I swung and knocked the phone out of his hand. Then I heard the scurrying.
I looked back. The girl was gone. She ran off into the darkness. I watched her disappear into the night, a faint blur moving jackrabbit quick. I took three steps in the same direction, then stopped. She was gone. Long gone.
When I came back, Buster was picking up his phone.
“Don’t,” I said.
“It’s dead. I never got through.”
“Good.”
“Good? That little girl is under the control of that creep. She must be the same age as Caitlin—”
“I get it.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know.” I paced back and forth in the dark, moving between the headstones, my shoes kicking the leaves around. I started to sweat, and when the wind picked up and cooled the sweat, a chill came over me. “He’s going to get away with this, Buster. All of it.”
“You’ve got this girl right here. He took her.”
“She’s gone. We’ll never see her again. You scared her off.”
“They’ve got the other witnesses. They can put it all together.”
“And prove what exactly? That my daughter likes to date older men?”
“Don’t joke about this, Tom. Don’t fucking joke around. This is serious. This is your daughter you’re talking about here.”
“Is she?” I asked.
“What are you saying?”
“Is she my daughter after four years?”
“Yes. Some animal came along and took your daughter, and he did do those awful things to her. Unspeakable things. But you can’t just let that go. You’ve got to fight for this. You’re in a fight, Tom.”
“Unspeakable things?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the key right there, isn’t it? Caitlin refuses to speak of them. Not to me or Abby or the police. But we all know what we mean when we say unspeakable. Right? Just because it’s unspeakable doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. It doesn’t mean I don’t visualize it. Every night I see it.” My words came in a rush, so I paused to collect myself. “I see them in a bed. Or on the floor. I see that pig grunting and breathing over her. Mounting her. Kissing her. Everything. And worst of all, she’s doing it back and enjoying it.”
I couldn’t look at him. My rear molars ground against other.
“Do you think the truth is going to be worse than what you’ve imagined?” he asked.
“It can’t be.”
He put the phone away and crossed his arms. He looked like he understood.
He reached into his pants pocket again and brought out the slip of paper. “My car’s over by your house,” he said. “We can leave right now.”
I started to leave, then noticed Buster wasn’t by my side. I looked back into the darkness and saw his shape leaning over Caitlin’s headstone. He started grunting and huffing. I went back.
“Help me,” he said. “I’m tired of this fucking abortion standing here.”
He started pushing against the stone again, trying with all his might to tip it over. I moved in beside him. It was tough, resistant, but after a few minutes it rocked loose and fell into the soft grass with a heavy thud.
Buster straightened, wiped his hands on his pant legs.
“Now I’m ready to go,” he said.
Chapter Forty-five
Colter’s mother lived on the north side of town. I drove by the neighborhood on my way to the interstate, and from the highway I remembered seeing a few factories, some strip malls, and lots and lots of trailers and small homes, the kinds with debris scattered in their yards and blank-eyed occupants sitting on the stoops smoking and drinking soft drinks from plastic bottles.
“Looks like this is a pretty shitty neighborhood,” Buster said.
“That’s fitting.”
“I guess not too many professors live on this side of town.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
Buster drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “You know, you called me Paul back there in the cemetery.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did. You looked me right in the eye back there, when you were holding me by the collar, and you called me Paul. Clear as day.”
We took an exit ramp and came to a stoplight. I opened the glove compartment and took out a map. While we sat at the light, I located the correct street among the red and blue lines and told Buster which way to go. He made the first couple of turns, then started talking again.
“You’ve led a pretty good life,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I pointed to the windshield. “I’m driving in the middle of the night to confront the man who kidnapped and raped my daughter. I’m a lucky man.”
“Your life has turned out better than a lot of people’s. You’ve got a good job, some money. Okay, your personal life is in the dumper now. Your marriage is on the rocks.”
“My daughter . . .”
“Your daughter’s back,” he said. “Don’t forget that.”