says. He stands a little straighter. “When we said the name to you back then, you acted as if you didn’t even hear us. It was the most…” His eyes go soft. Unseeing. Then he focuses again. “Anyway. I was at Rusty’s, and people were buzzing all over the stack of newspapers.”
He grunts his disapproval. Ted doesn’t care for anyone who cares about the news. He calls all media “the enemy of the mind.”
“I saw the headline. Inadvertently, mind you. It said that a girl who had been missing for weeks had suddenly turned up in her hometown. She was left only yards away from her own house.”
He clears his throat. In discomfort or anticipation, I can’t be sure. “She had red hair,” he says. “And according to the article—which, I’ll admit, I then read—she’d been kept in a basement. By a man in a mask.”
“Just like I told you.”
“Yes,” he says. “And that’s when we knew that something actually had happened to you, but you were experiencing a sort of dissociative amnesia.” I squint at him. “Memory repression,” he clarifies, “as those who know nothing about it tend to call it.”
My muscles tighten. My stomach clenches. I imagine the life inside me recoiling from Ted’s confession. Children so wounded they can’t remember why. Children so haunted they become their own ghost.
Parents with horrifying secrets.
“But I talked to Mara,” I say. “On my way up to Cedar. I mentioned Astrid Sullivan and she acted like she’d never even heard of her.”
Ted tilts his head. Looks almost hurt. “You asked Mara? Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because I—that’s not… Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”
“Because you didn’t want to know. Aren’t you listening? When we tried to talk to you about it, you went completely still. Catatonic. And then a minute would go by, and you’d be normal again. So we took your lead—which was Mara’s idea, not mine—and we stopped bringing it up. I imagine that’s why Mara said what she did on the phone. She must not have wanted to upset you.”
I chuckle, despite the subject. “I don’t think Mara cares that much about my emotional well-being.”
“Oh, believe me, she does.” The words are cryptic. Heavy with resentment. But I don’t have time to figure out why. I’m already gasping with a new thought.
“You didn’t tell the police?” I nearly shout. Then I put my hands on my knees—steady, steady—and find them slippery with sweat. “You just acted like nothing happened, without ever trying to find out who took me? That is—completely outrageous, Ted. Even for you.”
“Even for me? What is that supposed to mean?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “We did call the police.”
“When?”
“Right after that Astrid Sullivan business. We filed a report, and they came out to question you, but you wouldn’t answer them. Like I said: catatonia.”
“And so they just gave up?”
“More or less. They gave us a card for some bogus therapist, did whatever passes for an investigation at the Cedar PD, and said they didn’t have enough to go off of. Apparently all sorts of people were claiming to know something about the Sullivan girl. And all we had was our word about what you’d said in Mara’s studio. One of them even hypothesized, and I quote, ‘Maybe she had a nightmare. The mind is very powerful, you know.’ Ha! A policeman trying to tell me about the mind. As if I need Cedar’s Finest, fresh off another bang-up job, to lecture me on the—”
“Ted, I don’t remember any of this. I’ve never been questioned by the police in my life.”
Ted laughs. Scratches at the dark pink patch on his arm. I grimace at the sound. “Well, until recently,” he says, “you didn’t remember being kidnapped, either. And if I’m understanding you correctly, you still don’t recall much of that.” He pauses, a flicker of hope in his eyes. “Or am I wrong?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Fine. I guess I don’t remember. But Astrid Sullivan’s memoir—I’m reading it, and—”
“You’re reading her memoir?”
“Yes, and she said—”
“That is…” He stops. Seems to search for the right word. Ends up saying one he’s already used: “noteworthy.”
“Okay,” I plunge ahead, “but listen, she writes about another girl who was with her in the basement. And I guess that’s never been public until this book, but wouldn’t the Cedar Police have heard about that—through the police department grapevine or whatever—and have connected that with what you and Mara told them about me?”