Appetite for Innocence: A Dark Psychological Thriller Read online

  “No. It was fine.” I force my voice to be flat.

  Phil looks over at Blake. Today, he’s the silent one. He studies me, trying to read my body language and searching for clues in my eye movements.

  “When did you know she was pregnant?” Phil asks.

  “After she took the test.”

  “Did she show it to you?”

  I shake my head. John showed it to me. He came running out of the bathroom waving it in his hands.

  “We did it, Sarah! We did it. We’re pregnant.” He skipped around the kitchen like a little kid while I stared in amazement. I’d never seen him let his guard down and certainly never act giddy. What had she done to him?

  When she came out of the bathroom, she wasn’t smiling. Her face was flat. Eyes dull and emotionless. It was the same expression she wore every day as she drifted through the house like she wasn’t even there. I couldn’t stand her. What did he see in her?

  “That’s so great,” I said feigning a smile, pretending to be happy for him.

  “I think it’s a good idea to put her on bed rest while she’s pregnant. I want to make sure nothing happens to this baby. You’re going to have to take care of her while I’m away. Can you do that for me?” he asked.

  I close my eyes, forcing the memories back under. Blake’s eyes are on me. His gaze never falters.

  “How did you feel when you found out she was pregnant?” Phil asks.

  “Disgusted.” It’s the truth and I grew more disgusted with her as the days went on.

  “Were you jealous?”

  I narrow my eyes. How dare he ask me that? How could I be jealous of her? I’ll never be jealous of her. She might think she’s special. That she was his chosen one, but I was more important to him than she’d ever be. It didn’t matter that she was having his baby.

  “Not at all. Why would I be jealous of her? She was going to get all fat and ugly.”

  It was why he’d chosen her to carry the baby instead of me. He didn’t want to damage my body. He wanted me to stay beautiful. I couldn’t have any ugly stretch marks or saggy hips. Her body would be forever changed after the baby. Everyone knows you never get your body back no matter how hard you work at it or how much you pretend. I hadn’t understood why he’d chosen her when he announced he was going to get Ella pregnant, but it didn’t take long to figure out it was because he needed me to stay pretty.

  We could’ve raised the baby like she was our own. It wouldn’t have mattered if she carried it. Lots of women had other people carry their babies. She was simply our surrogate and after the baby was born, we’d get rid of her. But then she went and ruined everything.

  Now we’re here and I have to talk to these stupid investigators every day who aren’t any closer to finding John than they were before. They told me when they arrived today that Enrique finally agreed to talk to them. Blake has been to see him twice but he refused to speak to them about anything. Now he’s saying he’ll talk as long as they can get him extra privileges in prison. Maybe even decrease the number of years he has to spend there. He’s such a loser. He’s going to fill their heads with lies and they’re even stupider because they’re going to believe him.

  I can’t wait for this to be over. I miss him so much. The only thing getting me through the days is knowing how much he misses me too. Sometimes at night, I can feel him thinking about me. That’s how strong our connection is and it doesn’t matter what they do or how hard they try to break me because I’m unbreakable.

  ELLA

  (THEN)

  He’s obsessed with getting me pregnant. I’ve become his pet science project. Every morning he makes me take handfuls of vitamins. Things that are supposed to be good for the baby. Something called folic acid. He doesn’t know I hide them under my tongue and spit them out in the toilet later. I’ll do anything I can to prevent this from happening.

  He put me on bedrest upstairs. I’m in one of the guest bedrooms down the hallway, but I don’t know what kind of a guest you lock in their room with a padlock. I’m not allowed to get out of bed unless it’s to go to the bathroom or do my daily exercises. He has Sarah do prenatal yoga with me that’s supposed to prepare my body for pregnancy and makes me listen to CDs about my cervix opening. I recite the pledge of allegiance during them. It’s the only thing I know by heart. Everything else I used to know seems to have left my head. There was a time when I would’ve recited my Bible verses, but those days are gone. I’m on a special diet too. Completely organic and full of protein.

  “It’s important that you get more protein,” he says at every meal.

  I throw it all up when I’m allowed to use the bathroom after dinner. The worst part is that I no longer get to drink wine at dinner. I’m stuck with milk because it’s supposed to be good for my bones and I miss my wine. I stare at his glass longingly as he drinks. Sometimes I think about sneaking a bottle into my room.

  He has a heightened interest in me. He’s increasing the odds of getting me pregnant by increasing the number of times he has sex with me every day. I hate it. Without my wine, I’ve lost my insulating bubble. I focus on not getting pregnant. I imagine my cervix closing up. Each time he plants his seed in me, I focus on rejecting it, hoping my mind is powerful enough to make it a reality. I close my eyes and imagine his poison leaving my body.

  Every morning I take a pregnancy test. Each time it comes back negative, his face crumples in sadness. Until today.

  Today it came back positive. But I will not have this thing growing inside me. I refuse. I will not bring his devil child into the world. I have a purpose now. A reason to live and I thought all my reasons were gone. I have to find a way to kill this thing.

  ELLA

  (NOW)

  It’s been six days. Six days and I don’t feel any freer than before. I’m locked in this hospital room. They said we could leave yesterday, but then came up with some excuse about the plane not being ready. We don’t get to fly home on a regular plane because they don’t want the public to see us. They don’t want the media to know where we are even though I’m pretty sure my house is the first place they’ll look. They say they want to stay one step ahead of John in case he’s still looking for us, but that doesn’t make any sense either because he already knows where I live.

  They’ve figured out how he knew everything about us. They scoured through Paige’s and my Facebook and Instagram accounts. They have fancy tech people who look at people’s profiles and they found a guy we were both friends with on Facebook and who followed us on Instagram. He didn’t use the same name but they connected him to us through his IP address. Strangers follow me all the time on Instagram just like everybody else so I wouldn’t have even paid him attention. I’m much more selective on Facebook than Instagram, so he must’ve seemed harmless or connected to someone I knew or I wouldn’t have friended him.

  He pretended to be a sixteen-year-old boy named Marcus on my accounts. He said he went to Westbrook, the private high school two cities over from mine. He posed as a track star and had the pictures to prove it. I probably thought he was cute and we had similar interests so I accepted his request, but I don’t remember doing it. I didn’t have any other contact with him.

  He posed as a fourteen-year-old boy when he connected with Paige. He pretended to have followed the blog she kept while they were traveling abroad and was interested in their missionary work. He said his parents were missionaries as well. They’d even private messaged each other a few times.

  It’s also how he knew we were virgins. Vowing to stay a virgin is a big deal and we had posted pictures of our purity rings with the status update signaling the classic Christian promise, “True Love Waits,” after we’d had our commitment ceremonies. I’d been wearing mine when he took me, but I threw it in the toilet bowl not long after he kidnapped me. Paige took hers off too, but she still kept it in her nightstand drawer.

  The sickest part was that he’d been on the Facebook pages our parents created for us after we went missing.
He’d even reached out and sent them condolences. He subscribed to be notified of any updates. Even though the FBI monitored the pages, there’d been nothing about him that stood out. Everything had checked out.

  Blake told me he’d most likely learned our routines from status updates we posted and any check-ins we did. He didn’t have to tell me that my runs on Nike Running that automatically posted to my page were a map leading him right to me.

  They’ve tracked down two other missing girls they think he’s involved with. One of them was named Rachel and even though I never saw her, she sounds like the one Paige said was there when she first got to the house. I didn’t recognize the other one.

  None of it makes me feel better. All he’s done is confirm what I already knew. All of this is my fault.

  SARAH

  (NOW)

  Blake and Phil walk in together. Both wear serious expressions. I’ve never seen either of them smile. Officer Malone just left and he’s not going to be back again today. I hate meeting with them alone. Officer Malone is good at making them back off when I need it.

  “We want to talk to you about what we learned after meeting with your father.” Blake wastes no time getting started. “He was able to provide us with some valuable information to help with the case. We’re hoping you’ll work with us and help corroborate his story.”

  “Some of this might be difficult for you to hear and bring up painful emotions. If you start to feel overwhelmed, just let us know and we’ll call in Randy,” Phil interjects.

  I don’t like where this is headed. They only bring in Randy for the serious stuff.

  “Your father informed us that four years ago, he met this man.” Blake hands me a photo.

  I’m so tired of looking at photos. Yesterday, they made me look at all these different girls’ Facebook pages to see if I recognized anyone. I told them no like I always do. I sigh and take it from him. I look down and John’s face stares up at me. His hair is longer and he looks younger but there’s no mistaking his crystalline eyes and perfect smile. I can’t hide my shock.

  Blake points at the picture. “That is the man you girls call John. The one you repeatedly try to claim is your father despite the scientific evidence that he’s not. By the way, Enrique Manuel is your father. The paternity test confirmed it.” He pauses.

  I shake my head wildly.

  He continues, not waiting for me to gain my composure. “His name isn’t John Smith. It’s Derek Hunt. We pulled this picture from an old real estate company he used to work for when he met your father. He befriended your father when he was panhandling outside of the Waseca shopping mall. Do you know why he stopped? Why he took such a sudden interest in him? Derek doesn’t seem like the kind of man who really gives a shit about other people so why would he even care?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “He stopped because he was panhandling with his daughter. You—his daughter.”

  “He says you were twelve at the time, is that right?” Phil asks.

  I glare at them. I want to hurt them.

  “Is that right?” he repeats.

  “Leave me alone.” I clutch my blanket, digging my nails into it.

  “Your father says Derek was loaded. He drove a Mercedes Benz and started coming by every few days and giving him a hundred dollars each time. That’s a lot of money to give a panhandler. I bet he spent all of it on crack, huh? What’d your father do with you while he was smoking crack?” Blake studies my reaction.

  “Get out!” I shake my finger at the door. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  They don’t move. Blake continues like I haven’t even spoken. “One day, he rolled up and had a proposition for your dad. He wanted to buy you, take you off his hands. All your dad had to do was name the price. Did he ever tell you what he paid for you?”

  “Shut up!” I don’t want to hear any more. They don’t understand.

  “Two thousand dollars. Your father sold you to Derek Hunt for two thousand dollars.” He shakes his head, looks disgusted. “The sad part is I’m willing to bet Derek would’ve paid him anything he asked, but your dad was too high to even notice.”

  Phil steps in and tries to reach for my hand. I jerk it away and slide up against the hospital wall behind me. I curl myself into a ball. I’m trapped. I can’t get away from them. The room is getting smaller.

  Blake is relentless. He won’t quit. The conversation isn’t over unless he says it’s over. “Do you want to know what I think is the saddest part of the whole story? Your father, the man who birthed you, only made one condition on the entire deal. Do you remember what it was? I don’t know why I’m even asking you questions. You don’t answer them and when you do, you certainly don’t tell the truth. Well, your father’s only condition was that Derek never bring you back.”

  “I didn’t want to go back!” I explode, unable to hold it in any longer. “I hated that man—my sorry, worthless excuse for a father. Do you know what he did to me? Do you?” I stick out my arms, covered in round burn scars. “These—these right here are the cigarettes he put out on my arms just because he felt like it.” I whip my covers off my body, pull up my gown, and expose the jagged scars covering my legs. “And these? These are the marks from the belt he beat me with if I spilled my milk. If I was lucky to even have milk to drink. You think John starved me?” I throw my head back, shrieking in laughter I don’t recognize. “Try not eating for weeks at a time. Nothing. So hungry that you actually go outside and eat dirt just so your stomach will have something inside of it. John was the only person who ever gave a shit about me. Ever!”

  Blake clasps his hands together in front of him as if he’s holding back the urge to clap. “That’s it. Now we’re finally getting somewhere.”

  ELLA

  (THEN)

  I’ve started punching my stomach during the day when he’s gone. I have to be careful about it. I can’t let Sarah see and I have to do it away from the cameras. I lay under the covers on my side, plumping them up with pillows so that when I punch myself in the gut, he won’t be able to see. I can’t do it hard enough to leave bruises. He’ll notice them right away and wonder where they came from. I don’t think I’m hitting hard enough to kill this thing inside of me.

  I’ve spent the last week plotting ways to get rid of it. I’ve thought of everything—faking a fall, slamming against a night stand, shoving the bed post into my gut—but none of them were feasible because he’d know exactly what I was doing and probably kill me for it. But yesterday I finally came up with the perfect plan. It’s a risk but I have to try. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.

  The TV is on which means he’s at work. I have a better chance of not getting caught if I do it while he’s at work. I swallow my fear and slide out of bed before I lose my nerve and walk over to the closet, making sure to keep my expression blank because I don’t know which angle the cameras have in this room. I open the closet door. There’s three white robes hanging and a stack of empty dry cleaning hangers at the edge of the closet bar. The wire kind. My heart skips a beat. It’s a sign. It has to be. I take a step inside the closet, hoping he can’t see me if I’m inside. I grab one quickly and stuff it into my robe. Then, I step back out of the closet.

  “Ugh,” I say out loud. “I’m so sick of wearing bathrobes. I wish there was something else for me to wear.” I want him to think I was looking for other clothes in the closet. I plod back to my bed doing my best to look disappointed but my heart is racing. I’m so excited it’s hard to lay still.

  The next two hours drag, but I have to wait until enough time has passed. Nothing about this can look suspicious. Nothing. My closet trip can’t be connected to my bathroom trip. I wait another hour just to be safe before summoning Sarah.

  I have a bell on my nightstand like we’re from the 1940s and I ring it. It takes her awhile to come. She never responds slowly when John is here. She appears immediately when he calls for her. She doesn’t unlock the door.

  “What?” she asks from the other
side of the door.

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  She lets out a deep sigh. “I was right in the middle of Survivor. They’re just about to vote.”

  “Please? I don’t think I can wait. I really have to go.”

  I hear her fumbling with the lock and then she pushes open the door. “Fine, just hurry up. I want to see who they got rid of last night.”

  She doesn’t lock the bathroom door. They never do. But it’s shut. I hear the sound of her footsteps padding back into the living room to watch her show. I drop my robe. My heart is pounding. Blood surges through my veins. My senses are on high alert. I frantically unwind the top of the hanger. I pull the wire into a straight line making sure to hold the loop at the bottom so I have something to hold on to.

  I grab a towel and stuff it into my mouth so I have something to bite. I stand with my legs spread apart and get down into a squatting position. I take a deep breath as I push the wire inside me. I grit my teeth against the towel. Sweat pours down my face.

  It’s now or never.

  I jab. Sharp pain shoots from my center and radiates throughout my body. I’m panting. I jab again, moving it around inside me as bright lights shoot off in my head. Twisting and turning. Scraping my insides. I almost fall over. I steady myself on the sink with my other hand. I’m in so much pain I’m afraid I’ll pass out. I can’t pass out.

  One more. One more time just to make sure.

  I stab myself again. The pain makes my stomach come up in my throat. I lean over and hurl into the toilet. I try to stand up. I can’t stand straight. The pain in my center makes me hunch over. White spots dance in front of my eyes. I have to move fast. I don’t have much time.

  I let my brain take over, pulling the plug connecting it to the pain in my body. I lift the lid on the back of the toilet. I tuck the hanger in behind the coils. It’s the only spot it will be safe. Then, I flush and wash my hands.