COSMO
AfterthecareDetective Neely had shown me, I was pretty sure he was my only hope. Sure, he’d been surprised when I climbed up into his lap, but he hadn’t shoved me away, and that told me everything I needed to know about the man who could save me. If I was ever going to get out of this place, Detective Neely and his misplaced empathy was my best bet. He’d comforted me when memoriesof Daddy had overwhelmed me.
And if that didn’t work, Agent Ellis might be an alternative. I hadn’t missed the lingering glances whenever he had to take me to the bathroom. The one man I didn’t seem able to affect at all was the one in charge—Special Agent Knight.
The day after Detective Neely had come to visit me, I lay in anticipation of his return. He had promised he would be back, and I needed him to keep that promise, so I knew if I could rely on him.
Neely didn’t show up. My disappointment was bigger than I had expected. How had I screwed up? I thought I had done everything right. Little space was never hard to achieve as I slipped in and out of it subconsciously. Detective Neely had made it easier with his calm, reassuring voice. It’d been over two weeks since anyone talked to me with such compassion. I was drawn to the man. I needed him, maybe even more than I needed to get out of these four claustrophobic walls.
I buried my feelings as deep as I could, and despite trying to keep them at bay, my doubts and fear grew. When evening came and Detective Neely didn’t show up, I took comfort the only way I knew how, by hiding under the blankets and slipping into little space. I dreamt of a simpler time when I had a Daddy who would do anything for me… not one who betrayed me.
The soft click of the door opening startled me, and my heart skipped a beat. Detective Neely. I pulled the blanket from my head and sat up, then slumped back.
Special Agent Knight closed the door behind him and advanced into the room with a chair in hand. I shuffled until my back was pressed up against the wall. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them as I peered at him from under my lashes.
The FBI shouldn’t have been the one to pick me up. The local police should have, but that hadn’t gone according to plan, and here I was. Stuck. Willing them to see innocence when, in fact, I’d left a trail of blood.
Knight placed the chair in front of the bed with its back to me and straddled it. Seconds passed as he assessed me without speaking. I couldn’t get a read on the man. He was too closed off and didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like Neely did. How he’d lasted so long as a police detective was beyond me. Or maybe it was just me who obscured his vision.
I liked that possibility a little too much.
“Who are you, Cosmo?” Knight asked softly, his tone contemplative. “It’s like you’ve never existed. Who wanted it that way?”
I tightened my arms around my legs and took deep breaths to calm my wildly beating heart. Behind this man’s exterior hid a coiled, detached savagery. I’d encountered enough evil men to sense it. It was a good thing law enforcement had him on their side. He could become an excellent bad man. I was sure of it.
“We’ve checked records of the schools around, and we haven’t had a match. How is that possible? Didn’t you go to school?”
No, I didn’t. Mother taught me everything she knew, and Daddy was smart. They were all I needed. Daddy had said so, but Daddy had also said he loved me, and then he’d tried to put me down like I was an animal with a contagious disease that he had no choice but to get rid of.
“I don’t think you understand how this works. You’re our prisoner, and if you don’t cooperate, you could go away forever. Work with us, and we can see if we can cut a deal. We know you were working with a partner. So many people dead because of you. A single gunshot wound to the head except for those last two murders. Things got messy there, didn’t they? Something happened that screwed up whatever plan you had that night, and I want to know everything. Every little detail, starting with who you are and who you work with.”
I plucked at some lint on the blanket wrapped around me. Would I sleep under decent covers ever again? I blinked as the image of my bedroom surfaced in my mind. Pink walls with rainbows and sparkles. The ceiling decorated with the prettiest flowers. The soft rug I loved sinking my toes into and the bed that Daddy screamed at me not to bounce on. I’d continued bouncing anyway, just to make him mad enough to put me across his knees and spank my naked bottom. Then he and Mother would argue about whether he enjoyed looking at my naked ass while he spanked me. Was that why he’d continued doing it, even though I grew older? Why hadn’t he just used the display box? That had been her favorite punishment for me as I grew out of the little princess she’d wanted me to be and became Daddy’s G.I. Joe.
Sometimes I would spend the entire day in that box until Daddy came home. Then I would have to listen to them fight again about why she enjoyed torturing me. Those times were the best when a worried Daddy would carefully take me out of the display box and hold me in his arms, showering me with love and care.
When had that turned into hate?
She was my wife, and you made me kill her. I killed my wife for you. You had to be stopped, Cosmo. It’s the only way to end this obsession I have with you.
“Goddammit, are you listening to me?” Agent Knight snapped and sprang to his feet, pointing his finger at me. “Who the hell are you, and where did you come from? Who do you work for?”
I shrank back, and tears sprang into my eyes, even though they didn’t seem to move this man the way they had Neely. But I was desperate for anything that would drive this man away from me. He couldn’t help me. The FBI hadn’t brought me here because they were doing things by the books. I hadn’t gotten my right to an attorney. They hadn’t offered me a phone call. The only thing that mattered was that they would get answers. They were in for a long wait.
“No, don’t give me that look. Stop pretending to be a fucking baby. We all know you’re not. Give me something. Who are you? Cosmo what? What’s your last name?”
He interrogated me for almost an hour, determined to drag answers out of me he would never get. I would only talk to Neely. I cringed, I whimpered, I covered my ears, I cried… but none of it got through to Knight. He simply didn’t care. He wanted to know where I’d gotten the car I drove when they caught me. Where had I found the gun? Over and over again, the same questions. And every time I gave him the same answer: silence.
At last, he seemed to have had enough. He strode out and slammed the door shut. Relief he was done surged through me, but then he returned with a file and showed me pictures. Photographs of dead bodies… some of which I was familiar with.
The nervousness and terror of an hour of being screamed at, on top of seeing all those photos, became too much. I barfed all over myself and his shoes. He jumped back, cursing.
“You want to be a tough guy and not say anything, kid? Fine, be a tough guy.”
Another bang of the door and I was alone, sitting in vomit, with nothing but the dead for company.
They didn’t feed me that night. They didn’t allow me to take a shower either. I used a corner of the blanket to clean the vomit from the awful overall, but I couldn’t get rid of the stench. Then I mopped up the floor as best I could and threw the blanket into the corner.
Curled up on the bare bed, I wrapped my arms around myself and clenched my teeth, shivering. Without the blanket, it was icy cold in the room. The gnawing hunger in my belly didn’t help either, and the tears that pooled in my eyes were real this time.
I’d been too ambitious in my will to live. I should have done what Daddy had taught me all these years—use the exit strategy if it was needed. But they’d taken my clothes and along with it the pill that could have ended it all.
And now all I could do was wait and hope for mercy I wasn’t sure would ever come, but I had to cling to hope. A hope that sprang from being alive, even though I should’ve died eighteen years ago. If I’d been able to escape that fate, surely I could cheat this one too.