Page 62 of The Making of Marnie Jones

“He dated my mother for a few weeks, then he picked me up from school one day. He told me we were going to meet Mom at his place.” Olivia swallowed. “I trusted him. When my mom met a guy, she got in real deep real fast. Every guy was 'the one'.” She used air quotes. “But this guy was different because he was smart. He was an accountant, worked in an office, and made lots of money. He owned a house in the suburbs, and I’d been there several times.

“I found out later he designed the house himself and created a wine cellar.” Olivia clasped her hands tightly, her knuckles white. “Not a wine cellar, though. A soundproof cage. She kept seeing him, you know. He told me when she came over so I could lie there crying because he was upstairs screwing her.”

Marnie winced inwardly at Olivia’s crude description of the torturous events she endured.

“After a couple years, they broke up, and that scared me. For a while I didn't know what he was going to do with me.” She brushed away an errant tear. “When the end came, he caught me unaware. He came home one day and slammed my head against the concrete wall. I was stunned because in all those years he’d never been physically abusive. Except the daily rapes, of course.”

“Of course.” Marnie cringed. “Mine only took breaks when I was having my period. I was there, with him, when I got my first period. Mrs. Grant had given methe talk, but I was still terrified. He left and came back with a box of pads and tampons, which he threw at me. I prayed he’d be finished with me, but he seemed to gain interest when I hit puberty. He became obsessed with the changes in my body.”

“I guess I was lucky. The day I hit puberty, he put me on the pill. He gave me one every single day so he could rape me whenever he chose to.” Olivia ran a hand through her hair and seemed surprised to find it short. “They never figured out where he got the pills. I kept hoping someone would notice this man was getting birth control pills, but no one ever did. God, Marnie, why didn't anyone see?”

Her soul flayed open for this girl. Only the same question she asked for seven years of captivity and five years of freedom. Why hadn't anyone noticed a man holding a young woman in his basement? Why had no one noticed the boarded-up basement windows? Why had no one noticed this man never had any guests? Lester Ulster's neighbors said he was a pleasant man who kept to himself. He seemed normal. Nothing amiss, the neighbors said.

“My captor was a computer programmer who worked from home. I never knew when he’d come down to see me. Sometimes he just came down to talk. Those times scared me the most.” She closed her eyes. “He ordered books on the internet for me—a book a day, if I wanted it. The first few weeks the books were inappropriately mature or too juvenile. He asked me what I wanted to read, and I didn't know. I found authors I liked, and genres that struck a chord.

“Fantasy became my preferred genre. I imagined myself living a life different from the hell I was enduring.” She swallowed, fighting the inevitable pain banding around her chest. “I kept thinking someone would notice his book purchases, but why would they? No one thought it weird he received several parcels a week. No one knew what was going on in the basement of horrors.” She took a breath, trying to marshal her racing heart. “You were talking about the last day…”Focus.

“Yeah.” Olivia looked at her, but clearly didn’t see her. “He slammed my head against the wall, tied my hands, and dragged me up the stairs. It was the middle of the night and weird to be above ground. He took me out to the garage and put me in the trunk of his car.

“I knew. I knew I was going to die. The night was cold, and I wore only pajamas.” Olivia shook her head. “I was used to cold, but this was different. Or maybe it was colder because I knew something bad was about to happen. We drove forever, and we stopped.” The last words came out as a whisper.

Marnie yearned to make her to stop. Wanted her to not revisit her near-death experience. But Marnie’s responsibility and duty was to listen. This was catharsis for Olivia.

Marnie comprehended that better than most.

“He dumped me in a snowy field. My hands were still tied behind my back.” Olivia lifted her hands to look at them. “I tried to stand but found it impossible. So I crawled. I crawled out to the middle of the road and accepted my fate.”

“You lived.”

“I lived.” She ran her hand through her short hair. “I was almost run over, but I didn't freeze to death. It's amazing the snowplow driver saw me at all. He wrapped me in a blanket and rushed to the hospital. Days passed before I was warm again.

“They got him, of course. He was sitting in a meeting, as if nothing happened.” This time, when she met Marnie's gaze, more strength showed. More resolve. “If I died, chances were he’d have gotten away with it. I remember when my mother came to the hospital. The police brought her. She didn't believe me when I told her he did it. She kept screaming at me that I was a liar.”

“Because she knew the truth.”

“Because it meant she’d been screwing him upstairs while I was living in Hell downstairs. And she never knew.” Her voice was flat.

Marnie ached to take the younger woman in her arms. “Did you blame her?”

“At first…maybe. Then I remembered the videos of her on the anniversaries of my disappearance. Not her fault he was such a good liar. He got a kick out of it, you know? Having sex with my mother while raping her daughter. I was almost eighteen when he left me to die. Apparently, he met a new woman in another city, and she had a thirteen-year-old daughter. How he convinced himself he’d get away with it, I don’t know. He was a sick man.”

“You're right, Olivia, he was a sick man. They all are. They prey on children and they’re monsters.”

“Except there were moments…” Olivia clasped her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.

“Moments when he seemed normal.”

Horror and revulsion crossed Olivia's face.

Bad call.

Olivia pushed herself from the chair. “What I was going to say is there were days when I wanted to kill myself. Days when I wanted to kill him. He never seemed normal to me.” She scowled at Marnie. “How could you think that?”

Marnie had imposed her own experience onto Olivia—something she swore she’d never do. She rose and moved toward the distressed younger woman. “I'm sorry, Olivia. I never meant to say he was anything but a horrible man.”

“I…I'm tired.” Olivia raised her hand listlessly. “I’m going to take a nap.”

“Of course.” When she took another step toward Olivia, the younger woman took a step back.

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