I had drinks with Vince twice a week. We talked business and local happenings. We didn’t talk women.
One night I stopped into McNeil’s, the bar in which Suzanne had sung with piano accompaniment months ago, before I’d even moved to Otter Ridge. The room was just as I remembered it, lively with overworked bartenders, and the same man was playing piano. He was accompanied by a different woman, this one short and brunette. Her voice was flat and seemed empty. I had one beer and left.
I had tried Suzanne’s phone once after she disappeared, but my call went straight to voicemail. There was part of me that expected her to come back, that wanted her to come back, at least for a night, rather than just disappearing into nothing. It didn’t make sense, to leave like that. I asked Vince once if she’d tried to contact him, and he told me she hadn’t. After that, I didn’t think about her much.
I didn’t think about Damon much, either. I didn’t think about either of the people who had disappeared after a while. At first their memories were fresh, and my thoughts of them wandered, no matter which explanation I heard from Vince or others in the community. I wondered where they were, and what they were doing. But as time passed and they stayed gone, and they were not mentioned, the wonder faded. My thoughts of them went from every day to every other day, then once a week, then once a month. Time has a way of making strange circumstances seem normal.
I did not see Suzanne, and I did not see Damon, and I did not think of them much. They were gone; starting new lives, hopefully, each content in their own way. I assumed this and didn’t give them much more thought, until one evening, in the dead of winter, she returned.
41
It was an overcast winter afternoon. The sun had not peeked out that day, leaving the landscape a dull gray. The last week had been warm, temperatures climbing well above freezing and melting much of the snow that covered the town. Now the sun had gone away, the cold had returned, and the exposed ground was a pale brown.
I went to my apartment after completing my work for the day, which I did in a small building near Vince’s house. At one point, it had been someone’s home, but had since been converted into the business center for Vince’s operation. There were three small rooms with desks, a large meeting room, a dry bar, and a porch with mountain views. It was not a bad place to spend time. On a typical day, I was joined by a handful of other men; paper pushers with pleasant but reserved personalities. I hadn’t quite figured out what they did, and we didn’t much discuss business between us. My reports went straight to Vince.
It was late in the afternoon, not long before sunset, when she appeared. At first I didn’t believe it was her. At first I thought I was hallucinating. At very first, I didn’t even recognize her. She stood in my doorway, broken and shivering, and only her posture gave her away. She said nothing, just looked up at me with dark eyes and waited.
There was a knock on my door and I answered it. That was all that happened. I was sitting on my loveseat with the TV on, having a beer after work, and there was a knock on my door. My first thought was Adeline, but it had been nearly a month since she had come by, and it was too early in the day. I was curious, so I opened the door quickly, and there she was.
Suzanne, but not the Suzanne I remembered. Her skin was pasty white and showed open cuts. Her lips were chapped and quivering, and her once glowing red hair had been hastily dyed black.
“Suzanne,” I said. “My God, come in.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.” Her voice was faint. Where once was a strong, boisterous woman, stood a shell.
“What?”
“I can’t,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t even be here.” Her words barely made it out.
I grabbed her and pulled her inside without much resistance, then shut the door. She felt lighter. I led her over to the loveseat and sat her down.
“My God,” I said again, “what in the hell happened?”
She looked at the floor and shook her head. “A lot. And nothing.” She looked up, and her big dark eyes examined me. They were the same eyes I knew. They were the only part of her that remained unchanged.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Listen, I need to tell you some things.”
“Suzanne, we need to get you taken care of first. Let me get you something to eat.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said, standing up, “I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry. Listen, Julian, there’s no time.”
“Let me get you a blanket at least.”
She didn’t respond, so I grabbed the comforter off my bed and put it on her. She pulled it over her shoulders but kept shivering.
“Where in hell have you been?” I asked.
“You need to know some things,” she said.
“Okay. But first tell me what’s going on. Where did you go?”
She took a breath. “That’s what I’m here to talk about.” She stared straight ahead, put her hands around her face, and steadied herself. Then she spoke again.
“You’re not safe,” she said. “I’m not safe. None of us are.”
“What happened?”
She took another breath. “Okay. That night at the restaurant. I left because I was mad at you, and mad at them. So I left and called Willa.”
“Suzanne, I didn’t…”
“Shut up,” she said. “None of that matters now. Just shut up and listen, okay?”
I nodded.
“I called Willa to give me a ride, and she did. She gave me a ride back to my apartment. Jess was home—my roommate, remember?”
I nodded. I’d met her roommate a handful of times. She was part of the community. Gardener or something.
“She could tell I was upset, and she asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t want to talk so I just went in my room. I smoked some weed and went to bed. That was it till later. I was just upset, you know?”
Her eyes were the same, but the skin around them was dark, almost bruised. Her tiny frame was engulfed by the blanket; she’d lost more weight than she could afford to lose.
She told me the story. Usually measured in her words, they spilled out of her now, less flowery and more layman than ever before. A scared girl telling her story.
It was in the middle of the night when it all went down. She woke up in the darkness to men pulling her out of bed. She was on the floor in her evening gown before she knew what was happening. Her first thought was rape. One put his foot in her back and tied her hands together. Then they forced her to move.
“I saw Jess in the living room. She was standing in the corner watching, scared—she was definitely scared—but she didn’t say anything. I yelled at her, asked what the fuck was going on, but she still didn’t say anything. That’s when I knew. When she watched and didn’t do anything, didn’t even say anything.”
They drug her outside, kicking and flailing, and threw her in the back of a car. She was still in her evening gown, hands tied behind her. She asked where they were going and they hit her. She tried to sit up and they hit her. She asked about Vince and they hit her harder. Every time she moved or spoke, they hit her, so she stopped moving and speaking.
They drove and her mind raced. They drove for a long time. She felt the car turn off the paved highway on to a smaller dirt road. Her hands were sweaty. It was cold outside but her hands were bathed in sweat, and the tie-job on her wrists was loose and sloppy. Her mind slowed enough to realize the opportunity. She lay in the back seat, listening to car tires roll across the gravel, and started wiggling. The rope loosened, slowly at first. Her hands moved back and forth, the sweat lubricating like oil between pistons, and the rope loosened slightly. She could feel a tiny gap between her wrists. The car continued, making a right turn, and the rope loosened more. Soon the gap widened, and she could feel cool air around her wrist.