"So my father posed as an FBI agent and he visited Catherine after her attack. Maybe as a father he wanted to understand firsthand what kind of monster preyed on little girls. Maybe as an academic, he felt it was the best way to do research. I know there's an explanation!" The words sounded defensive, the theories preposterous even as I laid them out. But I couldn't help myself. After a lifetime of warring with my father, of accusing him of being controlling and manipulative, suddenly I was his biggest defender. It was one thing for me to distrust my father. But I would be damned before I'd let anyone else beat him up.
Bobby seemed to be genuinely considering my words. "All right, Annabelle. Give me a reason. Try something on for size. I'm willing to be open-minded. The pitchforks and torches can come out later."
"He wasn't even around when Dori disappeared," I said sharply "We were already in Florida."
"So you believe," he said.
"So I know! My father never left us once we got settled in Florida!" I told the lie effortlessly I thought, bitterly, that my father would be proud.
Two weeks after we'd been in Florida, me, waking up in the middle of the night. Screaming. Wanting my father, begging for my father. My mother coming to my side instead. "Shhh, sweetheart. Shhhh. Your father will be home soon. He just had to go tidy up some loose ends. Shhh, sweetheart, everything is all right."
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Bobby's even-toned voice returned me relentlessly to the present: "Annabelle, where is your family's furniture? Your whole family disappeared in the middle of the afternoon. What happened to your stuff?"
"A moving van came and got it."
"Pardon?"
"I talked to Mrs. Petracelli—"
"You what?"
"I hid in a corner and shut my eyes," I said sharply, anger returning to full boil. "What did you think I was going to do? Wait for you and D.D. to serve up my life on a silver platter? Please. You're the cops. You don't care about me."
He took a step forward. The look on his face was no longer impassive. His eyes had turned a deep, stormy gray. I thought I should be scared. Instead, I felt excited. I wanted to fight, to war, to rage. I wanted to do anything other than continue to feel helpless.
"What did you tell Mrs. Petracelli?" he demanded.
"What, Bobby," I parodied in falsetto, "don't you trust me? Aren't we all on the same team!"
"What the hell did you tell Mrs. Petracelli!"
"I told her nothing, you ass! What did you think I'd do? March into the home of a woman I haven't seen in twenty-five years and announce the police had found the body of her long-lost daughter? Please, I'm not that cruel." I took a step forward myself, stabbed his chest with my finger. It made me feel tough, even as his eyes went a darker shade of granite.
"She told me movers came and packed up our house. No doubt my father arranged it by phone, had everything placed in storage. Maybe he imagined the police would figure things out one day. Then we could return home, pick up where we left off. My father was a big believer in planning ahead."
"Annabelle, there are no real estate transactions, no storage bins, no records for a man named Russell Granger."
My turn to be blindsided. "But… but…"
"But what, Annabelle? Tell me what was going on in the fall of '82. Give me something to believe."
I couldn't do it. I didn't know… I didn't understand. . .
How could there be no record of Russell Granger? Arlington was supposed to be my real life. In Arlington in '82, at least, I had lived.
Bobby wrapped my hands with his own. That's how I realized I had started trembling, swaying on my feet. From the doggy bed, Bella issued a nervous whine. I couldn't reach out to her, couldn't speak. I was thinking of my father again, of whispers in the middle of the night. Of things I didn't want to know. Of truths that would be too much to bear.
Oh God, what had happened in the fall of '82? Oh Dori, what did we do?
"Annabelle," Bobby ordered gently "Put your head between your knees. Draw a breath. You're hyperventilating."
I did as he told me, bending at the waist, staring at my scarred wooden floor as I struggled for air. When I stood up, Bobby's arms went around me and I fell into his embrace quite naturally. I smelled his aftershave, verbena and spice tickling my nose. I felt his arms, warm and hard around my shoulders. I heard his heartbeat, steady and rhythmic in my ear. And I clung to him like a child, embarrassed and overwhelmed and knowing I needed to pull myself together, but desperate for the sanctuary of his arms instead.
If Russell Granger never existed, what about Annabelle? And why, oh why had I believed that moving to Florida was the first time my father had ever told a lie?
"Shhhh," Bobby was whispering in my ear. "Shhh…" His lips touched the top of my hair—a small, thoughtless kiss. It wasn't enough for me. I tilted up my head and found him.
The first contact was electric. Soft lips, raspy whiskers. The smell of a man, the feel of his lips pressing against mine. Sensations I rarely allowed myself to experience. Needs I rarely allowed myself to feel. Now I opened my mouth, drawing in his tongue, wanting to feel him, touch him, taste him. I needed this. I wanted to believe in this. I wanted to feel anything but the fear that loomed in the back of my mind.
If he could just hold me, then maybe this moment would last, and the rest would fall away and I wouldn't have to be scared and I wouldn't have to feel alone and I wouldn't have to hear the voices now growing in the back of my mind…