“The guy who called us about Peggy MacDonald’s death . . .”
“Yeah,” Hal said, remembering. “Scala. You were going to get me his number.”
“Bryce Scala’s dead.”
Hal froze. “Dead. How?”
“A holdup in a grocery store parking lot, a mile from his house in Malabar.”
“When?”
“This morning—about three hours ago. Local police called me, since he was tagged in our system for this case. Shooter asked for his wallet and, when he handed it over, shot him twice in the chest and took off. Scala was still wearing his five-thousand-dollar watch. Police found the wallet in a trash can a few blocks away. Cash was gone, but everything else was still there. Scala’s wife thinks he had maybe fifty or sixty bucks in his wallet.”
“MacDonald was behind that,” Hal said. “I’d put money on it.”
“Police are talking to witnesses and canvassing the area, but you know . . .”
“Yeah,” Hal said. He knew. They’d never find the shooter. This news made his arrival in Greenville all the more urgent.
“I’ll send that itinerary,” Telly said.
Hal ended the call as he pulled to the curb in front of Anna’s house. As he was getting out of the car, his mother and Buster walked down the street. “You’re home early,” she called out.
“I’ve got to pack.”
“Pack?”
He nodded. “I’m going to South Carolina.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help.” She let Buster off his leash and followed the dog into the house.
Standing on the sidewalk, Hal glanced at the itinerary Telly had sent. MacDonald would have beat him to Greenville by now. Without hesitating, Hal thumbed through his recent calls until he found Detective Leighton’s number. He would need her help in South Carolina.
Harper answered on the first ring. “Hal?”
“Remember when you called me and asked if there was anything you could do to help?”
“I remember.”
“Well, now there is.”
“Name it.”
Hal explained what he needed, and Harper said it was no problem. Thanking her again, Hal ended the call and started for the house. In the bedroom, his mother already had a suitcase laid out on the bed.
“You okay to stay here with Buster?” he asked.
“You don’t worry about us,” she said, the dog pressed to her side. “You go out there and find your girl.”
Hal didn’t answer, afraid to jinx it. He knew that he wasn’t coming back until he had exhausted every lead. Not until Spencer MacDonald was either dead or in prison. Not until he had Anna.
39
Sunday, 8:55 a.m. MST
Though no closer to escape, Schwartzman was at least more physically comfortable. The toilet water, although a little rust-flavored, appeared to be drug-free. In less than twenty-four hours, her headache was gone, and her mind felt sharper. To ensure proper rehydration, she drank every two hours, taking in all she could until the quantity of liquid in her stomach made her nauseated. With the freedom to drink as much water as she wanted came the freedom to eat the high-sodium foods stocked in the kitchen. She made peanut butter sandwiches whenever she felt the least bit hungry. The diet wasn’t ideal, but it was far superior to starving. Healthy babies had been born under much worse circumstances. Concentration camps, for instance.
Between eating and drinking, she had gone back to moving from room to room, staring at every corner, wall, and piece of furniture in an attempt to find something to cut the collar. She considered again if Tyler Butler had kept other women here. If so, had they discovered any methods of escape? She had noticed, for instance, that the toilet tank’s innards were made of hard plastic rather than metal, so there was nothing there to break and use as a saw. The freezer had no ice maker, which surely would have had some sort of metal piece that might have been sharp enough. The cover on the oven clock was plastic. Even the stovetop heating coils, normally attached to the appliance by a thin metal piece, were simply lying on top of their respective insets, which explained why the stovetop didn’t work. The drip trays had been removed as well.
She returned to the bathroom to drink and was replacing the porcelain lid when she heard shuffling in the outer room. She froze behind the closed door, her fingers reaching instinctively for the lock, though there wasn’t one.
The footsteps were short, uncertain. The shoes squeaked occasionally like sneakers. It made her think of a child.
There was a knock on the door. “Hello? Hello?”
Roy.
She cracked the door and peered out at the young man in the hallway. He wore a wide smile and a pair of SpongeBob pajamas. “Are you alone?”
He grinned and pointed to her.
“Are we alone?”
He nodded. “I came as soon as Mammy left for church. I told her I was too sick to go because I didn’t want to, and she made me promise I would stay in my pajamas and rest.” He smoothed the button-down top. “See? I’m doing just like Mammy said. I’m staying in my pajamas, and I’m resting here with you.”
“What about your brother?”
He shook his head with a serious face. “No. It’s the weekend. Tyler does all his driving on the weekends.”
“Driving? What kind of driving?”
“The big truck. He goes all over in it, and he sleeps in the back. It has a bed and a refrigerator, and sometimes he lets me have a Coke from there but not very often. He says Cokes cost money.”
Tyler was a truck driver, which explained how she had gotten here. Her brain was turning. “I’d love to buy you a Coke.”
“You would?”
“Absolutely.”
His smile turned into a frown. “But you can’t buy me a Coke.”
“Not right now,” she said, trying to come up with a plan. “Your brother only does driving on the weekends?”
“From late Friday till late-late on Sundays. Today is Sunday.”
Sunday. She’d been here eight days. So he was back tonight.
“I wish you could buy me a Coke,” he said.
She studied the disappointment on his face. He’d come over here in his pajamas, but for what? Surely his mother wouldn’t approve of him being there. But his mother was gone. And Tyler was gone.
“Maybe we could do a project,” she suggested.
A smile lifted his high cheekbones and narrowed his eyes into a squint. “What kind of project?”
She furrowed her brow, pretending to be lost in thought. Her heart was racing. This might work. How she needed this to work. It could be her last chance. She fought to be calm, concocting a lie. “Actually, I don’t think we can do it.”
His lips turned into a frown. “Why not? I want to.”
“But we need crayons,” she said, disappointed.
Roy jumped up and down. “I have crayons.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I have lots and lots of crayons.”
“Okay.” She paused and shook her head again. “But we need other stuff, too.”
“What? What other stuff do we need?”
“Do you have paper?”
He clapped his hands together. “Yes.”
“Wow. You have everything.”
He patted his chest. “I have everything.”
Her heart throbbed in her throat. “But we also need scissors.”
He paused a second and then pointed to himself. “I have scissors, too. I have crayons and paper and scissors. We can do our project. We can do it!”
“We can,” she agreed, clapping her hands together. “As long as your scissors are sharp. We need sharp scissors.”
His hands fell to his sides, and his shoulders dropped. “My scissors are not sharp. They are not sharp at all.”
“Oh no,” she said, fighting against the tears in her eyes. Of course he didn’t have sharp scissors. “Shoot.” Several seconds passed before she said, “I wonder if your mama has scissors you could borrow this on
e time.”
He shook his head firmly. “Oh, no. I’m not allowed to go in Mammy’s sewing room. Not ever. I cannot go in there. Never go in the sewing room,” he went on. “Never ever because Mammy’s machine is very expensive, and if you accidentally move it, you can break it. It breaks very easy. Very easy.” He continued to shake his head, as though it was programmed into him and beyond his control.
“I understand,” she said, interrupting. The fear was so clear in his voice. He didn’t want to get his mother’s scissors, but she needed them. He wasn’t going to bring her a knife—too obvious. The water she’d just ingested seemed to rise into her throat. She didn’t want to lie to him. She longed to find another way. But how? This man might be her last chance at freedom. Swallowing her nausea, she turned toward the bedroom.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We can’t do the project today, but maybe another time.” She started walking, praying the bait would work. He would get in trouble. He’d probably be beaten. But she could be killed. Her eyes squeezed closed, the panic threatening to shut off her airway. Please don’t leave.
The seconds stretched out long and silent as she ushered the cleat along the track above her head.
“But I want to do the project,” he said, his voice thin and pleading.
She turned back. “I do, too.”
“Can we do it, then?”
“Can you find us some scissors? Maybe in the kitchen?” She drew in a slow breath. “A knife could work, too.”
His eyes went wide, his head shaking again.
“No knife,” she said, hurrying back to him. The cleat caught on the track, and the collar stopped her, cutting into her throat. She gasped and coughed, tears running down her face. When she looked back up, Roy was staring at the cord. His eyes narrowed, and then he turned his gaze on her.
“Roy,” she said softly.
“You’re trying to trick me,” he said, aiming a finger at her.
“No,” she said. “I would never—”
“You don’t need scissors to do a project. I never use scissors.”
“We were going to make paper dolls. We need scissors to cut the paper.”
“I don’t want to make dolls. I’m a boy, not a girl.” He began to slowly back away from her.
“They don’t have to be girl dolls. You could make boys . . . and we could color them.”
He shook his head as he spun on his heel. “No!” he shouted as he raced down the hall.
“Okay, then,” she called after him, her voice cracking so that she was nearly shrieking. “We’ll do something else. Whatever project you want.” She was trying to follow him, but the cleat moved rigidly along the track, the cord refusing to yield from above. “Roy!”
The screen door squealed and then slammed shut. As she reached the end of the hall, she caught sight of Roy racing across the snow in his pajamas. He didn’t look back. Soon, he was out of her narrow view.
Tyler would be home late tonight. Would Roy tell his brother what she had done? Even if he didn’t, Roy was not coming back.
If she had any chance of getting out of here, she had to do it on her own.
40
Sunday, 1:40 p.m. EST
Hal stepped through the automated doors of the Greenville airport into cold, wet morning air. He was supposed to have been here hours earlier, and the delays had left him edgy and impatient. Some mechanical issue on the connecting flight through Charlotte. The wind cut through his jacket. Frost dusted the bushes across the street, and he thought of the snow on Thanksgiving, walking with Anna on the streets, buzzed and happy. He was half-asleep, feeling the effects of the red-eye flight and the long layover. It was afternoon, but it felt like the middle of the night.
A horn jolted him. Harper waved from a Subaru parked at the curb. He put his duffel in the backseat and climbed in beside her, reaching immediately to move the seat back as far as it would go.
“Hi.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.” She shifted into first gear and pulled away from the curb, the car rattling beneath them. She wore jeans and a dark gray sweatshirt with a UNC logo. Her hair in a ponytail, she looked like a mom in a mom car. He wondered if it was smart to involve her. The South felt like a foreign country to him, and he’d wanted an ally down here. She’d left her husband and daughter in Charleston and driven three and a half hours to be here. And for what? To get closure to her case. And to help a friend. She’d said as much on the phone. He had to take her at her word. And he was grateful. “We know what he’s up to?”
“He’s at home now. Came home from the airport and hasn’t been back out,” she said, checking her phone. “My guy was able to drum up a couple of retired cops to take shifts, sitting on the house. They’ve been there since he got home.”
“Thanks for doing that. I’ll pay whatever the costs.”
“For now, it’s a fun distraction from retirement.” She shifted the car into second with another rattle and followed the signs toward downtown.
Hal thought about MacDonald inside the house. “He came straight from the airport?”
“We weren’t at the airport when he arrived, so we’re not positive, but the timing seems right. Pulled into the garage and took in his suitcase.”
“Nothing else? No grocery bags or anything?”
“No.”
That was worrisome. It meant he wasn’t staying at home for long. Even if he didn’t eat at home often, everyone needed something from the store after a big trip. “If your guys are okay, we’ll let them keep an eye on MacDonald for now.”
“They’re good,” she said. “Where are we headed?”
“I thought we’d go see Georgia Schwartzman.”
Harper’s gaze slid to meet his. “Her mother.”
Hal nodded.
She glanced down at her own sweatshirt and seemed to consider her attire. “You have the address?”
Following the directions on Google Maps, Hal directed Harper north of downtown, through several upscale commercial areas and winding streets. The farther they drove, the bigger the houses got. When they turned into Greenville Gates, it looked like a country club. A strip of unnaturally green grass separated the road from a walking path, along which dogwood trees had been planted at perfectly spaced intervals. They made several more turns, the houses still expanding in size as they navigated the streets. As the houses ballooned, so did the lots, until each mansion sat in the center of a San Francisco–size city block.
Harper slowed in front of a mailbox, and Hal double-checked the address. “This is it.”
“Wow,” Harper said.
Wow was right. The house was something out of Gone with the Wind. Set back from the road by a curved driveway, the large colonial rose from a lush green lawn the size of a football field. As they approached, Hal saw that a porch encircled the entire main floor, wide enough for a full-size table on one side and two couches and three chairs around a large, square coffee table on the other. All the furniture had been done in the same fancy rattan outdoor furniture that he saw only in the catalogs that sometimes ended up in his mailbox by mistake.
The porch was empty, but three cars were parked in front of the house—a Lexus convertible, a Mercedes SUV, and a navy-blue hard-topped Porsche.
“I’ll just park here on the end,” Harper said with a little laugh.
“You’ll blend right in.” As he started to crack his door, she reached behind him and pulled a pink sweater from her bag. She took the sweatshirt off and replaced it with the sweater.
He got out of the car and waited for her as she pulled the rubber band from her hair. “My mama would die if I showed up to a house like this in a sweatshirt.”
“I have a feeling they’ll be paying more attention to me than to you,” Hal said.
She didn’t argue as they approached the walkway to the front door. Doors, actually—two of them, side by side and tall enough to make him feel short at six foot four. They mounted the steps, and he felt Harper sl
ow beside him. He had a sense of foreboding that was at odds with the huge house and its meticulous grounds.
Hal rang the bell. Only moments later, a black woman in a uniform with a white apron opened it, like she’d been standing right behind the door. Looking at her, Hal felt as though he’d been tipped back a hundred years.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for Georgia Schwartzman,” Harper said when it became apparent that Hal was speechless. She wasn’t a slave, he reminded himself. But the uniform, the apron . . . It felt too close to some historical line.
“Mrs. Schwartzman is entertaining.”
“Tell her we’re friends of Anna’s.”
“Anna,” she repeated.
“Mrs. Schwartzman’s daughter,” Hal said.
“Oh, you mean Bella.”
“Yes,” Harper said as Hal cringed. He imagined Anna’s response to hearing that nickname from her mother. Had Anna told her what that name represented? Didn’t Anna’s mother know what MacDonald had done to her?
“Please. Come in.” The woman excused herself and returned a moment later. “Mrs. Schwartzman said you can join her and her guests on the veranda,” she said with a wave toward the back of the house.
He and Harper exchanged a look.
“It’s very cozy,” she assured them, as though heat had been the concern.
The veranda was actually an outdoor space, accessed through a long glassed-in hallway. The full-height glass windows were sliding doors that could be opened in the summer months. At the far end was a mammoth fireplace, where logs crackled and snapped. Along the window to the east was a large trellis covered in a green vine that would undoubtedly bloom in the spring and be gorgeous. A line of rosebushes awaited their own blossoms beside it.
Hal stepped around the doorway and felt the collective hush of the room. He hadn’t realized he’d been out of view until then, but the reaction made it clear.
One woman let out a sharp gasp.
Georgia Schwartzman motioned from the table. The woman bore a striking resemblance to her daughter, though only in the eyes and lips. She had a small, pert nose and straight blonde hair that had been curled at the bottom. Nothing like Anna’s dark, untamed curls.
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