"When was the last time you talked to him?"

She heaved her skinny shoulders, defensive and sullen. "I don't know. Sometime in March, I guess. Haven't seen him or talked to him since, so I don't know where he is."

"In March, did you see him in person, or talk on the phone?"

"In person."

"Where did you see him?"

"In a bar."

"Where?"

"Pioneer."

"Pioneer Square?" I clarified.

"Yeah."

"Which bar?"

"Don't remember."

I sighed and sat back in my chair. I drank my bad coffee, then put it down on the table. "This would be a lot easier if I didn't have to play Twenty Questions with you."

Again the glare.

My purse shuddered and Chaos exploded from it, scratching and scrambling to look over the table edge. Sarah started and stared at the furry apparition hoisting itself onto the table.

The ferret poked her nose into my coffee mug and I scooped her up. "Chaos! No."

She sneezed and shook her head in annoyance just as Sarah lit up and reached for her, too.

"Sweet!" Sarah cried. She offered a finger for sniffing. Chaos licked the fingertip after a careful snuffle. "Does it bite?" "No."

Sarah stroked the ferret's head as I put her down again. Then Chaos skipped off to investigate Sarah's coffee mug.

"Don't let her into the sugar," I warned.

"Can it—she—have some milk? Is that OK?"

"Only a little," I allowed.

Sarah dipped her pinky into the milk jug and offered it to Chaos, who licked up the milk with a rapid tongue.

The girl beamed at me. "May I pick her up?" "Uh, sure."

Sarah lifted the ferret with care and brought her up to her shoulder, cuddling the animal against her neck. "What a sweetie!" Chaos nuzzled her jaw.

Sarah exclaimed over the wonderfulness of my pet for five minutes while Chaos endeared herself, trotting along Sarah's shoulders and offering whiskery, tickling kisses—the attention hound.

Brimming over with the joy of mustelid nuzzling, Sarah began pouring out a story. "I don't know if this is related to Cam going missing, but I suppose it could be. He helped me out of a bad situation back… in February, I guess it was. I was really stupid to get into it in the first place, but I was mad, you know?"

I prompted her. "What happened?"

"Well, first you gotta know the family thing. Cam's not the oldest. I am. But because he's a boy—a male—everything is for him." Bitterness crept into her tone. "The car, the trust fund, the education… everything. I only get an allowance out of it until I get married. If I never get married and never have any kids, I'll get an allowance for the rest of my life. It's like being on some kind of parental welfare! When I asked my mother why I didn't get a trust fund for college, you know what she said?" "Tell me."

Her voice swooped and rattled in fury. "She said that she and Daddy didn't want some man to marry me for my money! How antediluvian! Mom is always on about all that upper-middle-class-masquerade crap! It is so Mrs. Robinson. And you know, I tried it. I really did. But it's not what I want. So I decided that if I couldn't do what I wanted, I wasn't going to take her money."

She sneered. "You can probably imagine how well Mummy liked that! And she had a lot of ways of letting me know just how much she disapproved. So I got mad. I started doing things I knew would piss her off, just to irritate the hell out of her. Cam tried to give me money so I wouldn't have to work, but there was no way I was going to take it."

She waved her hands to indicate her hair and body. "So I did all of this. The whole Gothic-dead thing. I pierced my nose, my eyebrow… and a lot of other parts, too. I talked about getting a tattoo, but really, the idea kind of squicked me—and branding is right out! I even had a pair of red contact lenses I used to wear." She cackled. "They really weirded Mom out. I started hanging out with some rough guys, playing the slut, taking drugs—all that teenage rebellion crap. Except I didn't get around to doing it until I was twenty-one, so it's not like drinking was going to be a big deal. I had to be totally vile. And manage to keep just inside Mom's tolerance level, because, if she threw me out, how could I keep on making her life as miserable as mine was?"

Her voice began to slow and she caught the ferret, petting her with repetitive strokes. "But right after Christmas I finally broke the camel and Mom threw me out. I bummed around and slept on friends' couches and all that. And then I met this guy…"

Chapter 13

Sarah lowered her head and stared at the memory. Her words wafted out like a cloud of drug smoke. "I used to see him in some of the clubs and I was just kind of drawn to him. He was beautifully scary, like a perfect knife. He used to say things that frightened me, but I was… fascinated. I guess I was just so low, I had made myself into this despicable thing so well, that it seemed like the right thing for me, like I deserved to be hurt." She was holding on to the ferret with both hands and tears began to roll down her face. Her voice slowed until it barely trickled.

"And one night I saw Cam in one of the clubs with some musicians we used to know and I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to get away from the man I was with and get back to what I really was. I thought, 'What the hell am I doing here? I tried to catch Cam's eye, but he didn't see me. So the next day, I called him and we met and I cried all over him and told him all about it and he said he'd help me get away." She stopped talking and stared at the table. Silent, melancholy thoughts weighted the air between us. I barely breathed. "And Cameron did help you get away?" She shivered back into speech. "Yes. He did. I'm not sure how. I don't know what he did, but one night, the guy just said he didn't want me anymore, that I could go." Chaos turned in Sarah's grip and to lick her face. The young woman sniffed and snuggled the ferret closer to her face, shaking out quiet sobs. Chaos kissed away the tears until they stopped.

"He said that you could go? Were you living with him? It almost sounds like he was keeping you prisoner."

Sarah let Chaos onto the tabletop and picked up her now-cold coffee, keeping her eyes turned from me. Chaos scampered for the milk jug. I grabbed her. Sarah picked up the milk and sugar and carried them to the counter without meeting my gaze.

"Kind of. I guess. I didn't start out living with him—not the first night or two—but then things started to get kind of strange and kinky. You know, it's hard to remember details now." She came back to the table with a saucer of water and a plateful of cookies. She handed the cookies to me and put the saucer on the table for Chaos. Sarah sipped her tepid, sweet coffee, ate a cookie, and offered the crumbs to the ferret.

"Did you ever read The Story of O?" she asked.

"No," I admitted, "but I know about it."

Chaos decided it was nap time and jumped down into Sarah's lap. Sarah stroked her warm, furry body while we talked. Bit by bit, stroking the trusting little creature in her lap, Sarah calmed.

"Sometimes I felt like I was O, but it wasn't quite the same. It's so hard to remember… He used to tie me up and leave me that way all day, he made me sleep in a box… things like that. He had the role of Master, but I wasn't really Slave. I was more like… Plaything, or Toy. It was like living in a Fellini film. I was so relieved to get out, but sometimes, I–I almost miss it. God, am I some kind of sick puppy or what?"

She raised her head and gave me a wavering smile. Any smile was more than I had expected.

I had my notebook out. "What was the man's name?"

"Name? I can't remember his last name. Maybe I never knew it. His first name was Edward. That's all I can remember."