Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (best memoirs of all time TXT) 📕

bed. It was now the third night since Amanda was taken. If she was kidnapped by TCK, today she would be served food mixed with castor beans, which she would eat because she’d been worked to the bone and slowly starved. She’d start having diarrhea and throwing up and feeling feverish within a few hours. Elle clenched her sheets in her sweaty fingers, bunching them up so tight she worried they would tear.

This was stupid. She could not lose a night of sleep chasing fantasies about Amanda Jordan’s kidnapping. They were running out of time, if they weren’t out already.

If this was TCK, Amanda Jordan was going to be poisoned. If this was TCK, he’d take another girl today.

This can’t be TCK. She squeezed her dry eyes shut, trying to slow her thoughts without success. He can’t have started his countdown again. It’s just a coincidence.

After all, why now? What was so special about Amanda that he came out of hiding and risked discovery after getting away with it for all these years? He would be better off staying wherever he went in 1999, going on about his life. Unless his urge became unbearable.

Or unless it wasn’t him.

Frustrated, Elle reached for her phone and opened Twitter.

@justicedelayedfan12

@castillomn Still can’t get over Episode 5. TCK is even more of a monster than I thought. Thank you for exposing him! #FryTCK

Elle shuddered at the hashtag, forcing herself not to click on it. Nothing good waited for her there. She flicked down the screen. Most of her notifications were celebrating the new lead they had revealed on today’s episode. Elle liked a couple dozen tweets, replied to a few questions she couldn’t answer with “more soon . . .”

There were some trolls to block and report, as always. No threatening DMs today, though—that was an improvement. She kept scrolling.

@candlesbyfatimah

@castillomn What these girls went through is obscene. Aren’t you worried you’re giving the killer a bigger platform by talking about his crimes in such detail, though?

The tweet had a few hundred likes and about twenty replies, most disagreeing with the sentiment, but Elle still felt a tug of unease. Maybe Fatimah had a point. She didn’t usually focus on the killer as much as the victims in her cases, but this one was unique. TCK was a special kind of murderer. His crimes were so intricate. Analyzing every detail was the only way she might catch something that other people had missed.

A notification popped up: a text from Tina. CAN’T SLEEP?

NO, YOU?

NEGATIVE. LOOKING INTO SOME OF THESE EMAILS WE’VE BEEN GETTING, TRYING TO TRACK DOWN IPS FOR THE POLICE. NOT GOING TO LIE—A LITTLE CONCERNED.

Teeth worrying at her lower lip, Elle typed: I ARCHIVED SOME OF THE ONES I REPORTED TODAY. IF IT GETS WORSE, I’LL TALK TO AYAAN.

GOOD. WE ALSO GOT A FEW MESSAGES ABOUT EXPOSING THOSE “MISSING” GUYS TO THEIR FAMILIES, BUT THOSE ARE ALL MINE. ?

Elle smiled and sent back a thumbs-up. She hadn’t told her executive producer about the kidnapping investigation she was working on. They were hitting their stride with TCK, and the podcast network was over the moon. They wouldn’t be happy she was sacrificing time working on Justice Delayed to help with an outside case. Tina knew more about her than most people, though. It would help to have someone else on her side.

I SEE WE’RE GETTING SOME ATTENTION FOR TODAY’S REVEAL. I LISTENED EARLIER. YOU KILLED IT WITH THE SOUND DESIGN THIS WEEK.

THANKS E. LET’S HOPE WE CAN FIND SOMETHING IN IT SO WE CAN CATCH THIS GUY.

Elle took a deep breath and sat up against her pillows, resting the phone on the comforter covering her lap. YOU SHOULD KNOW I’M WORKING A CASE WITH AYAAN. THAT KIDNAPPING IN BLOOMINGTON. I’M STILL INVESTIGATING TCK, BUT A LISTENER ASKED FOR MY HELP. COULDN’T SAY NO.

A few moments passed with the message on read. Elle ran her tongue across her teeth, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, there was a new message.

GO GET ’EM.

THANKS. LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT THOSE EMAILS.

Now wide awake, Elle turned her phone off and rolled out of bed. The cold wood floors stung her bare feet as she walked over to her slippers, putting them and her bathrobe on before creeping downstairs to make a cup of coffee.

At the bottom of the stairs, she caught her reflection in the entryway mirror. Her hair was swept into a messy ponytail, bangs a puff of frizzy curls framing her exhausted eyes. She looked so much like her mother. She had been a chronic insomniac for the second half of Elle’s childhood, roaming the house at night long after everyone had gone to bed. As long as she was awake, in her mind, she could keep the monsters away. In her own quiet way, it was how she could deal with what had happened to her daughter.

Elle’s gaze hardened in the mirror at the thought of her mother stealing around in the dark like a wraith. All she had wanted was for her mom to come and lie with her in bed, hold her until she fell asleep. Instead, the woman’s soft footsteps had padded up and down the stairs, patrolling the perimeter around Elle’s room while she lay cold and isolated inside.

She turned away from her reflection and walked to her studio.

19

Justice Delayed podcast

Recorded January 16, 2020

Unaired recording: Elle Castillo, monologue

Elle:

The studio is where I come to think, and I can’t stop thinking tonight. When you investigate cases like the ones I cover on this podcast, you get used to them staying with you. When I’m shopping, cooking, having sex, trying to sleep—I see the faces of TCK’s victims on the backs of my eyelids whenever I blink. I see them now, and there’s a new face.

Edit that last line out.

I’m in my studio now, about one o’clock in the morning, because a