Deception

Chapter 30: The Boogeyman

His stride is ever so powerful, his eyes colder than I remember. He has aged but not in the best of ways. He looks ever so redoubtable. As to think I never knew that was possible.

I stand up abruptly from the table, partly to get some oxygen flowing in my body. His eyes narrow at me as he approaches me, a wicked smirk plastered on his face.

"Where is she?" I say immediately, my fists in tight balls. His smile widens.

"She's here, in the car out back."

"Let her go." I breathe out slowly.

"Not so fast. Why don't we have a seat Charlie?" his eyebrows raise. He pulls out his own chair and plops down on, looking up at me with ice blue eyes.

Slowly, I sit down in my chair and put my hand in my pocket. I feel around for the pocketknife.

"Thinking of stabbing me again?" the man chuckles.

How could...how could he know?

"You're quite brave one. I would have considered you the coward and Elizabeth the warrior, considering she died for you."

His words and filled with malevolence; I must close my eyes due to the painful tears threatening to fall.

"But now you offering yourself to me? To save a whore like your mother?" he whispers across the table. My eyes fly open with rage.

"How dare you!" I lean over the table and look him in the eye.

"You're making a scene little Charlie, but I assume that was your plan." He accuses.

"What do you want from me?" I growl, my eyes sting with poison.

"Let's go back to that night." He suggests, his smile wide and his eyes glimmering. I shake my head.

"You want your mother or not?" a look of revulsion plays on his face.

"I need you close your eyes. Think. I know you remember so much more than you said you did to all those reporters and news articles. I know you remember everything." He smiles.

"I was eight." I seethe but he only shakes his head at me.

"But you're a smart girl. You have always wondered why I killed Ellie? Why I didn't run after you haven't you?" he asks and I look outside towards the window. For a full year after the kidnapping, police officers and therapist had me relive that night in my head so they could get answers out of me, but I never told them. The words were strangled by my tongue, always refusing to leave my heart. But Gary was right. I remembered. I remembered it all.

"Close your eyes, Charlie."

I shake my head. Tears are streaming down my cheeks now but I no longer care if I look like a child. My childhood was stripped of me. It was stolen and could never be returned. I refuse to go back there.

"But don't you want to know...Why... you?" he employs and my eyes look up to meet his.

"For little Ellie." He smiles, his eyes blackened. And in one moment weakness, I cannot resist. I close my eyes.

Flashback.

"Daddy you have to read Booboo and Lala's bedtime story!" Ellie exclaims from across our bedroom as she pouts in her twin bed. I hug onto my teddy bear and trace my fingers over our floral painted bedroom wall.

"Elizabeth, it is 9 o'clock and you have school tomorrow. Not tonight." My dad says, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. He walks over to me and I smile up at him.