Page 30 of Another Girl Lost

“Do you have a chain on your ankle?”

“No. I’ve earned his trust,” she said. “If you want that chain to go away, you’ll have to do the same.”

I sat in silence. And then a comment she’d made circled back. “You said you don’t want to be aloneagain. Who else was here?”

“There is another girl.”

Breathless, I stared toward the sound of her voice. “Where?”

“Upstairs somewhere.”

“Is she a prisoner, too?”

“Yes. But Tanner said he’d let her go if I got you.”

“And you believed him?”

Another girl. Most likely chained and hurting. Della had known this when she smiled at me on that street corner. “You could’ve run! Why didn’t you find a cop? There were people around the theater. They would’ve helped you and saved all of us.”

“They couldn’t have protected anyone. He’s very clever.”

I ignored that hard truth. “You didn’t even try!”

“We have to play the long game if I’m going to save us all.” Della’s voice softened.

“Long game? I’m not rotting here having him hurt me again and again like he did last night.”

“He’s done it to me thousands of times. It wasn’t always violent, and if you manage him right, he can be nice.”

“Manage him? He’s a monster.”

“Don’t be mad at me. We’re all we have. We must be friends.”

“I don’t have to be your friend.”

Della was silent for a long moment. “You’ll be my friend. You’ll see.”

Chapter Nine

SCARLETT

Saturday, July 13, 2024

8:15 a.m.

The gym wasn’t crowded. Not uncommon on a lovely summer Saturday morning. With the days longer and warmer, most skipped the gym workout for runs or bike rides in the parks or the paths along the waterfront or coffees in one of the local cafés. There were so many reasons not to work out. And yet here I was, clinging to a routine that kept me sane.

Dawson’s visit had rattled me. My thoughts kept returning to Sandra Taylor and Della’s old references to the Other Girl. Della had said she’d gone away but never once explained. Dawson had confirmed what I’d suspected.Gonemeantdead. But I had no idea when she’d died. Vanished in the spring, according to Dawson, and never found until now.

Tanner had often taken Della from our room and kept her upstairs. Many times, he’d turn up the music, blasting rock that rattled the walls and seeped through the floorboards into the basement. If Della was screaming upstairs, I didn’t hear it. The world ceased to exist beyond my four walls.

Della never fought Tanner and often smiled when he motioned her toward the door. I always was relieved when he didn’t choose me, but as soon as the door closed and I was alone, I worried whether she’d ever return. In the eighty-eight days I was under Tanner’s control, I never left that dark, windowless room until the day he and I went to the diner.

Rolling my head from side to side, I tried to shake off the thoughts, grateful that I would never have to see Tanner Reed again.

Blond hair bound in a ponytail, I was dressed in fitted shorts, a snug T-shirt, and athletic shoes. My muscles were tight. It had been a shit day yesterday when it came to my work. My hands had trembled as I’d etched the final curls of a Kangawa-style wave into a block of wood that would become the stamp anchoring my latest print series. A sailboat on rolling exaggerated waves with clouds dangling above. No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t shake Dawson’s visit. Seeing him had unlocked the jail where my demons resided, and I feared they were now free and circling.

My hands shook only a little when I set my bag down and looked up the climbing wall toward the ceiling, which had always symbolized freedom.

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