More silence. My mind fills in the topographical blanks at lightning speeds.
“Oh shit.” I drop my head between my knees. The room sways and my stomach churns in its own hot juices. “And you told her?”
“Well, I didn’t think she was going to up and move her whole family to Butt-Fuck Idaho!”
“Oh my God, I can’t breathe. You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think. You said she came to your house. She knows exactly where you live. I didn’t give her that kind of info.”
“It probably wasn’t hard to get. I have a media spotlight over my roof that you can see from space. And then when she showed up—I gave her my number that first day I saw her. I wanted to keep tabs on her from afar. But she’s not leaving town. She hasn’t even hinted of it.” My mind tries to pin down all the possibilities. What the hell is Heather Evans up to? She found out where I lived before Reagan disappeared. There’s no doubt in my mind her fingerprints are all over my daughter’s missing case.
“Listen, Ally, and listen good. There are a lot of people here on the inside that don’t have all their marbles. But that girl—that chick is certifiable. Stay the hell away from her.” A thick lull sags between us. “Or better yet—ask her where the hell she’s hiding your daughter.”
“I have to go.” I hang up the phone and sit in the dark, in the back of the musty closet wondering if Heather Evans would have the brains, the brawn, the balls to pull something like this off.
She certainly has the daughter.
* * *
The sun crawls out like a coward late in the afternoon, and I make up an excuse to head into town. James is so distracted, so distraught at the thought his father might be in any way connected to his mother’s death, it’s been eating him alive ever since McCafferty left that evening.
Charles is off doing his part for the community, so I avoid Beacon Street where the homeless shelter is. The no-tell motel Heather is holed up in just so happens to be in that seedy part of town.
I was going to surprise her. Me, her favorite person, showing up unannounced. It would have probably killed her. But that scenario never panned out because she texted about twenty minutes ago letting me know she has a bombshell to drop.
My phone pings just as I pull into the lot.
GET DOWN HERE NOW!
I pull the phone with me and hightail it to her seedy motel room, annoyed that I’m actually anxious to hear what she has to say.
Last night, James lamented to me how much it sucked knowing there was a nutcase out there following us around and I didn’t put him out of his misery. I wondered about that this morning. Don’t I trust my philandering husband? Haven’t we crested the worst of it? Why can’t I trust him? And then I realized it was because I knew he couldn’t fully trust me. After all, I have him thinking Reagan contains equal parts Price DNA. I’m the monster of the bunch. For so many years I thought it was James. After the Hailey incident, I was sure of it. But in the light of the disillusioned day, after Reagan’s disappearance, I can see myself for what I really am—a liar.
Nevertheless, half the town is following us around, and that’s what I did tell him. James nodded because in the lie was buried a truth. Little does he know, it was my own personal stalker who captured that cozy moment for two that he and his ex partook in. I don’t feel half as threatened by photographic incrimination as he does, but that didn’t stop me from driving in a maze-like pattern on my way here just to throw off even the slickest of paparazzi.
With a brisk knock to the door, I note its slightly ajar. I give a quick glance around before letting myself in.
Heather’s cheap self-imposed dungeon smells thick of sweat and old farts. The desk lamp is the only illumination in this depressing den of depravity and she pops up next to me like an apparition.
“I’m keeping the windows closed.” Heather pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “We can’t risk getting caught.” She slips her hand inside the sleeve of my sweater and I pull away, but the icy trail of her fingers lingers long after she’s gone.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?” My eyes flit to the unmade bed, the covers in a violent disarray as if a war had broken out over the mattress.
She shuttles me over to the small table for two in the corner. “I made us some joe so we can have a real old-fashioned coffee klatch. I’ve always wanted to say that, and I’ve always wanted to have one with you!” The whites of her eyes expand, burning through the dim light like ghostly beacons.
I’ve always found it remarkable the way her enthusiasm never wanes, at least where I’m concerned.
“Boy, do I ever have stuff to tell you!” She pounds her hand over the table and the coffee crests the lip on both of our mugs. “Which do you want first? The bad news or the—” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling like a thirteen-year-old—and dear God, I’d much rather deal with your average thirteen-year-old. “Oh heck, Allison, it’s all bad news from here.” Her rusty teeth bite down over her bottom lip as if that in itself were the best news possible. I’ve always wondered if Heather got her rocks off on turning my world to shit. If her first order of business was to ensure no one ever spoke to me again in high school, what lengths would she go to out in the real world? Considering the fact James and I are still in the running for public enemy number one, I’d say she’s off to a fantastic start.
My stomach drops. Against my better judgment, I take a sip of the coffee, the color and taste of mud—God forbid, antifreeze.
“Just give it to me straight. All of it at once,” I demand. The truth is, I can’t breathe in here. I can’t stand the echo of the feel of her hand crawling up my sweater. Maybe that’s what has always made me uneasy around Heather? She secretly wants something on a sexual level that I can’t give her. A quick visual of her rolling around on top of me naked makes my stomach boil.
“Len Lewis.” A Cheshire cat grin breaks out over that demented face, and as soon as she says his name a shiver runs through me, a real toaster in the bathtub moment of electrocution. “Let’s start there.”
“Tell me what you have.” My breathing grows erratic. As hard as I’ve tried to repress all thoughts of Len for the last seven years, he’s always been there, adhered to the backdrop of my mind like unwanted wallpaper.
“He’s dead.” She nods like a loon, a choo-choo train laugh percolating in her throat as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
But I don’t join her giggle-fest. Instead, a swell of relief fills me. If that’s all she’s got, I’ve got nothing to fear. “Yes, I know that. We talked about that, remember?”
“Well, so are his parents.” Her head ticks to the side as if this news had the capability to blow me out of the water. “And if you go back far enough, you have to dig pretty deep to find a single living relative.”
More relief. “That crosses the Lewis family off the list.” A list they were never on as far as I’m concerned.
“Not so fast.” She lifts a finger an inch from my nose, and for a second I think she’s going to slap me. “What exactly do you know about the Lewis family?”
“Nothing really. Len worked down at the docks. He never talked about his family.” True—but in all fairness Len and I kept our mouths fused together amongst other far more fertile body parts. Len was hauntingly beautiful. A god among men. He seemed nice enough for the month I knew him.