Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

Natalie stared at him for a moment. Then, straightening up with her hands still covering herself, she said, “‘But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.’”

Douglas froze, staring at her.

She spoke again. “‘Do not provoke your children to anger.’”

“Shut up.”

She moved around him until her back was to the bed frame, and his body shifted with her, keeping her in his sight. She reached down to grab her shirt off the floor and pulled it over her head, then held her arms out wide, as if challenging him to run at her. Douglas’s pulse ticked with anger and excitement. Such fire in this girl, even after everything he had done to break her.

“You think I’m scared of you?” she asked, inching backward. Yes, he thought, even as she kept talking. “You’re using the Bible to justify torturing little girls, you monster. You can only kill me, but you—” She let out a loud laugh, on the edge of wildness, and pointed a finger at him. “You will burn in hell for what you’ve done.”

A switch flicked inside him for the second time in as many days. First with Amanda, and now her. His vision turned red, narrowed in on only her small, panting body. He lunged for her, leapt to tackle. At the last minute, she moved out of the way and he saw the sharp metal pole jutting up from the bed frame.

43

Elle

January 20, 2020

The shades on Douglas Stevens’s house were drawn, blocking out the first rays of sunlight. It was impossible to tell if anyone was home. Elle watched the house for a moment, waiting for a sign of movement or life. None came.

Martín would be waking up any minute, wondering where she was. She had turned off her phone as soon as she sent the information she found to Ayaan. Elle couldn’t remember making a decision to come here, but in the moments since finding the connection between Douglas and Kerry, she had gotten in her car and arrived at his door.

All that mattered was getting Natalie out. Douglas had evaded police capture for decades; he would have a plan in place if they showed up at his door. The girl was next on his list to kill. Elle couldn’t afford to wait.

When another minute passed with no movements in the house, Elle checked her handgun was loaded, got out of the car, and rushed up the sidewalk.

There was no answer to her knock, and she could hear nothing inside. The door was locked with a deadbolt. Douglas had made it a habit to leave the house early every morning back when Elle was his captive; perhaps he did the same thing even now. If she could get Natalie when the girl was in the house alone, no one would have to get hurt at all.

In search of a back door, Elle went down the front steps and started around the side of the house. A quick glance around the neighborhood revealed no nosy onlookers, but there was every chance some old crank would see what was going on and call the police. It was the kind of place that housed a lot of retirees fighting the inevitable move to an assisted living home—folks with nothing better to do than stand at the window and watch the world go by. She had to hurry.

She jogged gingerly through the backyard until she reached the spot where she’d seen the snow angel. It was mostly covered after the snowfall overnight, but Elle could still see its outline. It wasn’t as clean as she remembered it being, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Kids were unpredictable in the winter. Back when Natalie was six or seven, they used to play outside after every blizzard. She remembered the girl waddling around in thick snow pants and oversized boots that tripped her up every third step—how she would collapse in the drifts and giggle at the soft poof of a landing that sent fresh powder floating into the sky.

It could be that Douglas did have a child of his own, someone who’d come out here to play and simply fallen or been clumsy while trying to make a snow angel. But the more she stared at it, the less it looked like an intentional design. It looked like the results of a struggle. An icy gust of wind stole her breath.

Elle glanced to her left and right. The footsteps she had walked in were large, the size of a grown man’s. Had he carried Natalie here, dumped her in the snow? That made no sense. She looked up, wondering if the girl had climbed down from an upstairs window, just as Elle had done in a different house more than twenty years ago. But there was nothing for her to hold on to, no drainpipe or nearby tree branch.

When Elle looked back at the house, she noticed something she’d missed before. A smooth piece of wood was poorly blended into the siding with a fresh coat of paint. She reached out and ran her fingertips over it. The wood stuck out half an inch from the side of the house, as if it was covering something. She put her head as close to the wall as possible, looking down into the crack between the wood and the siding. It was difficult to see, but she could just make out the black grate underneath.

Her hands shook as she stepped back, looking around again to see if anyone was watching her. She wanted to cry out, call Natalie’s name, but if Douglas was inside she couldn’t afford to give herself away. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her father’s Swiss Army knife, the one he’d given her for protection after she