SARA SAT on the floor across from Lacey Patterson in the back room of the children’s clinic. Just a few days ago, Lacey had come here seeking help. Now she was back, having gone through unspeakable things, and all Sara could do was wait for the girl to talk.
“Dottie just left you at Wayne’s house?” Sara asked.
“Yeah,” Lacey said, looking down at her shoes. She had asked to sit on the floor for some reason, and Sara had obliged, wanting to make the girl as comfortable as possible. She did not want Sara close, and so they had decided Sara would sit a foot away with her back against the closed door. Lacey sat in the middle of the room.
Lacey said, “The pills made me sleepy.”
“And you don’t remember anything that went on until you woke up in the hospital?”
She nodded, then started to bite her fingernails. Time passed, and the little girl was down to the cuticle on her thumb, and working on her pinky finger when Sara reached out and stopped her.
“You’ll hurt yourself,” Sara said, then realized from Lacey’s expression how silly the warning was.
Lacey chewed at her cuticle, asking, “Is Mark going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.”
Lacey teared up, but she did not cry. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said.
“How did you hurt him?”
“He was coming after me again, and I just grabbed the knife.”
“You’re the one who cut him?”
She nodded, chewing another nail. “They were at Dottie’s, taking things out of the house and painting. I was hiding, but Mark found me.” I kicked him in the head with my foot.” She took her fingers out of her mouth. “Mark didn’t want me to come here to see you. I wanted to say goodbye, and then I was so scared I got sick. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Sara assured her. “So you came here and then Mark showed up? And then you ran and Dottie picked you up in the black car?”
Lacey nodded, but she still would not say who had been driving the car. She asked, “You don’t think that’s why he tried to kill himself, do you? Because I hit him?”
“No,” Sara assured her. “I think that Mark had a lot of other problems that led him to think that was his only choice.”
“Can I see him?” she asked in a small voice.
“If you want to.”
“I want to.”
Sara sat back, watching the girl chew her fingers. Lacey’s hair had been cut almost in a buzz cut. Dottie had probably planned to disguise her as a boy until she could sell her off to the highest bidder.
“Is my daddy coming back soon?” Lacey asked.
“Do you want to see him?”
“He didn’t know,” she said, as if she could read Sara’s mind. “I knew about Mark and Mama, but Daddy didn’t know.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “If he found out, he would’ve killed Mark.”
“How about you, honey?” Sara asked. “Did Mark ever touch you?”
She looked away.
“Lacey?”
She shook her head vehemently, but Sara did not believe her. She was still torn on the subject of Mark Patterson. On the one hand, he had been a victim, and on the other, he had obviously been an abuser.
Lacey said, “Mark was nice to me.”
Sara let this pass. “Did Dottie ever make you sit for pictures?”
“No,” she said. “Mark and Jenny did, though. They got their pictures taken, and sometimes they were in movies. I saw them doing it.”
“But you never did?”
Lacey put her hand back in her mouth. “Mark said if he ever caught me doing any of that he would tell Daddy.”
“Mark didn’t want you to do it?”
“I wanted to,” she countered, taking on a petulant child’s tone. “Jenny was doing it, and she went to a party and did it with lots of boys.”
“Do you think Jenny enjoyed doing that?”
“I tried it once, and Mark found out.” She dropped her hand into her lap. “That’s when he hit me.”
Sara let this sink in. She had never even dreamed that Mark was trying to protect his sister.
“This was when Mark got arrested, right?”
Lacey seemed surprised that Sara knew this. “Yeah.”
“But, he didn’t tell your father?”
“I told him if he did that I would tell about him and Mama.”
She said “him and Mama” in a singsong way, as if the phrase had been practiced over and over. Sara imagined that Lacey had used this as a threat on more than one occasion. She was still a child at heart, and most children would do anything they could to get their way.
“I didn’t like it anyway,” Lacey said. “I told him I wouldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t like it.” She frowned. “Dottie was mean when she was like that. Not like she was when we were playing.”
“You played with her?”
“She would baby-sit us sometimes.” Lacey smiled. “She had this game we would play, where we would get all dressed up, and she would take us to the movies and let us stay dressed up.”
“That sounds nice.”
“She wasn’t like that all the time, though.” Lacey started to pick at a scab on her leg. “She was mean sometimes. I didn’t like her then.”
“I don’t blame you,” Sara told her. “Was she the one who talked about purity?”
Lacey jerked her head up. “Where did you hear that?”
Sara decided to lie. “Mark told me.”
Lacey shook her head. “He wouldn’t have told you about that.”
“Are you sure?”
She shrugged, but Sara could see that she wasn’t. “Dottie got mad at Jenny because she said she was obsessed with it.”
“Obsessed with what?”
“What they do to little girls over there,” she mumbled. “Jenny had this report in school last year about Africa, and different tribes. She said that the women were lucky because they belonged to people. To their daddies, or their husbands, and as long as they did right they were safe.”
“Do you believe that, Lacey?”
She ignored Sara’s question. “Dottie was mad. Jenny wouldn’t drop it. Even when Mama came over and told her to stop.” She turned her head to the side. “Mama can usually make people do things that maybe they don’t want to do. She’s good at that.”
Sara took a deep breath, trying to get her head around what the child was revealing. She asked, “So your mom and Dottie told Jenny to stop talking about the mutilation?”
“They were worried she’d get in trouble at school. They had to move before because of it. A guidance counselor came to the house. Dottie said he was gonna call the police because of what Jenny said.”
“About girls being cut like that?” Sara asked, wondering at a girl obsessed with self-mutilation.
“Jenny said women over there didn’t have to worry about stuff….” She paused, then, “Like, sex stuff. And like what Dottie was doing. They don’t have that over there, because children are sacred. Girls are protected.”
“Why would Dottie cut her, Lacey?”
“She didn’t,” Lacey said. “After the Christmas trip, Jenny decided to do it to herself.”
Sara shook her head, not accepting this. “There’s no way she could have done that to herself, sweetie.”
“But, she did,” Lacey insisted. “She used a razor, only she started screaming, and Dottie ran upstairs and started screaming, too.”
“You were in the house?”
“I was downstairs with Mama because it was payday.”
Sara knew she should not have been surprised that these women had a regular payday, but it made sense that they ran their sick little publication like a business. They had been doing this for at least thirteen years, and knew what they were doing.
“Jenny yelled so loud, like she was dying,” Lacey said. “And then Mama came back downstairs and told me what Jenny had done to herself.”
Sara nodded for her to continue, because that was all she could do.
“They couldn’t take her to the hospital, so Mama said the best thing they could do was finish what she started….” Lacey paused. “So, they did.”
“Did they anesthetize her?” Sara asked.
“Mama gave her some of her pills so she wouldn’t get an infection.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Sara told her. “Did they knock her out before they finished cutting her? Or make her go to sleep so she wouldn’t feel it?”
“I think she fell asleep on her own when they started,” Lacey provided. “At least, she stopped screaming after a while.”
Sara chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of a response. She asked, “What made Jenny do that to herself?”
“Carson and Rory were making fun of her when we went skiing, like she would go with them, and she wouldn’t.”
“Go with them, meaning sex?”
She nodded. “She said she wouldn’t, that they weren’t clean, and they got mad at her and called her a whore, and she didn’t know why, but when Cooper told her that she had before, this time she went over to their house with Mark.” She shrugged. “Mark put something in her drink to make her act funny and not remember.”
“Do you know what it was?”
“Something that makes you feel really bad the next day,” Lacey answered. “She got sick to her stomach and had to stay home from school for two days, and Dottie said she had the flu.”
Rohypnol, Sara thought. The date rape drug.
Lacey continued, “She did what she did, you know. Mark says that drugs just make you do the things you want to do anyway.”
“That’s not true,” Sara told her. “Especially with the drug he probably gave her.”
Lacey shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “She liked Cooper Barrett anyway.”
“Was he on the ski retreat?” Sara asked.
“Him and Rory and Carson,” she said. “They slipped notes under the door at the hotel, and when we got up one morning, there was a sign over the room number that said some mean things.” She looked up at Sara. “I guess they were the ones who stole stuff out of her locker at school.”
“What kinds of stuff?”
“Pictures and things. They tore them up, so she had to stop keeping stuff in there except for books.”
“I guess that upset her a lot.”
Lacey shrugged, but Sara could tell it had bothered her.
“Why did Mark do that to her, do you think?” Sara asked. “Did Dottie ask him to take her to the party?”
Lacey nodded, and Sara put her hand to her stomach, thinking about Mark pimping out Jenny Weaver to recruit more kids for Dottie.
“Jenny was upset about them bothering her,” Lacey said. “And Dottie told Jenny just to go with them again and that would make them stop, but Jenny didn’t want to. She said she wanted to be pure.”
“So, that’s what made her cut herself between the legs?” Sara asked.
Lacey said, “She started it, but Dottie had to finish it.”
Lacey returned to the scab, and Sara watched as she picked it until it started to bleed.
Sara took a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed the blood off the girl’s leg. She asked, “Did you ever see what Dottie did to Jenny that night?”
Again, she shook her head. “I wasn’t allowed to talk to her anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because Mama told me not to,” she said, looking back down at the scab as she picked it. “Mama told me if I talked to Jenny, then she would let Dottie do me the same way.” She indicated her lap. “Down there.”
“Was your mother mad at Jenny, too?”
With her head down, Lacey’s voice was muffled. Sara had to strain to hear her say, “Mama said Mark had been with Jenny, and that wasn’t right. It made Jenny crazy, and that’s why she did that to herself.” She paused. “Children should only be with adults, because adults know what they’re doing, and kids don’t.”
“Are you sure your daddy didn’t know about this?”
She shook her head again, her lips pressed together in a straight line. “He would’ve killed Mark.”
“Don’t you think he would have been mad at your mother, too?” Sara decided to push her a little further. “Don’t you think he would have been upset that your mother was pregnant?”
Lacey’s head jerked up. “How did you know?”
“I know a lot of things,” Sara told the girl.
“It was Mark’s fault she got pregnant,” Lacey said, and again, Sara was struck by the practiced tone. Obviously, this was something the child had been taught. “Mama told Daddy she couldn’t be with him when she got sick again. That’s how she knew it was Mark’s.”
Again, Sara took a deep breath. She doubted very seriously whether or not they would ever know who the real father of that baby was.
“Last Saturday,” Sara began. “What happened?
“Mama went up to Skatie’s to find Mark, and she got sick.”
“Sick how?” Sara asked.
Lacey looked back down at her leg. “She drove us up there, looking for Mark, and she got real sick and had to go to the bathroom.”
Sara tried to remember how tall Grace Patterson was. She was a small woman, and Tessa could have easily mistaken her for a teenage girl.
Sara asked, “Did you go with her into the bathroom?”
Lacey nodded.
“And then did Jenny come?”
“She saw us go in.”
“What happened then?”
Lacey gave a long sigh. “The baby came out from between her legs, and there was a lot of blood….” She paused, still not looking up at Sara. “Mama said it was sick from the cancer medicine she took, and they had to take care of it.”
Sara swallowed hard.
“She told me to go wait in the car while she and Jenny took care of it.”
“Why did she make Jenny stay?”
“To punish her. It was Jenny’s fault all of this happened. If she hadn’t been with Mark to begin with, then Mama wouldn’t have had to do what she did.”
Sara leaned her head against the door, trying to think of something to say. She was amazed at the power Grace Patterson and Dottie Weaver had over these children. That Sara had been in their presence and not noticed how horrible they were was something for which she would never forgive herself.
Lacey made sure she had Sara’s attention, then told her, “Mama told Jenny if she didn’t stay and help, then she’d tell you what Jenny had been doing.”
“Me?” Sara asked, unable to hide her shock.
“Jenny wanted to be a doctor for kids like you are,” the girl said. “She didn’t think you’d help her if you knew she was having sex with all those people.” The practiced tone came back to her voice as she said, “‘If you don’t do this, I’m gonna tell Dr. Linton what a whore you are.’”
Sara felt horrified her name had been used to threaten a child. “That’s not true,” Sara told her vehemently. “That’s not true at all.”
Lacey shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
Sara wanted to shake her. “I would have done everything I could to help her, Lacey. Just like I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“I don’t need help now,” Lacey said, her tone implying that it was too late.
Sara was so angry that tears welled into her eyes. She had autopsied the baby. She knew exactly what Grace and Jenny had done to the poor creature. To think Jenny complied in the mutilation for fear of being exposed to Sara made bile rise into her throat.
“Mama said that a lot,” Lacey told her. “Jenny wanted you to think she was a good person.”
Sara put her hand to her throat. “She was a good person.”
Lacey looked down at the floor. “Whatever.”
“What happened to Jenny was horrible. It wasn’t her fault.”
Again, Lacey shrugged.
“Sweetheart,” Sara said, trying to sound reassuring. She reached for Lacey’s hand, but the girl pulled away.
Sara let a minute pass before asking, “Why do you think Jenny threatened to kill Mark?”
Lacey shrugged, but Sara could tell she knew the answer.
“Do you think she wanted it to stop?”
She shrugged.
“Do you think this was the only way she thought she could stop it, by pointing that gun at Mark? By ending up in…” Sara stopped, feeling a heavy weight settle on her chest. Jenny had known that she would end up on a table in the morgue. Making Jeffrey pull that trigger was her way of forcing Sara to see what was happening to her.
Lacey looked up, her face completely devoid of emotion. “Jenny knew better than that,” she said. “She knew it could never be stopped.”
Sara reached for a response, more afraid than anything that what the girl said was true. “We’ll catch Dottie before she does this again, Lacey. I promise we’ll do everything we can to stop her.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugged, as if Sara had just told her an impossible fantasy. She asked, “Is my daddy gonna be here soon? I wanna go home.”
“Lacey,” Sara began, not knowing what else to say.
The girl looked up, tears in her eyes. The past few days had aged her. She no longer looked like a carefree little girl with nothing more to worry about than whether or not she would make the cheerleading squad. The people who had abused her were gone, but she would always carry around what they did to her in her heart. Looking at her, Sara had never felt so helpless in her life. She wanted to do something, to help, but she knew it was much too late for that. She also knew that there were more kids like Lacey out there, more children who had fallen victim to Dottie Weaver—and many more who still could.
Lacey wiped her nose with the back of her hand, sniffing loudly. She managed a smile for Sara, repeating, “Is my daddy gonna be here soon? I wanna go home.”