The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,125

and Nora Skinner to stand trial for the kidnapping of Bailey North...

Bailey North’s daring escape...

Was Nora Skinner as culpable as her husband in the kidnapping of twelve-year-old Bailey North?

Kept in chains—one girl’s tragic story and how she survived...

Bailey North, mother at sixteen...

Jeff Skinner gets life; Nora Skinner gets thirty-eight years...

There was so much information about this old case. It must’ve been big news at the time, but according to the dates on these articles, she would’ve been only three years old.

She read article after article, growing more horrified by what this Bailey had been through with each one. She’d been taken by a woman asking for directions and held captive in a mansion by a man named Jeff Skinner, who’d raped her for years, getting her pregnant when she was sixteen. She had his baby in the basement of his home one night, alone and frightened, and she only escaped her captivity because of a neighbor who grew suspicious about the Skinners when their own daughter mentioned having a sister—someone they called a niece—yet the girl rarely came out of the house.

Concerned, especially when the Skinners’ daughter started talking about her sister having a baby, the neighbor snuck over one night when the Skinners were gone and discovered the terrible secret they’d been hiding for years.

This had to be the Bailey North he’d been looking for. He’d said to Google it, and this was the only Bailey who came up in any significant way. But Autumn was confused why he’d think she’d recognize this woman’s name or have any affiliation with her—until she read one article that mentioned the name of Bailey’s child: Autumn.

29

“Where’s Tammy?” Mary’s legs felt so rubbery she had to grip the railing to keep from crumpling onto the porch. “How dare she lie to me the way she has! She’s been associating with you the whole time?”

“No, Bailey—I mean, Mary.” Nora lifted a placating hand. “It—it’s not what you think. Tammy’s not here. Tammy has never been here.”

“She’s the one who sent me this address. I—I spoke to her on the phone,” Mary said, but even as the words came out, she realized that she’d been tricked. She hadn’t recognized the voice she heard, but she hadn’t expected to recognize it because it had been thirty-five years and Tammy had been only a child when they were separated. That voice had actually been Nora’s, who, as an old woman, didn’t sound remotely the same. She’d been talking and texting with Nora the whole time, and she’d never suspected a thing.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d show up here out of the blue. You told me you haven’t been able to travel since...well, that you haven’t been anywhere farther than a hundred miles from Sable Beach since you moved there.”

“Because of you!” she said, astounded that Nora could be so callous and oblivious. “Because of what you did to me!”

“I only gave you my address because you said you were going to send pictures. How could I resist that? I have nothing left. I’m trying to build a new life now and need some type of foundation, some way to fill in the missing years. I would’ve told you the truth eventually, I swear it.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mary said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But how evil does a person have to be to contact their kidnap victim decades later to continue the abuse?”

“Not to continue the abuse, no. I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said, her voice plaintive. “I swear it. I just thought...if—if only you could get to know the person I am now—which is completely different than the person I was before—maybe you could forgive me. Maybe I could make amends in some way, and it would be good for both of us. Then I could tell Tammy we were associating, that you were able to leave everything that happened in the past and move on, and maybe she could, too. I want my baby back!” she cried on a sob.

Mary heard Laurie get out of the car, but she didn’t look in that direction. She couldn’t tear her eyes from her old captor’s face. Nora was only fourteen years older than she was—sixty-eight—and yet she looked eighty. She’d once been attractive, but all those years in prison had not been kind to her.

She was, however, just as narcissistic as she’d ever been. Only a narcissist could continue to try to manipulate the situation for her own benefit. This wasn’t