Waking Nightmare Read Online Free PDF Page B

questionnaire.
    “He’d hit me again. In the face and head. Sometimes on the breasts. He’d just pound on me until I stopped trying to fight at all. I just. . .I just wanted him to stop hitting me.”
    “Of course you did.” Abbie’s tone was reassuring. “And the fact that you quit resisting didn’t affect the outcome, Barbara. Nothing you did could have changed things. None of this was your fault.”
    “He never spoke at all.” The woman rubbed with her thumb at the condensation that had formed on the glass she still held. “Not once. That made it even more terrifying. It was like he wasn’t even human. And nothing I said, not when I cried and pleaded, nothing made any difference.”
    Although her words weren’t quite steady, she seemed to have found a well of inner strength to draw on. And that proved helpful as Ryne led her painstakingly through every detail of the attack. How the victims reacted to the process depended a great deal on the individual. Some dissolved into tears or withdrew completely. Others were reluctant to share the most degrading aspects of the rape, as the horror was revisited in the retelling.
    Billings seemed to shift away, as if disassociating herself. She didn’t appear aware of her mother’s tight grip on her hand. Of Abbie’s compassionate expression. Her recital was flat, devoid of expression. And maybe all the more gruesome for it.
    Like the other victims, once she’d been injected, her memory got foggy. She did remember that the rapist never undressed, which was in keeping with the statements from the other rape victims. She could recall the types of sexual assault inflicted, but was unable to list them in sequence or recall the exact number. She was able to describe with sickening clarity the nature of the paraphernalia used on her, the excruciating pain, and the torment that had seemed endless.
    But despite her cooperation, by the time Ryne had neared the end of the questionnaire, he had little new information to add to their file on the rapist.
    “Ms. Billings, do you recall any sudden changes in the rapist’s behavior?” When she shook her head, he pressed, “There wasn’t any certain moment in which he seemed to escalate to even more violence?”
    Her voice was bitter. “He was violent from the first minute he touched me. But the only time he seemed out of control was when I resisted. Most of the time I had the impression he didn’t have any feelings at all.”
    That perception could be owed to the mask the man wore, Ryne figured. Without a visual clue of the man’s emotions during the assault, he’d seem even more inhuman.
    Or it just might be an eerily accurate depiction of a psychopath.
    “At any time did he seem to experience sexual dysfunction?”
    Ryne looked at Abbie as she asked the question. It was one of the last on his questionnaire, but she hadn’t seen the prepared list.
    Billings just shrugged helplessly. “Like I told the other detectives at the hospital, after he shoved that needle in my arm, I wasn’t that aware of him , you know? It was like all my other senses faded except for feeling. Sensation was heightened unbearably. Like it wasn’t enough for him to rape me, nearly kill me,” she went on bitterly. “He had to give me something to make it even more painful.”
    And that, Ryne thought, might be the one most critical detail they had about the scum they were looking for. Certainly it jibed with what the other victims reported.
    “Have you received any calls or notes from unidentified persons lately? Either before or after the assault?”
    “No.” But then the import of his words seemed to strike her and her gaze flew to his, stricken. “Oh God. You think he’ll try to contact me?”
    “Probably not. But if you get any strange messages, let us know, all right?”
    She seemed to shrink back into the quilt, as if trying to make herself disappear. And Ryne knew she wasn’t going to hold up much longer. “What’s the last thing you