“You do?” I ask.
“Yes. You’re that ex-boyfriend of hers. The one she was running from.”
I freeze for a moment, my mind searching for a response. “What ex-boyfriend?”
“The one who abused her,” Lucy says. “You need to leave.”
I don’t get up. “No, ma’am, I’m not her boyfriend. I’ve actually never met her. You can call the police department and verify what I’m saying. I don’t know what she told you, but Grace Newland is not who she says she is.”
Sandra gets up and grabs the cell phone charging on the counter. She presses just one button—apparently she has the police department on speed dial.
Lucy glares at me like a sentinel as I get to my feet and wait for Sandra to check me out. When her contact confirms that I’m legit, she hangs up and nods to her mother. “They said he’s for real. It seems to be true. Grace is wanted for murder.”
“But it’s a mistake. That girl is not a criminal, and I won’t help you find her.”
Sandra sighs. “Mama, we have to—”
“No!” The older woman cuts her off. “I know evil. I lived with it for years. You can’t tell me she’s evil.”
“I’m not saying she is,” I say. “She may even be innocent. But she’s a fugitive from justice. She didn’t have a boyfriend. That’s just her cover story. But one of her good friends, who happens to be a good friend of mine, too, was murdered brutally, and the police think she did it. She’s been in hiding ever since.”
Lucy’s face pales, and I worry she might faint. Sandra goes to her and puts her arms around her.
“She hasn’t asked for anything from us,” Lucy says, “and she wouldn’t take what we wanted to give her.”
Sandra’s hands move to her mouth. “We offered her a place to live in the apartment over the garage, but she refused.” She notices the kids standing in the kitchen doorway now. “Boys, go upstairs.”
“But I want to hear,” the older one says.
“Upstairs, now!” Sandra says sharply, and they disappear. I hear footsteps go partway up. I know they’re listening at the top.
“Mrs. Daly, how did you meet her?” I ask.
Sandra looks at her mother, then Lucy speaks up. Her voice is low, weak. “I met her on the bus coming from home.”
“Home?” I ask. “Where was that?”
“Oklahoma.”
Of course. She was probably Casey’s seatmate for hours and hours, and Casey struck up a friendship with the woman and decided to go where she went. “So how long has she been here?”
“Three weeks . . . maybe a month,” Lucy says. “I can’t believe she would’ve done the things you’re saying. Not this girl. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
Sandra sits back down and starts to cry. “We believed that she talked to Laura. We still want to believe her, unless you’re telling us that she’s crazy, that she’s some kind of maniac.”
“She’s not,” Lucy insists. “I’m telling you, she’s not. I’ve been around liars my whole life. She’s not like them.”
“She has lied to you,” I say softly. “I can’t guarantee that she’s a murderer. I’ve just been hired to bring her back. If she’s innocent, I’m sure justice will be served. But you’ve got to tell me where she is.”
“Is she dangerous?” Sandra asks, looking toward the stairs.
“I don’t think she is, but I can’t guarantee it.”
“Is she wanted for murder or not?” she asks.
“She is,” I say, knowing I sound insane myself, “and if you don’t tell me what you know about her, she might get away.”
Sandra bursts into tears. “I wanted to believe her,” she says. “I wanted to think that she really talked to Laura, even though the police didn’t find her there.”
“She may have been telling the truth,” I say.
“But according to you she’s a liar and a murderer!”
Her hope is vaporizing right before my eyes, but I don’t dare give her false hope.
“We were so close,” Lucy says. “We thought we were going to find her. We were going to get her back.”
“All I know,” I say, “is that I’ve been hired to find Casey Cox and bring her home, and I have to do that with or without you. But if you hide her whereabouts, you could become an accessory to murder.”
Sandra stands back up. “Are you kidding me?”
These people have been tormented enough, so I don’t repeat it. “One last time. Do you have any idea where she could be?”
“No!” Lucy says. “She goes to work and comes home, and that’s about it up until a few days ago. She was watching the Dotson house a lot. We didn’t know it until she broke in and got arrested, but then she told us everything.”
Sandra sinks back into her chair. Her voice is monotone. “Mama, none of it was real. Just accept it now.”
“No,” Lucy says. “I won’t accept it. Until we find Laura’s body, she is alive. She’s somewhere!”
Sandra rubs her fingers down her face, then looks up at me. “We’re telling the truth. If Grace isn’t home, we don’t know where she is.”
“Is she dating anybody? Does she have any other friends? Her coworkers?”
“She’s actually a very friendly person,” Lucy says, “just a ray of sunshine, or so it seemed. I adore her. She makes friends easily. I just don’t know any of them.”
It seems everyone who knows Casey personally adores her. When I leave that devastated family, I drive back to Casey’s apartment. Her car still isn’t there.
It’s just a matter of time. She has to come home eventually.
41
CASEY
It’s been a long day at work, and Laura Daly’s plight has kept me constantly distracted. When I get off, I go straight to the Dotsons’ street and try to figure out a way to prove Laura’s been there.
When my phone rings, I see that it’s Miss Lucy. I answer quickly.
“Grace, thank heaven!” she says.
Miss Lucy sounds as if she’s been crying, and she speaks in a low voice, as though she doesn’t want to be overheard. “Miss Lucy? Is everything all right?”
“Grace, there was someone here asking about you just now.”
My breath catches. I pull my car out of the parking lot, alert now to anyone who might be following. “What? Who?”
“A man who told us that Grace is not your real name.” Her tone is flat, resigned.
I let out a miserable sigh. “Dylan Roberts?”
She’s silent for a moment, then she says, “Is it true, the things he said?”
I’m sunk. It’s over. I can’t go home now. “I don’t know what he said,” I tell her. “But it’s true that I’m hiding from the police.”
Lucy’s gasp is audible. “I couldn’t believe it! You killed somebody?”
“No, I didn’t!” I say. “Miss Lucy, you know I’m not the kind of person who could hurt anyone.”
“But you’re lying about who you are, where you came from. Tell me the truth. Were you lying about Laura too?”
“No, absolutely not! Miss Lucy, I heard her. I talked to her. That’s true. Please believe me.”
“How can I? Sandra’s devastated. She’s lost all hope.”
I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. “Miss Lucy, my father was murdered when I was twelve, by dirty cops. They made it look like a suicide. It’s haunted me for years, and my friend who was a reporter started investigating it and got too close to the truth. He wound up murdered too. I found his body, so my DNA is everywhere.”
Miss Lucy’s silent for a moment, taking it in. Her voice is more empathetic when she speaks again. “Then go back and tell them that. Hiding makes you look guilty. Take it from me, honey. There will be people who believe you.”
“Not if they kill me first. You don’t understand this kind of evil.”
“Honey, I’ve dealt with police. Most of them are honest. But if some are trying to kill you . . .” Her voice trail
s off. When she speaks again, her words are raspy. “I don’t know what to tell you, other than . . . I believe you.”
I press my fist against my forehead. “Miss Lucy, I want you to know that you’ve meant a lot to me. You’ve saved my life, given me a reason to live. I have lied to you, and you didn’t deserve that.”
Miss Lucy is weeping now. She steadies her voice and says, “Grace . . . Casey . . . whatever your name is . . . God can forgive you. He moved heaven and earth to make it possible to wipe your slate clean. He may not clear up all the charges against you, but he can heal your heart and help you through this. If you’ve ever listened to anything I’ve said, listen to that.”
“I am listening,” I say, my face twisted. “Thank you, Miss Lucy.”
I cut my connection to her and press the phone to my heart. Suddenly I miss my mom with an ache that cuts through my bones.
I start my car, crying and wondering if I should just turn around and drive out of town.
But what about Laura? I know Dotson has her. No one believes me.
I can’t stand the thought of Sandra weeping through the night, crushed that her last hope for Laura rested on the word of a liar. I have to fix it. I have to see this through. For Sandra and for Laura . . . but mostly for Miss Lucy, who still believes in me.
It starts to drizzle, and I look up to the heavens through my rain-streaked windshield. “God, if she’s right . . . if you’re there . . . if you care at all, then give me the courage to do what’s right.”
What a farce—praying to God to help you break a law! What am I thinking? But doesn’t God love Laura? Doesn’t he want her to be set free? Isn’t saving a kidnapped girl’s life the right thing?
I swallow my tears. “If you could just give me courage,” I plead again. My voice breaks off, and I hope this God of Miss Lucy’s can see through the mess of my heart and cut right to the motives. I want to save Laura, even if it means I can no longer save myself.
I don’t go home. I never can again. Everything in my apartment will have to be left behind. What little I’ve been carrying in my car will have to get me through.
42
CASEY
Not only am I a fugitive, I’m premeditating breaking and entering again. That makes me a criminal even if I’ve never killed anyone.
At Home Depot, I get out in the drizzling rain and check the trunk of my car. There’s a jack in a compartment next to the spare tire, along with a pry bar. I shove the bar into my backpack, since the police kept my crowbar. I try to think it through. There’s a padlock on the outside cellar door. I need bolt cutters.
I pull my hair up in a ponytail and put on my Braves baseball cap to shelter my face from cameras, then I hurry in and grab the biggest bolt cutters I can find, along with a flashlight, and check out.
Then I drive to the Dotsons’ house again. Their car isn’t there, so I drive by the bar to see if Frank and Arelle are there. They are, so I hurry back. I have to get into that house. It’s now or never. I park my car up the street, slip on my backpack, and walk to their house, but this time I avoid the side of the house where the neighbor called the police. I go around the opposite side, next to a big fence enclosing the other neighbor’s yard. It’s raining harder now, soaking my shirt and jeans.
In the backyard, I position the bolt cutter blades over the padlock on the cellar door and squeeze. I’m not strong enough to snap it cleanly, but I work at it and finally cut through the metal. I pull the padlock off and pull on the door handles—the doors don’t budge. They must be locked from inside too. Frank Dotson was thorough.
I can’t give up, so I go back to the side of the house. There’s a window that must be a bedroom, maybe the master. I drop my backpack on the dirt and pull out a T-shirt. I hold it against the glass to muffle the sound, then tap it with the pry bar. The glass cracks nicely. I wrap the T-shirt around my hand, then knock away enough of the glass that I can reach in and unlock the sash. The glass shards don’t make much noise as they fall, so I assume there’s carpet below.
I raise the sash, then look into the dark room. I dust the glass off the pane, lift myself up, and climb into what looks like a guest room. I close the window and pull the curtains shut.
I use my flashlight to look around the room. There’s a twin bed in a corner. The place is dusty and has a vinegar-like smell. I leave that room and go up the hall to the den off the kitchen. The furniture is old, the upholstery split and oozing batting. I go into the kitchen and see the sidebar behind the table, the one in the picture that showed Laura Daly’s article. It’s gone now. I’m sure Dotson discarded it before the police searched, just as he might have somehow done with Laura.
I look around for the basement door. There it is, right next to the refrigerator. I hurry across the room, throw it open, and shine my beam into deeper darkness. I go down the stairs carefully. Since I know the windows are boarded, I turn on the light.
At the bottom, I look across the room and see the cellar doors at the top of another set of concrete steps. As I thought, it’s padlocked from inside. Shelves line the walls. There’s no sign of Laura.
Still, I call out. “Laura? Laura? Are you here?”
There’s only silence.
Since the basement light is dim, I shine the flashlight around the tops of the walls, trying to get my bearings. Where was the window I tried to get through the other night? It wasn’t the window near the corner of the house—I can see that one, and it’s boarded up too, but I know it’s not the one. There was another one. I don’t see it. Maybe they’ve moved the shelves in front of it and stacked them with things to camouflage it. I step in that direction and move a toolbox, an old boat motor, a box with a tangle of cables, a wadded tarp. There’s nothing but cinderblock wall behind the shelves.
No wonder the police gave up. There’s really nothing to see here.
Exhausted, I sit on the stairs, wondering if I’ve imagined the whole thing. Am I losing it? Did I really talk to Laura Daly? Did I really hear a baby?
Tears push to my eyes. Is it possible that I imagined it all? Am I so desperate to solve someone else’s problems, since I can’t solve my own, that my brain would manufacture something this bizarre?
No. I’m not crazy. I’m not an alarmist. I’m not a drama queen. Anyone who knows me knows that. I heard what I heard.
I try again, louder. “Laura? Laura, please, if you’re here, say something! I don’t know where to look.”
Nothing.
One more time, I shine my flashlight around the walls, desperate for any sign that Laura was here. No footprints in the dust on the floor, no diaper pail, no baby supplies.
But that missing window plagues me. Where could it be?
Again, I shine the light slowly along the top of each wall. There are two boarded-up windows in here, and only two. I know I counted three windows outside. I try to orient myself. The one I heard Laura through wouldn’t be on this side of the house.
I can’t accomplish anything here. I go back up, closing the basement door behind me. I shine my light through the house, checking every room and every closet for any sign of Laura, or of any place Dotson might have taken her. There’s nothing. No baby equipment. No diapers in the trash. No careless notes with an address of some secret hiding place.
What if he’s already killed and disposed of them?
Sick at the thought, I realize it’s time to leave. I open the side door that opens into the carport, but before I can step out, headlights sweep across the carport’s back wall and grow larger as a car pulls up the driveway. I jump back inside, close the door. I turn and look around, panicked. I can’t go out the front door, and I don’t see a back one. I hurry back through the house to the room I broke in to. I start to open the damp curtains to climb back through, but then I hear their voices.
I freeze, listening. Maybe they’ll talk about Laura. Maybe they’ll mention where she is.
Instead of escaping, I hide behind that room’s door and strain to hear.
&n
bsp; They’re both clearly inebriated. Their words are slurred.
“Need to go down and check on her,” he says.
“Don hurt her again,” the woman says, her words running together. “Just leave her be for tonight. I don’t wanna take care of the baby. Come to bed.”
My heart jolts. They’re talking about Laura! She’s in the house. Down must mean that she’s in the basement. But where? A secret room? There weren’t any doors.
Determined to find her, I resolve to stay. I will find her. I’ll spend the night here if I have to.
43
CASEY
I try to slow my breathing as I stand in the dark behind the door in the guest room. Dotson and his wife turn on the TV and make something to eat. I wait, afraid to move, worried they’ll see my wet footprints or hear the rain dripping through the broken window. But they apparently haven’t noticed either. Finally, I hear Dotson’s phlegmy snoring on the couch. What if he sleeps there all night, and I’m stuck here? I should leave now, but then I’d have to leave Laura again. This time when I leave, I can never come back.
Finally, Arelle wakes him up. “Come to bed,” she says again in her raspy, smoky voice. “Come on, get up.”
“Have to check on them,” he mutters as he walks back to the bedroom next door to where I stand. The floor squeaks with every step.
“Do it later,” she says. “Leave ’em alone for tonight.”
I listen as they grow quiet, and I imagine they’ve gotten into bed. After a while, I hear him snoring again.
I move out from around the door. I tiptoe up the hall into the den, see the food bowls out on the table, soggy cereal congealing in milk. I get to the basement door, pull it open.
It squeaks loudly. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? I hear movement from the bedroom, so I hurry away from the door, across the room. The floor squeaks in the hall. I dive under the table, the yellowed tablecloth hiding me.
“Do you want to die?” I jump as Frank Dotson’s voice bellows. He knows I’m here! I crouch under the table, holding my breath as he stomps through to the kitchen. The light comes on, flooding the room and casting long shadows that seem to point to me. He’s going to kill me and no one will know. Murder is my destiny. It’s going to happen to me one way or another.