When they first arrived, they had played outside in the snow. That had been fun. After the long drive the boys needed to expend some energy. They built a snowman, and Genie used Carrie’s camera to take a picture of Troy and Aaron standing next to it. She would get it developed and send it to Carrie. She had tried to stop worrying about Carrie, but she couldn’t. Maybe Mom had found out and was punishing her. She didn’t like to think about that.
After Cleo came to the cabin-Genie still wasn’t sure how she got there, since she hadn’t arrived in a car-they all had to stay inside. Cleo said some people who wanted to steal them away from Dad might be looking for them. They had heard about people wanting to steal them before, but somehow, when she said it, it made them all believe it could happen at any minute.
Genie could see that all of this was upsetting the boys and that if the boys were upset, Cleo got mad. Mom could be the same way, so Genie found herself in the accustomed role of taking care of her brothers, finding ways to entertain them. Now the task of making sure they brushed their teeth and got into bed fell to her. She tried not to think about the fact that she and Carrie always did this together.
Fortunately, between the stresses of the day and the time they had spent playing in the snow, the boys were tired now, and she didn’t have any arguments from them as she tucked them in.
She made up a story for them, about a girl who was a princess looking for her father the king, and although they at first objected to a story about a girl, when she was done they asked her to tell it again. They fell asleep before she got very far the second time around.
She went to the room where Dad had told her she would sleep. Keeping the lights off, she carefully approached the window. Earlier, she had raised the blind, so she had to be careful not to be seen.
Beneath the window, out in the moonlight, she saw Dad and Cleo. They were hugging. It gave her a kind of sick feeling, so she quickly stepped back and lowered the blind. Was Cleo going to be their new mom or something? That didn’t seem possible.
She turned a bedside lamp on and sat at the side of the bed. It was a big bed. She was glad she had brought the big soft doll. It made the bed seem less empty.
She felt lonely without Carrie and spent a little time looking through the few things she had brought along for her sister, thinking they were going to spend the day at Grandfather’s house. She had packed them both to fool Dad and in case things went wrong and Carrie ended up joining them. She picked up Carrie’s camera and thought back to the alternate plan they had made to take pictures of Carrie at Grandfather’s house and mail them to Ms. Kelly. Was that just this morning? This had been such a long and crazy day.
She changed into her pajamas. She had realized several hours ago that the duffels were full of new clothes and pajamas and underwear, all in the right sizes. There was even one for Carrie. Any other time, she would have been excited about new clothes, but she couldn’t help wishing she had her own comfy pj’s on instead of these new scratchy ones. She decided to put her sleeping bag on top of the bedspread. At least it was something familiar.
She got her drawing pad and colored pencils, as well as a flashlight she had found downstairs, and climbed into bed. She began writing her letter.
Dear Ms. Kelly,
I am Carla Ives’s sister. Please tell her we are at 14 Cold Creek Road in the San Bernardino Mountains. I think the nearest city is Big Bear Lake. We are at Cleo Fletcher’s house.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Genie
P.S. Tell her I miss her a lot.
She heard the front door open and hurriedly turned out the light. She hid the drawing pad and the pencils and flashlight beneath the new clothes in Carrie’s duffel bag and quietly got back into bed.
She pretended to be asleep when her dad opened the door to her bedroom. She heard a strange metallic sound.
“Cleo, wait!” Dad whispered from the doorway.
“What the hell is that on the pillow next to her?” Cleo whispered back.
“A doll,” he said in a low and shaky voice. “Just a doll.” He paused. “I think she misses Carrie. Please, put the knife away.”
“I was only going to protect her,” Cleo said.
“I know,” he said soothingly. “I know. You’re taking care of all of us.”
Genie heard him close the door and walk toward the mirrored room. Cleo’s footsteps were much softer, but they followed his.
Genie pulled the doll closer. She fell asleep whispering the words “Six Hundred Broadway, Las Piernas, California” over and over to the doll, because, according to a little piece of newsprint she had memorized this morning, that was the address for the Las Piernas News Express.
CHAPTER 51
Tuesday, May 2
10:30 P.M.
LAS PIERNAS
QUESTIONS abounded. Whenever one question about the Fletchers seemed resolved, ten more took its place.
We thought we knew who was missing from the house in Huntington Beach, until the Huntington Beach Police Department released photos of Roy Fletcher and his children. They discovered Roy’s digital camera, and fortunately, the last few photographs had not yet been deleted from its memory. The police blanketed the media with them.
After seeing the photos, it seemed likely that the only person in the Roy Fletcher family who was using his or her legal name was Roy himself.
A hunch I had based on the story Reggie Faroe’s mother had told me led to a check of Arizona records. They showed that Roy’s late wife, Bonnie, had legally married Roy there under her real name but apparently she stopped using it from then on. Now the fact that her previous boyfriend, Reggie Faroe, was found dead at the base of a cliff seemed even more suspicious. The man she ran off with died in the desert, her name changed, and she acquired not only her own daughter but also three other children.
Bonnie’s body had been left in another desert, and although the circumstances strongly suggested Giles or Cleo had killed her, it was not clear that she had been murdered-even an autopsy might not be conclusive about whether she fell or was pushed down those stairs. Toxicology tests would take six weeks or more, but Carrie’s account indicated that Bonnie might have been drugged by Roy, another factor to be considered. Fingerprints, DNA, and firearms evidence had been collected from the desert scene and the bullet-riddled van-the fingerprints found in the BMW would be sent through IAFIS, the FBI fingerprint system; DNA would be compared to DNA found in the shoe left in Sheila Dolson’s backyard; the bullets would be compared to the one that killed her.
Reed told me that Sheila’s DNA had matched that on the cigarettes found at the scene of Gerry Serre’s burial on the Sheffield Estate. That meant she had at least been present when he was buried.
“Does any of the DNA on the cigarettes you found out there come from anyone else?” I asked.
“No. All Sheila’s. Which make us think she could have carried this out alone. We’re going to try to figure out if she dated Gerry Serre before he died. We’re a long way from being certain she’s the one who murdered him.”
The news stories about the children hadn’t yet aired on television when I talked to him. Once they did, local police departments began to take a different view of Roy Fletcher.
I saw the photos of the children Roy was calling his own while I was in the newsroom working with Mark on the last few details of his story on the ongoing investigation into the Roy Fletcher family. I had already turned in a first-person account-from that point on, I was off the story as a reporter.
Frank was sitting next to me, off duty from all roles other than protective husband. I have accepted the fact that he can’t help himself when it comes to that one, and would be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate it that evening. John Walters is fond of telling me that he doesn’t want me to bring cops into his newsroom, but in truth, he likes Frank and enjoys talking to him. Over time he’s learned that I didn’t marry “Frank Harriman, Police Spy.” Despite the evidence, Frank’s employers still suspect he married “Irene Kelly, Newspaper Spy.”