Somebody was shaking him. He slowly came back to reality and opened his eyes to find Victoria standing over him.
“How did you get in?” he slurred.
“I got the Super to open it,” she said.
He nodded.
“I left Holt,” she said matter-of-factly and sat on the couch across from him.
He didn’t know how to take this. He couldn’t seem to make himself care one way or another. He was beyond numb and his aptitude for compassionate thought had left him hours ago. It still surprised him though.
“Why would you do that?”
She just stared at him, a look of such sorrow on her face a little twinge of compassion crept its way back into his mind. Just a sliver, but it was there.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
He waved a hand at her and then tried to stand up. He didn’t make it. Falling back into his chair, he kicked the bottle of Crown over and it spilled out onto the carpet. He tried to reach for it but couldn’t get to it. She didn’t move.
“Stop it,” she said, but he continued to reach for the bottle. He felt like an infant trying to crawl across the floor for the first time.
She finally got up and grabbed the bottle from the floor. He smiled and reached his hand up for it. She turned and walked out of the room and when she returned she was holding a soda.
“Drink this,” she said. “You need the caffeine.”
“I want my Crown.” he complained, but took the can of soda anyway. “You don’t know everything,” he said.
“I know you’re going to drink yourself to death unless you get a grip on this.”
He tried to focus on her face, but she kept swimming in and out of his line of site. “I think I’m gonna blow.”
“Good,” she said. “That will help.”
He must have looked green because she got up quickly and returned with a trash can. She made it just in time. When he was done, he could think a little clearer.
“Better?” she said.
He sipped the soda, but said, “No. I don’t want to feel better. I don’t want to feel anything at all.”
“The girl is still alive.”
He stopped mid-sip and tried to absorb what she had just said. “Come again.”
“Eliana Pemberton is still alive. He sent us a message a little while ago. Actually, he sent it to the whole country.”
He was processing information a little slow still and he didn’t quite grasp what she told him. “Ellie?”
She nodded, smiling now. She leaned closer to him and grabbed his hand. “She’s still alive. You need to get your shit together if we’re going to help her.”
He looked into her brown eyes and saw she was telling the truth. Something nudged back into place inside of him and he took a breath. “What did it say?”
“The message?”
He nodded.
“Maybe you should wait ‘till you’re sober.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I need to hear it now.”
She looked him in the eyes again and nodded. “Let’s go turn the TV on,” and she stood, reaching for his hand to help him up.
“TV?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed her hand and suddenly felt a little better. He was beginning to feel again and maybe that was a good thing. He stood slowly and leaned on her all the way into the kitchen where his little TV sat on the counter. She turned it on and tuned it to the local CBS affiliate. The story was still running.
Chapter 47
Ellie was bound to a chair in some kind of basement. She could hear water dripping nearby just behind her and someone periodically moving around above her through the ceiling. She had no idea how long she had been down here, only that her wrists ached and she had to pee.
She was still groggy from whatever her father had used to knock her out, and her mouth tasted like rubber. It made her a little nauseous and she wished she could have a drink of water. Her mouth was so dry her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth.
“Hello,” she tried to shout, but her voice was just a hoarse squeak. She tried to conjure up some saliva in her mouth, but nothing seemed to come. “Hello!” She managed a little louder this time and she heard what sounded like a chair slide across the floor above her and then footsteps as someone walked over her. A door opened and the footsteps made their way down a staircase getting closer to her. She started to squirm. The man she now knew as her father came from behind her and stood towering in front of her. He was huge and she remembered trying to run into him that night in front of Mr. Lolly’s house. It had been like hitting a brick wall.
He smiled at her and reached out a hand to touch her face. She flinched and turned away. When he did not touch her, she opened her eyes and saw he was now frowning. He moved behind her and worked on her wrists, untying the bindings. Her hands came free and she rubbed them trying to work some feeling back into them.
“Can I have a drink?” she asked.
He walked to a mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Handing it to her, he sat down in a chair in front of her. She gulped the cold water too fast and started coughing on it. She couldn’t help it, it felt so good.
“Go easy,” he said. “It will make you sick.”
She was surprised at the deep voice. She expected some babbling psychotic fool, but he sounded normal. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
“Keep you with me for a bit,” he said.
“Why?”
“You have a purpose in this life and you and I are going to fulfill it.”
She wasn’t following him and her confusion must have shown on her face because he almost chuckled.
“You are destined for something special and I will help you reach it.”
“What am I destined for?”
“Not now,” he said standing. He pointed to the mini-fridge. “Drinks and snacks are in there.” He pointed to another door. “Bathroom there. You cannot escape from here, so don’t even try. You’ll waste your energy and probably hurt yourself. There are no windows and only one door out which is metal and barred with a padlock and strong hasp.” He turned and walked for the steps.
“You are my father,” she said.
He looked at her like she was accusing him of something, which in fact she was.
“Only in blood.” He climbed the stairs and she heard him locking the door behind him. She was alone.
She stood weakly and had to hold onto the back of the chair until the room stopped spinning. Maybe she should sit back down. Looking around the unremarkable space, she saw shelves behind her that held only a few old tin cans and a dilapidated cardboard box. Leaning up against the shelf was a mop inside of a bucket. The floor was bare concrete and the only other furnishings were the chair she had been tied to, the chair her father had sat in, the mini-fridge, and a small table.
She walked slowly around the space and stopped at the door for the bathroom. She opened it and groaned. The bathroom was a closet with a toilet seat sitting on top of a five gallon bucket. A roll of toilet paper was sitting on the floor next to it. She didn’t know if she could do this, but she had to go so bad her screaming bladder won.
It hadn’t been too awful. At least she wouldn’t have to pee her pants.
Feeling a little stronger, she walked over to the mini-fridge and opened it up. A few bottles of water and a single diet soda were on the top shelf. On the bottom sat a turkey sandwich from a vending machine, an orange, a package of peanut butter crackers, and a Ding Dong snack cake. She grabbed the sandwich package and opened it. Taking a bite, she gagged and then spit it out. It was bad. Swigging some more water and rinsing her mouth out, she went into the bathroom and spit the water into the bucket. He was trying to poison her.
She decided she wasn’t hungry, so she went over to the shelf and looked in the tin cans and the box. Nothing of any value in the cans, just some rusty bolts and screws, but the box was a surprise. It was filled with old pictures. Snapshots of her mother and him. She took the box and pulled the chair over to the small table and started going through them. He must have put them in some kind of chronological order because they started off with pictures of the two very young. They looked so happy. Wedding pictures followed along with pictures in front of what looked like a new car, then the house she now lived in with her mother. The trees in the yard were so small and new. Her mother and father (she couldn’t get used to calling him that) were standing in front of the house smiling and holding what looked like a keychain up for the camera. The next picture was of them both standing in the kitchen with tags still hanging off of the appliances. She was looking at him, so happy and content. This couldn’t be the same man who had killed all those kids and now held her captive.