I shook my head, unable to find words. Leaning over, I hugged her tight. A shudder ran through her body. and I knew she was trying not to cry.
Her sleeve moved upward along her arm as she hugged me back. Horizontal scars crisscrossed her pale skin, some more faded than others.
Moving back, I touched her arm gently. “Poppy, what’s this?”
She hung her head. “Oh. I’ve been cutting myself for years. Helps to let out a little of the pain. I know it’s dumb of me, but I can’t stop . . .”
I sat back on my chair, stunned. I wondered, then, about the stories of all of the challenge participants.
How did we all get to the point of signing onto a treatment program for addicts? Where were we all going from here?
29. I, Inside The Walls
HUMAN MINDS ARE LIKE DANDELIONS GROWING in dark rooms. Thoughts lose their colour. Minds go to seed. But there is no wind in the dark rooms to shake their deepest, darkest thoughts free. Only when they shake their withered thoughts free can they seed the new. That is what I have been taught.
All of them who came here, they don’t understand. I don’t know if I am sad for them that they don’t understand or envious that they live in such ignorance.
30. Constance
ROSEMARY LEIGHTON SPOKE FAST, LIKE AN American from NYC, except her accent was definitely British. Clipped and precise. I’d only spoken to her briefly a couple of nights ago, but she’d agreed to take on the task of finding Kara. First, she’d requested that I pay a visit to the casino that Kara had been seen at. Rosemary wanted me to show Kara’s photo around to the staff there in the hope of gleaning a little additional information.
I relayed to Rosemary what I’d learned after I’d visited the casino and then returned to my hotel room.
I’d found the casino a little intimidating. I didn’t gamble, myself. Never had. I’d spent my life in a small town as a child and a college town after I met James. Not even during my wild years with Otto did I gamble.
Three of the casino staff had recognized my daughter from her photograph. The man she’d been seen with was Wilson Carlisle, an Australian man who’d been frequenting the casino for years. He was in his sixties, an orthodontist with a Sydney practice. I shivered to think of Kara being around this person.
One of the staff members—a gawky young man who served behind a bar—told me that he and Kara had taken cocaine together one night after work.
Cocaine.
One more shocking, terrifying piece of the puzzle.
The young man had been blasé about it. As if it were no big deal. I’d had to struggle to control myself, because I’d wanted to scream at him that it was a very big deal and that he’d had no right to head off somewhere with my daughter and use that vile stuff. But then he’d told me that the cocaine was Kara’s. I’d walked away on legs that’d threatened to crumple underneath me.
“Constance,” Rosemary said—tapping at her keyboard—“this Wilson Carlisle character has an interesting lifestyle. For a Sydney orthodontist. Yachting off the coast of France and Greece in the European summer. Contacts with some powerful people in the business and political arena. Actually, extremely powerful people.” Tap-tap-tap-tap. “And . . . some activities I don’t quite understand.”
“What kind of activities?” I asked, concerned by her sudden change in tone.
“Let me do some research on it before I say too much. For now, I’ll just tell you that he seems to be a member of some sort of historical society, and the society appears to have some unusual aspects that aren’t adding up. I’m accessing a database used by law enforcement at the moment, often used to investigate people trafficking.”
“Do you think he might have been trying to traffic my daughter?” I gasped, my throat suddenly feeling tight. “The detective I spoke to didn’t think so.”
“Well, at this point, I’d tend to agree. This case isn’t showing any usual patterns. Perhaps his interest in her—as awful as this sounds—was just her young age. It would tie in with the theory that he was giving her money for the drugs she was taking. He possibly wanted to make her reliant on him.”
“I can’t even think about that. And I just can’t figure out why she’d fly to the UK.”
“She might have wanted an adventure. Young people are very mobile these days. They’re jetsetters. Or—and this is another difficult thing to say—but she might have thought she’d find some wealthier sugar daddies abroad.”