In part two of this episodic psychological thriller, Nicole Jeffords. convinced that healer, Victor Goodlove, who disappeared ten years earlier is buried under her studio, continues her search for him, contacting old patients all over Austin and dis...
Here's one terrible thing the kidnappers had casually mentioned to Emil. Cecily Rose had been fed small amounts of an undetectable poison that would kill her within twenty-four hours if the right antidote weren't administered. Information about the poison would be withheld until the file provided by Emil at the rest stop bathroom was fully activated. During the drive Roberta alternated between shouting directions at me and googling poisons on her iPhone: arsenic, cyanide, strychnine, Amanita mushrooms, thallium, hemlock, oleander. She'd recite aloud the properties of these various substances, and then the cures, if she could find them. By the time we'd bumped over all those country roads and reached our destination, she fancied herself an expert.
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The small dilapidated structure we'd seen from afar turned out to be not a shed, but one of those tiny houses that have become the rage in recent years as cute, functional, alternative living spaces. Below is one of those structures at its best.
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The tiny house where Cecily Rose was imprisoned was nothing like that. From the outside it looked rundown and decrepit, if not outright creepy because there it was, small and alone, under a few trees in an empty field in the middle of nowhere.
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Roberta was out of the car so fast, there was no stopping her. We arrived at the same time as the unmarked sedans, and Alicia and Emil in their Mercedes. An ambulance from San Marcos was on standby. Suddenly the tiny house in its peaceful country setting was surrounded by cop cars and officials, FBI agents who made no secret of the raw gunpower at their hips. Roberta wanted to be the first to go inside and see Cecily Rose, but a cop interceded before she got anywhere near the building. There was a small altercation. "I don't care who you are, Ma'am," the cop said, taking her by the arm. The first people allowed inside were the police. The family would have to wait until there was an all clear.
