“This is happening, Moses,” I whispered, reminding him of what he’d said. “You and me? It’s happening.”
He smiled a little and leaned his forehead against mine. “It’s cold. Come in. Be with me for a while,” he whispered, a note of urgency in his tone that made me shiver. And it wasn’t from the chill in the air.
I wanted to. I needed to. But I couldn’t get her face out of my head.
“The girl . . . the girl you painted on the wall in there?” I said, my voice as hushed as his was. I turned my head to stare at the front door, thinking about the walls beyond. “I recognized her.”
“Molly?” he asked. I could tell I’d surprised him, baffled him even.
“No. Not Molly. The girl behind Molly.”
Moses was quiet for a minute and then he stood, pulling me up with him. Holding my hand firmly in his, he pulled me behind him into the house. I let him, my legs shaking and my heart quivering. He pulled me through the house until we stood in the center of the room, looking at the walls that were in various stages of sanding and repainting. Her face was still slightly visible. Moses looked at it soberly and then tipped his chin so he was staring down at me. His green eyes were hooded. Worried. And I drank him in, unwilling to stare too long at the girl who looked out from the wall.
“Lisa Kendrick, the girl who cleaned my house, told me her name is Sylvie. Her cousin,” Moses said. “She apparently disappeared the summer before I came to live with Gigi. She wasn’t from around here, though. Lisa said she lived in Gunnison, I think.”
I nodded, my heart sinking. “I didn’t know her name, but . . . I remember her. She was in a therapy class my parents taught and then she stopped coming. I heard my parents talking about it, but I didn’t realize it was because something happened to her. There’s a 90 day program in Richfield for kids with substance abuse problems. She was one of those kids. I thought she looked familiar when I saw her face on the wall the day I came to get my photo album. And it bothered me.”
Moses stiffened as if he knew I was gearing up for something else.
“I remembered your paintings at the old mill. I run by there all the time. You painted her there too, Moses. The paintings are all still there,” I finished in a rush, and watched as his eyes widened. He looked past me, as if he was trying to pull old details from the recesses of his brain.
“I didn’t even know the owner of the mill. Gi set the job up for me, arranged it all. And I just showed up and got paid, although I didn’t actually get paid, come to think of it.” He shrugged. “I meant to paint over the mural. I told myself I would. But . . . time ran out on me, I guess.” The thought seemed to make him anxious, and he frowned at me. “I can’t believe they’re still there. And I can’t believe you went inside, all alone, in the dark.”
“I didn’t think it through. And it just kept nagging at me, you know? I thought the girl looked familiar. But I didn’t know if it was because she was just a cute blonde like all the other girls have been.”
“They’ve all been blonde?” Moses asked, but it sounded like he was seeking confirmation more than information.
“As far as I know. Yes.”
“How many have there been?” Moses breathed, stunned. “I only drew three.”
He’d drawn more than that . . . but the other girls didn’t have faces.
“Mom and Dad were talking with Sheriff Dawson last July when the girl from Payson went missing. All told, there’s been quite a few. Eight or nine. And that’s over the last ten or twelve years. I don’t know before that, and Sheriff Dawson seemed to think there could be more outside of Utah.”
“And they think they are all connected?” Moses sounded resigned, like he knew what I was going to say.
“All blonde. All around the same age. All missing from small Utah towns. All disappeared during a two week span in July.”
“You’re blonde,” Moses said grimly. Quietly.
I waited for him to continue. His lips were drawn into a hard line, and his eyes were glued to mine.
“Someone tried to take you, Georgia. That summer. July. Someone tried to take you. I think that person ran right past me. He bumped into me, Georgia. Your grandfather was the reason I came back to find you. I saw him standing on the side of the road. And he showed you falling. So I went back. And I saw him at the fairgrounds, just like I’d seen him in the barn and in the corner of your room while I painted.”
“He was in the corner of my room?” I squealed in alarm.
“He showed me what to paint. The images on your bedroom walls are the way he saw the story. Haven’t you ever noticed the man who becomes a horse resembles your grandpa? He saw himself in the story, the way we all see ourselves in the characters we love. It was his way of watching over you. And I liked the idea. He had watched over you before.”
I stared at him, oddly touched and more than a little freaked out. I couldn’t decide what emotion to go with when I suddenly remembered what Moses had said about Tag being Molly Taggert’s brother. It was so bizarre, that connection, that I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about it.
“Molly Taggert?” I prompted.
“Molly, the girl named Sylvie, and you! You fit the profile, Georgia,” Moses stood abruptly and began to pace. “I got scared tonight. It all started coming together! I’m seeing her—Sylvie—I’ve seen her twice now. She won’t let me cover her damn face! I’ve sanded that wall three times and it will be good for two or three days and then the paint puckers right there over her face! And I’m guessing it’s because of Lisa. The thing is . . . Lisa didn’t live here when I did. I didn’t know Lisa. So I had no reason to paint Sylvie. I had no reason to paint Molly either, for that matter. I didn’t meet Tag until after I left Levan! And I have no idea who the other girl is. Or was!” Moses was ranting and pacing, and my head was spinning.