Forwith the devil did appear,
For name him and he’s always near.

—Matthew Prior, “Hans Carvel”

SWORN TO
SILENCE

PROLOGUE

She hadn’t believed in monsters since she was six years old, back when her mom would check the closet and look beneath her bed at night. But at the age of twenty-one, bound and brutalized and lying naked on a concrete floor that was as cold as lake ice, she believed.

Enveloped in darkness, she listened to the hard drum of her heart. She couldn’t stop shivering. Couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering. Every minuscule sound made her body tense in terrible anticipation of the monster’s return.

In the beginning, she’d entertained fantasies of escape or convincing her captor to let her go. But she was a realist; she knew this wasn’t going to end nicely. There would be no negotiation. No police rescue. No last-minute reprieve. The monster was going to kill her. It was no longer a question of if, but when. The waiting was almost as hellish as death itself.

She didn’t know where she was or how long she’d been there. She’d lost all concept of time and place. All she could discern about her surroundings was that the place stank of rotting meat, and every little noise echoed as if she were in a cave.

She was hoarse from screaming. Exhausted from struggling. Demoralized by the horrors he’d inflicted upon her. A small part of her just wanted this terrible struggle for life to end. But dear God how she wanted to live . . .

“Mama,” she whispered.

She’d never contemplated death. She had too many dreams. She was too full of hope for the future, and a firm believer in the promise that tomorrow would be better than today. Lying in a cold slick of her own urine, she accepted the fact that there would be no tomorrow. There was no hope. No future. Only the black dread of her impending death and the agony that knowledge brought.

She lay on her side with her knees drawn up to her chest. The wire binding her wrists behind her had tormented her at first, but over the hours the pain had ebbed. She tried not to think of the things he’d done to her. He’d raped her first. But even that outrage was nothing compared to the other depravities she’d endured.

She could still hear the snap of electricity. She felt the hard wrench of it as it jumped through her, jolting her brain inside her skull. She could still hear the animalistic sound of her own screams. The roar of adrenaline-rich blood through her veins. The wild drum of her heart beating out of control. And then there was the knife.

He’d worked with the intense concentration of some macabre artisan. He’d been so close she’d felt the whisper of his breath against her skin. When she screamed, he hit her with the electrical prod. When she lashed out with her feet, he’d hit her again. In the end, she’d lain still and endured the agony in silence. She’d accepted the pain. And for a few brief minutes, her mind had taken her to the beach in Florida where she’d gone with her parents two years ago. White sand hot on her feet. A breeze so moist and warm it was like the breath of God on her soul.