JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED by J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn Page A

the waist and dragged her off into the darkness, taking the flashlight with her.
     
    When Georgia was a little girl, she wanted to have a friend. It didn’t matter if it was a boy or a girl. Just someone to play with. To talk to. To understand.
    Her parents divorced when she was a baby. Georgia only saw her father on weekends, and on those weekends he ignored her. During the weekdays, Georgia’s mom worked most of the time, leaving Georgia in the care of an assortment of uncaring babysitters.
    While the adults in Georgia’s life were indifferent, the children were downright cruel.
    Part of it was her looks, she knew. Georgia used to have a lazy eye before she learned a vision exercise on her own in order to correct it. She’d also been overweight since birth. The combination of the two made her a joke among her peers, and a constant target for ridicule and torment.
    So, instead of friends, Georgia had pets at both households. Puppies and kittens and fish and birds and hamsters and gerbils and even an iguana.
    Had her parents been paying more attention, they might have realized that the continuous deaths and disappearances of the animals they bought her were a warning sign that their daughter was severely disturbed. But they were busy with their own lives, and when one of Georgia’s pets met with a dubious accident, it was easier to buy a new one than question why.
    Georgia pretended her pets were people. Usually her parents or schoolmates. In her fantasies, they would do something bad, and Georgia would be forced to punish them. Soon, her own steady stream of pets wasn’t enough to satisfy her urges, so the neighborhood dogs and cats began to disappear.
    No one ever suspected anything, until Georgia turned fourteen and began babysitting kids in her mom’s apartment building.
    At first, the job thrilled Georgia. These weren’t dumb animals she was dealing with. These were actual human beings, who depended on her. Maybe these children would be the friends she so desperately craved.
    But it turned out the kids were needy, a lot of work, and just plain annoying. Georgia was smart enough to not hurt any of them—microwaving a gerbil was one thing, but Georgia knew that hurting a child would bring big trouble. But one of those brats she watched was just so freaking irritating, crying non-stop all the time no matter what Georgia did.
    Georgia only stuck the child in the clothes dryer because she needed just a moment of peace. It’s not like she turned the dryer on or anything.
    Then Georgia took a little nap because she was really worn out, and the baby’s parents came home earlier than expected. The baby didn’t die, but the lack of oxygen in the dryer did some sort of damage to its stupid little brain and Georgia went to jail.
    In truth, she felt zero remorse. But she played it up big for the shrinks and the lawyers and the judge, crying like a drama queen and begging for forgiveness. The ploy worked. Instead of jail, she was sent to the Center.
    Georgia fully expected to be let out early for good behavior. She figured she could con Sara and Martin the same way she conned everyone else, and they’d sign off on her mental well-being, and she’d be able to return to her so-called life.
    But every time there was a court hearing, Sara said Georgia wasn’t ready to be released yet. Georgia had no idea how the bitch knew, but Sara knew, and it pissed Georgia off to the nth degree. So for the last two years, Georgia had been a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Do-Gooder, enduring countless bullshit therapy sessions, sticking to her story of mistake and regret even though it apparently wasn’t working.
    Often, Georgia thought of running away. It was difficult, but not impossible. Since it opened, nine girls and two boys had run away from the Center, and ten of them were never ever caught. Georgia figured she was smart enough to get away with it. Certainly smarter than some of the rejects who succeeded. But if she did get caught, that