Vanish

room and this house, which has become our only universe since the night the van brought us here. Sun sparkles on the frost outside our window. It is beautiful in those woods, and I imagine walking among the trees. The crackling leaves, the ice glistening on branches. A cool, pure paradise.

In this house, it is hell.

I see its reflection in the faces of the other girls, who now lie sleeping on dirty cots. I hear the torment in their restless moans, their whimpers. Six of us share this room. Olena has been here the longest, and on her cheek is an ugly bruise, a souvenir left by a client who liked to play rough. Even so, Olena sometimes still fights back. She is the only one among us who does, the only one they cannot quite control, despite their calming drugs and injections. Despite their beatings.

I hear a car roll into the driveway, and I wait with dread for the buzzing of the doorbell. It is like a jolt from a live wire. The girls all startle awake at the sound and they sit up, hugging their blankets to their chests. We know what happens next. We hear the key in the lock, and our door swings open.

The Mother stands in the doorway like a fat cook, ruthlessly choosing which lamb to slaughter. As always, she is cold-blooded about it, her pockmarked face showing no emotion as she scans her flock. Her gaze moves past the girls huddled on their cots and then shifts to the window, where I am standing.

“You,” she says in Russian. “They want someone new.”

I glance at the other girls. All I see in their eyes is relief that this time they are not the chosen sacrifice.

“What are you waiting for?” the Mother says.

My hands have gone cold; already I feel nausea twisting my stomach. “I-I am not feeling well. And I’m still sore down there…”

“Your first week, and already you’re sore?” The Mother snorts. “Get used to it.”

The other girls are all staring at the floor, or at their hands, avoiding my gaze. Only Olena looks at me, and in her eyes I see pity.

Meekly I follow the Mother out of the room. I already know that to resist is to be punished, and I still have the bruises from the last time I protested. The Mother points to the room at the end of the hall.

“There’s a dress on the bed. Put it on.”

I walk into the room and she shuts the door behind me. The window looks out over the driveway, where a blue car is parked. Bars cover the windows here as well. I look at the large brass bed, and what I see is not a piece of furniture, but the device of my torture. I pick up the dress. It is white, like a doll’s frock, with ruffles around the hem. At once I understand what this signifies, and my nausea tightens to a knot of fear. When they ask you to play a child, Olena warned me, it means they want you to be scared. They want you to scream. They enjoy it if you bleed.

I do not want to put on the dress, but I’m afraid not to. By the time I hear footsteps approaching the room, I am wearing the dress, and steeling myself for what comes next. The door opens, and two men step in. They look me over for a moment, and I’m hoping that they are disappointed, that they think I am too thin or too plain, and they’ll turn around and walk out. But then they shut the door and come toward me, like stalking wolves.

You must learn to float away. That’s what Olena taught me, to float above the pain. This I try to do as the men rip off the doll’s dress, as their rough hands close around my wrists, as they force me to yield. My pain is what they have paid for, and they are not satisfied until I am screaming, until sweat and tears streak my face. Oh Anja, how lucky you are to be dead!

When it is over, and I hobble back to the locked room, Olena sits down beside me on my cot, and strokes my hair. “Now you need to eat,” she says.

I shake my head. “I only want to die.”

“If you die, then they win. We can’t let them win.”

“They’ve already won.” I turn on my side and hug my knees to my chest, curling into a tight ball that nothing can penetrate. “They’ve already won…”

“Mila, look at me. Do you think I’ve given up? Do you think I’m already dead?”

I wipe tears from my face. “I’m not as strong as you are.”

“It’s not strength, Mila. It’s hate. That’s what keeps you alive.” She bends close, and her long hair is a waterfall of black silk. What I see in her eyes scares me. A fire burns there; she is not quite sane. This is how Olena survives, on drugs and madness.

The door opens again, and we all shrink as the Mother glances around the room. She points to one of the girls. “You, Katya. This one’s yours.”

Katya just stares back, unmoving.

With two paces, the Mother crosses toward her and slaps her across the ear. “Go,” she orders, and Katya stumbles out of the room. The Mother locks the door.

“Remember, Mila,” Olena whispers. “Remember what keeps you alive.”

I look into her eyes and see it. Hate.

TEN

“We can’t let this information get out,” said Gabriel. “It could kill her.”

Homicide detective Barry Frost reacted with a stunned gaze. They were standing in the parking lot of the Sunrise Yacht Club. Not a breeze stirred, and out on Hingham Bay, sailboats drifted, dead in the water. Under the glare of the afternoon sun, sweat pasted wispy strands of hair to Frost’s pale forehead. In a room full of people, Barry Frost was the one you’d most likely overlook, the man who’d quietly recede into a corner where he’d stand smiling and unnoticed. His bland temperament had helped him weather his occasionally stormy partnership with Jane, a partnership that, over the past two and a half years, had grown strong roots in trust. Now the two men who cared about her, Jane’s husband and Jane’s partner, faced each other with shared apprehension.

“No one told us she was in there,” murmured Frost. “We had no idea.”

“We can’t let the media find out.”

Frost huffed out a shocked breath. “That would be a disaster.”

“Tell me who Jane Doe is. Tell me everything you know.”

“Believe me, we’ll pull out all the stops on this. You have to trust us.”

“I can’t sit on the sidelines. I need to know everything.”

“You can’t be objective. She’s your wife.”

“Exactly. She’s my wife.” A note of panic had slipped into Gabriel’s voice. He paused to rein in his agitation and said quietly: “What would you do? If it was Alice trapped in there?”

Frost regarded him for a moment. At last he nodded. “Come inside. We’re talking to the commodore. He pulled her out of the water.”

They stepped from glaring sunshine into the cool gloom of the yacht club. Inside, it smelled like every seaside bar that Gabriel had ever walked into, the scent of ocean air mingled with citrus and booze. It was a rickety building, perched on a wooden pier overlooking Hingham Bay. Two portable air-conditioning units rattled in the windows, muffling the clink of glasses and the low hum of conversation. The floors creaked as they headed toward the lounge.

Gabriel recognized the two Boston PD detectives standing at the bar, talking with a bald man. Both Darren Crowe and Thomas Moore were Jane’s colleagues from the homicide unit; both of them