by Sasha Dawn
I’ve drawn a rudimentary map of the eastern coast of the United States and pinpointed where the sightings were in relation to Northgate, Sugar Creek, the confluence of the Vernon and Moon Rivers, and the Goudy tract. And I’ve printed out sections of map to supplement and see these locations and the roads, and railways, that connect them.
I’ve written a timeline of Damien’s life since he arrived in Sugar Creek, noting the years we were living with him and highlighting all the terrible things he did that we can either prove or suspect.
I’ve printed out pictures of Chatham (both brunette and blonde versions), pictures of Chatham and Savannah, and pictures of Rachel, and I’ve taped those to the wall, too.
I’ve printed pictures of the mural Chatham started at the Churchill.
And last, I’ve printed a picture of Chatham’s relief and cut out each square of it individually. I’m moving the pieces around on the coffee table over the Scrabble board to see if they make up a picture that makes sense when rearranged. “I’m analyzing and resynthesizing,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Taking apart the relief Chatham made and putting it back together in a new form.”
“Why?”
“Chatham liked to rearrange the Scrabble tiles before she played them.”
My mother takes a few steps closer.
“I think she likes puzzles. Anagrams. Like you’d think she was going to lay out rats, but she ends up playing star instead.”
“Are you all right, Josh?”
I glance up at her. “Yeah.”
“Have you slept?” She’s practically right next to me now. “At all?”
“No.”
She grabs my wrist; her fingers land on the scab of my new tattoo. “You tattooed her name on your body?”
“It’s not her name,” I say.
“What do you mean it’s not—”
“Her name is Alana Goudy. So this signature is a clue.”
“Oh, God.” A whimper laces through her words. “Joshua, go to sleep.”
“Okay, Mom. You have to hear me out.”
She covers her mouth with a hand to muffle a sob.
“I’m okay,” I say.
She’s shaking her head. “This”—she indicates toward all my clippings—“is not okay. This borders on obsession. And I know you liked this girl, but this . . . It’s not okay.”
“It’s not just about Chatham.” I take her hand and give it a squeeze. I show her the squares I’ve rearranged on the table. “She made this clay relief in sixteen different sections. Each square could potentially belong in any of the sixteen slots,” I explain. “Each square has four potential edges that could be its top. So if I move the squares around, that’s over a thousand possibilities as to what she really wanted us to see in this relief, right? And that’s only if we’re assuming its final shape is a square.”
“What’s all this about, Josh?” My mother is looking at me, not the rearranged squares. She reaches out to feel my forehead, like she did when I was a little kid running a fever.
“I’m fine. Look. I figured out if I took each square, shifted it once to the right, and flipped it to the left . . . we get a totally different picture.”
After a few seconds, she looks at what I’ve done.
“This looks like the house Rachel Bachton used to live in,” I say.
She nods.
“And this—” I show her a picture of the sand castle Chatham built for the twins. “She sculpted this house in September. And it looks like Rachel’s old house, too.”
“It does.”
“I couldn’t find a record of Chatham Claiborne online. And it’s because it isn’t actually her name. She’s Alana Goudy.”
“Who’s Chatham Claiborne, then?”
I pull out a map I’ve yet to pin to the wall. “This is the grid of a city map. And this part here? See that?”
My mother is still nodding, her brows slanting downward in concern. Maybe she thinks I’ve lost it.
“Look at this.” I point to a picture I taped to the wall; it’s the bird’s-eye view of a borough in New Jersey. “This is one of the train stations Rachel Bachton was seen at just after she was taken. Chatham Station, New Jersey. And the little girl’s bones were discovered in Chatham County, Georgia. And this . . .” I point to the next picture. “This is the town closest to where Chatham grew up. The street closest to the station there is Claiborne Street.”
My mother is staring at me like I’m crazy.
“This train station is a few miles from where the dogs alerted on the Goudy tract of land.”
“The Goudy tract? Isn’t that where they’re looking for Rachel Bachton?”
“Don’t you get it? Mom, Chatham doesn’t remember her childhood. But she has this scar.” I fill her in on the cattle brand “accident” and show her the picture of Rachel just before her abduction and point out the birthmark. I tell her about Savannah, the little girl under the floorboards in the stables, the shamrock pin that was red and gold . . . and could have been strung on a gold necklace Rachel was reportedly wearing, or even made to incorporate the heart-shaped charm on Rachel’s necklace. “Chatham drew this swing, too, and she was terrified the moment we pulled up to Damien’s place. It’s possible she’d been there before. She drew these things on the wall at the Churchill . . . Look.” I show her pictures of Chatham’s mural. “There’s shades of Damien in there. Am I right? And that photograph Caroline found . . .”
“What are you saying? That Chatham has something to do with Rachel Bachton’s kidnapping?”
“No. Mom, I think Chatham is Rachel Bachton.”
At last, my mother sighs. “You might be onto something.”
My shoulders, which I didn’t even realize were tense, fall in relief.
“I think we should call the police, Josh.” My mother believes me. She’s going to stand behind me.
C h e s h i r e G r i n
The department sends two plain-clothes detectives to our house in an unmarked car, which relieves Rosie, given we’re probably getting a reputation with the neighbors with all the recent police visits.
I’ve never seen either of these guys before. They tell me they’re from the county force, that they’ve worked missing persons before. The older one—Guidry’s his name—has been on the Bachton case since she disappeared. His sidekick, Hinkley, is new to the game, relatively speaking, and just made detective last year, but he’s had some success in the field.
It’s interesting, their giving me their résumés, as if they want to boost my confidence in their ability to find my girlfriend—and solve the mystery of Rachel Bachton’s disappearance at the same time.
Rosie is upstairs with the girls, who are busy with breakfast and Sunday kid shows. It’s also interesting that she trusts me to convey what I think I know to the police. She’s not hovering over me, implying I should leave Damien out of my story, or attempting to persuade me to put a spin on the facts or my opinions to save him. I feel a shift in the universe this morning because of it.
Hinkley’s the one studying my work, my maps, my pictures, while Guidry asks specific questions and takes notes about my theory, about hints Chatham left in the clay relief, in the sketch, in the mural, and in the sand castle.
“We gave the police a picture of a little girl. We found it at my stepfather’s place, and Chatham had a picture of the same girl. What did Damien say about it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Guidry says. “He’s not talking. Denies any knowledge.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “Why else would my sister find the photo in his closet?”
“You may be right.”
I do a double take. “Really?”
“Gotta hand it to you, kid.” Hinkley turns from the wall to look at me. “You’ve drawn a lot of parallels.”
“But none of this matters if we can’t find her,” I say. “This . . . it’s all fine and good in theory, but what matters is finding out if I’m right. We have to know if the gi
rl I know as Chatham Claiborne—who’s really Alana Goudy—is also Rachel Bachton.” I think about how finding Chatham would be the best thing I can imagine, but that if finding Chatham meant finding Rachel . . . God, could anything compare? “Damien’s been following her,” I continue. “Since before he possibly could have known she was special to me. And he tossed her room at the Churchill the other night.”
“Yeah, I have that report here,” Hinkley interjects.
“I think he knows who she is. I think that’s why he’s been following her . . . maybe why he tore through her room . . . to see if she is who he thinks she is. Why would he do these things if he didn’t have something to do with why she’s gone?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Guidry says. “Also, we have a link to your phone number. You called in a tip about a red and gold charm?”
“It wasn’t a charm. It’s a pin. But Chatham and I guessed you could put it on a chain . . . or maybe the stone in it was from the charm Rachel’s mother references.”
“Can you describe it?”
“It’s a gold shamrock. About the size of a nickel. With a red heart in the center of it.”
He’s writing down everything I say.
“Was the stone in the middle—the heart—was it one piece? Or made up of two?”
“One,” I say.
“One solid piece?”
“Yeah. Is it the charm on Rachel’s necklace?” I ask. “The one her mom keeps talking about on television?”
“We’ll let you know if what you describe bears resemblance.”
Hinkley steps in again. “Did Chatham use your phone to call in a tip, too?”
“I know she called the tip line in Georgia.”
“This would have been recently.”
“She called the police in Moon River, but not the . . .” I shut up. Maybe she did call the tip line from my phone instead of calling the police in Moon River. I’d insisted she call to report she was safe—but that was when I thought she was the foster child of the Goudys. When she’d called, she’d said My name is Chatham Claiborne. I’m calling to tell you I’m okay. “She could have called anyone, I suppose. Now that I know the name Chatham Claiborne wouldn’t mean anything to anyone, I understand why no one came looking for her.”
What if, instead, she’d called the Rachel Bachton hotline to connect the dots between Rachel and Chatham? With that call, she could have both appeased me, and led the Rachel Bachton investigation full circle to where it began—here, in Sugar Creek.
“Wait,” I continue. “There’s something else.” I go to the wall and pull down the article that references Chatham and her brother in the hot car. “This woman was on television, talking about how the state of Georgia trusted the Goudys to raise her daughter. As fosters, you know. And that she hadn’t seen her kid in years. She said it like the Goudys kept her from her daughter or something. Only, if you ask Chatham, she says this woman basically decided to stop seeing her a couple years ago.”
Hinkley raises a brow. “But if the girl you know as Chatham is actually Alana Goudy—which is apparent with what you’ve found on social media . . . the woman’s not credible.”
“Right. But there was another girl. Under the floorboards of the stables.”
The cops share a look, like what I’m saying is crazy. “Under the floor?”
“Savannah used to talk about her,” I explain. “Chatham thought it was to scare her into being good. So I’m thinking, if I’m right, and Chatham is Rachel—”
“This woman’s daughter could have been Alana Goudy, and she could have been the girl in the stables,” Guidry says. “If the Goudys got their hands on Rachel and tried to pass her off as Alana . . .”
“A mother would know her own kid,” Hinkley says. “She’d know what kid wasn’t hers.”
“Right. And Wayne could have moved Alana’s body to the rivers. Is there a way to match the DNA of Baby A . . .” I trail off, when I realize the cops might have already matched the DNA to Alana Goudy. Baby A could have been a reference to Baby Alana. She would have been little when she died. When Wayne killed her.
Guidry’s nodding.
“Or could they match the photograph Damien had in his closet to pictures of Alana Goudy when she first arrived at the Goudy farm?”
Guidry: “Devil’s advocate: if what you’re saying about Alana Goudy is true, it happened in Georgia. What role would Damien play?”
“I don’t know. But I think he knows something,” I say.
“And he’s clammed up.” Guidry perches on the edge of the sofa arm and looks to his partner. “Let’s see if we can find a connection between Goudy and Wick.”
“Why else would he have a picture of the girl?” I ask.
“And you’re certain the picture wasn’t Chatham as a little girl?” Hinkley asks. “Or Savannah?”
“Chatham said it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t Savannah.”
“And you’re thinking it might be Alana.”
“Yeah.” My head is spinning with the web these sisters have woven. Savannah posing as Alana. Alana posing as Chatham. I wonder . . . “Did Savannah know Chatham might be Rachel all along? Is that why she wanted to bring her here? Did Chatham know? Or did she start to suspect it when we started learning more? Like maybe when she came face-to-face with Damien’s house . . . and she realized she might have been there before.”
“We still don’t know, beyond a doubt, if Chatham is Rachel,” Hinkley reminds me.
“And you said Chatham took everything with her when she left,” Guidry says. “Nothing lying around we could send to the lab for testing.”
“We could dust the whole place.” Hinkley shrugs a shoulder. “Things she likely touched. Get the kid’s prints”—he nods in my direction—“compare to the prints at the Churchill to determine which are hers.”
“Not a bad idea,” Guidry says. “We have the Bachton girl’s prints on file.”
“Fingerprints?” I start gathering all the papers I’ve strewn over the coffee table, and finally reveal the Scrabble tiles she put in place to spell her alias. “You can start with these. Chatham’s prints are all over them.”
Hinkley and Guidry look at each other. They grin.
“What do you say?” Hinkley says. “Offer this kid a job.”
They phone in for an evidence tech.
“That’ll take care of whether or not this girl is who you think she is, as long as we can get some clear, definitive prints.” Guidry turns to Hinkley. “But at the end of the day, no matter who she is, she’s still gone. And it doesn’t solve the issue of getting Damien to tell what he knows. Obviously, he didn’t keep the girl. So what was his role? What can we use?”
“We have the domestic battery,” Hinkley says. “He had a productive Saturday in that department.”
“Yeah,” Guidry says, “but he’ll be out on that charge in a day’s time with bail and fines paid. We need something more. Something with more meat on the bone.”
“Possession of child porn? Think we could hedge it?”
“Won’t stick. What we have hardly constitutes porn.”
Guidry turns to me. “That photograph your sister found . . . it’s enough just cause for a search warrant. Maybe something will turn up at his place.”
“Look.” I meet his stare. “If Rachel was there, it was so long ago. There’s nothing left in that shack that’ll prove it.”
“Then why’d he keep the photograph?”
“I don’t know. But if you killed a dog—if you hanged a dog by the ropes of your stepson’s swing because he barked when you were hung over—would you keep the collar? Would you hang the collar on the living room wall to remind your stepson of what you’d done? Of what you could do? If he dared to step out of line?”
“Huh.”
My eyes start to tear up. I can’t help it. It’s not just about the dog, but about everything I’ve been through, about the thought of a little girl falling prey to all of this. I cough and try to hold
back.
“I’ll bet he kept that photograph just so he could remind himself he got away with it.” I swipe at my eyes, hopefully before the cops notice. “He’s capable. You both know he is.”
“He’s a big guy,” Guidry says. “Taller than the description.”
“Yeah, but who gave the description?” Hinkley says. “A little kid.”
O n t h e B r i n k
I’ve Snapchatted Chatham a dozen times.
But I know I won’t hear from her. I can only hope it’s because she doesn’t want to be found, as opposed to can’t be found.
Laundry.
Homework.
Dishes.
Rosie’s phone starts to buzz, just when I hear a car door slam outside.
Rosie darts to the living room window.
I answer the phone. It’s Guidry.
“Girls, go to Joshy’s room,” my mother says.
The fear in her voice is all too familiar. I know Damien’s here.
“Some rookie prick let him out on bail,” Guidry’s saying. “Listen to me!”
The doors are locked, but I’ve recently seen what Damien can do with a locked door in his path.
“Hurry, girls.” Rosie’s rushing my sisters down the stairs. “Hide in the closet, okay? Don’t come out.”
Guidry’s telling me there are units on the way.
To sit tight.
I can’t focus.
Too much is happening.
The whole house shakes when Damien’s fist meets the front door.
He pounds a solid three times.
“Don’t answer that door,” Guidry says. “We’re en route.”
But we still need to know what he knows. I grab my phone from the counter and start an audio recording, just in case we need it later as evidence.
“Fucking let me in!” Damien yells from the other side of the door.
“He’s going to break down the door.” Rosie’s trembling, and I see it come over her: the paralyzing fear that lets him win every time. “I have to let him in. He’s coming in anyway. It’ll be better for all of us if I just—”
Guidry: “Don’t let her open that door!”