Page 16

Four Weeks Before the Abduction

N icole Cutty pulled her car into the deserted parking lot behind a Walmart and turned off the engine.

Across the street was a bar whose lot was still spotted with cars.

She removed a joint from her purse and put the flame of her lighter to the end of it, listening as the tip crackled.

Jessica and Rachel didn’t like to smoke, so Nicole felt obligated to sneak her pot sessions in late at night.

She had tried once to get them to smoke out by Rachel’s pool one Friday afternoon, but Rachel threw a fit that her mom would smell it.

Nicole loved her friends, but part of her couldn’t wait to get away next year.

As people came and went from the tavern across the street, their headlights glared through Nicole’s windshield.

She wanted to feel alone and isolated, so she took her joint, climbed from her car, and walked to the park half a block away.

It was just past eleven p.m. and her parents had no idea she had snuck out of the house.

The yellow halogen lights had died an hour earlier and the park slithered with shadows from the streetlights twenty yards away.

Nicole walked deep enough into the park so that she was comfortably within the penumbra of a row of maples that separated the playground from the road.

The swing provided a nice cadence as she rocked back and forth and enjoyed the effects of the marijuana.

The night before, she was skinny-dipping at Matt’s party, and as she inhaled deeply now she relished that moment in her mind when all the guys stared at her and the other girls were invisible.

It took twenty minutes to finish her joint.

She closed her eyes and swung for twenty more.

Full swings like she was ten years old—knees cocked back and then flung forward to increase momentum, fists gripping the chains.

She stared up at the night sky dotted with stars that blurred together.

Finally, Nicole stopped kicking and let the swing slowly ease until she returned to a smooth rhythm where her feet dangled lazily, her toes barely touching the ground.

She heard a whistle that startled her. It came again.

“Roxie!”

It was a man’s voice.

Nicole checked the ground to make sure she’d snubbed out the end of her joint.

“Roxie!”

From the shadows, a man emerged holding a leash.

“Come here, Roxie.”

The man noticed Nicole on the swing and came over.

“Excuse me. Did you see a dog run through here? A little Jack Russell terrier?”

Nicole shook her head. “No, sorry.”

“You been in the park long? ”

“Half hour, maybe.”

The man stood and turned in a circle as he surveyed the dark playground. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken her off the leash.”

Nicole stood from the swing, dizzy. The swaying had magnified the effects of the cannabis. She righted herself after a second. Felt good. “Roxie is her name?”

“Yeah,” the man said. He pulled out his phone. “Here’s a picture. Have you seen her before?”

Nicole moved closer to look at the man’s phone, which glowed like a flashlight in the dark night. Her eyes narrowed and her lips separated when she looked at the photo. She stuttered her words until they finally formed.

“That’s my cousin. Julie.”

“It is?” the man said. “That’s a shame. She’s missing, too. And she’s never coming home.”

Before Nicole could react, a burlap bag came down over her head.

Her muscles flexed and tensed, but the element of surprise was too great to overcome.

Hands groped her and pulled her until she was shoved into the backseat of a car.

She felt the momentum pull her into the seat as the car lurched from the parking lot and sped away.

The ride was twenty minutes, during which her hands were duct-taped behind her back and the burlap sack secured over her head. She cried and pleaded but got no response from the man who’d taken her. She knew there were others in the car.

“Why do you have that picture of my cousin?”

She heard the roll of duct tape unpeel. Then two hands reached inside the burlap and sealed the tape across her mouth. She bucked in the backseat, only to be subdued roughly by the man next to her.

Nicole finally gave in. Stopped moaning and fighting and kicking.

She lay still under the weight of the stranger until the car ride ended and they lifted her from the backseat and dragged her through the woods.

Nicole could feel the moss and sticks and leaves as they pulled her along, her feet barely working.

She thought she felt train tracks under her shoes.

Down a steep slope, eventually the rattle of a metal lock filled her ears, and then a door squeaked open.

She was dragged through an entryway and forced to her knees, with the man behind her.

She closed her eyes despite the burlap sack over her head.

His mouth was by her ear and his breath penetrated the sack.

“How do you like it? Same as your cousin? What was her name? Julie?”

His hand slid along her waist and over her abdomen, then up to her chest, where he grabbed her breast and moaned into her ear.

Nicole tried to scream through the tape as she bucked wildly away from his grasp. The man released his grip and pushed her forward. She fell face-first to the cold ground, hands behind her back and unable to break her fall. The burlap was yanked from her head.

“We’ll wait until you calm down. Ain’t no fun when you fight the whole time.”

The door closed before she could see his face.

She stayed on her stomach and listened. No voices.

No footsteps. Just silence. After a minute, she rolled onto her back and pulled her taped hands behind her legs and over her feet until her arms were in front of her.

Then she ripped the tape from her mouth—a slow pull that distorted her lips and ruined her skin.

She licked her lips and felt the sticky remains of adhesive.

Several deep breaths helped rid the shakes brought on by the man whispering in her ear.

She tried to think, to pull reason from the darkness around her.

The effects of the joint were not helping.

On her feet now, she walked slowly to the door, feeling her way through the dark until her bound hands grasped the door handle.

She shouldered it hard but found no trace of give.

She threw her hip into it, then a wild front kick that knocked her backward and landed her on the ground.

Then she cried. All she could imagine was Julie, young and scared and shoved in some dark place like this.

Her stomach swam with nausea. Finally, Nicole sat up, pushed herself into the corner, and allowed the damp earth to seep through her jeans and suck the warmth from her body.