the front passenger seat. The man closed the door for her.
The car was warm, and smelled a little bit like French fries. She noticed an empty Coke can and a crumpled-up Arby’s bag on the floor by her feet.
The man walked around the front of the car, then got behind the wheel. He pulled out of the parking lot.
Kristen looked back at her broken-down Ford Probe. She’d call the tow company in the morning. Right now, she just wanted to get home and take a shower. She turned to the man and smiled. “I really appreciate this.”
Eyes on the road, he just nodded. He seemed very intent on his driving.
Kristen glanced over her shoulder at the little girl. “Thank you for giving me your seat, Annabelle.”
“You’re welcome,” the child said, her nose in the book.
“So, how old are you, Annabelle?”
The girl looked up at her and smiled. She really was beautiful—a little girl with an adult face. Kristin had seen photos of Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor when they were around this child’s age, and they had that same haunting mature beauty to them.
“I’m four years old,” she announced proudly.
“My, you’re almost a young lady!” Kristen turned forward again. “She’s gorgeous,” she said to the man.
But he didn’t reply. Another car sped toward them in the oncoming lane. Its headlights swept across his face. He had the same strange, cryptic smile Kristen had noticed when she first spotted him.
She squirmed a bit in the passenger seat. Moses Lake was an oasis. Just three minutes outside of the bright, busy resort town, it became dark desert, with a smattering of homes. Kristen and Brian’s town house was in the dark outskirts.
“Um, you need to take a left up here,” she said, pointing ahead. But he wasn’t slowing down. “It’s a left here,” she repeated. “Sir…”
He sped past the access road. “Oh, brother, I can’t believe I missed that,” he said, slowing down to about fifteen miles per hour. “I’m sorry. I’ll find a place to turn around here. I must be more tired than I thought. My reaction time is off.”
Biting her lip, Kristen wondered why he didn’t just make a U-turn. There was hardly any traffic.
“Here we go,” he announced, turning right onto a street marked DEAD END. They crawled past a few houses along the narrow road. Kristen counted six driveways he could have used to turn his car around. They inched by the last streetlight, and the darkened road became gravelly. Kristen noticed a house under construction on her right.
“I think there’s a turnaround coming up,” he said, squinting at the road ahead.
Kristen swallowed hard, and didn’t say anything. The car was barely moving. Its headlights pierced the unknown darkness ahead of them. “Can’t we—can’t we just back up and turn around?” she asked.
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” he said. He shot a look in the rearview mirror. “How are you doing back there, honey? You tired?”
“Kind of,” the child replied with a whimper.
“She’s up way past her bedtime,” the man said. “But I needed her tonight. She’s Daddy’s little helper.”
The car came to a stop. The headlights illuminated the end of the road and a long barricade, painted with black-and-white diagonal stripes. Beyond that, it was just blackness.
Puzzled, Kristen stared at the man. “Why did you need your daughter tonight?”
He smiled at her—that same cryptic smirk. “If she weren’t here, you never would have climbed into this car with me.”
Daddy’s little helper.
All at once, Kristen realized what he was telling her. She quickly reached into her purse for the pepper spray. She didn’t see his fist coming toward her face.
She just heard the little girl give out a startled yelp. “Oh!”
That was the last thing Kristen heard before the man knocked her unconscious.
“God, please! Somebody help me!”
An hour had passed and they’d driven thirty-five miles.
The little girl sat alone in the front passenger seat of the old station wagon. With a tiny flashlight that had a picture of Barbie on it, she looked at her picture book.
“Please, no! Wait…wait…no…”
The woman’s shrieks seemed to echo through the forest, where the car was parked along a crude trail. But the child paid little attention. She turned the page of her book, and tapped at the dashboard with her toes. Cold and tired, she wanted to go home. She wondered when her daddy would be finished with his “work.”
When the screaming stops, that’s usually when he’s almost done.
She told herself it would be soon.
Seattle, Washington—fifteen years later
Someone had a Barenaked Ladies CD blasting. The music drifted out to the backyard—along with all the talking, laughing, and screaming from the party inside the townhouse. The place was a cheesy, slightly run-down rental down the street from the University of Washington’s fraternity row. Amelia wasn’t sure who was giving the party. A bunch of guys lived in the townhouse, sophomores like herself. One of them—a total stranger—had stopped her this morning when she’d been on her way to philosophy class, and he’d invited her. That happened to Amelia all the time. She was constantly getting asked to parties. It had something to do with the way she looked.
Amelia Faraday was tall, with a beautiful face and a gorgeous, buxom figure. She had shoulder-length, wavy black hair, and blue eyes. She also had a drinking problem, and knew it. So she’d declined many invitations to drink-till-you-drop campus bashes. Her boyfriend, Shane, didn’t like the idea of strange guys inviting Amelia to parties, anyway. Among their friends, they were nicknamed the Perrier Twins, because they always asked for bottled water at get-togethers.
But tonight, Amelia wanted a beer—several beers, in fact, whatever it took to get drunk.
A few people had staggered out to the small backyard where Amelia stood with a beer in one hand, and the other clutching together the edges of her bulky cardigan sweater. She gazed up at the stars. It was a beautiful, crisp October Friday night.
She had a little buzz. This was only her second beer and, already, results. It happened quickly, because she’d been booze-free for the last seven weeks.
Shane didn’t understand why she needed alcohol tonight. “Before you drink that beer,” he’d whispered to her a few minutes ago in the corner of the jam-packed living room, “maybe you should call your therapist. Explain to her why you need it so badly.”
In response, Amelia had narrowed her eyes at him, and then she’d chugged half the plastic cup full of Coors. She’d refilled the cup from the keg in the kitchen and wandered outside
