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

by Kathryn Casey

  As Hannah had predicted, the restaurant was nearly empty. We sat in a far corner, at a window table overlooking the street, a good distance from the other diners. I placed my cell phone screen up on the table next to my plate, waiting for Max’s call. I wondered if he’d talked to the sheriff yet, if they’d decided how we’d pursue the case. With every breath, I thought about Delilah and what might be happening to her while I did nothing.

  As a distraction, I looked about at the other patrons.

  Across the dining room sat an elderly couple who could have been the models for American Gothic, white-haired and dressed in traditional garb. The man looked familiar, and before long I recognized Michael Johansson, whose family owned the big bison ranch on the outskirts of town. She’d changed, but I pegged the woman as his first wife, Reba. She stared at me, and I smiled. She stood up and took another chair at the table, one with her back to me. When Mr. Johansson recognized me, he scooted over next to her.

  Heads together, I had no doubt I was the topic of their conversation.

  The restaurant’s other customers—a young woman in tennis whites and her children—weren’t familiar. The mom had bare legs, concrete evidence that she hadn’t grown up in Alber, and the three children—all elementary school age and in shorts and T-shirts—nibbled on chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries.

  “There’s a tennis court in Alber?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of.” Hannah shrugged. “But there may be. The town is transforming faster than I thought possible. It’s hard to keep up with the changes.”

  “And yet the attitudes of some are still the same.”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “In fact, there are a substantial number of people fighting tooth and nail to return Alber to its roots.”

  I thought of my family, of the scowl on my mother’s face when I surprised her at the trailer door. “Mother’s in that group, I’m sure.”

  Hannah sighed. “I’m sure Ardeth regrets much of what’s happening. And I can’t fault her for that. Her world is changing around her. This is no longer the cloistered town our ancestors founded, the one she grew up in, the one she raised her children to live in.”

  Hannah’s words rang true. I thought about my mother, how frightening the town’s metamorphosis must be for her.

  Our dinners arrived as I watched the tennis mom eyeing the Johanssons across the room. When the old-timers moved to avoid eye contact with me, they’d positioned themselves directly across from the young mother and her children. Both stared suspiciously at the family, and the old woman whispered to her husband.

  I picked at my food, hungry but too worried to eat. I could think of little else other than Delilah. Where was she? I took a notebook and pen out of my bag, and I lowered my voice to be sure no one else heard. “Hannah, I need to know what you know about Delilah.”

  To my surprise, Hannah appeared reluctant to answer. She took a sip of her wine, paused as if considering, and then admitted, “I’m usually pretty good at confronting reality, I know, but this is difficult.”

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  She hesitated again, perhaps deciding what to say. We had a lot of history, but this side of Hannah I hadn’t encountered. I’d always thought of her as something of a superhero, one of the few people I knew who was never fearful, or at least never showed it. Something, perhaps simply life in this strange town where there were so many rules and so many secrets, had changed her.

  “There’ve been a lot of bad things in Alber over the years, Clara. We both know that.”

  “Absolutely.” I waited.

  “But there’s something different now. I’m worried that there’s something truly bad here.”

  “What?”

  “Something evil.” She stopped talking, and I felt her resolve wavering. That she hesitated chilled me.

  “Hannah, you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m afraid to,” she admitted.

  “Why?”

  Hannah took another sip of wine. “I know this sounds irrational,” she whispered. “But talking about this makes it feel real, and that it might be terrifies me.”

  “Tell me what you know,” I said.

  Hannah swallowed hard, and then shook her head. “I… Give me a few minutes.”

  “If I’m going to help, I need to know,” I pushed.

  Again, Hannah sighed. “I understand that.”

  I checked my phone. Max hadn’t tried to call. I watched Hannah warily, eager for her to open up. Rather than catch up like the old friends we were, talk about all that had transpired in our lives since we’d last seen each another, neither one of us spoke. Hannah looked as tense as I felt. Danny collected our plates, mine covered with the barely eaten pot roast.

  “You didn’t enjoy it? It’s my wife’s special recipe.”

  “It’s great,” I said. “Just not hungry.”

  Bannion tarried for a few minutes making small talk, oblivious to the tenseness at our table, or attempting to defuse it. He explained that he and his wife, Jimi, found the old building listed for sale on the Internet. They decided to move from Salt Lake to Alber after he heard about the bargains on foreclosures. “I think it’s going to become a popular resort area, family vacations.”

  “If all the rumors come true, you’ll have a gold mine here, Danny,” Hannah predicted. “I heard today that there’s talk of building a ski resort.”

  Looking pleased, Danny wandered off. The Johanssons had left, but the tennis mom and her kids pecked at the remains of their dinners. I again checked my phone. No calls from Max.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. “Hannah, we’re wasting time. I need to find Delilah.”

  She gave me a strained look but nodded. “Well, first let’s talk about what happened in Alber. Things worsened after you left, Clara. The girls the prophet married off became younger and younger, until they were in their mid-teens. He sealed them to men anywhere from twenty to eighty. Some of us in town complained, but nothing changed until the authorities moved in and made arrests.”

  “Max explained that,” I said, trying not to sound impatient.

  “For some families that changed little. Their men had nothing to hide. They stayed and kept their houses, supported their families. Everything was good,” she said. “But other husbands fled, afraid that they could be the next arrested. That left a large number of families with no means of support. Many of the women lost their property and their homes. Those in the worst shape brought their children and moved into my shelter. Others salvaged what they could and relocated to the trailer park, where they’re homesteading on county property—hunting and farming in the foothills.”

  “Still intent on living the principle.”

  “Of course. It’s part of their religion. It’s all they know,” Hannah said. “This is what I’m trying to get to: the conditions here are dire, so many have moved on. The biggest exodus has been the teenagers, mainly boys but some girls. They know there’s nothing for them here. They left their families for the outside world, hoping to find jobs and start new lives.”

  “I can relate to that,” I said.

  “Yes, you can,” Hannah paused a moment and gave me a wan smile. I noticed the web of wrinkles around her lips and thought about how hard she’d fought for so many years. “I remember that day.”

  “As I always will.” We had shared memories, but I needed to move the conversation along. “Hannah, you were telling me about the teenagers leaving.”

  “Yes. I’m laying this out for you so you understand why there’s doubt. Why I can’t say for sure what’s happening here. If there’s anything happening… to the girls.”

  The anxiety I’d strained to keep under control ever since I’d heard about Delilah’s disappearance swelled in my chest. “Girls? Plural?”

  Hannah expelled a deep breath. “Yes. Girls.”

  At that moment, I wished I hadn’t eaten any of the pot roast. It wasn’t sitting well with the conversation.

  “
There are two I’m worried about. Two girls I suspect something bad happened to.”

  I dreaded where this was going. “Delilah isn’t the first to disappear?”

  “I don’t think so. Do you remember Eliza Heaton? You might have had her at the school, as a student.”

  “I do. Her dad runs the hardware store. She must have been seven or eight when I left.”

  “Eliza’s dad did run the hardware store,” Hannah said. “He passed away a couple of years ago. Eliza lived in a trailer with her mothers, brothers and sisters. A tight family, despite the dad being gone. Eliza’s mom, Alma, and her sister-wives keep those kids together. They work hard. A little more than a year ago, they opened a quilting business. They sell to the shop in town, plus a couple of high-end gift shops in St. George.”

  “Tell me about Eliza.” I needed to keep Hannah on track.

  “It was five months ago. Early spring. Eliza was seventeen, a good kid, smart as a whip. Dedicated to her family. I never saw that girl when she wasn’t carrying one of the little ones on her hip, a brother or sister. She loved to read. I’ve got a library at the shelter, one filled with a lot of the books I used to funnel to you when you were a girl. Eliza loves Jane Austen, just like you did. She called her ‘my dear Jane.’ I was searching the used book stores for Mansfield Park for Eliza when it happened.”

  “What happened?” I had my notebook open, and I wrote down the gist of our conversation, putting stars in the margin next to those things I considered of possible importance.

  “Eliza was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Disappeared,” Hannah said. “She stopped coming around. I asked about her around town. No one seemed to know anything. Some of the folks looked numb to all the teenagers leaving and shrugged, like, well, another one’s moved to the city.”

  “Did you talk to her family?”

  “Yes. Her mothers claimed that Eliza ran off to Salt Lake. They said I had no reason to worry.” Hannah smoothed out her white paper napkin and began absentmindedly folding it, once then twice on the diagonal, turning it into a small triangle. She looked at her handiwork, and then tossed it on the table.

  “You don’t believe them?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “For the past year, I saw Eliza at least once a week, most times twice.” Emotions tended to embarrass Hannah, but she didn’t wipe away the tears pooling in her eyes. “She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”

  “But maybe—”

  “I don’t think so,” Hannah said, leaving just the slightest room for doubt. “I know that girl like I knew you at that age. I don’t believe she ran away.”

  Our talk went on, and Hannah recounted a second mysterious disappearance, that of sixteen-year-old Jayme Coombs. This girl I didn’t know. The Coombs family had come from another rural town and settled in Alber the year after I left. Like Eliza, Hannah befriended Jayme, loaned the girl books and hired her to work around the shelter. “I didn’t need her help. The women who live in the house do chores and make repairs. But Jayme’s family is dirt poor, and she needed money. Jayme organized shelves, helped with the canning. Once I hired her to dig a section of yard and put in a pumpkin patch. If I couldn’t afford to pay her with money, I gave Jayme canned goods, soap, a bottle of shampoo. She was grateful. They had nothing.”

  “This time, too, you suspect something because she didn’t say goodbye?” I prodded.

  “There’s more than that.” Hannah bowed her head. “Jayme and I had plans.”

  “Plans?”

  “Like you and I had plans a decade ago, Clara.”

  “You were helping her escape,” I said.

  Hannah nodded. “Based on my conversations with her, I became concerned that Jayme was being abused.”

  “Why didn’t you move her into the shelter?”

  “I did at one point, but her mother, Genevieve, came for her. Jayme gave in and went with her. Mrs. Coombs promised me she’d watch over Jayme. But things Jayme said suggested that the abuse had started again.”

  “So you planned her escape.”

  “Yes. Jayme wanted to go, and I believed she had no other choice,” Hannah said.

  “So you…”

  “I made arrangements. Jayme was supposed to leave May eleventh. We had everything worked out. A ride to Salt Lake and a family to take her in. But then she didn’t come to work at the shelter on the tenth. I went to their home and asked to talk to her. I was told that she’d run away.”

  “But you don’t—”

  “No, I don’t believe it,” Hannah said, sounding more sure than she had about Eliza Heaton. “Not when we had a plan to start her new life. It made no sense.”

  “Did you tell Max all of this?” I asked.

  “I did, and we had something of a difference of opinion,” Hannah said. “We actually had a rather heated conversation about it. Max appeared interested at first, but then he called me and said someone had talked to their mothers. Like they told me, the women said the girls had run off.”

  “And he believed them?”

  “Yes.”

  I wondered about Max. Something seemed off. Hannah’s accounts were persuasive. It seemed that Max should have taken them seriously enough to pursue them, not immediately taken the word of their families. Why didn’t he? I looked at my phone again. No call. What was taking so long? “Do you know anything about Delilah?”

  Hannah picked up the napkin again, this time opening the folds and smoothing it out as if trying to erase the creases. “No. But something strange happened last Friday afternoon.”

  I turned to a clean page in my notebook. “What?”

  “I was in the grocery store, at the back near the post office window, when Ardeth came in with Lily. They looked upset.”

  “In what way?”

  “Nervous,” Hannah explained. “Lily looked like she’d been crying. She had a fistful of mail, looked like bills and such, she put in the box. Ardeth stood back to wait for her.”

  “No doubt watching her every move.”

  “Of course,” Hannah said. “You know, your mother doesn’t like it when the children talk to me. She guards them when I’m around.”

  As dark as the conversation had become, at this I smiled. “She thinks you’re a bad influence.”

  Hannah reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. “She always blamed me for you.”

  “I know,” I said. “Tell me what happened at the grocery store.”

  “Not much,” Hannah admitted. “But I bought my stamps, and when I turned around, Lily was standing directly behind me. I thought she might say something.”

  “Mother stopped her?”

  The worry lines across Hannah’s forehead deepened. “All Ardeth had to do was give Lily one of her stone-cold stares, and the girl dutifully slunk back and took her hand.”

  I grimaced, thinking yet again of my afternoon encounter with my mother. Then, too, she’d kept Lily from speaking. “Mother should trademark those. She’s exceptional at them.”

  “I didn’t think much about it until Max stopped at the shelter this morning to tell me about Delilah, and to say that you were on your way from Dallas,” Hannah said. “I told him what happened in the grocery store. We weren’t sure what to make of it. There’s a lot of tension in the town. Things aren’t easy for the families. He seemed interested, but not convinced that it meant anything.”

  Our conversation stopped, both of us lost to our thoughts. No longer thirsty for my wine, I glanced at my silent phone yet again, willing it to ring. The pot roast soured in my stomach.

  Across the restaurant, the young mother collected her children to leave. The oldest, a girl with a long blond ponytail that bunched at her neck, grabbed the diaper bag to help. As they walked out, I heard the soft jabbering of a parent and children. I thought of my father and mothers, my brothers and sisters, of home. It had been years since I’d considered all I lost on the day I fled.

  “
The anonymous note said Delilah disappeared on Thursday. If it’s true, that could have been why Lily and Mother appeared upset on Friday afternoon,” I said. “You said Lily put a handful of mail in the box?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of those letters may have been the note, the tip that came to the sheriff’s office. Lily tried to talk to me today. It wouldn’t surprise me that she wrote to the sheriff. She could have slipped it in with the family bills.”

  Hannah folded her arms across her chest, as if to ward off a sudden chill. “That may be.”

  “But there’s no way to be sure.”

  “Not unless Ardeth has a change of heart and talks to you, or lets Lily talk to you,” Hannah said.

  I thought about Delilah, tried to decide what to do. I blinked, blocking the thin tears collecting in my eyes from falling. “Three days then,” I said.

  “Three days?”

  “According to the note, that’s how long my sister has been gone.”

  Ten

  I’d had little sleep the night before, and it had been a long day. During dinner, a headache had taken root, but the main problem: I had a hard time holding back a growing sense of panic. If Hannah was right, Jayme Coombs and Eliza Heaton were missing. My sister Delilah was gone.

  And no one was looking for any of them.

  At that moment, my phone rang. I turned away from Hannah and lowered my voice as I spoke into the mouthpiece. “What did the sheriff say?”

  Max cleared his throat. He sounded upset. “Sheriff Holmes called Alber PD and talked to the police chief a little more than an hour ago. I argued against it, but the sheriff turned the matter over to him. I’ve been ordered to stand down.”

  “What?” My voice carried through the nearly empty restaurant, but I didn’t try to quiet it. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s an order, Clara. From my boss,” Max said, carefully enunciating each word. “The sheriff assures me that the chief or someone from Alber PD will talk to your family this evening. I waited to call you, hoping for news. But I just got word that the chief will personally get in touch with you when he has something to report.”