“She asks about you, waits for you. The day before she disappeared she wanted to know if her mama”—Jake’s emphasis was deliberate, heated—“knew where she was.”
Steph’s mouth flattened.
Jake planted his elbows on the table. “Do you? Was Zoe with you when you were making your drug deal? Was she there when the cops came? When Duchene ran off? Where would he take her?”
Stephanie said, “Zoe wasn’t with us.”
“Stop lying! Duchene wore a hoodie and big sunglasses, trying to look like a woman when you picked Zoe up. Was that your idea? Did you think you could outsmart the cops?”
“No, I—”
“They found them—Zoe’s clothes—where you tossed them in the dumpster. You and Duchene—you won’t get away with it.” Jake waited, giving her time to answer, to tell him the truth. She didn’t.
“Kidnapping’s a felony, Steph. It’s big time. Clint’s called in the FBI. You could spend the rest of your life locked up. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Andy and I didn’t take Zoe. I swear to God we didn’t.”
“Swear to somebody you know.” Jake stood up fast enough that the chair shot back, hitting the wall behind it. Rounding the table, he banged on the door. “Guard!” He had to get out of here, get to his phone.
“Take it easy,” the guard said.
Jake turned to Stephanie. “What kind of car does Duchene drive?”
“He doesn’t have her, Jake.”
“What kind of car?”
Her mouth flattened, but she answered him. She seemed resigned. “Nissan. Old. Gray or maybe it’s blue. The trunk won’t close. He has to tie it shut.”
“What’s the model? Sentra? Altima?”
“I don’t know.”
He started out the door.
Stephanie called him back. “Jake?”
He turned to her.
“Whoever the woman is who got Zoe, it must have been someone she knew, or she wouldn’t have gone. Not without a fight. Not without screaming bloody murder, the way you taught her.”
“Yeah, Clint—the cops, everyone—knows she would have made some noise,” he said, but now another alternative occurred to him for the first time. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. He kept Stephanie’s gaze. “What if the woman told Zoe she was taking her to you? She could have said she was your friend.”
“But Zoe knows better than to believe anything a stranger might say to her about us, that we’re sick or injured—you warned her—”
“Yes, but here’s what you’re not getting, Steph. Zoe was ready to believe anything if it meant she would see you. That’s what I’m saying. That’s how much she misses you.”
Stephanie didn’t answer. She looked breathless, shattered. Her glance fell from his, and he turned away. But he heard it. The soft sound of her weeping followed him and his escort to the farthest end of the corridor.
Jake waited until he was outside the jail before checking his messages. There were two. The first was from Clint, asking Jake to call, advising him there was nothing new. He was only looking for a recount of Jake’s visit with Stephanie.
The next was from Gilly O’Connell. “We need to talk,” she said, and her voice was tight, her agitation more obvious than before. She’d find him, she said, if he didn’t call her back. Jake pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. Was she threatening him?
Really?
So he was a liar then? Because clearly Gilly didn’t buy it, the message he’d left her last night denying he was the source for that garbage Suki Daniels had spouted on the news. Fine, he thought. Come on with it. Let Gilly confront him, accuse him. He’d give her an earful.
He got into his truck and keyed the ignition. He returned Clint’s call first, and when the police captain answered, Jake gave him the gist of his conversation with Stephanie, sticking to the facts about Duchene. It was difficult, keeping a lid on his emotions.
“I want to kill him,” Jake said. “He’s got my little girl. Duchene has got Zoe, Clint.”
“I know you want to believe it’s him, but there’s nothing to support that.”
“Can you find out the make on his car and get an APB, a BOLO—whatever it is—can you get that out on him? I know it’s not much to go on, but we need to find him. Guy’s a doper. God knows what he’ll do.”
“Already done. The car’s a ninety-nine Sentra. The color’s listed as gray not blue. We’ve put the information out there, but so far there’s no sign of him or the car.”
“You’re checking airports, bus stations, the trains?”
“Yes, all that. Trust me, we may be a small-time, small-town police force, but we know what we’re doing.”
Jake said he was sorry. He said, “I’m just so fucking scared, Clint. Every hour that goes by that she isn’t found, it’s—it’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the earth. How does it happen? How—” His voice cracked. He swallowed, cleared his throat. He saw the traffic ahead through a prism of tears, and he blinked to clear them. He’d be in the breakdown lane if he kept this up, and not the one for vehicles. Suck it up, buttercup, he told himself.
“The phones are still ringing, son.” Clint got Jake’s attention. “We’re running down every lead. You never know when one of them will pan out.”
“Duchene tried to look like a woman—” Jake couldn’t let go of it.
Clint cut him off. “Think about it, man. A guy doing that—the teaching assistant, Marley, would have noticed.”
“Maybe it was Steph then. I don’t know. They changed Zoe’s clothes; they’re obviously trying to disguise her. That’s what’s got me freaked out. She won’t be recognizable from the photos we’re putting out.” It had torn a hole in his heart—seeing her clothes, Zoe’s tiny clothes. They had been laid out on the hood of Ken Carter’s police cruiser by the time Jake had pulled up to the dumpster in Nickel Bend. He’d known they belonged to Zoe before he’d cleared the front bumper of his truck. The little skirt, printed with butterflies that Zoe had insisted on wearing two days in a row, had been fanned out, smoothed into a careful semicircle as if to be admired, coveted. Jake had gritted his teeth to keep from howling.
“Maybe. It’s a possibility.” Clint was placating him. “The thing is, folks have called the tip line saying they’ve seen a little girl Zoe’s age with a woman, thirty-five to forty. One came in a half hour ago. Someone down at Monarch Lake said they saw a woman and a little girl down at the south end yesterday, early evening, sixish, wading in the water near one of the picnic areas. He said they were driving a truck with a camper top. They stayed there last night. If that’s true, there could be footage on the security camera at the park entrance.”
“There wasn’t a man with them?” Jake switched on his signal and changed lanes.
“I don’t know. Ken’s checking it out. Maybe we’ll get lucky. The thing is, we can’t focus on Stephanie, or Duchene, or any one person at this point. We’ve got to keep an open mind.”
“It’s been almost forty-eight hours since Zoe disappeared, Clint.”
“I know that, Jake. Don’t you think I know?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself, the words that might come out of his mouth, and he needed Clint—his expertise, his resources and connections—everything law enforcement could do.
“Gilly O’Connell was here at the station this morning. Ken talked to her.”
“I heard from her, too. She left me a message, says she’s looking for me.” Jake slowed almost to a stop. Highway construction had traffic down to a single lane now; they were only creeping along. It was no use getting worked up about it. It went on for miles. He knew that from the drive north earlier.
“Did she say why?” Clint asked.
“You heard Suki Daniels, KTKY News, last night—”
“The bit about Gilly being the psychic you hired to find Zoe?”
“Yeah. Gilly thinks I’m Suki’s source. Ha! Li
ke I’d feed the press bullshit when my daughter’s life is on the line.”
“According to Ken, Gilly’s not any happier than you about the report. She wanted to know what law enforcement could do to get the station to retract the story. Ken advised her to get an attorney.”
“So who’s behind it? You have any ideas?”
“No, and there’s basically no way to find out. Not easily anyway. Somebody who wants to cause Gilly trouble, maybe . . . I dunno.” Clint was quiet.
Jake stared at the car bumper ahead of him, but the image in his mind was of Gilly and the look of defiance in her eyes when she’d declared she’d been sober for more than eight months. It had come off like a dare, as if on seeing the taint of his disgust—which he knew had been visible on his face—she’d waited for his challenge. The way she’d looked straight at him, she wouldn’t have taken anything off him. She might be holding back like he and Clint thought. There could very well be more to her story than she was telling, but he was pretty sure now it had nothing to do with him or Zoe. “Your investigation of Gilly,” he said to Clint, “did it turn up anything? You find any connection to Steph?”
“No, but Gilly’s record isn’t clean. She’s had some issues,” Clint said.
“She told me she lost her baby after her husband was shot—”
“Yeah. Carl Bowen, the detective in Houston who’s working the husband’s case, called me. He’s concerned about her. The guy who shot her husband is still out there.”
“Really.” Gilly hadn’t mentioned that. “That’s got to be scary.”
“Bowen said they’re working a new lead, but she’s their main witness—not to the actual shooting, but she got a look at the guy as he fled the scene. It’s likely he saw her, too. Bowen said he’d warned her to stay on her guard. He asked me to keep an eye on her, watch out for strangers around town, let him know about anyone I’m not familiar with.” Clint’s laugh was dry. “I said that’d be kind of hard given our current situation, the number of volunteers coming from all over.”
“She’s still in danger then.” This must be it, Jake thought. What was behind the flash of her panic, her anxiousness. This was the rest of the story, the part she wasn’t telling. He thought how he’d wanted to dismiss it, dismiss her, when she’d said she knew what he was going through. He remembered his disgust when she’d told him she was in recovery, and yet he’d felt the pull of his heart toward her, and he felt it again now. Yeah, so she’d turned to booze, but look at her. Look at how she’d fought, and continued to fight, to stand on ground that kept crumbling under her feet.
“Look,” Clint said, “like I said before, she’s had some issues, and one of them, something she did in Houston—hold on a sec—” He returned seconds later. “Let me call you back.”
Jake’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Is it Zoe? You hear something?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call—”
“No. Tell me now. What is it?”
But there wasn’t an answer. Either the call had dropped, or Clint had hung up.
18
Gilly’s speech, the one she had planned, died in her mouth at the sight of Jake, rumpled and grave, haggard with worry. The screen door was between them, but his distress was palpable.
“I hope I’m not interrupting lunch,” Gilly said, although it was after two o’clock, and the lunch hour was long over.
Jake didn’t answer. He seemed to be considering his options, and when, after a moment, he opened the screen, she stepped inside.
“I left you a message,” she said.
“Yeah, well, when I talked to Suki Daniels, I never told her anything about you, so if last night’s news story is why you’re here—”
“If it wasn’t you, then who?”
“I thought it was you.”
“Me? But I told you I’m not psychic. I said I couldn’t help you. Why would I talk to a reporter?”
He shrugged. How should he know? Maybe she was crazy. His rejoinder couldn’t have been more clear if he had spoken out loud.
“Look, I really wish I could help you.” She spoke with a fervency that, while genuine, was regrettable.
“Yeah. It would be fantastic.”
He might have intended sarcasm, but what Gilly heard was the crumbling edge of Jake’s hope. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She wanted to touch him, to cup his cheek, unshaven and furrowed with exhaustion, in her palm. She wanted to trace the creased plane of his brow with the tip of her finger. She wanted to tell him it would be all right, but that might be a lie.
He ran his hands over his head. His look considered her. “You’re sure?”
“Of?”
“You’re certain that if you were to sit down right now, and close your eyes—I mean who’s to say you wouldn’t see something?”
“Jake?”
He turned to the older woman who had spoken his name.
His mother. Gilly saw the resemblance as the woman came down the hall toward them. It wasn’t only the look of exhaustion they shared. They were alike physically. She was tall like Jake and carried herself with the same easy grace. And while her mostly white hair was pinned at the back of her head in a loose chignon, Gilly could tell she’d once been blonde, a brown-eyed blonde like Jake, like Zoe.
He said, “Mom, meet Gilly. She’s a waitress at Cricket’s.”
“I’ve seen you there, but we’ve not been formally introduced.”
“I’m Gillian O’Connell—but everyone calls me Gilly.”
“Justine Halstead.” She kept Gilly’s gaze. “Jake told me you located his wallet the other day.”
“Yes.” Gilly crossed her arms, looked at the floor, feeling her face warm with regret, annoyance, embarrassment—some combination of the three.
“I saw the news last night, too, your photo. You’re the psychic.”
“No,” Gilly began.
Justine looked at Jake. “You didn’t tell me you’d hired her to find Zoe.”
“I didn’t,” Jake said.
“The news story,” Gilly said, “I don’t know where they got their information, but it’s wrong. Worse than wrong, it’s a lie. When I find out who’s responsible, I’m going to make them go back on TV and say so.”
“So you aren’t psychic.” Justine was at sea.
“Sometimes I have dreams,” Gilly admitted reluctantly. “Or I see things.”
“Like Jake’s wallet,” Justine said.
“Yeah, and Zoe,” Jake answered before Gilly could. “She saw Zoe and the woman who took her in a dream, before it happened.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Gilly said, “but not in enough detail to be helpful.”
“My college roommate had a precognitive dream once. That is the right term, isn’t it? Precognitive? The night our dorm caught on fire, she dreamed it was happening. It broke out in the furnace room, but she felt the heat so strongly in our room on the fourth floor it woke her. She was scared enough she woke me. We banged on doors, got all these people up even though nobody saw flames anywhere, or smelled any smoke. We gathered outside, and I am not lying—not five minutes later, the basement windows shattered and flames shot out. It was surreal.”
“You never told me about that,” Jake said.
“Haven’t thought about it in years. As far as I know, that was the only dream like that she ever had. A fluke, I guess. And lucky, so lucky for all of us who lived there.”
“A fluke.” Jake said it under his breath, but Gilly heard him.
It was more sarcasm, or that’s how Gilly perceived it. She’d called finding his wallet a fluke, meaning the act wasn’t repeatable and shared no correlation with finding a child. She didn’t blame him for the dig. “I understand how you feel, truly. If it were my daughter who was missing, and I thought you knew where she was, I wouldn’t leave you alone either, but—”
“But what?” Jake found her gaze.
“April,” she said.
“April?” Jake repeated.
&nb
sp; “April Warner, the cook at Cricket’s—she’s the one who gave the story about me—about you hiring me—to KTKY.”
“You think she talked to Suki Daniels?”
“I saw her talking to Suki. Yesterday at the school, before we were assigned to search teams. April was being interviewed.”
“So you told April about the dream?” Jake was nonplussed. “I had the impression you liked to keep this stuff private.”
“I do, but she came to my house, and she was—” Gilly looked away and looked back at Jake. “I don’t quite know how it happened, but I told her. It’s on me, and now it’s all over the news.” Gilly pressed her fingertips to her eyes, biting back a groan.
Jake’s phone rang.
Justine offered iced tea, and Gilly was in the process of declining, of saying, “I should go. I have a dog at home who needs walking,” when Jake said he was sorry to interrupt.
“That was Clint. He’s got the film footage of the woman and little girl who were seen wading at Monarch Lake yesterday.”
“They think it’s Zoe?” Gilly asked.
“They aren’t sure. I’m meeting Clint at the sheriff’s office in Greeley to have a look. I guess I’ll take the polygraph, too.”
“Yes,” Justine said. “Let them get it over with so they can focus on the monster who’s taken our little girl.” Her voice wavered, and she took a steadying breath, waving away Gilly and Jake when they both extended their hands to her. “I’m fine. I’m going to lie down for a bit, then go on back to the school to help Cricket with the food out there. You’ll call me?” She was asking Jake.
“You know I will,” he said.
“It was nice meeting you, Gilly.” Justine took Gilly’s hand in her warm grasp.
What Lies Below: A Novel Page 19
