“There?” Colene couldn’t fathom this. The girl had not yet developed in that region.
“Yes. It hurts real bad. And I can’t scream, because—”
“Because he’d kill you?” The horror of this was growing.
“Yes. And because I deserve it, because I’m no good.”
Emotional abuse. That was in certain ways the worst of all, because it destroyed the victim’s will to resist. “You don’t deserve it!” Colene declared.
“Yes, I do! I know I must.”
Pointless to argue that case right now. There were still facts to ferret. “How did he hurt you on the chest?”
“With a—he smokes—it—”
A new horror dawned. “Show me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, the girl unbuttoned her shirt. She wore no bra, but did have a band of gauze around her chest. She drew away the gauze to bare her skin. Colene stared, appalled.
There, where the breasts would develop, was a mass of scar tissue. The girl had been burned repeatedly with lighted cigarettes. Some of the burns were ancient; some were recent.
“He’s still doing it?”
“Every day.”
Every day—for six years. Torture. No wonder Esta had thought of suicide. This was so much worse than Colene had imagined that it took her a while to grasp it. “But why?”
“Because I’m bad.”
“Exactly how does he do it?” Colene hated delving into this, but she was afraid she was misunderstanding. She had to get it right.
“He—he makes me take off my clothes, and he says, ‘Open up,’ and then he does it.”
Colene questioned her further, completing the ugly picture. What took shape was an incestuous molestation of such ugliness that Colene found it difficult to keep her face straight. She did not want her reaction to make the girl stop talking; she had to get it all. Esta herself did not realize the full significance of it; she thought she was being punished for her continued badness.
“Didn’t you try to tell anyone else?” Colene asked. “What about a school counselor? Didn’t they tell you that this sort of thing is wrong?”
“They did, but I didn’t know who to believe,” the girl said. “Maybe for good girls it’s wrong, but for me—”
“Did you ask a counselor?”
“No. I didn’t dare.”
“So the school never knew.”
“No. Only, maybe…” Esta did not finish her thought.
“What was it?” Colene asked sharply. She realized that she had assumed the authority of an official in Esta’s view; the girl was responding to her tone of command.
“I—I wasn’t doing well in school,” the girl confessed, ashamed. “My badness was showing. The teacher said I fit a profile. I didn’t mean to!”
“Not your fault,” Colene said. The profile of an abused child! “So what happened?”
“They made me go to a doctor. A psy—psy—”
“A shrink. And?”
“He was in his office, and so—so—”
“So sure of himself?”
“Yes. And he said, ‘Come on, girl, open up.’ ”
“And you freaked out,” Colene said, recognizing the horrible coincidence of words. The abuser had told her to open up, meaning something else.
“I was very bad,” the girl admitted. “The teacher was mad. She said I didn’t want help.”
So it had come to nothing, because of people who were too quick to judge on the basis of too little understanding. Colene knew the type.
A decision was growing in her. “Esta, do you love your Uncle Slick?”
“Oh, yes! He’s nice!”
“You know he would never do a thing like that to you? Or even let it happen, if he knew?”
“I know.”
“Pack your things. I’m taking you to him.”
“But I couldn’t—”
“Before your stepfather gets home and does it to you again.”
That persuaded her. Esta hurried into the house.
Colene walked out to the street. She peered each way. When she spied the distant car, she beckoned.
It approached. The window rolled down. “Slick, trust me. It’s worse than we thought. We’ve got to take her out of there. Now.”
“I can’t—I’m not set up to—the court order—”
“Listen to me. Those don’t mean anything. You’re in trouble anyway, right? You have to go away already. Take her with you.”
“But I don’t know a thing about—”
“Slick, you’re her only hope. Just take her. You can learn what you need to. Right now, she can come to my hotel room. Believe me, I’m not joking. You sent me to find out, and I found out.”
“What is it?” Slick demanded. “What’s with her?”
“I’ll tell you when we have her safe. But you decide now: which do you want, vengeance or to save Esta?”
There was a long pause. “Bring her out.”
Colene turned away, and the car moved on. Colene knew it would return the moment they were ready for it.
She went to the house and helped Esta pack. “We’ll get you clothes and stuff there,” she said. “Just take underwear and what you value most.”
Esta took a doll and a picture of a man who must have been her father. She crammed them into the suitcase with her underclothing. She seemed eager to get out of the house, as if afraid that something would stop her from escaping, now that she was taking the plunge, or that she would lose her fragile nerve if she paused.
They hurried out. The car approached.
Esta looked around. “My bike!” she cried.
“We can’t—” Colene started. Then she reconsidered. If they thought the girl had fled on her bicycle, it might distract them from a more accurate search. “Okay, if it’ll fit. Go get it.”
Esta shoved the suitcase at her and ran to the garage. Colene went for the car. “Can her bike fit?”
“On the roof.” Slick opened the trunk.
Colene tossed in the suitcase. Then Esta came with the bicycle, and Slick heaved that up onto the rack on top and quickly fastened it down with a strap. They piled into the front seat of the car.
“Now explain,” Slick said grimly as he drove.
“I don’t think now’s the time.”
“I’m trusting you. Now you trust me. Why am I doing this?”
Colene realized that he was as doubtful about this as Esta was. On her own authority, she was drastically changing both their lives. She had to tell him, without mincing words. She braced herself.
“Her stepfather gets his kicks from making her hurt,” Colene said evenly. “He has sex with her every day, but it’s not enough, so he burns her on the chest with a cigarette, and when she stiffens in pain, that’s what brings him off.”
Slick almost drove off the street.
“Maybe you think I’m lying,” Colene said. “Stop for a minute, and I’ll show you.”
He drew to the side and stopped. It was just as well, because his hands were shaking.
Colene turned to Esta, who was to her right. “It’s okay, Esta. He needs to know. He won’t laugh or be mad at you. Show him your chest.”
Esta obeyed the voice of authority. She opened her shirt and parted the gauze.
Slick stared. “Oh, my God, honey,” he breathed. Probably for the first time in years, he had been truly shocked.
“No killing,” Colene reminded him. “That’d bring them right to you. We have to let them think she just ran away on her own. Anyway, she needs you with her. To protect her. You’re the only man she can trust.”
“Killing?” Esta asked as she buttoned her shirt.
“Hyperbole,” Colene said quickly, before realizing that the girl might not know the meaning of the word. “I mean he’s mad enough to kill, but of course he wouldn’t do that.” It was a lie, and she felt guilty, as if she had betrayed Darius, but it was necessary.
Slick kept quiet. He resumed driving. His knuckles were white against the wheel.