Don't Look for Me

by Wendy Walker

  “Promise me, Daddy. Promise me you don’t know where she is. On my life. On Evan’s life. Promise me right now.”

  * * *

  Thirty miles north of Hastings, Nic had found a shopping strip. It had employee parking in the back, hidden from the road.

  Nic had climbed in the back seat and laid down on her side, curled in a tight ball like a child. She’d closed her eyes, and heard her father’s voice in her head. Over and over.

  I promise.

  * * *

  It was morning now, and she called Chief Watkins. He came within the hour. He parked his truck two spaces over, the gray Silverado, then got out and walked to the blue Audi.

  Nic turned on the ignition and opened the window.

  “Are you okay?” Watkins asked.

  Nic unlocked the door. “Can you get in?”

  Chief Watkins went back to his truck, then returned with two Styrofoam cups. He opened the door to the Audi and climbed into the passenger seat. He wore the same uniform as the day Nic had returned to Hastings—just three days ago. Three days. So much had happened.

  “Here,” he said, handing Nic a cup of coffee.

  “What’s going on?”

  Nic wiped her eyes which were sticky with exhaustion. She breathed in the smell of the coffee. Then took a long sip.

  “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry if I was cryptic.”

  Watkins shrugged. Drank his coffee. “That’s one way to describe it.”

  Nic had told him where she was and that she needed to see him. She’d asked him to tell no one.

  She looked straight at him now. “I’m going to ask you some questions and they’re going to sound really strange but can you try to just answer them without asking me why or what for…”

  Watkins held out his hand gently as though he could magically slow down her racing mind and the words that were pouring from her mouth.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll answer. Just take it easy. You seem a little wired.”

  Nic started with the little ones.

  “Did you know Daisy Hollander?”

  Watkins’s face changed abruptly. She could see the questions begging to come out, but he held them back just as he’d promised.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Did you get her a scholarship to a camp in Woodstock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you drive her out of town the day she left and never came back?”

  Now a long pause. But then an answer. “No.”

  Nic was surprised. “You didn’t drive her to Boston?”

  Watkins exhaled loudly. Hung his head.

  “You’ve been talking to crazy Roger Booth.”

  “Yes,” Nic answered.

  “Okay—truth is, I was going to drive her to a train station, Hartford, most likely. But then she said she had a ride.”

  “Did she say who it was?”

  Another pause.

  “Do you know? Tell me if you know.”

  Watkins answered. Reluctantly.

  “Officer Reyes. Look, I know he lies about that. But I would have lied too. Daisy was desperate to get away from Booth. The only reason Reyes took her and not me was because he had the time to take her all the way to Boston that day.”

  “I don’t get it. Booth doesn’t seem like a bad guy.”

  “He’s not—it’s just that she wanted a different life. And after the childhood she endured, and the gifts she had—she was brilliant, you know. And pretty. She was the only one of that lot, those crazy Hollanders, who had a chance. Booth would have pestered her for the rest of her life. You think he’d ever get a girl like that again?”

  Nic let this sink in. Reyes knew Daisy from that camp. But had Daisy known Reyes then? Was it a coincidence that he moved here the following year?

  Watkins was the one who’d hired Reyes. Saved him from his guilt after he shot that unarmed man. The suicide-by-cop.

  Or did he?

  “Tell me what you know about Reyes,” Nic asked.

  Watkins rattled off the same set of facts Reyes had given Nic the night she drank with him and let him into her room. Into her bed. The thought made her shudder.

  It was the exact same story—the shooting in Worcester, how Reyes had quit his job, fallen apart. How he’d applied for an opening in Hastings and Watkins had hired him, pieced him back together.

  Only now, a new fact—he’d arrived three months after Daisy Hollander went to that camp.

  Nic didn’t tell him what she’d seen in that yearbook. But she pressed on with her questions about Daisy and Reyes.

  “Was there anything between them? Maybe something Roger Booth didn’t know about?”

  “Reyes? No way. Never saw them together. Daisy didn’t give any man the time of day unless he could do something for her. She had gifts but she was also wily as hell. A survivor, you know?”

  “And what about you?”

  “Me? Me and Daisy?” Watkins laughed then. “Look, I have my vices, especially since my wife died. But she could have been my daughter. I’m not one of those creeps.”

  Nic thought about what she’d seen in the parking lot of the casino. The way he’d treated that prostitute. He may not be one of those creeps, but he was something.

  She moved on.

  “The taillight on your truck.”

  “What about it?”

  “You fixed it six days ago.”

  “I did.”

  “How long was it out?”

  “Not a day before I fixed it. I’m the chief of police—can’t exactly go around with a broken taillight.”

  “Broken cover and light bulb?”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Okay. I walked out of the casino on a Thursday night, the way I always do, and someone had smashed the glass cover and the bulb. I figured it was some drunkard who backed into me. The thing is, there was no other damage to the car. You’d think maybe there’d be some scratches to the paint around the casing. Anyway, I went to the auto body and they fixed it.”

  “The one in town?”

  “No. I use one up the road. Got a friend there. Why?”

  “So you didn’t order parts through the town? Charged to the department?”

  “Hell, no. That’s a sure way to get my ass fired. What is all this about—wait a second, is this about that woman? The one who saw a pickup truck the night your mother disappeared?”

  Nic didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  “Just ask it, then. Ask the question you really want to ask.”

  “Okay,” Nic said. The words choked her at first, then exploded. “Did you see my mother the night of the storm? Did you take her somewhere? Did you help her leave us? Did you do something else? Did you hurt her?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Watkins said. “I mean—Christ! No. No, no, no. A thousand, million times. No. How could you even think that?”

  Nic told him then about Edith Moore and the truck and the taillight and the invoice Reyes had shown her. She told him about the house on Abel Hill Lane and how Reyes had known about the lock and the chains. And she told him about the fence that backed up to the inn and how there was a hole someone had tried to cut open. Finally, she told him about Edith Moore, or Bickman, and how she knew Kurt Kent and how he met with her the day after she came back to Hastings and told the story about the pickup truck.

  When she was finished, Watkins stared at her for a long moment. Thinking. But then—

  “You should go home,” he said. “This is not for you to sort out anymore. No wonder you asked me those questions. Everyone you turned to for help has been lying to you, or hiding things…”

  A wave of relief pushed out the adrenaline. She saw their faces; Reyes, Kurt Kent. Even her father who had lied to her about the handwriting analysis. Then she saw Roger Booth.

  “He’s the only one—Roger. The only one who hasn’t lied to me.”

  Watkins drained what was left of his coffee in one giant swallow.
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  “Go home, Nicole. The hotel can send your things. I’ll check up on that house. Find out who takes care of the property. See if utilities are running. I’ll go there myself if I have to. And our friendly bartender—don’t you worry. I’m gonna find out what he has cooking with that waitress.”

  “And Reyes?” Nic asked.

  Watkins shook his head from side to side. “That’s a tougher one. Can’t see that he’s done anything wrong here. Don’t know about that invoice. Or Daisy. Let me think on it. He’s been a good cop. Kind of took him under my wing, you know? I don’t want to accuse him if he’s done nothing wrong.”

  Nic thought about the messages on her phone and his car parked outside the casino. She hadn’t told Watkins about any of that, and she didn’t want to. What did it matter? She’d brought that on herself. It was humiliating.

  Watkins said goodbye. He got in his truck and drove away.

  Nic checked her phone. Her father had called three more times.

  She couldn’t sit here, do nothing. They all wanted her to leave, to go home. Then what? All she had were Watkins’s promises.

  No, she thought. No way.

  She sent one last text before heading back to Hastings. Another lie to her father. I’ll be home tonight.

  45

  Day seventeen

  Coffee is bitter. On this morning it was bittersweet.

  I hear him call out from the kitchen.

  “Alice!”

  She looks at me with a new face. I don’t give it a name. It is a face of terror.

  She knew what I was doing. She helped me do it. Now it is real.

  “Alice!”

  I nod at her. I motion for her to go to him and she obeys me.

  Yes, that’s right, I think. She obeys me.

  He cries out now, in pain. In agony. And even as I try to feel joy that his cells are suffocating, the sound of human suffering is difficult to take. My heart pounds against the walls of my chest. My vision blurs for just a second as my body adjusts to the fear that his cries provoke.

  She comes back to me now, feet pounding the floor, voice calling out.

  “He’s sick! He’s lying on the floor! He’s throwing up!”

  I picture the vomit, his body trying to rid itself of the poison.

  I try to calm her down. I lie. “He’s going to be all right. It will be a few hours, but he will be fine. You can bring him some towels and some water. Turn him on his back.”

  The water will make more vomit. If he’s on his back, maybe he’ll choke on the vomit. Maybe that will be what kills him.

  “But he didn’t have the muffin! He didn’t eat it!” she cries out, and I can see that part of her was relieved when he didn’t eat it. She is ambivalent about my plan. She is ambivalent about him.

  Which is why I didn’t waste the seeds on the muffin. I couldn’t trust Alice to give it to him.

  “I know, sweetheart,” I say. “But he drank his coffee, didn’t he? All of it.”

  Her eyes get big now as she remembers how I had her bring me the coffee tin, and then the white filters, and then made her go back to the kitchen for a measuring spoon, the little yellow one that scoops out the coffee.

  When she was gone, I put the apple seed mash beneath the filter, coating the plastic basin, then sprinkled some coffee into the filter and placed it on top. When she returned, we measured more coffee from the little yellow scoop.

  She cries harder. Terror Face. I give it a name now because I am no longer reacting to it. To him, and his suffering.

  “Alice,” I tell her. “Do as I say now. It’s very important. But then go and get that key.”

  She moves her head back and forth, no.

  I reach through the bars and grab both of her arms.

  “You will get the key and bring it to me. Do you know why?”

  She shakes her head with Terror Face. No, no, no.

  “Because,” I tell her. “He knows you helped me make the coffee.”

  46

  Day seventeen

  Nic did not go home. She drove right into the heart of the storm, this new storm that was brewing in Hastings.

  She got to the intersection of Route 7 and Hastings Pass, to the Gas n’ Go. Kurt’s car was in the parking lot. She drove across from it and parked. He’d been working the night shift here, then was probably heading to the bar to open for lunch. That was what he’d told her before, about his schedule.

  Now was better. Here was better. Customers would be coming in and out. They wouldn’t be alone for long.

  Kurt was behind the counter, sitting on a stool, reading a magazine. He was surprised to see her, but he smiled warmly. Covering up his guilt.

  Nic did not waste time with small talk. She took out her phone and pulled up the photo of him with Edith Moore.

  “So what was your endgame with Edith Bickman?”

  “Shit…” Kurt mumbled, hanging his head. “Not here—they have cameras.”

  Nic followed him to the back of the store, behind a row of shelves.

  “This is the only spot they don’t cover,” he told her.

  “Who is they?” Nic asked.

  “The people who own this place. Some corporation. I don’t know. I just know where the cameras are because they have monitors up front.”

  “So tell me now, away from the cameras.”

  Nic waited as he thought about what to say. She could see him struggling for words.

  “Okay. Look—it’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think?” Nic asked.

  “I didn’t know what she was doing, okay? When you came in here and told me about this witness and then told me her name—I mean, how many Ediths are there who could be connected to Hastings?”

  “But she worked with you. At the bar.”

  Kurt nodded. “She did. I knew her. I knew where she’d gone. So I went to find her, to ask her what the hell was going on. I didn’t want to get her in trouble. It’s not like she’s a criminal. And you were convinced she’d seen your mother. I wanted to find out why she was lying about her name and why she was here that night.”

  Nic was frustrated now, all of the threads tangled together, and her mind too exhausted to sort them out.

  “Just tell me everything. Please. You can start with your arrest for gun possession if you want.”

  He looked back to the front of the store, then out the window to the gas pumps.

  “I’m scared, okay? I didn’t want to go up against Reyes. I can’t go back to prison, and I can’t leave this town. I have two jobs and about fifty bucks in the bank. I’m an ex-con. Are you starting to get it?”

  “Why would you have to leave town?”

  “You don’t see it? You still don’t see what he is?”

  “Who?”

  “Reyes. Officer Jared Reyes.”

  Now a rush to her head. A wave of nausea.

  “He’s the criminal, Nic. A con man.” Kurt let this sink in for a moment, but not a long one. Not long enough.

  “Three years ago, he pulled me over for supposedly running a light. It was bullshit. Next thing I know, I’m out of the car and he’s holding a handgun, saying he saw it in plain sight in the back seat of my car. He didn’t even pretend to look back there. He didn’t even bother to go through the motions of the setup.”

  Nic stared at him now, her perception of Reyes taking a new turn.

  Kurt continued. “Then he said it could all go away for ten grand—like I would have ten thousand dollars. He said I could borrow it from my family. He gave me until the end of the day. I thought, fuck him, you know? I was young. I believed in justice and the people in this town who’d known me my whole life. I believed in the chief and his bullshit about helping kids…”

  “But you were convicted,” Nic said, finishing the story for him.

  Kurt nodded. “The chief backed Reyes. His pet project. His prodigy. The son he never had. Who the hell knows. Doesn’t matter. Reyes is a con man, Nic.”

  “I’m so
rry. I really am. But what does this have to do with Edith Bickman? Reyes was the one who made me suspect that she was lying. He found a hole in her story about being in New York.”

  Kurt looked up and crossed his arms, like he was preparing to tell her something she wasn’t going to like.

  “I went to see her to find out what the hell she was doing. She was a decent girl, but she had an infatuation with Reyes, and he knew she needed money. Always. Had a mountain of debt from college and now nursing school. She said he called her a few days after the search ended. Said he knew where your mother was hiding but that he couldn’t collect the reward money because he was a cop, and it was his job to find her. He said it would be easy—she would call you with the story about the truck. He said you were the only one who would come back and try to find her—it had to be you. Then he would help you find your mother, your father would pay her the million bucks, and they would split it.”

  “So Reyes did give her my number,” Nic said, remembering what Mrs. Urbansky had told her father, and how Reyes had put that lie in Edith’s mouth the morning they’d met.

  Nic couldn’t help it, but this almost made her giddy. “Then she is hiding somewhere? Reyes knows? I don’t care about him or the money—this means my mother is safe!”

  But Kurt’s face did not lighten. “Wait—there’s more. Whatever Reyes said to her in front of you, the holes he pointed out in her story, they were all meant to keep you here, to keep you frantically looking for your mother.”

  Nic suddenly knew exactly what he was saying. “No, you’re right—if he knew where she was, why take the chance that she would leave? Why not let me find her the first day?”

  “I don’t know. But he wanted you here. He wanted you to stay.”

  “And he wanted to set up Watkins,” Nic said now, fitting two of the pieces together. “I think he broke Watkins’s taillight. Forged an invoice for the replacement parts because Watkins didn’t get it repaired in town like Reyes thought he would. Maybe he wants his job.”

  “I don’t know, Nic. That’s strange that he would betray the chief. And why you? Why did it have to be you?”