Page 158 of Girl Between (Dana Gray FBI Mystery Thriller #5)

Two hours later, with bated breath, Dana finally opened the final voice file.

The following is from a recorded interview with the District Attorney and Elizabeth Barton:

DA: Please state your name for the record.

Elizabeth: Elizabeth Barton.

DA: Thank you for being here, Miss Barton. I know this is difficult for you to talk about, but if you could take us through your abduction and captivity to the best of your ability, it will help strengthen our case.

Elizabeth: Where do you want me to start?

DA: From the beginning.

Elizabeth: We skipped school to go dress shopping.

We bought these white dresses for the Casquette Girl festival.

We liked them so much we wore them out of the store.

We were dancing around in them in Jackson Square.

That’s where he saw us. I knew we shouldn’t have gone with him, but he said he knew a bar that didn’t check IDs.

So, we went. We all got in his truck, and that’s the last thing I remember from that day.

DA: What do you remember next?

Elizabeth: It’s fuzzy. He was drugging us, so I was in and out of it.

I remember being in the bayou. We were in his boat, but we ran across another boat with two women.

They were arguing with Levi. Then there was some kind of storm.

When I woke up again, we were in this little cabin over the water with the two women.

They were speaking a different language, Creole maybe.

I’m not sure, but I know they were trying to help us.

We hid out there for a few days, because Amber was really sick.

I think she was having a reaction to whatever we’d been drugged with.

The women were trying to help her. Burning sage and saying prayers.

DA: Are these the two women?

Elizabeth: Yes, that’s them.

DA: Let the record show that Elizabeth Barton has identified Marta and Tisha Goode. Miss Barton, are you telling me these women had nothing to do with your abduction?

Elizabeth: Correct. They were trying to help us escape Levi Monroe.

DA: The man who abducted you and held you against your will?

Elizabeth: Yes.

DA: What happened to the women?

Elizabeth: He … he found us and he … he killed them. Shot them in front of us and … threw them into the water. Told us to get in the boat or the same thing would happen to us.

DA: And you got in the boat?

Elizabeth: All of us but Sloane. She freaked out. Jumped out into the water and went under. Monroe shot at her and when she didn’t come up … we left. I … I thought she was dead.

DA: What happened next?

Elizabeth: Levi took us to a farmhouse and locked us in the attic with his dead sister, Rebecca.

Said we were supposed to be her friends, take care of her.

He’d leave for long periods of time. And when he came back, he would feed us and put jewelry on Rebecca.

We eventually figured out they were from his victims. So, we made a plan to escape.

DA: Did you escape ?

Elizabeth: Yes. But he caught us and dragged us back. That’s when things got worse.

DA: Worse how?

Elizabeth: Less food, more experiments.

DA: Experiments?

Elizabeth: He would practice on us. Testing drugs, restraints, surgical techniques, that kind of stuff.

DA: Is that what all your scars are from?

Elizabeth: Yes.

DA: Let the record show that Elizabeth Barton has two hundred and eleven sets of suture marks covering her body. Miss Barton, can you tell us how long you were at the farmhouse?

Elizabeth: Don’t know. Time was hard to keep track of.

DA: Let the record show that Elizabeth Barton was held captive for nineteen years and eight months. Miss Barton, did Monroe ever take you anywhere else?

Elizabeth: Yes. At the end. After the others died.

DA: The others?

Elizabeth: Amber and Cara.

DA: How did they die?

Elizabeth: They kept trying to escape. So, Levi killed them.

DA: How do you know he killed them?

Elizabeth: I watched him do it.

DA: What happened to their bodies?

Elizabeth: He buried them on the farm with the others.

DA: How do you know that?

Elizabeth: He told me. Told me that’s what would happen to me too if I tried to escape.

DA: Did you try to escape?

Elizabeth: No. Not after that first time.

DA: Why not?

Elizabeth: I just knew I was going to die there. I could feel it. It’s why I gave my necklace to Rebecca. I wanted someone to find it someday. To know that I’d been there.

DA: Why did Monroe move you from the attic ?

Elizabeth: I was sick. I’d been sick for a while.

Levi kept saying he was going to fix me.

That he wouldn’t let me die because I was Rebecca’s best friend, and he could save me.

He was going to find me new organs so I could live forever like the Casquette Girls.

I begged him not to. I told him I wanted to die, to just let me die.

But he refused. And that’s when he took me to the hospital.

DA: What hospital?

Elizabeth: The dark one. Where the police found me and the other women.

DA: Let the record show that Elizabeth Barton was rescued from the Plaza Tower.

Elizabeth: I wasn’t in a hospital?

DA: No, Miss Barton. You were in a condemned building in the Central Business District of New Orleans, where Levi Monroe was holding multiple other women illegally and harvesting their organs to sell on the black market.

Elizabeth: What?

DA: We believe Levi Monroe suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder generated in his formative years working at the slaughterhouse where you were held.

When he lost his sister, Rebecca, to organ failure, it triggered a psychotic break.

He’s been killing ever since. When your health started to decline, we think it retriggered Monroe.

Based on the interviews we conducted with him we suspect he began to lose his grip on reality and began to identify you as Rebecca.

That’s why he moved you to the Plaza Tower and began trying to save you.

The organs he was collecting were for you.

He believed an organ transplant would save your life, like it should’ve saved Rebecca’s.

But that’s not why your body was shutting down.

It was due to prolonged captivity and insufficient sustenance. You’re very lucky to be alive.

Elizabeth: I don’t feel lucky.

DA: You’ve been through a lot. Give it time. You have that now.

Elizabeth: Thank you.

DA: Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Barton. Now go get some rest. Your mother is waiting for you right outside .

Elizabeth: My mother? Why would you think I ever want to see her again? Wait … You don’t know?

DA: Know what?

Elizabeth: My mother is the reason I was abducted.

Dana watched the recording end, the haunting whisper of Elizabeth’s voice still echoing in her mind.

It was like listening to the voice of a ghost and Dana couldn’t help wondering if she might’ve been better off as one.

Her mind flashed back to Monroe’s hospital of horrors.

When she closed her eyes she could easily conjure it.

The women strapped to gurneys, and another sequestered away from the others.

Pale and thin, with stringy black hair. Elizabeth Barton—the lone Harvest Girl.