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

by Kathryn Casey

  My phone was silent, and I assumed the receptionist hadn’t yet found the admissions officer.

  Something needled at me. “You know it’s odd,” I said to Hannah.

  “What?”

  “All three of the homes with missing girls—my family’s, the Heatons’ and Coombs’ houses—all back up to the cornfield.”

  Hannah appeared to consider that for a moment. “I hadn’t thought about that. It is odd.”

  I thought again about my brother-in-law, Jim Daniels, the man who managed the cornfield.

  On the phone, someone said, “Samantha here.”

  “Hi, Samantha,” I said, putting her on the car’s speaker system. “I’m Detective Clara Jefferies. I’m looking into the cases of some missing girls in a small town called Alber.”

  “I’ve heard of that place,” she said. “We get kids from there. Mostly boys, though.”

  “Well, I’m hoping you can help me. Jayme Coombs’ mother says that her daughter is at your center. Can you tell me if Jayme is there? If she was there? If she’s left, where you referred her? This is a welfare check.”

  “Sure,” Samantha said. “Describe her. It’ll make it easier.”

  I whispered to Hannah. “Tell her what Jayme looks like.”

  “Jayme is about five foot two, long dark-blond hair, kind of wide blue-gray eyes. Slight build.”

  “How old?”

  “Sixteen,” Hannah said.

  “Okay. I’ll ask around, get back with you,” Samantha said. “It may take a while. I need to check with the shelters.”

  “Don’t you have a list you can check?” I asked. “Just run the name through the computer?”

  Samantha chuckled. “The kids from those mountain towns rush through here like flash floods. They’re here one minute, on their way somewhere else the next. We try, but we can’t stay on top of record-keeping. Our staff is small.”

  “How are you going to look for her?” I asked.

  “We’ve got other kids from Alber in the program. We’ll ask around. Some of them live at the shelters. Odds are if Jayme is or was there, they’ll know.”

  It sounded like the best we could do. “Okay, but one more thing.”

  “Sure,” she said. “What?”

  “While you’re doing this, check on a couple more girls for me. They’re all from Alber. The first one is Eliza Heaton, age seventeen.”

  I looked at Hannah.

  “She’s taller,” Hannah said. “Maybe five foot six or seven. Green eyes. Long dark hair. Pretty girl.”

  “Got it. And the third?”

  “We’re also concerned about the whereabouts of a twelve-year-old.”

  Samantha let out a soft whistle. “That’s pretty young for us. I don’t remember seeing anyone that young in a while. But I’ll give it a try. What’s her name?”

  “Delilah Jefferies,” I said.

  “Description?” she asked.

  “Auburn hair, turned-up nose, freckles. Cute kid,” I said based on old memories.

  “Height? Weight?” Samantha queried.

  I felt a pang of regret and even shame that I couldn’t better describe my own sibling. Thankfully, Hannah jumped in to answer. “Delilah is just under five foot tall, maybe ninety, something less than a hundred pounds.”

  Samantha paused, and I assumed she was writing it all down. “Jefferies? Isn’t that your last name, Detective?”

  “Delilah is my half-sister,” I said.

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Samantha said. Her voice dropped an octave. “Tough.”

  “Take a look and get back to me as soon as possible?”

  “You’ve got it,” she said. “And detective…”

  “Yes?”

  “Try not to worry. Most times, these kids show up.”

  I wanted to, but I didn’t believe her.

  Eighteen

  After the meeting at the Alber police department, Max headed back toward the highway. At the stop sign before he turned onto the main road, he reread the text from the sheriff:

  Heard from Chief Barstow early this a.m. about NCIC report. That woman is off base. You brought her here. You need to get rid of her. Report to headquarters, ASAP. We need to talk!

  “Shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Damn it, Clara.”

  Rather than setting a course straight back to the office, Max drove around for half an hour, eventually making a left off the highway and heading toward the river. He turned onto a dirt road he hadn’t taken in years, not since his return to Alber. Minutes later, he arrived at a path that wound into the trees. He parked the car and trekked through the woods, stopped along the riverbank and looked out at the scenery.

  This is it, he thought. This is where we were standing when Clara kissed me.

  How many years had it been? Half his life ago, a bit more. That one kiss changed everything. He was on a path, planning to stay in Alber, near family. Then Clara kissed him. He didn’t pull back, sure, but she was the one who suggested they skip school that day and go to the river. He’d been attracted to her for a couple of years, and dreamed of being alone with her. He remembered the excitement deep in his soul as they planned their escape. His first crush. His first love.

  To Max, it had seemed predestined that one day they’d be together. He didn’t object when she took his face in her hands and moved closer until their lips met. He’d never been kissed like that before, but he’d fantasized about what it would feel like to be so close to her, to meld into her, to touch her.

  As their lips met, Clara’s father had broken the spell.

  “Stop!” Abraham Jefferies had shouted, as he stalked toward them with the determination of a man on a mission. Max saw outrage burning in the older man’s eyes.

  That day changed his life, but not in the way he’d hoped it would; because of that kiss, the church hierarchy sent him away.

  When his father drove off and left him standing alone on the street, Max had nowhere to go. No one to rely on. For the first time in his life, he was truly frightened. He’d faced difficult, dangerous years when he feared he’d lose his way. Then he’d found Miriam. They had Brooke. Life was perfect.

  The accident ended all that.

  The grief nearly killed him, sent him reeling to the bottle while Brooke fought for her life. When she’d needed him most, he was barely rational. Overcome with guilt and regret, he’d almost lost her. She’d pulled through but never to be the same. By the time he’d fought through the pain enough to see what he was doing to his daughter, by the time he’d walked away from the booze and tried to reclaim his life, he’d lost his job, their security, and their health insurance, the very thing Brooke needed most.

  His phone rang, his sister Alice calling. Max let it ring four times before he picked up. “Sheriff Holmes called. He’s looking for you,” she said. Alice knew about the booze and the depression. She sounded worried. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure, no problem,” he said. “What did the sheriff want?”

  “Said he was waiting on you.”

  Max thought about the text:

  Report to headquarters, ASAP. We need to talk!

  “How’s Brooke today?”

  “Like every day, working hard. The therapist is here. She has Brooke on the floor exercising,” Alice said. She lowered her voice and whispered into the phone, “Sometimes it makes me want to cry. You can see the pain in her eyes. The girl’s got grit going for her.”

  “That she has,” Max agreed.

  “I think you’d better check in with the sheriff,” Alice said. “I wouldn’t say he sounded mad, but he didn’t sound happy.”

  “I’ll head over to the office. Don’t worry.”

  Back in the car, Max thought about Delilah. His gut hadn’t settled down about the girl. He still worried about her safety, but Ardeth and the others had told Gerard Barstow that Delilah was safe. And the sheriff had given an order. This wasn’t Max’s case any longer. I can’t lose this job. I failed Brooke before. I can’t fail her again.<
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  When Max considered their history, Clara Jefferies had sent his life tumbling into a free fall once before, and he’d paid a stiff price. As much as he’d yearned to see her, he wouldn’t let her do it again. As he turned onto the highway, Max pressed the voice command button on his car’s steering wheel. “Call Clara Jefferies.”

  The buzz of the phone filled the car, but no one answered.

  Clara’s voicemail picked up.

  Nineteen

  “Can you hear me?”

  Delilah thought she had to be dreaming. The faint, disembodied voice drifted into the room seemingly from nowhere. It sounded high-pitched, young and feminine. She thought about responding, but stopped. The man could be behind it. He said she had to prove that he could trust her. Maybe the voice was a test.

  She hadn’t been able to put out of her mind what he said earlier, when he saw that she’d managed to push her blindfold off: “I haven’t had any of them do that before.”

  Any of them? Other girls? Girls he locked up in the house before her?

  The man hadn’t told her not to talk to anyone, but she instinctively knew he wouldn’t like it. Although he’d fed her maybe an hour earlier, her stomach growled near empty. Delilah stared at the stain on the mattress and wondered whose blood it was. She thought about the voice and the woman who helped her. Could she be another prisoner?

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I’m—” When she heard the voice the second time, Delilah began to answer but abruptly stopped. She longed for someone to talk to, but was it worth taking the risk? What if it was some kind of sick trick?

  “Say something if you can hear me.”

  The third time she heard the voice, Delilah thought about what she had to lose if she responded and the man heard her. She’d asked him to unlock the chains that pinched her wrists and ankles, the bonds that kept her from moving about the room, of stretching out to sleep. To use the bucket he gave her for a toilet, she had to inch over, her legs cramping beneath her. Her arms throbbed every time she nudged up her skirt.

  As meager a victory as it would be, the ability to walk around the room shined like a beacon.

  Then she heard it again.

  “It’s me. The girl who was in your room. Answer me.”

  Delilah knelt and looked about the room, searching. Her eyes settled on a heating vent cut into the baseboard where the floor met the wall, to the right of the boarded-up window. That must be where the voice came from. Delilah stared at the vent, waiting to hear the voice again. She decided that the next time, she would take a chance. She would answer.

  Minutes passed. Hours ticked by.

  Only silence.

  Twenty

  As I hung up with Samantha at the youth center, my phone vibrated and I clicked onto voicemail. Max’s voice came over the SUV’s speaker. “Clara, I’m sorry the meeting didn’t go better this morning, but I want to make it clear that I agree with the chief. It seems that I’ve brought you here for nothing. I never should have called you. It’s time for you to go home to Dallas. I’ll keep you posted if anything develops.”

  In the passenger seat, Hannah turned toward me. “What’s Max talking about? Did they tell you to go home?”

  There were a few things I hadn’t mentioned to Hannah. No reason to make her worry. “The men agreed that I need to leave,” I said. “I disagreed.”

  Hannah gave me a knowing frown. “So we’re all alone in this?”

  “It looks like it,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for dragging you into it.”

  At first, Hannah appeared apprehensive, but she said, “No, it’s okay. I understand how worried you are about Delilah. And I was the one who told you about Eliza and Jayme. But Clara, this isn’t what I do. I’m not a cop. Do you have a plan?”

  “Sure,” I said, only partially lying. “While I wait for Samantha to get back to me, we’re going to the shelter. I know you need to get back there, and I have things to do on my laptop. I’m curious about someone. I want to know more about him.”

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Hannah’s frown grew deeper, but she didn’t press for more information. “I’m surprised Max sided with the others. It doesn’t seem like him.”

  “At the meeting, he took my side at one point. I don’t think he’s convinced that Delilah is safe,” I said. “The old Max, the boy I knew when we were kids, would have backed me up all the way, but he’s changed.”

  Hannah looked hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she should respond, but then said, “Clara, I’ve always suspected that Max never got over you. He’s asked me about you often in the year or so since he moved back, wanted to know if I’d heard from you. When he asked you to come back, I wondered if it was only about Delilah – I thought maybe there was still a spark there. You two were close. It’s not impossible that you two would…”

  My nerves kicked up full throttle, an automatic reflex when anyone suggested anything could happen between me and a man. I focused on the road. Until the previous day, we hadn’t seen each other in years, but Hannah apparently still had the ability to decipher my body language. “You know, there are a lot of good men out there,” she said, her voice soft, coaxing.

  “Absolutely.”

  “But you’re…?”

  “Looking for Delilah,” I said. I shot her a glance that said I didn’t want advice. “This is what I do. I’m a cop. And to me, this makes sense. Things get personal… my experience is that if you let anyone get too close, they disappoint you.”

  “You’re really talking about men,” Hannah said.

  We turned the corner and drove along the diminishing cornfield, row after row harvested and chopped down. “There have been times when I’ve felt like one of those cornstalks,” I said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The only things of value I had were taken from me, like the cobs torn from their stems. Then my life was cut down and mowed under.”

  A look of incredible sadness washed over Hannah. “Clara, all men aren’t the enemy.”

  “I know, but this is the best I can do,” I admitted. “It’s hard to forget. It’s hard to trust anyone when the man I should have most been able to trust above all others betrayed me…” Hannah gave me a knowing look, and I finished my sentence, “my own father.”

  “Maybe you don’t need to forget,” Hannah offered. “My guess is that what you really need to do is find a way to understand and forgive.”

  We drove on in silence. I thought of the tattoo on my arm, the eagle I carried with me, my reminder of home. Yet Alber had always been a complicated memory. Here I’d had the love of family, and I’d seen harsh judgment. Perhaps more than anything, Alber was a place where dark secrets flourished in the shadows.

  As I drove past the big houses, I thought of ever-watchful eyes peeking out from behind heavy curtains. Eyes that saw me, recognized me, and turned away.

  Minutes later, I pulled over and parked in front of the shelter. As we walked inside, I looked again at what fifty years earlier old man Barstow had permanently bricked onto the side of his mansion:

  OBEY AND BE REDEEMED

  I thought about the word obey, and how those who do it can unthinkingly give over control of their lives to others.

  A cluster of women congregated at the front door when Hannah and I walked into the shelter. One woman, young, maybe early twenties, held a baby bundled in receiving blankets. A toddler in worn-thin coveralls clutched her leg, as if to let go risked his life. He looked up at me, his face twisted in fear. One small black, suitcase—the old-fashioned kind without wheels, a bright red belt wrapped around it to keep it closed—rested beside them. The woman whispered to the others between sobs. “I can’t stay anymore. It was bad enough with him there. Now that our husband’s gone, the other wives don’t want me or my kids. If I can’t stay here, I don’t know where I’ll go.”

  Hannah angled over to talk to her. As I climbed the stairs, she slipped her arm around the
woman’s waist. “Of course, you’ll stay. We’re tight for space, but there’s always room. For the time being, you’ll bunk with another family, two little ones about your little boy’s age.”

  “I can’t pay,” the woman said.

  “No one pays here, but you’ll be expected to help with chores,” Hannah said. “Let’s get you three settled.”

  I stopped on the stairs and looked down at them. “She can have the room I’m in.”

  Hannah shook her head. “We’ll move someone in there when you move out. We’ll manage for now.”

  Once in my room, I sat on the bed and logged on to my laptop. I wanted whatever information I could find on Evan Barstow. Our encounter in his brother’s office that morning bothered me. It seemed personal to Evan, when he pushed Gerard to get rid of me.

  First, I looked up Hitchins, Utah, and discovered it was a small farming community of 1,936 folks thirty miles west of Alber. On Google Maps I traveled up and down the few streets. I suspected Hitchins was another polygamous town. A review on TripAdvisor verified that. “We drove through and saw folks dressed like extras for Little House on the Prairie. Don’t plan to stop here. No restaurant or hotel. The locals don’t want visitors! A cop car followed us through town and made sure we left.”

  When I read that last bit, I thought of my after-dark drive with Hannah the night before, Gerard falling in behind us and trailing us through Alber all the way to the trailer park gate.

  I wanted to know more about the man. On Google, I typed in EVAN BARSTOW UTAH. Pages of articles and websites appeared, all having nothing to do with the Evan Barstow I was interested in. Hitchins and Alber both being fairly off the grid, I didn’t find any articles about the police in either town. Nothing about big arrests, no photos of either of the Barstow boys handing out plaques to faithful officers or awards to residents who distinguished themselves by helping the local cops. None of the normal cop stuff.