InEscapable

InEscapable Part 6

Chapter Five-Reni

I push aside the lace curtain and peer down to the front lawn. The small-town ambush of paparazzi waits outside the chain link fence. A handful of paunchy reporters, old and rookie alike, cameras and mics ready to disfigure my public image and twist my words. To mold me into guilty.

They've wasted three days staking out my house and harassing George at his job, even though the cops' official statement named me as a person of interest rather than a suspect. Three days they could've spent looking for that black SUV, for the boy who took her.

The boy. That's hardly the word for him though. I've never seen him before, I'm sure of it. I would have noticed a boy with such purpose, with such mechanical calculation in his eyes. And I would name him and put an end to the red carpet outside my gate. I would tell the police where he lives, where he's keeping Leah, why he would take her. Wouldn't I?

I guess that's what's bothering me the most—I don't know, not for sure, if I would turn him in. Because during the state of blackout, I've never run from anyone before. And if my victim runs from me, I chase them down. Every single time. Yet, this time, with this boy, they say I'm the one who ran. And I remember none of it.

Why did I run? Who is he? What did he do to me? To Leah?

But it's been three days. Three days since I blacked out, three days since I woke up on the other side of the football field, three days I've been asking myself these things. They say after a person is missing for forty-eight hours, the chances for finding them are cut in half. The chances I'll remember anything from that day are slimmer than that.

I need to get out of this house.

I whistle for Dozer, Margaret's meaty blue pitbull. I hear him bounding up the stairs, and note that his claws probably need a trim. If he marks up the hardwood floor again, George will make me get rid of him. At least, that's what he threatens. But I think he wants Dozer around just as much as I do, even if for different reasons. To George, Dozer is protection. To me, Dozer is a brother, of sorts. He's a product of Margaret, like me. The day we found him, covered in new and old wounds, obviously a fighting pit, I knew she would take him in. Work her magic on him. Teach him love and security, instead of hate and violence.

Just like she did with me.

I push the thought aside as Dozer plops into a lazy sit at the door, his head tilted to the side in canine curiosity. "Want to scare some reporters?" I tell him in the same voice I make when I'm going to give him a treat. "Want to make them pee in their wittle pants?" I say, leaning down in the universal come-to-me pose.

He barks and wags his tail and turns an excited 360 in the doorway. "Come on," I say, grabbing my earphones and music pod. "Downstairs."

He waits for me to pass him before following behind me on the narrow stairwell. We reach the front door, and I show him a treat I'd grabbed from the kitchen. "Ready?" I say, my own pulse racing. George won't be happy about this. If he had his way, I'd be locked up in my room like some modern day Rapunzel. Out of sight, out of mind, out of trouble. And he'd be right. But the Department of Children and Families usually takes exception to hostage situations. Even if that hostage is lunatic me.

One deep breath, and I open the door, step out onto the wrap-around porch, and face my first obstacle. The flashes of dozens of cameras come in waves. Gentle Dozer is uninterested; his eyes stay focused on the treat in my hand. The reporters yell their questions to me. "Did you have anything to do with Leah's disappearance?" and "Describe for us what the abductors looked like" and "Where do you think Leah is now?"

I want to go back inside and slam the door behind me. But I have to get out of here. I am going to find a quiet place to think. Then maybe I can remember more of what happened to Leah.