certain if it was her or not. The children stood around at the stop for a minute after the bus drove off, chatting with one another.
“Come on, turn around,” he whispered to himself.
The two boys were the first to break away, walking off together away from the street on which Blue Taurus lived. The young girls talked for another minute before the younger one waved to the older one and started in the direction of the gas station. Then the smaller girl stopped and turned, calling out to the other girl. The other girl turned, and Paul gave a little yip. It was definitely her; the older girl was Blue Taurus’s daughter.
The younger girl finished whatever she had to say and waved again. She continued on her way as Blue Taurus’s daughter walked in the opposite direction, following the street that led to her house. Paul stowed the binoculars back in the glove compartment and took out the ski mask, which he placed on his lap. He waited for the younger girl to pass by, and then he backed out of his space and pulled out of the parking lot.
He crossed the street to follow after Blue Taurus’s daughter. As he passed her he saw that she was looking down at a pink cell phone as she walked, oblivious to her surroundings. She was walking on the opposite side of the street, however, so he kept driving. Paul sped up and got further along the street, passing the girl’s house, and then parked at the side of the street long enough to put on the ski mask and get the shoe box from under the seat. He took out the revolver and shoved the empty box back beneath the seat, moving quickly. After setting the revolver on the passenger seat he pulled away from the curb and headed back the way he had come.
He passed the girl’s house (Blue Taurus’s house) again, only this time it passed on his right. As he came upon the girl she was still more interested in her phone than in what was going on around her. Paul slowed as he approached her, and stopped when he was still about fifteen feet away, shifting the car into park. From this distance Paul thought he could peg the girl’s age at around twelve. He took the revolver in hand, took one last look around the street to be sure that nobody was watching, then got out of the car. By then the girl was just passing his car; she still hadn’t noticed him. He rushed around to the sidewalk, and moved to cut her off by standing directly in her path. When the girl finally looked up she saw a man standing in front of her with his face covered in a black ski mask. The man was holding a gun. She froze.
“”Don’t scream, or I’ll hurt you,” Paul said, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard through any of the open windows of the nearby houses. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will. Do you understand?”
The girl looked first at the cold steel which he held against one thigh, pointed at the ground, and then back up at his eyes. She nodded her head slightly. Paul thought she looked a bit dazed; he was worried that she would faint, and that he would have to lift her into the car himself.
“I promise that you won’t get hurt if you do exactly what I say. I want you to get into the car.”
The girl stayed where she was for a moment. Then she took a step back.
“Don’t try to run; I’ll catch you,” Paul warned.
She froze again. She tried looking past Paul. He thought that maybe she was looking for help. Maybe she was hoping her father would save her from the bad man.
“Get into the car right now,” Paul commanded forcefully yet quietly.
She hesitated still, but then seemed to realize that there was nothing to do but comply. She moved toward the passenger side door. Paul reached toward her and she flinched away.
“I just need you to give me the phone,” he said.
She looked at the phone in her hands, seemed to think about whether she wanted to give it to him, and then held it out. Paul grabbed it and tossed in away.
“Go on; get in,” he said.
She did what he told her. Paul leaned down into the open door.
“I’m going to go around and get in on the other side. Don’t try anything funny.”
The girl said nothing. Her eyes were wide; she looked like she still hadn’t fully accepted that this was all real and not part of some terrible waking dream.
Paul closed her door and started around the car. As he came around the back a terrible thought occurred to him: the keys were still in the ignition, and the car was running. If the girl locked the doors he would be locked out of the car. Then she could honk the horn until she got the whole neighborhood’s attention. Even at her age, she could probably manage to drive away, leaving him stranded with a ski mask on and a gun in his hand. Paul hurried to the driver’s side door, and breathed a sigh of relief when it opened.
Paul got into the car and shut his door. He shifted the revolver from his right hand to his left, and with his one free hand he shifted into drive and gripped the steering wheel as he pulled away from the curb. He looked to his right and saw that the girl was looking at him, but she looked away quickly.
“I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not some kind of pervert or anything,” he assured her. “In a way, this has nothing to do with you. You’re just…collateral damage.”
The girl didn’t respond. She just kept looking straight ahead.
“Listen,” Paul said. “I have to take off this mask. I want you to close your eyes.”
The girl did so. Paul set the pistol on his lap and took the wheel in his left hand. With his other hand he pulled off the mask and held it near the girl.
“Keep your eyes closed. I want you to reach up and take this mask.”
She reached, and her hand searched around until she felt the mask.
“Can you feel the eye holes?” Paul asked.
She felt the mask, turning it in her hands until she found them.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good. Now, I want you to put the mask on, but with the holes on the back of your head.”
She complied after a slight hesitation. She was scared, and in a way that was a good thing; Paul figured it would make it that much harder for her to rebel against him. He stopped on the side of a residential street long enough to take one of the zip ties out of the glove compartment and bind the girl’s hands behind her.
“Now crouch down in your seat a little,” he said. “I don’t want people to see you while we’re driving. It’ll draw attention.”
The girl scrunched herself up.
“A little bit more.”
She sunk down lower in her seat.
“All right; that’s good,” Paul said.
He took the pistol from his lap, reached down and set it on the floorboards. The rest of the drive was a quiet one. When he got home Paul hit the button on the garage door opener and pulled into the shadowy interior of the garage. When the door had closed completely he shut off the engine and took the keys out of the ignition, then got out of the car. He went around the car and helped the girl out.
He led her inside the house. In the kitchen he cut the ties off of her wrists. She reached to take of the mask.
“No, leave it on. I don’t want you to see my face.”
He took her up to the second floor. He took her into the guest bedroom, which now had a sheet of cold-rolled steel over its window. He switched on the light.
“Close your eyes while I take the mask off of you,” Paul said to the girl.
He waited a moment.
“Are they closed?” he asked.
“Yes.”
She spoke so faintly he barely heard her. He took the mask off of her and stuffed it into his pocket.
“I want you to keep your eyes closed until I leave the room. There’s a bed for you to sleep on, and some books to read if you get bored. There’s a baby monitor on the dresser. It’s turned off right now. If you need to use the bathroom just turn it and talk into it. If I’m home I’ll hear it, and I’ll come let you out to use the toilet. If you keep calling me and I don’t come, it means I’m out. You can either hold it, or use the little toilet in the corner. I would prefer if you held it as long as you could, though.”
Silence hung aroun
d them for moment.
“Do you have any questions?” Paul asked.
“When can I go home?” she spoke even more quietly tan before.
“I…I don’t know yet. I’m sorry about this; I really am.”
Paul hurried out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him. He stood outside the door for a minute, wondering if he had made a mistake. Then he walked away from the door, and went downstairs. Mistake or not, he would see this thing through.
8
Paul watched as the man fought to hold back tears while being interviewed by Channel 7 News. He felt some satisfaction at knowing that he had been the one to wound the man so deeply. It had been five days since Paul had abducted Blue Taurus’s daughter. It wasn’t until two days after the abduction that there was a piece about it in the papers. The girl’s name was Laurie Fontana. It wasn’t until he read it in the paper that Paul realized he had never bothered to ask her what her name was. The girl had barely said a word to him since her arrival in his home. When she had to use the toilet she called him using the baby monitor, and that was about the extent of their communication.
Paul had had to return to work, but in his absence the girl only had to use the potty training toilet twice, and both times only to urinate. The first time she had seemed slightly embarrassed when Paul had to clean the plastic toilet after her. The second time she didn’t seem to care much. Perhaps she had remembered that he had kidnapped her off the street, and she didn’t need to worry about burdening him with an