And finally sleep – rest had become a luxury that Jennifer could just about kill or die for. Russell would keep her awake either by blasting fast, screaming, metal music at her for as long as twenty hours a day, or by surprising Jennifer with a jet of freezing water that would keep her clothes wet and her shivering for hours.
And that was how a military wear-down tactic called ‘destructive conditioning of morale’ worked, because despite feeling exhausted… despite getting just three hours of sleep in the past thirty, Jennifer was actually grateful that this time she had been awoken by loud music instead of freezing water. On ‘freezing water’ days, she would always wake up locked inside a five-foot by five-foot animal cage – no space to stand up, no space to move around, no space to extend her legs. When ear-piercing, shrieking metal music was used, Jennifer would wake up inside a solid concrete-walled room. Still a prison cell, but at least she could stretch her legs.
And stretch her legs was exactly what she did, but withoutstanding up. She felt too tired… her legs too weak to support even her measly 120 pounds. But even if her legs could hold her weight, she wouldn’t be able to stand up because by now, the soles of her feet were nothing but raw flesh – another weapon in Russell’s torture arsenal. Every day, at least once a day, he would tie her down and spank the soles of her feet with a long and thin bamboo cane until they bled. The pain was excruciating, but Jennifer wasn’t tied down, which meant that she wasn’t getting her feet tortured again… at least not for now.
She slowly forced herself into a sitting position and rested her back against the concrete wall. Reflexively, her skin-and-bone hands moved to the side of her head and rested over her ears, but it made no difference. The music was so loud that she could feel her ribcage and sternum rattling inside her.
Then, just like that, the room went eerily silent. Jennifer felt so disoriented, she couldn’t even tell if the loud music had been playing for five minutes, or five hours. She opened her eyes and they instinctively tried to sweep the room, moving from left to right, but there was no light anywhere. All that surrounded her was darkness and stale air. She didn’t want to cry anymore, but tears were already gathering around the lower rims of her eyes, threatening to spill out at any second, because deep inside, Jennifer knew that she was never getting out of that room. At least not alive. She knew that there was no one coming for her, but worst of all, she knew that she would never see her daughter again and that she would never be able to tell her how sorry she was for all the mistakes she’d made.
Despite all the horrors that came with sixteen years of prison, it was right there, sitting alone with her back against the wall of a pitch-black, godforsaken torture room, that Jennifer finally lost all hope. She didn’t want to fight anymore.
‘Please…’ she said to no one, her voice shaky and barely audible. ‘Just kill me and be done with this.’
‘What do you think he’s doing?’ a voice asked from one of the dark corners of the room.
‘ARGH!’ Jennifer screamed, her skeleton practically jumping out of her skin. She pressed her spine tighter against the wall behind her.
‘Heiskilling you. He’s just doing it slowly.’
Those words crawled along Jennifer’s skin, sticking to the sweat that had slicked into the grooves of her palms, and slipping into her nostrils as they flared with her uneven breathing. It wasn’t the fact that she wasn’t alone in that room that had most disturbed her. It was the fact that the voice that had replied to her plea didn’t belong to Russell.
It belonged to a woman.
Forty-Six
Keri Liftridge’s practicing psychology office was located in North Hollywood, right on Victory Boulevard, on the third floor of a dark-glass-fronted building that could easily be mistaken for a private bank. Hunter got there just as the clock struck five in the afternoon.
At the building’s reception lobby, he cleared security with a quick flash of his credentials before taking the stairs up to the third and topmost floor. The door to the psychology office was closed, with a sign that read, ‘Please ring for admittance’, followed by an arrow pointing to an intercom unit mounted on the wall to the right of the door. There was a camera built into the intercom.
Hunter pressed the button and waited. It took only a couple of seconds for someone to reply.
‘Yes, how may I help you this afternoon?’The female voice that came through the tiny intercom speaker was gentle, with a somewhat soothing quality to it.
‘Is this Mrs. Liftridge?’ Hunter asked.
‘No. Mrs. Liftridge is with a client at the moment. Do you have an appointment for today?’
‘Not exactly,’ Hunter replied, lifting up his credentials so that the camera could pick it up. ‘But if possible, I’d like to have a quick word with her. It really won’t take long.’
‘Umm…’
‘It really is important,’ Hunter pushed, sensing the hesitation.
There was a quick moment of indecision before the door buzzed open.‘Of course. Please come in.’
The door opened into a small reception room, where the only pieces of furniture were a filing cabinet and an office desk, behind which sat a lady so petite that Hunter had to angle his body to one side to be able to see her past her computer monitor. She looked to be in her mid-forties with dark, straight hair that had been cut short – fringe-bob style – dark eyes and a smile so well rehearsed it looked natural.
‘Please come in, Detective…?’
‘Hunter. Robert Hunter.’
‘I’m Janice,’ she said, without standing up. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Detective Hunter. Unfortunately, I can’t interrupt Mrs. Liftridge’s session.’ She indicated the door to her right and Hunter’s left. ‘But you’re welcome to take a seat in the waiting room if you like, and I’ll let Keri know that you’re here as soon as her session is over.’ She quickly checked the clock on her screen. ‘Which will be in about ten minutes’ time. I can’t guarantee that she’ll be able to see you today, but I can try.’
‘Does she have another appointment after this one?’
‘No. This is her last session for the day.’
‘Thank you, Janice. I appreciate it. I’ll wait.’ Hunter turned the handle on the door to the waiting room and pushed it open.
