Dylan shook his head. “I’m not entirely certain which of your uncles knew or how much—obviously Al knew something, given what you just said. But Sissy knew from the beginning.” She started to ask another question, but he held up his free hand. “I don’t have all the answers, Alice, but I’m going to tell you everything I found out from Avery Cunningham. But take a deep breath for a moment. Slow down.”
Hearing her mother’s name paired with the name of one of Addie Durand’s kidnappers sent another small shock through her. Her mouth snapped shut. She breathed slowly through her nose. Dylan was right. She’d felt a little dizzy there for a moment.
“Are you all right?” Dylan asked.
“Yes. Absolutely. Please go on,” she said quickly, worried he’d change his mind about telling her what he knew.
He gave her that look that she now recognized as extreme caution. She’d learned that expression well over the past few days.
“I’m okay, Dylan. I want to know.”
He inhaled, and she had that sense again of him forcing himself into the deep well of memories that he detested.
“I told you how Cunningham planned to throw Addie Durand’s body in the creek, but as he was letting go he saw her eyes flicker open. But it was too late. She fell into the water. Realizing she was still alive, he ran down the creek bed and jumped in to save her. There had been a heavy rain that night after an extended dry spell. He said the water was moving fast and strong. According to him, he must have hit his head on something when he was struggling to get Addie from the current, because he was disoriented after he’d pulled her to shore. He claimed that contributed to what made him alter his plans in regard to Addie.”
“You didn’t believe him?” Alice asked, noticing the derisive tilt of his mouth.
Dylan shrugged. “Given Cunningham’s constant cat-and-mouse games, I tried to remain doubtful about almost everything he said. Which was hard, because I craved any morsel of information he’d dangle. I don’t know what actually happened that early morning twenty years ago. I never will. All I have is what he told me—and the fact that the information did finally lead me to Addie Durand. But Cunningham’s explanation about being disoriented didn’t add up, in my opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cunningham claimed that the reason he didn’t take Addie back to Jim Stout and resume the plans for sending a ransom note to Alan Durand was that he was disoriented from a blow to the head. That, and he was somehow . . . moved by the fact that Addie was still alive.”
“Moved?”
Dylan met her stare. “Remember how I told you a few days ago that Cunningham kept talking about Addie’s eyes—the impact they had on him when he saw them open while he thought he was dumping her dead body? According to Cunningham, he was sort of—” He waved his hand impatiently. “Converted when that happened.”
“He saw the light?” she asked, stunned.
His gaze snapped to meet hers. “Avery Cunningham was a liar, a drug addict, and a murderer. He was the lowest common denominator of society. After he supposedly underwent this miraculous ‘conversion,’ he nearly tore a man apart with his bare hands while he was high on crystal meth. Cunningham’s supposed redemption didn’t help his victim a bit. He was playing me with that story, painting a picture of himself as he lay on his death bed, trying to convince himself as much as me that he had a sliver of humanity left in him.”
“What did he do with Addie after he pulled her from the creek?” Alice whispered, dread and curiosity waging battle in her brain.
“He made a phone call to an old friend.”
Goose bumps rose on her arms. Something Dylan had told her last week leapt into her brain to mingle with the new information. Cunningham was already in prison on a separate murder charge. He’d killed a man a few months before when he’d been whacked out on methamphetamines. That, and Dylan’s tight-lipped wariness at the moment told her what she dreaded.
“Cunningham knew Sissy, didn’t he?” She turned to him when he didn’t immediately respond. “She was his meth dealer?”
He nodded once.
Alice felt a little numb, but she wasn’t surprised by the news. Not really. Men and women of the caliber of Avery Cunningham regularly pulled up into the drive of their shabby, garbage-strewn double-wide in Little Paradise. It was voices like theirs—rough, guttural, and at times, savage—that Alice regularly heard vibrating through the walls of her bedroom. That was Alice’s life. She was a mouse cowering in a den of pythons, constantly trying to disguise her vulnerability, to make herself darker and tougher than she was.
“Apparently, Sissy and Cunningham went way back,” Dylan said. “They met in Cook County Juvenile Detention Center back in the eighties.”