“You too. Oh, one other thing,” he said as he shuffled his body in the chair and reached into his front pocket. “I’m taking your advice.” He pulled out his cigarette lighter, tossed it to Livia. “Keep that as a souvenir for saving my life. I picked up a stress ball.”

Livia stared at the Bic lighter. “Good for you.”

Later, after she got Kent settled on the couch with a pillow and blanket, Livia lay awake in bed. It was close to two a.m. She thought she heard the floorboards creak outside her bedroom, then heard Kent’s snoring on the couch. Sleep felt far away. Maybe it was the fact that a man hadn’t spent the night since she started her fellowship, or maybe it was the intimate pictures of Paula D’Amato and Nancy Dee that rolled through her head. Maybe it was Nate’s chilling descriptions and insights from earlier. Whatever the reason, Livia lay in bed that night but never found sleep.

CHAPTER 42

Megan lay in bed, her window cracked with the chill of midnight whispering over the pane to cool her room. Under the covers her legs twitched as her mind flashed—dark, then bright—with images of the cellar. There were reasons not to venture too far into hypnosis. Her previous sessions, which ended smoothly in Dr. Mattingly’s office under his guidance and tutelage, had never gone beyond the lush armchair that was her home while her mind explored the deeply buried memories of her captivity. But since the last session, when she unleashed herself from his voice and journeyed off on her own, her mind had been restless with images from the cellar. Dr. Mattingly had expertly prevented these suppressed memories from surfacing outside the controlled environment of his office and the isolated time frame of a single hypnosis sitting. But now, since Megan’s rogue therapy session, every time her mind slipped into the unconscious state of sleep her thoughts and dreams were wild and saturated with the happenings of her captivity—disjointed thoughts and phantasmagorias loosely rooted in the facts she had established with Dr. Mattingly, but also rich with exotic pictures and fictitious characters.

In her current dream, Megan’s ankle was still shackled to the wall, but the plywood was gone from the windows and the sunlight bright when she rose from her bed, springs echoing as she stood. Outside, she looked up to see the sky streaked with the jet stream of crisscrossing planes, white scratches against a blue sky. A loud whistle startled her as a freight train raced past the cellar. She felt its vibration as the long freight cars passed in a blur, one after the other, until they transformed into a commuter line—the windows spilling the blue glow of interior lighting.

The sun was gone now in her dream and it was dark but for the passing train and the aqua-lit windows. It sped past her cellar, and in the train’s window Megan noticed an isolated figure profiled by the light. Each passenger car displayed the same image of the same person. Megan moved closer to the cellar window and squinted her eyes. The person in the train turned, as if sensing Megan’s presence.

In bed, Megan’s head and neck moved back and forth as she followed the saccadic motion of the train in her dream. She let out small whimpers as she slept, her mind straining to identify the person on the train. Then, the woman raised a hand in an easy wave and Megan saw clearly the face in the train’s window, highlighted in the soft light. It was Livia Cutty.

“Don’t go!” Megan cried.

But the train continued until there were no more cars. Until the night was black and quiet, with no planes and no stars and no moon. When Megan put her hand to the cellar window, the plywood was back.

“Don’t leave me!”

She heard a voice and Megan shot her eyes open.

“Honey!” her father was saying as he woke her, shaking her shoulders. “Megan, wake up. It’s just a dream.”

Megan finally woke. She stared at her father, disoriented.

“It’s okay, honey. I’m here. Daddy’s here.”

He held her close as she breathed heavily.

“This is why I didn’t want you to start this again. This is what I wanted to save you from.”

Megan wrapped her arms around her father, rested her head on his shoulder, and cried as the image of the blurry train passing the cellar window pulsed in her mind. Livia Cutty’s easy wave as the final car passed. The feeling, again, of being alone in the dark cellar. And something else, too, that dug at the inner reaches of her brain, something difficult to identify as her mind fought fact from fiction. But eventually, as her mind settled and the images of her dream faded, one thing remained. A sound. It had not been present in her dream, but without doubt this noise was the missing element she’d worked so long to identify. It had been there in her last therapy session. She’d heard it just briefly before Dr. Mattingly forced consciousness upon her. And now, a week later, it finally manifested. It was no longer dancing and elusive in the foggy memories of her subconscious but, instead, clear and vibrant and ringing in her ears.

PART VI

“I know who took me.”

—Megan McDonald

CHAPTER 43

November 2017

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

After two weeks of no returned calls, Livia took her second personal day of her fellowship and headed to Emerson Bay. She parked in the lot of the Montgomery County Federal Building and entered the sheriff’s office. At the front desk, she asked to see Terry McDonald. No, she had no appointment. Livia wasn’t even sure he was in, but she was willing to wait, all day if necessary.

After a few minutes the secretary ushered her into the office where Terry McDonald sat behind his desk.

“Please,” he said to Livia. “Sit down.”

“Thanks for seeing me,” Livia said.

“I was meaning to call you, just haven’t had time.”

“Is Megan okay, incidentally? I haven’t been able to reach her for a couple of weeks.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Terry said. “Megan is another reason I was intending to talk to you. Since this little adventure you two have embarked upon—and I don’t diminish it, that’s not what I’m saying—but since Megan started looking into things on her own, her psychiatrist has told me some troubling things about her progress. She appears to have relapsed. Nightmares. Regression in memory during her therapy sessions. Withdrawal. Depression. All the symptoms she showed immediately after her ordeal.”

“When did this start?” Livia asked. “I mean, I’m sorry that she’s going through this, but the last time we talked she was doing well and was eager to help. I’ve had long conversations with your daughter, sir, about what she wants and what she still needs for closure.”

“Dr. Cutty, I appreciate the forensic expertise you bring to Megan’s case, and your sister’s, but you are no psychiatrist. Am I correct?”

“Of course not.”

“Then please, I beg you, leave Megan out of this thing you are doing. I understand your need for answers, and your family’s need. But you don’t know my daughter. You don’t know the hell she went through, and the long journey it’s been for her to get back to some sense of normalcy. I will support you in any way my office or influence will allow. But please, leave my daughter out of it. She’s come so far under Dr. Mattingly’s tutelage, I won’t allow that effort to be wasted. She was, until just recently, a different person than when she returned from her ordeal. She was, her mother and I were noticing, returning to the girl we remember. I want that girl back, Dr. Cutty. And seeing her with you, and the backward leaps she’s taken in the last couple of weeks convinces me that you’re hurting her progress.”

Livia stared at Terry McDonald, unsure how to respond. Livia knew things about his daughter that he did not. But Megan had been unavailable for days and had returned none of Livia’s calls. Indeed, regression was possible but Livia wondered what suddenly brought it on.

“I’m sorry,” Livia said, “if I’ve caused any problems. That was not my intent.”

“Of course not. I’m simply making you aware of the situation. It’s not healthy for Megan to pursue this. I will help you, like I said. In any way I can. As long as you keep Megan out of it. Can we agree on that?”

Livia slowly nodded. “Yes.”