Read Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 02 - Portrait on Wicker for Free Online Page A

jerks and you’re going to be okay. You are so brave, Julia. Believe it or not we’re both strong women, and this experience will make you stronger.”
    She blew her nose and continued. “I started to run but he had anticipated this and grabbed my arm. Mackey came over to help him and together they got me inside the studio apartment under the house.
    “I think they thought this was the downstairs of the main house. When they realized the layout, they put me on the bed and tied me up while they explored the main house.
    “I managed to get paper and pen from the nightstand and leave you a not e. Did you find it? I put it under the nightstand but who would think to look there?”
    “I did find it,” I said. “There was a corner sticking out.”
    “You’re so smart, Judith.”
    She continued. “I heard them coming down the stairs and managed to hide the note. I put the paper and pen in my pocket of the skirt I was wearing.
    “They took me upstairs and I then began to really see w hat a monster Calvin was. Mackey is an angel compared to him.”
    She picked up a corner of the sheet and began tying it into knots. She looked like she was trying to wring someone’s neck. We waited her out. When she finally spoke, her voice was so low we had to strain to hear her.
    “They had taken me into the master bedroom and laid me on the bed. Mackey stood looking at me like he was going to attack me and, at first, I was more afraid of him.
    “When Calvin started interrogating me I almost lost it. First he asked me how my slut sister was doing. He said you would be next, Judith.
    “I became so frightened that I almost wet myself and I asked him if I could go to the bathroom. They both went with me and watched me pee. It was so degrading, but then that’s what the first two days were about, degradation.
    “They didn’t hurt me physically at first. They made me strip and tied me spread-eagled on the bed. They openly discussed my body. Calvin told me that a grown woman’s body didn’t turn him on at all. Mackey said it turned him on all right but he had no interest in rape.
    “The n they quit talking to me. They discussed me as if I didn’t exist. A few times I tried to talk to Mackey when Calvin wasn’t in the room. I tried to reason with him to let me go but he acted like he never heard me. They gave me bread soaked in vinegar to eat and water to drink.
    “I think they had p ut some drugs in the vinegar, because I slept a lot. Or it might have been the hopelessness I felt. I knew I would never make it out of there alive and that they intended to eventually kill me.
    “They came and went and continued to discuss me in my presence. Sometimes they discussed me just outside the door and I knew I was meant to hear them.
    “They were always arguing about the pros and cons of using an adult woman co mpared to a female child or young teenager.
    “They watched me shower, when I was allowed to shower and go to the bathroom.
    “ On the third day they brought me a huge steak, salad and French fries and a large coke. My stomach rebelled after being starved for two days and I was sick all over the bed.
    “They told me how disgusting I was and made me clean the whole bedroom, change and wash the sheets and shower. I was so weak by this time it was hard to do all this.
    “When they left me I curled up on the bed and went to sleep. They had left me untied. They probably knew I was too tired to escape. I slept the sleep of the dead and thought at one point during the night I was dead.
    “They didn’t come to the room at all the next day and I thought they had left. I didn’t hear them at all. I snuck down the stairs and raided the refrigerator. They had left doggie bags of food from all the best restaurants in town.
    “After I ate , I ran upstairs and got dressed. I put on my shoes and, had just as I grabbed my purse when they walked in and grabbed me. I knew then that this had been their plan, to get my hopes up and then dash