Captive Beauty

I know it’s Ginny’s. And I know why it’s here. There’s only one reason. She must have had them on when she did it, and one must have slipped off or the cleaners somehow missed this second shoe.

I wonder how long he was here last night. What he did. I imagine what he feels or felt. I know how Jones was when it was me. I know what extent he went to in order to protect me. And I know how I feel every day when I realize over and over again that I couldn’t protect him.

I wonder if that’s Kill’s hell. If that’s his demon. The knowledge that he could not protect his baby sister. Because at least my brother is alive.

Lightning strikes in the distance, animating me. I turn and walk to the barn door, in a hurry to leave. To get out of this place where the past lingers. This space that ghosts haunt. It’s a heavy place, like for the last few years air hasn’t penetrated and everything has grown stale and weighted. When I set foot outside, I run. I run back to the house, suddenly feeling like I’m being chased, needing to go back to the land of the living.

This was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone to the barn. Those warning voices were right. I had no business there. But it’s too late now. I’ve seen it and you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. It’s not how things work. I know. My God, do I know.

I’m crying by the time I walk up the steps toward the pool and when I spy movement behind the glass doors, I don’t try to hide. I’ll take my medicine. And I do feel sick now, sick to my stomach.

I push the glass doors open and step inside, take off my mud-covered boots, and carry them up to my room. If Helen has seen me, she doesn’t say a word, but in my room, I find the tray she’d left is gone, replaced by another with still warm tea and crackers. I strip off my wet clothes and climb back into the bed and close my eyes and when I sleep, all I can see are those shoes. Three of them. Lined up against the wall. A hangman’s rope beside them, lying in a pool of blood and urine, a stained kitchen knife at its center.

14

Kill

I sit at a table in the restaurant of the club with a whiskey in front of me looking out on the floor. The restaurant part, which is small, is slightly elevated from the main floor where patrons can watch what’s going on while having a meal.

This afternoon, I paid a visit to Cilla’s brother. What happened last night has been bugging me all day. When I told her she was damaged she didn’t deny it. She just looked at me like it was a fact, simple and straight. And I want to know what the damage is.

But Jones surprised me. When it came to talking about her, talking about their time in foster care, he was like a different person. He put up walls so thick and so high, they were impenetrable, even for me. Whatever happened to Cilla when she was a kid, he’s not talking.

And something did happen.

The only house they spent a significant amount of time in was at Judge Herbert J. Callahan’s. He and his wife took in foster kids for years. He’s in his late seventies now. Retired.

I know people though. And the cleaner they look on the outside, the dirtier they are on the inside. See, you have to watch out for men like the good Judge as much as you do men like me. They’ll fuck you just like I will. They just may be more discreet about it.

Jones didn’t give anything away. All he said was what I already knew. Parents were dead and since they had no other living relatives, they went into the foster care system. No one wants to adopt teenagers. And all there is on those years they spent with the Callahan’s are two hospital reports, one of a broken arm and a second time a broken ankle. Cilla’s. She’d fallen down the stairs is what Jones said. Twice.

That sounds way too fucking coincidental and I don’t buy it. I don’t even know if he wants me to.

But why in hell would he defend Judge Callahan if the old man abused her? Especially now that they’re both adults and he can’t touch them.

If that wasn’t enough, I had a call from Helen informing me Cilla had snuck out of the house and when she’d returned she’d been soaked and covered in mud. It doesn’t take a genius to know where she went.

When Hugo walks onto the main floor, I check my watch. It’s almost ten o’clock. Cilla will be here soon. I want to know if he’s learned anything.