I sat there for a minute, sucking in oxygen, all the laughter dead on my lips. Eventually, I pulled myself up, groaning slightly at the ache in my bruised backside, and rubbing carefully where Tommy had hit me. I walked toward the highway. At least I was a little closer to home than I’d been before. That was something.
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, sweating profusely, and limping from the blisters formed on my aching feet, I let myself into my apartment. Dropping my purse on the floor, I began removing my clothes, leaving them in a trail as I headed to the shower. I stood under the cool water, attempting to let the last hour and a half wash off my body and follow the soapy water down the drain. I just want to feel clean. When I emerged, I felt a little bit better, cooler at least. I opened my apartment window, though there wasn’t much of a breeze, and turned on the floor fan, grabbing my phone from my purse and flopping down on my bed.
No calls. Kayla must be working. I thought about my car, currently on the side of the road with the groceries in the backseat, and a lump formed in my throat. I needed that car—needed it to get to work. Needed it to survive. Needed it so that I didn’t have to accept rides from men who were likely to take liberties with my body on the side of the road. A sick feeling washed through me when I thought of Tommy again, but I pushed the recent memory away as best as I could.
Thinking about it all exhausted me until I almost decided just to curl up right where I was and sleep the day away.
What am I gonna do now? Oh, Lord …
I jerked to a sitting position and dialed the garage again and asked for Ricky, who’d always been decent to me when my car broke down, even letting me make payments if I wasn’t able to cover the whole bill at once.
Whoever answered obviously laid the phone on the counter. I heard him call Ricky’s name, then pictured Ricky sliding out from beneath a car, a wrench in his hand, grease smeared on his face. When he barked a “Ricky here” into the phone, I put a smile in my voice and told him how I needed his help.
“Aw, listen, babe, I can tow it for you and let you know what’s wrong with it, but you know you still owe me the money for fixing the alternator. I can’t do any more work for you until you’re settled up here. The old man will have my hide if I do.”
My hope plummeted. I didn’t even have the money for a tow, much less to settle up and then fix whatever was wrong this time—something expensive no doubt. “All right, Ricky. I appreciate the tow. It’s really generous. Thank you.”
“Sure, babe.”
I gave him the details about where it was and that I’d be over later to pick up my groceries once I could catch a lift from Kayla. Maybe some of the food was still edible.
I sat there for a minute, a dull feeling of loneliness sitting heavily in my gut. How? How was I going to work this out?
I’ll pay you, obviously. It would be an after-hours job, nothing more.
Gabriel Dalton’s words wove through my mind, and I picked up my phone again, tapping it lightly against my chin for a minute before typing his name into the browser. There was no lack of information. I clicked on a link near the top, bringing up a news story from twelve years before.
The Morlea Police Department held a press conference on Thursday, June 29, to give more details about the Gabriel Dalton case. Nine-year-old Gabriel, the little boy abducted near his home in 1998 while playing in an empty lot with his eight-year-old brother, Dominic, caught the attention of Vermonters along with the nation. Gabriel was missing until a week ago, when he appeared on a woman’s doorstep, bloody, identifying himself as Gabriel Dalton and asking for help. Through the investigation, police discovered that Gabriel had been held in the basement of the house next door to the woman who called 911, and that he had been there for the past six years. Gabriel had escaped by stabbing his abductor, identified as Gary Lee Dewey, with a sharpened piece of rock. Gary Lee Dewey was deceased when police arrived. Gabriel Dalton, now fifteen, was reunited with his brother, and they are both currently in the care of their father’s business partner at Dalton Morgan Quarry. Gabriel and Dominic’s parents, Jason and Melissa Dalton, passed away in a car accident in 2003.
Just a year before their son came home. God.
I looked up a few more articles, finding similar information. My eyes lingered on the nine-year-old face of Gabriel Dalton, the sweet, all-American smile, those same innocent eyes that I’d seen from the stage. There were only a couple of pictures of Gabriel at fifteen. In the first one, he was long-haired, wide-eyed, and looked distressed by the flash of the camera. In the second, he was standing in the pose that had triggered my memory: hands in pockets, head tilted, his hair falling over his forehead as he squinted slightly at the camera. It was the one all the news stations had used for months on end as they reported on his story.
Biting my lip, I set the phone down, leaning back on my pillows, wondering what hell Gabriel had endured during those six years locked in the basement with a child predator.
You can help me practice being touched by a woman.
I swallowed down a lump, not wanting to think about why he was so averse to being touched. Figuring I already knew.
I hadn’t wanted any part of Gabriel’s self-imposed therapy, but now, sitting here, I couldn’t even remember why I’d said no. Clearly, I was a willing body, and by the sound of things, that was really all he required. He needed me, and I needed the extra money. He could have asked any of the dancers last night, but he’d chosen me, and then I turned him down as if I were too good for the job, but in reality, I wasn’t.
I could help Gabriel become comfortable with someone in his space, someone touching him, and he could give me the money I needed to get my car running again. Win-win. How hard could it be? Yet why did a peculiar sense of anxiety run down my spine? I squashed it, pulling my towel more tightly around myself, and picked up my phone again, doing a search on Dalton Morgan Quarry. It was in the nearby town of Morlea, and although I didn’t know if Gabriel worked there or not, I decided to take a chance, dialing the number. If I couldn’t find him this way, I’d give it up and move on to plan B, whatever that might be. My heart beat more quickly as I waited for someone to answer.
“Dalton Morgan Quarry.”
I hesitated, feeling nervous, unsure.
“Hello?”
“Uh,” I finally got out. “Uh, yes, um, may I speak with Gabriel? Gabriel Dalton?”
There was a short pause. “Sure.” It sounded like the man—young man, I thought—was smiling. “May I tell him who’s calling?” Yes, there was definitely a smile in his voice.
I cleared my throat. “Crystal. Um, just Crystal.”
There was another short pause before the man finally said, “Oh.” He sounded disappointed. What was that about?
I frowned, opening my mouth to say something, when he beat me to it. “Sure thing. Hold on.” Music came on the line and I stood up, holding my towel up with one hand and my phone with the other while I paced in front of my bed. After what seemed like a good five minutes, another voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
It sounded like Gabriel’s voice—at least from what I remembered—and I quit pacing. “Hi, Gabriel? Um, this is Crystal. You might not remember me but—”
“Of course I remember you. Hi.” I heard footsteps and a door close as if he’d gone into another room.