Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan

me on. I cradled my hand at my stomach and unlocked the door with my other hand, which quaked and trembled.
    He was waiting outside, arms crossed in front of him. He stood in the center of the clearing out front. His eyes narrowed as I emerged.
    “You fucking bitch,” he said, his voice low but hard.
    I tried to evade him but could not. He dragged me, kicking and screaming, back into the house. He pushed my face into the toilet until my chest burned and my mouth opened against my will to breathe in deep lungfuls of water.
    I woke on the bathroom floor on my side, spluttering, coughing and choking. Water poured out of my mouth, and my body snapped shut on itself, spasming to bring up the remaining water.
    He sat across from me, back against the wall, limbs folded neatly like a Buddha prepared to meditate. His eyes were dark but calm. When my body settled into quivers and intermittent coughs, he spoke.
    His voice was quiet, even. “I don’t know how to make you understand, Lynn. You are not leaving me. We will work through this for as long as it takes. I wish you wouldn’t make me hurt you. I love you so much, and then you go and try to leave. I’m trying to make a life for us. I don’t know why you insist on fighting me every step of the way. After everything I’ve done to make sure we could be together, you still don’t appreciate it.”
    A voice in my head said, I appreciate that you’re fucking crazy and I wish you were dead.
    He shook his head sadly. “I made sacrifices for us. I wish you could see that. I really thought that once we had a home together, you would turn around, but you disappoint me, Lynn. You really disappoint me.”
    I stared at him with aching, itchy eyes. He crawled toward me, and my body recoiled involuntarily. He did not notice. He stroked my hair and touched my cheek. “Because I love you,” he said, “I’m going to give you another chance. I know you want this to work just as much as I do. Don’t make me do anything we’ll both regret.”
    I had been beaten, raped, and starved so many times that the drowning, though new and terrifying, had almost no effect. I did not care what he did to me. Even when he reset my thumb, popping it back into place and wrapping it in an Ace bandage, I let out a single, short cry of pain and nothing more. Again, I began the long, tedious process of healing my body, gaining strength and earning privileges. It was a long time before I considered escape again or how I would do it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
     
    Twenty minutes after Connor’s call, Mitch stood beside him, listening as Connor recounted his interview with Dinah Strakowski. Connor showed him the picture of the blue station wagon. Mitch studied it and looked back at Connor. They didn’t discuss it, but they both knew that a tiny detail like that could be the key to solving a cold case.
    “I’ll get on the car,” Mitch said.
    Connor nodded and stepped off the curb. He stood in front of his car, facing the direction the abductor had gone when he drove away with Claire Fletcher’s body in his backseat. Farrell’s mouth turned up on one side, half smile, half scowl.
    “What are you working on, kid?” Farrell asked.
    Connor flashed him a smile and ran a hand through his hair. It felt good to work with someone who could follow his thoughts, even when Connor himself could not. He gestured down the street, trying to articulate the fusion of gut instinct and shapeless suspicion in his mind.
    Mitch stepped off the curb and stood in front of him. “Start at the top,” he instructed.
    Connor nodded. “All right. The guy is sitting here in his car, right? Before she even comes down the street, he’s sitting here. Waiting.”
    “Premeditation,” Farrell said. “You think he stalked her first?”
    Connor pursed his lips together, took another swipe at his hair. “No, no I don’t. I think this was just prime hunting ground. The school is two blocks away. These guys, they look for a type,