by Wendy Walker
Nic drew a quick breath, her hands crossing at her chest. “I know why.”
She thought about those photos from the summer camp yearbook. Her resemblance to Daisy Hollander. Reyes being the one to drive her out of town. And his growing obsession with her after she let him into her life.
“Nic? What is it?” Kurt asked.
She turned suddenly. “I have to go,” she said. Kurt followed her to the door.
“Wait,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“I have to check something out.”
He grabbed her arm. “I am sorry,” he said. “I should have come right to you after I spoke to Edith.”
Nic stopped, turned. “It’s okay. But I have to go,” she said again.
“Wait—there’s one last thing,” Kurt said. “Edith never saw your mother. But the thing she knew about your mother’s purse—Reyes told her to say that. How did he know?”
Nic realized then what must have happened. The only explanation. “Reyes knew because he saw my mother that night.”
She pulled away from Kurt Kent, and raced back to her mother’s car, down Hastings Pass to the inn. And the fence. And the hole that someone had started to make.
47
Day seventeen
Alice does not get the key. Instead, she sits in the kitchen with Mick for hours, it seems. I hear him moan and choke. I hear her sob. I think I have miscalculated. I think that now I am surely going to die.
But then another sound. A car.
I race from where I stand by the grate and look out the small hole in the wood. I see another police car. Another police officer. This one wears short sleeves and patches. He walks to the front porch and I think, call out! Call for help! But then I wonder—Mick is a cop. What if they’re in this together?
I return to the grate when I hear the shuffling. Mick is on his feet, and he drags Alice toward me. He is pale, his shirt covered in sweat and vomit. But he has survived the poison. This will not end well.
He says nothing because the doorbell has rung and now the new cop is knocking. He calls out a name.
“Reyes? You in there?”
Mick has a name. Reyes.
He is worried. I can see it on his face. Worried and weakened by the cyanide.
The cop again—
“Reyes—come on. I see your car out here.…” A pause as he listens outside the door. And then—
“I spoke to the owners. I know you take care of this place. Listen—it doesn’t matter, okay? You’ve been working on the side for them. Right? Moonlighting? Doing security here and at the gas station? I’ve seen the utility bills—buddy? Are you in there? You been living in there when you’re not supposed to be? It’s okay, we can work it out. We can work everything out.”
When the cop falls silent again, Mick, Reyes, the man—he opens the grate with the key that he wears on his belt. He shoves Alice inside the room with me, and locks it shut.
I pull Alice close. We are one now, in our fate. And we move as one back to the grate where we can see what’s about to happen.
48
Day seventeen
Nic ran through the lobby of the inn to the back door. Then across the patio to the shed where she took a rock to the padlock, beating it until it opened.
Inside the shed, she found a pair of wire cutters. Then she ran to the fence, straight back like before, though it was harder to navigate with the sun so high in the sky.
Nic was out of breath when she reached the place where the hole had been cut. Nerves, exhaustion—all of it was crashing down.
She’d forgotten about the barbed wire and she didn’t have gloves. She took off one sneaker and put her hand inside it. She pushed the fence to see where it needed to be cut. The wire cutters were strong and they cut through it in seconds.
When she was on the other side, she put her sneaker back on, caught her breath.
She had just one thought now—Reyes knew where her mother was. He’d known the entire time. And he knew she was in a place that she couldn’t leave. That was why he risked waiting to get the reward money. He knew he had the time.
And the reason he wanted the time? It was absurd, this thought, but his behavior, his obsession with her had to go back to Daisy Hollander. Nic and Daisy—that had to be why he waited. He wanted Nic to come back to Hastings. And come back alone.
Be smart now, she told herself. She took out her phone and pulled up the photo she’d taken of the satellite image. The one showing the house and the fence, and the inn. She took her best guess at the direction and she started to walk, through the woods, along a path that was most likely to get her to the house.
Be smart.
Reyes was a con man. He used his position as a cop to extort people. No chance it was just Kurt Kent who’d been on the receiving end.
Through the trees, over the wet brush of dead leaves and soil, the extent of his lies, his planning ran through her mind. Edith Bickman. The truck story. How he pretended not to know her, not to trust her, giving her a string of facts that he could then punch holes through—giving Nic a reason to stay. He knew she would find out about Watkins with his gray truck. And when he couldn’t figure out where Watkins had gone to get the broken light repaired, he created a fake invoice. Framing Watkins—but why? When he finally led Nic to her mother, she would tell them the truth—that Watkins wasn’t involved. And that would prove Edith Bickman was a liar, keep her from getting the money—and Reyes his share. Did he do all of this in the hope that Nic would fall for him? That he could have her as a replacement for Daisy Hollander?
The house wasn’t as far as she thought. Maybe an eighth of a mile from the fence to a clearing where she could see it, and the scene at the front door.
Watkins knocking. His car was parked in the driveway.
She stopped dead in her tracks as she heard him call out—to Reyes.
Reyes was the caretaker of this place. Reyes managed the security cameras at the Gas n’ Go. Reyes was using the gas and electric, living here.
The boarded window with the metal bars holding it in place.
Her mother would know the truth and would tell them Watkins wasn’t involved. Edith never saw her. Maybe there wasn’t even a black truck.
Unless—no—the reward money.
It was one million if they found her alive. But five hundred thousand if they just found her.
That was it. She was already dead. Or about to be.
And now Watkins—not knowing what might be behind that door.
She started to run, calling out to him—“Chief!”
The door opened just as his name left her mouth. There were no more words. Just one shot. And Watkins, hand to his chest, stumbling backward until he reached the steps. Falling, crumbling down to the gravel, where he lay still.
49
Day seventeen
Alice and I watch as Mick stands on the other side of the door. We watch as he draws his gun and steadies himself. He is still weak.
I turn Alice to face me, pull her from the grate. Fear blankets my face. I know what is about to happen.
And I think—I have done it. I have killed another child. The hatred I thought I felt for her was not real. It was anger and frustration. But she is a child. She is a victim of this house and whatever has happened here these past nine years.
“Alice,” I say. “This was my fault and I will tell him that. I will save you,” I promise. I lie. He will surely kill us both.
Her face doesn’t change as I say these words. It is another new face. It is determined.
Alice holds my eyes as she reaches in her pocket. And slowly, very slowly—she pulls out the key. I fold my hand around hers and I gently take the key and turn the lock.
As we push the grate open and walk out into the hallway, to our freedom, we hear the shot.
50
Day seventeen
Reyes saw Nic, heard her call out to Watkins.
Now he called after her as she ran away, back into the woods, back
toward the inn.
She ran the way she’d come, watching the ground, her feet taking small, quick steps on patches that were steady. She weaved through the trees, dodging the branches.
Then another shot and a pop against a trunk not five feet from her.
He called out again.
“Stop!”
And then—
“I have your mother!”
I have your mother.
Her feet kept moving. But not her will.
I have your mother.
Nic could smell the wood burning from the fireplace at the inn. She was almost there. But then what?
Reyes wanted her.
She wanted her mother.
She wanted her mother to be alive. She wanted her to be freed, finally, of the pain she’d suffered. She wanted Annie back. She wanted to feel her hands grabbing hold of those little arms before she reached the end of the driveway. She wanted the past five years to be over.
Her feet stopped moving then. She was too tired. It was time to stop running.
51
Day seventeen
I pull Alice back into the room where she can’t see. I go to the window and look out the hole. I see the other cop on the ground. Lying still. Blood pooling around his torso. And Mick running into the woods. Running with his gun drawn, calling out to someone. Was there another cop? A partner?
“Come with me!” I say to Alice. I grab her arm and pull her out of the room and down the hall and through the open front door. She stops at the threshold.
“My mask!” she says. “I need my mask!”
I take hold of her arms and look her in the eye.
“Do you trust me?” I ask her.
She doesn’t know. I can see the doubt and the debilitating apprehension it brings.
“You don’t need the mask.”
I do not give her time to think. I pick her up in my arms and bury her face in my chest as I run down the stairs and over the body of the man. I set her down, facing away from the house. Away from the violence.
“You need to run now, Alice. You need to run down that driveway until you reach the road. The gate must be open because that policeman came through it. You need to turn to the right and follow the fence on the other side—do you understand? Stay in the woods. Do not go onto the street. The fence will lead to another house. You need to look for it carefully. If you smell a fire, or food or gasoline—go toward it. Okay?”
Alice cries. “What about the bears? What about the wolves?”
I shake my head. “No—the bears are sleeping during the day. You will be fine.”
She won’t leave and my heart is going to burst. I must get to the dying man. I must use his radio to call for help. But Alice must leave. Mick could come back at any moment.
“My first mommy died in the woods,” she says now. “I don’t want to die!”
I pull her close to me again and squeeze her so hard as if I can squeeze the doubt right out of her.
“Alice—that was a lie. Your first mommy didn’t die in the woods. I don’t know what happened to her. But it wasn’t the woods that took her from you.”
I look at her now and I can see that she believes me. She believes me because it is the truth.
“Now go! Run!”
She nods, turns, and her feet begin to move, to fly, kicking up dust from the driveway.
I can’t remember feeling as happy as I do right now, watching this child go free.
I turn back to the man on the ground. I feel for a pulse. He is still alive. I go to his car and find the radio. I push a button.
“Help! I need help! There’s an officer shot!”
A woman’s voice answers. “Who is this?”
“It’s Molly Clarke.”
Silence now as the woman recognizes my name.
“This is the chief’s radio. Has the chief been shot?”
“Yes!” I say, frantic now for help. “I don’t know where we are. I’ve been held here for two weeks!”
“I have your location,” the woman says. I hear her voice tremble.
“I see keys in the car. I might be able to get him inside…”
“No—stay where you are. He could bleed out. Seconds matter now—are you able to provide assistance to the officer?”
No! I think. I see keys in this car. I need to leave this place! I look back at the man, bleeding on the ground. All I want to do is run like Alice, away from this house. But I can’t let him die.
She tells me what to do and I do what she says. I leave the radio and the keys and look for a first-aid box in the trunk. I leave the car, my means of escape, and I go to the dying man. I do what I can to stop the bleeding.
It’s now that I hear the shot in the woods.
And the scream. The unmistakable scream of my daughter.
52
Day seventeen
Reyes walked closer. Close enough not to miss again if he pulled the trigger. Still his face was soft with a warm smile.
“Mom!” Nic screamed, her voice filled with rage, rising up through the trees. Then to Reyes, “Where is my mother!”
Reyes spoke calmly as he took a few more steps.
“Right inside that house. She’s been waiting for you all this time. Waiting for you to find her. She’s perfectly safe.”
Nic knew that was a lie. Her mother would never have willingly stayed with this man.
“I know about Edith Moore.”
“I just wanted to see you again,” he said.
“What happened that night? The night of the storm?” Nic didn’t want to hear about anything else. She wanted to know what happened to her mother.
Reyes kept walking, the rustling beneath his feet breaking the silence.
“I love you. That’s all that matters. From the first time I saw you. That very first day. All of this has been about you, can’t you see that? It could have been so easy!”
He stopped then, but the sound of footsteps remained. Only it wasn’t coming from his feet. It was coming from behind them, from the fence.
Nic saw Reyes’s eyes move from her to the source of this new sound. And then a new voice.
“Yes, Officer. Why don’t you tell us what happened that night.”
It was Roger Booth. And he held a shotgun that was pointed squarely at Reyes.
“Roger—that’s not the right question,” Reyes said. His words were confident, but his voice shaky. He was panting. Sweating in the cold air.
“What is the right question, then?” Booth asked, moving closer.
“You know, don’t you, Nicole?” Reyes’s eyes remained fixed on Booth.
Nic took one step to the side. Then another, slowly moving out of the line of fire.
“I do,” she said.
“Well, tell him, then,” Reyes demanded. “Tell him!”
One more foot. Then another.
“The right question,” Nic said, “is what happened the day Daisy Hollander disappeared.”
Booth flinched, but then caught himself. “What does any of this have to do with Daisy?”
Nic was three steps away from a tree. From cover. She took one of them and stopped.
“He drove Daisy out of town that day,” Nic said. “He knew her from summer camp. He worked there, in the kitchen. That’s why he came to Hastings. He was obsessed with her. And then with me because I remind him of her.”
Reyes blinked hard as though his vision was starting to blur.
Nic kept talking, buying time.
“He went there after that shooting in his hometown. The suicide-by-cop that messed with his head. He worked odd jobs like the one at the camp until he met Daisy. And then he played on Chief Watkins’s sympathy to get a job here, so he could be close to her.”
Another step. She could touch the tree.
Now Booth was panting as well. “What are you saying? Daisy barely knew him. She used to make fun of him, how he thought he was such a ladies’ man.”
Now Reyes—
“That’s what y
ou thought. But I was the one she loved. Not you. She was using you for money. All those free dinners and trips to the city. You made her skin crawl, Booth. She couldn’t stand the sight of you, or your hands on her body. She was strong and she did what she had to do. But she was not about to give you a baby. So she left you. She left you for me.”
Booth’s face was twisted with anger. “You’re a liar!” he screamed.
“And you’re pathetic,” Reyes yelled back.
Nic took one more step. She was almost behind the tree.
But then more footsteps. And a new voice still.
The voice of a woman.
“You’re both pathetic,” the woman said.
Nic froze, her eyes now glued to the image that was so like her own.
Only now that image was flesh and bone. And she was wearing the same leather jacket Nic had seen at Veronica’s house.
Daisy Hollander walked toward them through the woods.
Holding the hand of a little girl.
53
Day seventeen
I run like I’m on fire.
I run through the woods to find my daughter.
Now I hide behind a cluster of small trees. I do not know what I am seeing, but it has led me into a deep pool of confusion.
A well-groomed man, neatly dressed, holding a shotgun on Mick.
Mick, staggering from the poison, trying to steady a gun on the man.
And Nicole! How the sight of her makes me want to cry, makes me want to run to her and throw my body between hers and those men.
I force myself to stop. To think. I can’t afford another mistake.
I watch her move until she is almost safe, just beside a tree.
Go! I want to scream. Why doesn’t she take that last step?
And now I hear the voice I have come to know so well. To hate at times. To love at times. To fear at times.
“Mommy!” she says. Alice tries to pull her hand away from the woman who holds her. The woman who was her first mommy until she left last spring. Whose clothes I wear even now.