The Fallen Girls: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping crime thriller (Detective Clara Jefferies Book 1)

by Kathryn Casey

  A restaurant. A B&B. For more than a hundred years, those were unheard of. The women cooked. No one ate out. Visitors weren’t offered a bed because they weren’t welcome to stay overnight. At dusk, the local police made it known to outsiders that they had to be on their way.

  Some would have seen such circumstances as inhospitable, but for much of my life, I’d viewed Alber simply as home. The town was all I knew, and I was part of it.

  On the surface, we were a community. Neighbors banded together and helped one another raise homes, build their spreads. At summer picnics, the children played while our parents relaxed on lawn chairs and talked of the prospects for the year’s crops. Yet at times I felt or saw signs that all wasn’t as I wanted to believe. Scratch the surface, and there’d always been a hidden tension in Alber.

  A few blocks west, we approached my family home, a wood-sided structure with a large front porch. The closer the car brought us, the faster my heart beat. Max remained silent, and I stared resolutely out the window. I felt the dread I expected, the nervousness of knowing that in a few minutes I would see my mother, my family, for the first time in a decade.

  My childhood home ever closer, I drew a deep breath. The opening words to a familiar prayer popped into my head, but I pushed them out. That, I reminded myself, wasn’t something I did any longer. I wasn’t the Clara who’d walked these streets.

  We reached the house. I expected Max to pull over and park, but he drove past. I didn’t see the double-wide where Naomi and Sariah lived with their children. Max kept driving and the house I grew up in disappeared behind us.

  “Aren’t we stopping to talk to my family? Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “Your family doesn’t live in town anymore. A couple from Salt Lake bought the house – computer programmers who telecommute. One husband. One wife. Five kids.” He glanced over at me, his lips stretching into a straight line. “After your father died, your mothers lost the house to taxes. Ardeth had the mobile home moved. They’re living in it at the foot of Samuel’s Peak. There’s a community of true believers like them—ones displaced from their homes—squatting on public land out there.”

  We drove on, but a short distance later he looked over at me. Something must have telegraphed that I was struggling against a chaos of conflicting emotions. “You okay?”

  My chest tightened. I lied. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I thought about Max. “What’s it like, living here, interacting with the people you grew up with, after what they did to you? You were just a kid when they forced you out.”

  Max stayed quiet for a moment, and I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked. Then he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in something of a half-shrug. “I have good memories as well as bad.” His deep voice grew gravelly with emotion. “This is my job. I’m lucky to have it. To do it, I have to put the past in the past.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” I confided.

  “It’s an art I’m still attempting to perfect,” he admitted.

  As we continued toward the mountains, Samuel’s Peak drew closer. We turned at the edge of the town toward what had once been open farmland. Someone had erected a cyclone fence and partitioned the area off from the town. I recognized the arch over the gate, topped with an angel blowing a horn. It used to mark the entrance to Alber’s cemetery. Behind the fence stood a dismal settlement made up of shacks, single- and double-wide trailers. It had the look of a place without hope.

  “How are the women making ends meet?” I asked. “With so many children.”

  “Most rely on the little government assistance they qualify for. Some take in sewing and sell vegetables from their gardens. One group quilts and sells what they make through the gift shop in town.”

  “There’s a gift shop?”

  “In the old Johnson house.”

  As we drove the dirt roads, dozens of dilapidated trailers spread out around us. I’d never seen poverty like this in Alber before, and it saddened me to think that the families I’d known, so proud of their homes, now had so little.

  “Where’s my family?”

  “At the back, near the cornfield.” Max glanced at me, and I sensed that he understood how hard I was fighting to stay calm. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted again, this time betrayed by an emotional catch in my voice.

  We drove by a drilling machine, men with shovels chiseling away at the earth. “There’s no sewer or water back here,” Max explained. “Some of the men are putting in a well.”

  On the final narrow road, the one that ran parallel to the mountain, under the peak where legend said the spirits of our forefathers lived, the cornfield spread out in front of us. Max signaled a right turn where the rows met the road, allowing no shoulder. The stalks were a thick, vibrant green. The car rounded the corner, and a figure leaped onto the road directly in front of us. Max slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop. I braced myself on the dashboard as someone darted back into the cornfield.

  “You okay?” Max asked. He looked shaken. It had been close. A second later on the brake, and he wouldn’t have been able to stop in time.

  “Yeah, but who…” I coughed hard and cleared my throat. “The belt knocked the air out of me.”

  “I nearly hit him,” Max said.

  “Him?”

  “Whoever it was,” Max said, spitting out the words. Angry. “Where’d he go?”

  The edge of the corn shimmered as something hidden moved inside it. A man, six foot or more, broad at the shoulders and narrow at the waist, emerged slowly, tentatively. He wore heavy-rimmed glasses. Once out on the road, he wiped off his brow with his shirtsleeve.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “Jim Daniels,” Max whispered, reaching over for the car door handle. “He manages the cornfield for the settlers.”

  “You okay, Jim?” Max shouted, as he climbed out of the car. I swung my door open.

  “Thought you were going to run me over!” Daniels shouted back. “Don’cha look?”

  “Shit, Jim. I don’t expect folks to run out of the corn onto the road without looking. Couldn’t see you until you were right in front of me.” Max said, irritated. “You’ll get yourself killed if you’re not more careful. What are you doing in there?”

  “Checking the crop. It’s near ready to pick,” Daniels said, his face weather-beaten from years in the sun. He scrutinized me, curious but distant. I’d gotten out of the car and stood on the passenger side. His eyelids hung heavy, and his gaze felt cold. “Who’s that with you, Max?”

  “A visitor,” Max said, sidestepping the question.

  Daniels didn’t ask anything more, but he continued to size me up—my city clothes, my trim bun. “I better get back to work. Got a lot to do before we harvest.”

  “Next time check for cars first, okay?” Max advised.

  “Yeah. Sure, Max,” Daniels said. He nodded at me. “Have a good visit.”

  “Strange guy?” I asked, when Max and I were back in the car. Daniels seemed just a touch off. The way he looked at me, it felt as if there were a disconnect there.

  “Yeah,” Max said. “Jim’s kind of an odd one—inordinately quiet, not very social. He moved to town eight years ago. Never any problems with him, though.”

  A hundred or so feet farther down the road sat a white-sided, double-wide trailer, more battered than I remembered it. Perched on cement blocks and anchored to an electric power meter on a wooden pole, it had five cement steps leading to a rusted screen door. Behind the trailer, as far as the eye could see, row after row of corn stalks spread, leaves reaching up like hands splayed out to praise the bright mountain sun.

  Max pulled off the road and stopped. He waited.

  “Do you want me to walk up with you?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “No.”

  The sound of the car door echoed in the air. Gravel pricked the worn-thin soles of my black loafers as I took deliberate steps toward the trailer. My heart pounded as
if I’d stopped running mid-sprint. At the foot of the steps, I paused. I glanced back at the car. Max had gotten out. He stood at the passenger-side door, arms folded across his chest.

  I took the first step. The second. No doorbell. I rapped. The door clattered loose against the jamb.

  Silence.

  I knocked again. Harder.

  Moments later, a teenage girl, long dark hair like mine, wide-set dark brown eyes like my own, stared out at me. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Lily! Come here, girl!” a familiar voice bellowed from inside.

  “L-Lily, is it you?” I stammered. I routinely stared down criminals, hunted killers, but my kid sister gave me a suspicious glare, and my voice cracked. I managed a smile. “I’m Clara. Your big sister. You were young when I left. Four, maybe five? Do you remember me?”

  “Lily! Inside! Now!”

  As ordered, my sister stepped back and was swallowed by the trailer’s darkness.

  In her place, a tall woman appeared. Ardeth. My mother. Her hair formed a soft crown around her lean, hollow-cheeked face. Her dark brows arched in irritation. She looked as I remembered her in a high, ruffle-necked calico dress that ended at her ankles. I took a breath and smelled something reminiscent of a pungent cheese, realizing it had to be valerian. I must have interrupted her at work.

  Many in town relied on Mother for the herbal remedies she concocted in her kitchen: tinctures, poultices, compresses and salves. She brewed potions for colds, flu, gallstones, bladder infections, even heart disease. It was rumored in Alber that Mother once conjured up a particularly potent mixture that cured breast cancer. Knowing that the patient probably never had a mammogram or biopsy, I had a few doubts.

  “Mother, how good to see you,” I said. She wiped her hands on her apron and stared at me as if I’d materialized from on top of the mountain. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”

  Her lips turned down, never threatening to edge up into a smile. “Clara? Why are you here?”

  I fought back my emotions. This woman with the dour frown was my mother, true, but she was also a source I needed to cultivate, someone I had to win over. I took it slowly, not to come on too strong. “To see you and the family. I heard about Father, all that has happened. I’m concerned for all of you.”

  Mother opened the door, and I hastily backed down the steps, making room for her. She took the steps quickly, one after another. She hunched slightly forward at the shoulders. She was in her mid-fifties, but looked a decade older.

  Feet on the ground, we stood eye to eye. Mother methodically inspected me, looking at my face and hair, my clothes, and my dust-covered shoes. She examined me as if I were a specimen on a glass slide. Although she hadn’t seen me in years, she made no move toward me. She didn’t reach her arms out to offer an embrace. I saw no joy at my return.

  Max walked toward us, his uniform and marked patrol car conspicuously undermining my attempt to portray this as a social call. Mother looked over at him. Her lips pulled tight, an expression that brought back difficult memories.

  She turned back to me and fury dripped from each word. “You just show up, after all these years, dressed like that, in city clothes. You act like you never left? And you bring the authorities?”

  I held back. I hadn’t come to argue. I had one purpose—to find Delilah. “Mother, you remember Max Anderson, I’m sure. He’s the chief deputy for the county sheriff. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m a police officer, too. A detective in Dallas.”

  “And why have you come here, knocking on my door? Are you here to repent? To fall on your knees and beg forgiveness?”

  “No, Mother. You know that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why?” she challenged.

  “We’re here about Delilah,” I said, narrowing my eyes, returning all the intensity in hers, knowing there was only one way to play this. “Max called me after he tried to talk to you yesterday. We’re following up on a tip that Delilah’s been abducted. Is she missing?”

  My mother didn’t answer. Her frown compressed, pinching tight at the corners.

  “Clara, you have to leave,” she finally said, her gravel voice rough with years of disappointment and anger. “You have to leave and never come back. You aren’t welcome.”

  Her words cut into my heart, but I stood straighter and did my best not to let her see me bleed. “I am happy to do exactly what you’re asking. Do you think I wanted to return? After you and Father…” I pulled back. No matter the grievances I harbored, I couldn’t let this become about me. “I need to know—where’s Delilah?”

  “I don’t have to tell you, of all people, anything about my family.”

  That one word stung more than any of the others; it wasn’t our family but hers. “Show Delilah to me. Bring me to her. Prove that she’s safe. Then I’ll leave. But not a moment sooner.”

  “Delilah is…” Mother started, but then she eyed me. She glanced at Max again. Her expression chilled winter cold. “Clara, I am the mother, not you. I will not take your orders. You must obey mine. And I tell you to leave.”

  “No!” Shouting that one word at her quickened my pulse. I had rarely defied Mother, only the once, the day I ran. But Delilah could be in danger, and I had to know the truth. “There’s a simple way for you to get what you want. Show me Delilah or tell me where I can find her, Mother, and I will leave. And you won’t have to worry about me returning. Not ever again.”

  Instead of answering, my mother shook her head, as if in disgust, and then nodded toward Max. “I told him to stay away. We don’t need the likes of him around here.”

  Max edged forward, until he stood at my side. “Mrs. Jefferies, I—”

  “Get out of here, Max Anderson,” Mother seethed. “Get out and don’t come back.”

  My hardline tactics weren’t working, so I changed them. That helped sometimes. A different approach threw people off guard. My voice a whisper, I implored her, “Mother, please—”

  “You, too, Clara. We don’t need the likes of you.” My mother stared at me, as if I were the source of all her troubles. An angry rasp in her voice, she insisted, “We take care of our own. We don’t need Max Anderson’s help. Or yours.”

  Enough of this, I thought. “Mother, we need to see Delilah. Now.”

  My mother glared at me as if she didn’t know me. I had truly become one of them, the strangers she’d warned me about as a child.

  Behind Mother, the screen door banged. Lily stood on the porch with tears rivering down her cheeks. “Tell them, Mother. Please tell them. Tell them that Delilah is—”

  “Lily, go inside!” Mother ordered, her voice so shrill it felt like a slap.

  “Finish what you were saying, Lily,” I begged. “I am here to help Delilah.”

  Lily stood her ground, but looked at my mother as if stricken. Then her voice became small, frightened, pleading. “Mother, tell them. Tell them that Delilah is—”

  “I am your mother. You will obey me!” Mother commanded, her face twisted in rage. My sister fell silent. “Go inside, Lily!”

  “Mother, let Lily talk!” I pleaded.

  “Mrs. Jefferies, we’re trying to help,” Max pushed. “Please, where is Delilah?”

  Mother scowled, and I turned back to my sister still standing on the stoop, staring down at us with a look of unabated fear. “Lily, tell me,” I said. “Where is our sister? Where is Delilah?”

  Mother didn’t speak, but she glowered up at Lily. I remembered how I felt as a girl when Mother sized me up that way, as if she saw inside me. I felt exposed. Unworthy. Lily turned, her shoulders heaving. The screen door banged behind her as she ran inside, sobbing.

  Mother gave me one last frigid glance before she turned her back and trudged up the stairs toward the trailer.

  “It’s true. Delilah is missing, isn’t she?” I shouted.

  She said nothing.

  “Please, Mother. Tell me what happened.”

  My heart pounded, hard and angry.
>
  My mother’s hands shook on the door handle as she shot me a warning glance. Then the screen door rattled shut behind her. The inner wooden door slammed.

  Seven

  “I shouldn’t have come with you. It might have been better if you’d gone alone,” Max said. Disappointment hung heavy in the car as we drove back to his office. “Without me, maybe Ardeth would have talked to you.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. From the moment Mother saw me, she was seething. She’s not a woman who opens her arms to an errant daughter.”

  “I wish she’d let Lily talk,” he said. “The way it is, we don’t know any more than when we got here.”

  He was right that we didn’t have anything concrete, but the fear on Lily’s face said all I needed to be convinced. “Max, we do know more. Lily looked terrified. All Mother needed to do was show us Delilah. She’s hiding the truth. Something grave is wrong.”

  “Something, but—”

  “It has to be that Delilah is in trouble.”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “But what?”

  “But that’s nothing more than a guess. What if Lily was going to say something else? How do we know?” he said, his voice firm yet a bit wary.

  Max had a point. I couldn’t predict what Lily wanted to tell us. But all my instincts told me that it would have been that Delilah needed help. “Max, we need to start looking for Delilah.”

  Max shook his head. “We need more information. We know nothing that will help us look for her. Where do we start? And we can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “We can’t ignore our suspicions either,” I said. “You and the sheriff need to…”

  I stopped talking when I saw the glum expression on Max’s face. As soon as I’d brought up the sheriff, Max shook his head. “Clara, you need to understand, Sheriff Holmes is dubious about that note. He didn’t want me to call you.”

  “Why wouldn’t he—”

  “My boss is a good guy, but he doesn’t know Alber like we do. He doesn’t understand how guarded this town is. He can’t fathom that Delilah could be missing if no one has filed a report.” Max glanced over at me and frowned. “Clara, if Lily had actually said Delilah was gone, I might be able to convince the sheriff to let us run with this, but without that…”