Broken.
Garbage.
Emily came down from her bedroom with an armful of books. “These, Mom.”
Ellen took the picture books from her daughter. “Oh, honey, this is too many books to take to Grammy's. Besides, these are too young for you — why don’t we give them to some little kids who don’t read as well as you do?”
“No,” Emily said. “I want them.” Then she picked the rabbit out of the Goodwill box and hugged it to her chest.
Ellen sighed. If Emily had never seen the rabbit, it would never have been an issue, but now it would be. “Emily, honey, everything that we take has to fit into our car. We’ll get new stuff in Missouri. Better stuff.”
“I need Mr. Spanky,” Emily said, hugging the rabbit.
“Honey—”
“Daddy gave him to me.”
Ellen gently put the books into the Goodwill box and let Emily keep the rabbit. Since Danny had vanished, he had become a god in Emily’s eyes, and even though she was sure a time would come when Emily would see him for exactly what he was, that time was not yet at hand. For now, she was not going to interfere with her daughter’s idea about her perfect father.
“Okay, honey, if Daddy gave him to you, you can keep him, but the books have to go.”
Emily turned without a word and carried the rabbit back up to her room, climbing the stairs exactly the way she’d climbed the front steps earlier.
The memory of the man in the car — blessedly absent for the few moments she’d been talking to Emily — leaped back into the forefront of her mind, and she suddenly knew that it hadn’t just been herself the man in the car had been watching.
It had been Emily, too.
And with that realization, all thoughts of the estate sale vanished.
After the open house, they would come back just long enough to pack their bags, and then she and Emily would be gone.
Gone from Smithton, and gone from the memories of Danny and what might have been but hadn’t, and gone from this house. And gone from the man in the car.
Chapter Thirty-three
I'm going to die.
I’m not going to die, Lindsay silently insisted to herself. But even as she uttered the mute denial, the terrible, hypnotic chant rang in her head again.
I’m going to die… I’m going to die…
Lindsay had lost all track of time; she no longer had any idea how long she’d been held in the dank confines of her prison or in the strange child’s room, let alone whether it was day or night.
All she knew was that the man who had taken her from her home was crazy.
He was crazy, and he was going to kill her just like he was killing Shannon.
She was back in the surreal little child’s room, the windows papered over, the room illuminated by candles set on every flat surface she could see. She was bound to one of the undersized chairs with duct tape, and it was all she could do to keep breathing through her nose, slowly and steadily, to keep from gagging on the cotton her captor had stuffed into her mouth before placing duct tape over her lips. So hard was it even to breathe that she’d been unable to struggle when he brought her again through the tunnel from the dank chamber where she and Shannon lay on damp mattresses during the hours when their captor didn’t want to “play” with them.
But now they were back, taped to their chairs, with those hideous parodies of smiles painted on the tape over their mouths, while the man who tortured them moved around the room like a figure in a nightmare from which Lindsay couldn’t awaken.
There was a teakettle boiling on the little stove — a stove only half the size of the one at home. She had assumed it was a toy, until she saw a flame emerge from one of the gas burners, and though at first she had no idea what the man had in mind, it became clear as he started laying out a miniature tea set on the tiny table that stood between her and Shannon. The table itself had been covered with a stained and tattered tablecloth that must have been beautiful when the linen, with its meticulously hand-embroidered pattern, was clean and new. Now, though, it only added a final macabre touch to the scene.
Though she sat perfectly still, Lindsay’s eyes followed every move the man made as he placed a cup and saucer, along with a tiny silver spoon, exactly in the center of each place at the table.
What would happen when he poured the tea? Was he going to at least take the tape from her lips — and the cotton from her mouth — so she could drink?
If he did, she knew exactly what she would do. She would scream. She would scream louder than she had ever screamed in her life, hoping that somewhere outside the playroom, someone would hear her.
Meanwhile, it was all she could do not to choke on the batting in her mouth.
Across the table from her, Shannon’s head lolled on her chest, her eyes closed.
Had she finally died?
No. Lindsay could see a slight movement in the other girl’s chest as she breathed. So she no longer had enough energy to hold her head up.
Then the man was looming over the table. “Good morning, my ladies,” he said in a strange, almost singsong voice. “How nice of you to come to tea.”
In his hand he held the steaming kettle.
Was it morning? It looked like night, but how could she be sure with the candles burning and the windows covered up?
“Aren’t we going to have fun today?” the man intoned. “All here together?” He poured the boiling water into the tiny teacups that sat in front of the girls. In the center of the table, the empty sugar bowl and creamer matched the chipped and cracked china set. “Don’t I set a lovely table?” He put the kettle back onto the little stove, then squatted down to perch on the tiny chair between Shannon and Lindsay. He picked up his cup — his pinky held carefully straight — and brought it up to his mask.
He pretended to sip.
“Mmmmm. That is good. An orange pekoe — my favorite in the morning.” He pretended to sip again, and Lindsay saw his eyes flash from Shannon to her, then back to Shannon.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “Isn’t the tea to your liking?” His voice began to rise like that of a petulant child. “Why aren’t you drinking it? This is a tea party! My tea party! You have to do what I want you to do.” Once again his eyes darted from one girl to the other. “Isn’t that right?” he demanded. “Isn’t that the way it works? Isn’t that the way it always was?”
Though she was terrified by the tone of his voice, Lindsay saw an opportunity to be rid of the tape over her lips and the cotton in her mouth, if only for a moment or two. She forced herself to nod at the man, looked at him with what she hoped were beseeching eyes.
But he wasn’t watching her; he’d turned to Shannon. “Drink your tea,” he ordered her, but Shannon seemed beyond even hearing. The man’s voice rose querulously. “I’m not having a good time,” he said. “Perhaps I shall have to discipline you.”
He rose from his chair, went to Shannon, and picked up her cup of hot water. Then he lifted her head by clutching her hair and tried to pour the scalding water into her mouth. It dribbled down off the tape and ran — red with the ink from her grotesquely painted smile — onto her chest.
As the scalding water hit her skin, Shannon’s body convulsed and her eyes snapped open. A muted moan penetrated the cotton in her mouth as she tried to scream, but the tape over her lips all but silenced it. “Drink your tea,” the man demanded. “Drink it!” Abruptly, he shoved Shannon, and her chair went over backward. “And you,” he said wheeling around to glower at Lindsay. “I thought better of you — I thought you had manners!” He came toward her, moving slowly, and Lindsay’s heart started to hammer. She couldn’t get enough air through her nostrils, and for a moment thought she was going to pass out.