Scare Me (7 page)

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

When the plastic pipe came the birds moved. A glow of yellow light seeped into the bottom of Libby's hood as it was untied at the neck and momentarily lifted. The rag was dragged from her mouth and the pipe inserted so its sharp end struck the back of her throat. The liquid in the pipe was lukewarm and the first time it had been placed on her tongue Libby thought she was being poisoned. But it was water. It tasted stagnant and of flower petals and she was only given a few gulps before it was yanked from her teeth.

Perhaps it was drugged. She still felt like her head was gyrating, twisting itself off her body. Then the food came; sickly and full of sugar, warm marzipan-tasting stodge with some sort of nut coating. Fingers pushed a few blocks of it into her mouth; fingers she could taste were sheathed in surgical rubber.

She ground her second ration slowly; knowing that whoever was feeding her was waiting to insert another piece. They appeared to grow impatient and stuffed the rag back into her mouth before she'd finished chewing.

Over hours, the waves of fear had finally subsided. Whoever was holding her liked to watch and no matter what she said to them or how much she screamed they never replied.

She'd decided to choke on the food whatever happened and started pumping her shoulders and retching. There was no reaction from the person standing inches in front of her while she spluttered around the wet bung in her mouth.

After what seemed like minutes, however, she'd seemed to convince them and the hood was swiftly lifted again and the rag removed. She tugged in air and the pipe was thrust back into her throat. She drew a few more droplets before it was extracted. The cloth was rammed back inside her mouth and the hood was secured tighter at the neck.

Did they realise she'd been testing them? Now she knew they couldn't let her die. But for how long? Were they demanding a ransom or was she being fed and watered for another use? She tried not to imagine what else she could be subjected to in this filthy place.

Libby's eyes still stung and she knew it was the ammonia of the chicken droppings she was sitting in. The darkness disoriented her and she tried to repel the surges of dizziness by fixating on an image of where she was by using what she could feel and hear. She was sitting on the seat of what she assumed was a low plastic commode and her knickers had been removed to allow her to urinate.

She knew she was in a cage somewhere damp. The chickens were all around her, their dry claws scratching the tops of her bound bare feet as they walked across them. Their beaks pecked at her shins, but it happened so often she no longer reacted. She could feel the resistance of something on the top of her head. When she tried to straighten, it bit into her neck, but gave slightly against her scalp. She assumed it was the chicken wire roof of the cage, which meant it was about four feet high.

She'd initially thought she was naked. But when she twisted her body she could feel the material of the nightdress she'd been wearing in the hotel as far as her hips. It had been lifted above her waist so she wouldn't soil it.

What else did she know? Not how many people were watching her. It could be one, it could be twenty. She also didn't know what had happened to Luke. She had a vague recollection of leaning against the heat of somebody's back and the flash of a camera before she'd been injected, but the details were as vague as her abduction. She had no memory of being driven or carried here, only of a shape in the dark of their hotel room and a sudden weight on her face. She'd breathed in the fumes coming off whatever had forced her head into the pillow.

Maybe Luke was nearby, imprisoned in a cage like hers. She could hear a reverberation of his voice in her head, his usually calm tone raised in aggression. She was sure there'd been a violent struggle in the hotel room. Libby could feel scratches on her face still burning. Luke's parents didn't have the sort of money that hers did. If it were a ransom he wouldn't be worth taking. Maybe they'd left him in the hotel room and he'd already reported her missing. Or maybe he was already lying dead there – or a few feet away.

Then she heard the sound of her captor's nostrils inhaling at her ear. Then a sudden pain, deep in her shoulder. She'd been bitten. She gritted her teeth, as her attacker moved away and slammed the cage door and locked it.

The wound throbbed and stung. She was alone with a psychopath and nobody knew where she was.

 
 

The sand grains stung his bare legs as the wind whipped it underneath his kneeling body. Raindrops pockmarked the beach around him and he was aware of his mother panicking to pack everything away. His prisoner in the rusted paint pot captivated him though, its sideways motion gaining momentum, clockwise circles becoming more frantic. It had been out of the water for a good while and bubbles were frothing at its mouth opening.

He could hear the raindrops inside his head, hard impacts on his skull. He opened his jaw to see if he could change the sound it made like he did when he flicked his cheek and modulated the sound with his puckered lips.

Flesh glistened within the cracks of the crab's shattered shell, but there was no way he would be able to eat the animal. It was too full of life. He could feel its vibration when he rested his fingers on its damp back. But, inside or outside the paint pot, it was helpless.

A shadow fell over the pot. He was stood behind him.

“Refill?”

Will caught his head before it could fall and looked around at the other occupants of the diner. He'd watched the waitress approach a truck driver at the front of the restaurant and she'd just reached him. He hadn't fallen asleep, but his mind had slipped a gear while it was idling.

He looked at his watch. 2.15pm. He needed some fresh air so got to his feet. He was about to sign out, but tried the cursor on the next house one more time.

 
 

Ellicott City,
 
 

Maryland,
 
 

PHONE WHEN YOU GET THERE
 
 

 

His mind blocked out the sounds of the diner. Maryland? The new coordinates made his journey along the entire scrapbook street ineluctable. He seated himself again and, as he nudged the arrow over the red brick townhouse, its outline and address appeared again. He clicked it and found himself looking at a new window displaying images of the interior.

It was an older looking residence with luxurious rugs at the centre of expansive pine floors. There were French windows, transoms over interior doors and a cluttered library lounge.

He dreaded finding the same horrific photo that had been posted of the villa, but nobody was present. He could see family portraits covering one wall of the kitchen, but the picture wasn't high resolution enough to be able to identify distinctive features.

Did this mean the people that occupied it were still alive? Why no address or zip code? He figured it was because he could alert the local police in advance. Even with Libby's life at stake, he still wasn't being trusted. With no accurate details there was no way he could warn them. But what item of clothing was he looking for when he got there?

He opened up a new window and located a map. Maryland bordered Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Another quick search told him an average flight took just over two hours from Orlando International. And then he still had to locate the house. If he were to retrieve another item there he would have to be given more specific directions. He guessed they wouldn't be released until he landed.

About eight hundred miles away a family was oblivious to what was about to happen. The only thing Will could do was board a plane and hope he reached them in time.

He signed out, picked up his laptop and headed for the door.

His legs stopped working when he was halfway across the lot. He'd watched the flash of his headlights and heard the warble of the car being unlocked, but stood frozen with the remote clasped in his hand. There was no cramp. It was as if the lower part of his body just shut down, refused to be part of what he had to do. He couldn't take another step forward and suddenly he could feel his guts churning around the morsels of food he'd tried to digest. The laptop weighed heavy in his palm.

Grim images assailed him. The flies, the tattered ends of their insides, the dead sweat of the father's skin as he'd wrenched the bracelet free.

Just a few more paces. But his instincts told him not to get into the car and drive to the airport; told him what he would find when he got to his destination and in all the other houses he still had to visit.

He had to make it home, to believe that Libby would be there, however remote a chance it seemed.

Traffic noise poured into his ears and he found himself moving again, the Volvo shakily magnifying as he focussed on it. He tried not to acknowledge the pumping of his legs in case they stopped again. He opened the door, threw the laptop in the back and slumped into the seat. He placed his feet immediately onto the pedals and sealed himself in.

Faces peered at him from Burrito Joe's and from below the neon sign of the enormous liquor store next to it. He wondered how long he'd been stood motionless in the lot. He swiped Libby's bracelet from the well in the dash and examined the coloured beads. Will imagined her buying it at one of the flea markets she loved browsing. She could never have known the significance it would assume.

She'd probably paid very little for it, but he would put it back in her hand at any cost. He slipped it round his own wrist and turned the key in the ignition.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 
 

“Enjoy your vacation?” The same bemused valet who'd handed him the car keys took them back from Will less than three hours after he'd taken the car.

Having called Carla while he was stuck in traffic, his flight to Maryland was already booked. He made his way to the lounge to await flight 326. It still felt as if he had a thorn dragging at his gut, but he was glad of the discomfort because it kept him clear of the borders of sleep.

As he paced and waited and was processed into the boarding zone, the same thoughts went round in his head. Was Libby still sedated? If not, was she being fed? Was Luke able to look after her? He had to spotlight the questions concerning her wellbeing and not the cluster of darker ones that surrounded them.

When the plane pulled out onto the runway, he thought of the family he'd left behind in the villa, speculated about who they were and when their bodies would be discovered. Had they been chosen at random? It was unlikely, as he'd been summoned to that specific address. They had to tie in to Libby's abduction and the other houses that led to his front door. He couldn't even begin to make a connection between the murdered family and his own.

Perhaps they were from the UK and had been holidaying in Kissimmee. His memory tried to peer through the blood and flies to identify the father's face, but all he could see were the tunnels in his head.

A wave of self-recrimination washed over him. Would his father have allowed him to travel the distance Libby had when he was eighteen? The lack of money in his family would have precluded it but, if it hadn't been an issue, he seriously doubted he would ever have been given consent for such a trip. They were different times, but maybe the restrictive discipline he'd experienced as an only child was something he'd fought too hard not to replicate.

He'd spent a great deal of his childhood vexed by his parents' curfews and social restraints and a lot of time confined to his room for minor transgressions. His father had enforced all the discipline, but had never lifted his hand to Will. Not even raised his voice. But there was something more insidious in the household – an undeclared but tacit disenchantment.

His father was a botanist, acclaimed in his field, and had published over a hundred papers on photobiology. Will was a slow developer and had shown no aptitude for academia for the majority of his childhood. His mother was a part-time history lecturer and quietly serviced his father's disappointment with Will. By the time he'd stumbled on his aptitude for engineering they'd more or less resigned themselves to an unspectacular son. They'd funded his studies at Brunel, but they'd been in their sixties by then. Both heavy smokers, his father's pipe brought about his death from emphysema in his first year and his mother died of breast cancer in his second. Will felt he'd never vindicated himself.

Had he given Libby too much of the freedom he'd never received? He'd been conscious about spoiling her but, because of Carla's family background, Libby knew she could always ricochet between them to get what she wanted. It was how she ended up with their blessing and the capital for the holiday with Luke.

He studied his new destination again on the laptop. There was no additional information in the pop-up box but, clicking through to the interior images, he could ascertain it wasn't a holiday home.

In the lounge, sheet music lay open on an upright piano and in the kitchen artwork was taped to the green tile surround of a mantelpiece. He wondered if they were sitting in the room now and if they were being watched via the same window the snapshot had been taken through. As all the photographs looked into the house there was nothing to give away its location.

He navigated round the rest of the site and noticed the picture of Libby on the mattress had been removed. None of the other houses in the row were active and the message above them was unchanged.

 

THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD ISN'T REAL BUT THE HOMES AND
 

PEOPLE WHO INHABIT THEM ARE
 

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?
 

 

He clicked through to Easton Grey and the pictures of the rooms seemed like depictions of a life he'd never get back.

He opened a separate window and did a quick search for some stats about Ellicott. It was an historic city with a population of about sixty-one thousand predominantly white people served by the Howard County Police Department. The most dramatic thing to happen there was a tornado in 2001 that killed two people. Only twelve residents were registered sex offenders.

Ingram had never had any business in the district. Will had no connection to the place and knew nobody who lived there.

He spent the remainder of the flight skimming the cursor over the cut-out of the three-storey house and thinking of his young self, pacing the prison of his bedroom.

 

Looked like there was a Saturday night sleepover planned. From her vantage point, Poppy observed the child being walked to the front door by Mom. How old was she? Nine, ten? She could barely see over the Moxie Girlz sleeping bag she carried. Mother and daughter waited on the doorstep.

A harassed blonde in blue sweat pants and an oversized tee shirt answered the door, too young to be the lady of the house. Poppy had already guessed she was the nanny. There was a brief exchange between her and Mom and then the little girl was handed over – delivered for safekeeping. Mom bent to say something to her, but Poppy could see from the irritation on the child's face that a guarantee of good behaviour had already been promised on the drive over. She was holding her up from joining the others.

Poppy had watched three other girls turn up at the house already. The child turned from Mom and scuttled inside. After the same glibly humorous exchange Poppy had watched the other parents have with the nanny, the front door was sealed. Mom hurried back to the car, the engine still running. What was she doing tonight, something romantic maybe? Whatever it was, she was late. She took off without putting her seatbelt on.

Inside the house it would be popcorn, pizza, DVD then the compulsory exchange of secrets during lights out. She couldn't really conceive of what it was like to be that young again. Have nothing in her head but the innocent apprehension of what lay ahead. Later the girls would be breathlessly discussing the boys at school, then the specific one they could scarcely bring themselves to name.

She recalled only one fantasy she'd salvaged from her childhood. That of the red rose petals she'd dreamt of having scattered at her feet on the day of her wedding. It was like a faint echo of someone else's voice.

Through the front window of the lounge she could see the tops of the girls' heads as they looked up at the wall-mounted TV screen. Some sort of Wii game was underway. The nanny reseated herself at a stool behind the kitchen counter at the rear of the room.

Poppy applied the cherry lip balm to her mouth and considered how soon innocence was over.

 

Tam lay awake, the bedcovers and the familiarity of his room failing to make him feel as safe as he'd thought they would. He'd made it back, had managed to climb up the fire escape and slip under the sheets without his parents knowing he'd gone. The apartment was quiet, no panicking father or mother in the kitchen talking with a police officer.

Despite the discipline that would have been involved Tam felt disappointed. If an explanation of where he'd been were extracted at least he could tell them about the girl in the cage. It was a secret he didn't want, but he worried that confessing to his break-in at the chicken factory would prompt the sort of punishment Songsuda received. Would he be cast out into the street? After what he'd seen on his solo exploration he knew why his parents had warned him about being alone out there at night.

Maybe the girl in the cage had been disobedient. He knew what he'd done was against the law. Was that how it had begun for her until they had no choice but to lock her away? He wondered if he'd end up in a cage if he refused to listen to what he was told.

He'd learnt his lesson tonight. Now he realised why he had to be an adult to walk around after the sun had gone down. The adults were welcome to what was below his window. The thought of Songsuda being out there all the time she hadn't been at home made him feel like he was suffocating every time he closed his eyes.

He wanted to feel safe again, the way he had before. He got up and made sure the door was tightly shut then positioned one of his pillows along the gap at its bottom before turning on his lamp. If the light shone across the hallway to their bedroom he knew his parents would be in to tell him to switch it off. But he didn't want to be in the darkness with his unwanted companion, didn't want to think of the sounds she'd made as he'd fled over the corrugated gates.