“And that’s it?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” she said.
“It doesn’t sound like a very interesting book. What makes you like it so much?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I just understand where he’s coming from. I understand how he feels.”
“How does he feel?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Alone?”
“Do you feel that way?”
“No. Not really.” She sighed loud enough for me to hear it. “So,” she said, “what’s been up with you?”
I stopped eating and looked at her, but she didn’t raise her eyes from her plate. “Just work mostly. The exciting world of home security.” I wiped my mouth and dropped my napkin back onto my lap.
“What’s it like working with Uncle Jim?” she asked. “I haven’t seen him in like two years.”
“I don’t really see him that much either,” I said. “We don’t really work together. It’s more like I work for him.”
“He’s your boss?”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess so.”
After we finished eating, the waitress came and cleared our plates and left the bill on the table. I slid my credit card into the sleeve, and she came back and picked it up.
“Did you hear about those two little girls? The ones who were kidnapped a couple days ago?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Was it on TV?”
“All over the news.”
“What happened to them?”
“Their father kidnapped them,” I said. “Took them from a foster home. I was their guardian.”
“Why do you say it like that: that you were their guardian? Do you stop just because they got kidnapped?”
“No,” I said. “Their dad took them down into South Carolina, and now the FBI’s getting involved. It’s a mess.”
“But that doesn’t mean you just stop,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Guarding them, or whatever.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m still their guardian. And I’ll still be their guardian when they come home.”
The waitress came back with the receipt, and I left a tip and signed my name. And then I slid my credit card and the receipt into my wallet.
“How can a father kidnap his own kids?” Jessica asked.
“This guy gave up his parental rights a couple of years back. He broke the law by taking those girls.”
“But he’s their dad.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m your dad, but that doesn’t mean I can just carry you off somewhere without your mom’s consent. I’d be breaking the law if I did that.”
“What happened to their mom?”
“She’d dead,” I said.
“Then maybe it’s good that nobody’s found them,” she said. “Maybe they want to be with their dad. Maybe they feel safe.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it legal.” I folded my napkin and set it where my plate had been. “What would you do if you were me?” I asked.
“About what?”
“About these two little girls. Would you let them stay with their dad, or would you follow the law and make sure they got back where they’re supposed to be?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’d try to think about what they want. Nobody ever does that. Kids just want to be happy.”
“Were you happy?”
“I guess,” she said. “I don’t remember being unhappy.”
“Being happy and being unhappy are very different,” I said. “Those two little girls might not have been happy in foster care, but maybe they weren’t unhappy either. You know?”
“Yes,” she said. “Then I was happy.”
“Did you feel safe?”
“Of course I felt safe,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I have? My dad was a cop.”
“I know,” I said. “But that’s not what I mean. Did you feel secure, even after what happened?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so. But I don’t remember much about all that. I was just a little kid, and that was a long time ago.”
“You were ten, Jessica,” I said. “It was barely six years ago.”
“Yeah?” she said. “Then maybe I just forced myself to forget.”
“But you remember feeling safe?” I asked. “And happy?”
“Yes,” she said. “Safe and happy. I remember.”
“So, what would you do: leave them alone or bring them home?”
She sighed. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I’m not a dad.”
Pruitt
CHAPTER 20
Her neighborhood in North Charleston was made up of small houses surrounded by brown grass and scrubby pine trees. To the east, planes from the city’s airport and jets from the air force base beyond it rose over I-26 in the hazy morning. On the first pass by the house it looked almost identical to the homes on either side of it: a squat brick ranch with windows and a front door trimmed in green, a green garage door, black shingles on the roof already radiating heat.
I parallel-parked my truck on the side of the road five houses down from hers, and my eyes moved between my mirrors and the street in front of me, checking to see if anyone was passing on foot or looking out doors or windows to see who was sitting out in front of their house on a white-hot morning.
On my way up her driveway my eyes weren’t so much looking at her house as they were looking at the houses and yards around it, searching for an indication of who was at home and who was not. There were no cars in the driveways of the houses on either side of hers, and the front doors were closed and the shades were pulled.
There was no car in her driveway either, and through the garage door’s windows it was clear that there was also no car in the garage, meaning she was either not at home or did not drive and that someone may be coming by to check on her at any moment. Or perhaps Wade Chesterfield himself had already come by and picked her up or warned her about who or what may be coming, and she had left on her own, gone to stay with friends a few streets over or family members whose names and addresses I hadn’t yet discovered.
But then the curtain moved in the window by her front door. Someone had been watching me approach the house, and they pulled the curtain closed when they saw me come to a stop in the driveway. None of the other curtains stirred. My right hand moved instinctively to the handle of the Glock that was tucked into the back waistband of my shorts. I moved slowly up the driveway and stopped at the front door.
My hand left the Glock and raised itself to knock, but the door suddenly flew open, and she stood there, looking out from behind a thick pair of sunglasses with blacked-out lenses. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, her thinning white hair permed in frizzy, tight curls against her head, a white blouse tucked into a long tan skirt, and hose that ran into a pair of black lace-up shoes. She stood there looking at me for a few moments, and my fingers unfolded themselves from the gun and my hand came to rest at my side.
The street was quiet. Nothing but the noise of a dog barking a few houses down and the soft sounds of the airplanes taking off and landing in the distance.
“Come in, come in,” she finally said, backing away from the door and then turning, waving over her shoulder for me to follow. “Let me get my coat and my umbrella. I know what it looks like and feels like out there right now, but this is summertime in Charleston, and you can’t ever tell about the summertime in this godforsaken city. And don’t get me started on how cold that office is.”
I closed the door behind me, and my hand reached back and locked it quietly.
“Leave it unlocked,” she said. “We’re going to be heading right back out.” She disappeared down a hallway, and my eyes scanned what must have been the living room. It was tidy and clean, and looked as if nothing had changed since the house had been built. Brown shag carpet covered the floors, and a mint-green sofa sat beneath windows that looked out on the front yard behind heavy curtains. There were two cream-colored sitting chairs opposite the sofa, a coffee table in front of them. There was no television. The room, and maybe the entire house, smelled like something I couldn’t quite place, but it was something that seemed familiar, something on the front end of a memory.