by David Bell
“Okay, I hear you.”
“And shouldn’t we identify with Erica Frazier?” Griffin asked. “Isn’t she the victim here? Her kid is missing.”
“But you’re also thinking she might have kidnapped a baby.”
Griffin said what everyone thought. “There are no easy answers here. At least not yet.”
Reddick offered an encouraging smile, a gesture that accentuated the lines around her mouth and eyes. “I think that’s something we can all agree on.”
chapter
thirty-four
12:12 A.M.
“Michael?” Angela asked into the phone. Again came the rustling sound. Like something being shaken, or the sound of soft applause. “Michael? Say something. Where are you?”
She was up off the bed, standing in the middle of their bedroom, her bare feet pressed against the soft carpet. Through the sheer curtains, she saw the quiet, empty street, the darkened houses, the moon almost fully risen.
Where the hell is he?
“Michael, you’re scaring me. Just tell me you’re okay.”
Breathing sounds came through the line. He was still there.
“I’m in the cornfield,” he said, his voice dreamy. “I’m behind the house.”
“What house? What cornfield?”
Then the details came back. The family’s first house in Cottonsville, the yard that backed up to the farmland.
The swing set.
“Michael?”
“I’m looking for Robyn. Mom’s coming, and Robbie’s in the corn. I’m supposed to be watching her. Robbie-girl . . .”
Angela took a step back, let her body weight go, and sat on the bed. But she refused to cry. That helped no one and solved nothing. She simply shut the fear and any potential tears off and tried to plan the next step. Hang up and call back? Call the police? Get in the car and go after him?
Then the phone jostled, as though it was moving. Something scraped against the mouthpiece, metal on plastic.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice. A little reedy. Unfamiliar. A voice she’d heard only twice—once that day in the credit union parking lot and then again on her front porch just a few hours earlier.
“Angela?”
“Who is this? Erica?”
“Michael’s fine. I’m here with him.”
“Put him on. What’s wrong with him? He sounds like he’s drunk.”
“We had a little fender bender. Michael’s head hit the steering wheel, and I think it dazed him. I got jostled pretty good too, but I was in the backseat.”
Something muffled the phone, a hand over the speaker. Angela heard Erica speaking in a soothing voice, like she was talking to a dog or a small child.
“Erica? Put Michael on.”
She came back on the line. “It’s okay. I’ve got him.”
“Got him? What do you mean?”
“I’m bringing him back to the car. He’s okay. He’s coming out of it.” Then Erica appeared to be speaking to Michael again, her voice still soft and cooing. “Sit down in there. You’ll be okay.”
Angela lifted her hand to her head. She felt perspiration, despite the cool rush of the air-conditioning. She dug her toes into the carpet and tried to stay calm. “Erica?” she said, her voice sharp but controlled.
“He’s okay, Angela. Like I said, we went off the road into a cornfield, and when we smacked the small fence, he got bounced around. He hit his face and got dazed a little. So he got out of the car and wandered off. He must have called you. Maybe he just pushed the button by mistake, and you were the last call he made.”
“Put him on.”
“He looks better now. I don’t even think the car has a scratch on it.”
“Where are you?” Angela asked. “I’m coming to get him.”
“We’re in Trudeau. On the bypass. But you don’t have to come. We were on our way to the police.”
“I thought you already did that.”
“We got delayed. Michael went on TV. . . .”
“Tell me where you are so I can come pick my husband up.”
The phone was muffled again, a hand probably placed over the speaker. Angela heard a voice again. No, two voices.
Michael?
He came on the line. “Hey, babe. It’s me.” He sounded ragged and tired, as if he’d been woken from a deep sleep. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Were you in an accident? Michael, are you hurt?”
“I’m not. Don’t worry. That steering wheel knocked me for a loop, but I’m okay.”
“You were talking about Robyn. You probably have a concussion.”
“I’m okay.”
“Where are you?” she asked. “Either let me come get you, or I’m calling the police.”
“Don’t.” Michael said something Angela couldn’t hear and then came back on the line. “The hospital is up the way here. We’ll go by, and they’ll check me out. Then we have to see the police. And then I’m coming home.”
Angela’s phone beeped. Another call. She checked the screen.
“Michael, your mother is calling.”
“Don’t tell her I had an accident. It wasn’t really an accident. We just went off the road.”
“Where are you?” Angela asked.
“On the bypass . . .”
Erica came back on the line. “Angela. The hospital is just down the road. I’ll take him there if he needs to go. It’s okay.”
“Erica?”
And then she was gone.
chapter
thirty-five
12:25 A.M.
On her way home, Griffin drove by Tom Haynes Municipal Park. It wasn’t far out of her way, and she felt restless, edgy, possessed of the kind of nervous energy usually brought on when she drank two cups of coffee in the morning just to chase the cobwebs out of her brain.
She’d been to the park that morning. In the wake of Felicity’s disappearance and the issuing of the Amber Alert, about fifteen cops descended on the spot before fanning out in all directions, searching in bathrooms, storage shelters, and distant wooded areas for some sign of the missing child. Griffin remembered the experience, the mixture of dread and excitement that coursed through her body. She couldn’t imagine a more horrific event—a child disappearing—but she also felt needed and relevant for the first time in a while. Looking for and—she hoped—eventually finding Felicity Frazier mattered more than any petty burglary case or any assault complaint filed by meth heads living in a trailer park. Bringing home a child . . . that was important. She’d already started imagining the look on the face of the little blond-haired girl when she was rescued from wherever she’d been taken, the benevolent hand of a cop leading her away to a patrol car and safety.
When Griffin drove by the park, she saw the news vans were pulling away, the gawkers and spectators off doing something else. The area started to look quiet, deserted. Lonely. Every hour that passed nagged at Griffin’s mind, weighing it down. Every hour Felicity wasn’t found dripped with frightening possibilities.
She made the ten-minute drive home and parked behind her building. She barely knew her neighbors. A young couple lived downstairs, a single guy—maybe gay?—across the hall. They all exchanged pleasantries when they passed on the stairs or in the foyer, and they’d all seen her badge and gun, which caused most people, the ones who weren’t criminals, anyway, to treat her with respect and a certain distance, as though she might be carrying a fatal disease.
When she opened the door, her two cats, Coco and Rory, were waiting. They voiced immediate displeasure with how long she’d been gone and the lack of food available to them, especially Coco, the calico, the one more likely to whine and cry. They were both pudgy and in no danger of starving, but Griffin felt bad, hated to think she’d been neglectful.
“I know, I know,” she
said as they wound around her legs, circling her calves and rubbing up against them. “Long day at work. Haven’t you been watching the news?”
She went out to the kitchen, stepping carefully so she didn’t trip over them, and opened two cans of food, the pungent odor of the factory-produced chicken-and-fish blend reaching her nostrils. As soon as the bowls were filled, the cats shut up, turning their attention to eating as if they hadn’t seen a meal in months, their tongues making faint lapping sounds as they dug in.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
She opened the refrigerator and took out a beer, twisting off the cap in a way her mother would have found unladylike. She looked around. She’d been there just under a year, since shortly after she moved out of the house she once shared with John. Not much on the walls, the furniture functional. She’d never been much of a decorator, hoping cleanliness and minimalism counted as some kind of style.
Well, she thought to herself, raising the beer bottle in a mock toast. Here’s to you, Helen Winningham. You’re my new role model, my mentor. Solving crimes from the comfort of your housecoat.
She took a long drink and headed to the dining room table where her laptop sat. She ignored her e-mails and social media notifications—she struggled to summon any interest in which of her high school and college friends were getting married and having babies—and searched for more details about the disappearance of Stacey Flowers. One site shared an absurd age-progression photo, a picture of Stacey if she’d grown up to look like a blond Frodo Baggins, nothing at all like the beautiful Felicity Frazier or any other kid on the planet.
Griffin turned her attention to Tiffany Flowers, the mother. Using a people-finder site, she found several recent addresses for her, all of them in and around Trudeau. She saw no evidence of her ever marrying, no evidence of more children. She followed a link to potential social media pages for Tiffany Flowers, finding several women with the same name. She compared the profile pictures with a photo from one of the old news stories online and thought she’d discovered the right one.
If so, the years hadn’t been kind. Tiffany was a year younger than Griffin, but the profile picture showed a woman who looked closer to forty. She leaned in and studied the face like an elderly person with failing eyesight. It sure appeared to be Tiffany Flowers. She clicked to see more information and saw a telling photograph, a lighted candle against a dark background, an announcement about National Missing and Murdered Children’s Day.
Griffin felt something tugging on her heart, a lead weight pulling it down to her shoes.
“Ugh,” she said.
Rory, the gray, jumped onto the table and sat there impassively, licking her paw and then brushing it across her face. She then licked her lips, looking like a satisfied monarch. She simply needed to let out a ringing belch to complete the picture of regal satisfaction with her meal.
Griffin clicked back and found the most recent address for Tiffany Flowers. She took another long swallow of her beer and set the rest aside. She stood up and ran her hand down Rory’s body, enjoyed the pleasure the cat displayed by arching her back and purring.
“I know you want me to stay, but I’m going somewhere for a little while.” She wondered if Helen ever owned a cat, ever talked to herself or inanimate objects in her apartment. Had Erica Frazier heard the mutterings of a lonely old woman through the walls? “I won’t be long. You’ve been fed, and I’m just going to look. Just a few minutes away.”
She grabbed her keys out of the dish by the door and went back outside.
chapter
thirty-six
12:36 A.M.
Angela composed herself, taking a few deep breaths while the phone beeped in her ear. She needed to present the bravest face possible so as not to worry her no-doubt-already-worried mother-in-law. She looked down at the phone and pressed the button to receive the call.
“Hi, Gail.”
“Hi, Angela. I’m sorry I’m calling so late. I bet I woke you.”
Gail Frazier sounded fairly composed. Angela detected a certain breathlessness in her voice, a slight rush to her words that indicated her mother-in-law was worried and in need of reassurance. Gail Frazier rarely sounded that way. It was only when something concerning one of her children happened that she ever sounded on the verge of losing her composure. Angela saw this for the first time shortly after she married Michael and he was hospitalized with severe food poisoning. Gail came into the hospital room where Michael was hooked up to an IV line, and her face crumpled into tears as she caressed Michael’s pale face. Only a few hours later did Angela fully understand—Gail had already lost one child.
“It’s not too late,” Angela said, standing up from the bed and pointlessly pacing the room. “I was up.”
“Okay, okay,” Gail said. Her voice was husky from a cigarette habit she’d given up about six years earlier when she turned fifty-five. She still sipped scotch in the evenings, played cards and golf with a group of ladies she’d known for years, and volunteered at so many charities, Angela couldn’t keep track of them all. “Am I correct in assuming Michael isn’t home?”
“He’s not. Did you see this breaking news?”
“I did. Why didn’t he call us and tell us about this, Angela? Why is he announcing this on TV? Everyone is going to see it.”
“I know, I know.”
When Angela first met Gail, two months after she and Michael began to date, she had no idea what her future mother-in-law thought of her. She came across as unfailingly polite, saying and doing all the right things to welcome Angela into her home. But Angela also detected a reserve in Gail, a caution, a sense she held something back in contrast to Michael’s father, James, who seemed open to her right from the start.
After spending more time with Gail—including an ill-fated attempt to golf with her at the country club—Angela asked Michael how his mother felt about her.
“Did she like Erica so much that she isn’t warming up to me?”
“No, no, no,” Michael said. And he meant it. He explained that his mother didn’t like Erica very much at all. Too flighty. Too unpredictable. Too willing to argue politics or religion at the dinner table. “No,” Michael said. “She’s protecting me. She doesn’t want to see me hurt or in difficulty again. So it’s about my divorce from Erica, not about Erica herself. Hell, on some level, Mom was probably glad to see Erica go, but she doesn’t want to see me get divorced again.”
Over time, Michael proved to be right. The wall came down. Gail invited Angela shopping, spent time discussing books with her. Shortly before Christmas the previous year, Angela lost her composure and broke down crying over her inability to conceive a child. Gail held her in a long embrace and kissed the top of her head.
“It will happen, honey,” she said. “In good time, it will happen.”
Angela felt somewhat foolish. Shouldn’t she have been comforting the woman who had recently lost her husband?
Angela squeezed the phone and wished for another glass of wine. She gave Gail a quick summary of what had happened that evening with Erica showing up at the door and convincing Michael to go away with her in search of the missing child.
Gail listened quietly without offering comment. When Angela was finished, her mother-in-law said simply, “Why, that’s crazy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Angela, what is he thinking?”
Again, Angela felt stuck for an answer, except to point out that Michael carried a certain amount of guilt over Robyn’s death and a heightened sense of duty toward a child who might be his. But she kept those thoughts to herself.
“Is he coming home now?” Gail asked. “He’s been on the news in front of God and everybody, and it’s getting on toward one o’clock.”
Angela tried to think of a way to avoid answering the question, but nothing came to mind. She cursed herself for not being a better liar. “I don’t thi
nk he is quite yet.” She told Gail about the “fender bender” and Michael’s desire to go on and talk to the police with Erica. She left out any mention of her husband wandering in a daze through a cornfield, searching for his dead sister.
Robbie-girl.
“Oh, my God,” Gail said, her voice full of alarm.
Angela remembered her mother-in-law’s fears when Michael was hospitalized with food poisoning and worried she’d said too much by mentioning the accident at all.
“He’s okay, Gail. I talked to him. He’s really worried about this child. I guess we all are in some way.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Angela heard a catch in her mother-in-law’s voice, a protective motherly instinct that extended to all children. “I’m sick about all of this, but I worry. . . .”
“You mean you worry about Michael?” Angela asked, trying to finish the thought.
“Of course. But Erica . . . She’s a piece of work. I guess I’m just worried she might be using the child to manipulate Michael, to get him to do something he wouldn’t ordinarily do.”
“That’s what I thought.” Angela enjoyed the surge of affirmation, the recognition someone else thought along the same lines she did. “I’m not crazy to think that.”
“No, you’re not.”
Gail’s voice carried something more ominous, something deeper.
“What is it?” Angela asked. “Do you know something else?”
“Maybe I should just come over now,” Gail said. “I’m not going to sleep, not with Michael out there saying and doing these things.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. I can come over—” She stopped herself. No, she didn’t want to leave. What if Michael came home? What if the police came back with more news? “We can talk tomorrow. It’s late, and Michael will be back. . . .”
She hoped he would. She hoped.
“I’m coming over,” Gail said. “My sleep has been hell since James died. And maybe we need to discuss some things in person.”
