Hansel 1(14)

After that, I open a new web browser, turn on TOR, and break one of my own personal rules.

I google Leah McKenzie, Peachtree City, Interior Design.



By noon, my cock is so hard, it’s throbbing, and my patience is thin. I couldn’t find anything recent on Leah. It’s as if she’s disappeared these past six months. She hasn’t even updated her company’s web site since August 2013. I’m entertaining the possibility that she’s died or been abducted.

I’m sitting on the king sized bed, flipping through my contacts for my favorite PI, when the first girl knocks. I summon her inside.

She’s wearing the uniform—blue teddy with blue garters, and a silver mask—the way she should, but immediately, I spot a problem. Her neck and upper shoulders are pocked with acne.

I look her over, have her turn a slow circle, and thank her for her time before dismissing her. She never speaks a word—just goes.

Next is T-Rex. The hands on her are…rough and weathered-looking. Leah’s hands are soft.

Cut.

My mood has worsened by the time the third one walks into the room. It takes another nose dive when I start to…smell her? What the fuck? But yes. That’s body odor. I sit up a little, checking to be sure it isn’t me. It’s her. Disgusting. Totally unacceptable when your body is your work.

I dismiss her, then wrap a robe around myself and stick my head out the door. “Ray?”

He’s right outside, holding a clip board. “Two more,” he says softly. He hands the clip board to me. I scowl down at the papers on it.

“What is this shit?”

“It’s the application, sir. We had another girl apply. Just now.”

“So what? The deadline’s passed. How am I going to deal with someone who can’t do the first thing I ask?”

“Yes—I know. But she’s insisting. She’s called the main line for times in the last hour. Her voice is as you like, and the images she sent look perfectly in line with what you need.”

“I thought there was another one today? Besides this late girl?”

“Dyed hair,” he says.

I nod. I don’t do fake blondes, not because I have anything against them, but because I’m looking for a certain thing.

I skim the hand-written application, scowling as I do. When I finish, I shove it back at him.

“Whatever. But you have to have her here in ten—or no dice.”

“Sir—”

“Ten minutes.” I look down at my watch. “That’s all the time I have before I have to call a fucking escort.”

I clench my teeth, because I want to lash out at Raymond. Instead, I take a long, slow breath and before walking back into the room. There I wait with my eyes shut, aching for someone I’ll probably never see again.





CHAPTER SIX

Leah

Ten Years Ago



The room has a cot, a small closet stocked with all-brown clothes, a desk stocked with paper, markers¸ and paint—but nothing sharp like pens or pencils—and a few paperback books. I find the markers are dried up, and so are the paints. All part of the game, I guess.

At the bottom of my door, there’s a hole about the size of a school text book where she puts a plate through once a day. The food is good enough, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really eat it. When I’m finished, I toss the plate outside the door. Sometimes, I can hear other people’s plates clatter against the hardwood hall. Occasionally I hear screaming, sometimes faint sobbing, and from the room to the left of mine, sometimes a sawing sound.

It’s been thirteen days now. Thirteen days I’ve spoken to no one. Three days since Mother pushed a sheet of stickers through the hole in my door. I thought I was finished crying, but today, I’ve cried all day.

All of a sudden, I hear a sound, and I look at the bottom of the wall that divides my room from the one on the left. A small square of Sheetrock falls out, revealing a sort-of jagged hole about the size of a CD.

I sit there for a second, still crying, and wonder what kind of game this is.

Then I walk slowly over.

I get on my hands and knees and peer through the hole.

I see a hazel eye, a dark eyebrow, and then, as he backs up just a little bit, a set of lips.

“Gretel?”

When his voice vibrates the air, I feel it deep down in my belly. It’s low and…nice.

I look into his eyes, and he looks into mine, and I feel warmer. Literally, warmer. Even though I can only see a little of his face, I can read the sympathy there.

“Gretel,” he says softly. “That’s what she’s calling you?”

I nod a little. Tears have started up again; they flow down my nose, dripping onto the rug.

“You’re crying,” he says. “What’s wrong?”