Girls Without Tears by T. L. Finlay

Author:T. L. Finlay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

16

IT WAS THE Lost City, most everyone is sure of it. A place of legend and folklore. A place where Al Capone allegedly ran a bootlegging operation, peddling moonshine during Prohibition. Others argue that a few dozen Confederate soldiers, rebels, had stolen a wealth of gold and were hiding out there, only to be ambushed and slaughtered by Seminoles for setting up camp on sacred ground.

No one knows for sure, but there’s one thing I know—I wouldn’t use the word sacred to describe my experience in that little domain where I was held captive.

They comb the area while I’m here at Memorial Regional Hospital near Fort Lauderdale. Once again, they’ve found no sign of Skye.

My mother stays with me, and Hector makes the forty-five-minute drive after work. They exchange pleasantries, and afterward Hector says my mother seems nice, and my mother doesn’t say anything at all.

Zack calls my mother repeatedly—is there anything he can do? Pay us a visit, bring Jamie, anything?—and I shake my head ardently at my mother. No visitors, please. Jamie was recently bludgeoned, and it’s an hour and a half drive. Stay there and look for Skye.

X-rays. CT scans. IVs. MRIs. Do you have preexisting conditions? I try to say no, but my mother says yes. Congenital insensitivity to pain, she says. Whoa, the doctors say. That’s a real thing?

Cops! Detectives! And until Hector-attorney-at-law kicks them out, lawyers! Their initial questions revolve around Skye: Are you sure it was her? Did she say anything? Tell us again what she said. Is that all? Are you sure that’s all? What was she wearing?

Later on, they ask about my mental health history. If I or anyone in my family ever suffered from schizophrenia or the like. They ask for permission to see my CT scan, ask the doctor how severe the concussion is.

Did I see the person who abducted me? No. Go find Skye, please.

I’m surprised when the questioning circles back to the death of Morgan Higgins. A spritely woman enters my room with jet-black hair slicked back into a severe ponytail. She introduces herself as Officer Nash, and though she apologizes for “having to ask these questions,” she doesn’t sound very apologetic. Her tone is accusatory as she asks for a detailed account from the day I saved Jamie’s life.

“Stop there,” she says when I’m relaying the part about seeing Morgan beating Jamie through the window. “How clearly could you see the assault happening through that little dirty window?”

Puzzled, I glance at my mother, who is shriveled up in the corner of the room, and then Hector, who seems to be more agitated by the minute. “I mean, I could see that someone was hitting someone else with a stick or a bat. The window was clear enough to see that something was wrong, and that was confirmed when I actually entered the shack and watched it happening.”

She cocks her head. “So once you entered the shack, were you able to determine whether the implement the assailant

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