“And the necklace she’s wearing . . .”
“I sent Betsy that half for her tenth birthday. Told her I’d always wear the other half. It wasn’t anything fancy, just this cheap metal. Thank God, or I would have traded it for a high, I’m sure.”
Noah, who has sat and listened quietly through this, asks with a thoughtful look, “Did Abe ever say anything to you about seeing Betsy in Austin?”
“In Austin?” She frowns. “No. Why?”
He tells her about the night Jackie killed herself, and how Jackie mentioned Betsy. Mom’s left with an equally perplexed look.
“The morning after Abe died, I found that picture of Betsy in the top drawer of the desk. I thought it was strange that it was there. It’s the picture Nan gave to Abe, to show around Tucson, right after she’d run. I had put it away, in a box of photos in the closet.”
“And he never said anything to you about seeing her again? Maybe while working? Are you sure?” I can’t help the doubt in my voice. Would she even remember at this point?
“Your father never talked about work with me. He didn’t want to bring that into our house or our marriage. But he would have told me about seeing Betsy in Austin. Wouldn’t he?” Even as she says that, I can almost see her mind clawing at her memories, first with a shadow of doubt, and then with a touch of realization.
“What is it, Dina?” Noah asks, seeing the same.
“He started working a lot of overtime in those last couple weeks. Or at least that’s what he told me. APD said he wasn’t clocking in extra hours for them. That it was a cover he’d been using to lie to me, to be out at all hours with prostitutes and drug dealers. I could never make sense of that. I figured the department was covering up something, because I knew he was not selling drugs, no matter what they accused him of, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d lie to me, and why he’d be at that seedy motel. For a while I started to wonder if maybe he was cheating on me. But that wasn’t Abe. If you knew him, you’d know he just didn’t have that in him.”
“But what if he had reason to believe Betsy was in Austin? What if he was looking for her?” Noah finishes.
My mother gasps, as if everything suddenly makes sense.
“But why wouldn’t my dad tell her that he’d seen Betsy?” I ask.
“If he was going around looking for her for weeks, then that means he couldn’t find her. Maybe he didn’t want to get your hopes up?” Noah offers, looking toward my mother.
“It would make sense. That whole year . . . it was hard on me.” My mom’s voice cracks.
Despite my anger, my chest pangs with sympathy for her. While I giggled and rode my father’s back and demanded attention like any normal child, I was oblivious to my mother’s silent pain.
“And if Abe was looking for Betsy, that could explain why he was at that motel,” Noah says.
I hold up the picture. “Then why didn’t he take this with him?”
Noah stares at Betsy’s face, considering my question. Finally, he says, “Maybe he thought he didn’t need it.”
“Because he was convinced she was there?”
“He got a call that night,” my mom recalls. “We were sitting on the couch, watching TV. It was late. He answered, and then told me he had to go out for a bit. Something for work. I wasn’t happy, but I knew that it must be important if Abe was leaving me at that hour. He seemed in a rush.”
“And then?”
“That was the last time I saw him alive.”
“Did you tell the police this?”
She nods, her mouth twisting with bitterness. “They said the call came from the phone found on that dead drug dealer who was in the room with Abe. That he called Abe to meet up for a drug exchange. It just . . . it never made sense. Nothing about that night ever made sense to me. When Abe left, he took his Colt .45 with him. I know because I watched him take it out of his safe and check the bullets, and then slide it into the holster I gave him for his birthday, the one with his initials on it. But the police said Abe had been found with a stolen gun on him. I told the police about the Colt .45. They said they’d make note of it.”
I look to Noah, only to see his subtle head shake. Don’t mention the gun holster, he’s saying.
Anger begins to burn in my mother’s eyes. “Why was Jackie talking about Betsy that night?”
“I don’t know. I swear, Dina. I don’t.” Noah’s head is in his hands, as if the weight of listening to this is too much. Or maybe he’s as overwhelmed by all the new questions swirling as I am. Then he looks back up. “What about this video you mentioned earlier? You said someone was looking for it? Who?”
“Yes.” Mom turns to me, her gaze full of both fear and resignation. “The man who held a knife to my throat and threatened to take Grace if I didn’t give it to him.”
CHAPTER 23
Noah
By the time Dina has finished describing the night she woke up to find a masked man standing over her bed, holding a knife to her neck while her six-year-old daughter slept peacefully one room away, Gracie’s face has taken on a sickly pale color.
“So you didn’t have the video that he was looking for?”
She shakes her head. “But I’m pretty sure I know what it was about. A few nights before Abe died, I came into the office and he was watching something on the computer. It was a video taken in a parking lot, and there were police surrounding a guy.”
“APD?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. They were shouting at him and their guns were pointed. That’s all I saw. Abe shut it off when he realized I was there. He said it was some YouTube video, but I could tell he was lying. His face . . .” She frowns. “It was this weird mix. As if he was angry, but also ecstatic. I didn’t think any more of it, until that morning after he died and I found that newspaper clipping in the office. The one with the notes Abe made.”
“This is Abe’s handwriting?” I study the scrawl—all caps, with slanted ligature strokes, the tops of the letter T’s exaggerated.
Dina nods. “I thought it was strange, that it had happened at the same motel Abe died in, The Lucky Nine. But I still hadn’t connected it with the video. Not until the day I drove over there. I needed to see if I could, I don’t know, feel him there . . .” Her voice cracks. “I saw the flashing green neon sign. That’s when I remembered.”
“Did you check his computer for this video?”
“The police had already taken the computer when they searched the house, but I mentioned it to them. I gave them the original newspaper clipping, too. They said they’d look into it. And then that very same night, the guy showed up. He kept insisting that I give him the video, all while holding that knife to my neck.” Her fingertip skates over a tiny scar.
“He was trying to scare you to see if you had it,” I say.
“He did that, alright. I didn’t know what to tell him. I couldn’t even think up a lie. He kept threatening me, first with the knife, and then with Grace. He said he’d take her away and let”—Dina’s voice wobbles, cracks—“men do horrible things to her. I could barely get out a word, I was shaking so bad. I was scared that Grace would wake up and come in. I don’t know how long he was there. It felt like hours. He told me that the police report would say Abe was guilty of dealing drugs and nothing I told anyone would change that, but that if I said a word to anyone about his visit or about the video, he’d come back to take Grace away from me. He promised that I’d never see her alive again. That’s when I knew it all had to be connected—the video of that bust at the motel. And Abe dying.
“So, I packed through the night, stuffed everything I could fit into our car, filled the garage with trash bags of personal things we couldn’t take. Then I got Grace and drove away. Left the house for the bank to repossess it. The way I saw it, our lives in Texas were already over. The man holding a knife to my neck and threatening my daughter was making sure I knew it.”