by Mary Malcolm
I rolled back in front of my computer. “Ana, they think she killed those people. How horrible! No wonder that woman looked at me so oddly. They said she was in a long-running battle against the institute.” My words hurt as they came out. My memory jumped to something the two men who came to the farm said about two other girls, but my brain couldn’t make any sense of it.
“Look here.” Ana rotated my chair so I faced her. “They don’t know how the fire started, they said suspected. We don’t know what happened. There’s a chance no one else does, either.”
It was Ana’s way of saying stop freaking out, find out the facts, but it wasn’t her doppelganger being accused of murder.
I left the old files and went to a search engine, typing in Voeller Institute.
A picture of the building triggered a memory: lab coats, a room with very sterile walls and a surgical smell, blackness. My heart pounded, and I broke into a cold sweat. This was the place I dreamed of. A lot.
Ana tapped my leg. “I found an address for Voeller. Maybe someone there can tell you more about Julie?”
“No. No, I don’t I want to go there,” I said, my stomach turning. The same overwhelming foreboding I experienced at the farmhouse flooded through me. Like something bad happened, and I should get as far away as possible.
Ana squeezed my hand. “You wanted answers.”
“What do you think they’ll say if they see me, Ana? When I resemble Julie so much. It could be horrible. I don’t want to bring pain to anyone.” I’d never in my life known what a coward I was, and in that moment I knew when faced with a dangerous situation I would run away.
She nodded, but I could tell she knew it was a cop-out.
The librarian approached us, a look of consternation written on her face. “Miss, you’ll have to leave.”
No question which Miss she meant. She looked only at me. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“We haven’t done anything,” Ana said, defending me.
“You need to leave. You must.”
We stood and gathered our purses. “Can you tell us about Voeller?” Ana asked, showing a backbone I wished I possessed.
Again, looking only at me, she said, “There is nothing to be said. You have to go.”
I shook my head, and Ana stepped up next to me. “C’mon, Lucy. We know enough.”
My legs wouldn’t stop shaking. This had been a horrible day, a horrible idea. Outside of the library a handful of people milled around as if waiting for something. They whispered. Pointed. Stared. It took only moments to figure out I was the something they were waiting for. “What is it with you people?” I asked, feeling ready to snap. “I don’t even live here. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“You’ve done enough,” one man said.
“How dare you show your face here?” said a woman with a toddler on her hip. “You’re a baby killer. You should be shot for what you did.”
The small mob crowded closer, excited by her words.
A police car rolled up, and I grabbed Ana’s hand. “What is going on?”
The officer stepped out of the vehicle. “Move along, folks, get back to work, go on home. Ladies, I need to ask you to come with me.”
“She needs to be arrested!” the woman with the child shouted at the officer.
“Celeste, she is not who you think she is. You know full well Julie Ryan died in that fire. Now go along before I arrest you. Do you want Tommy spending the night with Victor’s parents? That’s where he’ll be if I have to take you in.”
The woman pursed her lips but didn’t say another word. She spun on her heel and followed several others into the café across the street.
The officer’s badge said Henderson, and he had to be mid-forties, fit with slightly graying hair. Tall but not a giant, Henderson certainly didn’t look overly threatening. Still, not someone I’d want to go up against to find out. I couldn’t blame Celeste for moving so quickly. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I would go with him if for no other reason than he truly did save our skins.
“Oh for shit’s sake, what the hell are we supposed to be guilty of?” Ana asked, practically spitting and stomping as she spoke. “We were already leaving.”
“If you will,” he said, opening the door to the back of his squad car.
“Ana, don’t fight,” I said quietly. “He’s trying to help.”
****
The police station had two jail cells, a computer, and a corded phone. The building, about the size of a double-wide mobile home, looked as if it hadn’t been updated in twenty years. No warm fuzzies came from the walls, nothing that said this was a good place to be.
Which, I assume, is probably the feeling you’re supposed to get in a police station, but this one gave it in spades.
We were directed to sit on metal folding chairs in front of the only desk while the officer took a call in a separate room before coming back to us.
“Sorry about that, ladies. We need to talk before you head out of town.” He unlocked a drawer and removed a file. Laying it on the desk, he flipped it open, and I saw a picture of myself as a toddler.
“What is this about?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. That creepy feeling that stayed with me all day ramped up as if on intravenous caffeine. I hated this place, and only wanted to leave. More than anything, I wanted Aunt Dolores to make me hot cocoa and hold me in her lap and tell me everything would be all right.
“First, what is your name?” he asked, looking at the folder, not me.
“Lucy Carver. This is Ana Watson.”
“Lucy, where are you from?” Still, he didn’t look at me.
“Here. But I didn’t grow up here. Now it’s your turn. What is this about?” I fidgeted in my chair and straightened my jeans. Ana placed her hand on mine.
Henderson looked up finally, eyes settling on mine. At first I saw pain, then his face relaxed into what looked to be empathy or, I don’t know, pity, maybe, for my having the same face as the town’s mass murderer. He leaned his elbows on the desk and turned the file for me to see. “This little girl here, Lucy, is you.”
My lips went a little numb. “Why am I in a file?” I scanned the pages and knew. “You think my parents kidnapped me?” Now I laughed. Nervously, but then at the absurdity. “No. Not possible. I was born here, and my parents moved me when I was three. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t know who that girl is, but she isn’t me.”
He leaned back now and closed the folder. “Lucy Ryan. That’s her name. She went missing at the age of three.”
“No.”
“She was born at Voeller Institute, her mother was a patient there. Lucy had sisters.”
Sisters. Julie and Katherine, according to the report. Though it wasn’t in the report, I knew no one called her Katherine. She’d always been Kat. “Why are you telling me this?”
“There is no statute of limitations on kidnapping, Ms. Carver. May I ask where your parents are now?”
“Gone. Missing. Since I was sixteen.”
He nodded. “And you’ve been with…”
“I have nothing more to say,” I said. I didn’t want to think Dee knew about any of this, not the only person in this world who had been there for me unconditionally. I couldn’t think of her as someone who would have known I’d been kidnapped.
“According to your report, who were my parents?” I asked, not wanting to know.
“Mr. Carver worked as a doctor in town. Mrs. Carver a scientist at the institute. Another doctor at the institute, Dr. Alfred Voeller, had custody of the three of you. Triplets. Your birth mother died.” Dr. Voeller was one of the men injured in the fire.
I had an image of him. Tall, white, gray beard, bald, very skinny and had no warmth. I could list his attributes like groceries. Dark eyes, no smile. In my head I heard a scream when he came into a room. “No, no, no.”
One of the sisters. He picked her up and took her from the room. The white room. She came back later, sleeping and being carried by someone
else.
The woman put her into a bed and turned to me. “Tomorrow it’ll be your turn,” she said.
My mind went blank. I couldn’t remember anything else.
It was the first time in my life I hadn’t been able to recall a memory.
“Lucy, earth to Lucy.”
I shook from my stupor and looked at Ana. “We need to go,” I said. Not really to her, not to Officer Henderson. My stomach curdled. I felt a nothingness in that void I couldn’t remember. Like a phantom-limb pain.
“Dr. Voeller wants to see you,” Officer Henderson said. “He’s on his way here now.”
“I have no intention of seeing him.” I stood. “Do you have any reason to remand us?” My backbone was faked, but it was enough.
He shook his head. “You can leave. Though this isn’t over. I’m afraid we will have to question you further. This is an open investigation now that you’re back.”
I wasn’t back anywhere. And like hell he would be questioning me more. If Henderson thought he’d get a single answer out of me he was crazy. Still… “One more thing. If Julie’s dead, why did those people act like that toward me?”
He shook his head. “When the institute burned down, rescuers never found Julie’s body. Many believe she escaped. The people you saw today thought you were her. I received six or seven calls, that’s how I knew you were here.”
“How do you know I’m not her?”
“Because she died, Ms. Carver. Despite what some people think, despite what anyone may whisper, she died.”
“You are certain of this?”
Ana nudged me. “Lucy, that guy is on his way here.”
I had a thousand questions. But they had to wait. I couldn’t face him today.
Officer Henderson nodded. “Ms. Carver, I am certain Julie Ryan died that day.”
I had sisters, two sisters, and one of them was already gone before I had a chance to know her. The other I may never know. I talked to them when I was little. If we didn’t get out of there soon, I’d be having a full-on emotional breakdown right in the middle of the station. “Ana.”
She grabbed her purse and mine. “Officer Henderson, thank you for helping us with the crowd.”
He stood and shook my hand, then pulled me in. I tried to get away, but he held tight. “Everyone in town knows who you are. Knows your family and where you came from. If you don’t wish to be a part of this, I suggest you stay far away.”
I nodded, looking him in the eye. It wasn’t a threat; it was a warning. And felt like much more was going on that I didn’t know about. In his own veiled way, Henderson gave me an out.
“We won’t be back.” I wished in my gut I meant it. Knowing it was probably a lie. “This was a one-time trip for us.”
With that, we hightailed it out of the station and back to the Escalade.
We’d planned to trade duties on the return trip, but no way could I drive. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a black luxury car park in front of the police station and a tall bald man step out. I caught a glimpse of his face before the Escalade crested a hill. Alfred Voeller haunted me as a child, this I remembered. And though Julie may have taken blame for that fire, I knew in my heart of hearts Voeller killed my sister.
Chapter Ten
“Sisters. That’s deep. Shocking news.” Officer Len leaned his arms on the table. He looked torn between a need to pat my hand or keep it professional. A knock on the door saved the day. He stood and stepped outside for a few moments, luckily long enough for the awkwardness to pass. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “It was pretty shocking.”
He made a few notes.
“Things became even weirder once I made it back to Fort Worth.”
****
The drive back was as quiet as the drive out, but I don’t think either of us expected it to be anything different. The landscape slipped by with the daylight, and soon the sun settled over the Fort Worth skyline. A couple of times I saw a green car, but then I’d think it was my mind playing tricks on me in the barely lit dusk. Still, I made a point of making out the license plate just in case. “I don’t want to go home,” I said, having thought about it most of the trip.
“I understand,” Ana answered, knuckles turning white as she clutched the wheel a little tighter. She’d driven without talking or stopping.
“I don’t know what I want to do yet.”
The numbness that took over my body left me spiraling headlong into a void. As strange as my life had been before all this, it had been manageable. The things I’d learned today couldn’t be fixed; they left me broken. It didn’t make me want to cry, it made me feel small. Completely vulnerable.
I looked out the window, brushing my knuckle across some condensation forming on the glass. “Can we go to John’s?”
“Sure.”
I gave her the address and didn’t bother calling on the way. He wouldn’t care. Of all the people I could see after a day like that, I wanted John more than anything. My soul balanced out around him. My crazy thoughts and anxieties always washed away. We pulled in front of his house, and I got out. Ana unbuckled her seat belt and went to open her door. “No,” I said, stopping her. “I need some time. Is that okay?”
“Whatever you need, love.” Her voice came out pale. She took my hand and kissed it. Looking me in the eyes, she said, “This doesn’t change who you are or who your parents were. You don’t know why this happened.”
I noticed she didn’t use the word kidnapped. Didn’t say anything about Julie or Kat, or Voeller or the fire.
Adjusting her seatbelt back around her, she also fastened on a smile. “You don’t know. And you don’t know if Dolores was part of it. She probably wasn’t and will be completely shocked. You. Don’t. Know. But more than anything, the people who love you are still in your life, and they still love you.”
It made me think about my parents, who were not in my life.
Did they still love me too? Did they leave because they were afraid of being caught?
I smiled, hoping it looked brave and strong. Fearing it didn’t. “Thank you for everything, Ana.”
“Always.”
I shut the door, and she drove away. John’s car sat in front of the house so I knew he was home. I didn’t want to tell him about what happened. Not about last night, not about Elmer. I saw him through the window. He waved, and I imagine he raced down the stairs because he opened the front door before I made it there to knock. “Lucy!”
“Hey, John.”
“Want to come in?”
“Sure.”
We went up to his room, and I sat on his bed. One of his cats, the orange one, threaded its way around my legs before jumping onto the bed and pushing its butt toward my face. “How was work today?” I scratched the cat and wondered at the same time why they do that. I had been right when I told him about his two cats and a fish. The cats were Theodore, this one, and Miles, the black one, who mostly sat on the bookshelf and gave me the stink eye. The fish was a red and turquoise betta named Muddy Waters. Fitting.
“Strange.” He reached across me to pet Theodore. “Not boring, that’s for sure.”
“Really? What happened?”
He smoothed his red- and green-checkered bedspread, pulling off a bit of orange fur. “The police arrested that friend of yours. Natalie.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Natalie? For what?”
I guess I spoke too loudly because Theodore shot across the room and dove under the computer desk. John followed, but not to chase the cat. He sat in his computer chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Apparently she’d been changing some of the numbers in data entry and was caught.”
I wanted to be honest about what I knew but didn’t have a way to say anything without betraying an active investigation. “That’s surprising. She’s so meek. How could she have been doing something like that?”
It did surprise me. I imagined her trying to rescue those Nigerian ch
ildren. “No, it couldn’t have been her,” I said.
John shook his head, sending a little of his hair flying back and forth. It settled but not exactly as it had been. I smiled. He and Eli were about as opposite as two men could be. John flowed like water, Eli burned like fire. “Well, that’s what the gossip was. She left in handcuffs.”
“Is she in jail now?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced at the computer monitors behind his head. He had to be some kind of big-time gamer or something to have monitors like that. I didn’t want to ask, though. I wasn’t into gamers and didn’t want John to lose his appeal so soon.
“Wanna take a trip?” I asked, instead.
He grinned. “Are we breaking her out?”
“Not exactly.”
****
The Fort Worth jail was larger than I would have ever imagined. Tall brick walls made it resemble a train station. People and children milled around, though the sight of so many children was surreal. Though, when you think about it, where else would they be? One parent gets arrested, the other comes to bail them out. Of course they’d bring the kids.
We found out pretty quickly we couldn’t see Natalie. “Do you know where I can find Eli Reyes?” I asked a lady behind the desk. “He’s a homicide detective.”
“No,” she said, without looking up, her voice as bland as water.
“He’s a friend.”
“He can’t get your friend out,” she said, still monotone, still not looking my way. She clicked a few keys on her keyboard. “Anything else?”
I frowned, discouraged. “How much is her bail?”
“She’ll have to see a judge sometime next week. She won’t be able to get out before then.”
I called Eli but got his voicemail and left a message asking him to call back. Then I remembered the paper in my pocket: Bonnie Kent’s interrogation. It took a few moments of deliberation in my mind, but I decided to tell John everything. I wanted his help, wanted his input.