Chapter 30

30

There were so many pictures. So many pictures of her. After Scott had tried to grab Bethanne but failed, he'd come back inside the shack, grabbed Candace's hands, and tied them back together. This time they were positioned in front of her. Her shoulders were grateful for the reprieve, but her wrists were stinging something awful. He'd intentionally tied her tight, and the rough rope dug into her already raw skin.

Then, after she was trussed up, he left for a few minutes. Her head felt foggy, and her ribs and side ached terribly from his kicks. But he was gone now, and she could only hope he would leave her alone for a while. For long enough for Bethanne to get help.

Alone in the silence, she prayed with all her might for Bethanne to make it to safety. For Scott to not find her before she could. And for God not to forget her. She knew that by now her family would have notified the authorities. They—along with Ryan—were probably out looking for her.

But how would they know where to go? How many people knew about the old shack not far from her aunt and uncle's property?

Her desolation started to get the best of her. She started thinking about being forgotten. Started dwelling on how thirsty she was. How long she had gone without food. Was she simply going to die in here all alone?

Scott returned, opened a shopping bag and dumped it on the floor. Out fell hundreds of pictures of her. They scattered, kicking up a bit of dirt, and settled in with the grime and decay surrounding them. And then he began to talk. Mumbling. Barely making sense.

Sitting on the dirty floor in the shack, Candace tried to keep herself together, but it was getting harder and harder with every second. Although it had likely only been thirty minutes since Bethanne had escaped, it felt like two days. She was barely hanging on. Now that she was alone with Scott, she didn't know how she was going to survive until help arrived.

And she knew that someone would come, sooner or later. Bethanne would see to that.

She let her mind drift from what was happening to her. Bethanne probably had no idea how much she'd helped Candace. Her cousin had a grit to her that most people overlooked while others had simply forgotten that it was there. Candace had been guilty of doing the same thing.

For so long, she'd thought of Bethanne as "poor Bethy" or perpetually kept her age at sixteen. Even when Bethanne told Candace about her job reviewing books, she hadn't taken it seriously. All she'd ever done was nod and smile and say that her job sounded fun and so good for her. And before her eyes, some of Bethanne's pride and self-esteem had withered.

But Bethanne had been incredible throughout their captivity. It wasn't that she hadn't given up, it was that she'd been strong. And had encouraged Candace to be strong too. Can dace really wished that she'd taken the time to tell Bethanne that she was grateful for her.

Now she wondered if she'd ever get that chance.

"You aren't looking at me, Candace," Scott said in his angry, nasal voice. "Look at me."

Since she had no choice, she stared into his camera and did her best not to flinch when the flash blinded her. After the camera clicked eight, nine, ten times—she really had no idea how many times he pressed the button—she looked away.

He was breathing harder now. "I'm not done. And you weren't smiling. You need to smile."

She swallowed. "I can't."

He let the camera hang from its strap around his neck and grabbed her shoulder, his long fingernails digging through the fabric of her T-shirt and pinching her skin. Then, to her horror, he began to rearrange her hair. It was knotted and tangled, but he carefully caressed each curl.

He stepped back and lifted the camera again. "It's time to strike another pose. Move so your legs are laying out flat in front of you."

No way did she want to start posing for him. "It's hard to reposition without the use of my hands."

Instantly she regretted saying those words when he crouched in front of her. After sliding a hand along her calf, he pulled her leg out. She was hurting so badly from his beating, even that reposition made her cry out. "You're hurting me."

"You deserve it. You're not cooperating. Get up."

She wasn't sure if she could.

"Sit up and pose! Do it! I'm taking your pictures."

Somehow she was able to use her elbow to get herself into a sitting position, but she was in so much pain, she could hardly bear it. And she was angry. "Stop it!" she yelled. "Stop taking my picture."

"That's why you're here." Picking up another bag he'd brought in and then seemed to have forgotten, he turned it upside down. Even more photographs spilled out. "Don't you see, Candace?" He bent down and spread them out on the floor. "Don't you see what I'm doing for you?"

Every one of the photographs was of her. Some in black and white, some in color. Some had been taken years ago, back when she'd been homecoming queen her senior year in high school. Others were far more recent.

He'd been everywhere. When she was at school, in stores, at the library, with Ryan, driving in her car. With her family. There had to be at least two hundred of them. The sight turned her stomach. "I don't want to see them."

"Of course you do. Look!" He picked up a color photo from the top of the pile. "Look at you here. Do you remember this?"

She stared at it. "Last summer." She was wearing a pair of short shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. Around her neck, the dark blue straps of her halter bikini top were visible. She didn't have a lick of makeup on, and her hair was a scraggly mess. She'd been with one of her girlfriends on their lake, and for hours they'd lain in the sun, then jumped in the lake to cool off before laying out again.

He smiled as he ran a finger over her body in the picture. "I couldn't believe it when I saw you looking like that, Candace. You looked so bad."

"Bad?"

He nodded. "That's why I took so many pictures of you like this. I had to fix you."

Her skin crawled with horror. If she thought she could, she would've thrown up.

But since he was talking and not hurting her, she'd help him keep that up. Bethanne had made it to safety. Maybe Ryan really would soon find her. Maybe God really was listening and going to answer her prayers.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "What did you do?"

His voice and expression softened. "Why, I made you better, Candy. I edited people out of your pictures and fixed your smiles." He held up two pictures. One was how she'd really looked, the other was an almost-cartoonish version of her. "See what I did?" he asked, sounding almost childish. "I put lipstick back on your lips. And I fixed your hair."

He'd somehow cut and pasted another hairstyle onto her head. It was bizarre and scary. "Is that my hair or someone else's?"

"Someone else's," he said with an easy smile. "I once knew another girl who looked like you. She had perfect golden curls." He ran his finger along the hair in the picture. "It was so pretty. It was so soft too." He lowered his voice. "So soft." He glared at her. "Not like yours looks now."

How could he have known that about the other girl's hair? Candace's heart pounded faster. Had he held her captive too and petted it, just like he was petting her hair in the picture? Chill bumps formed on her arms. She needed to keep him talking. "Why did you add her hair to mine?"

He dropped the picture. "Because she always looked pretty. Always, always, always." A muscle in his jaw worked as he visibly tried to control himself. "Unlike you." Still scowling at her, he rose to his feet. "Look at you. You look terrible, Candace. Ugly. I'm going to have to fix all of your pictures."

She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to tell him that he had no business doing such things. Of ever even thinking such things. She wanted to beg him to release her. To untie her and let her go.

But she couldn't. There was nothing she could do. She'd never felt more helpless in her entire life.

Scott was breathing hard again. He looked like he was going to hit something—like he was enraged.

"What happened to her?" she asked.

He blinked. "Who?"

Honestly, it was like he wasn't even sure what reality he was in. "The other girl." She pointed to the picture he'd been caressing. "The girl with the pretty hair. What happened to her?"

"Angela?"

She nodded because she had no idea what else to do.

"She's gone."

A chill went through her. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't understand?"

"What happened to Angela, Scott?"

He blinked again. "I don't know." Looking more agitated, he added, "She ran away." Pointing to the door, he said, "Now I put locks on everything."

When he started pacing back and forth across the pictures of her, talking to himself, Candace finally understood why Bethanne had kept to herself for so long after Peter's death. Even if Ryan and the entire police force burst into the shack that very moment and ended this, she would never be the same. This would haunt her—maybe forever.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to cry. When she heard the camera click, she didn't move.

"Did you fall asleep?" Scott's yell startled her.

Had she fallen asleep? She didn't know. But she sat up straighter and shook her head.

"You didn't answer me."

"No," she said quickly. "I'm awake."

His eyes narrowed. "Then you were ignoring me again. Just like back in high school. You were pretending I didn't exist."

She had no idea what he was talking about. "When did I do that?"

"You don't remember?" He stared down at her. "You don't remember when I took your picture and they put it in the yearbook because I did such a good job?"

She didn't, but ... "Of course I remember," she lied.

He clenched his jaw. Then pulled out a knife. "You're lying to me, Candace," he said calmly but coldly. "You're pretending that you remember our conversation, but you don't. I meant nothing to you."

She started shaking. Scott was staring at her, obviously needing her to tell him something, anything about whatever moment he was referring to, but she had no idea what it was.

"I thought you were nice. I thought, all this time, if you and I got alone, you'd love me too. But that's never going to happen, is it?"

She had to bide her time. Had to keep him talking. Say anything to keep him from hurting her. "We can get to know each other now," she said softly.

"You're lying to me." The pain in his eyes was so fierce that it hurt to look at him.

Then she couldn't, because he knelt down, gripped her chin with one hand, and then attacked her with his knife. She cried out as the blade slashed her cheek and bare arm.

Despair hit her hard. Things were going to get much worse, and she had no way to stop him.

She was going to die.