And there was Anna, a defiant, unarmed civilian stalking a killer who just might like to put her away for good.
CHAPTER 67
Adele assumed that it was morning because Marko had woken her by pulling her out of the bed by her hair.
“Please. You’re hurting me.”
She didn’t actually know what time it was, what day, how long she and Susan had been trapped in this gilded cage. No clocks, no outdoor light, no sense of the rhythms of the day and night. It was maddening, but it wasn’t the worst of their treatment.
Despite the promise of freedom for good behavior, they had been punished repeatedly. Punched. Raped. Criticized and threatened and locked in their rooms without time or sound or hope.
Now she and Susan were in the glossy, peach-colored dressing room, pearly as the interior of a conch shell and lit with the softest of makeup lights. They sat in vanity chairs facing the large, beveled mirror.
Susan was fair, strawberry blond, tall. Adele was dark-haired, wiry, athletic. They each had been given a wardrobe and a box of cosmetics suited to their hair color and complexion.
Today they were similarly dressed in silk dressing gowns over their matching baby doll pajamas. They’d been instructed to look beautiful. But they’d never been a fraction as terrified in their lives.
The dressing room was situated between their two bedrooms. Beyond the bedroom suite was a large sitting room, thickly carpeted, luxuriously appointed with down-stuffed upholstered furniture, a marble fireplace, and a grand piano.
There were high ceilings and tall windows that were heavily draped. The room’s soft lighting came from torchiere lamps and the sconces on the walls between the bookshelves. The ceilings were decorated with ornate moldings and a chandelier hanging from a gilded plaster medallion.
Adele would never forget the glittering crystal and the fancy plasterwork on the ceiling. She’d stared at it as the men had taken turns on her.
Susan was brushing her hair. She asked, “Adele? Are you all right?”
Adele said, “I can’t take it. I want to kill myself. I wish I could.”
Susan put down the brush and grabbed both of Adele’s hands in hers.
“Del. Listen to me. You can’t let them break you.”
Adele pulled away from her friend and said, “Look.”
She lifted the silk nightgown and showed Susan the large bruises on her breasts, the ones coloring her inner thighs. Lifting her hair, she touched the raw place where Marko had pulled out a big clump.
Adele said, “He would kill me just for what I’m thinking. You know I’m right.”
She pressed tissues against her eyes. She sobbed for a moment, then blew her nose. “How do you do it?” she asked her friend.
“I tell myself that I’m pulling off the greatest scam,” Susan said softly. “I tell myself that they can hurt my body and my ego, but they can’t crush me. I won’t let them. Adele, can you tell this to yourself? You must.”
Adele sighed deeply.
She said, “Sometimes I feel strong. I feel an obligation to live long enough to tell the cops what Tony did to Carly.”
“Yes,” said Susan. “That’s right. We have to do what it takes so we can speak for Carly.”
“Do you really believe we’re getting out?” Adele asked. “They know we will tell. They’re going to kill us no matter what we do. You know that, don’t you?”
“We have to outsmart them, Adele. Wait for an opportunity.”
Adele normally didn’t wear makeup, but she’d watched Susan, taken tips on how to apply eyeliner, and now attempted to draw a line across her eyelid near the lashes. Her hand shook so badly, Susan took the brush away and cleaned Adele’s eyes with a damp cloth.
Then she held Adele’s face in her hands.
“Be still,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She talked to Adele about how to please the beasts in order to live another day. She suggested phrases, flattering sex talk, demonstrated moaning and gentle touching. “Use your own words,” she said.
Adele saw that her friend was trying to be brave for her. She asked her, “Susan. What are you thinking? Please tell me the truth, for real.”
CHAPTER 68
Susan put down the eyeliner brush.
She said to Adele, “I’m trying to keep it together. But I can’t stop thinking about whether we’ll get out of here. Thinking that my parents are going crazy with fear. I’m wondering if people are looking for us, and how long we’ve been missing, and when we’re going to get out of here. If.”
She was thinking about that last night of freedom, when they’d left the Bridge, planning to make the short walk back to school. She pitied Carly, wept for her, but she still blamed Carly for getting them into this hell. And she blamed herself for going along with her.
Susan knew Tony, and she knew Marko. They were her drug dealers. But she’d never told her friends that. She couldn’t tell them that she was hooked. She knew Carly was no squeaky-clean rich girl, but Carly didn’t mess with drugs. And Adele? Susan didn’t even know why she hung around with them.
But oh, God. Carly wasn’t the only one to blame for getting them here.
The Monday night when they were leaving the Bridge, Tony and Marko had pulled up to them in the Escalade. Tony had leaned out of the driver-side window and asked Carly for a favor.
“Carly, darling, I was hoping to see you. A big-time restaurant reviewer is coming tomorrow for dinner at my place. Please, Carly,” he said. “All of you girls. I need you to look around with women’s eyes. I have questions about the paintings I bought. I am suddenly unsure of my taste in these things, but there is enough time to exchange them before dinner tomorrow.”
Adele begged off. Susan also didn’t want to go.
She said, “Tony, I’m sure the paintings are fine. The reviewer only cares about the food.”
Tony was persuasive.
He said, “Yes, the food, but also ambiance. I know it’s late, but listen, my chef has made his signature chocolate dessert for you. And the whipped cream on top is a consultant’s fee. You name it. A hundred? Two hundred each. Cash for your time. One hour only. Please?”
Carly said, “Okay, Tony. Sounds like fun,” and her two friends acquiesced. The three of them got into the back seat of the big blue Caddy. Marko leaned over the back seat and served the women cold champagne in crystal flutes.
Susan fell asleep, and when she woke up, she was in a strange room. It took forever to stretch out her hand, to shift her eyes. It was as if she were swimming underwater.
She noticed that the bed was so soft, it seemed to embrace her. But this room was a dark and windowless cell. Her things were gone, her clothes, her phone. She was a prisoner. She was dressed in a transparent nightgown, and from the soreness between her legs, she realized she had been used for sex.
That first night in captivity, Susan crawled to the foot of the bed, where she could reach the doorknob, but the door was locked. She started to scream.
Tony opened the door, pushed her back onto the bed, and told her that she belonged to him now. And he laid down the rules—all of them cruel, arbitrary, cast in stone—with one promise. Follow the rules and she’d be fine. If not, they would kill her. And not quickly.