“No. They are around the corner and my chain is not long enough. The shackle allows me only to reach the small table near the stairs. He leaves my meals here.”

“Good. Megan, I want to go back toward the windows now. Back to where your bed is. I want you to sit on the bed. The shackle is loose and you can move freely now. Tell me what you see and hear when you sit on that bed.”

“It’s dark. Always dark with no lights. The windows are boarded. Just a sliver of daylight spills through the tiny gap between the plywood and the edge of one of the windows. The bed squeaks when I sit on it.”

“Tell me.”

“The springs compress under my weight and creak when I adjust my position.”

“Now stay very still. Don’t move. Don’t shift. Tell me about the squeaking now.”

“It’s gone.”

“The springs are quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the stairs.”

“They are quiet, no sounds.”

“Tell me about the airplanes.”

“They are gone, faded away.”

“But there is something.”

Long pause.

“Breathe in, slowly.”

Megan did so.

“Through your nose and into your core, not your lungs, Megan. Center yourself.”

Megan inhaled, centered the breath in that area below her chest, the center of her body. Then she blew slowly from her mouth.

“Again. This time, sitting on the bed in the dark cellar, listen to your breath. Listen as it enters your core.”

Megan inhaled again.

“And listen to it leave your body.”

Long exhale.

“Once more. Bring that air into your core and hold it there. Listen.”

It was dead quiet in Megan’s mind as she sat in the dark cellar of her captivity. This was how it mostly was during her weeks in the cellar, eerily quiet unless she broke through the silence. But then there was something. It was what she wanted. The sound she had been searching for since the session began. The sound she could never have found by herself, so buried, as it were, in the redundant folds of the memory center of her brain. But suddenly, as she held the latest breath in her core, the sound was there in her ears. She listened to it and explored it and let it run through her thoughts like the memory of the ocean tide from a tropical vacation.

“Tell me about it,” she thought she heard Dr. Mattingly whisper.

“Soft. Far away. Really far. Just barely can I hear it. Like a long moan, but higher in pitch. A motorcycle without the rumble. No, this was smoother and fainter. A lawn mower, maybe. But on and off. Consistent. It starts and stops,” Megan mumbled. “It’s a long sound. Then it’s gone. Then it’s back again and it’s long again. There it is.” Megan was nodding. “There it is.”

“Okay, Megan,” Dr. Mattingly said. “I’m going to count from three, two, one. And you’re here, Megan.”

Her eyes blinked open and she sat up straight.

“What did you find, Megan? What did you hear?”

She looked at Dr. Mattingly. “A train. I heard the whistle on a train.”

CHAPTER 12

He had the night to himself. He was out at the fishing cabins in Tinder Valley and would hole up in one of them overnight and fish in the morning before going home. It was easy cover and a solid story that would hold up to scrutiny. Logical and timely, his trip to Tinder Valley could be corroborated should she decide to check his story. It was what he needed—a night to himself. Enough time to have his visit, stay a while afterward to be respectful. Maybe share some dinner. He could take his time tonight, not like some other visits when things were rushed and abrupt and forced. Those visits were never fun. They typically ended in fights and arguments and resentment, and he never felt good about himself when he left. But time was on his side tonight. Time allowed them both to work through the things that got overlooked during rushed visits. Time prevented fights and scuffles. Tonight he had all the time he needed.

He pulled his car to the curb and turned off the headlights. It was dark here with no streetlights. Quiet, too. No highways. It would be a nice place to live, but that was not possible. For him, he could only visit this place. But what he found here he could find nowhere else. So empty was his life at home. There was no love there. There was no intimacy. He went through the motions when necessary. When she pressed him. But his thoughts were always here. He tolerated her touch because it was what he had to do to get by. He stomached her advances because he knew it was the only way to protect his secret.

But here, with his love, he could play out his wildest fantasies. Here, he could service and please and pamper. Of course, it didn’t always work the way he imagined it. Some didn’t appreciate his efforts. Some even rejected his generosity. He was willing to allow rebellion initially, even put up with the early arguments and tantrums that came with new relationships. But ultimately, he expected this behavior to subside. Once his intentions were made clear, he wanted acceptance. He wanted gratitude. He wanted submission. More than anything, though, he wanted reciprocation. Sadly, for a few, this never transpired. And when his efforts were exhausted and he saw no hope on the horizon, he knew the end of the affair was near.

There was guilt when things culminated this way. Sadness when a relationship ended. He felt genuine remorse when he could not make things work. Regret, because he understood the finality of failure. After an unsuccessful relationship he allowed himself to bathe in those emotions. He gave himself that much—the opportunity to grieve. But then, like spring tulips, someone else caught his eye and those feelings of want and desire budded inside him, eventually blossoming into something new and hopeful. A fresh relationship was out there and waiting. He just needed to find the right person.

He stood from his car and adjusted himself. He walked inside with a frozen Stouffer’s dinner, locking the door behind him. He listened for a moment, to make sure nothing was out of order. Then he walked to the cellar door, slid the lock, and clicked on his flashlight. He opened the door, which scraped against the wooden floor, and stared at the bare wooden stairs as a feeling of ecstasy burned in his loins. He started down the steps to his prize, who he knew would be waiting, shackled to her bed like a good and wanting servant. He had left a bucket and sponge for her to bathe, hoping tonight might be special.

“I’m back, my Love,” he said as he took his first step down the rickety cellar stairs, his insides exploding with eagerness and lust. “I’m back.”

SUMMER 2016

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

—Casey Delevan

CHAPTER 13

July 2016

Four Weeks Before the Abduction

Nicole Cutty pulled her car into the deserted parking lot behind a Walmart and turned off the engine. Across the street was a bar whose lot was still spotted with cars. She removed a joint from her purse and put the flame of her lighter to the end of it, listening as the tip crackled. Jessica and Rachel didn’t like to smoke, so Nicole felt obligated to sneak her pot sessions in late at night. She had tried once to get them to smoke out by Rachel’s pool one Friday afternoon, but Rachel threw a fit that her mom would smell it. Nicole loved her friends, but part of her couldn’t wait to get away next year.

As people came and went from the tavern across the street, their headlights glared through Nicole’s windshield. She wanted to feel alone and isolated, so she took her joint, climbed from her car, and walked to the park half a block away. It was just past eleven p.m. and her parents had no idea she had snuck out of the house. The yellow halogen lights had died an hour earlier and the park slithered with shadows from the streetlights twenty yards away. Nicole walked deep enough into the park so that she was comfortably within the penumbra of a row of maples that separated the playground from the road. The swing provided a nice cadence as she rocked back and forth and enjoyed the effects of the marijuana. The night before, she was skinny-dipping at Matt’s party, and as she inhaled deeply now she relished that moment in her mind when all the guys stared at her and the other girls were invisible.

It took twenty minutes to finish her joint. She closed her eyes and swung for twenty more. Full swings like she was ten years old—knees cocked back and then flung forward to increase momentum, fists gripping the chains. She stared up at the night sky dotted with stars that blurred together. Finally, Nicole stopped kicking and let the swing slowly ease until she returned to a smooth rhythm where her feet dangled lazily, her toes barely touching the ground.

She heard a whistle that startled her. It came again.

“Roxie!”

It was a man’s voice.

Nicole checked the ground to make sure she’d snubbed out the end of her joint.

“Roxie!”

From the shadows, a man emerged holding a leash.

“Come here, Roxie.”

The man noticed Nicole on the swing and came over.

“Excuse me. Did you see a dog run through here? A little Jack Russell terrier?”

Nicole shook her head. “No, sorry.”

“You been in the park long?”