Page 10 of Another Girl Lost

I’d crossed paths with enough cops to recognize one. They had a way. Even the kind ones projected an arrogance when they told jokes or tried to be my friend.

After my rescue, I’d been treated as a victim initially. Most cops were nice or pretended to be. Some couldn’t sustain eye contact with me because I embodied their worst nightmare. I’d slipped into the victimized versions of their daughters, sisters, or wives.

After I’d been released from the hospital to my mother’s care, I’d not thrived. I’d been broken, battered, and very angry. I’d acted out. I drank too much. Did drugs. Got arrested. After my third arrest, alternative theories about Tanner and me arose like thorny weeds in a garden, and as often happened with each new telling, assumptions about me grew darker. By the end, the rumors had repainted me as Tanner’s willing accomplice. We were both satanists, we imprisoned girls to breed an army of Tanner’s children, or we were wannabe serial killers.

The rumors spread like a blight, tainting all my interactions with the cops over the next year. Each time a cold case grew hot, I received a visit asking me if I knew where to find a missing person. I didn’t have any answers, which was always met with stony expressions or threats to lock me up. If not for the Judge, I don’t know what would have happened.

The skin on the back of my neck tingled. Who had gone missing or died this time?

The cop’s gaze flickered to the window, and for an instant our stares locked. Even as I considered leaving him to stew on his side of the closed door, avoiding him would snowball into more trouble. I was low-hanging fruit on the food chain and too easy to pluck.

I flipped the three locks and unfastened two security chains. Drawing in a breath, I opened the main door but left the mesh metal security door locked. “Can I help you?”

“Scarlett Crosby.”

Not a question but a statement. “Who are you?”

He reached in his breast pocket, removed a badge, and held it up to the steel netting, giving me ample time to review his credentials. “Detective Kevin Dawson. We met years ago.”

I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “Did you arrest me?”

He replaced his identification back in his pocket. “The first time our paths crossed, I was pulling you from Tanner Reed’s van.”

All I remembered about that day was heart-stopping panic, a bone-crushing crash, pain, and shots fired. My world had been spiraling. “I don’t remember you.”

“Not surprising. It was chaotic.”

“Yes.”

I suppose he needed to hear me say thank you, but I wasn’t feeling grateful. “What do you want, Detective Dawson?”

“Wondering if you have a few minutes. I have several questions.”

A dull headache formed behind my eyes. “About?”

His expression didn’t give any hint to his thoughts. “Better if we don’t have this conversation on the street.”

“I don’t know you, Detective Dawson. I’m going to need more.”

His hand slid into his pocket. Change rattled. “Do you remember the second time we met?”

“No.”

“It was about two months after you were released from the hospital.”

I’d been so high in those days because all I’d craved was nothingness. “No.”

“I asked you about a missing girl on that second visit.”

“I’ve vague memories of a younger, thinner man talking to me, but I barely registered a word.”

My brutal honesty prompted a half smile. “I was definitely in better shape a decade ago.” When I didn’t react, he cleared his throat. “A body was found. We believe she’s a young girl reported missing in the spring of 2014. She went out with Tanner Reed once.”

I stood still, barely breathing. Each time cops brought a query like this to me, I imagined a girl in a dark room screaming, begging for her mother or anyone to please find her. I’d lived as Tanner Reed’s captive/whore for eighty-eight days, and I’d been the last to see him alive. The parade of detectives, uniforms, and forensic psychologists had always assumed my insight into Tanner’s mind could be the key to all their unsolved cases.

“Was her name Della?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly. “No. Not Della.”

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