by Bell, David
“We saw the car wasn’t gone,” Stynes said. “Ashleigh thought you might have come over here. It seemed like a hunch worth following. We thought Michael Bower might be here as well.”
“It’s strange. I never come here,” Janet said.
“Maybe it’s different now,” Stynes said.
Janet agreed. It was all different.
Janet pointed down the path. “Michael,” she said. “He’s…he told me something. He told me a story about the day Justin died.”
Stynes reached out and touched her shoulder. “I heard the same story from his father this evening. We’ll take care of it.” He paused. “And I’m sorry. I know it’s a hell of a thing to find out after all these years.”
“Do you think it’s true?” Janet asked. “Just because Ray said it…”
“And Michael just corroborated it, right?”
Janet nodded. The dark made it difficult to see Stynes’s face. He seemed to have his head lowered, to be looking at the ground.
“I think that’s it,” he said. “I do.” Stynes started down the path. He turned and looked back at Janet. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. Can I just go home?”
“Go ahead,” Stynes said. “But you’ll be hearing from us soon. Okay?”
As the detective disappeared, Janet started up the path. When she emerged from the woods, she saw Ashleigh.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
Janet folded Ashleigh into her arms, kissing the top of her daughter’s head as they hugged.
“Thanks for looking out for me, kid,” Janet said.
“Somebody has to,” Ashleigh said. Then she said, “You’ve always done it for me.”
Janet pulled her close, felt the girl’s warmth against her body. “I guess we need each other, don’t we?”
“It looks that way.”
They started for home, walking arm in arm.
“I told Kevin you want him to come over for dinner,” Ashleigh said. “He’s up for it, so long as you know he and I are just friends.”
“For now?”
“For now.”
When they reached the house, they found Bill waiting in the front yard. He came across the lawn to them.
“I woke up and no one’s in the house,” he said. He looked at the two of them, his eyes taking them in from head to toe. He looked like—he looked like he wanted to reach out and hug them. “What the hell is going on? Are you hurt?”
“No, Dad, we’re not hurt.” She almost smiled seeing the concern on his face and in his body language. “It’s a long story. Let’s go inside.”
The three of them sat at the kitchen table while Janet told them about Michael’s confession in the woods. Her father didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask questions or show emotion. When Janet was finished, he stood up from the table, acting as though he wanted to go to bed.
“Dad?” Janet said. “Don’t you want to talk about this more? Do you have anything to say?”
He hesitated, then said, “No, I don’t think I do. I guess I hope they both go to jail, Ray and Michael.”
“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know what they’ll do to Michael.”
He turned to go, but before he left the room, Ashleigh said, “Wait!”
Her dad stopped in the doorway and turned around.
Janet looked at Ashleigh. “What’s wrong?”
Ashleigh jumped up from the table. “I have something—something for both of you to see. A surprise, I guess.”
“In the middle of the night?” Janet asked. “In the middle of all this?”
“Just wait.”
Ashleigh ran up the stairs, her steps making muffled thumps. Janet sat at the kitchen table, staring at the familiar space, staring at her father. It still felt like home. He had been right: some things, some feelings never changed. Our knowledge about them changed, but not the fundamental feelings. She was home. She and Ashleigh and her dad. Home.
Ashleigh was carrying a familiar box as she entered the kitchen. Janet recognized it right away, even as her tears formed. “Where did you—? How did you—?”
“I knew you’d want it,” Ashleigh said. “I saved it from the trash the day Grandpa threw it out.”
Janet looked at her dad, who still didn’t speak.
Ashleigh said, “I figured you really didn’t mean it, Grandpa. You were probably just pissed off or something.”
Janet flipped open the top of the box. She reached in and took handfuls of pictures. Justin. Her mom. All of them as a family. Before it all changed. Before.
But some of it was still there. And not just in pictures.
Janet took one out of the stack. It showed the four of them the year before Justin died. They looked happy in the photographer’s studio. They looked like a family.
Janet held it up.
“Remember this one, Dad? Remember going there that day? We tried to get Justin to wear that little bow tie, and he kept taking it off.”
Her dad came forward, took the photo out of her hand. He studied it a long time before one side of his mouth raised, the tiniest hint of a grin.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember.”
Acknowledgments
I want to begin by thanking my colleagues and students in the Western Kentucky English Department and the Potter College of Arts and Letters, especially Tom Hunley, David Lee, David LeNoir, Mary Ellen Miller, Dale Rigby, and Karen Schneider. Thanks also go to James Weems, Glen Rose, and their crew for the amazing book trailer. For friendship and psychological insights about memory and trauma, I am indebted to Drs. Sherry Hamby and Al Bardi. Big thanks to Kara Thurmond for her work on my Web site. And I owe so much to my family, especially my mother, Catherine Bell, my late father, Herbert Bell, and my in-laws, Mike and Penny McCaffrey.
As always, thanks to the booksellers, librarians, reviewers, readers, book club members, and bloggers who buy, borrow, sell, and talk about books.
I would be nowhere without the great efforts made by everyone at NAL/Penguin. Special thanks to my publicist, Heather Connor, and her amazing team. Thanks for getting the word out.
I can’t say enough nice things about my brilliant editor, Danielle Perez. Her sense of humor, great skill, calm demeanor, and vast knowledge have made all of this possible. Thanks for making me look good, Danielle.
I also want to thank everyone at Markson Thoma Literary Agency for their dedication and professionalism. And a special thanks to Julia Kenny and her foreign rights team.
My amazing agent, Laney Katz Becker, has worked tirelessly on my behalf and has perhaps set a world record for answering an endless stream of questions in a timely fashion. Thanks for everything, Laney. I’m lucky to have you as my agent.
And finally, special thanks to Molly McCaffrey for years of good times, movies, and long car trips. Can you believe we pulled this off?
David Bell is currently an assistant professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. His previous novel is Cemetery Girl.
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READERS GUIDE
QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION
1. There are a number of parent-child relationships in The Hiding Place. What is the nature of these relationships? Do any of them seem healthier than others?
2. If you are a parent, how do you feel about the decision to leave Janet in charge of her little brother on the day he disappeared? Is there ever a time when this is okay? Was this fair to Janet?
3. Janet is haunted by and feels guilty about the disappearance and death of her brother. Do you think this contributes to her intense desire to believe that th
e man on the porch is really her brother as an adult?
4. Everyone in the story has a secret he or she is keeping. Why do people who are close to one another—people who are even in the same family and intimately related—so often keep secrets from one another?
5. Are the men in the story—Bill Manning, Michael Bower, Steven Kollman, Frank Stynes—less capable of dealing with their emotional pain and torment than the women? Do any of the men deal with their emotions better than the others?
6. In many ways, Ashleigh is the most physically courageous character in the story. Is that just because she’s young, or is something else driving her to do the things she does?
7. Ashleigh is withdrawn from her mom emotionally, but she also possesses an intense desire to make her mother happy, even going so far as to risk her own safety to do so. Is this typical teenage behavior? Why or why not?
8. Discuss Janet’s complicated feelings for Michael. Does she really care for him, or does she just intensely associate him with her past? Or does Michael simply represent the freedom Janet has never had?
9. Like Janet, Detective Stynes feels guilt and regret over events in the past. Why is Stynes attempting to finally deal with these things? Why couldn’t he do it right the first time?
10. Why is Steven Kollman so drawn to Janet? Do you sympathize with him at all or understand why he approaches Janet the way he does?
11. Discuss Dante Rogers. Do you feel any sympathy for him? Is it possible for him to ever have a normal life? Will he ever get over or deal with the inappropriate feelings he has toward young children?
12. How do you think the Manning family will move on after the end of the book?
13. Will Janet ever see Michael or her mother clearly, especially after what she learns about them at the end of the book?
14. Whom do you blame the most for what happened to Justin—Michael or Ray Bower? Why?
15. Why is the book called The Hiding Place?
READERS GUIDE