The Edge of Normal (12 page)

“Okay,” says Mrs. Cavanaugh, “but no matter how it all plays out legally, Tilly is still the one who has to deal with school, with her friends, and with everyone knowing who she is and what happened.” She sighs. “Besides, Fresno might make a nice change.”

“Oh, that’s right. How stupid of me,” says the son acidly. “Why would I think my opinion would count for anything in this family?”

The scrape of a chair, an awkward silence. A door slams, and Duke watches the teenager stomp over to a dented red pickup truck. A moment later, the truck is through the gate and speeding away.

For the next two hours, Duke smokes and listens while Tilly shares details about how Randy Vanderholt kidnapped and raped and abused her. She sticks with her story: It was Randy Vanderholt, and only Randy Vanderholt, who hurt her.

Several times, Duke smiles and murmurs, “Good girl.”

*   *   *

Duke watches Jackie Burke and the first deputy come out of the house and drive away. He sets his thermos aside as Reeve, the shrink, and the other deputy emerge and head toward the dark SUV. He’s hungry, and he considers following them, but decides that Tilly is the one to watch. From what he can hear, the family is making preparations to leave the house—Tilly’s first excursion out—and he’s curious to see her.

She comes out with only her mother, her face obscured by an olive-colored hoodie. The girl is so thin that, dressed in hoodie and jeans, she looks like a boy.

Duke turns the key in the ignition and quickly backs out of his surveillance spot. He takes a shortcut down the hill to the traffic light and, with perfect timing, sees them turn onto the avenue just in front of him. He follows their gold Infiniti SUV through town to a strip mall, where they park.

He circles the crowded parking lot while keeping an eye on them. They head into a beauty salon, and Duke parks nearby.

Looking for a good vantage point, he finds a Chinese restaurant with a perfect view of the salon. He insists on a seat by the window. When the waiter arrives, he orders a lunch special of hot-and-sour soup, egg rolls, and lemon chicken with fried rice, followed by some kind of yellow custard that he doesn’t eat.

They’re in the salon a long time.

He watches and waits.

He asks for the bill and is sipping jasmine tea when Tilly emerges with a very short haircut, dyed a burgundy shade not much different from Reeve’s.

Duke lays cash on the table and reaches his van just as Tilly’s mother is backing out of her parking space.

He follows at a safe distance, letting four cars in between as they drive down a busy street. When they merge into a turning lane and head east, the light changes and Duke is stuck, fuming. But luck is with him. He watches as Mrs. Cavanaugh makes a quick right turn into another busy strip mall.

Waiting for the light to change, he sees them get out of the gold Infiniti and head across the lot. As the light changes, he catches a glimpse of them entering a Jamba Juice.

He turns into the same parking lot and Lady Luck smiles: a space opens up next to their vehicle. Duke parks alongside. He climbs nimbly between the seats into the back, where he keeps most of his equipment.

By the time Tilly and Shirley Cavanaugh come out with their drinks, Duke has activated a highly specialized recording device attached to his driver’s side mirror. As Mrs. C clicks her key fob, the Infiniti chirps, and Duke smiles. His device has just captured and recorded layers of electronic information, including the lock’s encrypted codes.

NINETEEN

Sunday

“Don’t you love the smell of popcorn?” Tilly stands sock-footed in the kitchen, watching her mother shake the pot.

Once the staccato bursting of kernels slows, her mother removes the pot from the heat and gives two more shakes, popping the last few kernels before pouring the steaming popcorn into a big wooden bowl, which she hands to Tilly. She watches her daughter hold it beneath her nose and inhale.

Mrs. Cavanaugh smiles and asks, “You two know how to work the DVD, don’t you?”

“No problem,” Reeve replies.

“Of course, Mom,” Tilly adds, rolling her eyes.

“Good, because I always forget.”

Reeve and Mrs. Cavanaugh’s eyes meet, and they share a smile. It’s instantly clear to Reeve that Shirley Cavanaugh actually has no problem understanding the DVD player, and this is just a motherly ploy to build her daughter’s confidence.

Today, the three of them have the run of the house. Mr. Cavanaugh is at the high school watching his son’s basketball team either win or lose a tournament, so Mrs. Cavanaugh has invited Reeve over for an afternoon movie. For the day’s matinee, Tilly has selected a popular film about vampires and heartache.

Reeve curls up on the couch beside Tilly, thinking how unexpected it is to be here, in such rare company. They are two survivors of very similar crimes. Ripped from everything familiar at a young age, both have traveled here from truncated childhoods, through prolonged captivity and unspeakable abuse, to this particular time and place: safely eating popcorn in a suburban living room, watching a movie on a wide-screen, high-definition TV.

It all seems so strangely normal.

After the film, while Mrs. Cavanaugh is in the kitchen cleaning up, Tilly grows quiet, and Reeve assumes she’s mulling over their discussion of the themes in the film. Mrs. Cavanaugh has drawn comparisons with
West Side Story
and
Romeo and Juliet
. They’ve discussed gang rivalries, family dynamics, the need for love, and the problems of being the new kid in school.

It has been a surprisingly lively conversation, in Reeve’s opinion.

Tilly fidgets beside her.

“Your mom’s a smart lady,” Reeve remarks.

Tilly hums a note of agreement, watching Reeve with her gray eyes. Then she sits up tall. “Could I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Reeve inhales, anticipating some weighty questions about love or acceptance. As if she’s got a clue. Dating is tough enough for most people, but nearly impossible for someone like Reeve, for whom answering the mildest query about her life is like choosing among sticks of dynamite.

“Sure,” she repeats, trying not to grimace. “You can ask me anything.”

Tilly leans over, grips Reeve’s thigh, peers into her face, and whispers, “Would you help me convince my mom to let us move? I mean, like,
now?
Like, really, really soon?”

TWENTY

Duke’s chair rolls smoothly across the hardwood floor. He is comfortable in his favorite chair as he monitors the various listening stations in his private control room. He’s rolling and listening and congratulating himself for having thought so far ahead and having executed his plans so well.

Exactly as he had with the families of the other two girls.

It’s a brilliant arrangement.

Finding the perfect mark was not always easy, but Duke is a patient man with unique skills. He perfected a method: investigate recent parolees, then target a few who just happen to spend a lot of time around playgrounds, water parks, and school yards.

He would wait and watch, which is exactly what he is trained to do.

Clearly, Duke would have the most influence over the particular ex-cons who shared some of his tastes, but had never been arrested for a sex crime. He had no interest in contacting registered sex offenders. Only a fool would want to pair up with damaged goods.

Upon identifying the proper target, he would track the parolee until some lapse in judgment and behavior provided enough leverage. Then, Duke would don a disguise, usually a full beard and glasses, and approach the man. He would first present evidence of the ex-con’s recent transgressions and threaten him: “One photo sent anonymously to your parole officer, and you’ll be back in prison.”

Blackmail always worked.

He would watch his target flush and squirm. Once he was satisfied, he would back off and allow the parolee to catch his breath. Next, he would pretend to consider options. He would let the target hope, and then slowly, bit by bit, offer a proposition.

He would lay out the plan in simple, tantalizing terms. And then he would bring out the photographs and watch the man’s pupils dilate.

No one ever turned him down. And it all worked perfectly, with minimal risk to Duke.

Each felon undertook the actual abduction. They weren’t smart enough to put together the plan, but apparently enjoyed a sense of adventure in executing the task. And the beauty of it was, if anything went wrong, Duke was in the clear. No one in law enforcement would ever believe that the kidnapper was anything less than one hundred percent to blame, no matter what his story.

Duke’s efforts remained in the background until the proper time. He found the girl, procured the location, prepared the basement. He refined every aspect of the kidnapping so that he was never in jeopardy.

Once the girl was secure, the keeper shouldered the dull, daily burdens of feeding and cleaning up after her. Duke had zero interest in dealing with messy routine. No, his special thrill came in establishing dominance over the girl, as well as her keeper.

He got to rape the girls first. The virgins were always his prize.

And his repayment was also monetary, because some nominal rent, of course, must be paid.

Later, whenever he wanted to visit, he just called and ordered the keeper to make preparations. Brilliant.

The ex-cons were his minions. The girls were his harem. Everything was working beautifully until Randy Vanderholt managed to screw it up. A flash of anger shoots through him. It has been days since he has allowed himself to indulge in a session with one of his girls. Instead, he must settle for the nominal stimulation provided by electronic monitoring.

Duke shifts in his chair and resets the recording to a preferred section. He hears Tilly’s dispassionate voice. She is answering Jackie Burke’s probing questions.

He settles back and gets comfortable, listening to Tilly’s matter-of-fact descriptions. He sees the scenes exactly as they unfolded, because he was the one who was there, not Vanderholt. When Tilly describes how he pushed into her, breaking her hymen and making her bleed, he indulges the vision for a moment and relishes the stiffening of his cock.

Ordinarily, this would be the perfect time to pay one of his pets a call, but it is foolish to even consider acting on this impulse now, thanks to the idiotic behavior of Randy Vanderholt.

Tilly had been Duke’s favorite—so petite, so moistly terrified—and now she is gone and the other two will have to be off-limits until things quiet down.

Picturing Vanderholt comfortably drugged and warm in the infirmary, Duke jumps out of his chair with a curse.

Time for a cigarette.

The control room has too much valuable equipment to risk smoke contamination, so Duke shuts the heavy door behind him and hurries down the hall, through the living room to the kitchen, where he keeps his cigarettes.

He strikes a match and inhales. His mind clears as he smokes, stepping over to the side windows that overlook his carport and yard. He likes this vantage point. He likes to stand and smoke while surveying his property. It’s a large piece of land, stretching between the road and the river, a wild landscape of native oaks and resinous pines. It’s not unusual to see deer, raccoons, river rats, or an occasional fox.

Today something else moves in the brush. Duke glares out the window at the big yellow tomcat slinking across his yard. Quickly stubbing out his cigarette, he sweeps up the air rifle that he always keeps handy, pumps it hard, and cracks open the side door. The cat has crouched low, watching a bird about twenty yards out.

Duke takes aim, squeezes the trigger, and the cat lets out a screech as it darts into the brush.

He throws the gun down in disgust. He could have easily killed the cat with a rifle, but can’t risk gunfire. Especially now, with the suburbs encroaching on his acreage. Seems like there’s always some busybody out walking a dog or repairing a fence. And Duke has no control over the river, so a stray bullet might ding a passing boat. All sorts of idiots are out there, just itching to file a report.

He retrieves the air rifle and sets it back in its spot, cracking the butt a tad too hard on the tile, feeling another stab of anger toward Randy Vanderholt.

TWENTY-ONE

Everyone recommended Gigi’s as Jefferson City’s best Italian restaurant. It is tucked down an obscure street on a poorly lit corner that isn’t visible from the main drag. Thanks to the Cavanaughs’ careful directions, Reeve and Dr. Lerner manage to navigate the route, and they find Gigi’s parking lot crowded for such an unlikely spot.

Wonderful aromas greet them as they enter. There’s a pleasant hum of conversation above the music—acoustic guitar—played by a musician near the back. They are promptly seated at a table beside a wall-sized mural of an Italian village. While they consult their menus, a well-dressed man who seems to be the owner moves from table to table, greeting customers, setting out baskets of fresh, warm bread.

The crowd consists mainly of couples, and the men are mostly clean shaven. Reeve sees only one baseball cap and a single man with a moustache. She dips a crusty bite of bread into a small dish of olive oil and tastes it, humming a note of appreciation.

After they’ve ordered, Dr. Lerner says, “We haven’t had much chance to speak privately. So tell me: What do you think of Tilly?”

She has been gnawing at this very question. Tilly is the only person she’s met who shares such a closely parallel history. In ways both simple and profound, Tilly’s story seems to echo her own. “She’s quiet, but she’s a lot stronger than I thought she would be. Stronger than I was.”

“Your physical and mental conditions were worse, and you were in deep shock, Reeve. Your captivity was much longer, and in many ways more traumatic.”

Reeve strokes the numbness that starts near the scars on her left wrist and continues all the way to the tip of her little finger. She has never determined whether the nerve damage is from being cuffed and suspended for too long, or from breaking her hand when she tried to fight. “We have some similar scars,” she says, “but I hated talking to the prosecutor, remember?”