Page 14 of Another Girl Lost

“How many did she write?”

“Three.”

“No contact with her until last year?”

“Are you looking for a specific answer?”

A frown furrowed his brow. He was fishing, but not getting any bites. “Just the truth. You said Della was often locked up with you.”

“Yes, but Tanner had a different relationship with her. She wasn’t always confined in the room with me. Many times, he let her sleep upstairs with him. She had more freedom, if you could call it that.”

Pages in his notebook flipped. “You said he treated her like a wife.”

“Yes.”

More pages turned over. “And Della never told you why he beat her up that last day.”

“No.”

“Had he beaten her that badly before?”

“Not that I’d seen.”

“Tanner trusted you enough to lure Tiffany to the van?”

“Yes.”

“Why was he so sure about you?”

Another mystery I’d not been able to solve. “Della said I could be trusted because I’d stopped fighting. I’d accepted my new life.”

“Why did you stop resisting?”

“The less I fought, the less it hurt.”

When I didn’t elaborate, he said, “Why did you target Tiffany?”

“I didn’t. Tanner did.”

“He’d seen Tiffany before?”

“Della told me she and Tanner had been to the diner a few times that spring.”

“Tiffany didn’t remember them when asked by the detectives.”

“They’d picked busy times. Easier to blend in, Della said.”

“Why did you agree to do it?”

How many ways could I explain myself? My head spun, sucking in the circling shadows. “You make it sound like I had a choice.”

“We always have choices.” He drew in a breath.

“Live in Tanner’s basement for eighty-eight days and then we’ll talk about choices.”

Suspicion tinted his gaze. “What did Tanner promise you if you got Tiffany to the van?”

“A hamburger. And he said he might let me go.”

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