“You should, Dave. You should tell her mom. One thing I learned is it feels good to confess and all. You confess, have a good cry together, and then it’s all behind you. Tell her mom, Dave, and then you won’t keep forever tearing at yourself about it.”

| 66 |

The white bird had flown from the high window.

Gathering up the photos to put them away, David had a final question for Ronny Lee Jessup. “Were there any women who escaped?”

“Not from the house, not how tight I built my playground.”

“I mean when you tried to abduct them.”

“Two. One got clean away. But I wore a mask, so she couldn’t describe me. She looked juicy. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, how juicy wet she would be. You know how it is. She looked sort of like your movie star. I bided my time, went back six months later, and got her good the second time.”

“What about the other one?”

Jessup grimaced. “She were a nasty bitch. It’s unkind to say, but true. She weren’t no lady. Before I could use chloroform, she had this pry bar she swung at me, broke a couple ribs. Pissed me off. Old Ronny used to have a temper when some bitch fought back. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the honest truth. Her and me got into it hard and fast, and I had to knife her a few times. After that, she weren’t worth bringing home.”

“You left her for dead?”

“I didn’t leave her for dead. She were dead already.”

“When was this?”

“Long ago. I never kept no diary, Dave.”

“Could it have been ten years ago?”

The gravity of sadness drew Jessup’s features long. “Farther back than ten, I think. I kept at the game twenty years. I wish I could say ten, wish I could tell you it were your special girl, so you’d be at peace.” As David was about to slide the last of the ten photos into the envelope, Jessup said, “Wait. Show me her again.”

David held up the photo.

As he studied Emily’s face, Jessup slowly assumed a frown. “Did she maybe wear a little necklace thing?”

“She wore a gold locket.”

“What’d it look like?”

“In the shape of a heart, inset with a rare red diamond. I had it designed for her. When you opened the locket, there was a gold thorn fixed in it.”

“Thorn because of your name. That’s very tender, Dave. That touches my own heart.” He closed his eyes and raised his free hand to massage his forehead with his fingertips, as if to encourage a submerged memory to surface. When he lowered his hand and opened his eyes, he said, “I never opened the locket. I never saw no thorn. I don’t clearly remember your Emily because she had such attitude. One of them nothing-but-trouble types. I didn’t get much good use of her before I killed her.” He met David’s eyes. “They’ll find her in that secret room, I think. Your peace is near, Dave. You don’t got to keep tearing at yourself no more. Once they find her and you know, then you can be done with this, move on, be happy—and happy in a way you don’t expect you ever can be.”