Then Shannon mentioned Wendy, Ryan’s girlfriend, but admitted that most of the hate mail had been anonymous.
“The threats slowly ebbed. I thought whoever was behind them had found a new cause to champion, a new target, and I was relieved. It was…difficult.” She cleared her throat. “I haven’t had any trouble in a year, maybe eighteen months. I thought it was all behind me.”
“What happened to you might not be linked to your husband’s death,” Janowitz said, her mouth softening a bit. “It seems more likely that it has to do with the child. The baby you gave up for adoption. She’s missing.”
“Missing?” Shannon’s head snapped up, the weariness she’d been beginning to feel suddenly gone. “What do you mean? Missing from where?”
“Travis Settler, the man who was outside your house when the fire started, is your daughter’s adoptive father. He’s in Santa Lucia because the girl didn’t come home from school over a week ago, two days after you received the burned birth certificate.”
“My—baby?” Shannon whispered, stunned, unable to quite grasp what Janowitz was saying. Her head pounded.
“Yes. The girl that was born thirteen years ago. The baby listed on the birth certificate you found on your porch.”
Shannon felt as if her world was cracking.
Janowitz’s gaze held hers. “I think it’s more than a coincidence.”
Chapter 10
Dani peeked through the crack between the door and the doorjamb, just a slice of light that filtered into this room from the next. The little gap allowed her a view of the main living area and the fireplace on the far wall. It was built out of old, crumbling rock and had a thick mantel, upon which were framed photos. They looked like pictures of people’s faces, though she couldn’t make out their features. She wasn’t able to view the entire length of the mantel, so she wasn’t sure how many he had, but she could see three.
He also kept his hunting knife on the mantel along with a box of wooden matches, a lighter and a pistol—all items Dani could use if she ever made good her escape.
And she was working on that. She had a plan.
Above the mantel was a cracked mirror. Some of the silver had come off the back and the lines running through it caused some distortion, but in the reflection Dani could see his face and part of the living area, including the door she was locked behind.
Though she was now imprisoned in this small room, she’d been allowed to walk through the rest of the cabin every once in a while. The dilapidated house consisted of this bedroom, a foul-smelling bathroom, a tiny, unused kitchen and the main living area—the room just outside her locked door, where he spent most of his time when he was here.
The bad news was that he locked the door to “her room” whenever he stepped foot out of the shack; the good news was he was gone a lot, so she could set her plan for escape into motion. And though so far he hadn’t been rough with her, hadn’t indicated that he would hurt her, she sensed it was just a matter of time. He was using her for some vile, criminal purpose and she was determined to thwart him. To save herself. She’d do whatever she had to, because though she was still playing the part, she wasn’t about to just roll over. If he tried to hurt her or kill her she was going to give him the fight of her life. Acting cowardly now might buy her some freedom, but in the end, she figured, it wouldn’t save her.
So she was figuring a way to get out of this dump. Her quarters consisted of the small bedroom, a closet and a porta-potty, the kind used for camping. The windows of the room had been boarded shut from the outside, but there was a skylight that allowed in some natural light and, with the illumination, a peek-a-boo view of the heavens. A rag rug covered most of the rotting floorboards. He’d given her a cot with a sleeping bag, and a pillow without a case that gave off a weird odor so she never used it—couldn’t imagine what kind of cooties were inside or who else had laid their head on the scuzzy thing.
As near as she could figure there was absolutely no insulation in the wood walls and so the place was sweltering most of the time. If it hadn’t been for the skylight, which he opened with a long pole that fit around a crank, she was certain she would have suffocated or roasted to death in this pit.
Now, it was night. Dark outside, though she thought she saw a hint of moonlight. It was quiet. Just the sound of insects buzzing and chirping outside.
And the creep was going through his sick ritual. Through the crack in the door she watched him again.
Each night he went through the same motions that he was following now. He bent down and, using the long-necked butane lighter, he lit the fire. It was the same kind her dad used to ignite the lighter fluid in their barbecue at home.
Her stomach twisted as she thought of her dad and she felt her chin shake as she gave in to the fear, the dread. She closed her eyes. What if he couldn’t find her? What if this sicko had covered his tracks so well that even her father—with all his hunting and tracking experience and the skills he’d learned in the special forces of the army—had no idea where she was?
Where was her dad now? Was he still coming for her? Had he given up?…No…not her dad. Travis Settler would move heaven and earth to find her; she knew that much. She just wished he’d show up. And she wished to heaven that she’d never, ever started trying to find her birth parents. That’s what had started this…It was all her fault.
She blinked back her tears and told herself she had to quit being a baby, pull herself together and stay focused on how to thwart this weirdo.
For now, she pressed her eye against the crack and watched the perv do his thing.
The yellowed newspaper and small twigs in the blackened firebox caught fire instantly, eager flames rising to lick the kindling and small logs he’d piled on the grate.
Satisfied, he placed the small torch onto the mantel again, then stood barefoot in front of the blackened stones and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
Then the really weird stuff happened, just as it had for the past three nights. It was as if he got off on the fire, or on seeing his image in the mirror or something equally bizarre.
As the fire crackled and hissed, consuming the dry wood, he slowly took off his clothes, almost as if he was performing in some kind of bizarre striptease. All for his own benefit.
Dani had never seen an actual stripper in action, of course, but she’d heard all about it from a friend, whose single mother had gotten one of those sexy messengers for her fortieth birthday who came, sang and took off his clothes. Her friend had said it had been really, really gross even though the messenger had been a “hottie” in his twenties. He had taken off his tie, tuxedo and shirt all the way down to a little thong-thing.