the monitor spun out, lasting one minute, and then two. Fontana figured that Paul must have turned the receiver’s the companion device off. Then the silence was shattered by the sound of Laurie’s screams.
“Nooo! Laurie! Oh, God, please stop this!”
The screams lasted for just under a minute, and then the silence returned. Not long after that Paul retuned to the basement. He found Walter Fontana weeping.
“Is my daughter okay?” Fontana asked.
Paul said nothing.
“Is my daughter alive?” Fontana asked. “Please tell me she’s alive.”
“Is my daughter alive?” Paul asked in return.
“Christ, I don’t know anything about your daughter.”
Paul was quiet for a moment.
“Laurie is still alive,” he said. “But if you don’t tell me the truth right now, I’m gonna go back up there, and you can listen to your daughter die.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Fontana’s said, his voice choked with tears. “Fuck you. Let her go.”
“Last chance.”
“Okay. Okay, I’ll tell you. I did it. I took your daughter. I’m so sorry. I swear to God I’m sorry.”
“You were driving a blue Taurus?”
“Yes. It was my brother’s car. I borrowed it.”
“And you saw my daughter alone?”
“Yes. I saw her alone, and I took her. I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t touch her, I swear. I didn’t do any pervert shit.”
“Did you kill her?”
“Yes.”
“How did you kill her?”
“I…I put a pillow over her face. It was quick. She didn’t suffer. I promise.”
Now they were both crying.
“What did you do with her after?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Tell me!”
Paul smashed his fist into the man’s face.
“Tell me what you did with her body!”
“I buried her in the woods, godammit!”
Paul collapsed to the ground, sobbing.
“I’m sorry. I saw her leaving the school, and I took her. I’m sorry.”
Paul stopped sobbing.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
Paul stood up.
“Why did you say you saw her leaving school?”
Fontana hesitated. He looked scared, like a boy who had broken his mother’s favorite vase and now had to face her.
“That’s where she was taken, right? From school?”
“No. She was taken from the park.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I took her from the park.”
Paul thought about it.
“What color was her hair?” he asked.
Fontana shot a look at Paul’s dark hair.
“Her hair was black.”
Paul shook his head. Sam had her mother’s blond hair.
“Oh, God,” Paul said. “Oh, my God.”
He knew. He had made a mistake. All that he had done…
“It wasn’t you,” Paul whispered.
Fontana looked confused, unsure of what was expected of him.
“It wasn’t you,” Paul said, louder this time.
“I tried telling you that,” Fontana said.
Paul reeled. He tried to fight a monster, and became a monster himself. It was like a storyline from an episode of the Twilight Zone.
“I’m…I don’t know what to…”
Paul didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. Instead of saying anything, he moved to the strap that ran across Walter Fontana’s legs and unlatched it, tossing it over the far side of the table.
“Thank God,” Fontana said. “I want to see my daughter. Please let me see Laurie.”
Paul started unlatching the second strap, the one running across Fontana’s lower arms and belly, but it wouldn’t budge. He bent down to get a closer look.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Sam,” Fontana said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for one day. I really do.”
Paul tried to figure out why the latch holding the two ends of the strap together wouldn’t come free. Then he froze.
“You said my daughter’s name,” Paul said.
“What?”
Paul stood up straight and looked down at the man.
“You said her name. Sam.”
“Yeah, I did. Please, get these things off of me. I want to see my daughter.”
“You said her name.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Fontana asked.
“Because I never told you her name.”
Fontana paused.
“Yes, you did. You told me that her name was Samantha, but you called her Sam.”
“I never told you her name,” Paul repeated.
For a moment the two men stared at each other, one standing and one lying on his back. Then Fontana, in spite of the pain and the fear and the terror that he had been through, flashed a smile.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he said.
He laughed.
“I’m such a stupid fuck,” Fontana said. “I was this close, man. I was home free.”
Paul went and got the screwdriver. When Fontana saw it he struggled to break free of his remaining straps. All he managed to do was flail his broken legs, sending jets of pain shooting through his body. He stopped struggling.
“I’m going to take your eyes out with this thing,” Paul said. “And then I’m gonna rape your daughter with it.”
Fontana spit at him, and the glob of saliva landed on Paul’s shirt; he took no notice of it.
“If you tell me the truth, the real truth, right now, I’ll let your daughter go and I’ll kill you quickly.”
Fontana looked into Paul’s eyes and saw that Paul meant what he said. At least the part about what he would do if Fontana told any more lies or half-truths.
“Okay,” Fontana said. “No more lies. Just the truth.”
“What did you do?”
“It was my brother’s car. That part is true. I saw the two of you playing at the park. I thought Sam looked…beautiful. I pulled into the parking lot and popped the hood, then stood around pretending like something was wrong with the car. I didn’t know if I would actually get an opportunity to grab her, but then you left her alone.”
That last part cut Paul like a knife.
“I waited for you to go inside that store, and then I called Sam over to me. I told her that I had something to show her. She was so trusting. When she got close enough I grabbed her and threw her into the car. I got out of there in a hurry.”
“What did you do then?”
“I took her to this clearing in the woods that I know about. My wife was at home with Laurie; Laurie was just two then. I couldn’t go there, so I went to the woods, and I…you know. She cried. I told her that everything was going to be all right. She said that she wanted to go home, and I told her that I would take her home when we were done playing.”
“You raped my little girl.”
It wasn’t a question.
“How did you kill her?” Paul asked.
“I choked her with my hands. I watched her die. Her face…the fear, it was beautiful. If you’ve never seen it, you’ll never understand. In that moment I was God.”
Paul had to fight himself to keep from planting the screwdriver into Fontana’s head.
“What did you do then?” he asked. “Did you bury her in the woods like you said?”
“No. I threw her in the river.”
“Which river?”
“The Juniper River. It runs through the woods near the clearing. That’s where I put all of them.”
“All of who?”
“All the girls. There have been so many of them.”
“Sam wasn’t the only one?”
“No.”
“Oh, God. How many have there been.”
Fontana had to think about it, and that fact alone turned Paul’s stomach.
“Sixteen tha
t I can remember,” Fontana said. “Sixteen girls. And I enjoyed every one of them.”
When he said this Paul could see a look in the man’s eyes like hunger.
“I want to be a good person,” Fontana said. “I really do. I’m just not.”
There was a pause in which Paul took in everything that he had just been told.
“Now let my daughter go. I know you’re not like me. You are a good man. Do whatever you want to me, but let Laurie go. None of this is her fault.”
Paul looked the man in the eyes.
“I’m gonna kill your fucking daughter,” he said.
Then he used the screw driver. Walter Fontana did not die a quick death.
12
“Why did you want me to scream like I was being hurt?”
“What was that?”
Paul was dazed, and he hadn’t understood the question.
“”When you came up to the room and told me that you needed me to scream like I was being hurt real bad. Why did you want me to do that?”
Paul looked across at the girl. She was buckled into her seat, and had a blindfold over her eyes. The blindfold was really one of Georgia’s old sleeping masks that Paul had found. Her hands were unbound. There was no need for her to run; she was being set free.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said.
He pulled into a familiar parking lot in front of a gas station.
“Listen to me,” he said. “When you get out of the car, you have to keep the blindfold on your face for two whole minutes.”
“I know. You already told me.”
“Well, I’m telling you again. Are you gonna do what I said?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll wait two minutes.”
“Okay. When you’re done counting you can take it off and walk home.”
He unbuckled her seat belt, then reached over and opened her door for her.
“Go ahead and step out,” he said.
She did that. When he reached to close the door again, Paul paused.
“Laurie,” he said.
“Yes?”
She turned toward the sound of his voice.
“I’m really sorry about everything.”
She didn’t say anything back. There was really nothing to say. Paul shut the door and pulled away from the gas station. He hurried away, not trusting that the girl would