Appetite for Innocence: A Dark Psychological Thriller Read online

  Randy glances over her shoulder at him and laughs. “Thank goodness my Facebook settings are private.”

  He smiles back. “Will you let her help you?” His eyes plead with me.

  I look away. I don’t need any help. There’s nothing wrong with me.

  ELLA

  (THEN)

  “Tonight we’re going to do something different,” he says after Sarah finishes clearing our plates.

  Ice water shoots through my veins.

  He snaps his fingers and Sarah appears from the kitchen. She stands at attention before him like she always does whenever he calls.

  “Sarah, dear, I need you to go on downstairs.”

  “Yes, sir,” she says.

  He dismisses her with a flick of his hand.

  No—I want to scream—don’t leave me alone with him.

  I’ve never been alone with him. Even though Sarah and I never speak to each other upstairs, I always know she’s somewhere in the house even if I can’t see her. She scurries away and I hear the beeps as the basement door closes behind her. I feel him staring at me. I don’t look up. I stare at my hands, twisting them together on my lap.

  “Come, dear,” he says standing up and pushing in his chair.

  “I don’t want to,” I whimper. It’s the first time I’ve told him no since our first meeting in the bathroom. It’s dangerous, but I’m more afraid of what comes next then getting slapped.

  He walks over to my chair and grips my arm. His fingers are always so cold. I push back my chair and stand. My legs are shaking. He wraps his arm around me and moves me through the living room and down the bathroom hallway. Instead of going into the bathroom, he opens another door on the other side. It’s a bedroom. Fear erases every thought in my head.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he says.

  He pulls me through the door. My legs are moving but I can’t feel them.

  The door shuts behind us. He locks it.

  Like every other room in the house, it’s lined in windows on one side. The long drapes are closed. The king-sized bed is the centerpiece; its tufted headboard pushed up against the back wall. A plush white comforter matches the fabric hanging from the windows.

  “Please don’t do this. Please, don’t.” I start to cry.

  He puts his arms around me, holding me tightly, rubbing circles on my back. “It’s okay. Everyone is scared when it’s their first time. It’s perfectly normal.”

  I sob harder. My entire body convulses against him.

  He speaks in a whisper, his lips moving on the top of my head. “I’ll be so gentle. You’ll see. I’ll talk you through the whole thing.”

  I will my legs to kick him, run—to do something, anything—but I can’t make them move. Everything moves in slow motion.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” I sob.

  “I’m not a violent man. I’ve already told you that. I only do what needs to be done.” It isn’t his words. It’s how he says them that makes my stomach curl.

  My teeth chatter like I’m cold, but I’m not cold. I’m hot. Flushed, dripping with sweat. Everything is blurry. The fluffy white comforter and lace pillows swerve in front of me. He releases me.

  “Go on,” he motions toward the bed. “Don’t be afraid.”

  I can’t move. He turns me around and stands behind me. My arms are at my side. Frozen. I can feel his breath on my neck. His fingers reach around me. Playing at my bathrobe tie.

  This isn’t real. It can’t be happening.

  My robe drops. I’m naked. Exposed. I tremble.

  “See, I told you it’s not so bad.” His voice is deep. One I’ve never heard before. “I can see you’re starting to get excited already.”

  I want to throw up. Scream. Turn around and smash his head in. His gun is on the nightstand next to the bed, his threats burned in my brain. I do nothing. Nothing except shake and cry.

  “Why don’t you have a seat on the bed while I get undressed?”

  It’s not a question. It’s a command and I do as I’m told. I sit on my hands to keep them from shaking. He stands in front of me, devouring my body with his eyes. I can see what he wants to do to me. He begins unbuttoning his shirt. Button by button. Slow, methodical. I’ve never seen a naked man before. I close my eyes tightly.

  “Open your eyes,” he snaps.

  His shirt is off. He’s worked his way to his pants. He’s standing there in a pair of red silk boxers.

  “Lay back on the bed.”

  “Please, no. Please, no.” It’s all I can say over and over again.

  I shake like I’m having a seizure. I’m sobbing so hard snot drips down my face and into my mouth. Thick globs. I try to swallow the sobs, but it only makes me cry harder and more difficult to breathe.

  His face turns to disgust. Anger clouds his eyes. The gentleman from dinner is gone. He grabs my bathrobe from the floor and throws it at me. He can’t even look at me now.

  “Put your fucking clothes back on,” he sneers.

  I scramble off the bed, grabbing my robe, and throw it around me. I pull the tie as tight as it will go. What will he do to me now? I didn’t want to make him mad, but I did.

  He pushes the intercom button in the bedroom. I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s right by the door.

  “Sarah, come get her and take her downstairs.”

  ELLA

  (NOW)

  Randy’s waiting for us in the room when we get back from being outside. She doesn’t even mention how I yelled at her earlier.

  “How was it?” she asks.

  “Wonderful,” Mom says. Her face is flushed with color from being outside.

  Phil is here by himself. It’s rare to see him without Blake. He’s always watching and studying, but he mostly stays out of Blake’s way and lets him do all the talking. Sometimes I forget he’s there. He waits to speak until after Mom settles me back in bed.

  “I wanted to update you on where we stand with the case,” he says.

  “Have you found him?” I ask.

  Finding John is the only thing I care about in the case. Everything else is insignificant. I’m not going to be able to relax until he’s caught.

  He shakes his head. “We haven’t been able to locate him yet, but we’re following up on some leads. First, John isn’t his name—”

  “His name isn’t John?” My mind reels.

  “No.”

  “Why would he make up a fake name?” I ask.

  “To be unable to be identified. John Smith is designed to be as non-descript and generic as possible. If you search for John Smith, you’ll get millions of profiles. It would take forever to narrow down the John Smith you’re looking for. He probably uses lots of different names and none that would ever stand out.” He takes out a notepad. It’s the same type of legal pad Blake always writes in. “We do have some leads on the property, though. The house on Spaulding Avenue belongs to an Eric Sorenson. We’re looking into Eric Sorenson’s background to see if he is the person we’re looking for, but we’re fairly certain he’s not going to be a match. We’ve been showing the sketch you girls created around the community. The good news is that there are many people who recognize him. He’s been seen numerous times at the grocery store and Target. We’re interviewing everyone that had any contact with him. The bad news is that most of them report knowing Eric Sorenson and he’s not the same person.”

  “But it’s good that people saw him, right?” Mom asks.

  “Yes.” He nods, looking pleased. “It gives us something to go on and helps us to figure out his daily activities and lifestyle. And also that he wasn’t scared to go out in the community, which means he still might be in the community somewhere. Many times these types of perpetrators have a God complex and think they’re above getting caught. They like to flaunt themselves. We’ve also begun developing a profile of his victim type and we’re researching other open missing persons’ cases that fit the profile.”

  “What’s his profile?” Mom’s face tenses, drawing wrin
kles in her forehead.

  She’s wondering the same thing as me. Why did he pick me?

  “It seems he targets teenage girls who don’t have a biological father in their lives. Ones whose fathers are either dead or play no part in their life. It’s likely he sees himself as fulfilling a fatherly role. In addition, the girls tend to come from religious families. It might be that he thinks of himself as a religious man or he has a past with religion that’s hurt him in some way. Either way, we’re following up on a couple of cases we think he might be involved in. It’s still too early to tell, but we’re making progress. Petra is our strongest lead.”

  “Who is Petra?” I ask.

  I don’t remember Paige or Sarah ever mentioning her. Sometimes Paige talked about the girl, Rachel, who was in the basement when he first took her. She mentioned a few other names Rachel talked about with her, but nobody named Petra.

  “Petra is Sarah’s real name. Petra Manuel. Her father is Enrique Manual and he’s incarcerated at Middleton Correctional Facility in southern California.”

  My mouth drops open. “Are you serious? You mean John isn’t her dad?”

  “Yes, John isn’t her father. At least not her biological father. She’s maintaining that he’s her father, but he’s not. Petra was born in southern California to Destiny and Enrique. Her mom died of a drug overdose a few weeks after she was born. Petra was raised by her father but came under the investigation of child services numerous times over the years for neglect and physical abuse. She was removed from his home many times and placed in foster homes, but was repeatedly given back to Enrique.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Unfortunately, she’s one of the kids the system failed and she fell through the cracks. Her paper trail ends when she was twelve. We’ve spoken with her sixth grade teacher who remembers her. She took a special interest in her and was always trying to help her. She didn’t think anything of it when Petra quit coming to school because she was frequently truant and after a few months had passed, she figured they’d just moved. We suspect that’s when John kidnapped her because shortly after that Enrique was arrested and awaiting trial so she couldn’t have been with him. It’s possible Petra was abandoned and living on the streets. That might be when he grabbed her.”

  “That doesn’t fit with the profile you were just talking about,” Mom points out.

  “You’re right, but for now, we’re operating under the theory that Petra might have been his first victim. He may have used her as sort of a trial run. We see that frequently in cases like these. Men who exploit children often hone their skills and develop their preferences over time. But again, it’s still very early in the investigation. I just want to make sure you know where we’re at.”

  “That’s so sad about Sarah. I mean Petra,” Mom says. She looks like she might cry.

  “Ella, did Petra every talk about anything that led you to believe she may have been taken by him too?” he asks. “Ever anything about her past that hinted at a life without John?”

  I search my memory. I can’t think of her as Petra. It feels too weird. To me, she’s Sarah. It’s not like I never tried to talk to her about things, but she always acted like she was annoyed with me and had so many other important things to do than talk to me or answer my questions. She treated me like I was her annoying younger sister even though we’re the same age.

  Paige and I tried to include her in things. Every time we played Scrabble or Spades, we asked her to join us but she always said no. She didn’t speak to us at all upstairs. It was as if she didn’t even know us. She waited on us silently, bringing us our food and setting it carefully on the table, preparing our meals for us and clearing them when we were finished. She only spoke to John. Never us. I asked Paige if she was the same way when she was upstairs and she said yes.

  Even though she didn’t talk to us much, Paige and I talked about her all the time.

  “Do you think he has sex with her too?” I asked Paige.

  She turned up her nose. “I don’t know. That’s so gross if he does.”

  “Have you ever seen her go into the bedroom?”

  She shook her head and moved over to sit on my bed with me. She put her face close to mine and whispered even though Sarah was upstairs and there was no way she could hear us. “But Rachel told me the girl she was locked up with told her that she heard from Lyla or something like that that she used to. And if she did, well... you know what happened if she did.”

  “She was always afraid of him,” I tell Phil. “Even though she pretended like she wasn’t, she was. I could tell.”

  “Did he refer to her as his daughter?” he asks.

  Now that he mentioned it, it dawns on me that he never called her his daughter. He only called her by her name. Never anything else. She never actually said she was his daughter, either. And I always thought it was weird that she called him John rather than Dad, but nothing about our situation was normal. The story of her being his daughter was one of the many stories passed down from girl to girl.

  “No, he never did and she never called him Dad,” I say.

  “Then, what made you think she was?” he asks.

  “Paige told me just like Rachel told her and the girl before her told her. It’s kinda how things worked.”

  He rubs his temples like he has a headache. “Blake is on his way to meet with Enrique and we’re hoping he’ll be able to provide us with some valuable information. He might be the key that opens up this investigation.”

  “Have you notified Sarah’s family?” Mom corrects herself. “I mean Petra. They’ll probably be a huge help trying to figure things out.”

  “Unfortunately, nobody came forward. She was never reported missing.”

  “Nobody reported her missing?” Mom is horrified. “How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know how to say this delicately, but Petra was not a child that was wanted by her family even before she went missing. We were able to make contact this morning. It went about as well as we expected.” He clears the emotion from his throat. “Her mother, Destiny, was estranged from her family because of her drug use. She was in and out of rehab for years. We contacted the family but they hadn’t spoken to Destiny for ten years before she died and they want nothing to do with any of this. Enrique’s mother passed away four years ago and her husband is in a nursing home with late-stage Alzheimer’s. The rest of his family is spread out all over Mexico. We’re still trying to reach them, but I don’t expect there will be a warm reception there either.”

  Mom wipes her tears. “I just feel so sorry for that poor girl.”

  I should feel sorry for her too, but I don’t. She always walked around like she was so much better than us. She looked at us like we were pathetic, as if we were somehow to blame for our situation. It was easy to think she was right when I thought John was her dad because she was born into it and didn’t have a choice. Plus, I blamed myself for getting stolen too. I knew better than to talk to strange men. Mom had drilled it into my head since I was a toddler. But I was wrong. She was just like us.

  SARAH

  (NOW)

  There’s a knock at my door. I expect it to be Randy but it’s Ella’s mom. What is Ella’s mom doing in my room? She hesitates in the doorway, afraid to come in.

  “Hi, Sarah,” she says. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Ella’s mom, Jocelyn.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  She’s still hovering in the doorway. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Good. That’s good. It’s been a crazy few days, huh?”

  I nod. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  “Ella’s having a pretty hard time with all of this. I figured you might be too.”

  “It’s tough.”

  She’s the first person I’ve admitted that to. I don’t know why I tell her the truth. I just do. It feels right.

  “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”

  “Sure.”

 
; She walks slowly into my room. She looks around at all my gifts—the same gifts Ella keeps getting. They haven’t stopped coming. Soon, there’s not going to be enough room for them. I have chairs in my room, but she doesn’t sit in any of them. She stands next to my bed, shifting her weight back and forth. She keeps clearing her throat.

  “Listen, I don’t want to get into your personal business. I respect your privacy. I do. And if you want me to leave, I will, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about you being in this room all alone.”

  “I’m not exactly alone,” I say, motioning to my door where the officers stand guard.

  She laughs. It lifts some of the nervous tension in the room.

  “You know what I mean. It’s got to be hard not having a family member here with you.” Her voice catches. “You’ve got to feel so scared and alone. I just want you to know I’m here. I know I’m a total stranger, but I’m here if you want to talk or anything like that. Although, you’re probably over talking as much as Ella is. Feels like all they’ve been making you girls do is talk. So, even if you just want to sit in silence, I’ll sit with you. You don’t have to be alone.”

  It’s the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me. Sadness wells up inside my chest.

  “Would it be too weird if I gave you a hug?” she asks.

  I nod because I can’t speak. I motion for her to come closer. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me close to her chest. She rubs my back gently. I crumble in tears. I can’t help myself. It’s been so long since anyone held me like this.

  It makes me think of John even though I don’t want to. Back before everything changed, he’d hold me while I cried and promise things were going to be okay. He used to go through every one of the scars on my body whenever he bathed me and say, “I’m kissing away every bad thing that’s ever been done to you.”

  I weep silently into her shirt. Her body odor is sweet. Not pungent like a man’s and I drink it in. She doesn’t say anything for the longest time. Just keeps holding me. Finally, she moves back a bit. She puts her hands on my cheeks. They’re so soft. I’ve never felt skin so soft. She tucks my hair behind my ears.