Chapter 16

Dave and Wyatt looked at each other.

"Do you remember what the date was when you went to Amanda's house?" Wyatt asked.

"I know it was a Thursday, because I didn't want to go to Amanda's house on a weeknight, but it was the only night I didn't have a department meeting after class. I wanted to get home and get my run in and not have to get up early the next morning. I think it was May fourteenth, because it had been six months to the day since I split from Michael."

Wyatt took her hand in one of his and turned her face with his other hand, putting his finger on the side of her cheek. When she looked at him, he asked, "Do you know what the date is today?"

She shook her head.

"Today is May twenty-fourth. You've been gone over a week."

She looked at him, aghast, and leaned away from him, her lips trembling and her eyes wide in disbelief. Covering her mouth with her hand and gnawing on her index finder, she tried to blink back the tears forming in her eyes. It didn't work. Rivulets of tears made their way down her cheeks.

Wyatt rubbed his thumb across the top of her hand, while rubbing her back with his other hand. Her trembling lessened in the silence as minutes ticked away.

* * * *

Morning came too soon as it always does after a sleepless night. Amanda got up and headed to the kitchen in search of coffee. She heard Joe's voice and found him talking on his cell phone. When she walked up behind him, he turned away from her, talking more softly into the phone, then clicking the phone closed.

"Joe, I made a decision," Amanda started to say.

Joe shook his head back and forth, waving his coffee cup at her, cutting her off.

"No one but Boss's gonna make any decision 'bout where, what, who, when, or anything. Thought I made that clear last night when I explained all that to you. Now, either we deliver the girl Boss picked out or we can both kiss our sorry asses good-bye right now. We already delivered the blonde girl he wanted, what's her name?"

Amanda answered with anger and fear. "Megan, her name's Megan."

"Yeah that's right, but we also need this brown-haired girl with big tits. I don't know why, but Boss has to have this particular girl, not just any girl, an' that's what he's gonna get. So we need to get back out there in those woods where we last saw her and track her 'til we find her. If she wasn't in the woods or at the big house last night, she might still be somewhere in the park. I doubt she woulda stayed in the woods all night. Girls are scared of the woods and the dark." He shot Amanda a scornful sneer.

"It wasn't 'we' who lost her, Joe. It was you." Looking Joe straight in the eye, she continued. "And I told you, I saw her in the big house last night peeking through the curtains."

"How do you know it was her? It could have been someone who lives there, or a girlfriend or wife just closin' the curtains."

"Yeah, well where is she then? We searched those woods pretty good all day yesterday and didn't find even a clue she ever went through there."

"We hafta start over!" Joe bellowed. "From where she first went into those woods. We look at every broken twig, every path or footprint, and we follow it. We hafta think like her. Sniff her out an' track her like a dog, and those tracks will lead us to her. That's what we hafta do. I'm not gonna call Boss again an' tell him we can't find her an' we can't deliver. He gave us till Tuesday at midnight to get her to Norfolk, so we gotta find her today or it'll be too late for us."

Amanda shrieked at Joe, "It's already too late for me. I want out now. It's your fault we're even in this mess, so it's up to you to find her."

From the waistband of his droopy pants, Joe pulled his gun, pointed it at her, and said with finality, "We're both in this together. We started together and we finish together, one way or 'nother. Let's get goin'. Just keep your yap shut."

* * * *

Dave and Wyatt resumed their thorough questioning, each making notes and occasionally conferring with the other.

"Did you smell, hear anything nearby like trains, buses, blinking red lights, or see anything out of the windows of the place you were held?" Wyatt asked.

"I never got the chance to look out the window until I got away, but no, I don't recall any sounds or smells," Isabella answered.

"Do you know what they drugged you with or how they drugged you?" Dave asked.

"Drugged? What do you mean drugged? I didn't realize- I was drugged? Now that I think about it, I must have been. It must have been something in the soda Joe kept making us drink. I guess I kinda thought about it when Wyatt told me earlier this morning I wasn't in Colorado anymore."

"That's the only explanation I can come up with for your lack of memory for over a week. What else could it be?" Dave asked.

Wyatt interrupted him. "Wai-wait. What do you mean 'us'? Were there other women there too?"

"No, not anymore. I think I was the only one left. I just don't remember. Joe forced me to drink this awful soda. My mouth was dry. I slept most of the time. I was groggy and everything fuzzy when I woke up. A couple times, I felt a pain in my arm like a pin prick but didn't think much about-Wait! I remember a girl named Megan in the bathroom one day when I walked in, but Joe dragged her out before I got to talk much to her."

Dave and Wyatt glanced at each other when she mentioned the name Megan.

"Can you remember how many days ago you saw Megan?" Dave interrupted her litany of information.

"I think two days, maybe three."

"Why didn't you see her before?"

"She said she stayed on the other side of the house. Wait, wait, they were letting her go, but she didn't know where. That's why she was in the bathroom. Her shower was broken. She screamed for help when Joe dragged her out. I tried to stop him from taking her, but Joe hit me, knocking me to the floor." She touched the side of her face. "I couldn't help her so I ran down the alley between the houses to get help, but Joe caught me."

"Tell us about the house. Can you describe it? How far away from the house is the park?"

"The house looked the same as all the others on both sides of the street. It's grey with two dark blue doors on the front porch and it's a couple of blocks from the park, I think. Joe forced me to keep looking at his ugly face by jabbing a gun in my ribs, threatening to shoot me if I looked away." She grimaced from the memory and reached for her sore ribs.

"How did you get away?" Wyatt asked.

She followed with the explanation and of her excursion through the woods, how she saw the light leading to Wyatt's house.

"How did you get the door unlocked? I'm assuming Wyatt didn't have the security system on," Dave said with a chuckle.

Isabella hung her head inspecting her fingernails, while deliberating how she could tell them. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"I had to use a piece of my bra to get it unlocked," she whispered as she looked out the window.

Wyatt laughed. "Now I understand. I looked at the lock on the door and found the arc-shaped piece of metal but couldn't place it. Don't worry. I secured the door with the deadbolt and made a substantial adjustment to the alarm system," he said, looking at Dave.

Dave put down his pen and rubbed his eyes.

"Any other questions you can think of, Dave?"

"No, not right now."

Wyatt looked at Isabella. "I've got one more. Did you try to escape any other time?"

Isabella sighed and rolled her eyes as she looked out the window toward the woods.

Good grief, does he think I'm a moron? Of course, I tried to escape.

She told them the memorable details of her futile attempts of escape. "Well, I found myself alone in the room one time and remembered a small door in the kitchen I had noticed a day or so before. I jumped up from the bed, too fast I guess, because I lost my balance and had to catch myself on the end of the bed to keep from falling. I righted myself, ran the few steps into the kitchen, back to the door with the elevator shaft, really more like a dumbwaiter. The promise of escape increased my flow of adrenaline, I guess, giving me enough courage to do it. I opened the door and crawled out on the platform. Just as I reached for the rope to raise or lower it to the top or bottom floor, a big hand closed over mine. I thought I was finished right then and there.

"Someone grabbed the back of my shirt, then my arm, yanking me back, dragging me roughly across the floor where I was flung onto the bed. I tried to scream, but Joe's hand closed over my mouth. His hand smelled like cigarettes, beer, and unwashed skin. I gagged. He shoved a bottle of soda into my mouth, forcing me to swallow. It ran down my chin, onto my ripped, dirty T-shirt. Blackness swirled around in my head, soon fading into blissful darkness," she whispered as she propped her hand on her forehead, avoiding eye contact with them.

"Any other attempts?"

"Well, another time while I was in the bathroom I heard the outside door slam shut. So I opened the bathroom door and peeked out. There was no one there so I ran to the door leading outside and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Then I tried the open staircase in the one corner of the room. I started up the stairs but they were packed with cases of soda, Pop-Tarts, and granola bars. I began throwing aside anything I could put my hands on. About half the way to the top, I heard someone coming up behind me. I increased my speed, climbing over, stepping on boxes, moving faster and faster.

"Then I felt a hand clasp hold of my ankle. I kicked my foot, in an attempt to break the tight grip the hand had on me. But the hand held on trapping me in place and that's when I glanced behind me.

"Joe's big yellow-finger-nailed-hand was wrapped tight around my ankle. He dragged me back down the stairs and threw me on a bed," Isabella huffed. "He told me if I did it again he would get rid of me, he would kill me, and I believed him, Then he forced me to drink a soda. I coughed as he made me swallow and then cowered, cringing away from him. I closed my eyes. All I could think about was finding a way out of there."