The Hollow Inside

by Brooke Lauren Davis

  He raised his eyebrows at her and frowned, a perfect mixture of confusion and concern and pity for the wild-eyed girl whose face was red as blood, spit dripping down her chin from screaming at him.

  He pushed her back firmly by the shoulders and got to his feet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetheart. You know I want to help, but you’re going to have to calm down and explain—”

  “You know what I want. You fucking know what I want.” She pounded at his chest and screeched, “Give him back! I won’t tell anyone; just give him back! He’s mine, Ellis, he’s mine!”

  “Nina,” he yelled over her, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. You need to leave before I call the police.”

  He exchanged a look with his wife over Nina’s shoulder, one that said, Poor girl, and it made Nina lift her hands to scratch his pretty, blue eyes out.

  He wrapped his arms tight around her, the way he used to at the cabin, but now every part of him that touched her felt like it was burning. He carried her to the couch in the living room, but she’d flipped that over while she was searching, so he held her down on the carpet while Jill talked quietly into the phone. But she wasn’t talking to the police.

  Nina had her forehead pressed to the carpet by the time her father arrived, sobbing quietly. She didn’t remember when she’d stopped fighting Ellis, when he’d let go of her, or when she’d decided that there was no point in looking for Bailey anymore.

  Her father crouched down beside her and rested his big hand on the back of her head, and she felt her whole body relax. She was just a child herself, she remembered. She still needed him. He had to see that.

  She sat up, and her father brushed back the tangles of hair that stuck to the tears on her face. He wouldn’t quite meet her gaze, though. He looked around the wrecked room, shaking his head. “Now, look what you’ve done here. You’re making yourself look like a crazy person. I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”

  It was the first time she’d heard his voice in months, his real voice and not just the recording on his answering machine. All she wanted was to plunge into his arms. But she had to tell him.

  She opened her mouth, but she hadn’t spoken the words out loud to anyone, and she choked on them. She buried her eyes in her fists and moaned.

  “Come on,” her father said, softer now. He wrapped his fingers around her bone-thin forearms and ran his rough thumbs over the soft insides of her wrists. “Don’t be that way. Let me see my girl’s face again. Will you let me look at you? Where’s the little one who caused all this trouble, huh? When does his grandpa get to hold him?”

  Grandpa.

  She felt her chest crack open, and everything important, everything that made her Nina Holland, leeched out—Sundays at the little church on Clara Mountain, and quiet mornings sitting on her front porch with her legs dangling while she sketched the trees, and eating ice cream at the picnic tables in the Circle, and riding her bike around and around in the dark while her father talked to Annie after she closed her grocery store because he was trying to flirt, but he sounded more like he was interviewing her for a talk show. What do you like to do for fun? What’s your favorite food? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

  She knew that what she said next meant that she would never be able to go home again.

  “He’s gone.”

  Her father stared at her, waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, he said, “Gone? Gone where?”

  She looked around the room for Jill—the one person who had been nice to her through all of this. But she’d disappeared into the nursery to comfort her own children, who were crying because Nina had scared them with all her noise.

  Why did she always have to do the hardest things alone?

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “You don’t know,” he repeated.

  She pointed at Ellis. “But he does.”

  Ellis had his back pressed to the wall, as far away from her as he could get, like he was locked in a room with a rabid dog pulling on her chain. “I have no idea where he is, Nina.”

  “Why would Ellis know?” her father said.

  “Because he’s his baby, too.” She tried to make the words sharp, to make them wedge like a knife in Ellis’s chest, to cut to the human part of him that would feel wrong about what he’d done.

  But he didn’t even need to speak to deny it. He just gave her that look again—pity for a girl who’d gone completely out of her mind.

  Nina hurled herself toward him, teeth and claws bared, but her father grabbed her around the waist and threw her to the floor so hard, it knocked the air from her lungs. She gasped while he pinned her to the carpet by her shoulders. “What did you do?”

  His whole face had turned a dark, terrifying red. His hands quaked against her, like they wanted to rip her to pieces.

  “Daddy—”

  “Tell me what you did with the baby!”

  “I didn’t—”

  He crushed her shoulders so hard, she yelped. “What did you do with the goddamn baby? Where are you hiding it?”

  “I didn’t hide him! Ellis did!”

  He leaned down close to her face, so close she felt his breath right between her eyes when he yelled, “Did you kill him?”

  “No! No, I—”

  Then Ellis was there, one hand on her father’s chest and the other on hers, trying to push them apart. “That’s enough. That’s enough! You both need to calm down.”

  He flinched back when she slashed her nails across his face. “Liar!” she screeched. “You liar!”

  But his carefully crafted expression never faltered—confused, concerned, innocent, innocent, innocent. He pressed his hand to his cheek, and his fingers came away dark with blood. Nina reached to claw him again, to peel that look right off his face, but her head jerked violently backward when her father grabbed a handful of her hair.

  He yanked it up so hard, she screamed, but he kept pulling, dragging her to the door.

  She cried and begged and tried to loosen his fingers. She could hear Jill yelling, “Let go! You’re hurting her!” But her father ignored them both.

  Nina latched on to the frame of the front door. “Tell him, Ellis, please!”

  Ellis was still on the floor, on his knees, and he held his head in his hands. “This isn’t about us,” he moaned, though it wasn’t clear if he was speaking to Nina or his wife.

  Her father tore her loose from the doorframe and threw her down the front porch steps. She fell on her hands and knees in the grass. She heard Jill yell her name, but her father must have pushed her back into the house, because the door slammed shut, and Nina was alone.

  She closed her eyes. She dug her nails into the dry grass. She tried to remember how to breathe without choking. There was blood dripping down her chin—she had busted her lip on the stairs.

  Nina’s life had just ended, but the sun shone bright and cheerful over the mountains, and black birds spun lazily in the sky.

  She let herself feel the crack that had shaken her down the middle. She let herself scream and pound the dirt. Scream until her voice was a raw scratch in her throat. She knew they could hear her, but it wouldn’t matter if she cut herself open and bled out on the lawn. They wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t help.

  Then she made herself be quiet and think about what to do next. She could go to the police. They’d have to open an investigation for a missing baby.

  But then she’d have to go to court against Ellis. He was older and better connected. He spoke with more confidence and wore nice suits that his wife ironed for him every morning. He had enough money to build a beautiful house, and all Nina had now was the change still jingling in her pocket from filling up the gas tank with money her aunt had given her.

  She had already learned the hard way that telling the truth isn’t enough to protect you. That what really happened matters a lot less than making everyone choose your version of what happened. And the only version anyone wo
uld see would be a pastor’s daughter who got herself pregnant, desperate for someone to blame.

  Ellis had already turned the people she loved against her, so she knew she didn’t stand a chance at getting any judges or juries on her side. Ellis would convince them that Nina had killed Bailey, and she’d go to jail for a very, very long time.

  No, she decided. Maybe her life was already over, but she wasn’t going to die in a concrete box while Ellis walked free in her town, prayed at her church, breathed her Ohio air.

  All she knew was that she had to go—not where, or for how long, or what to do when she got there. Just that she wasn’t welcome here anymore.

  So, with a deep, steadying breath, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered to the car.

  Chapter 36

  JILL CALLS MELODY’S CELL just as we’re driving into town, about to hit the Circle. Melody listens for a couple of seconds before she puts it on speaker.

  “—and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop myself from strangling him this time,” Jill is saying. “I really don’t. Promise you’ll hold me back.”

  “Depends on what he’s done,” Melody says. I glance at her, and she mouths, Pastor Holland.

  “Listen to this. Just listen to this. I already made arrangements with Sherry Snyder for us to stay at her place—she called as soon as she heard what happened. She’s got three extra rooms, now that her sons have all moved out. She gets so lonely, and she said it would make her feel useful again. How sad is that? So I accepted the offer, and she even volunteered to stop by our house and pack up some clothes and things for us, and Pastor Holland was already there. Loading up bags for us into his trunk.”

  “Bags of what?” Melody asks.

  “Clothes.”

  “Clothes? He had his hands in my underwear drawer?”

  “I don’t know, Mellie, and I don’t want to think about it. The point is, he told Sherry that we’re staying with him. And Sherry tried to explain that I’d already made plans, thank you very much, but he told her to tell Jill that the plans have changed.” She pauses, to let that sink in. “Can you believe that?”

  Melody gasps in outrage.

  “Yes!” Jill says. “That’s what I said! And I was about to call him and give him what for, but your father begged me not to. And under any other circumstances, I would tell him he’s out of his damn mind, but I don’t want to stress Ellis out anymore. And I only agreed on the condition that the second Pastor Holland so much as gives Phoenix a dirty look, we’re out of there. Do you hear me, Phoenix?”

  “Got it,” I say. “Thanks, Jill.”

  “Neil and I will be there tonight. Be safe, both of you.”

  “Wait,” Melody says before her mom can hang up. “Is Dad coming with you?”

  “I wish he were, sweetheart. They’re going to keep him another night.”

  I turn the car toward Pastor Holland’s little house at the bottom of Clara Mountain.

  I park in the gravel driveway. While we’re climbing out of the car, a screen door slams shut, and Pastor Holland comes out to greet us. To greet Melody, at least. He hugs her and ruffles her hair with familiarity and leads her inside, ignoring me entirely.

  I guess that means we’re going by the If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say rule. Which is fine by me. I follow close behind them and only growl a little when he lets the screen door bang shut in my face.

  The truth is, even if he threatened to gut me in my sleep, I wouldn’t ask Jill to find me another place to stay. I’ve wanted to see the inside of this place for years.

  It was already a hundred years old before Mom left. The wood floor is uneven, and every step creaks. The doorways are framed in the same shade of dark wood as the stairs and railings. Everything is just like Mom described, down to the red paint on the walls and the big, plaid armchairs in the living room.

  I run my fingers over a drip of purple nail polish dried onto the arm of the couch.

  Pastor Holland already has dinner cooking, the smell of mashed potatoes and gravy thick in the air. He stands at the stove, stirring a pot, and says, “I’ve got the guest room set for your parents, and I’ve got blow-up mattresses for you and Neil in my office.” He pauses and then, without looking at me, adds, “And she can sleep on the sofa bed.”

  I assume she means me.

  “I can’t sleep in the same room as Neil,” Melody says, grabbing a stack of plates to set the table. “He snores.”

  She turns to me, handing off some silverware, and asks, “Can I share the sofa bed with you?”

  “Fine by me,” I say, pulse quickening, voice going a little unsteady.

  I glance at Pastor Holland to see if he has a problem with it, but he doesn’t say anything.

  Neil gets home before Jill. He says she’s talking to the police again and didn’t know how long she would be, so she’d find another ride home.

  The four of us have a tense dinner at the small kitchen table, where Pastor Holland talks around me and Melody gives short answers to all his questions, either in protest of him being an ass to me since we got here or because she flat-out dislikes him. Neil breaks a sweat trying to carry the conversation on his own.

  I’m too distracted to focus on the words anyhow. I’m sitting across from Pastor Holland, and even though he does his damnedest to avoid looking at me, I stare right at him.

  We used to sit across from each other every morning for breakfast, Mom told me, more than once. When she was really missing home. Seven a. m. sharp, no matter what day of the week it was.

  I got irritated with him once because he was so focused on his newspaper that he couldn’t hear a word I said. So I used my spoon to shoot bits of cereal into his scrambled eggs, and I thought he had no idea. But then I flicked one too hard, and right before it hit his head, he looked up and caught it in his mouth.

  She’d always laugh at that point in the story, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. He’d never been so satisfied with himself in all his life, I’m sure. He threw both his hands in the air and said, “Bet you didn’t see that coming, huh? Nothing gets past your old man!”

  I put a piece of corn on my spoon, pull back the tip, and let go. It zips across the table and hits Pastor Holland squarely on the forehead.

  He looks at me for the first time since I got here, his eyes big. Shocked. He blinks.

  Then the front door opens, and Jill’s voice sings, “Hello?”

  She sweeps in, curls springing loose from her bandana and half-moons darkening the skin under her eyes, but she smiles, goes around the table to kiss Neil, Melody, and me on the tops of our heads, and even spares a kiss for Pastor Holland’s cheek.

  “He’s doing well,” she says, before anyone can ask. “He should be out of the hospital by tomorrow morning.”

  Pastor Holland jumps up from his chair to make her a plate. “We would have waited on you, but we weren’t sure what time you’d be back.”

  Jill drops into the chair next to mine, rubs her temples, and tells us what the cops know.

  “They found a burlap sack in Ellis’s office. There was a wooden frame with a hive in it. They think whoever did this stole it from Jack Larson’s bee farm.”

  I twist my hands together in my lap, imagining Mom’s pale face covered in red, swollen stings. She probably got more than I did. I wish I knew where to go and check on her, but at the same time, the thought of our next meeting makes my stomach knot because I know that when I see her, I’ll have to talk to her about Bailey.

  “Any ideas about who did it?” Melody asks.

  Jill shakes her head. “They just say they’ve got leads, but they can’t tell me anything until they look into them. Which I think is a load of horseshit.” Pastor Holland clears his throat at her language, but she ignores him. “Dave just doesn’t want to admit that he’s got nothing.”

  I decide that now would be a good time to set up the sofa bed. I rinse my dishes in the sink and pat my hands dry on the front of my shirt, w
alking toward the living room. The voices of the others fade behind me. But then a cracked door off the front hallway catches my eye.

  It’s the only room that isn’t painted red. This one is wallpapered floor to ceiling with a pattern of black birds.

  There isn’t much inside—just a bed with frilled white blankets, a wooden dresser, and a little table with a lamp on it. But I know this was Mom’s room. She must have traced these wings with her fingers a thousand times. They’re shaped the same way as the ones on her phoenix tattoo.

  I pull open one of the dresser drawers and take a sharp breath when I see that there are still clothes in it. I pull out a pale-pink sweater—a stale, untouched smell wafts out, but it’s still soft. Small.

  All at once, I feel surrounded by her in a way that I haven’t since I started living with the Bowmans. But it won’t be long before we’re together again. The police went easy when they questioned me. I know it’s only a matter of time until the evidence speaks for itself. This has to end soon, whether that means getting a confession out of Ellis or getting out of Jasper Hollow before we end up in handcuffs.

  The thought of all this being over in a few days hits me so hard, I have to sit down on the bed.

  “I had a daughter.”

  I jump back to my feet when I hear Pastor Holland’s voice from the doorway.

  He takes a tentative step into the room, his gaze on my hands. I’m still holding Mom’s sweater. He takes it from me gently, folding it and returning it to the drawer.

  “Where is she?” I ask, so quietly, I don’t know if he’ll hear.

  “I don’t know,” he says, his whisper matching mine. “I wonder about it every day.”

  I clear my throat. Shake my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been snooping.”

  I start to walk past him, but he grabs my wrist hard enough that I feel his bones grind into mine. “I’d like to talk to her again.”

  I pause. It’s like he’s giving me a message he wants me to pass along.

  I flicked the corn at him to remind him of her, if only for a second. I thought she would flash in his mind and then he’d move on, leave her behind like he did so many years ago.