He set her down in front of a stall. The tile floor was freezing and dirty, and the bathroom smelled of disinfectant and pee. “Go do your business.”
Sam didn’t want to walk on the tile, and she especially didn’t want to go into the toilet stall in her bare feet, but she did because William was looking at her in a way that told her she’d better.
There was grit and dust and hair on the floor, and Sam tried very hard not to think about what she was stepping on. The toilet was very high and she was so small for her age that she had trouble sitting on it to pee. Her feet dangled off the ground while water came out of her in a tiny trickle. She always had trouble peeing when she was nervous, would hold on to it compulsively until she was able to relax again and then she’d have to sprint to the bathroom before she wet her pants.
After a minute William said, “Hurry up,” and he had that tone in his voice again, the one that said she had to listen. Sam wiped herself and hopped off the toilet. William picked her up again as soon as she came out of the stall. He seemed like he was in a big hurry all of a sudden.
“I have to wash my hands,” she said. She really wanted to, for a change, wanted to wash them properly （that was what Mom always said, that she didn’t wash them properly） because the toilet had been so gross and she wanted to scrub her hands really well.
William hesitated, then said, “You’re right. You should always wash your hands after you’ve dirtied them because cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Sam thought this was a very strange thing for him to say but she didn’t care as long as she got to wash her hands. He wouldn’t set her down in front of the sink, though. He kept hold of her while she wet her hands and rubbed soap all over them. A second later there was some noise outside in the entryway, the sound of voices, and a young man entered the bathroom.
Now Sam knew why William had seemed like he was in a hurry. He’d heard the other car outside and he didn’t want to run into anyone. This was her chance.
Sam saw his face in the mirror—he wasn’t too much younger than William, actually—and her heart leapt. All she needed to do was say something and the strange man would help her. But it was like William read her mind, could see inside her eyes, because he squeezed her very hard and she felt the warning and instead rinsed the soap off her hands and dried with the scratchy paper towel that William handed her. The young man went about his business, didn’t even seem to notice Sam and William there.
She felt her chance at freedom slipping away. She had to open her mouth and say “Help me” before William took her out of the bathroom and put her back in the car and took her away forever.
Just then William leaned his mouth very close to her ear and said, “If you say one word to anyone I will kill them. I have a knife on my belt and I will slash their throats open with that knife and it will be your fault. Do not speak.”
Sam began to tremble, because the young man looked nice and he probably had a family and if she said one word, said anything at all, then William would kill him and there would be blood all over the bathroom.
Just like Mom.
Just like what William did to Mom.
But the idea that her mother had been slashed to ribbons by this man was so terrible that her mind turned away from it.
No. Mom’s not dead. She can’t be. She has to be alive so that she can come for me. She wouldn’t leave me with William. She wouldn’t.
William carried her out of the bathroom. There was a young woman, about the same age as the young man Sam had seen in the mirror, idly flipping through the tourist pamphlets and maps. She turned when she heard the door, clearly expecting the young man. She had long brown hair and a purple knitted hat with a pompom on top. She waved when she saw Sam.
“Your daughter is so cute,” she said to William. “How old is she?”
I’m not his daughter! Sam wanted to cry. Help me. Help me. He’s stealing me.
“She’s five,” William lied.
Sam wanted to cry out in outrage, I’m not five, I’m eight, I’m just small. She knew it was a trick, though, a trick that William had done to see if she would talk, but Sam wouldn’t be the one who let William kill this pretty lady with her long brown hair.
“Sooo gorgeous with that blond hair and brown eyes. You don’t really see that combination, huh? Her mom must have brown eyes,” the lady said. She’d gotten closer as she talked.
William laughed. Sam was amazed that he could laugh and sound normal when he did it, like he wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. That was the first time she realized what a good liar he was, that he could lie about anything, that his face would say one thing while in his heart he was thinking something completely different.