Princess (American Princess #1)(34)
Author: Courtney Cole

Stephen closed the door and leaned his head against it.  She was probably right.  He should get some sleep.  He couldn’t even think straight anymore.  He felt like he was losing his mind.  He slumped dejectedly into the bedroom, where he dropped onto the bed fully clothed. He laid his cell phone on the pillow beside him and closed his eyes.

*  * *

It had been several days since Sydney had made the tape for Detective Daniels.  After the taping was over, he had surprised her by yanking her back to the other bedroom and throwing her inside with Danny.  She had expected that he would kill her, but he didn’t.

They had heard him rustling around in the house, then they heard the tires crunching on gravel again as he left.  Then they had stared at each other.  He had really left them there alive.

It was a surprising turn of events.

Sydney had wasted no time trying to break the door down.  She knew that if she could just kick hard enough, the padlocked hinge on the other side would break loose.  But so far, it hadn’t.  And she had been trying hard and often.  Her poor feet had deep bruises to prove it.

They were down to their last peanut butter sandwich, although they still had several bottles of water left.  The stench of ammonia was almost unbearable in the room, like an overfilled stable or an overflowing sewer pipe.  Sydney knew that if they ever got out of there alive, the smell would leave an indelible impression in her nose.  She would never get it out.

She edged up to the wall and knocked on it again, in an attempt to communicate with the other girl.  So far, her attempts had been futile.  The girl didn’t want to talk.  Today, however, she surprised them.

“What do you want?” Her voice was impatient, as though she had other things she needed to be doing.

“I want to know about you.  Why are you here?” Sydney’s voice was firm and slightly demanding.  She couldn’t imagine why the girl didn’t want to communicate.

“Does it matter?  It doesn’t change anything.”

The girl’s voice was pitifully hopeless and desolate.  Sydney’s stomach sunk a notch lower just listening to it. Would that be her in a few months… a hollow shell of a person?

“It matters to me.  Do you have a name?”

“Of course I do.  It’s Deidre.”

“I like your name, Deidre.  Why are you here?  Do you know?”

“Of course I know.  I know his secret.”

Whose secret?  Detective Daniels?”  Sydney’s head snapped up in interest.

“Heaven help me… yes.  Harrison’s secret.”  The girl started sobbing again, pitifully mewling.

“Deidre… get a hold on yourself.  What is his secret? And how do you know it?”

The sobbing melted into sniffling.

“I dated Harrison a couple of years ago.  He got drunk one night and told me things- things that he didn’t really want to share.  The next morning, when he sobered up, he completely changed.  He was like another person.  He told me that he didn’t want to have to do it, but that I was forcing him to because I tricked him into telling me things. And then he brought me here.”

The crying started again.  “But I didn’t trick him. I didn’t ask him to tell me anything!”

Sydney let her cry for a few minutes longer before she interrupted her again.

“So, he’s held you here for the past couple of years? Hasn’t anyone filed a missing persons report?”

“I don’t have any family.  I was an only child and my parents are dead.”

The perfect scenario for a crooked cop wanting to hold her captive.  Sydney shuddered and chills ran down her spine.

“I’m so sorry, Deidre.  But I do have family.  And they’re going to know that I’m gone and they’ll try to find me.”

She hoped.  She knew Stephen would, but she couldn’t speak for her parents.  Not after that video tape was released to news stations as per Harrison Daniels’ plan. They would think it was her just desserts.

“Deidre, what is Harrison’s secret?”

“His step-dad molested him for years. Ever since his mom married the guy- back when he was six.”  Horror slammed into Sydney’s chest like a cement truck.

“And his mom never did anything to stop it even though she knew.  She just looked the other way.  He’s so f**ked up now that he doesn’t know if he is coming or going.  But he hides it really well.  I never even knew it until that one night. He said it makes him do bad things.  And he does.  He does really bad things.”

Deidre’s voice wavered and then she collapsed into sobbing again.  This time, Sydney let her be.  She didn’t try to get any more information from her. The girl had clearly been through enough.

No wonder the detective hated women.  His own mother had knowingly left him at the mercy of a pedophile.  And his step-father had preyed upon an innocent, vulnerable boy to get his rocks off.  Her skin crawled at the thought and she felt like she was going to throw up.  And she had thought that her life had been bad.  This made her life look like the Andy Griffith show.

She felt a piercing sadness for the child that Harrison Daniels’ had been.  At some point, he had been a vulnerable little boy just like Danny.  And years of being exposed to a monster had turned him into one.  She tried to force all traces of pity from her heart because it wasn’t going to help her.  She couldn’t change his past but she could try and change her own future.

She got to her feet again and started kicking at the door with all of the strength in her slight body.  The door jarred with each blow as her foot connected with the old, dry wood, but it held firm. She doggedly continued kicking it with her aching feet.  She grew increasingly frustrated until she slid down the wall and slumped to the floor.  Who was she kidding?  Had she really thought she could kick down a padlocked door?

As she sat with her elbows on her knees, staring dejectedly at the floor between her legs, a montage of images flooded her mind.  Stephen’s face as he kissed her for the first time, Stephen’s eyes as they crinkled while he laughed.  Stephen holding her hand for days at a time in the hospital.

His image morphed into the cruel form of Harrison Daniels.  The detective smirked at her, taunted her, mocked her… until she felt a sudden rage fill her up and overtake her completely. She was not going to let that monster kill her.  It wasn’t going to happen. He had no right.