Cemetery Girl

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she say she thought she heard your voice?” he said, his voice almost jovial.

  “She did.”

  “It’s not hard to convince a confused kid that certain things might be true. Like her parents don’t want her back. That they came to the house and said it was okay if she stayed with me. Forever.”

  My throat burned. “No. No, you didn’t.”

  “How are we going to make this trade?”

  “Is that how you kept her there? You filled her head with lies? Tell me if you want to see her. Did you lock her up? Did you force her?”

  He let out a low chuckle. “You wish I did lock her up, don’t you? That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it?”

  “I want you to tell me what happened. What really happened.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll make the switch.”

  I heard his breathing through the line. My heart rate slowed. I sat on the couch, letting myself sink deep into the cushions.

  “I didn’t really have to lock her up,” he said. “Not really.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She stayed at first because . . . I don’t know . . . I think she thought it was a game. Something different. Something new. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? Everybody telling you what to do. Your life is never your own. You’re always under somebody’s thumb. Hell, I’m living with my mom now. It doesn’t change.”

  “You said, ‘Not really.’ You didn’t really have to lock her up. But that implies you did something to keep her there. What was it?”

  “Okay, okay. I guess she . . . got nervous . . . at the end of the first day, and she started asking if she could go back. Back to your house. Look, I knew at that point I was in trouble, you know? A guy like me can’t just keep a twelve-year-old girl at his house all day and not expect repercussions. I knew the cops would be coming down on me. I know how trouble falls in these situations, and who it falls on. And the cops never understand a deal like this. They don’t see that two people like me and Caitlin can have something special. They want to call it a crime, make an issue out of it. It’s not really that complicated when you get right down to it. It’s love.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do?” He sounded truly perplexed. “I tried to talk to her, you know, reason with her. She seemed like a smart kid. I just asked her to stay. I told her that she could go home whenever she wanted the next day, but at that moment she needed to stay at my house. I even offered to help her look for the dog again in the morning before I took her back home. She didn’t say anything for a long time. She looked blank. You know, she does that sometimes, just gives that blank look so that you’re not even certain if she’s heard you or not. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  I reluctantly agreed. “I’m familiar with the look.”

  “So she did that, just that blank look for a long time—minutes. I swear she could totally wear me down just by doing that. But eventually she said, ‘I prefer not to.’ It was so long, I didn’t know what she was saying no to. Was she saying she preferred to stay with me, or was she saying she preferred to go home? So I asked her, and she said she preferred not to stay with me, that she preferred to go home. What am I supposed to do then, right? Like I said, I’m in too deep as it is. So I did the only thing I could do.”

  My throat felt raw, scratchy. “What was that?”

  “I locked her in my basement. I took her by the arm—not too rough, because she really didn’t resist or fight against me—but I took her by the arm and I led her to the basement door. I got her down the stairs. I put her in the room, and I told her there was no way out and no way anyone could hear her if she yelled and screamed.”

  “And you knew that because you’d done it before?”

  “There were other relationships, yes.”

  “Tracy Fairlawn? You know what happened to her, right?”

  “My lawyer may have mentioned something about that, but she was a girl with a lot of problems.”

  “Like the child she leaves behind. Your child.”

  He laughed again, a low huffing sound. “You know, it seemed like—To be perfectly honest, it seemed like running into Caitlin in the park that day, with her dog lost and me right there, it seemed like destiny of some kind. Like we were meant to meet on that day and end up together.” Colter laughed some more. “Hell, for all I know, you’re taping this conversation, hoping to use it against me sometime. Is that what you’re doing? Taping this? Look, you can’t put a label on destiny. You can’t explain it all away or call it names. However it happened, even if there was a little resistance at first, it was meant to be. It’s that simple, isn’t it? And if you just let me see her again, let me see the girl, you can know it all. For real. And she can be happy again. Let me guess what’s going on over there—she’s barely speaking to you. She’s moping around, doing that stone-faced routine. I knew she’d be doing that. It’s classic Caitlin behavior.”

  “Don’t. Don’t act like you know her better than me.”

  “I do. I’ve spent the last four years with her. Where can we meet?” he asked. “We can all have what we want. Where can we meet?”

  “Why did you let her go?” I asked. “If you were so happy, why did you make her leave? And why did you burn your house down after she was gone? What were you hiding?”

  “You can’t come here because of my mother. And who knows, the cops may be watching me. But I can get out for a little while. Later in the day. Where can I meet you both? You and Caitlin?”

  I felt like he’d tied me to a leash and was walking me around the block. He was right. I wanted to know too much. And I needed to dial back, to pull away. I felt like a man tottering on a ledge. I could only windmill my arms for so long before I fell.

  “Can I come to your house?” he asked.

  “No. My wife . . .” I hesitated again. “I think it would be best if we just—”

  “Where then?” Colter asked, pushing.

  I held the phone tight, felt the pressure in my knuckles. You just want to know, I told myself. You just want to know. You don’t have to give her away, but you do have to find out.

  The meeting spot was so obvious, I shouldn’t have even needed to say it out loud.

  “Why don’t we go back to the beginning,” I said. “I’ll meet you in the park, on the cemetery side.”

  “When?”

  “How soon can you be there?” I asked.

  He paused, no doubt calculating in his head.

  “An hour after sunset,” he said. “I have things to get together, and the park will be quiet and empty by then.”

  “An hour after sunset.”

  “And you’ll have Caitlin with you?”

  “It doesn’t look like I have much choice, does it?”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  I went up the stairs. Caitlin had left the bedroom door open.

  She was sitting on the floor again, staring into space.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said from the doorway.

  “What?”

  “Did you really believe your mom and I wouldn’t look for you or want you back?”

  She nodded, but her face was lacking some of its defiance, its certainty.

  I pushed. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long—?”

  I stopped myself. I’d wanted to ask her: How long would it be before that feeling of rejection and abandonment went away? But I already knew the answer: Never. It simply never would. We all would be living with it forever. And I was willing to accept that burden, to share it with my daughter, if only I knew what had really happened.

  “You might want to pack a small bag,” I said. “We’re going to meet John Colter tonight. And we need to leave before your mom gets home.”

  Caitlin didn’t move. Her eyes were narrowed, her face suspicious.

  “Well?” I asked. “I thought this was what you w
anted.”

  My words released her from whatever spell she’d been under. She jumped to her feet, and I left the room, leaving her to her packing.

  My phone rang while I was waiting for Caitlin. It was Abby. I let it go to voice mail.

  “Caitlin, hurry up!”

  In a few minutes, Caitlin came down the stairs carrying a plastic grocery bag full of clothes. She wore the same jeans and sweatshirt combination she’d been wearing since she’d arrived, but something was different about her face. She was wearing makeup—presumably some of Abby’s—and her hair appeared to have been brushed and styled, despite its short length.

  “We’ve got to go,” I said. The phone rang again as we went out to the car.

  “I wish there was time to take a shower,” she said. “Is there?”

  “No. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

  We got into the car and Caitlin threw her bag of clothes onto the floor. I backed down the driveway. Quickly—too quickly. The car veered off into the grass. I stopped, pulled forward and corrected, then backed out again. We made it into the street, and as I swung the wheel around to go forward, another car approached.

  “It’s your mom.”

  “So?”

  “She knows something, that something’s going on.”

  Abby pulled alongside. She waved her arms back and forth, almost frantic.

  I inched forward.

  Abby threw open her door and stepped out into the street. “Tom! Stop!”

  I rolled down the window a little. “We’re just going out. It’s okay.”

  “Buster called,” she said. “He told me what you’re doing.” She reached for my door handle and started tugging. “He acts more concerned for your daughter than you do.”

  “Let go, Abby. Let go.”

  She banged on the window twice, then reached for the rear door. I didn’t give her a chance to get to it. I hit the gas and pulled away. I looked back only once. She stood in the middle of our street, her hands raised to her head. I looked over at Caitlin, whose eyes were straight ahead, looking toward what was to come.

  There were a few hours to pass before the sun went down. We drove around aimlessly for a while, crisscrossing town, passing through the campus and then out by the mall and the strip of chain restaurants. While we moved, I thought about what Abby had said at the house. Buster called. He told me what you’re doing. Would she call Ryan and tell him?

  Without a doubt.

  “Where are we going?” Caitlin asked.

  “It’s too early. We need to pass some time.”

  “Where are we going to do that?”

  I cut through the center of town, dangerously close to the police station. I didn’t say anything, but I looked over at Caitlin as we approached. Her eyes widened a little. She understood.

  “The dog pound?”

  “Remember when we used to go there?”

  She nodded.

  I parked in the back so the car would be out of sight of the street.

  We didn’t get out right away.

  “What?” Caitlin asked.

  “You know, I tried to get Frosty back after I brought him here. Your uncle Buster drove me here one day.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was gone. Somebody had already adopted him. I tried to get their name so I could go get him. I would have paid them for him, but the shelter doesn’t give out that information.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s probably someone in town who has him,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “Somebody who likes dogs.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Frosty anymore.”

  “Do you want to go in?” I asked. “They might let us walk one.”

  She nodded.

  “Did you—? You said Colter was walking a dog when he picked you up at the park that day. So you had a dog where you were?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t his,” she said. “It was his mom’s. And they put it to sleep after a couple of years. It was old.”

  “He started the whole thing with a lie,” I said. “You see what he—”

  “Dad,” she said. She sounded tired. And maybe she was—of me, no doubt. “What does any of it matter now? You know?”

  I didn’t say so, but silently I agreed. We got out of the car and went inside.

  Caitlin found a midsized mutt, something that looked like a cross between a collie and a poodle, and after getting a few minutes of instruction from a volunteer, we took it for a walk. For a shelter animal, the dog did surprisingly well on a leash. It must have lived in a home where it had received some training at one time. It didn’t resist the leash or work against it. Rather, it accepted the tie and walked by Caitlin’s side.

  While Caitlin talked to the dog, I looked over my shoulder, expecting at any moment to be surrounded by police cars. After about twenty minutes of strolling, we brought the dog back to the shelter. The volunteer smiled at us.

  “Well, this looks like a perfect fit,” she said. “Will we be making an adoption today?”

  I looked at Caitlin expectantly. I would have given her whatever she wanted.

  But she shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’m just about to move.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  We made one more stop before driving to the cemetery. The sun had slipped away, a red band of sky spreading just above the treetops. The air was considerably cooler, and the wind increased. Huge flocks of black birds moved across the sky, migrating.

  I drove behind the grocery store to an area near its loading dock. No one was back there after hours, and when I dropped the car into park, Caitlin looked over at me.

  “Why are we here?”

  “I need to ask you something. I’ll only ask one more time. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  She didn’t blink or hesitate. “I’m sure.”

  “Nothing will be the same if we go there and do this,” I said.

  “I know. That’s what I want,” she said. And then, after a pause, she added, “Is anything the same anyway?”

  “No,” I said. “But sometimes there are chances to turn back and sometimes there aren’t. I think we’re at a point where it’s going to be hard to turn back.”

  She took a deep breath. It almost looked like she shuddered.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  I’d been thinking about the setup of the event all morning, the logistical aspects of making what was supposed to be a trade. All I had to do was bring Caitlin to Colter, let them see each other, and I would be able to extract the information I wanted. The difficult part would be pulling back at the right moment, making sure Caitlin left with me and not with him.

  “I want you to get in the backseat,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “How do I know you won’t just run when you see him?” I asked. “If you’re in the back, I can have some measure of—”

  “Control?” she said.

  “Certainty,” I said. “Certainty that you won’t just run.”

  “I won’t run away. I promise. Do you believe me? I won’t run away. I’ll do what you want.”

  And I did believe her. Her eyes were clear, her voice level.

  “Okay,” I said. “But I do want you to get in the backseat. And stay down.”

  She didn’t argue further, and she didn’t even bother to get out of the car. Like a little kid, she wormed her body over the front seat and into the back. She landed with a light thud.

  “Okay?” she said. “Happy?”

  I made sure the child locks were activated.

  I knew Caitlin was behind me. I sensed her. But I felt alone in the dark. Very alone. The wind picked up again, scuffling leaves across the parking lot, and I shivered.

  No turning back.

  I drove to the cemetery.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  I thought of the first time I ever drove Caitlin, when she was a newborn and we brought her home from the hospital. I drove slower than slow, sensing disa
ster at every stoplight, in every other car on the road. New-parent syndrome. I outgrew it, let go of the fears and anxieties, let her grow up, fall down, and make her own mistakes.

  At some point, she’d have to be let go again. But not then, not yet.

  I reached the narrow road that divided the cemetery from the park and turned. The park was closing. The tennis courts and ball fields were empty and dark, and any day now the grounds crews and workers would begin preparing them for winter, rolling up the nets, covering the dirt infield. I flashed back to that day months ago, back when I walked Frosty here while the weather was still warm and Caitlin was gone, her memory preserved by the headstone in the ground. And I thought of Jasmine, the girl who’d looked so much like Caitlin at the time. The one who was Caitlin, as far as I was concerned. She seemed so much younger than the girl in the back of my car. Younger and more carefree, an innocent who could still run and laugh and move with the buoyant happiness of a spirit. Where was that girl tonight?

  To my left, the cemetery sat in darkness. I could see the outlines of the heavy monuments and stones, the vigilant angels on top of markers and mausoleums who stood watch through the night, indifferent to the cold and the human drama in my car. As I moved farther down the road, my eyes adjusted to the light and I was able to make out the shape of a car sitting at the back corner of the park. It didn’t have its lights on, and in the darkness I couldn’t yet see if there was a person inside. It could have been Colter, but just as likely it could have been groping, fumbling teenagers, steaming the windows while their clueless parents ate dinner and watched the news. I pulled behind it, my headlights illuminating its rear and the license plate. It appeared to be empty.

  The car looked enormous and old. It was an elderly person’s car, an Oldsmobile 88 or something like that, the kind of thing an elderly lady would keep in her garage and drive on special occasions.

  “It’s him,” Caitlin whispered. “John.”