“Exactly,” Kaine said.
“Still, why hide them? And how did Gabriella, supposing it was her, hide them under those floorboards? It’s not like she took a crowbar to them like you did.”
Good point. Kaine thought a moment, turning the facts over in her head. The faucet in the sink dripped onto the pan Grant had used to make his boxed macaroni-and-cheese dinner. “Probably one of them had been loose or something. I don’t know. Regardless, the entries are distressing. Like whoever wrote them was being held against her will. Maybe she hid them—from him.”
“From who?” Grant looked confused, as if in trying to follow Kaine’s reasoning he’d been left behind.
“From the killer,” Kaine supplied. “If he was threatening her, and she was being held captive, writing down her thoughts may have been her only outlet of relief. A cry for help.”
Grant raised a doubtful brow. “That’s way out there, Kaine.”
Kaine gave a hissing sound through her teeth. “Yeah, well, you should see the stuff I’ve seen in San Diego. Jerks trying to cover their tracks after beating a woman within an inch of her life. I had one pimp who broke a girl’s jaw and then had the audacity to paint the wall when he couldn’t wash clean the bloodstains. In front of her. While she cried on the bed.”
Kaine seethed with indignation as she said it, recalling the satisfaction she felt when the perp was finally locked up. One man put away and at least three girls freed. She remembered well her passion to find justice for those girls. Danny had called her “the crusader” in the first year of their marriage—before it took a toll on their relationship. Before it took a toll on their love.
“All right.” Grant rubbed his hand behind his neck. Kaine watched it drag down over his collarbone to his shoulder. “Let’s assume you’re right. What does it really tell us? I mean, we’re not trying to solve a hundred-year-old cold case. Or are we?”
Kaine pursed her lips and shrugged, her eyes wide. “You tell me. It’s all there. I sort of feel like I owe it to Ivy to finish what she started.” Plus, it was another good distraction. From Detective Hanson reopening her case, from the creepy caller Detective Carter was looking into, and from the fact she still couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten her anonymous cell number.
Grant searched her face, and Kaine met his eyes. “Why is it so important to you?”
Kaine blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Staying at Foster Hill House. Restoring it. The place isn’t worth it, Kaine, and you know it. Now this? What’s driving you, really?”
Kaine’s insides went numb. She asked herself that question every day. She asked what motivated her when she drove away from Danny to rescue girls, she questioned her own memories buried so deep inside she wasn’t sure she’d ever let them out, and she revisited it now as her ancestor’s tale of mystery linked hands with her own tribulation.
“Hope,” Kaine whispered around the lump in her throat. But then she said it again, louder. “Hope. I need to find the hope to live again. A reason to move on with my life. You didn’t read what I read tonight, Grant. In the margins of a Dickens novel. They were pleas to God for escape and prayers of helplessness. And . . .” Kaine looked down at her hands and picked at a fingernail. Then, looking back at Grant, she said, “The girl was being held in that house against her will. The pages make it clear. She was abused. She was hunted. She was everything I’ve ever fought against, and everything I am now. I need to see this through. For Danny, for Ivy, for the girl Gabriella, and . . . and for me.”
It was stupid to have assumed her motel key was lost in the bottom of her purse. More stupid to look for it there after leaving Grant’s place and, not finding it, take a quick drive—alone—to Foster Hill House, thinking she may have left the key there.
Horror kept Kaine fixated on the window. Red dripped from the letters like blood from a knife. The wet paint glistened faintly with a tinge of bruised blue. A whippoorwill’s mournful call echoed through the woods and matched Kaine’s wild rush of alarm.
Danny.
The name of her murdered husband, painted across the front window of Foster Hill House, filled Kaine’s vision. She stumbled backward down the stairs. Olive was busy sniffing the ground near the window. The wind picked up the oak leaves in the woods, rustling them like miniature handclaps to mock Kaine’s fear.
There was no explaining this away. This was blatant. A message.
Kaine spun around, rushed back to the Jetta, and fumbled for the door handle. She yanked it open and scrambled inside, the car’s interior offering a deceptive sense of security against the vast yard of Foster Hill House, bathed in midnight darkness.
Olive!
Kaine pushed the door open. “C’mon, girl!”
The dog jumped onto her lap, forcing the breath from Kaine’s lungs. She slammed the door shut and pushed the lock button. Olive moved to the passenger seat, her ears perked, and gave a throaty whine. She sensed something amiss too.
Kaine grabbed her phone from where it was wedged between the driver’s seat and the console. She cried out when she misdialed. How did one misdial 911 to 914? Fear, that’s how. Hand-shaking, sense-numbing fear.
Maybe she should’ve taken Grant up on his offer to stay the night, but it hadn’t felt healthy. Not that Grant would have taken advantage, but she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t have offered.
Stupid missing motel key! Now she questioned whether she’d left it in the house at all. It was disturbing that she couldn’t remember.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
The voice was too cheerful.
“I need help. Someone painted my dead husband’s name on my house.”
“Are you in danger, ma’am?”
“Yes.” Kaine squinted through the darkness but didn’t need to. The wet paint ran from the window down the siding to the porch. The car, which at first seemed to offer protection, now felt exposed, with glass all around her. She slapped at her keys on the dashboard. If she’d just thought to hook the motel key to them, she wouldn’t have discovered this tonight. She snatched up the key fob off the dash.
“Is there someone in your house?”
Kaine shook her head, clutching her phone tight to her ear. “I don’t know. I’m in my car. With my dog.”
Her keys slipped from her fingers, landing by the gas pedal.
“Ma’am, I’ve dispatched someone to assist you. Please, stay in your vehicle and on the phone.”