Perfect Nightmare (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

S
he is truly the devil—it isn’t just her looks, though of course it was her looks that first told me what lurked within her soul.

I was almost afraid to bring her here, but now that I have, I know I’ve done the right thing; I shall keep her in exactly the condition—and the environment—she deserves. And the time will come when she will understand why she is here, what she has done.

I wish I could visit her more often, but I know I cannot. I must be patient. But patience is so hard when I feel this desperate hatred inside me.

Did she feel what I felt when I touched her body? Her skin is even softer than mine, and her fragrance—a fragrance that holds me still in thrall—lingers on the tips of my fingers and in the depths of my nostrils, and even as I sit writing these simple words in the loneliness of my chamber, I can smell her once again—even see her, stretched out on her mattress, lying in the darkness. Does she sleep at all, or does the evil inside her keep her as wakeful as it does me?

Is she dreaming of me as I shall dream of her tonight when at last I put aside my pen and drift into my own dark sleep?

Perhaps our dreams will come together, and we shall touch again.

And if we do, I hope she feels the pain I shall feel.

Perhaps I should deal with her—with both of them—right now. But patience must be my watchword. Everything must be done correctly, everything perfectly planned, all things executed in precise order.

It must all be done right.

But it’s so hard—so hard to keep away from her, now that I have her within my grasp.

She looked frightened when I visited a little while ago. She needed water, and she was terribly hungry, and I gave her just enough to give her hope.

She moaned, of course, and pretended to turn away, but I know it meant nothing at all, for even as she made her feigned protests, she gazed at me in a way that showed me her true desires as clearly as if she were pressing her naked flesh close to my own.

I stripped away the soft material that covered her loins and slipped it into my pocket.

It’s still there as I write, and even though I hold a pen in my fingers right now, the simple knowledge that in a moment I will once again clutch that foul fabric—will once again press it to my nose to breathe in the evil scent that emanates from the secret places of her body—makes my own body shiver with an anticipation that verges on ecstasy.

She will know. Soon she will know.

Soon they both will know.

But I shall not give in to my desires, not until the time is right and all of them are here. Then, after her scent has reminded me one more time that I now hold her in my power, I will press that fabric into these pages and keep it here forever.

As I will keep her here forever . . .

K
ara Marshall gazed unseeingly out the train window, the clacking of the wheels on the tracks—a sound that normally lulled her into a half doze within moments of leaving the Camden Green station—doing nothing at all today to calm the turmoil of her mind.

She had to
do
something! And she was
going
to do something, the moment she got to the city.

Unconsciously, her hand closed tighter on the bag filled with the posters she’d made up last night. Except they weren’t really posters—they were just sheets of standard size copy paper showing an image of Lindsay and pleading for any information about where she might be.

And Kara’s phone number.

Not that it was going to do any good, for deep in her heart she knew—knew with a terrible certainty—that Lindsay hadn’t simply taken off for a few days.

Someone had taken her.

Turning away from the world racing by beyond the train window, she remembered that there were people around her. People who might have seen Lindsay.

Pulling one of the posters from her bag, she began to circulate through the train, showing it to anyone who would look at it. Half the people simply turned away; the rest shook their heads sadly and looked at her with pity in their eyes.

When Kara had reached the last car, she collapsed into a seat and stared vacantly at her daughter’s image.

And felt utterly helpless.

Was she going to show the poster to ten million people? And even if she could, what good would it do?
It doesn’t matter,
she told herself.
You have to do something, and there isn’t anything else you can do.

She got off the train at Grand Central and took the subway south to Spring Street, emerging from the station into the streets of SoHo. And everywhere she looked—on every kiosk and lamppost—she saw masses of posters just like hers, advertising everything from rock groups to performance artists to housecleaning services to free kittens. On some of the kiosks, the posters were layered more than an inch thick. Even if she put hers up, how long would they remain uncovered? A day? An hour? Five minutes?

Steeling herself, she began. She went into every shop, every store, every gallery and restaurant along Spring and Prince and Houston. Wherever they let her, she taped a poster in the window, and sometimes taped one to the outside if they wouldn’t let her put one inside.

But none of them would let her show Lindsay’s photo to their customers. Not in the restaurants, not in the shops, not in the galleries.

When her stomach finally told her she had to eat something, she bought a hot pretzel and a bottle of water and walked up to Washington Square to eat the makeshift snack. The pretzel seemed to have no flavor at all, and she could barely swallow the water. Finally, she threw the last bite to the pigeons, stood up, took a deep breath and began her work again.

By four o’clock she was numb from repeating her questions. She was almost out of posters, and had seen some of the ones she’d put up earlier already covered by posters for other things.

How many girls went missing in New York every day, apparently with no one giving a damn about any of them, let alone her own daughter?

Kara felt like crying, but would not. Instead she took another deep breath and looked around to get her bearings.

She was on the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette, only a few blocks from where she began. She’d been in the city nearly all day, and had covered only about twenty city blocks.

Manhattan had almost seven thousand city blocks.

She had not even made a dent. She felt exhausted, broken, and almost overwhelmed with hopelessness.

She wasn’t going to find Lindsay this way.

So what was the use?

Before she could decide what to do next—call Steve or start back home—her cell phone rang. She glanced at the display, didn’t recognize the number, but pressed the key to accept the call.

“Kara?” a woman’s voice caroled. “Hi! It’s Rita Goldman!” For a moment Kara couldn’t quite place the name, but then the woman spoke again, and Kara remembered who she was. “I’ve found the perfect apartment for your family. It’s a three-bedroom, two bath with a great view on West Eighty-fourth. Lots of light, and you’ll love the price. The sellers are highly motivated—”

Kara clicked the phone off without speaking at all.

Rita Goldman. Their agent in the city. And she didn’t even know about Lindsay.

With everything that had happened—the TV coverage, the stories in the paper, the dozens of calls she’d made and the hundreds of posters she’d put up—even their own agent didn’t know that Lindsay was missing.

The world was just too big, and there were too many places someone could hide a girl.

Finally it all caved in on Kara. She sank to the curbing on a corner in the middle of the city, put her head on her knees, and began to cry.

Chapter Twenty-nine

A
ll things come to he who waits.

I do not know who first said that, but I have always found it to be true.

I wait.

I am observant.

I am able to see the signs.

And this morning another one came.

Yet even now, as I write this, I couldn’t say exactly how I know that this was what I have been looking for.

Waiting for.

Searching for.

At first glance there was nothing special about the ad at all.

A seemingly innocuous little ad for an equally innocuous-sounding house.

And yet something about it kept bringing my attention back to it, and soon it stood out from all the other ads like a brilliant signal shining out of darkness.

A beacon, reaching out to me, drawing me to it.

I have circled the ad in red, of course, and I suppose I must admit the possibility that I could be wrong.

Which is why I circled a few other ads, too, and though I shall go and look at all the houses, I have a feeling about this one.

After I’ve been to the house, and assured myself that it is, indeed, the place where she lives, I shall paste the ad into this journal, just as I have the ads for both the girls’ houses.

I could probably paste the ad in now, so strong is my feeling, but again I must remind myself to be patient and wait until everything is proven and everything is right.

Still, things are coming together perfectly—far more perfectly than I could ever have imagined.

It won’t be long now.

I can be patient.

I must be patient.

I will be patient.

But it is hard, and my cravings are so strong. . . .

Chapter Thirty

M
ama.

Lindsay focused on the word that had become her mantra, silently repeating it over and over again in the suffocating darkness. Sometimes it helped her slip off into a restless sleep.

But mostly—as now—it was the only thing that kept hope alive.

Somehow her mother would find her; would know what had happened to her; would come to her rescue.

Mama.

She had to come soon, before the man—the
monster
—turned from Shannon to her.

Shannon.

The other girl’s name echoed in her mind. How long had she been here? Where had she come from?

And what had the man done to her?

Lindsay didn’t want to think about it, but no matter how hard she tried, images kept forming in her mind—terrible images cobbled together from scenes she’d seen on television and at the movies.

Images of the man looming over Shannon’s emaciated body. In her mind’s eye, Lindsay saw Shannon tied down, her body stripped naked, the man’s fingers running over her skin, touching her arms and her legs, then moving over the contours of her body. Lindsay’s own skin crawled as she imagined how Shannon must feel, and as she imagined his hands caressing Shannon’s breasts, then moving lower until his fingers slipped between her legs, her own groin began to tingle and she found herself trying to twist away from the touch that wasn’t even happening.

Not, at least, to her.

A faint groan escaped her parched lips—so faint she wasn’t sure she’d made it at all—and now her thirst finally wiped away the terrible images of Shannon’s torture her mind had conjured up. She fantasized now that her captor had left the water bottle on the floor, that somehow she could get to it, but even as the fantasy lured her, she knew it was only that: a fantasy.

The man had taken the bottle with him.

There was no water.

No water even to long for, let alone water within her reach.

Mama . . .

Lindsay closed her eyes, hoping to drift off, but was suddenly jerked back to full consciousness by the creaking of hinges and the blinding light from the doorway.

A low moan came from Shannon, the only indication she’d had in hours that the other girl was still alive. Then Lindsay heard Shannon’s chains jangling, and a moment later she could see the terrifying figure clad in black lift her body—as limp as a broken doll—and take her through the door into the darkness beyond. Just before he vanished, the figure turned back to gaze at Lindsay for a moment, and the bloodred smile painted on his surgical mask leered at her.

Then he was gone.

Lindsay lay quietly, trying to still her heart.

There was a way out. There had to be!
She was an athlete. Her body was strong—much stronger than Shannon's. If she could find a way to loosen her bonds, find a way out of her prison, she could outrun this man, whoever he was.

For what had to be the millionth time, she tested her strength against the bonds that held her.

And for the millionth time they held her fast.

Then, too soon, he came back through the door.

He was alone.

Lindsay cringed as he knelt next to her and stroked her hair. “Drink,” he whispered, his lips so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Drink, or you might die too soon. . . .” He held the water bottle before her and put the straw between her lips.

Lindsay sucked the water into her mouth before the meaning of his words quite registered, swallowing as much as she could, knowing he would pull the bottle away in only a few seconds. She tried to drain it, sucking hard and fast, trying to shut out the sound of his voice and the touch of his fingers. Too soon—far too soon—a gurgle from the straw told her the bottle was empty. It had not been enough—not nearly enough to soothe her parched tongue, moisten her lips, end the dryness in her mouth.

Now he was cleaning her the way he had before, and Lindsay cringed, shutting her eyes tight, as if blocking out the sight of him could also block the vile touch of his fingers on her skin.

Mama . . .
she silently cried.
Come find me, Mama.

“Come with me,” the black figure with the grotesque mask said when he was finished wiping her skin.

Lindsay felt the shackles around her wrists loosened, and for just an instant, hope surged. But a second later, as she realized she was too weak even to attempt to flee, that brief flicker of hope died away.

The fingers of his right hand closed on her arm like the jaws of a vise and he pulled her up from the mattress, pinning her easily to the wall with a single arm. She tried to resist, but the last of her strength seemed to have drained away and all she could do was force a scream that emerged as little more than a nearly inaudible whine.

“Quiet,” he commanded. “I’ve brought you something new to wear.”

With utter incomprehension, she gazed at the scrap of cloth he was holding in his free hand then realized that it was a dress.

A dress for a doll.

Using a string he’d run through both arms of the tiny dress, he tied the garment around her waist.

The skirt of the dress barely covered her groin.

Holding her up as if she were an invalid, he walked her to the door through which he’d carried Shannon a few moments ago. If he let go, she knew she would fall.

And she knew that if she fell, he would simply drag her along behind him as if she were a broken doll whose dress was all she now wore.

But he didn’t let go. Instead he steered her through the door, and into a dark, damp, cold tunnel that reeked of mold and mildew and rot.

Lindsay tried to keep up, tried to keep her legs moving with him, tried to keep her feet on the ground, but half the time they seemed to drag on the floor as he hauled her along.

They came to a set of wooden stairs, and he surged up them, his viselike fingers still closed on her wrist in an unbreakable grip. Her legs and feet banged on the treads as he half dragged her up the stairs and through a trapdoor, into another room.

It was here that Lindsay saw Shannon stretched across a low table, her wrists and ankles taped to its legs. She was bone thin, her long brown hair matted into tangled strings. A filthy scrap of a doll’s dress that must once have looked like the one she herself now wore was all that covered her.

Shannon’s eyes stayed closed, and Lindsay didn’t know if she was even conscious.

Her mouth was covered with shiny silver duct tape upon which the man had painted the same grotesquely leering red smile that was spread over his own mask.

“See how much she likes it?” the man whispered. “I’m going to make you like it, too.” As Lindsay gazed at Shannon in mute horror, the man forced her down onto one of the child-sized chairs that circled the table.

He bound her wrists together behind her, and her ankles to the chair legs with the same duct tape he’d used to bind Shannon to the table. Finally, he put a wide strip of tape over her mouth.

He pulled a red marker from one of the pockets of his black raincoat, and Lindsay knew without being told that soon her mouth would look like Shannon’s and his own.

“It’s important for us all to smile at each other,” he said softly as he worked. “It’s how we know we love each other, isn’t it?”

When he was finished, he capped his red marker, then roughly brushed a tear from her cheek. Crouching down beside her, he looked into her eyes. “Isn’t this fun?” he said, his voice now so cold it made her shiver. “All of us playing, just like we used to!”

Then he rose to his full height and stood behind her. He ran his fingers over her cheek. “So sweet . . .” His fingers roamed down her neck and shoulder to her breast. “So pure . . .”

Lindsay wanted to scream, wanted to twist away from his touch, wanted to lash out at him. But she was bound helplessly to the chair, and even if she could scream, there would be no one except Shannon to hear her.

So she did nothing at all. She held absolutely still, refusing to acknowledge his touch, refusing to give him the satisfaction of any reaction at all.

Abruptly, he pulled his hand away.

He gazed at her for a long moment.

And finally he spoke.

“You’ll learn,” he said softly. “You’ll learn the same way I learned.”

He turned away from her then and knelt down close to Shannon.

And as Lindsay stared in shocked horror, he began to do to Shannon all the things Lindsay had only imagined him doing a few minutes before.

She turned away, and an instant later, his hand slashed across her face. Her mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood as one of her teeth sank into her cheek.

“Watch,” the man commanded. “How can you learn to love me if you don’t watch?”

Her cheek stinging, her eyes flooding with tears, her soul gripped in a terror worse than anything she’d ever known, Lindsay watched in utter silence as the man went about his “lesson.”

Finally finishing with a sigh that seemed more a release than any kind of ecstasy, he rose back to his feet and loomed once more above her.

“You see?” he asked, holding her chin and tipping her face up so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “We love each other. That’s why we’re smiling. Because we all love each other, and we like playing together.” He slit the tape that bound Shannon’s ankles and wrists with a pocketknife, then lifted her up like a rag doll. With one arm around her waist, the other holding Shannon’s arm around his own neck, he dragged her to the hatch leading to the stairs.

Lindsay knew that in a few moments he would be back.

He would be back for her.

Mama,
she silently cried one more time.
Come and find me, Mama. . . .