s.
A young woman crouches on the floor next to me—the woman from Anne’s photo of Iris, Hazel, and Charles. I’m huddled on my side, doing what I can to retain what little body heat I have left.
I’m fairly positive the woman in the dark-green vintage dress isn’t real. She’s a hallucination. A dream. But I’m not complaining. A ghost from the journals is better than Lincoln and Not-Lincoln coming into the room.
Angelique strokes my arm. My eyelids fight to stay open.
“Be strong. Follow your heart.” Her voice is the whisper of a breath through leaves. She gives me a sad smile and rises to her feet.
A blond man is standing near the wall. Johann. I’m pretty sure that’s who my mind conjured up. He’s also wearing clothes from the 1940s. Gray trousers, gray vest, blue shirt, beige tie. He’s watching her, his face lit with love and adoration.
A tear slides to my hairline. Troy used to look at me that way.
Smiling, Johann holds out his hand to Angelique. She takes it, and they fade away.
“Thank you.” The words are so quiet, I’m not sure if I said them or just moved my lips.
Another shudder goes through me, and I moan. I need to warm up. That might help me survive. But I don’t have the strength to even get to my bruised knees.
My hands are still zip-tied in front of me, the skin around the plastic angry and raw. A day or two more like this, and I could be facing a nasty infection. My body won’t have the energy to fight it.
I have no idea what day it is. I lost count after the third day. Maybe it’s Monday. Or Tuesday. Or maybe I’ve been here for weeks. It feels like weeks.
For the first two days, whenever the two men left me alone in the room, I scoured every inch of the space. Searched for a way to escape or attack the men when they came in to torture me again. I found nothing.
Day three was spent plotting my escape. I came up with nothing.
Day four…I didn’t have enough energy by then to do much more than breathe and dream.
Once again, I let my thoughts slip to my happy place. It’s not the same place I used to disappear into myself while in prison. I’m not thinking about searching for shells on the beach with Amelia. I’m sitting in front of a fire with Troy, cuddled against his warm body. On the other side of him…is our two-year-old son.
What do I see?
Troy reading our son’s favorite picture book to him. The mess of golden-brown hair on top of our son’s head. The sexy grin Troy flashes me as he turns another page. His strong calloused hands that know how to make my body tingle. Bailey and Butterscotch snoozing on their bed by the fireplace.
What do I hear?
Troy’s deep and melodically smooth voice as he reads the story. The funny, squeaky voices he uses for the animals’ dialogue. Our son’s giggles. The crackle of the fire. The dogs snoring.
What do I feel?
The rough denim under my fingertips as I tap out the Morse code for ILU on Troy’s leg. Tap-tap. Tap-taaap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-taaap.
I smile at the image. My body is too cold to keep the tilt of my lips on my face for long. The smile fades away, but the image in my head doesn’t.
The rough denim transforms into the chilled concrete beneath my body. Tap-tap. Tap-taaap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-taaap.
I think back to one of my favorite Hans Christian Anderson stories from my childhood. “The Little Match Girl.” The orphaned girl was cold and homeless, hungry and alone. The small amount of money she earned came from the matches she sold. When she had only three left, she lit them one at a time. The first match brought to life the image of a warm home and a fireplace. But the flame quickly died away.
She struck the second match. The image that appeared was of a yummy Christmas dinner and a huge roasted turkey. But like with the first match, the image quickly faded away.
The third and final match brought the little girl a loving family. Before the flame flickered away, she died while imagining her mother’s warm embrace. She died with a smile on her face.
If I’m going to die, that’s how I plan to go. Thinking about Troy and the family we’ll never have together, sitting in front of the roaring fire. It doesn’t matter if Troy and I aren’t together for real. In my mind, we will be.
Tap-tap. Tap-taaap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-taaap.
The door’s deadbolt rattles as someone slides it to the side.
The door flings open and hits the wall behind it with a bang.
The first several times the door did that, I startled. Now, I can’t find it in me to flinch.
Lincoln and Not-Lincoln enter the concrete room. I waste a tiny amount of energy hating them for how they’re dry and warmly dressed. The hatred is enough to provide a flicker of heat inside me, but the heat dies away as swiftly as it came.
Not-Lincoln is carrying an old wooden chair. Fear slams into my body once more. I hate that chair almost as much as I hate the two men.
He sets it down next to me and yanks me to my feet. I sway unsteadily.
He tightens his grip on my arm. I doubt there’s much skin left on me he hasn’t already bruised. This abuse won’t leave so much as a mark.
Not-Lincoln roughly shoves me into the chair. I’m barely able to sit upright. Tap-tap. Tap-taaap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-taaap. The denim of my jeans is rough against my fingertip.
I don’t dare look at the tattoo on my arm. I don’t want to give away how much it means to me. Though I’m sure if my body is ever found—and if my flesh is intact—there won’t be a tattoo left with which to identify my remains.
I would shudder, but I don’t seem to have it in me anymore to do that.
Lincoln leans in too close, his sour breath hot on my face. “Okay, Savannah. Enough of the games. Where’s the information you took from my brother?”
“I-I di-didn’t take any in-infor-mation,” I reply through chattering teeth. Fuckers. I’m so tired of the same question again and again and again. It’s his one-hit wonder he can’t seem to break beyond.
I’ve long since given up explaining that if I’d had the information, I would have used it against my husband way before he was murdered.
Lincoln hadn’t liked that answer.
Each time I told him that, it resulted in more torture. Torture that wasn’t necessarily fueled by my answer, but I suspect by his need for revenge for his brother’s murder. Murder that Lincoln believes I’m guilty of. Nothing that either the courts or I could say will convince him otherwise.
I don’t bother to brace for what’s coming next. I know from experience it won’t make a difference.
He hits me across my swollen face, creating new splits in the weakened skin. My head lolls to the side, and I can make out at least five of him. My ears ring, the sound seemingly never ending.
I turn to Not-Lincoln. “Th-that day you asked me i-if I had se-seen your d-daugh-ter. On M-Main Street.” The stuttered words come out on a murmured slur. I’m not sure if the men can even hear them. “Was that wo-woman and child re-really your wife and d-daugh-ter?”
“No. They were strangers I saw go into the store.” The rough Aussie accent loops around his words, faded with time but stronger than when he spoke to me on Main Street.
A sense of déjà vu washes over me. It’s like watching a TV show rerun I saw many years ago but can’t remember how the episode went. And it’s blurry, like it’s behind a veil, with only parts of the picture wavering into clarity. It’s not enough for me to understand what’s going on.
I’ve heard that voice before. Not recently. Maybe it was while I was married. I heard it on a TV show or in a movie. It’s not like he’s the only Aussie living in the U.S.
A memory shimmers in my mind, gone too quickly to take a snapshot of. It’s a memory I’ve had recently. That much I recognize. But the torture and the cold and my weakened state are making it too difficult to find it again.
“You’ve b-been stalking me.” I hadn’t imagined it, and my PTSD hadn’t been working overtime. Someone had been following me. “W-why?”
He doesn’t respond.
“I didn’t k-kill Wayne.” My garbled words stumble out on a whisper. I can barely keep my eyes open. “Th-thirsty.” So very thirsty. I can’t remember the last time I had something to drink. After I didn’t give them what they wanted during the first two days of captivity, they stopped giving me water to drink. They dumped buckets of freezing cold water on me, but the small amount that trickled into my mouth hadn’t been enough.
Not-Lincoln removes his gun from his holster and points it at me.
“I didn’t k-kill Wayne.” It becomes a chant I repeat on an endless loop, but I don’t know how much of it makes it past my dry, split lips.
“She’s no use to us,” Not-Lincoln says.
I frown. Or try to. My face is too numb to know for sure.
Snippets from the day Wayne died slip in again. The argument. Wayne and a man with an Aussie accent disagreeing about something. I told the SDPD about the argument, but there were no signs that someone else had been in the house. The cops thought I was lying. And I’d felt out of it from whatever drugs I’d been given—like I do now. Like I was gripping on to the edge of the world, knowing if I let go, I’d be forever lost.
Over time, I began to believe I imagined the argument.
I began to doubt the events of that night as I remembered them.
The only thing I was positive about was that I didn’t kill my husband. Someone else pulled the trigger.
“You killed Wayne,” I mutter incoherently even to my ears, my gaze locked on Not-Lincoln. “You killed Wayne. You killed Wayne.” It’s my new chant, one I fully embrace.
“What’s she talking about?” Lincoln demands, his tone terrifyingly fierce.
I keep chanting, my eyelids giving up the attempt to stay open.
A loud bang assaults my ears. A heavy thud follows. With what little strength I have left, I open my eyes. Lincoln is lying in a pool of blood. His blood.
I’m vaguely aware of other sounds coming from somewhere inside the building.
I start to slouch sideways. Another loud bang fills the room.
Excruciating pain rips through my shoulder, but I barely make a noise. Dazed, I glance down. Red spreads across my pink top near my shoulder, swallowing smeared stains and dried dirt. After the lack of anything to drink for the past few days, I’m surprised to see the blood.
The room explodes with activity.
My body no longer feels like it belongs to me. I slump to the side, falling off the chair.
Someone catches me. I blink them into focus. Noah? The world is too fuzzy—he’s too fuzzy—for me to know for sure. Maybe I’m already dead, and I’m imagining all of this. That last ray of hope before I finally slip away.
“We need a medic!” he yells through the fog in my brain. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking toward the door.
He gently lowers me to the ground.
“He k-killed Wayne. He killed Wayne.” I have no idea if Noah understands what I’m saying. He’s talking to me, but I can’t make out his words.
In the background, a man is telling Not-Lincoln he’s under arrest for the murder of Wayne Townsend, obstruction of justice in the murder of my late husband, and for weapons trafficking. The rest of the words drift into a haze.
“T-tell Troy I l-love him,” I whisper-croak, knowing I won’t survive this to tell Troy myself. “T-tell him that I w-would have loved t-to have a f-family with him.” Tap-tap. Tap-taaap-tap-tap…
My shivering stops and blackness welcomes me with warm open arms.