What Lies Below: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “It isn’t likely. So if it’s not Duchene—some deal he cooked up with Steph—who else in the goddamn hell could it be?”

  Clint started to answer, but at the sound of Jake’s phone, he went still. Jake pulled his cell from his pocket, heart tapping, and studied the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number. He locked Clint’s gaze. Maybe this is it, the break we’ve been waiting for. The hope—the anticipation crackled in the air.

  It wasn’t. The caller was Suki Daniels. She and her KTKY crew would be at the vigil, she said to Jake, and she wanted to do another interview. “You can’t turn down this opportunity,” she said, sensing his objection before he could give it voice.

  Her insistence only deepened his reluctance.

  She went on quickly, “I’m hoping to get the segment picked up by other major affiliates. Somebody has to have seen something. I’d like to include your mother, too. The more we get Zoe’s face, the faces of her family, out there, the greater the chance something will click, someone will remember something.”

  Jake found Clint’s gaze again. “KTKY.” He mouthed the letters at the police captain, who nodded, looking weary, deflated.

  “I heard you’re ready to offer a reward,” Suki said. “We can get the word out about that. Trust me, the interview, our coverage of the vigil, letting our viewers know there’s a reward—it could make all the difference.”

  “Okay,” Jake said. She was right; he had to do it. “But there’s one condition.”

  “Oh?”

  “You correct the misinformation you aired last night about Gilly O’Connell being a psychic and the bit about my hiring her. That’s total bullshit.”

  “Yeah, I heard from Ms. O’Connell,” Suki said. “Ordinarily I do a fact check before I run with a story, but we were pressed for time, and April Warner seemed so sure of herself. She said she’d spent time with Ms. O’Connell, that they work together, but are also friends.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jake said. “But I do know Gilly doesn’t consider herself a psychic, and you need to make that clear. Don’t show her photo again either,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about why, but it could cause trouble for her unrelated to Zoe.”

  Suki’s interest was piqued. Jake could almost see her reporter’s nose twitching, but he cut off her questions, ended the call, and set his phone on the table.

  Clint said, “You know who gave Suki Gilly’s name?”

  “Yeah, it was April Warner,” Jake answered, and when Clint asked, he described Gilly’s visit to his house—how she’d arrived ready to blame him, until she’d remembered seeing April at the search site talking with Suki while the cameras were rolling. He told Clint how Gilly had come to confide in April about the dream. “She regrets it now.” A pause. “She told me about taking the baby. That’s what you meant when you said she had issues, right?”

  “Yeah. Makes her look good for taking Zoe, too, but it’s like you heard me tell her, the timing’s off.”

  “I never really thought it was her, not seriously.” Jake bent his weight on his elbows, thinking about Gilly, the way she looked at Zoe with such delight. That was the word, the only word for it. He had waited to see that look dance through her eyes. He’d looked forward to seeing it every Wednesday morning, the odd weekend, whenever he’d brought Zoe to Cricket’s when Gilly was working. More times in the last six months, he realized, since Gilly had been hired. She liked his kid—that was why. It’s more than that. The thought whispered across his brain. He found Clint’s gaze. “You think she’s in jeopardy from her husband’s killer? She doesn’t seem concerned. She told me it’s been three years. The guy could be dead—”

  “She didn’t tell you what happened this morning at the station?”

  Jake shook his head.

  “The father of the kid she took came in as she was leaving. Started shooting off his mouth. According to Bowen, he’s hot tempered. Claims he got no justice in the case. Judge slapped her on the wrist and let her go.”

  “Did he threaten Gilly?”

  “Yeah. It could be a lot of nothing, but I damn sure don’t want the guy going all vigilante on me.”

  “He’s still in town?”

  “As of a half hour ago he was holed up at the café. Cricket says he’s mostly on his phone.”

  “I thought the café was closed.”

  “Aw, you know how she is. She’d feed the world if you gave her half a chance.” Clint drained the last of his water. His phone sounded, and he pulled it from his pocket.

  Jake swung his legs over the bench, got up, and walked away a few feet, crushing his empty water bottle, tossing it in the trash can. He wanted to kick it; he wanted to jerk it up and hurl it as far as he could. The urge was hard inside him.

  “Just got the word—we got a boat coming.” Clint walked up behind him.

  Jake turned. “Boat?”

  “We’re putting a boat equipped with sonar on Monarch Lake tomorrow morning to have a look around the area where witnesses saw the woman yesterday with the little girl.”

  Jake stared, not comprehending.

  “The car with Zoe’s backpack inside it that we found at Burley’s—that’s so near the lake. We’ve got to consider . . .”

  Jake stared at Clint, waiting for him to go on, daring him to say it, but the man couldn’t. He looked away. But it was there all the same, the awful thing that had to be done. They were going to drag the lake, look for Zoe there. An image of her floating, bloated, white, seared the backs of Jake’s eyes.

  He tipped his head back, staring up. Facets of light through the live oak canopy made him blink. He leveled his gaze at Clint. “You heard me say we’re putting up a reward? Fifty thousand.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe it’ll generate some leads.”

  “Maybe, but it’ll bring out the kooks, too, so get ready. You should go home, get some rest.” Clint went on when Jake didn’t answer. “You look like hell.”

  Jake made a sound, not quite a laugh. How else should he look? He was in hell.

  22

  The lights were on inside Cricket’s when Gilly passed the café on her way to the police station, or she wouldn’t have stopped. She needed gas; she was on fumes. She needed to find Captain Mackie. But it seemed somehow ominous that the café was open, especially given the time. It was after five. Cricket’s was never open so late. Why had no one had told her? Pulse jumping, she parked in the alleyway and went in through the back door to the kitchen. April was tending two hamburger patties and a rasher of bacon on the grill. Nick glanced up from the big sink, up to his elbows in dishwater. He grinned. “Hey there, Miss Gilly.”

  “Hey yourself, Nick.”

  April looked over her shoulder, turned back to the grill, flipping the patties.

  Gilly walked up beside her. “What is everyone doing here so late? I didn’t even know Cricket had reopened.”

  “Just happened,” April said.

  “Is Cricket here?”

  “She just left with a cooler full of sandwiches. There are so many people coming from out of town to help with the search for Zoe. It’s incredible. Cricket said we should give them a place here in town, too, to eat, cool off, and relax. I think it’s the media, you know, the word’s getting out.”

  “About that,” Gilly said. “Did you tell Suki Daniels I was a psychic, that Jake Halstead had hired me?”

  “I knew you’d be mad.” April toasted a pair of hamburger buns, set them on plates, and added the patties. “She took it too far. She twisted everything I said.”

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned me to her at all, April. I know I didn’t ask you to keep what I told you in confidence, but I wish you had.”

  April had been dressing the plates with fresh lettuce leaves, and thin slices of a fresh tomato and Vidalia onion, but now she paused, locking Gilly’s gaze. “I’m sorry, I guess—except what if you could see Zoe where she is now? You should at least try, even if it never worked before. I would if I were you.
”

  April didn’t sound sorry; she sounded irked. Gilly looked past her. She wanted to defend herself, to tell April about her dream of the stone house with faded green shutters, and her conviction that Zoe was there. But suppose she wasn’t? Suppose no such house existed?

  “There’s a guy out front wearing a Rockets cap who asked for you when he came in.”

  “Oh.” An image of Mark Riley from the police station earlier tried to form in Gilly’s head, and she fought it, fought to keep her alarm from showing. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Yeah.” April picked up the plates, handing them to Gilly. “Since you’re here will you take these out for me? The couple at table three. The guy said he changed your tire earlier? You promised him coffee.”

  Gilly took the plates, smiling in her relief. “Warren Jester.”

  “He’s with search and rescue. Listen, can you stay? We’re pretty busy.”

  “I have to run an errand. Thirty minutes tops, then I’ll come back.”

  April nodded, looking unhappy.

  Gilly went through the swinging doors into the dining area and paused, running her glance around the room, reassuring herself Mark wasn’t there. She caught sight of Warren, and after serving the burgers and fries, she stopped at the booth where he was sitting. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” she said.

  “Yeah. I was with a search team at the lake most of the day, got plum wore out. Needed some caffeine. You know.” He smiled. “I hope it’s okay.”

  “Absolutely. I want to treat you to a piece of pie, too. I’m not sure what kind we have. We just reopened.”

  “Coffee’s fine, if you got some fresh.”

  “Let me see what I can do.” Gilly went behind the counter and pulled the carafe that looked freshest from its burner. She got a clean mug and returned to the table. “Did you find anything at the lake?” Gilly asked, although she felt she knew the answer.

  “Nah. Heard a lot of rumors, though.” Warren spoke of the woman and little girl spotted at Monarch Lake, the subject of the film footage Jake had been called to Greeley to view.

  Gilly listened, but part of her mind was hovering over the image of herself with Jake, the sense of his touch on her damp cheek when he’d thumbed away her tears, the gravity of his gaze. She had felt he was looking into her bones, her soul. She had felt a connection, something visceral—she had wanted it to be there, a link between them. And it was wrong of her, as wrong as whatever had been between her and Carl. Her desire for either man—any man—made her feel as if she were cheating, a cheating wife.

  “From everything I heard,” Warren began, “no one’s sure if the little girl was Zoe Halstead. They don’t find her pretty quick, though, this operation’ll change.”

  “What do you mean?” Gilly asked.

  “I’ve seen it plenty of times. Usually about the forty-eight-hour mark, or a little after, folks start giving up. Law enforcement—they begin to feel the odds are against it—finding the person alive. You know, instead of a search and rescue, the mission becomes a search and recover.”

  They would be looking for Zoe’s body, he meant. Gilly shifted the carafe to her other hand.

  Warren said, “I was out with a team in East Texas a while back, a case sort of similar to this one. It was in some rough country outside Marshall, a dad reported his daughter missing. She was older, seventeen, eighteen. She’d gone for a jog and didn’t come back. A couple days went by. Long enough, we figured the worst. Most everyone did.”

  “You found her alive?”

  “One of the cadaver dogs did. They’re trained to home in on folks who’ve passed, but it was like this dog had some kind of sixth sense, you know?”

  Gilly said, “That’s amazing.” The words were rote, an automatic response. Her head was full of images from her dream: the stone house, its sagging porch, the white pickup behind it with the bit of faded blue ribbon looping the bracket that held the rearview.

  Zoe was in that house.

  Gilly knew it.

  She’d stake her life on it. Her certainty was suddenly strong in a way she had never experienced before.

  She needed to go.

  Right now.

  There had to be someone she could call—the police captain, Cricket, Jake, his mom—she could ask about the house, a long-timer in the area who’d recognize it from her description. It was simply a matter of finding the right person. She needn’t mention the dream. She could invent another story to get the information, then check out the location herself. “If there’s nothing else I can get you—”

  “I was a fireman down in Victoria,” Warren said, turning the thick-walled mug in his hands.

  Gilly looked at them, his broad, red-knuckled workman’s hands. Age spots dotted the backs like tiny islands. “I thought you were a carpenter.”

  “Yeah, I am now, when I can get work. But I was a fireman. That’s how I got hooked up with search and rescue. It was like a natural segue, you know?”

  He looked up at her, and she flinched slightly at the pain that lanced his expression. It was old, she thought, and badly healed, like hers.

  “I saved my share of folks,” he said. “Adults, kids, their pets, sometimes kept their property from becoming a total loss. I wanted to be a fireman all my life so it was a dream come true. I was good at it. I had a good life. I slept good. At nights, my conscience was easy.” Head down, Warren rotated the mug another circle.

  Something had happened to him. Something had broken his peace of mind. Gilly sensed if she were to ask, he would tell her. He would pour out his soul to her. But she had no time for that now. She hadn’t the will to take on his pain anyway.

  He picked up his mug, swallowed the last of the contents. He asked for a rain check on the pie, and slapping his hat on his head, said maybe he’d see her later.

  Gilly cleared his mug. She returned the carafe to its burner. She got her purse from the office and pulled out her phone, but she had no reception. When she asked, April didn’t know where Cricket had been headed when she left with the cooler full of sandwiches. Gilly didn’t tell April why she wanted to talk to Cricket. She thought possibly April was like Mandy—telephone, telegraph, teleApril.

  Captain Mackie, Justine, Jake, Cricket, even the sergeant—one of them was bound to be at the school, and any one of them might recognize Gilly’s description of the house.

  She was right outside town, traveling west on FM 1620 on her way to the Little Acorn Academy, and she’d nearly passed it—the Quick-Serv was partly screened from view by a thick growth of oaks and grass-choked underbrush—when she remembered she needed gas, that without it, she’d never make it to the school. She pulled up to the second pump, the one farthest from the store, thankful for whatever intuition had prodded her memory in time.

  But going through the routine, swiping her debit card, setting the nozzle in the tank, her faith in her dream, that it was accurate and real, began to waver: What if the house she’d dreamed about didn’t exist? What if this was just another dumbass figment of her imagination? But even as the pump clicked, measuring out gallons of gas, even as her gaze traversed the empty L-shaped apron of concrete that banded the front and one side of the store, a voice in her brain—not the monkey or Miss Two-shoes—warned there was no time to lose. That little girl—Zoe—was in trouble, and she needed help now. Gilly’s pride and privacy be damned.

  Call the cops, ordered the voice.

  And say what? she argued.

  But she got her phone, and, switching it on, she saw she had reception now and a voice message from Carl. Ignoring it, Gilly found the number for the Wyatt PD and dialed.

  A man answered. “Captain Mackie.”

  Gilly was too surprised to speak, and when she repeated it, “Captain Mackie?” it was with a question mark.

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Gilly O’Connell.”

  “Ms. O’Connell—”

  “Please call me Gilly.”

  “All right. Gill
y. If you’re calling about Warren Jester, I want to assure you we’re actively looking for him. But you need to keep an eye out, too, let us know if you see anything suspicious or that you don’t like.”

  “What?” Gilly was at sea. “You’re looking for Warren Jester, the man who changed my tire?”

  “He changed your tire?”

  “Yes. What is this about?”

  “You haven’t talked to Detective Bowen?”

  “He left a message—what’s happened?”

  “A guy named Warren Jester confessed a while ago to his sister that he killed your husband.”

  Gilly went still. Even her breath paused. “But—How—? He changed my tire this morning. Just now, to repay him, I gave him a free cup of coffee.”

  “Where?”

  “At Cricket’s.”

  “Are you still there? Is he?”

  “No. I’m getting gas. I’m pretty sure he left.”

  “Can you hold on a second? I want to get someone over to the café.”

  Gilly waited, pacing a short path beside her car.

  The captain came back on the line. “Sergeant Carter’s on his way over there,” he said, “but stay alert, okay?”

  “Okay, but what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry, but not if it keeps you on your toes. Look, what I heard from Detective Bowen, Jester saw a news story on a local Houston station about you being psychic. Not only that, they talked about your ability to dream events, see things—you know.”

  “But it’s lies.” Gilly flung up her arm as if the police captain could see her. “Where did they get their information? How can they continue to broadcast this sort of thing about me? They don’t even know me.”

  “You know the media—they probably picked up KTKY’s story. Bowen said they made a big deal out of it before, that you dreamed about it when your husband was killed. I hear you were also a witness. You saw the shooter. Is that right? Bowen said you blanked out the memory.”

  “Yes, I was a witness, and it’s true I don’t remember. But the dream—they blew that out of proportion. It was stupid—just totally useless.”