27

 

When she heard the snap of the lock, Maven slumped against the damp basement wall.

The black silhouette walked up the steps and disappeared.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, her mind refused to process what she was looking at. She stared through the chain link as three other women stared back at her. Maven found her voice. “Oh, my goodness.”

One woman had long, unkempt blonde hair. Was she the mystery lady from Moses’s drawing? Beyond the woman, there was a mattress and another gate. Where did that gate lead?

“Are you OK? Did he hurt you? Why are you here?” the woman asked.

“Who are you? What is going on here? I don’t understand.” Maven had her own questions.

“He kidnapped us,” one of the women said.

“All of you?” Maven looked closer at the women. They looked like the women from Moses’s—Joshua’s —drawing. It hadn’t been a cartoon, it was Joshua’s reality. “How long have you been here?”

“I’ve been here nine years.” The brunette in the cage next to Maven’s spoke up. She was painfully thin and her brown hair was shaggy. “My name is Tricia Bell.”

Nine years? Her name was familiar. Maven had heard it only a few weeks ago on the anniversary of her going missing. Her family had held a candlelight vigil. Her mother had sobbed as she told the newscaster she didn’t believe her daughter was dead. “Your mother’s still looking for you, Tricia. You are not forgotten.”

Tricia stared at Maven, but said nothing.

“What about my family?” The woman looked so young. “I’m Denise Turner. I’ve been here about a year and a half.”

Maven looked at her. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be fifteen on my next birthday.”

“I’ve seen your family on the news. They love you.”

Maven looked at the blonde, still crouched in the corner. “And you?”

“I’ve been here seven years. My name is Lara. Lara Holt.”

Maven saw glimpses of Joshua in her face. She must be his mother.

The names sent a shockwave through Maven. How had these women survived for so long? Maven couldn’t imagine the horrors they’d endured.

These were names she’d heard for years. The families often held vigils for these missing women begging the public not to forget their loved one and asking for leads on their disappearances.

Maven always took a moment to pray when she saw something on the TV about them, but she’d assumed the worst, that they were dead and buried in a hidden grave somewhere.

Never had she thought they were all still alive. And together. And now she sat across from them. “This can’t be real.”

From the corner of her cage, Lara whispered, “Shh. He doesn’t like us to talk to each other, but if we talk very quietly he can’t hear us.”

“She’s right, and it is very real.” Tricia whispered, but the bitterness seeped through. “Believe me, we all thought the same thing at first. Why are you here? Not to be rude, but you’re way too old for his tastes. He likes young girls. That’s why he took Denise. We were getting to old for him.”

“I was Joshua’s foster mother. Is he here? He told me he was here.”

The blonde woman started sobbing.

“Lara is Joshua’s mother, but we all love him. He took Joshua away. We haven’t seen him since.” Tricia explained. “That was about a month ago, but Reuben claimed he brought him back home. We haven’t been allowed to see him yet.”

Reuben? So that was the monster’s name.

“Why not?”

“Who knows? He does what he wants and we can’t stop him.” Denise said, but her voice held no emotion.

Maven’s stomach soured as she understood the meaning of those words.

“But he did show us a picture of Joshua and it has a date. We think he’s somewhere in the house, but we don’t know that for sure.”

At least Joshua was still alive—probably.

“He was with me, but he was kidnapped from my home.” Maven went through her story three times before the women stopped asking questions. She looked over at Joshua’s mother. “Lara, you don’t look as if you’re chained.”

The other two women had chains around their legs in spite of being in a cage.

“I’m not. He knows I won’t leave without Joshua.”

Maven didn’t understand. “But you could leave, and then bring help back.”

“Reuben would kill us all, including Joshua before she could get back,” Tricia said.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

These poor girls were so brainwashed, they’d stopped trying to escape.

But Maven wasn’t young and naive. “There must be a way out. And he doesn’t stay here all the time, does he? There has to be away out of here.”

“He doesn’t stay, but he always knows what we’re doing.” Still whispering, Tricia stood up and moved closer to the chain link separating her from Maven and Lara.

“And it doesn’t matter. If we try to escape, he’ll kill the rest of us before the cops can get to us,” Denise said.

“He just tells you that to control you.”

Quiet descended on the group.

Lara finally looked up. “It’s true. I tried to escape one time when Joshua was younger. I just wanted him to have a better life.”

Sick to her stomach, Maven asked, “What happened?”

Tricia shrugged. “He walked down those steps and shot Melissa. There was nothing we could do to help her.”

Maven stared at the women. How could something so horrible be going on and no one know about it? These poor women had been living down here all these years.

It was as if Denise read her mind. “It’s not all that bad when we aren’t chained up. We have a bathroom down here with a shower. And a refrigerator for food. Not that he remembers to stock it very often,” Denise said.

Living in a dark damp basement? Not too bad? These women seemed to have completely given up on the thought of freedom.

“Not that it matters now,” Lara said.

“What do you mean?” Maven asked.

“There’s only allowed to be three of us at any given time. Three cages. Three women. He’s going to kill one of us,” Denise whimpered.

Maven looked at her fellow captives. “Are you saying there have been others besides Melissa?”

Silence fell on the group once again.

After a time, Tricia answered. “I was the first. There were three other girls over the years that he brought down. But after a while he took them, and then they were gone.”

“I remember Mindy,” Lara said. “She was here for about a week before she disappeared.”

The horror of their words was too much for Maven to process. After several deep breaths, she managed to speak. “I think we need to pray.”