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...
The all clear came five minutes after the cops had entered the tiny house, flattening themselves against the building with guns at the ready before moving through the door. When the family was allowed in, a female cop was kneeling beside Cecily Rose, telling her in the softest voice that everything was okay now, everything was fine. Another cop, also female, was removing Cecily Rose's blindfold and cutting through the ropes that bound her hands. Alicia and Emil were permitted to hug Cecily Rose and sit by her, but not do any talking until the cops had finished questioning the child. Roberta broke that rule by running to Cecily Rose's cot, shrieking "Grandma's here, honey! Grandma's here! Oh my god! Can she even see me?"
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Cecily Rose looked terrible. Her eyes were blurry and vague from the blindfold. She was thin and dirty in the nightie she'd been wearing for over a week. She'd wet the cot, tied up and unable to go to the bathroom once her captors took off. And clearly she was drugged, too weak and addle-brained to form words or comprehend what was going on around her.
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Ya Ting (cropped), Jonathan Kos-Read, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
As I watched from a few feet away, a police photographer was quietly snapping pictures of Cecily Rose and the interior of the tiny house — which was comprised, as far as I could tell, of a main living area and small kitchen and bath. The place was pretty filthy. I detected paint smears on the wood planked floor (I was told later the house had been used as an art studio) and rodents had gotten in, made nests, infested the place with their gamy wildlife odors. Food smells hung in the air, too, along with the sharp odor of Cecily Rose's urine. You had to pinch your nose the first few minutes to accustom yourself to the mustiness and bad smells. And the windows were streaked and dusty from months or years of neglect, so there wasn't much light coming in.
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Abandoned trailer park, Matthew Hester, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
While the lady cops were questioning Cecily Rose, we heard the scream of an ambulance in the distance. And Emil's phone rang, the opening chords of Bach's Partita No. 3, totally incongruous in the circumstances. It was the kidnappers' spokesperson, welcoming Emil and family to the house, saying he would call back with information about that teeny weeny bit of poison Cecily Rose had ingested once he saw that the file, rom1bk3, had been completely downloaded.
