“Well, all this time, I guess Jester’s felt pretty confident he was safe, until he heard on the news you were hired to find Jake’s daughter—find Zoe’s kidnapper. That’s when he freaked, according to his sister. He told her everything, then took off yesterday.”
“He’s scared I’ll remember, identify him.” Gilly wasn’t asking.
“But you didn’t.”
“No, it’s been more than three years. He knows me, though. He knows where I am.”
“Yeah, according to his sister, the sight of your photo on TV really spooked him. She’s pretty much in shock. She told Detective Bowen she had no idea what her brother was up to. Evidently that store was one in a series he robbed.”
“I don’t believe this. He’s a fireman—or he was. That’s how he got into search and rescue.” She paused again. “He seemed so kind.”
“Yeah, well, Ms.—Gilly, he could be armed and dangerous, certainly to you. We’re looking for him, and we’ll get him, but you should go home now and stay put. We’ll get someone to drive by your house as often as possible until we’ve got Jester in custody. If I had a man to spare, I’d park him out front, but Detective Bowen is on his way up. He’s going to cover—”
“No, that’s not—Can you tell him, please, that isn’t necessary?”
“Uh, no. I’m glad for the assist. We’re spread pretty thin right now with every officer on the force out looking for the little Halstead girl.”
“Maybe I can help.” Gilly seized on the possibility. “That’s why I called. I think I know where Zoe is. I fell asleep earlier, and I—I dreamed about a house. I think she’s being held there—”
“Do you know where it is? Can you describe it?”
“It’s outside town, somewhere isolated.” Gilly went into detail, describing the house, the truck parked behind it. She mentioned the faded blue ribbon hanging from the rearview.
“Zoe’s never without that ribbon,” the captain said. “But you know that. You’ve seen it before, right?”
Gilly took his point, the fact that the ribbon was familiar to her made the detail in the dream less impressive. “Zoe doesn’t have it in my dream, though. It’s hanging from the mirror.”
The captain’s silence was considering, and Gilly used the moment to scan the area around the gas station. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted off the pavement, but otherwise the parking lot was empty. There wasn’t another vehicle in sight. No sign of the white van she had seen Warren Jester driving. But now that she thought about it, had it been a pickup truck instead, with a camper top? She’d only glanced at it. It was hard to believe—how could a man go from saving lives to taking them? She saw Warren’s eyes, the weathered kindness in them. She saw his hands, worn and calloused from work, from tending those in life-threatening circumstances.
Those hands had loaded the weapon that had killed Brian; they had pulled the trigger.
Now the man—her beloved husband’s killer—was here. He’d had the nerve to approach her, speak to her. What a stroke of luck for him, coming upon her with her flat tire. How he must have relished her offer of coffee in thanks. The idea that she’d served—
But no. No.
She could feel it, the reddened tide of her emotions—anger, panic, some colder wish to do Warren Jester bodily harm—pulsing against the walls of her brain. She would lose it right here if she allowed herself to think about him.
I could kill them myself. Jake had said that about Zoe’s kidnapper, and Gilly hadn’t understood it, really. But she did now, and like Jake, she found the sudden onset of her rage frightening. Were they all murderers, then? Given the right situation, the perfect storm of circumstances, was everyone capable of taking another’s life?
“Would you be willing to come here and describe the house for a sketch artist? It would be really helpful, I think.”
Captain Mackie’s query drew Gilly back, calming her.
“It would make me feel better, having you here anyway.”
“Yes, I guess I could do that—”
“Where are you now?”
“Getting gas at the Quick-Serv on 1620. I was going out to the Little Acorn—”
“Gilly?”
She looked around. “Liz?” Her name was a question. The woman had Liz’s coloring and her features, but her demeanor—her expression that was somehow sneering and yet triumphant—was all wrong. But it was the way she was dressed, in a dark hoodie and huge sunglasses—the very clothing as that worn by the woman in her dream—that raised the fine hair on Gilly’s neck. “I thought you were in Dallas,” she said, and her voice was faint with her bewilderment, a deepening sense of apprehension.
“Well, I’m back.”
The gas pump clicked off. Gilly kept Liz’s gaze, trying to reconcile it; Liz here in the flesh, clothed in the same garb as the woman in her dream who had taken Zoe.
The captain asked if everything was all right.
“A friend of mine, Liz Ames, is here,” Gilly said.
“A friend, you say?” The police captain seemed to have picked up on Gilly’s uncertainty.
“Yes.” Of course Liz was her friend, wasn’t she? Gilly allowed a small laugh. “It’s Warren I need to look out for, right?”
“Yeah. Do you have my cell number?”
Gilly said she didn’t and recorded it in her phone when he gave it to her.
“Keep your eyes peeled and call me if you see Jester—or even if something doesn’t feel right. Okay?”
Gilly said she would, and it was silly, but her throat closed. It was Captain Mackie’s concern—so unexpected, so fatherly—that was her undoing. “I shouldn’t be long,” she said and ended the call. “Are you okay?” she asked Liz. “Did you and your dad get the restraining order?”
Liz didn’t answer. She took a step toward Gilly, crowding her. A jolt of alarm loosened from the floor of her brain. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” It was the only thing Gilly could think of—that Liz had suffered some kind of injury, and it was causing her to act strangely.
“Let’s you and me go somewhere where we can talk.”
“No. What is wrong with you?” Even as she asked, Gilly made a move to open the RAV’s driver-side door, thinking to make it a barricade. But Liz, moving quickly, positioned herself in a way that made it impossible. Gilly spotted the reflection of another car in the lenses of Liz’s sunglasses, a black Lincoln Navigator entered the Quick-Serv parking lot. Bypassing the pumps, it pulled into her actual view beyond Liz’s shoulder, parking in a slot in front of the store. The driver, a man, got out. Gilly didn’t expect he would look her way. She thought he would go into the store.
But he didn’t.
He locked her gaze, staring at her as if she were all there was to see, as if he had come here for the sole purpose of observing her. His image shimmered in the light that glared from the roof of his car. It was a moment before Gilly recognized him. She was staring down Mark Riley. Her breath shallowed. Was this some scheme to frighten her? Was Liz part of it? What was happening?
“I have to go.” Even as she spoke, Gilly grabbed for the RAV’s door handle.
Mark skirted the SUV’s tailgate.
Liz’s fingers closed, viselike, around Gilly’s wrist. “No,” she said.
23
Clint had gone inside the school building to question Marley and Kenna again, but Jake had no plan or direction, nothing concrete that might help find his daughter. He got into his truck. Gripping the steering wheel, he caught sight of his fingernails. The glittery blue polish Zoe had painted on them was damaged, only flecks of it remained. He closed his hands into fists. It was too hard to think about it, that it would be gone soon, every trace of it worn away. He reached for his phone. Anything to distract himself. Two messages. The first one was from Mary Alice.
“I’m worried about you. I talked to your mom. I think I woke her. Call me when you get this. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the vigil.” Pause. “Well, okay, then.” Pause. “The job—Ferguson Hills—we fi
nished it Friday on schedule. Maybe that’s a good—no, never mind. I’m just—I’m holding down the fort, though, businesswise.” Pause. “God, I don’t know what to say.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “Okay, I’m hanging up now. Thinking of you.”
Jake hit “Delete.” He couldn’t bring himself to return her call. If he talked to her for real, he wouldn’t be able to keep it together.
The second message was from his ex-wife. Not Stephanie. Courtney. She lived in Virginia with her new husband, Phillip, an attorney, highly successful, descended from one of the wealthy plantation families. One of the bluebloods, he’d heard. They had probably owned slaves back in the day. The mostly unflattering image he had of the guy was put together from stuff Courtney had told him the handful of times they’d spoken over the years since their divorce. She was pleased with herself, landing such a fat fish, leading her cushy life. The last time she’d called, it had been to tell Jake how sorry she was that his marriage to Stephanie hadn’t worked out. The fact that Courtney’s second marriage was a spectacular, eye-popping success by contrast wasn’t deeper than the surface of her voice. She might as well have said it—how she pitied him, raising a kid alone, an over-forty, two-time loser.
“Hey, I heard about Zoe. God, Jake, I’m so sorry.” Courtney’s voice needled his ear. “I—I want you to know Phillip and I are praying for you. Call me if there is anything we can do.” Jake hit “Delete” again, cutting her off. He wondered what she meant by “anything.”
He didn’t plan to go back to the gas station in Nickel Bend, but that’s where he found himself some thirty minutes after he left the school. He parked behind the station, next to the dumpster where Zoe’s clothing had been found. There were a couple of Madrone County sheriff’s cars in the parking lot, along with a handful of other civilian cars and trucks, belonging to the group of searchers Jake knew were in the area. But they’d moved farther afield into the surrounding woods. He stayed close to the station, circling the building once, walking the broken edge of the asphalt parking lot slowly, swishing his booted foot through clumps of wind-toughened grass, searching for something, a clue, that might have been missed. He walked the route again and again, mindless yet frantic, and he found nothing. His fifth time around, or his tenth—he’d lost count—he stopped at the back of the building, in its shadow, and it was as if he’d hit a wall. The despair was consuming, world-darkening. It bent him over. He lost his breath and sat down in the dirt.
Please God . . .
He prayed as he had not before. He begged as if there were someone somewhere to hear, to help. Find her, he said. Findherfindherfindher . . .
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, uselessly begging, and he had no reason for it when he stood up and headed back to his truck. He didn’t see the paper, what turned out to be a folded sheet of notepaper, stuck under his windshield wiper—at least not immediately, not until the wind lifted a corner. Thinking it was advertising, he pulled it out, intending to crumple it, but then he realized it was a message of some kind, written by hand in black ink. The angular letters were printed rather than cursive, and as he read the lines—there were three—his blood cooled.
HOW DOES IT FEEL, JAKE, LOSING YOUR DAUGHTER?
WE BOTH KNOW SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE.
LIKE I SAID BEFORE, YOU DIDN’T WANT HER, DIDN’T DESERVE HER ANYWAY.
We both know . . . we who? Jake turned the notepaper over like he might find the answer on the back, but it was blank.
Heart slamming his chest wall, he whipped his gaze in every direction. He would have heard if someone had come. Even as zoned out as he’d been, he would have registered the sound of an engine if someone had pulled off the highway.
His phone rang, making him flinch. Checking the ID, he saw Clint’s name. Answering, he launched into a panicked description of the note, how and where he’d found it. “It’s what the caller said, same wording.”
“You got any idea who would have a reason to think you aren’t doing your job as Zoe’s dad?”
“Other than Stephanie? No.”
“Well, we know she didn’t leave the note.”
“Maybe she had somebody else do it—like Duchene.”
“You recognize the writing?”
Jake looked at the note. “No.”
“You didn’t see anyone around your truck?”
“No, but I wasn’t in sight of it all the time I’ve been here—forty, forty-five minutes, maybe. An hour max. Maybe whoever it was stuck it under the windshield wiper earlier, and I didn’t see it. My mind’s gone, you know?”
“Yeah. That’s a pretty good possibility.”
Jake registered the rough note of Clint’s sympathy, and it bugged him, that he was an object of pity now, the cause of so much distress. He said, “Maybe it’s just some wacko.”
“Try not to handle it more than you have to, okay? We’ll get it dusted for prints, maybe we’ll get lucky. Listen, the reason I called—I just heard from Gilly O’Connell. She called me here at the station.”
“Yeah?”
“It was weird, because I was trying to call her. The detective who’s working her husband’s murder case? They got an ID on the killer. The guy confessed.”
“Well, that’s good news. They arrest him?”
“Not yet. Turns out he’s here in Wyatt, hunting for Gilly. Bowen, the detective, thinks the guy heard about her being psychic, and he’s scared she’s going to remember and ID him.”
“Wow. You got any idea where he is?”
“No, but we’re on it. It’s just—we’re spread so damn thin. Now we’ve got this Jester guy—But listen, here’s the thing. Gilly thinks she knows where Zoe is.”
Jake’s heartbeat lagged. “She had a dream.” He wasn’t asking.
“Said she took a nap and saw a house, a two-story native limestone with faded green shutters. Abandoned, she thought. But it’s around here. Somewhere near Wyatt. I’m having her come into the station. I’ve got the art teacher from the high school coming in, too. See if we can get a sketch. Why don’t you bring the note in? We can get it to the lab.”
“Yeah, okay.” But it wasn’t okay. It was taking too much time. He looked at the note in his hand, the words: you didn’t want her, didn’t deserve her anyway. And above it: she should have been mine. But it wasn’t only what it said. There was something about the printing, too, every e was written in small uppercase, the f’s were facing backward—something about the style pulled at him. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. “Did Gilly give you any idea of where the house is in relation to Wyatt? East of town, west?”
“She didn’t get a chance. Some friend of hers came along—Liz Ames?”
Jake’s head came up. “Liz Ames is a friend of Gilly’s? Are you sure?”
“I think so. Yeah. Why?”
It’s Karen Ames now, though. I’m married. Her voice . . . the handwriting . . . He looked at the note. He hadn’t heard her voice or seen her handwriting in years, not since high school—
“Jake? Are you with me?”
“The house Gilly dreamed about—she said the shutters were green? You’re sure of that?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why?”
The image rose in Jake’s mind of himself on a ladder, taking the shutters down from the house to be painted. A radio on the table under the live oaks was playing a Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” She was standing below him, taking the shutters from him, laughing up at him, at something he said. It was a memory from before they graduated, before prom. Before it all fell apart.
“Jake? What’s going on, man?” Clint prompted him again.
“Liz Clayton is Elizabeth Clayton is Karen—Karen Clayton. Do you remember her? She was local. We went through school together, graduated in 1995.”
“I know the name, but I was in Kuwait then, my last deployment. Wait a minute—is she the one who got so crazy when y’all broke up?”
“That’s the one. Gilly’s friend.” The
word was bitter in Jake’s mouth. “Karen Elizabeth Clayton—Ames.” He added her married name. “Those shutters? I helped her and her dad paint them green. Christmas break, our senior year. There was a warm spell. Her dad wanted to get it done before spring. The house Gilly dreamed about—it’s the Claytonses’ old house. Karen wrote this note.” Jake brandished it as if Clint could see. “She’s not here to find Zoe; she’s here to take her away from me.” We both know she should have been mine. . . . That line—he should have known. It scared the shit out of him now, putting it together.
“That’s pretty bizarre, Jake. Why would she do it? What’s her motive?”
“Revenge,” he said. “I was going out with Courtney even before prom—I told Karen it was over, but I felt bad ditching her. I knew it would be too late for her to get another date.” Jake was remembering out loud. “She was pissed; she started following me. Even her folks were pissed at me. They met a few times with my parents, trying to convince me to go back with Karen. When it didn’t work, she started breaking into our house. Once, she slit her wrists in the tub in my bathroom with the blade from my razor.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.” Jake pushed a shaky hand through his hair. “Jesus, I haven’t thought about any of this in years. We were out when she did it, but it was like she knew we’d get back in time. The cuts weren’t deep.” It had been a call for attention. That was how his mom had characterized it.
“I didn’t know about the suicide attempt,” Clint said. “I did hear she tried to set your bed on fire.”
“Yeah. That was another time.”
“It’s hard to believe she went that far off the deep end over a breakup.”
“It wasn’t only that. She was pregnant. She was going to have our kid. Karen’s got Zoe. I’m going over there and get her back.”
“That’s not a good idea—”
“Karen came up to me at the school, Clint. She told me about the vigil that’s planned. She talked about how awful it was—Zoe missing—and all the time—all the time—God, I don’t believe this.” Jake was remembering her touch, his jolt of desire, some distant echo from his past. Still, it sickened him. “She’s insane. She must be. Who knows what she’s capable of? I’ve got to stop her.”
What Lies Below: A Novel Page 23