They try to erase it all by pretending it never happened. They always have.”
Her growing fury troubled him, as did her insistence to share the terrifying memories. He didn’t want to hear the details of her kidnapping any more than her parents did, maybe less.
A teenager at the time of the incident, Link had followed the details of the kidnapping on television, along with the other citizens of Pueblo. But unlike the rest of Pueblo’s citizens and the police force who were baffled by the few clues they had to follow, Link had exclusive information regarding Isabelle’s kidnapping…information provided to him by his stepbrother, Joe Razley. Information the police weren’t privy to.
But he’d listen to Isabelle recount the details of her kidnapping, he told himself, if only to ease her mind. “Tell me, then,” he offered hesitantly.
She slicked her lips, inched closer, her gaze on his. “I ran away. Just like I did today.”
He drew his head back frowning, sure that he’d known every detail of the kidnapping. But he’d never heard this one. “Ran away?”
“Yes,” she said, obviously relieved to finally be able to tell it all. “I was angry with my parents because they wouldn’t allow me to spend the night with one of my friends, so I decided to run away. I packed a backpack and snuck out of the house. I walked for miles, not really knowing where I planned to go, but determined to run away, to punish them.” Tears filled her eyes and she dashed her fingertips across her cheeks, swiping them away.
“I made it all the way downtown,” she said as the memories took her. “And I was frightened. More frightened than I’d ever been in my life. I never liked the dark. Always slept with a night-light on. There was a storm brewing. Much like the one today. Clouds covered the moon and stars and there was nothing but an occasional streetlight to relieve the shadows. I’d never walked alone in town, and I lost my way. I was crying, wanting to go back home, but unsure which way to go. A van pulled up to the curb beside me, and a man stuck his head out the window.” She narrowed her eyes, as if, even now, she could picture his face in her mind. “He was young. Nineteen. Or maybe twenty. He had a scar at the corner of his eye.” She touched her own face, demonstrating, then dropped her hand to her lap and gripped her fingers together.
“He asked me if I was lost. If I needed a ride. My parents had lectured me about not talking to strangers, but I was lost, desperate, frightened. I wanted to go home, and he promised that he would take me there. I told him my name and where I lived. I remember him turning to look at the other man, the one who was driving, and they started laughing. Then he opened the door and got out. The next thing I knew, he grabbed me and shoved me inside the van.
“I knew then that I had made a mistake, and I tried to get away. I started kicking and screaming, begging him to let me go, but he slapped me hard across the face and told me to be quiet. He tied my hands behind my back and my feet together at the ankles, then stuffed a dirty rag into my mouth and forced me down on the floor in the back of the van. I remember gagging at the sour taste on the rag. The van’s metal floor was rough and scraped my cheek and knees, making them bleed. I was sure that I was going to die, that they were going to kill me.”
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