Detective Simpson smirked with skepticism.
“Go look for yourselves,” I said.
“I’ll go look for it,” Daddy offered.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I believed her; otherwise, I would have told about my secret date. I’m not seeing him anymore, by the way,” I added, looking at Detective Simpson. “He told me he had broken up with someone, but he really hadn’t. It’s so hard to know who you should trust.”
Daddy hurried out.
“Is my sister’s abduction in the news yet?” I asked. “I haven’t turned on a radio or television. I’ve been sleeping most of the day.”
“We’re getting ready to release it and circulate her picture,” Lieutenant Cowan said. “We need a list of her friends. One of them might know something.”
“More than what I know? I doubt it. Normally, we’d never tell anyone else anything we didn’t tell each other.”
He stared at me. They were both looking at me skeptically again.
“It’s the way we were brought up,” I said, more adamantly. “But I’ll give you a list of names, even though we had the same friends.”
“Only the same friends?” Detective Simpson asked.
“Mother wanted us to have the same friends. If one of us didn’t like someone, the other wouldn’t have him or her as a friend. Mother insisted.”
They exchanged a look of amazement, and then Lieutenant Cowan handed me a pen and a small notepad. “Give us phone numbers if you can. Full names and addresses.”
I began to write names. “I don’t know everyone’s exact address, and I didn’t memorize all the phone numbers, but I can go up and get my cell phone,” I said.
“Please do that,” Lieutenant Cowan said.
“From what you’re telling us, you should both have similar lists of contacts on your phones,” Detective Simpson said.
“Very little is different, yes,” I said. “There was that boy I knew for a while, but he turned out to be disrespectful and a liar. He thought no was a foreign word.” I stood. “I’ll go get my phone.”
They sat back.
When I was on my way up the stairs, Daddy came to the top of the stairway and waited for me. “Her phone isn’t there, Haylee,” he said.
I stopped walking. “It has to be, Daddy. I mean, I thought it was there.”
“It isn’t anywhere in her room from what I can see. I looked in drawers, in her closet . . .”
My face trembled.
“Haylee?”
“She lied to me so much!” I wailed. “She lied so much. It’s like a nightmare that won’t end, that keeps stretching and stretching.” I wobbled as the tears came. I’m sure I looked like I might topple down the steps.
He rushed to embrace me. “Take it easy. Think. Where else could the phone be? Someplace in the house?”
“I don’t know now. Maybe, maybe she did have hers with her when we went to the movies and was going to use it to contact him. It was another secret from me,” I said, now sounding angry. “I’ve got to get mine and copy down all my contacts for the police.”
“Go on,” he said. “Don’t say anything to your mother if she hears you and gets up.”
I nodded and went to my room. I found my phone and then hurried out but paused for a moment and went to peer into Mother’s bedroom. She was lying on her back. Her eyes were wide open, and she was staring at the ceiling. Was she thinking, or was she in some sort of daze? Did she blame herself for what was happening? Maybe she would lock herself in the pantry like she used to lock us in when we disobeyed her. I should feel sorrier for her, I thought, but right now, I couldn’t.
I tiptoed away and then descended and entered the living room.
“You think your sister might have had her cell phone when she left the movie theater to meet this guy?” Lieutenant Cowan asked as soon as I stepped into the room.
“Maybe. I guess I can’t swear about anything she said or did when it came to him,” I added. “If she didn’t trust me, she didn’t trust anyone. I was always her best friend, and she was always mine. It’s how my mother taught us to be.”
I sat and began to copy out my friends’ names and numbers. Daddy went through drawers and looked around in case Kaylee’s phone was somewhere other than her room.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Fitzgerald. We’ll get into the phone records,” Lieutenant Cowan told him when he returned empty-handed. The policemen stood.
“Call us if you think of something else or find anything that would help,” Detective Simpson said after I handed my list to him.
“I don’t want to leave the house,” I said. “But if you’d like me along when you do another search . . .”
“Better just help your parents deal with it all,” he told me. I thought he was going to smile, but he walked away before he could.
Daddy followed them to the front door. I sat and waited for him.
“I feel like I’m peeling an onion here,” he said when he returned. “The last thing I suspected was that one of you would do anything so weird without your mother discovering it. Meeting boys secretly? In Kaylee’s case, a man?”
“It’s not Mother’s fault. She was trying to have a new social life, Daddy,” I said. “You know how that can take up so much of your time and attention that you hardly have any left for anyone else.”
I thought I could see the sting in his eyes. Before he could say anything, I started to cry. He walked over and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Where is she? Where is she?” I moaned. “What is he doing to her?”
“Easy,” Daddy said. He sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm around me, pulling me closer so I could lay my head against him. “Try not to think of the worst things. Stay hopeful. It will help us all if we stay hopeful.”
“I’ll try,” I said, my voice cracking.
I felt him kiss the top of my head, and then I quieted and we just sat there together in a way we never had.
It occurred to me that for the first time, I really felt like almost everyone else in my school.
I believed I had a father.
6
Kaylee
After dinner, Anthony brought out the cake for our dessert. It was a large, round chocolate cake, and he’d had the baker write Anthony and Kaylee Forever in the center of a pink-framed heart in green letters. It reminded me eerily of Haylee’s and my last birthday cake. Mother had ordered the same cake, and it even had a heart on it, with our names and Happy Birthday.
“I told him it was an anniversary,” he said when he placed it on the table. “I suppose anniversaries begin a minute after you say ‘I do,’ right? We’ll keep track of every minute, every hour, and every day. I love celebrating happy things. Yeah, I know you do, too. Don’t be surprised if I bring you something extra special and very expensive after only a month. I had nothing to spend my money on before. You can just imagine what I’ll do after our first year together.”
His face lit up like a little child’s on Christmas Day. The way he spoke about how long we would be together made me feel like a condemned prisoner in front of a judge, hearing herself being given a life sentence without parole. Who would hear my appeal? I stared down at the cake as if it spelled Doom instead of his name and mine with the word Forever.
Somewhere deep down inside me, where hope still lived and tweeted like a baby bird, helpless and dependent, I thought that perhaps my name was being circulated in newspapers and on television, and perhaps the baker thought, Kaylee . . . that’s unusual. Maybe he mentioned it to someone, who then said, “That’s the name of the missing girl.” I could imagine both of them going to the police and the baker describing Anthony, maybe even knowing enough about him to give them his address. Perhaps they were on their way here this very moment.
“Like it?” Anthony asked proudly.
I nodded, because I thought that I might like it way more than he realized. “Where did you get something so special?” I asked. I thought it better to keep him talking. I knew so little abo
ut where I was.
“It’s not that difficult to get. You said you had cakes like this. What this is, is thoughtful,” he said. “My father never did nothing like this for my mother, even on their twentieth anniversary. He’d say something stupid like ‘I’d rather forget it. That’s when my troubles began.’ Or ‘When I was single, my pockets did jingle.’ How do you think that made her feel?”
“Not very good,” I said. “But where did you get this? It looks extra special.” I held my breath. Was I asking too much, trying too hard? Would he realize what could happen if my name was recognized, or would he realize I was fishing for information?
He shrugged. “I was on a work errand about fifty miles from here and just stopped at a supermarket that had a bakery. This old lady behind the counter did it for me. She said she wished her husband was still alive so they could have something like this. It would be their fortieth wedding anniversary. I told her we’d still be together for our fortieth.”
He began to cut the cake.
“First piece goes to the lovely bride,” he said, handing the dish to me. “Wait,” he said. “I almost forgot.”
He hurried back to the refrigerator and returned with two small bottles of champagne and two champagne glasses.
“These are called splits. Cake and champagne,” he said, pouring my champagne into a glass and then pouring his own. “We go deluxe. First, I’ll make a toast. To my beautiful bride and the love of my life, Kaylee Cabot.”
He nodded for me to raise my glass, and then he tapped it with his and began to drink. He was waiting for me, so I began to drink, too. What else could I do?
I wasn’t trembling inside, but that wasn’t because of the wine, the food, and the champagne. I realized I was numb all over because of constant fear. It was as if I had left my body. Maybe that was good. If I could ignore his every touch, not feel it, then it would be like it wasn’t happening, wouldn’t it?
“Happy?” he asked. “I’m so glad you are,” he added quickly. What was he looking at? Did he imagine a smile on my face? Did he not only hear only what he wanted but also see only what he wanted?
“No,” I dared to say. “I want to go home.”
“You are home,” he said, holding his smile. Only the glint in his eyes showed a little displeasure.
He finished his champagne and began eating his cake.
“Delicious. You’ll like it,” he said, pointing his fork at my piece. “Eat. You told me this was one of your favorite things, so I went out of my way to get it.”
Chocolate cake was one of our favorite things. Haylee hadn’t told him only lies.
I began to eat it.
How odd it was that something could still taste good to me. It was as if my own body was betraying me. I didn’t want it to feel good about anything. My rationalization was the same as it had been with everything else he forced me to do, however. Eat, drink, keep strong, or else you won’t have the strength to escape when the chance comes was my mantra.
“Tonight,” he said. “You don’t hafta do nothing. I’ll clean up. A wife should be spoiled on special occasions, don’tcha think?”
“I’m not a wife. You have to be married by a clergyman or a judge,” I said.
“This means more,” he insisted. “We told ourselves we loved each other and wanted to be husband and wife, without someone we don’t know or care about telling us what to say and when to say it. A judge married my parents. Lot of difference that made. And what about your parents? They’re divorced. They got married in a church, right? Might as well have been married in a whorehouse. That’s what a woman who marries a man she don’t love is, a legalized whore.”
“My mother once loved my father very much,” I said. Why I cared what he thought was beyond me, but I felt I had to say it if only because Haylee might have told him something otherwise.
“Love ain’t something you fall out of,” he insisted. “Some people get on a train just to take a ride. They don’t care where it goes. Don’t tell me what’s love and what ain’t.”
He tightened his jaw. I thought he was going to get really angry now, but suddenly, he smiled.
“That’s not us. We’re on a train to happiness forever. Tonight is just the official send-off. All aboard,” he sang, and laughed.
He started to clear away the dishes. Mr. Moccasin followed him, waiting for him to drop a scrap of something. I looked at my unfinished champagne and then drank it quickly. After that, I turned to my unfinished wine. I thought of them both as anesthesia. Get drunk. You won’t feel anything, I told myself.
“Hey,” he said when he saw me pouring more wine into my glass. “Take it easy with that.”
“It’s good,” I said. “And this is an anniversary.” I gulped the remainder of the wine.
He looked a little confused. I could almost hear him wondering. Should he be happy or concerned about my behavior?
The food, the cake, the champagne, and the wine began to argue with themselves in my stomach. That was what Daddy used to say when he ate and drank too much. It made me laugh, remembering.
Anthony broke out into a wide smile. He was misreading everything.
“You’re having a good time, huh?”
My head spun a little. It wouldn’t take much to get me drunk, probably because I was so mentally and physically exhausted.
He stood there gaping at me with that clownish happy grin. I felt my insides stir.
“I’m having a good time? Sitting here with my leg attached to a chain, wearing a dress that belongs on a woman twice my size, locked in and kept from my family? You call this having a good time?”
I downed the rest of the wine in my glass. There was only a little left in the bottle, but I poured it in and drank that, too. The alcohol was giving me courage.
“I can’t go outside. I can’t breathe fresh air. I have no one to talk to but a cat.”
“You’re where you wanted to be,” he insisted, holding out his hands. “I followed your every wish, Kaylee.”
“That wasn’t me!” I screamed. “That was my sister! Her name is Haylee!”
He stood staring, his lips moving but with no words coming. It was a terrifying sight. He looked like he was boiling over and might charge forward and rip my head off my neck. A small cry of fear came from my lips like a tiny soap bubble. I started to rock in the chair and folded my arms across my stomach and moaned. His eyes widened with surprise.
Suddenly, what I had eaten and drunk came rushing back up my throat. I couldn’t stop it. I heaved onto the table. He jumped back as I heaved again and again. When I paused to catch my breath, he looked stunned, then angry again.
“That’s your fault! You ruined our anniversary dinner. You don’t know when to stop.”
I moaned again and continued to clutch my stomach. The room was spinning faster and faster. I gagged and dry-heaved and spit. He grabbed a dish towel from the sink and rushed to press it against my face.
“Stop!” he ordered. His fingers were like steel, squeezing my cheeks so hard that I thought my cheekbones would fracture. I squirmed and turned in the seat until he pulled away and I lost my balance and fell off the chair. I lay there, sobbing and gasping.
“You go to bed,” he said. “You go right to bed. You don’t deserve to enjoy a celebration.”
He reached down and grabbed my upper left arm, lifting me to my feet. His fingers felt like they were punching holes through my skin. Then he pulled and pushed me toward the bed. When we were there, he reached down and grasped the skirt of the dress. With one motion, he lifted it off me, leaving me totally naked. I tried to cover myself.
“You messed the dress. You’ve messed my mother’s dress,” he said, and pushed me roughly onto the bed. He grasped me around the waist and lifted my body so he could pull the blanket down. He dropped me and tossed the blanket over me. “Don’t you throw up in our bed. Don’t you do that,” he warned. I held my breath and kept my eyes closed. My heart was turning like the wheels of a train on a track, thumpi
ng, stealing away my breath. I swallowed and gasped. I was too weak to cry or speak.
I could hear him moving about, continuing to clean up, and cursing under his breath.
“Ruined our anniversary dinner. Ruined it,” he muttered. I kept my eyes closed. “Spoiled. Just spoiled.”
This will be over, I thought. This will be over soon. He’s disgusted with me now. He won’t want me. He might kill me, but it will be over.
Soon.
I was still dizzy, and my stomach felt like it was churning, grinding up what was left inside it. The only mercy I enjoyed came with sleep, because then I couldn’t think. I welcomed the darkness.
I awoke sometime during the night and heard him snoring beside me. My head began to pound so hard it brought tears to my eyes. I moaned, and he stirred, but he didn’t wake up. I did feel his hand close to my thigh and gently moved away. I tried not to rattle the chain. When I turned to get onto my back, I saw that Mr. Moccasin was lying between us. The cat didn’t move away but raised his head and kept his gaze on me. In the darkness with just the small glow of a light over the stove, the cat’s eyes looked like yellow diamonds.
I couldn’t help wondering if Mr. Moccasin had any sense of the evil in the man who kept him. Jack the Ripper could have had a dog that loved him. Maybe that’s what I would become, his pet. I was on a leash already. He fed me. He expected me to be loyal. The next thing he’d have for me could be a tag around my neck.
My dream of the baker realizing who I was and alerting the police shattered like broken glass. No one had come; no one was coming; no one would ever come. What was my solution? I had tried not talking to him, but that didn’t work. My upset stomach provided another idea. I decided I wouldn’t eat or drink a thing. If I was going to die here, I might as well choose how. Mr. Feldman’s comments about choice and identity seemed the perfect fit for this situation. I was, after all, like someone caught in a current and unable to swim against it.
Anthony groaned and then turned. I held my breath. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel him looking at me. His hand moved slowly, crawling like a spider toward my body. I cringed as his fingers moved over my hip to the small of my stomach, where he opened his fingers and laid his palm flat against it. I could try to fight him off, but I knew I wouldn’t win.