What's Done in Darkness

by Laura McHugh

  “No. No news yet. That’s why we’re here. Destiny’s mother said she was close with the youth group at Barren Branch, and we think you all might be among the last people to see her before she disappeared. Did you notice anything out of the ordinary that day?”

  Hailey picked at a ragged fingernail that had been chewed to the quick. “No. There was only three of us there, and Kenzie asked Pastor Brian for a one-on-one in the office, so me and Destiny just hung out and talked.”

  “Does the pastor often meet with you girls alone?”

  Hailey caught the look on Farrow’s face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, god, no. It’s not like that. He’s, like, the biggest prude. Saving his first kiss for his wedding day. Kenzie’s just messing with him. She’ll make up embarrassing stuff to talk about, like sex stuff, and ask him for spiritual guidance. He gets all nervous and sweaty. It’s hilarious. More fun than listening to a sermon, you know?”

  “Sure.” Farrow nodded. The cat got up and stretched, then leapt to the floor to lick out the cereal bowl, the spoon clanging against the dish with each swipe of its tongue. “So, you and Destiny were alone. How did she seem? What did you talk about?”

  “I don’t know. She talked about Winter Meeting. She was wanting to get a new dress to wear, and I said maybe my sister could drive us to Jonesboro sometime so we could go shopping. I mean, it probably wasn’t gonna happen, and it’s not like we have any money to spend, but it was fun to think about, like, which places we’d go. Thrift stores. The mall. There’s no place to shop around here.”

  “What’s Winter Meeting?”

  “It’s a homeschool thing,” she said. “Like, a big meeting for the home educators conference or whatever it’s called. People come from all over the Ozarks. There’s social stuff, too, some kind of dance, like a prom, I guess. If you’re a homeschool kid, it’s maybe the one time a year you get to do anything like that. It’s a big deal. She always got excited about it.”

  Farrow shot me a quick glance. “Anything else?”

  Hailey shook her head, her hair falling back over her eye and hiding the birthmark. “When Kenzie and Pastor Brian came out of the office, we did the closing prayer and left. Des texted me on her way home; that’s the last I heard from her. I tried to get ahold of her when I found out she was missing, but never did.”

  “She texted you?” Farrow said the words slowly, and I could practically hear the gears whirring in his head.

  “Yeah?” The cat rubbed against Hailey’s legs, and she scooped it up into her lap.

  “Could I see the text?”

  “I deleted it. It wasn’t anything important.”

  “You never know,” Farrow said.

  Hailey smirked, looking down at the threadbare carpet. “She asked if I thought Pastor Brian was trying to hide a boner when he came out of the office. He was walking kind of funny, holding the Bible over his crotch, but he wears those pants that are, like, pleated in front, so you can’t really tell.” Hailey stroked the cat, white hairs collecting on her black shirt and drifting into the air.

  “Destiny’s mother said she doesn’t have a phone.”

  Hailey’s hand froze midstroke. She glanced at me and then back to Farrow. “Her mom doesn’t know. She hides it. It’s one of those kind you get at the gas station.”

  “Oh,” Farrow said. “Any particular reason she was hiding it?”

  “I don’t want to get her in trouble,” Hailey said. “It’s just that her mom’s real strict about following rules, stuff like that. She’d take her phone away if she talked back or didn’t do her chores or whatever. One time Trina caught her texting some guy and freaked out. There was nothing going on, it was just a kid from town, but she wasn’t supposed to give her number to anybody without asking first. Trina told Des she’d have to crawl through the hog pen on her belly if she wanted her phone back. So she did it—got covered in mud and pig shit—and Trina told her to wash herself off in the pond. She got in the water and then Trina threw the phone in after her. Said she didn’t want her daughter sneaking around talking to boys behind her back, and if she couldn’t follow the rules with her phone, she couldn’t have one.”

  “That sounds a bit over the top in terms of punishment. Was there any indication that Destiny was being abused at home?”

  Hailey shrugged. “Trina never laid a hand on her that I know of. Most everybody around here’s got strict parents. At school, if you get in trouble, they bend you over the principal’s desk and swat you with a big wooden paddle just like in the old days. I mean, she used to complain about her mom sometimes, but Trina’s kind of eased up since she started seeing Vance.”

  “Does Destiny get along all right with Vance?”

  “Yeah, she likes him, I think. He convinced Trina to let her move out to the trailer. She was really happy, having her own space for the first time, her mom not being in her face 24/7. Seemed like things were pretty good.”

  “Destiny trusted you to keep her secret about the phone. Did she share any other secrets with you, good or bad? A relationship she might have wanted to keep hidden?”

  “No.” Hailey chewed her lip. “I was kind of jealous,” she said. “About the trailer. I share a room with my sister. My dad sleeps on the couch with a shotgun by the door, and I always thought it was so we couldn’t sneak out. I never worried anybody’d try to sneak in. You know?”

  Farrow nodded solemnly and handed Hailey a business card. “One of the sheriff’s detectives will follow up with you. In the meantime, if you think of anything else, give me a call on my cell.”

  We got back on the road, the sun blinding after the enveloping darkness at the Barnes house. “The Winter Meeting she was talking about,” Farrow said. “Are you familiar with that?”

  “Yeah. We went every year when I was in high school. My mother was on a committee. She took me and my sister.”

  “I wonder if Abby went,” he said. “I’ll have to check.”

  “You think it could be somebody from the conference?”

  “It’s a possible connection. It could be a coincidence that you were all homeschooled, but if you all attended this same event, were exposed to the same people—that might narrow it a bit. It’s worth looking into.”

  “What about the phone? Can you trace it or something?”

  “Maybe. They could try to get call records, see if that turns up any suspects. That’ll take time. Hailey said Destiny kept the phone hidden, so if she was taken in the night, without her glasses, I’m wondering if the phone’s still there, stowed away someplace her mother wouldn’t know to look.”

  “So what now?”

  “Need to find a gas station, for starters, if we don’t want to get stuck out here. I’m hoping there’s one up ahead, by the river, so we don’t have to drive all the way back to town.”

  As the road curled down into the river valley, a deep, forested ravine opened up on the passenger side, the white line crumbling into the chasm, no guardrail, no room for error. I wanted to shut my eyes but didn’t dare. I dug my fingernails into the upholstery and focused on Farrow’s hands, willing them to stay steady on the wheel, as though my vigilance alone might keep us from plunging over the edge. Just before the bridge, the valley flattened out and a gas station appeared, a rustic log cabin with two pumps out front and a sign that said cash only. The windows were papered over with beer and cigarette ads.

  Farrow pumped gas, phone to his ear. I got out to throw away our coffee cups and wandered to the edge of the lot to look down at the river. A steep stone path led through the weeds to a row of tiny tin-roofed cabins perched at the water’s edge beneath a canopy of cottonwoods. Sparrows trilled in the tall grass. The river frothed over shallow rapids and glittered green where the sun struck. Despite the undeniable beauty of the landscape, tension threaded through my body, urging my heart to pump faster, the hills and hollers forever linked to my old li
fe and the thirst to escape it. I wondered if Destiny had been content here, or if she felt that same longing to get out.

  Farrow went inside to pay. When he came back, he had a paper bag and two candy bars, and he offered one to me.

  “There’s a prayer vigil tonight at the Jewells’ farm, starting at dusk,” he said. “There’ll be a bonfire. All are welcome.”

  “You think we should go,” I said. “And you’re trying to bribe me with a Mr. Goodbar?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Slim pickings in there.” His brow furrowed. “I promised I’d get you home tonight, and I will, if that’s what you want. But I think we need a little more time here. Need to see who shows up at the vigil, how they act. See if we can find that phone. What do you think?”

  “I think you never had any intention of going back tonight. I think you only said that to get me here.”

  He didn’t deny it. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’m not going to force you into anything.”

  “Anything else, you mean.” As much as I wanted to be done with this, he was right, we weren’t done. Abby and Destiny still weren’t home. I had already come all this way, and I would do everything I could. I sighed and took the candy bar.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “You could have at least told me to bring a toothbrush.”

  He shook the paper bag. “I’ve got you covered. And I went ahead and booked two cabins, just in case. The clerk said not to worry, they scrubbed them out ‘real good’ after the flood.”

  “Great.”

  We got back in the Tahoe and I texted Helen to ask how Gypsy was doing. She sent a pic of the dog sprawled on a leather sofa, belly up, sound asleep. I wished that I could trade places with her, that I could sleep on Helen’s couch instead of in a rickety cabin on a riverbank, not far from where Destiny had gone missing.

  I might be late, I typed. Can you keep her until tomorrow?

  Of course! Everything okay?

  I sent a thumbs-up. It felt like less of a lie than saying everything was fine.

  * * *

  —

  Nearly two dozen vehicles snaked up the dirt road and parked in the Jewells’ field as dusk crept in. Farrow and I had spent the afternoon assisting the deputies in a fruitless search for Destiny’s phone. The bonfire snapped and roared, devouring stacks of dry brush and sending sparks into the cool evening air. Trina stood in the firelight with her boyfriend, Vance, at her side and greeted each person in turn, like a receiving line at a wedding or a funeral, while a plainclothes detective looked on. The detective was not exactly undercover—everyone from town knew who he was and called him by name. Farrow and I stayed in the shadows, watching and listening. Most of the people in attendance seemed to be friends of the Jewells or to know them from church, though there were several with no apparent connection: a man from the Rotary club, prayer leaders from neighboring churches, a mother grieving the loss of her own teenage daughter, who’d drowned in the river on the Fourth of July. She had heard about the vigil on Facebook. I studied the group from Barren Branch and guessed which one was Pastor Brian: a slight twenty-something in pleated khakis, a Bible jammed in his armpit. He wore a stunned expression and a helmet of yellow Ken-doll hair.

  Trina wiped manically at her tears as Pastor Brian spoke to her, and Vance wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. Vance and Trina could have been brother and sister. They had the same pale, scraggly hair, lanky build, and weathered skin. He counterbalanced Trina’s fidgeting with slow, deliberate motions, holding Brian’s hand rather than pumping it, standing steady while Trina’s head bobbed up and down, up and down.

  When darkness had fully set in and the group gathered together to clasp hands and pray, Farrow motioned for me to join him and we slipped away from the fire, to the far side of Destiny’s trailer.

  “It would’ve been dark like this when he took her,” Farrow said. “The only light’s coming from the porch at the front of the house. If he wanted to stay out of sight, he would’ve come this way, from behind the trailer. He could’ve kept his cover all the way from the road and back.” He aimed his flashlight into the brush, swept the beam back and forth. “If she dropped her phone or anything else, it might be somewhere along here.”

  “We already looked back here. We looked everywhere.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be easy to overlook something in all this brush. I thought maybe a phone would catch the light. Reflect, you know, like cats’ eyes.”

  We walked in the direction of the road, watching the weeds as the light moved over them, waiting for something shiny to wink at us from the dark. Over in the field, the group began to sing. Why should I feel discouraged? And why should the shadows come? “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” It was a hymn I knew well, one my mother had often sung as a lullaby.

  Farrow stopped, turned around, walked in a circle. Beyond the trailer and the house, the fire whistled and cracked, orange flames streaming upward into the night as the people sang. His eye is on the little sparrow…He’s watching over you and me.

  “Do you feel that?” Farrow said.

  “What?”

  “The ground. Most of it around here, it’s rock and clay. But it feels a bit softer here. I didn’t notice anything different in daylight, but now, you can tell it’s loose underfoot. Tilled up, maybe. Could be a garden spot. Or something else.”

  I turned my back to the fire and the farm. The night sky was stunning, black and clear, the stars bright and piercing. I’d learned nothing about astronomy in homeschool and had only recently discovered, from watching the Discovery Channel, that a number of the stars we saw were long dead, their light just now reaching us from distant space.

  “How do you know,” I said, “in situations like this, when the families are isolated, the kids don’t go to school…where it’s normal for no one outside the family to see them for days on end…how can you really know what happened?”

  Farrow nodded. “It complicates things,” he said. “But we check the timeline we have, we talk to the family and people who know them. We look at the evidence. And we cover our bases.”

  “How?”

  “Cadaver dogs are coming in the morning,” he said. “Just in case.”

  CHAPTER 10

  SARABETH, THEN

  AGE 17

  Cousin Ronnie had not gone back to the army. Apparently, an unfortunate misunderstanding had caused his early discharge from the armed services. He had failed to mention that when he showed up at the Darlings’ house, but when it became clear that he wasn’t leaving, he confessed that he had nowhere else to go. Mr. and Mrs. Darling were trying to help him get back on track, as they put it. Mr. Darling said three things were guaranteed to help a struggling soul: God, family, and honest work. Mrs. Darling added home cooking to the list. For months they’d been feeding him, taking him to church, and paying him to help out on the farm. He had been a mechanic in the army and was teaching Tom, and sometimes Eli, how to work on the tractors and other bits of machinery. Mr. and Mrs. Darling had convinced themselves that he was truly making progress and bettering himself, because they badly wanted to believe that he would one day move out of their house.

  It was supposed to be Secret Thursday, but Ronnie had planted himself at the kitchen table while I baked, pretending to read the Bible. He wore tight jeans and a camouflage T-shirt with the sleeves cut off so his biceps were on display.

  “You must know the Bible pretty well,” he said.

  I shrugged, my hands buried in dough. I had to bake more bread since Ronnie had come to stay. He would eat half a pan of rolls before they even had time to cool, shoving them down his throat one after another, like a snake swallowing eggs in the henhouse.

  “You know Song of Songs? I’m having trouble following. Maybe you can explain it to me.” He got up from the table and leaned against the counter next to me, holding the Bib
le up so he could read aloud. “ ‘Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies.’ I mean, it’s kinda dirty, right? What exactly is it supposed to teach me?”

  I kept kneading the dough, hoping if I ignored him he would get bored and leave me alone. He set the Bible down and angled closer to me, his face inches from mine. His breath warmed my cheek, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of shrinking away.

  “What’s the matter, are you scared to talk to me? Look, I know you’re not some holy roller. You’re stuck here pretending to be something you’re not, just like me. What are you, sixteen, seventeen? Wearing a fucking apron, baking bread all day? Don’t tell me you don’t want to take off that ugly old-lady dress and get out of here for a while, have some fun. I could help you out with that. You ever want to go for a ride, just say the word.”

  Tom, who’d been in his room all morning, walked in and saw us standing there, my face burning. “Oh,” he said. “I was gonna see if you needed help.”

  I wiped sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m almost done.” Tom glared at Ronnie and stalked out of the kitchen. We heard a door slam.

  “Now that is somebody who does not know how to have a good time,” Ronnie said, smirking. “You know, I used to figure him for queer, but it almost seems like he gets jealous when I talk to you. Like he thinks there’s something going on between us. Wonder why that is.”

  I threw the dough in the bowl and he chuckled, brushing against me on his way out the door. Through the window, I watched him strut toward the barn. He stood in the sunshine and stripped off his shirt, revealing a massive black scorpion tattooed down his spine. He was ruining everything. The Darlings’ house had felt different ever since he arrived. Tom was irritable and barely left his room. Mr. and Mrs. Darling were distracted, focusing all their energy and attention on Ronnie. Still, my job provided a measure of freedom, a respite from home, and I didn’t want to lose that. If I told my parents about Ronnie’s behavior, they wouldn’t let me go to the Darlings’ anymore. Mama would probably ask what I’d done to encourage him, if I’d given him the wrong kind of smile.