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“That’s not even the point.”
“You just made it sound like it was.”
“He didn’t care about that girl that his brothel, did he? Not personally. I bet he never even met her.”
Sometimes, to this day, I wake up from nightmares from my childhood. In those dreams, I’m right back in those moments when I was ten, twelve, fourteen. Facing down some of the most terrible things a child can ever face. They’re the most vivid dreams, too, so strong and clear I can sometimes smell the cologne of the guy in question. Or the cigarette smoke, or the liquor on his breath.
And then I’ll wake up, and my body will be frozen. I looked it up once, the reason why that happens. I read it has to do with the body still being frozen in sleep for a split second—and it has to be while we’re asleep, or else we’d go walking off, acting out whatever dream was going on in our head.
I don’t think that’s all of it. At least not in my case. I’m pretty sure it has to do with fear, too.
That’s how I feel now, only this isn’t a dream. I’m wide awake, in a car with the man who killed that poor girl. Tears fill my eyes before I can stop them. I don’t know that I could if I tried, anyway.
“Did you know her?” he asks. This maniac, this animal. He sounds like this is all a big joke to him. He’s playing with me the way a cat plays with a mouse.
“I hate to disappoint you, but no. I never met her.” It’s amazing I can speak the way my teeth are chattering. I never got specifics on what he did to her, whoever she was. But I know how it turned out. I wonder how much she suffered before she died. Will it be that way for me?
Because let’s face it. There’s no hope of getting out of this unless somebody comes to get me, and that’s just not going to happen. It doesn’t matter how much money Luca thinks I could bring in for the family. I’m sure when he weighs the pros and cons, he’ll figure out how pointless it would be to risk anything for me.
Poor Deanna. She’s going to spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to me. Even now, maybe minutes or hours away from my painful death, she’s the first thing that comes to mind. I’ve spent my whole life protecting her. Shielding her, keeping her safe from the worst of what surrounded us in our childhoods.
That habit lead me here, to this moment. I would never blame her, not ever. I’m not going to die with that on my heart. I did it because I love her, like I always have. It’s just that there’s no way she’ll be able to ever understand what happened or why—and that I don’t blame her.Oh, God, don’t let her think I blame her.
When a broken laugh bubbles its way from my lips, he makes a questioning sort of noise. “I was thinking about my mother,” I tell him.
“What about her?”
“She rode off one night with a man who killed her. I never found out who it was. Not that it matters. She’s dead either way.”
“Like mother, like daughter. I appreciate you understanding, Deanna.” He’s insane. I mean, I knew he had to be from what I’ve heard, but this confirms it. “This is what has to be done. I don’t take any pleasure in this.”
“You’re full of shit.”
His laughter is almost ear-splitting in the tiny car. “You’re right! Damn, I barely got that out with a straight face.”
The car pulls to a stop in front of what might at one time have been a beautiful cabin in the heart of the woods, but now looks like somewhere for bats and raccoons to spend a wild Saturday night. Shutters hang loose, there are broken windows, the roof sags. Basically everything a person would look for in an abandoned house.
The way he smiles, it could be some idyllic little cottage with warm light shining from the windows and smoke drifting from the chimney. Someplace charming and sweet and homey. I think it’s his happiness that scares me most of all.
Especially when he turns it my way. “Now, it’s time for us to have some fun.”
