Gone

CHAPTER 27

Tuesday, 9:38 p.m. PST

SHE COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP. Would not fall asleep. Absolutely, positively should not fall asleep.

Rainie forced herself to remain vigilant, hyperaware. She focused on the sound of water, dripping down the cellar walls, the feel of Dougie’s small body, pressed against her side, the smell of mildew filling her nostrils. She was freezing, shivering in periodic spasms that wrenched through her aching body and rattled her teeth. She used the discomfort to keep herself alert. It gave her something to feel, lost in a black world devoid of sight.

She had wanted to get Dougie up off the damp floor. With her bound hands and feet, however, it had been impossible to manipulate the boy’s unconscious body onto the dry table. Instead, she’d done the best she could to drag them both up the first few steps. The hard wooden edge of the staircase dug into her bruised ribs, cutting off circulation to various parts of her body. She developed a routine, shifting first left, then right, then stomping her bound feet. Movement brought warmth, warmth brought hope. So she kept moving.

Rainie had once been involved in a case where a young girl had been abandoned in an underground cave. She knew from that experience a person could die of exposure at fifty-five degrees. All it took was wet clothes and the constant chill.

She and Dougie were both soaked to the bone.

She had a feeling the basement was a good deal cooler than fifty-five degrees.

Funny, how many long nights she had spent the past four months, her mind racing with thoughts she didn’t know how to control. She’d fallen asleep to horrible nightmares. She’d awakened to a displaced anxiety that often felt far worse than her dreams.

She had watched herself erode from the outside. From a relatively happily married woman with a challenging job, to a jumpy, hunch-shouldered bundle of nerves, who couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t hope. She developed a hair-trigger temper that frightened even her.

Any time she thought of Astoria, of Aurora Johnson’s final moments of terror, she went nearly out of her mind with rage, felt the anger claw at her skull like a feral beast, desperate for escape. Even when they completed their profile, even when the lead detective read it, and said, “Hey, I know this guy,” nothing changed. The maintenance man had a built-in alibi: Of course his prints were in the apartment-he maintained the unit. Of course there was blood on his shoes-he had called in the bodies.

Quincy devised a strategy for interrogation. The stringy-haired twenty-one-year-old high school dropout shrugged for four consecutive hours, stating, “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that.”

And so it went. They worked, they churned, they dug frantically for details. And Aurora Johnson’s cries for help once again went unanswered.

Professionals were supposed to be able to handle that sort of thing. They were supposed to shrug it off, dig deep, as Quincy seemed able to do. You can’t win them all. The subject will screw up sooner or later. Which implied another slaughtered mother, of course, another terrified little girl.

Rainie couldn’t find that level of acceptance inside herself. She dreamed of the bloody apartment, night after night. Sometimes she even fantasized about visiting the maintenance man herself. She knew how forensic science worked. Like any law enforcement officer, she had spent her fair share of time contemplating the perfect crime. She would take care of matters up close and personal. She would make sure that what happened to little Aurora Johnson never happened again.

Except, of course, the maintenance man was only the tip of the iceberg. Obsessively, she started following other news cases: kidnapped children, abuse cases, stories from the Iraq war. She would wait until Quincy was out of the house, and then she would sneak to the computer like a thief. Google search: three starved children. Google search: house of horrors. Google search: rape of infant.

It was amazing the amount of horror that would appear on her screen. She would sit there, hours at a time, reading, reading, reading, while the tears poured down her face. So much pain and suffering. So much injustice. The world was a miserable, cruel place, and there was nothing one woman could do that would ever make a difference. How could so many children be screaming, and nobody answer their cries?

Then she would hear the crunch of Quincy’s tires on the drive. Quickly, she would close out the windows, scrub at her cheeks.

“I was just checking e-mail,” she would tell her husband when he appeared in the hallway, smelling of rain and fir trees. And he would nod at her, and he would continue on to their bedroom, while she sat there, hands folded, head down, wondering how she could lie to someone she genuinely loved.

And she would feel the darkness grow in her, a living, breathing beast, cutting her off from the rest of civilization, isolating her from her own husband. She continued her horrible research and she didn’t tell Quincy about any of it. He wouldn’t understand. No one would understand.

It had been a relief when she had finally taken that first drink.

She was an idiot, she knew. It was her lot in life to live both inside and outside her body. She moved, she functioned, she felt. She was also an objective party, quick to criticize her own actions.

Aurora Johnson was dead. How did Rainie drinking, Rainie lying, Rainie self-imploding, change anything about that? On her better days, when the fog receded from her mind, when her hands shook less and her thoughts grew clearer, she understood she was doing all the wrong things. On one of those days, when Quincy was shut in his office working on his memoirs, she even called and made a doctor’s appointment.

Much to her amazement, she kept the appointment two weeks later, though she’d actually managed to sleep the night before and down some eggs for breakfast, so maybe the worst was behind her and she was starting to be sane after all. These things came and went, right? She’d been strong once, she’d be strong again. Hey, she was Rainie. Nothing got her down.

She went to the doctor, a kind elderly gentleman who looked like he was straight out of a TV show. He told her she had an anxiety disorder and gave her a prescription. She carried the prescription in her purse for two more weeks, before one day having it filled. Then she went into the ladies’ room, and for reasons she couldn’t even explain to herself, she poured the pills into a Pamprin bottle, keeping one in the palm of her hand. She stared at it for a long time.

She probably should’ve told the doctor about the number of beers she consumed in a day. The whole drinking thing probably made a difference.

She took the pill. She waited to sleep like a baby. And when she bolted awake at three a.m., her head filled with Aurora Johnson’s soundless scream, she went straight into the shower so Quincy would not see her curl up into a tiny ball and weep from pure frustration.

She took more pills. She drank more beer. She let the darkness swell inside her, turning herself over to it, resigned and accepting.

While her best friend pulled her over for driving under the influence. While her husband asked her again and again if she was okay. While her young charge realized that she’d lied to him and ran away from her to hide in the woods.

It was amazing the things one could do to one’s own self. How much you could lie to yourself. How much you could hurt yourself. How you could have everything you ever wanted-a loving husband, a good job, a beautiful home-and still not find it enough.

Rainie tortured herself. And then she stood back from the outside and watched herself fall.

Until here she was, bound and gagged in a basement, hair hacked off and a seven-year-old child unconscious at her feet. Her inner demon should be roaring with approval. See, the world really is a bad place and there’s nothing you can do.

Instead, for the first time in months, her mind felt quiet.

Yes, she was nauseous. Her head pounded. She had a strange tingling sensation shooting up and down her left leg. But overall, she felt focused, resolute. Somewhere above her in the dark was a man. He had kidnapped her, he had hurt Dougie.

And for that, Rainie was going to make him pay.

In the dark, Rainie’s lips curled into a smile. The old Rainie was back, and finally, ruefully, she understood. Quincy only gave her someone to love. Apparently, what she needed more was someone to hate.

Tuesday, 10:15 p.m. PST

“YOU ’RE TOUCHING ME. ”

Dougie’s voice roused Rainie from her reverie. She swore she hadn’t dozed off. Well, maybe just for a second.

“You’re a pervert. I’m going to tell.”

Rainie straightened in the dark. A cold, stabbing pain shot up her left hip, like an electric shock. She winced, uncurling from Dougie’s body, and tried to stretch out her legs.

“How do you feel? Does your head hurt?” she asked.

“Where are we? I can’t see. I don’t like this game!”

“It’s not a game, Dougie. Someone kidnapped me. The same person also kidnapped you.”

“You’re a liar,” Dougie said angrily. “Lie, lie, lie. I’m going to tell Miss Boyd! You’re nothing but a drunk. I want to go home!”

“Yeah, Dougie. Me, too.”

With consciousness came the chill. Rainie reached up instinctively to rub her arms, only to be thwarted again by her bound hands. She wished she could see. She wished she could feel her fingers. It occurred to her that Dougie’s voice sounded normal, unencumbered, meaning that he wasn’t gagged. She dared to be optimistic.

“Dougie, there’s a blindfold over my eyes. Is there a blindfold over your eyes?”

“Yes.” He still sounded sullen.

“What about your wrists and ankles? Are you tied up?”

“Y-yes.” More of a hiccup now. Dougie was starting to become more aware of his surroundings, and with that awareness came fear.

Rainie forced her voice to sound calm. “Dougie, did you see the person who took you? Do you know who did this?”

The boy was quiet for a while. “White light,” he said at last.

“Me, too. I think he’s using some kind of blinding flash, followed by a drug, maybe chloroform. You might feel sick to your stomach. It’s okay if you need to throw up. Just let me know, and we’ll get you off the stairs.”

“I don’t like you,” Dougie said.

Rainie didn’t bother to respond to that statement anymore; Dougie had been saying it for weeks, ever since she was supposed to meet him one Wednesday night and wound up at a bar instead. It had taken her months to gain the boy’s trust. She lost it all in less than four hours. This is your life, Rainie thought not for the first time, and this is your life on booze.

“Dougie,” she said carefully now, “I’m going to reach forward and see if I can untie your wrists. I can’t see anything either, so just hold still for a sec while I figure it out.”

The boy didn’t reply, nor did he move away. Progress, she supposed. Leaning over him, she could feel him shiver, then stiffen his body against the tremors. His sweatshirt was still damp, stealing precious heat from him. Rainie swore if she ever got out of this basement, she was never going out in the rain again.

Her fingers finally found his bound arms. She explored his wrists, then swore softly. The man had used hard plastic ties. The only way to get them off would be with something sharp, such as scissors. Son of a bitch.

“I can’t do it,” she said at last. “I’m sorry, Dougie. We need a special tool.”

Dougie just sniffed.

“Let me check out the blindfold. Maybe I can do that.”

Dougie turned his head; Rainie found the knot. The blindfold had more potential; it was a simple strip of cotton fabric. The knot was tight, however, and Rainie’s fingers stiff. She had to pick at it again and again, occasionally pulling Dougie’s hair and making him yelp.

In the end, she never mastered the knot. But her constant pulling stretched the worn fabric. Dougie surprised them both by sliding the blindfold off his head.

“It’s still dark!” he said with surprise.

“I think we’re in a basement. Can you see any windows?”

The boy was silent a moment. “Up,” he said at last. “Two of them. I’m not that tall.”

Rainie thought she knew what he meant. Two high portals, probably set above the foundation. At least that allowed in some natural light. Anything had to be better than the endless dark. “Dougie, do you think you could work on my blindfold now?”

The boy didn’t answer right away. Resentful, angry? Still thinking of all the ways Rainie failed him? She couldn’t turn back time. That much she knew to be true.

Finally, she felt his fingers. They moved up her arm to her neck, then the boy stilled.

“Where’s your hair?”

Rainie didn’t want to scare a young child, but at the same time, she needed him as an ally, which meant she needed his hatred of their abductor to be greater than his anger with her.

She answered truthfully. “He cut it off. Sawed it off, actually, with a knife.”

The boy hesitated. She wondered if he was now processing the rest of the information his fingers must have given him. The sticky feeling of her skin, where crisscrossing cuts still bled and oozed. The warm swollen area around her elbow where something had gone dreadfully askew.

“Work on the blindfold, Dougie,” she ordered quietly. “We’ll start by gaining our eyes, then see what we can do about our feet.”

He went to work on her blindfold. His fingers were smaller, nimbler. Even with his bound wrists, he had her blindfold off in no time at all. Dutifully, they both checked out their ankles. Thankfully, not a zip tie, but old-fashioned strips of cotton. As Dougie had already proved himself more adept, he went first.

The minute the ties came off and Rainie’s legs sprang apart, she felt an explosion of electrical impulses up and down her legs. Her toes shook, her left leg quivered. For thirty seconds, she gritted her teeth in agony as nerve ending after nerve ending filled with blood and fired to life. She wanted to scream, bang her hand in open-fisted frustration. Mostly, she wanted to kill the son of a bitch upstairs.

Then the worst of it passed, leaving her shaky and rubber-limbed, as if she’d just climbed Mount Everest instead of enduring a round of muscle spasms.

She tried for a deep, steadying breath, realizing for the first time how much her head hurt, the low ringing filling her ears. She had missed at least one dose of medication. She had no illusions about what would happen next.

She went to work on Dougie’s bindings, moving to the bottom step. Her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom; the two high portals let in a distant glow, probably from an overhead patio light. It was enough to allow their prison landscape to transform from pitch black to shades of gray. Dougie’s shoes became a darker silhouette against a lighter backdrop. She fumbled around with her heavy fingers until she found the knot, picking and tugging away.

“You’re not very good at this,” Dougie said.

“I know.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Did you bring any food?” she asked him.

She could feel him scowl in the dark. “No.”

“Then we have nothing to eat.”

“He took my beetle,” Dougie said, and for the first time, sounded angry. “He stole my pet!”

“Dougie, you know how adults are always telling you not to hit? No biting, no scratching, you have to play nice?”

“Yeah.”

“This man is the exception. You get the chance, go after him with everything you’ve got.” The knot finally loosened. The cloth fell down and Dougie kicked his legs in triumph.

They had use of their feet, their eyes, their mouths. Not bad for a day’s work.

Rainie picked up the loose strips of cloth. She didn’t know how she would use them yet, but waste not, want not.

Now, in the dark, she could see Dougie bring his wrists to his mouth and start chewing at the zip ties. Theoretically speaking, it should be difficult to chew through the tough, plastic strap, but she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm. She got up on her own, trying to walk off the strange sensations still ping-ponging up and down her side.

It felt good to take a real solid step. She felt strong, almost human. Aching head, ribs, and arms aside. Then her teeth started chattering again, reminding her of the numbing cold.

She gazed up the flight of stairs. She could see a glow of light underneath the door. So he was still awake, still moving, still doing whatever it was abductors did.

“Hey, buddy,” she told Dougie, “I have a plan.”