Hope all is well with you and the baby.
Brad
My finger clicked on the attachment and, in seconds, I stared numbly at the first picture of Avery Crane. It was a posed fraternity-album headshot of him in the requisite red tie and blue jacket and plastered-on smile. I scrolled down slowly and scrutinized the second image. Less hair, the edge of a double chin, a smoother complexion. A brief work biography offered up his job title, a director of Global Services, followed by a list of bullshit qualifications for “team-building.”
His office: Mobile.
His location: Dallas/Fort Worth.
Forty-five miles away.
Life’s a strange bitch.
Fate is a compass inside us that takes our feet where they need to go.
Brad’s words. My mother’s words. Saying the same, ominous thing.
I closed out of the attachment, hit “reply,” typed a single word answer, and punched “send.”
Yes.
Yes, it was Avery Crane who accosted me that day on campus, years ago. I shut the lid of the laptop a little harder than necessary, not wanting to chat further with Brad, a man whose agenda was questionable. Not to think about the Keebler Elf, an hour’s drive away. It must be a lie. I double-checked on the cruiser out front. Still there. Just as I started to twist the blinds shut, the cop turned his profile, and my stomach flipped. The new man on duty was none other than Cody Hill, the jerk who interviewed me after Caroline’s disappearance. Maria’s nemesis. Rojo.
The phone rang, jangly and intrusive. I don’t remember crossing over to the receiver, but I found it in my hand.
“What is it, you son of a bitch?”
Silence.
“Emily, it’s me.”
Mike.
“Are you OK?”
“Why did you pick him to watch over me?” I demanded, a little too shrilly.
“He’s decent at what he does, Emily.”
Decent.
“Did you just call to check on me? I’m perfectly fine.”
“Uh-huh, you sound fine. Yes, I called to check on you. I also wanted to let you know the FBI hit the jackpot in Peggy’s Salon in Hazard. The old girls napping under the hair dryers were only too happy to talk. Misty’s sister is the blond child in the photo. The girl who went missing, the one connected to Wyatt Deacon. She was eight when she disappeared. Dirt poor. Misty got out of there as soon as she graduated high school. Was accepted at Berea, changed her last name, and never looked back.”
“Berea?”
“A college in Kentucky that takes in promising kids, mostly from Appalachia, no tuition required. Transforms their lives.” Where Misty was reborn, I realized, into someone who could fool me.
“We learned something else. Do you remember that Dickie wired money across the country to Wyatt?”
“Yes.”
“In every one of those towns on Dickie’s list, two or three days after he wired the money, a little girl disappeared.”
I let this sink in, feeling sick.
I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
“What did you say the girl’s name was?”
“I don’t think I did. It’s Alice.”
Present tense. My decent, hopeful man.
Alice.
The name scribbled on the back of a fortune, the sweet face held hostage in a frame at Misty’s. The girl at the birthday party with her killer’s arm draped around her shoulders.
35
I woke to darkness, reassured to see Mike’s curled-up shape under the quilt next to me. The digital numbers on the clock reported that it was only 9:31.
I’d switched off the lamp at eight, as soon as my eyes blurred the words of last Sunday’s Times book section. Reading on Mike’s iPad always made me sleepy. It took about ten minutes before I shut it down, sunk into the pillow, and drifted off.
Mike must be as exhausted as I was to go to bed this early, probably more. And I had been so deeply asleep I hadn’t even heard him come in.
Misty’s face floated in my mind, a wisp of cotton candy. Her last name, Rich. Her childhood, poor beyond my imagining. I juggled myself over to face Mike, edging closer to spoon his back as closely as I could, the baby lodged between us. I didn’t want to wake up either of them.
As soon as my hand fell across his waist, I knew.
Mike’s body was built like a treacherous mountain, every muscle and crevice familiar to me.
This wasn’t Mike.
This guy, this stranger in my bed, was like a taut rubber band.
I forced down the scream in my throat.
Was I dreaming? Finally, really losing it?
This had to be one of those wild nightmares that pregnant women everywhere were so familiar with. A dream within a dream.
I slowly rolled myself away, heart trip-hammering, desperate not to disturb the lump beside me just in case, desperate to pinch myself awake. I could feel my fingers squeezing my skin.
Too late.
In one swift movement, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me down on my back. He slung himself on top of me. He bore his full weight painfully on my legs, assuring me that this was no dream.
For a second, I knew it was Pierce, who’d clawed his way out of hell. It was so strangely quiet as he hung over me. Just the squeak of the mattress as I flailed uselessly, a clumsy pregnant woman.
“Please. Please.” No response.
Then I screamed.
For Cody Hill, the obnoxious rojo who was supposed to be protecting me, for a neighbor, for anyone who could hear through the thick old walls of this house.
He was stuffing something thick and cottony in my mouth. A sock? I tried not to panic. To surrender, because breathing was important. I smelled lemons. Caroline was washed in something citrusy before she died. Or maybe after. Like it mattered at which point in the process she was washed. Or which particular killer was tying me up. My old stalker, or Caroline’s.
So dark in here, like I was resting on the bottom of the ocean.
Swim toward the light.
Flick, flick, flick.
I knew that sound. Fingernail against plastic.
I had heard the same sound in Gretchen’s office.
He leaned over, his chest tight against my belly. I slung myself up and grabbed for his eyes, snagging rough fabric.
A mask.
“Wyatt, why-?” My words were lost, suffocated.
He plunged the syringe into my arm.
36
My little girl is running. Down the hill. As fast as she can. Calling for me.
I am reaching out my hand to touch her; instead, I touch the chill, gritty floor.
A hammer is pounding in my brain. Chemical fumes stinging my nose. My legs feel like they are not attached to me. I am aware of the world but can’t see it. My consciousness is pushing slowly to the surface. I make out shapes.
Squares.
Boxes.
The man is busying himself in front of a vertical rectangle of gray light.
The sound of a sprinkler system spitting on and off.
Where am I? Not dead. Not raped.
I don’t dare move, but I’m frantic to get a better view of my prison.
This couldn’t be.