Page 44 of The Girl Who Was Taken

“In what way?”

“Curious about them. I wanted to know what happened to the people who were taken. I wanted to follow their stories and see what became of them.” Diana shrugged again. “Same as anyone else who readsEventsmagazine when a missing girl is plastered on its cover.”

“Okay,” Livia said. “Did you join this club?”

“I wanted to but . . .”

Livia waited.

“To become a member you have to go through an abduction. A fake one.”

“You have to agree to be kidnapped?”

“All I said,” Diana continued in a defensive tone, “was that I was interested in the club. I never agreed to the abduction, just said that it sounded cool. Then they surprised me and made me believe it was real. I was drunk the night I met Casey. I had no idea he was the guy from the chat rooms. He made me think he was interested in me. He flirted with me. And at the end of the night, I went with him, got into his car thinking we were going to a late-night party. That’s when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“They put a bag over my head, tied me up, and brought me to some abandoned building.”

“Christ,” Livia said.

“But I was so hysterical—I think I went into shock or something—they ended up driving me back to the bar and leaving me in the parking lot.”

“He didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Not physically.”

“Did you ever see Casey again?”

“Never. Until he was on the news a few weeks ago.”

“And you went to the police about this? Afterward?”

“My parents made me.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. They said they never found anything about the club, and that I was a willing participant.”

Livia looked down at the notes she had scribbled. “You said Casey was with a friend. Did you know him?”

“Two friends. A guy and a girl. I didn’t know them. The girl was the one who put the bag over my head after I got in his car.”

“How many were there?”

“In the car? Just Casey and his friends. But after they brought me to that abandoned building, there were lots. Like, twenty or more. The whole club, I guess. But before I saw everyone in the club, it was just Casey and the girl. They tied me to a chair and whispered all these horrible things in my ear. The girl was telling me the things they were going to do to me. All these nasty, disgusting things.

“You ever see this girl?”

“No. She was at the bar with Casey, but I never paid attention to her. And when we were in the car, she was in the backseat and it was too dark to see her. Then she put the bag over my head.”

Livia put her pen to the page. “You know this girl’s name. The one who put the bag over your head?”

“Yeah,” Diana said. “He called her Nicole.”

CHAPTER 21

Two early-morning transports with the investigators had Livia back to the OCME by two p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. She sat behind her desk in the fellows’ office and perused the Internet. She was looking for anything she could find about Casey Delevan or the strange group of twisted individuals Diana Wells had called the Capture Club, whose membership Livia was scared to admit included Nicole. Although Livia found no specific organization by this name, she did manage to locate a strong online presence of people interested in the details of current and past missing people.

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