I only had a second. I smashed my head back, felt a hard thud, blinding pain down my neck. He must have been looking down and I hit the top of his head.
“You stupid bitch!”
He grabbed the back of my hair, slammed my head into the doorjamb, stunning me. I felt my knees give out and hit the floor.
I tried to get onto my feet, but my legs weren’t working right. I collapsed onto my stomach, fighting to stay awake, my vision blurring.
Sounds above my head, a key going into a lock, the door opening.
Hands were gripping my shoulders, dragging me into the room. I was groggy, floating in and out. I tried to focus, told myself to fight, but my body felt sluggish, my legs and arms not working properly.
Rough hands flipped me over, hauled me up to sit with my back leaning against the wall. The room spun, my vision coming in and out for a moment.
“Wake up! You’ve got some questions to answer.”
I focused on Gavin’s face in front of me, my vision clearing, then looked around frantically, getting quick snapshots of images. It was dark—the window seemed to be boarded over, the only light coming from the open doorway.
There was a big bed, and in the middle, a body. I could only make out a figure, saw movement as though someone was struggling to get up. Then I realized whoever was on the bed was tied to the wooden bedpost. The figure stood.
Crystal.
* * *
She was naked, her hair straggly and matted. Rope was tied around her neck like a collar and leashed to the post. Her face was contorted in fear. She was gagged but not with tape, looked like some sort of fabric, and her hands were tied behind her back. I screamed, the sound shrieking out of me. I tried to get up to run to her but Gavin pushed me down. He grabbed my face, grinding my teeth together.
“Shut the fuck up!”
I couldn’t get my breath, my body heaving with each gasp, snot dripping out of my nose and mixing with the sweat rolling down my face. Crystal looked frantic, pulling on her leash as far as she could. She was down on her knees, shoulders shaking as she cried.
“Shut up.” Gavin let go of my face and slapped me hard. I still couldn’t stop screaming and he slapped me again.
I tried to get my breath under control, whimpers leaking from my mouth. My body was vibrating, something warm pooled under my legs and I realized I’d peed myself. Gavin looked down.
“Jesus Christ.” He looked at Crystal. “What the fuck are you doing? Get back on the bed.”
She didn’t move, still staring at me, her eyes panicky and full of tears.
Gavin walked over and slapped her hard in the face.
I screamed as her head rocked back. He turned and glared at me.
“You scream like that again, I’ll shove my foot down her throat, get it?”
“I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt her!”
Now he was looking back and forth between us, his eyes narrowed, and I realized my mistake. He’d figured out that there might be a connection between us. He walked over to the stereo, which was sitting on an old wood dresser, and turned it down. Then he flipped on the light.
I could see it all now—the plastic bucket in the corner, the messy bedding, the pale blue blanket ripped and stained—and gasped when I got a better look at Crystal. Marks covered her breasts and stomach, looked like bites. Her face was bruised, her top lip scabbed and puffy.
“I said, get back on the bed,” he said again. She climbed onto the bed, watching us with a horrified expression on her face.
He came back to where I was sitting. Knelt in front of me.
“Why were you in my house?”
“I was going to rob you.”
“Bullshit.” He looked at Crystal, then at me. “You two know each other?”
“No,” I said. He stared at me. I tried not to look away, but his eyes terrified me.
He walked over to Crystal, grabbed her rope leash, and pulled her off the bed. She stood up, and he turned her to face me, standing directly behind her. He started to pull the rope tight around her throat.
“Who the fuck are you?” he yelled at me.
Crystal was trying to shake her head, signaling me not to say anything, but her face was turning red, her eyes bulging.
“She’s my aunt!” I yelled back, sobbing.
Gavin let go of the rope. Crystal fell to the floor, wheezing for air.
“Your aunt.” Gavin stared hard at my face again, realization spreading across his. He came closer, grabbed my chin, turned my face side to side.
“How old are you?”
Crystal was shaking her head again. Gavin stood up, took a lunging step toward her, and kicked her in the ribs. She cried out, curled into a ball.
“Stop!” I yelled. “I’m seventeen.”
He walked back toward me, crouched down so he could see behind me. I felt his hand on mine, bending my fingers.
“You’re his kid.” His face was so close to mine I could smell his breath, coffee and cigarettes. “Which bitch is your mother?”
Tears filled my eyes. I’d screwed everything up.
“The youngest one.”
I couldn’t read his expression, anger but almost a weird sort of triumph, then it turned mean. My body tensed, waiting for the blow.
His phone rang. He stood up and took it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, then answered it. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.” He stared at me while he listened. “I said I’ll be a fucking minute. Had an issue with the truck.… No, I fixed it.” He ended the call, shoved the phone back in his pocket.
Suddenly he kicked me hard in the side. I cringed against the wall, trying to get away from his heavy boots. He glared down at me.
“You can thank your daddy for that.”
He left the room, locking the door behind him. I was shocked he hadn’t tied me up. As soon as I heard his footsteps going downstairs I got to my feet and hobbled over to Crystal, who was still on the floor. I dropped down beside her and got our bodies close, even though we couldn’t wrap our arms around each other. I could feel how frail her body was, how she’d lost weight. We pulled away, looked at each other.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I messed up. I was trying to rescue you.”
She was making grunts and moans behind her gag, her eyes questioning. I had no idea what she was saying.
“Mom and Dallas don’t know I’m here. I ran away.” I was crying, realizing how stupid I’d been. “But when I don’t come home she’ll figure it out. They’ll come looking for us.” I prayed it was true. But Mom wasn’t expecting me home until Thursday. What would happen to us until then? Would they kill us?
Footsteps coming back up the stairs, sounds of the door unlocking. I cringed beside Crystal. She pushed me behind her with her shoulder, like she was shielding me.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Gavin said when he walked in.
He was carrying a coil of rope, some fabric, a bottle of water. He took off the cap and held it to my lips, letting me drink, but he poured it so fast it bubbled out of my mouth, making me choke, running down my body.
“You shouldn’t waste that, going to be awhile before you get more.”
He threw the bottle into the corner of the room near the door. Then he grabbed my arms and dragged me to my feet, walked me toward the end of the bed. He set the fabric down on the blanket, put the rope around my neck, like a lasso, and tied the other end to the bottom bedpost, wrapping it around under where the railing joined so I couldn’t slide it up. He checked the length to make sure I couldn’t reach the door or the stereo, pushed the bucket between me and Crystal, who was tied to the same side of the bed but on the opposite end.
“Here’s your shitter.” He stood in front of me, grabbed my face again, squeezing with his hands. “Where’s your car?”
“I hitchhiked here. It ran out of gas in town this morning.” I said it fast, my words mangled because he was still squeezing my face. “I left it on the side of the road.” I had another idea. “The
cops will probably impound it.”
“Bullshit. You were in my house all night.” He shoved his hands in my pockets, grabbing at my ass and crotch, his face so close to mine I could see every bead of sweat, the dark stubble, the faint scar on his chin, his bloodshot eyes.
He pulled out my keys, jingled them in front of my face.
“You think I’m stupid?”
I shook my head. “No!”
“I pulled my truck behind the shop to grab some tools. If I hadn’t come back in, you’d have screwed everything up.”
“I just wanted to find my aunt,” I said.
“Well, you found her.” He smiled. “Now where’s your fucking car?” He gripped my face again, making tears come to my eyes.
“I told you. It’s in town.” The car was my last chance at being found.
He let go of my face, and for a second I thought it was going to be okay, he’d believed me. But then he walked over to Crystal, spun her around, and bent her over the bed. He pulled hard on the leash around her neck, making her back arch. She was making horrible sounds behind her gag, muffled screams and cries.
“You want to try again?” he said over his shoulder to me. He gave the leash another tug.
“It’s on the side road!” I shouted. “Let her go!”
He yanked on Crystal once more, then released her. She collapsed onto the bed, slid down to the floor.
“What road?” He turned back to me. “Don’t lie to me again.”
“It was on the other side of the main road, close to the driveway.”
He nodded, like he knew the spot, then picked up the bundle of fabric and walked toward me.
“I won’t scream,” I said when I realized he was going to gag me again.
“You girls always scream,” he said.
He shoved the fabric in and tied a long strip around my head, holding it in place, then knotted it at the back of my head, pulling it tight. It made my lips feel like they were being stretched wide. I gagged a few times, choking on the cloth.
He stepped back, looked at the both of us, and smiled big, showing all his yellowed teeth. “I’ll see you girls tonight after work. We’ll have a party.”
He walked over to the stereo, which was an ancient-looking ghetto blaster covered in beer stickers, and turned up the country music, then gave a little jig at the door and pretended to tip his baseball cap at us.
He flicked off the light and closed the door. I couldn’t hear him locking it but I saw his shadow under the door, then it disappeared.
I turned to Crystal, who was still sitting on the floor. I could just make out her shape in the dim light—some sun was streaming through the cracks in the boards on the window and underneath the door. My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I could soon see her better. She looked defeated, her shoulders slumped.
I tugged at my hands, twisting them in different directions, straining at the tape, but he’d tied me tight. I tried to walk closer to Crystal, hoping she could use her hands to untie the gag around my neck, or my rope, but he’d been smart and only given me enough to get within a foot of her. I met her eyes.
She was shaking her head, her face sad. Then she screamed into her gag, a harsh, raw animal moan of despair. Her face red, and tears rolling down her face.
I dropped to my knees and gave over to my own tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JAMIE
The boys were working on a truck, both their heads bent over the engine. They heard our feet on the concrete and looked up.
“Can I help you?” the dark-haired boy said, wiping his hands on a rag. He had to be Riley. I couldn’t get over how much he looked like Skylar, the way he moved, how his mouth lifted when he spoke. He also looked like Brian, but softer somehow. Dallas was staring at his face too.
Riley looked confused now, waiting for us to speak. I found my voice.
“We’re looking for my daughter—her name is Skylar.”
His eyes widened, and he glanced at his friend, then back at us.
“Skylar?” he nervously licked his lips. “Did she, like, run away or something?” I searched his expression, looking for signs that he was faking his question, trying to act innocent, but he looked genuine.
“Yes.” Not sure what she might have told them, I decided to keep it simple. “She took off a few days ago. No one has seen her since.”
Riley glanced at Noah, then back at me. “She was working up at the ranch, but I don’t think she showed up today. Least she wasn’t there when I left this morning.”
She’d been working at the ranch? I felt like I’d been punched in the guts with steel gloves.
“When did you last see her?” I said.
Riley was hesitating, like he knew something but was scared to say it.
“It’s really important we find her,” I said.
“Yesterday after work.”
“Do you know where she was going?”
“No, but I think she was sleeping in her car. I told her she could swim at the creek on our place but I don’t know if she went there.”
The creek. Memories flashed—running, falling to the ground, Brian’s body on top of me. Focus on Skylar.
“Did you tell anyone else she was going there?” I held his gaze.
“No.” But he’d looked away. He was lying, I was sure of it.
“And you have no idea where she might be now?” I said, still staring hard at Riley, wondering if he knew what kind of man his father really was.
“No, I told you,” Riley said, but he didn’t sound annoyed, more worried, like maybe he was just figuring out he might’ve been the last person to see Skylar.
A car pulled up in front of the garage.
“I’ve got to help these customers,” Riley said.
“If you think of anything else, please give us a call.” I scrawled my number quickly across the back of a pad of invoices lying on the bench.
“Hope you find her soon,” Riley said as he ran out.
* * *
As we were walking back to the motel, I said, “We have to tell the police Skylar was working at the ranch—and what the men did to us.”
“They’re going to have questions.”
“We just have to tell them enough so they know Brian and Gavin are dangerous,” I said. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to speak about what had happened to us, but I had to somehow find the strength.
“I don’t trust Riley,” Dallas said.
“You think he could be involved?”
“We know his dad’s fucked up, and he was nervous. Something’s weird.”
Could we have it all wrong? Could it be Noah and Riley who did something to Skylar? But why would Riley admit he’d seen her?
“That’s why I want to talk to the police,” I said. “They’ll be able to figure out if he’s lying.”
“There’s a risk they could start looking into our past.”
“They have no reason to at this point, no way of knowing about Dad.” I still had nightmares sometimes, could hear him calling me “Peanut.” I would stay awake for hours, replaying that last night, wondering what would have happened if I’d just injured him, where we’d all be now. And I often worried about what Skylar would think if she ever found out. I told myself that I’d had no choice, but I was haunted by the idea that everything that had happened in Cash Creek was a punishment somehow, that our lives had been broken that day.
“We need to make sure we have our stories straight,” Dallas said. “And whatever we do, we can’t let them know Crystal had a gun.”
* * *
We walked into the station together. It was an older square building with white wood siding, looked like it had been built in the seventies and smelled of burnt coffee. It wasn’t very big, and only a few police cars were in the parking lot. On the way we’d talked over a few things they might ask, worked on our cover story, but we knew it was the things we weren’t thinking about that might screw us up.
I told the woman behin
d the counter that we wanted to report some missing people, and an officer came out a couple minutes later. He introduced himself as Sergeant McPhail and led us to a small interview room with a table and a few chairs. He sat on one side, the two of us across from him. He was an older man with snow-white hair, brown eyes with eyebrows that slashed down at an angle, a long nose, and a stern mouth. He reminded me of an eagle, the way his eyes stared intensely at one of us, then flicked to the other. I got the feeling he didn’t miss much, which was good if it meant he could find the girls faster but bad if he sensed we were lying about parts of the story.
“You want to file a missing persons report?” he said, making notes on a pad of paper.
“Yes, my daughter and our sister,” I said. “We live in Vancouver, but they were staying here at the motel.”
“Their names?”
“Skylar and Crystal Caldwell. Skylar is only seventeen.” I curled my hand into a tight fist, digging my nails in hard, focused on the pain.
“When did you last hear from them?” he said.
“We haven’t heard from our sister since Sunday. Skylar texted me after she left Thursday morning, but I haven’t heard from her since and their phones are just going to voice mail. We went to the motel.…” I couldn’t go on, kept seeing Crystal’s shirt lying on the bed like she’d planned on coming back at any minute.
“Crystal’s things are in her room,” Dallas said, “but the lady at the motel hasn’t seen her all week and she should’ve checked out today. Skylar stayed only one night there. We think she started sleeping in her car after that.” Usually it pissed me off when Dallas stepped in and spoke for me, but this time I felt a wave of gratitude that she was there, that I had her strength to lean on.
“Was Crystal’s purse in the room?” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Why were they in Cash Creek?”
“Eighteen years ago we passed through town.…” My skin was on fire, my face burning hot. For a minute I couldn’t find my breath, felt like a hand was clamping down over my mouth. I wondered if I was having a panic attack. “Our truck broke down.”
“Brian Luxton and his brother picked us up and took us back to their parents’ ranch so we could make some money,” Dallas said, speaking fast and angry. “They attacked us one night and took us to an empty warehouse. They raped us. They kept us there for five days.”