“There’s nothing I can do staying at home,” I said.
She nodded and then looked at Ryan as if she had just noticed he was with me. “Hi, Ryan,” she said. “Got everything you want?”
“I have Haylee. That should do it,” he replied, and Amanda laughed.
Luke and Eddie slowly made their way toward us, slipping in and around people like they were weaving a web to trap everyone.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” Luke said.
“Hey, Ryan,” Eddie said, insinuating himself between Ryan and me. “You guys having a good time?”
“We just got here,” Ryan said sharply.
“It doesn’t take long to realize if you’re going to have a good time or not,” Luke said, and Eddie laughed.
“This party’s going nowhere,” Eddie said, looking around. “Too civilized.”
Luke laughed again.
Ryan glanced at me and smirked. “Anything is too civilized for you savages,” he told Luke.
Luke and Eddie laughed again. It was easy to see that they were already high on something—something good, I thought.
“You get bored, come see us,” Eddie said. They walked toward the food.
“They’re bad news,” Ryan said. “It’s only a matter of time. Everyone knows they run the drugstore at our school.”
“Do they?” I saw Paulie Marcus pour something in the glass of punch he had gotten for Melanie Roth. I moved in their direction. Ryan tagged along. I poured myself a glass of punch and held it out toward Paulie. He glanced around and then took out a flask and poured some in.
“What is that?” Ryan asked him.
“Vodka. Doesn’t smell as much on your breath,” Paulie told him. “Want some?”
“No. And don’t give her any more, either,” he ordered.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t tell people what to give me and what not to, Ryan. I like a little of it. You should drink some, too. Loosen up.”
He blushed but shook his head. “We’re going to get Amanda in trouble,” he muttered.
“Oh, please. She knows what’s happening,” I said. “Chill, Ryan.”
I emptied my glass in two swallows.
Paulie smiled but looked fearfully at Ryan, who was a good twenty-five pounds heavier than he was.
I winked at him and put the glass down on a table. “Let’s dance again,” I told Ryan. “You need the practice.”
While we danced, Paulie smiled at me and then poured another good couple of shots of vodka into my glass. I didn’t think I’d ever danced as hard or as well. I could feel the boys undressing me with their eyes, and Ryan looked more and more uncomfortable. Occasionally, I stepped off the dance floor, quickly grabbed my glass, and poured some more punch into it so Ryan wouldn’t know what I was drinking. Paulie refreshed it twice for me.
Ryan looked disappointed with the party. He wasn’t having a good time dancing with me. At times, he looked like he was moving in slow motion. At one point, when Charlie Levine started dancing very close to me, I turned and started dancing with him. His girlfriend, Lois Christopher, was shocked. I nodded toward Ryan. She glanced at him, shrugged, and moved over to dance with him. He looked stunned, but continued to go through the motions. What else could he do? He didn’t want to make a scene. I was the one making scenes.
One song ran into another, and I never stopped. When Charlie was tired, someone else took his place. Ryan finally stepped off and went to the food table to get something else to eat. I saw Rachel Benton, his former girlfriend, approach him and start a conversation. It didn’t bother me at all. I was having too good a time to care. The faster I danced, the more I drank, and the more I flirted and boys flirted with, the more it helped me forget the past weeks of depression. I decided I was through punishing myself. With Mother off my back, that wasn’t going to be difficult to do.
Ryan was too engrossed with Rachel to notice when I slipped off the dance floor and joined Eddie and Luke.
“So whatcha got?” I asked.
“Some very good X,” Luke said.
He held his closed fist close to my hip. I put my hand there, and he deposited a pill into it. Eddie handed me his cup of spiked punch, and I washed it down quickly.
“Let’s party,” I told them, and they both joined me on the dance floor. It was no problem for me to dance with two boys simultaneously.
I was vaguely aware of the time as the party continued, but I tossed it off like a gum wrapper and kept dancing and drinking, and when I felt myself slowing down, I took another pill from Luke. Ryan hovered, looking more and more distressed and lost. Suddenly, I found him annoying. His look of concern was becoming more and more irritating. At eleven thirty, he pushed his way past some kids dancing around me and grabbed my wrist.
“We’ve got to go. You’ve got to be home by midnight. We promised your dad.”
“Forget it,” I said. “Cinderella has left the building.”
“What?”
My laughter made others laugh. Ryan stood there looking foolish.
“Haylee!” he cried, holding his arms out. “I promised I’d bring you home by midnight.”
“Oh, have a drink or something,” I told him. “I don’t have a curfew anymore.”
He backed away, obviously angry. I saw him talking to Rachel again, both of them now glaring at me, and then, a little more than half an hour later, I noticed they were both gone.
“The prince left,” Eddie told me.
“Not the princess,” I replied. “I can’t let my fans down.”
He laughed. We danced for a little while, and then he leaned toward me and said, “Wanna cut out? I know a cool place where they play jazz and no one cards you.”
“Sure. I’m not that crazy about jazz, but I am crazy about not being carded.”
He laughed, took my hand, and led me to a side door. With all the commotion around us, it was easy to slip out. We went up the steps and across the side of the house to his car. I felt like I was floating, and it felt better than anything. He gave me another pill when we got into his car, and we drove off.
We never made it to his cool jazz club. On the way, we turned off the main road and parked on a dirt lot where someone was preparing to start construction on a house. He told me it was where his father was working. I really didn’t listen that much to what he said. I was laughing a lot and didn’t put up much resistance when he started to make love. It seemed like the perfect way to end a great night.
Both of us fell asleep after that. I was the first to wake up, and I punched him when I realized that it was four in the morning. He groaned and took forever to wake up, but he finally did. He thought it was funny.
“I’m going to get into a lot of trouble,” I said. “I’m more than four hours late now!” The reality of what was happening sobered me quickly. “Get me home. Fast,” I ordered.
I tried to straighten myself up enough to look okay as we drove to my house.
“Don’t your parents care that you’re out this late?” I asked him.
“My parents? Hell, no. My mother’s probably not even home yet herself, and my father lives somewhere else.”
“Great,” I said.
My heart stopped and started when we approached my house. There was a police patrol car in the driveway and a familiar black car beside it.
“Oh, shit,” Eddie said. “I have some stuff in the trunk.”
“Just pull in and pull out quickly after I get out,” I said.
The moment he pulled into the driveway, however, two policemen stepped out of their car and walked toward us.
“Don’t say anything,” Eddie ordered.
In the back of my mind, I thought that someone named Ryan Lockhart might have already done the damage.
I got out of the car. Eddie started to back out, but the first officer put up his hand and moved quickly to get alongside the car. I heard him tell Eddie to step out.
The front door opened, and Daddy appeared. Even though I’d suspected whom
the black car belonged to, I was shocked to see Lieutenant Cowan beside him.
They must have learned something about Kaylee, I thought. Why else would he be here? I had often rehearsed my reaction to bad news. I was ready to hear it.
Daddy didn’t move from the front entrance to let me in when I approached. He stood there with his arms folded across his chest and glared at me. He looked different and not like someone who had just been given tragic news about his daughter. He looked angry, and I had never seen anger planted so deeply in his face. If he’s gotten bad news, that only intensified his disappointment in my staying out so late and not calling, I thought. What else? Get ready for tears.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I began. “I lost track of time and . . .”
“You had me in quite a panic, Haylee. I called Ryan at one thirty. His parents weren’t too happy,” he said. “He told me you wouldn’t let him take you home when he told you it was closing in on midnight.”
“I was having so much fun! I couldn’t remember when I had fun last. Nobody had to go home so early. It wasn’t fair,” I whined.
Lieutenant Cowan stood staring at me in a peculiar way.
“Eventually, I called Amanda Sanders’s home. The party was long over. She told me no one saw you leave, but you weren’t still there.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I glanced back and saw that the second policeman was at Eddie’s car, and Eddie was standing to the side with his hands behind him. The other policeman was searching his car, and he opened the trunk.
Oh, no, I thought. That Ryan. He must have told.
“So naturally, my first fear ran toward what had happened to Kaylee. Maybe this abductor was interested in her twin sister, too. I called Lieutenant Cowan, who got right on things for us, and then it occurred to me to check your room to see if you had any phone numbers or notes that would give us a hint about where you might be.”
He paused. It seemed like minutes, but it was only some very long and deep seconds.
“I noticed that you had left your computer on. Pretty dumb to use a computer for what you were doing, especially when you have a father in the software business, Haylee. I had no other ideas and didn’t want to start calling around at that hour, so I began surfing through your computer. That’s when I called Lieutenant Cowan.”
I felt like I was shrinking, and in moments I would be only inches tall.
“Why did you do this to your sister, Haylee? Why did you lie about who was communicating with this man?”
I bit down on my lower lip and stared at him.
“The trace is happening now. We already know his name is Anthony Cabot, but that’s something you could have told us right away, isn’t it?”
I started to shake my head and then stopped. It was difficult even to consider lying.
“It won’t be long before we find out if it’s too late. Detective Simpson is on his way with the police. Do you have any idea what you have done? To your sister? To your mother? To me? Even to yourself?”
“You don’t understand, Daddy,” I said defiantly. “You never did.”
“Frankly, I don’t want to understand,” he said. “I don’t even want to try.”
“You are an accessory to your sister’s kidnapping,” Lieutenant Cowan rushed to say. He was practically steaming with impatience.
I started to shake my head, but he stepped forward and shocked me by putting handcuffs on me. “Daddy!” I cried.
Daddy made no move to help me. “Pray that she’s all right,” he said. “Pray for yourself and for her. That’s what your mother would say. And how right she would be right now.” He stepped back into the house and closed the door.
Another patrol car arrived, and a female police officer got out quickly to join us.
“She’s all yours,” Lieutenant Cowan told her.
As she led me away, I saw the police put Eddie in the back of their car.
Just before the female officer guided me into the rear of her patrol car, I stopped and turned back to my house.
Where the word came from I didn’t know. I wasn’t expecting to shout it. I had never said it like this, even when I was little. Neither had Kaylee, I thought, but this time I did.
“Mommy!”
22
Kaylee
He brought one of the kitchen chairs up next to the bed and sat without speaking for a long time. I was very uncomfortable and tried to pull myself into a crouch, but every time I bent my legs, he reached out and grabbed my ankles, pulling my legs straight again. Finally, I gave up and pressed my face into the blanket. Maybe I could smother myself to death, I thought, but every time I held my breath, my lungs burst with demand, and I gasped.
“Untie me!” I screamed.
He didn’t move; he didn’t speak.
I cried and pleaded until I was hoarse and then just lay still, waiting. So much time went by that I actually dozed off. When I awoke, I listened for some sound of him, but it was deadly quiet. Then I realized he was still there, still sitting in that chair looking at me. I tried to turn my head enough to look at him, but I couldn’t.
“What are you doing? What do you want?” I cried.
“I wanted you to have our baby,” he said. He sounded so different to me, like he was talking in a tunnel. I felt him reach out and touch the sole of my right foot and then my left. “You were ready, but you lied.”
“Untie me,” I said, no louder than a whisper. “Please.”
I heard him moving around, and at one point, I was able to catch a glimpse of him. He had some of the clothing he had bought me in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You don’t need any of this anymore, and I can’t give it to her.”
“Who?”
“My next girlfriend,” he said. “Just like you, she deserves her own things.”
“Who’s telling you to do this? That’s your mother upstairs in the wheelchair, isn’t it? You never told me she was still alive. You made it sound like she was dead. Why?”
“It’s none of your business now. You don’t exist anymore,” he said.
He continued to gather things. I heard him leave the basement apartment and didn’t hear him return for some time. When he did, I heard him packing the things he had gathered.
“Are you going to let me go?” I called. “Anthony, are you letting me go?”
He didn’t respond. He continued what he was doing. I dozed off again, and this time, I was able to draw my legs up into a crouch. I couldn’t turn, not with my wrists bound to the bed frame.
Every once in a while, I called out to him and asked again and again, “Are you going to let me go?”
Finally, I heard him approach the bed. He came around on my right and looked down at me.
“You’re going to go,” he said. “Yes.”
Then he walked away. I heard him leave. My mind was racing with possibilities. He was gone a long while. And then it came to me in a resounding clap, a realization that was like a stake driven through my heart.
He was outside.
He was digging my grave.
It was a fear I’d had from the moment he had abducted me. I would die, and no one would know. Forever and ever, no one could be sure. Maybe that was good. I would be alive in their memories from time to time. People would see someone similar and think, That might be Kaylee Blossom Fitzgerald. Should I tell someone?
You’re alive in a little way, then, aren’t you? I thought. When he returns, I’m not going to beg for my life.
I didn’t want to say anything more to him or hear his voice. I wanted to think only of people I loved who loved me, of friends, of music. I didn’t want the last thing I ever heard to be the sound of this horrible man’s voice. At least I could choose that. I closed my eyes and tried to think of all the best times of my life.
I could hear footsteps above me. Maybe his mother was just senile. How could she approve of what her son was doing? She looked ancient.
/>
Suddenly, I heard more footsteps and then some shouting. The footsteps grew louder. They were coming from the stairway.
Someone screamed, “She’s here!”
I heard more people and then I saw the blue uniform and looked up at a policewoman. She was ecstatic and hurriedly untied my wrists. When I turned, I saw two paramedics come charging through the doorway and rush over to me. I couldn’t speak. Was I dreaming? They were working on me quickly, checking my blood pressure, looking for injuries, and discovering the blow I had taken to my lower back when I’d fallen on the stairway. Another pair of paramedics arrived with more police and a young man in a jacket and tie. He stood by while the paramedics took my vitals.
The look on my face convinced them that I was in a state of shock.
“You’re okay now, Kaylee,” the policewoman said. “You’re going to be all right.”
I looked at her, and then, to be sure I wasn’t dreaming, I reached out to touch her. She smiled and grasped my hand gently.
Maybe I was in shock. I started to laugh, and I laughed so hard that I started to cry, uncontrollably, enough to warrant one of the paramedics giving me a shot of something. Almost immediately, I calmed and closed my eyes.
I felt myself being lifted from the bed and gently placed on a stretcher. They started to take me out of the basement apartment. I was still awake enough to remember.
“Wait!” I cried.
They paused.
“Don’t forget Mr. Moccasin,” I said, pointing at him.
The last thing I remembered was the policewoman smiling and lifting the cat into her arms.
Epilogue
Kaylee
They kept me in the hospital for nearly a week, because they wanted me to have counseling in addition to stabilizing my body. It seemed to me that they checked out every inch of me. They even had a dentist come see me. Daddy had a stylist brought in to cut my hair so that it would grow back evenly. He promised to take me to find a suitable wig for the time being, even two if I wanted. He didn’t tell me everything until the third day.
I didn’t say anything or ask any questions. I was sorry about Mother. Daddy was hoping that when I was well enough to visit her, she might begin a real recovery herself. For the first few days, I slept a lot, but whenever I woke, he was sitting there, waiting. At times, I was vaguely aware of him talking to someone. One day, I saw him talking to two men in jackets and ties. I knew they weren’t businessmen. They had to be policemen.