The Rabbit Hole

Chapter 23

The Dillion family's help pours two cups of hot coffee for the agent and detective. Casey sitting opposite them, collapsed into the leather couch. The help offers to pour her a cup of coffee but she declines with a gentle smile and a simple shake of the head. Once the help leaves the room, detective Edwards starts, "As you may have already figured it out, this is still about the ongoing case of your friend, Heather Brooks." He says. Casey nods in agreement of the statement. "We need to know a few things."
"Like what?" Casey asks.
"Like for instance," Moira says, "has Heather ever worked at the mall?"
"No, she hasn't." Casey states.
"Were you two frequently there?" Edwards asks.
"No. We occasionally paid the mall a visit from time to time. Heather wasn't much the type for mall hangouts." She says gloomily.
"Was there a place of which you both frequented?" Moira asks her.
"We had a hangout spot, which we mostly used to meet up. It was the town park."
"And what were the bases of your chats?"
"Normal things, girl talks and all."
"Did you by any chance mention that you were going to the mall?" she asks her.
"Uhm, what are these questions about anyway?" Casey asks confused.
"I'll explain in a moment, just answer the question." Moira says.
"I think so...yeah. Heather said she needed to go to the mall a week before..." She pauses, "She wanted to go look for a dress for prom."
"Alone?" Edwards asks.
"Yeah, I had a thing to do the day but I wriggled out of it the last minute and I called her later that night to tell her I'd help her look for a dress." She says, and both Edwards and Moira trade expressions. They figure that the park must have been the place where he was watching her, he listened to their conversation about the mall which ended with Heather saying she'd be going alone, the abductor must have thought she would have been alone at the mall that day but Casey tagged along at the last minute, which must have been the reason for his plan of abduction to change. "What? Is there something I said?" Casey asks due to noticing the expression trade of the fed and the cop.
"Did you ever notice anyone unusual at the park? Like someone who never came there before, or seemed out of place?" Edwards asks.
"No, I didn't notice anything. Then again the park is always crowded so..." She shrugs. "What are you saying?"
"We think that someone might have been watching you. Precisely Heather." Moira admits to her.
"What?" Casey airs it out in disbelief.
"We think he's been listening in on your conversations and heard Heather say she'd be heading to the mall. With you saying that you'd be busy that day, he assumed she'd be alone." She says to Casey, who seems a bit agitated by the statement.
"Did something out of the ordinary happen at the mall that day? Did you see anyone who might have seemed menacing in a way?" she asks.
"No, nothing." Casey says.
"Nobody bothered you or tried to approach you or anything?" He asks, and for a second Casey's expression changes as she remembers, "Yes, I'm not sure if this would help or anything but-yes." She says.
"What happened?" Moira asks.
"When we were leaving the mall, there was a minor incident where a guy knocked into Heather. I remember, Heather brushed it off as a joke and called it an accident but from my view...it looked kinda deliberate. I wanted to call the police but nothing was missing." She says.
"And if we brought a sketch artist would you be able to provide the man's facial features?" Edwards says.
"I don't know, it's been months since then. But I can try." Casey says. They get up to leave, upon reaching the door, Moira asks, "Did Heather have any kind of odd job?"
"She was a babysitter, sometimes she'd even do it for free." She says to the agent.
"A good Samaritan." Moira says, Casey nods while holding the door open for them. "And one more thing," Moira turns back to her and says, "Earlier you referred to Heather as "was" instead of is. Have you already given up on her?" she asks but sounding rhetorical about it, "If she was my friend, I'd be thinking about things that we'll do when she returns instead of things we did." She says before leaving the house.

*

He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. He completely detested the fact that I fought back. The fact that I made him bleed, that fact that I actually brought him down to the edge, the edge to where he nudged me, the edge of wonder that his life might be fading. The edge of his soul retreating his body. I had him. I had him at his end, thought that I actually beat him, I thought that I actually killed him. But I didn't. He just passed out, and with my worthless splendour of tainted luck, he awakens at the moment I actually taste freedom. Freedom from his reign of torment. No, he didn't like it one bit, and to prove that, he grabbed my right hand, twisted my wrist till he heard it snap. Pushed back at each of my fingers in the same hand, dislocating them. The pain was unbearable, is unbearable. His way of punishment bore a grudge to my right hand, all because I used that same hand to wield the wooden shard I used to stab him in his leg with.
It's all futile now. My reason for crying is all pointless. Not that I want to cry or anything, I don't. I'm done with offering him the serenade of my sobbing whimpers. I feel my crying gives him what he wants, my fading grip on reality. What ever it is he's doing to me, I feel it slowly working. My emotions ebbing away from my heart with each passing day. The light he's aiming on dimming has begun to dwindle, shifting into an evanescence of hope. He is winning. Leaving me a pile of slop in this darkness where I feed. In the moment of rest, I awaken to the tiny prodding of roaches as the trample on my body, my face. The flies buzzing by in the air above me. I honestly know I'm at my limit, and he's only just begun. The door is opening, I can't even bring myself to looking at him in this moment. I'm afraid, fearful that he'll notice the absence of light in my eyes, terrified of the fact that he'd recognise his moment of victory with just one look at me. "Dear God," a female voice murmurs. It's Samantha. I turn my bruised face to her. She opens her mouth and tries to speak but no words are formulated, just a twitch of sound that tremors then she closes her mouth. "I'm so sorry this is happening to you." She utters with a tremble in her voice, "Just...kill me." I manage to whisper to her, she doesn't respond, she just stares back at me with her quivering pupils. At her side, I notice a bucket full of water and a sponge. She wets the sponge, rinses it and begins to wipe me down. "Why is he...why is he doing this to me?" I ask her.
"He's mentally troubled." She explains.
"No, he's not. He enjoys it."
"He doesn't, he just can't control it."
"No, he likes it!" I snap at her, "You know he does and you allow it. Because you're too scared to stop him."
"Of course, I'm scared." She says while wiping me down, "Who do you think he started with before going after all of the others? I bared it."
"How could you still stay with him after all this? After what he has done to you and the others." I question her.
"He keeps finding me wherever I go. I can't escape him."
"You can stop this now, please. Just call the police and-"
"No. I can't call the police." She says and stops dabbing me with the sponge. "He's still my little brother. I can't do that to him." She professes.
"What did Suzanne do?" I still need to know the history.
"She was a good woman to people on the outside, helpful and charming. But to me and Bernie, she was mean." She says, "Each time Suzanne had a visitor, mostly men she slept with, her "clients" she called them, she used to lock us in the spare bedroom when they were to arrive. But Bernie-" She rinses the sponge, "He would always sneak out to watch her and her clients do what they did. He loved watching her work." She says and then clears her throat. "Some unlucky day she caught Bernie watching. Back at the house we used to live, there was a hole in the backyard. A sink hole. A very deep hole where she dropped him in and left him there, as punishment for watching her. Sometimes she would leave him in there for days. One time she left him in there for a whole week, I had to see if he was okay." She brushes a tear past her eye, "He was sitting in there, lost a tremendous amount of weight. But he wasn't alone, in his hands there was a rabbit. A small furry thing, which inevitably became his best friend." She stretches my left hand and begins to wipe it. "Another client of Suzanne came. A big biker, a very mean man. He was a frequent client of Suzanne's. Bernie and I, we were playing hide and seek in the house, to which I found him hiding in her closet. Then we heard voices approaching and we both hid inside of it, watching them through the opened cracks of the closet. That's when it happened. We were both too young to understand what was happening, watching as the biker and Suzanne were intimate. They were rough when they were doing it, smacking and choking one another. The biker mustn't have known his own strength because he choked the life out of Suzanne, and we watched as she died. We watched as her eyes fade."
"As her eyes dim with light." I add in a whisper. She nods and rinses the sponge. "That's why he's doing this to people? That's why he's doing it to me?" I ask.
"He hasn't done it to you yet." She states, "He's waiting for that baby to be born. Once that happens, then..." She shrugs and gets on her feet.
"Please." I plead.
"I already told you, I can't help you escape."
"I know. I just need a glass of water, please." I say to her, she nods and leaves to go and get it.