“That wasn’t me. Please, that wasn’t me. I— You’re older than me, so I can’t be your mother. I didn’t—”
“You go to hell for lying! To hell with the devil and the fire. You eat your soup and drink your tea or maybe I’ll leave you all alone here like you left me.”
She spooned up soup. “It’s really good. You did a good job.”
Like a light switch, he beamed. “All by myself.”
“Thanks. Ah, there’s no one here to help you?”
“You’re here now, Mommy. I waited a long, long time. People were mean to me, and I cried for you, but you didn’t come.”
“I’m sorry. I … I couldn’t find you. How did you find me?”
“I found three. Three’s lucky, and one will be right. I’m tired now. It’s my bedtime. When you’re all better, you’ll tuck me into bed like you should have before. And read me a story. And we’ll sing songs.”
He started toward the door. “The wheels on the bus go round and round.” He looked back at her, the face of a man easily sixty singing in the voice of a child. “Good night, Mommy.” That fierceness came back into his eyes. “Say good night, baby darling!”
“Good night, baby darling.”
He closed the door behind him. She heard locks snap into place.
She heard other things in the timeless void of that windowless room. Voices, screaming, crying. Sometimes she thought the voices were her own, the screams her own, and sometimes she knew they weren’t.
But when she called out, no one came.
Once she thought she heard banging on the wall across the room, but she was so tired.
She knew he put drugs in the food, but when she didn’t eat, he turned off all the lights and left her in the dark until she did.
Sometimes he didn’t speak with the child’s voice, the accent, but with a man’s. So reasonable, so definite.
One night, he didn’t come at all, not with food, not to demand she change her clothes. She had three outfits to rotate. He didn’t come to sit and smile that terrifying smile and ask for a song or a story.
She’d die here, slowly starving to death, alone, chained, trapped, because he’d forgotten her, or gotten hit by a car.
But no, no, someone had to be looking for her. She had friends and family. Someone was looking for her.
Her name was Mary Kate Covino. She was twenty-five.
As she went through her daily litany, she heard shouting—him. His voice high-pitched, like the bratty child he became when upset or angry. Then another voice … No, she realized, still his, but his man’s voice. A coldly angry man’s voice.
And the weeping, the begging. That was female.
She couldn’t make out the words, just the sounds of anger and desperation.
She dragged herself over to the wall, pressed against it, hoping to hear. Or be heard.
“Please help me. Help me. Help me. I’m here. I’m Mary Kate, and I’m here.”
Someone screamed. Something crashed. Then everything went quiet.
She beat her fists bloody on the wall, shouted for someone to help.
The door to her prison burst open. He stood there, eyes wild and mad, his face and clothes splattered with blood. And blood still dripping from the knife in his hand.
“Shut up!” He took a step toward her. “You shut the fuck up!” And another.
She didn’t know where it came from, but she shouted out: “Baby darling!” And he stopped. “I heard terrible sounds, and I thought someone was hurting you. I couldn’t get to you, baby darling. I couldn’t protect you. Someone hurt my baby darling.”
“She lied!”
“Who lied, baby darling?”
“She pretended to be Mommy, but she wasn’t. She called me names and tried to hurt me. She slapped my face! But I hurt her. You go to hell when you lie, so she’s gone to hell.”
He’d killed someone, someone like her. Killed someone with the knife, and would kill her next.
Through the wild fear came a cold, hard will. One to survive.
“Oh, my poor baby darling. Can you take these … bracelets off so I can take care of you?”
Some of the mad fury seemed to die out of his eyes. But a kind of shrewdness replaced it. “She lied, and she’s in hell. Remember what happens when you lie. Now you have to be quiet. Number one’s in hell, so number two can clean up the mess. Mommy cleans up messes. Maybe you’ll be lucky number three. But if you’re not quiet, if you make my head hurt, you’ll be unlucky.”