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  Daddy’s Little Girl

  William Malmborg

  Copyright © 2017 by William Malmborg

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Headlines

  Spring 2008

  Spring 2017

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Headlines

  Summer 2017

  Headlines

  About the Author

  Headlines

  From the East River Times, April 2, 2002

  Local Teen Disappears While Walking Home from School

  From the East River Times, April 16, 2002

  St. Mary’s to Hold Candlelight Vigil for Missing Student

  From the Springfield Chronicle, April 22, 2002

  Boyfriend Questioned in Disappearance of Local Teen

  From the East River Times, April 28, 2002

  Family of Missing Teen Offers Reward for Information

  From the Springfield Chronicle, March 16, 2008

  Dateline to Feature Special on Local Teen Who Vanished in 2002

  From the Springfield Chronicle, April 30, 2008

  Ex-Boyfriend of Missing Teen Claims Dateline Portrayal of Him Biased

  From the East River Times, May 3, 2008

  Remains Found in Bell Woods Not Those of 2002 Missing Teen

  Spring 2008

  “Honey, wake up.”

  Misty opened her eyes, confused.

  “We have to go,” Mommy said, right hand gripping her shoulder.

  “What?” Misty asked, blinking away the sleep, her own hand reaching up to help rub the residue away.

  She was on the couch in the family room, sunlight gleaming through the tall windows.

  “Come on,” Mommy urged, giving her an upward tug. “We have to go!”

  Something fell to the floor.

  What the—?

  Harry Potter!

  She had been reading the third book on the couch, the words her mommy had taught her during the last several months getting easier and easier to the point where she had secretly gone ahead, her mind having learned something about Harry’s uncle that she couldn’t believe. Something her mommy didn’t know about yet. Something that she couldn’t wait for her to uncover during their quiet time before bed. Something she had planned on acting surprised about so they could share the moment together.

  But now Mommy would know that she had gone ahead, that she could read on her own and didn’t need her to say the words. And once Daddy found out—

  Daddy!

  Was he home?

  It seemed too early.

  “Is Daddy home?” Misty asked, a final blink bringing everything into focus.

  “No, not yet. Come on. We have to go. Now!”

  Misty frowned. “What are you doing up—”

  Blood.

  It was on her mommy’s blouse, the crimson color impossible to miss against the white fabric, dots of it splattered across her front, getting larger and larger until—

  “Mommy? What happened?”

  The front left shirttail had been pulled free of her skirt and wrapped around her left hand, the blood from whatever wound was present seeping through.

  Rather than answer, her mommy simply gave her another tug, the panic now visible upon her face.

  Daddy was going to be mad.

  Mommy wasn’t allowed upstairs.

  She was supposed to stay in the cellar.

  And to make sure of that, Daddy had the chains that connected her to the wall. Lots of chains with lots of different cuff links, some high up if she had been naughty so that she had to stay standing all day, others low so she could sit or lie down.

  Today had been a low one, her left wrist simply connected to the wall next to her rocking chair, but yesterday, and many of the days before that, had been high ones so that she was on her toes the entire time, Mommy having made Daddy angry several nights earlier. Misty had heard the shouting during their bedroom time, shouting that was so loud that the headphones and music Daddy told her to listen to wouldn’t have kept it out even if she had been wearing them rather than standing by the door, listening.

  Misty didn’t like it when Daddy left Mommy in the high ones for several days, because then Mommy couldn’t use the bucket and made messes on the floor that she had to clean up, which wasn’t fun. Cleaning out the bucket wasn’t either, but was easier, her fingers able to pinch her nose shut while she carried it to the bathroom to flush down the potty. With the floor, she had to get Daddy’s butt gloves, paper towels, and soap, and couldn’t pinch her nose shut with her fingers. Even putting a wooden clothespin on her nose didn’t keep the stinky from getting through.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Misty asked.

  “Honey, come on,” Mommy demanded and then gave a good solid yank that pulled her straight off the couch. “We’re leaving.”

  “But Daddy will—”

  “Stop calling him that!” Mommy screamed.

  Startled, Misty pulled away from her grip, lip quivering, tears appearing.

  “Honey, I’m sorry,” Mommy said. “Please, come on. We need to leave before he comes back.”

  A wince followed.

  Mommy was in pain.

  That’s why she was acting like this.

  She had hurt herself and now was confused.

  So confused that she was trying to leave.

  Trying to leave!

  No.

  Daddy had warned her this might happen, that Mommy might get crazy and try to take her away. He had warned her, and then showed her what she needed to do. Several times.

  “I need my shoes,” Misty said.

  “Where are they?” Mommy asked.

  “This way,” Misty said, taking her mommy’s hand and leading the way to the front door.

  Her shoes were really by the back door, for when she went out to the playhouse Daddy had built for her, but Mommy wouldn’t know that. Couldn’t know that. Not when she was only allowed upstairs when Daddy wanted to spend bedroom time with her.

  Mommy also didn’t know about the zappy thingy.

  Unlike her shoes, the zappy thingy was by the front door, in a slot that Daddy had shown her, and he’d had her practice retrieving it and using it for hours and hours.

  The practice had made her good at grabbing it and zapping with it.

  So good that Daddy had bought her a Happy Meal from McDonald’s, one that had a toy inside. He had also promised that if she ever had to use the zappy thingy on Mommy, he would buy her more Happy Meals and more toys. Better ones than what came with the Happy Meals. Maybe even a doll.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Whoa, honey, remember what I said about when I first come home.”

  “I know, I know, I know, but I had to use the zappy thingy!”

  Daddy’s face changed. “What?”

  She took him by the hand and hurried him into the family room, the journey this time around much easier than it had been with Mommy since he could walk. With Mommy, she’d had to drag her by the foot, and though Mommy was skinny, it had still been hard.

  “I couldn’t get her all the way back downstairs,” Misty said as they came upon the stairway banister. “So I put her here and used the handcuffs just like you showed me, only I had to do just one hand because her other h
and was hurt.”

  “Oh my God,” he said, his eyes looking down at the thumbless left hand.

  “I think Mommy bit herself, because when she woke up again after I zapped her, she started trying to chew on her other thumb. And she kept screaming at me—”

  “No, no, no,” Daddy said, dropping to his knees in front of Mommy.

  “—so I taped her mouth shut, but she kept pulling it off, so I zapped her again and then used lots of tape so she couldn’t peel it away.” Around and around she had gone with it, using up nearly half the roll, covering everything but Mommy’s eyes.

  Daddy started peeling the tape away, his voice mumbling things as he worked at it, Mommy’s head bouncing around with the frantic pulls as the tape unwound.

  During all of this, Mommy stayed sleeping.

  It was kind of crazy.

  Misty would not have been able to sleep through such a thing. Never. But then Mommy was able to sleep through all kinds of things that would have kept Misty awake, especially those times when she was standing in the chains. Standing like that hurt, Misty having decided to try it once to see what it was like and then having gotten stuck until Daddy came home. He had been so mad at her that he left her like that all night as a punishment for messing around in the cellar, her toes just barely on the ground, the cuffs digging into her wrists, her skirt eventually getting soaked when she could no longer hold her urge to use the bathroom, her screams for him to free her going unheard since sound couldn’t leave the cellar. Making that night worse, he had taken Mommy to his bedroom, leaving her all alone.

  She had not been able to sleep that night, and now, if she was the one with her head bouncing back and forth as the tape was unwound, she knew she would not have been able to stay asleep. But Mommy could. Even once the tape was fully gone and Daddy slapped her cheeks several times while shouting at her to wake up, she didn’t.

  Spring 2017

  One

  “Cow.”

  “What?” Ramsey asked, eyes momentarily shifting from the empty road to the passenger seat.

  “Another cow,” Tess said.

  “What are you talking—” Ramsey started, but then, realizing what she was doing, shook his head and looked back at the road, the pavement and the fields it cut through stretching as far as the eye could see. Anger appeared, and for a moment he was going to say something but then decided against it and remained silent.

  Tess looked at him, waiting, and then said, “Sorry.”

  Ramsey didn’t reply.

  “Sorry!” Tess repeated.

  “All my life,” Ramsey snapped.

  “What?”

  “You and Mom, you always tease me about everything I’m passionate about.”

  “No we don’t.”

  “Yes! You do.”

  Tess didn’t reply to that.

  Ramsey took a breath, trying to push the anger back down. It didn’t work.

  “I’m sorry,” Tess said.

  This time it sounded sincere.

  Ramsey hesitated. He didn’t want to say it was okay because it wasn’t. He was pissed. Had been for a long time. But he also didn’t want the tension to remain, not when they would be in the car together all day. He had to say something. “Thanks.” It was all he could think of.

  Tess turned and looked at him.

  He kept his eyes on the road.

  After several seconds, she turned her eyes back to her window and looked out at the field.

  “That doesn’t really happen, does it?” Tess asked a few minutes later.

  “Does what not really happen?”

  “Cows flying by the car. We’re not going to see anything like that, are we?”

  “I don’t know. I never have, but it can happen, so…”

  Tess shivered.

  “Chances are we won’t. Not much cattle down here. It’s mostly crops. Corn, soybeans, and whatnot.”

  “Good, because I don’t think I could handle seeing that. Poor things.”

  “Be thankful we’re not in Texas. Down there, after a storm, they spend weeks pulling mutilated bodies out of trees, the stench from the rotting parts cooking in the hot sun making it nearly impossible to go outside.”

  “What?”

  “And if the winds within the vortex are strong enough, they’ll pull the flesh right off the bone—”

  “Stop!” Tess urged. “You’re gonna make me sick.”

  “Speaking of cows, we should find a place to eat soon before the storms blow up, because once they do—”

  “Ramsey, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” he asked.

  “Force me into a steak place.”

  “Tess, I’m not—”

  “I will call it quits.”

  “Quits?” Ramsey asked. “And then what, walk home? We’re four hours away.”

  “You won’t leave me behind.”

  “No?”

  “I’ll call Mom. She’ll come pick me up.”

  “You’d make her drive four hours just to make a point?”

  “What point? I’m just saying, if you try to force me into a steak place, I’m calling it quits and then Mom will be pissed that she had to leave work, and you’ll have no one to help you film your stupid twisters.”

  Ramsey shook his head.

  Tess went silent as well.

  “You know,” Ramsey started, but then stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Just that I don’t think we’re going to be seeing any steak places, and even if we did, I wouldn’t drag you into one.”

  She stared at him.

  He turned and stared back.

  Suspicion was present in her eyes.

  He looked back at the road.

  A sign for St. Louis appeared.

  With it came a craving for a pork sandwich from Bandana’s, which was a BBQ joint he and Courtney used to always stop at while heading west. The two had been best friends in college, their spring and early summer months often spent on the road following the storm systems, video cameras ready to capture the footage that would propel them into the big leagues of the chasing community.

  Tess would not approve of a BBQ place.

  Shit, she wouldn’t approve of anything that focused on meat.

  She wasn’t a militant vegan, but she was far from being a passive vegetarian. Instead, she had found herself a spot in the middle, one that would allow for those around her to eat the flesh of animals, but only if they accepted her unrelenting scorn as well as the occasional descriptive statement or two detailing how abusive the factory farm industry was.

  “How about Cheddar’s?” Ramsey asked, a tall sign hovering over a patch of trees in the distance.

  “What’s Cheddar’s?” Tess asked.

  “It’s like diner food, mom-and-pop style, yet also a chain.”

  “Hmm…”

  The exit was drawing near.

  “We need a decision.”

  “Are we near that place that throws rolls to you?” she asked.

  Momentarily confused, it took a second for Ramsey to understand what she was asking, and he eventually said, “Oh, no, that’s in Missouri. Like two hours from here.”

  “Okay, then Cheddar’s will do.”

  “Great.” He signaled for the exit and soon found himself keeping the wheel twisted at a hard angle as they looped around a giant curve that backtracked around to the food area. Several other establishments were present as well, though none of them would have met with Tess’s approval, so he didn’t even offer up the suggestion of trying one of them instead.

  “You know, that place got sued,” Tess said.

  “What place?” Ramsey asked, his eyes shifting around and absorbing the looks of all those that were staring at them—at Tess—her jet-black hair, leather pants, skintight T-shirt, and leather coat having drawn quite a bit of attention as they walked in and were led to a table.

  “The one that throws
rolls.”

  “Oh.” He turned his attention away from the looks, not wanting Tess to see that they were getting to him. “Really?”

  “Yeah, someone got hit in the face with a roll and the next thing you know, lawsuit.” She sipped her water.

  “Wow, throwing rolls is their thing. It’s what put them on the map.”

  Tess nodded but didn’t say anything else on the subject.

  Ramsey sipped his Coke.

  “Do you really think we’ll see a tornado?” Tess asked.

  “For sure. The conditions are perfect. Best I’ve seen in years. Two to three hours from now, this entire area is going to be pitch-black and sirens are going to be echoing. There’ll be an outbreak and it will be record-breaking.”

  Tess shivered. “Remember when we were kids and that storm came in while we were at the pool and we had to hurry home and then the sirens started going off?”

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “Me either.”

  “We’re not going to get that close, are we?”

  “No, no, no.” He shook his head. “We’ll be miles away from the storms, on the front side. That way we can see the tornado as it touches down without any rain blocking our view.”

  “A couple years ago those storm chasers were killed. They had a Discovery Channel show.”

  “I know, I remember.” He and Courtney had not been out that week, mostly because they hadn’t been able to get their shit together in time to head all the way out to the Oklahoma area. That was the one downside of being a storm chaser who lived in Chicago. Getting to Tornado Alley at the last minute could prove difficult. Fortunately, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri all had dozens of tornadoes every year as well, and those storms were easy to go after with only a day’s notice.