Cheryl Bradshaw - Sinnerman

After another pause the voice said, “Who are you?”

“My name is Sloane. What’s yours?”

“Angela.”

“How long have you been here?” I said.

“I—I don’t know. I just want to go home.”

“I’m going to do everything I can to make that happen.”

“You can’t. He’s going to kill both of us.”

“Angela, listen to me. I need you to tell me what you can see.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can. Just try. Anything you can tell me will help.”

“No I mean I really can’t. There’s a blindfold over my eyes.”

A door opened and footsteps descended the stairs.

“Be quiet,” Angela said. “Don’t speak to him or he’ll cut you—he doesn’t like it when we talk.”

Finally that part of the puzzle came together and I knew why some of the women had cuts on their legs. Maybe one gash for each time they spoke as a way to silence them. I didn’t care—I wasn’t about to keep my trap shut.

Sam walked into the room and sat at a desk across from me.

“Sorry about the handcuffs,” he said. “Or should I say cuff. I didn’t want to restrain you like that, but we need to have some kind of understanding.”

“Like what?”

“No more running cars into trees and trying to hurt yourself. I need to be able to trust you.”

I couldn’t believe he thought I was trying to hurt myself.

“Why is the room decorated like this?”

“It’s our room, Sloane. Don’t you like it?” he said.

Every time he said my name I wanted to projectile vomit all over him.

“I’ll admit, at first when I followed you I was just going to kill you. But over time I developed feelings. I wouldn’t say love—what is love, really? And what do people mean when they say they’re in love. Do they even know what that is? What we have is more real than any kind of simple love. We admire each other. Me from afar watching you, and you stopping at nothing to find me. I’m meant to have you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

At some point his fantasies convinced him that we shared the same obsessions.

“You’re insane if you think any type of love exists between us,” I said.

His voice elevated.

“You have a naughty mouth, and you need to get control of what comes out of it or I’ll have to cover it up, and then you won’t be able to talk at all. Don’t you treat me like you don’t want to be here after all I’ve done for you—for us.”

I wanted to fight, to tell him how much he reviled me—but I knew I’d said too much already.

“Tell me about my sister,” I said.

“Now you want to talk about her?”

“You were the last one to see her alive. When she spoke her last words, only you were there to hear them. You stripped me of the chance to have that experience for myself.”

“Alright then,” he said. “I can do that.”

There was one thing Sam didn’t know about me. I had small hands and even smaller wrists, and he hadn’t put the cuffs on tight. While he blabbed on, I twisted and turned my wrist. I didn’t care if I broke every bone in my body—one way or another, I would free myself.

Sam continued, “Your sister as you know was the last of my first victims, and that’s why she had to be the most beautiful. And she was—spectacular, just like you. I met her at the gas station. She asked if she could bum a cigarette from me. And I told her I didn’t smoke, but I went in the store and bought her a pack, and she was so thrilled she didn’t think twice when I asked her to come over to my car so I could give her a light. You two may look alike, but she’s doesn’t have half the brain that you possess.” He shook his head. “No sir. She pleaded and begged, and even when I cut her, she wouldn’t stop the constant jabbering.”

I felt my left eye go moist—I wanted to keep control of my emotions, but his callous words were too much.

“Wow,” he said. “Fascinating. Most girls cry for themselves, for their own lives and they’d do anything to spare it. Not you though. You shed a single tear, and it’s from someone who’s not even alive.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Even if she mentioned you?”

“What?”

“Just before I squeezed her life away she said she was sorry about how things ended when you last talked to each other.” He laughed. “Course she was talking to herself, but even so, I suppose that means something to you.”

It meant everything. The last time I saw Gabby I was angry with her because she’d decided to marry a man she barely knew and didn’t know anything about. I’d thought about that conversation over and over in my mind—if only I could have taken it all back.

“Why don’t you let the girl in the next room go?” I said. “She doesn’t deserve to be here.”

“I’m offended by that, Sloane. I got her for you.”

“I don’t understand?”

“It took me months to find someone who looked like your best girlfriend…Madison, is it? But finally I did, and now you’ll have no reason to leave. You have me and you have your friend and you’ll stay with me. And we’ll be here together forever.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “This isn’t some silly little game; you can’t keep me here.”

“Of course I can.”

“I’m not your mother, Sam. You can’t create a world like this and think it’s perfect and expect me to live in it with you. You can’t keep me here against my will. Nothing you ever say to me will ever justify you killing innocent women, you son of a bitch.”

Sam bolted out of the chair and grabbed the framed photographs and threw them into a trash can next to the door. He faced me and balled his hands into fists and whacked both sides of his head with them.

“I hate you! Do you hear me? I wish you were dead! You were supposed to stay here and be with me and not leave. Why can’t you do that? You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You want to hurt me, and you want to leave me. Why? I did everything for you. I just wanted you to be happy, but you couldn’t be that way with me, and that’s why you went away. You left me.”

He wasn’t talking to me now. He was talking through me. He’d tapped into all his suppressed emotions and channeled someone else.

Sam crunched his fingers inward and reached for my neck. I broke free of the cuff that held me and swung at his head as hard as I could. He flew backward and crashed into the wall. I ran out of the room and into the next and slammed and locked the door behind me. Angela lay still on the bed. Tears stained her cheeks. At least fifteen rows of gashes lined her legs which made me wonder how long he’d kept her. I removed the blindfold, but I couldn’t free her from the cuffs on her wrists and ankles.

When I looked into her eyes they reminded me of an animal who’d been severely beaten.

“Hang on, Angela. I’m going to get us both out of here.”

“How?” she said.

Sam pounded on the outside of the door.

“You have no place to go Sloane. Stay in there as long as you want. I’ll be here when you come out.”

“I’m scared,” Angela said.

I searched the room.

“I need you to focus for me, okay? When he was in here with you, did you hear anything like where he might have got the knife he used or any other tools he kept in this room?”

The only noise that came from her was the sound of her cries.

“Angela! Do you want to get out of here or not?” I said.

“There’s a drawer.”

“That’s good,” I said.

I looked around and didn’t see it.

“Where is it?”

“Under my bed.”

I got down on all fours and looked but it was too dark. I took my hand and stretched it out as far as it would go and then I felt something. I pulled out two boxes. One contained several knifes in different shapes and sizes and in the other was one item: my gun. I checked it. Still loaded.