When I woke up again, my parents were sitting on opposite corners of the hospital bed. The expressions on their faces made me think that someone had died.
“Did something happen?” I asked them.
“We should call the woman,” Mom said.
“Call who?” I asked.
Mom’s face wilted into a balled-up tissue.
Dad angled away from me. “We have to tell her.”
Tell me what? I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing anchors strapped to my feet, pulling me underwater. Mason was down there too, beneath the surface. He swam to me. I wove my fingers with his.
It’s going to be okay, Mason said. You were always okay. That’s what drew me to you. He cradled my face in his hands and kissed my mouth, giving me his last breath.
I sat up with a jolt.
Special Agent Thomas was standing at the foot of my bed, a dark red folder tucked beneath her arm. “Good morning, or afternoon, I should say.” She checked her watch.
“Where’s Mason?” I asked, noticing others were there too: Mom, Dad, Agent Brody, a nurse, and some other woman. Who was she?
Agent Thomas nodded to the nurse. Somehow, he knew that was his cue to leave.
“I can stay,” said the woman, flashing an awkward smile. She wore a name badge I couldn’t read, as well as a navy-blue suit that didn’t quite fit; pants and sleeves too short, a blouse that hung too low.
“Would you like it if Ms. Davis stayed in the room?” Agent Thomas asked me.
I shook my head. Who was Ms. Davis? I wanted them all to go. Why were they even there? And why was the light so bright?
Dad: “I’m going to take a walk.”
Mom: “I’ll stay.”
Ms. Davis: “I’ll stop by a little later to check in.”
Special Agent Thomas took her usual seat by my bed, while Mom sat in the corner, and Agent Brody took notes by the door.
How many more times?
Would we have to repeat.
This same scenario.
Before they would tell me about Mason?
“Did you find him?” I asked.
“We found some other things,” she said.
“What other things?”
“Audio equipment. The voices we believe you heard while in captivity were from audio clips of people screaming … from horror movies and Halloween-centric playlists. We’ll have you verify to be sure, but—”
“Wait, what?”
“It seems you were the only one in captivity.”
“Aside from Mason.”
“As I said before, we couldn’t find evidence that anyone, except for you and the suspect, were in that house.”
“Have you looked for fingerprints inside the air ducts? I didn’t think so.” Why were they wasting my time?
“We found something else.” She pulled a photo from her folder: a picture of the emerald bracelet—the one the monster had pretended to buy. Beside the bracelet was a silver box and a purple ribbon.
“Have you seen this before?” Agent Thomas asked.
“It’s from Norma’s Closet.”
“It was in the suspect’s office. We found the bracelet wrapped up on his desk.” She showed me a photo of the tag attached. It had my name written across it, as well as the words Love always, Mason.
“How did Mason get this bracelet?”
“The suspect’s name was Martin Gray.”
Agent Thomas pulled out another photo: a picture of the guy who took me, the one from Norma’s. The photo only showed him from the shoulders up, but still I recognized his dark brown eyes, his wavy hair, and his squarish chin.
“Do you recognize this man?” she asked.
“That’s him,” I said.
“The man who abducted you?”
“Yes.”
“Martin Gray was twenty-four years old, had one prior felony, and owned the house where you were being kept. Was that day at Norma’s the first time you ever saw him? Or might you have seen him sometime before that?”
I shook my head. “I’m not really sure.”
“Are you saying that you may have seen the suspect prior to the day he took you?”
“I’m saying that I’ve racked my brain—for the past seven months—trying to remember if I knew him from someplace or saw him somewhere … But I just don’t know.”
“We’ll have more pictures for you to look at. Maybe one of them will jog your memory.”
Did I even trust my memory?
“The house had been passed down to the suspect when his father died years ago,” she continued. “According to a neighbor, the mother left some years before that. We’re still trying to create a timeline and find the mother’s whereabouts. It seems things went downhill shortly after her departure, when the father started drinking.”
“How do you know all this?”
“The house had been a working farm at one point,” Agent Thomas said. “The owners had supplied eggs and honey to local farm stands and suppliers. They’d also sold produce and baked goods. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“No,” I lied. They’d gotten things wrong, twisted all around.
“In the suspect’s office, we found more items: pictures of you, some poetry you’d published in the school’s literary magazine.” She read from a list. “There was also a green scarf, a pair of mittens, a red hair comb … We’d like to see if you can ID some of the items.”
“A green scarf,” I said, thinking aloud, remembering having lost a cashmere one, the color of spearmint. I had a red comb too, but I was pretty sure it was in my running bag, back home.
“There’s one last thing before we call this a day.” Agent Thomas took another photo from the folder: a picture of Mason’s hand.
I recognized the scar on his thumb, his crooked fourth finger, the deep creases of his knuckles, and the honey-colored hair that sprouted from his wrist, where there was also a spray of freckles.
My eyes welled up. “You did find him.”
Agent Thomas shook her head. “This is a photo of the suspect’s hand, the owner of the house, the man who shot himself.”
“No,” I argued, shaking my head.
She looked back at my mom, which was obviously the cue; Mom came and joined me on the bed.
“This isn’t right,” I told them. “I’m not giving up. As soon as I’m out of here, I’m going to look for Mason.”
“For now, you should rest,” Mom said, pressing the nurse’s call switch. Time to drug me up some more.