Have You Seen Jane by Fogerty Annabelle

Author:Fogerty, Annabelle [Fogerty, Annabelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, American Suspense, Psychological Suspense, Domestic Thriller
Published: 2022-07-31T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

I settle into my childhood bedroom, feeling like a war vet bedding down where his buddy got blown to smithereens.

Who are you to compare yourself to a war hero? You’re just a defiant child who never appreciated how good she had it.

My nasty inner voice never misses a beat. It’s got me this time. I don’t deserve to compare myself to a war vet. I never did anything heroic. But my heart is pounding, and my fingers feel numb. I lie down on the bed, my clothes still on and the lamp by the bed casting deep shadows on the walls.

The room looms around me like a fever dream. I’m transported back to the girl I was, insecure and self-destructive. I palm my eyes. I can’t stay here. Maybe I can call an Uber. I sit up and pull my cell phone out of my pocket. The battery is dead. I have a USB charger in the car. Rain drives against the window in a violent cacophony. I don’t want to go outside. My ankle aches, and I don’t know if I even have a wall plug.

I lie back down, swearing. This is insanity. Why am I sweating and on the verge of a panic attack? I know why. But it makes me feel insane, just like it did back then. It was always worse when Dad was gone.

Once, she locked me in a closet overnight for breaking a vase. I wet myself in that room and got a spanking for it when she finally let me out. I can still hear the snap of her belt as she chased us around the house. We’d called her Mommy Dearest after watching that movie one summer at a friend’s house. We all said it, but it was me who got the bare-bottom spanking.

“No wire hangers,” I mutter.

That kind of behavior would get your kids taken away nowadays. But no one cared back then. I groan, thinking about how David took Sophie from me. He told the court my depression made me an unfit mother. It’s almost funny.

Lying in this hall of horrors as the memories flood my senses, I laugh at the irony of it all. Sophie has become impossible to control. I can’t imagine what would happen if I even slapped her. I’d probably be arrested for assault.

It’s as if the world is playing some twisted mind game with me, one in which I’m always in the wrong. I turn over in bed and pull the pillow over my head. I just need to sleep and get through the night. In the morning, I can leave. Hopefully, Sophie will come to her senses soon, and I can send her money for a bus ticket home.

At some point, I realize I must have been asleep, because I startle awake at the sound of screaming. It’s a high-pitched wail, a child’s cry. My heart slams in my chest, and my mothering instinct turns on at full force.

I jump out of the bed and rush out the door, ignoring my aching ankle.

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