Jill tried to turn the Impala’s windshield wipers up a notch so she could see the sign more clearly. Was this really it? But there was the name in large, fading gilt letters: ESTATES. What a joke. Listing in the snow next to the large sign was a smaller metal realty sign with APARTMENTS FOR RENT. It was faded, too. Jill pulled slowly through the front gates. A small guardhouse sat like an afterthought in the median dividing entrance and exit. Jill caught a glimpse of a portly, balding man in a security uniform leaning back in a chair, playing something on a tablet. He glanced over at the sound of the Impala lurching past, but made no move to stop her.
She had to circle twice before finding the townhouse marked with a flaking brass 7B. Jill got out and knocked on the door, moving from one foot to another, trying to stave off the cold.
Nobody answered. She knocked again, more loudly, and jammed both hands in the pockets of her sheepskin coat. Snow settled on her hair, her shoulders. She knocked a third time before trying to peer in the windows, but there was only a slit visible through drawn plastic blinds and she couldn’t see anything. “Sophia?” she called at the glass, but her words were swallowed up by the wind.
She drove back to the guard booth and kept the motor running as she hopped out and rapped on the dirty glass window. The man looked up from his tablet as if it cost him a great effort and reached up to slide the window open just enough so that she could hear him. “Yeah?”
“I’m trying to find Bea Walsh.”
“Yeah? Get in line.” He laughed at his own joke, revealing crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. “Like I’ve been telling every other collection agent—she ain’t here no more.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“If I did d’ya think they’d still be bothering me?” He slid the window shut and looked back down at his screen. Jill tapped on the glass again. He gave her an incredulous look before getting up and sliding the window fully open.
“Look, I really need to get in that apartment.”
“I told you already—she’s gone and she ain’t coming back.” He tried to slide the window closed again, but Jill stopped it with her hand.
“This is urgent—she has my daughter.”
He didn’t seem impressed. “The only daughter she had was a no-good drunk. Do you know how many vacancies we got ’cause of her? People don’t want to live next door to no murderer, not to mention them reporters snooping around day and night. Months they was here! All them news vans blocking the drive—who wants to put up with that? And when that drunk bitch finally dies her parents up and leaves in the middle of the night. No forwarding address, nothing. Place stinks, too—management can’t get anyone to rent it.”
Jill latched on to that. “I’m interested in an apartment—show me that one.”
That stopped his rant, but the man looked scornful. “If you really wanted to see an apartment you’d ask to see one of them bigger end units.”
“I want to see apartment 7B.”
* * *
The townhouse was empty, just as the security guard had said. He stood in the doorway, keys dangling from one hand, tablet from the other. “You can’t trust no one these days,” he said when she glanced at it.
His voice echoed in the empty space. Jill stood in the living room, feeling disappointment dragging her down like a weight. There was nothing here. She’d been sure she’d find Bea Walsh with Sophia, but it was clear from the funky, musty smell: no one had been in the place for months. Thick dust coated the ceiling-fan blades and window blinds. Cobwebs crisscrossed doorways and even the kitchen faucet. If she’d brought Sophia here, it wasn’t recently. The guard closed the front door behind them, shutting out the cold, as Jill tried to think. “When did she leave?”
The security guard kept looking from her to his tablet as if he were anxious to get back to his game. “I don’t know—May, June? I think it was June.”
Jill scrubbed a hand over her face, trying not to despair, but to think of something, anything, that could be useful. “Did she say where she was going?”
The guard shook his head, sniffing the air. There was a peculiar smell in the place, an odd sickly odor that had grown worse since he’d shut the door. There had to be something here, something that would tell Jill where this woman had gone. She started opening cupboards in the kitchen and sliding back drawers, hoping that she’d find an answer. They were empty, except for discarded scraps—twist ties, a paper clip, greasy takeout menus, a scribbled-on flyer for a local realty company. Jill left them piled on the counter, starting to feel pity for the woman who’d lived in this depressing space.
“She probably let her dog crap all over the carpet,” the guard muttered, sniffing the air. The smell was really bad. He set up his tablet on the kitchen counter and started his game again, turning up the volume as if that would somehow cover the odor.
“She had a dog?” Jill had to repeat the question to get his attention.
“Little furry mutt—it was against the rules, but she didn’t care.” Something about the dog—it pinged Jill’s memory, but it was just an odd sensation, nothing tangible. She opened the refrigerator, but it was as empty as the rest of the place. A lone box of Arm & Hammer sitting on the shelf. Clearly the smell wasn’t from here. She headed down the hall, feeling increasingly desperate. The smell was stronger; she held her hand against her nose.
There had to be something, some clue. The first bedroom had a metal bed frame with a stained mattress on it. Jill went through every drawer in the cheap dresser standing against the wall. She got down on her hands and knees and searched under the bed. Nothing but an old sock and several dust balls.
“Management needs to fumigate again,” the guard said, blocking the bedroom door. He had one arm covering his nose. Jill pushed past him and into the bathroom, hitting the light switch, but of course the electricity was off. Dim light shone through a tiny window set high on the wall above a cramped shower and tub combination. She pulled back the shower curtain, which had mildew creeping along the edge, and felt the shower head. Dry. The drain was dry, too. The vanity was dingy white, foil-pressed covers peeling back from particleboard drawers. She pulled open the drawers one by one. A ponytail holder with a strand of hair twisted in it. A cheap emery board. A plastic ring.
Jill shut the drawer, then immediately jerked it back open. She stared at the ring for a second before reaching in with trembling fingers to pick it up. “What’s that you got there?” the guard said, straining to see what she was holding. “If you find anything of value it belongs to management.”
This was Sophia’s ring, the pink plastic ring with the pink glass gem that she’d lost that day at the park. Jill was sure of it. Sophia hadn’t wandered off that day at the park; she’d been taken by Bea Walsh. “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” The guard deflated when he saw what she was holding. “Oh, it’s just a piece of junk.”
She ignored him, clasping the ring and pushing past him. The second bedroom was exactly like the first, except for a bigger closet. Jill opened the folding doors, and metal hangers pinged against one another. A man’s large blue windbreaker hung in a far corner. She searched the pockets, but there was nothing in it.
There was only one door left. “That’s just a utility closet,” the guard said, retreating back down the hall with his tablet. She opened the door anyway. The smell poured out at them, an overwhelming scent, sickeningly sweet and rancid, reminding her of a childhood trip to a farm, where the odor of cow manure had mixed unappetizingly with that of apples rotting in the orchard next door. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” The guard’s voice came out muffled through the hand he’d flung over his nose. “What the hell is that?”
Jill flung the door closed, breathing hard, then clamped a hand over her nose and opened it again. Water heater, furnace, and a stackable washer and dryer unit all crammed together in a tight space. Brownish liquid puddled on the floor near the front of the washer/dryer. She caught a glimpse of something white behind it.
; Please no, please no, please no. Please let it not be what she thought it was. A prayer repeating inside her as she pulled and pushed against the unit in a frenzy, finally shifting it far enough that she could see a cylindrical looking package wrapped in white sheeting and lots of duct tape. It was too tall, too big. She sagged with relief, just before it fell toward her. Jill jumped to the side, crying out as the package brushed against her before landing with a thud.
“What the hell?” the guard repeated, coming closer.
Holding her sleeve against her nose, Jill crouched down next to the bundle. The liquid had come from here; it stained the sheeting, puddling near the bottom in a sickening way. She could hear the guard breathing through his mouth, loud and labored, and she had to swallow down the bile that rose in her own throat as she struggled to pull back the sheeting at the top of the package. She knew what it was before she saw the thatch of iron gray, knew what it was even as she kept pulling the sheet, stopping only when the whole head appeared.
Gagging, she dropped the sheet and reared up, bumping into the guard who’d come forward to look.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “That’s Frank, the husband.”
chapter forty-three
DAY TWENTY-THREE
Even expecting it, Jill couldn’t help crying out and stumbling back, her hands pressed against her mouth, but the vomit came anyway, spilling from her onto the cheap carpeting.
“Now that’s something more to clean,” the guard complained.
“She killed him.” Jill’s legs folded, and she dropped to the floor. “She killed her own husband.” If she could kill her husband, this woman was capable of anything. Jill thought of Sophia’s bloody nightgown and retched again, head down and eyes watering, her stomach feeling as if it were being pulled inside out.
The security guard muttered an oath and retreated back down the hall, complaining about the mess. Jill staggered after him, away from the body. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. The guard was in the kitchen talking on a cell phone.
“Riverview Estates, off Allegheny River Boulevard in Verona.” He paused, listening. “No, I didn’t do CPR.” Another pause. “’Cause he’s dead.”
Jill had to go before the police got there; she had to leave. She reached in her pocket for the keys and found the ring. She could show the police the ring! The ring tied this woman to Sophia. But why would the police believe her? Ottilo would listen to her story with his usual impassive expression, and then he’d arrest her.
She shoved the ring back in her pocket and ran to the front door but not before the guard stepped in front of it, blocking her path. “You’re not going anywhere!” he snapped. Over his shoulder Jill could see fresh snow covering the windshield and hood of Leo’s car. The guard narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t know how you knew about that body, but you can explain it to the police. They’re on the way.”
And they were. The promise of a dead body had gotten the police moving; already she could hear sirens. The guard turned to look out the front door, eager to flag them down.
Jill scanned the apartment wildly, searching for another way out. She had to leave. She saw a sliding door hidden by cheap sheers and ran to it, fiddling with the lock before it finally gave and the door slid back with a squeal. “Hey! Stop right there!” The guard lumbered after her.
She dashed out only to stop short on a small square of concrete patio completely encased by a wooden privacy fence. Jill hesitated for a split second before shoving a rickety metal table—the only thing on the patio—against the fence and scrambling on top. The guard made a grab for her, hand on ankle, but she shook him loose, getting over the fence and dropping onto the snow-covered ground on the other side. It looked soft, but wasn’t.
Sharp pain flashed in both her knees, but she had no time to linger. Jill struggled to her feet and did a wide loop around the building, searching for her keys in the pocket of the jacket as she ran. The Impala’s door locks were snow-covered. She swiped it off, shoved the key in, and yanked open the long, wide driver’s door just as the security guard came huffing out the front door of 7B.
“You can’t leave!” he shouted as she threw herself into the car. She slammed the door, pushed down the lock button, and thrust the key in the ignition. The Impala stalled as the security guard ran toward her, arms waving. “C’mon, c’mon,” Jill muttered, trying again. The guard reached for the car door, but slipped as he stepped off the curb. The Impala started, roaring to life. The guard scrambled backward on his hands and feet, like a large crab. He was still shouting, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise of the motor.
She pulled out with tires slipping and squealing in the snow. A trio of police cars, lights flashing, turned into the complex. Jill yanked up the collar of the jacket, hunching a little as she sped toward the exit. The Impala passed one side of the guardhouse as the first of the police cars passed the other. She caught a glimpse of a police officer’s face turned toward hers, mouth agape, and then she was gone, racing back up the side road that she’d taken down to the river, getting back on Allegheny River Boulevard.
She didn’t know what to do, where to go. This madwoman had Sophia, she had to have her, but where had she gone? Jill tried to slow her breathing, to calm down enough to think rationally. She didn’t know what to do, where to search next. All she had to prove a connection between this woman and Sophia was a cheap plastic ring. Her mouth tasted sour from throwing up, her stomach sore and roaring its emptiness. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She pulled into a Sheetz station and went inside. A pimply-faced teen manned the cash register, paying more attention to the wall-mounted TV than to his customers. Jill hunched her shoulders and ducked into one of the aisles, trying to focus on the row after row of chips and other crappy snacks, but her ears were tuned to the news broadcast. “Snow, snow, and more snow in the forecast,” a bubbly announcer chirped, “but first the roundup of today’s top stories.” Jill picked up a protein bar and stepped to the freezer case that ran the length of the back wall to find bottled water.
“Hey!”
Her head jerked up at the shout. She looked back, fully expecting to see the teen staring at her, but he was addressing an older woman carrying a small poodle. “You can’t bring that dog in here,” the teenager said, hand rising to pick worriedly at one of his boils.
“She’ll freeze if I leave her in the car in this weather,” the woman protested.
The dog yipped as if to confirm her story. Little furry mutt—it was against the rules, but she didn’t care. The security guard telling her about Bea Walsh’s dog. And all at once Jill realized—the woman with the dog at the park on the day Sophia disappeared—it had to have been Bea Walsh.
Jill brought her purchases to the counter, head down as she handed over the money. The teen rang her up, too focused on arguing with the old woman to do more than glance at her. Meanwhile the announcer was still talking. Jill looked up when she heard, “The search continues”—expecting to see a photo of Sophia, but it was a crash scene—“for the cause of the deadly bus accident in West Virginia.”
“Do you need a bag?” The teen handed over her change.
Jill shook her head, grabbing her bar and water and ducking out the door. Back in the Impala, she pulled out before tearing open the wrapper on the protein bar and wolfing it down. Her stomach pain eased a little. She gulped the water, trying to steer the boat of a car with one hand while she got the cap off. It was relief to wash away the sour taste.
Jill tried to think logically, order all the facts. She thought of David and the way he’d talk about facts and supposition, and the conclusions one could reasonably expect a jury to reach. Fact: David had an affair with Lyn Galpin. Fact: Lyn Galpin had given birth. Fact: their adoption attorney provided a death certificate for Sophia’s birth mother. Fact: Lyn Galpin was dead. Fact: Lyn Galpin was Sophia’s birth mother. Supposition: If Lyn Galpin was Sophia’s birth mother then David was the birth father.
Jill felt another wave of nausea; how could he have fathered a child with someone else while he was with her? It would explain his sudden about-face on adoption. He’d never been interested, not before what happened to Ethan, even when they’d spent all those agonizing months trying and failing to conceive. She’d always been open to it, had known she’d have no trouble loving any child, but David hadn’t wanted to discuss it, had gotten annoyed when she brought it up. Back then she’d concluded that the mere suggestion of adoption somehow called into question his masculinity.
And later, after Ethan? Jill’s eyes filled remembering those first awful weeks after his death. They hadn’t talked about another child then; it would have been obscene, as if they were trying to replace their son. The truth was that they’d barely talked at all, both of them moving as if in a trance, arranging the funeral, the burial, the return to an apartment both empty and tainted. They’d lived under the same roof and slept in the same bed, but Ethan’s death had separated them as effectively as if he’d been the glue holding them together.
Until that day seven months later, Jill remembered it vividly, when David came home from work one evening and asked if she would consider adoption. “We could get a newborn,” he’d said. “A new baby.” She’d shaken her head at first, an automatic no to the thought of anyone in Ethan’s place. They’d been sitting in their dining room, a place rarely used. They’d always eaten in the kitchen with Ethan pulled up next to them at the small, round table, first in a bouncy seat and then a high chair. She hadn’t been able to eat at that table after his death. Too many shared meals, too much laughter. It hurt to remember him, the pain coming at odd moments, stinging and sudden, like being grazed by a jellyfish. The surprise of how things so small, so seemingly harmless—a stuffed toy they’d missed when they packed everything away, a little hat lying on a closet shelf—could cause so much pain. She’d become avoidant because of it, staying away from anything that reminded her of Ethan.
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