by David Bell
“A girl was kidnapped and raped.”
Susan shrugged. “A girl with a drug problem, a girl already in trouble with the police. A girl who couldn’t say where this man was who’d held her. She couldn’t identify the house, the car, even the neighborhood. All she did was tell this wild story of being taken against her will and held in a basement, and then miraculously being let go.” She shrugged again. “They didn’t pay much attention to her. I only got involved through my volunteer work.”
“The police sent her to you?” I asked.
“Not directly. The police didn’t see her as the victim of anything. But we had a mutual friend, a woman who taught at Tracy’s high school. This teacher knew about my work for the police, so she put us in touch. I just tried to be a sounding board, a sympathetic ear. Tracy needs much more help than I can provide, but it was a start.”
“Do you know Liann Stipes?” I asked.
“That’s Tracy’s lawyer, right? The woman whose daughter was murdered? Tracy mentioned her. Complained about her really. I get the feeling I was a better listener than Liann or anyone else in Tracy’s life.”
“And that man. .?”
“She says it’s the same man, the one she saw in the club with your daughter.”
“How did she see him in that club and still dance for him? Why didn’t she run or call the police right then and there?”
“She was terrorized, Tom. Terrorized. She thought that he came back there to taunt her, to intimidate her. It was like he wanted to remind her he still held some power over her. Which he did. Why didn’t she say or do anything? It’s a miracle she’s ever said or done anything. She feels as though saying anything is taking her life in her hands. She went to Liann because she couldn’t stand to not do anything about it.”
“And now Tracy’s gone.” I brought my hand to my face and chewed on some loose skin around my thumbnail. “This man released her over five years ago, about a year before Caitlin disappeared. And now that Caitlin is back, Tracy is gone again. You think. .?”
“Frightening, isn’t it?”
I thought back to the first time I’d met Tracy, our conversation in the strip club. I calculated. “Tracy told me her daughter is almost five,” I said.
Susan nodded. “She has a constant reminder of what this man did to her.”
I curled my hands into fists, and when I did, they shook. “He let Tracy go because she was pregnant,” I said.
“Who knows? I wouldn’t assign humanitarian motives to him.”
“What should I do now?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, Tom,” she said. “But I wanted you to know everything you needed to know. The police, they might have their own agenda. There are things they don’t want to tell a crime victim. Or they want to tell them on their own schedule and terms.”
“And Liann? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know Liann,” Susan said. “I can’t speak for her. But you’ve been chasing ghosts. Maybe this will make things more concrete.”
“And what happens if I catch up to the ghosts?” I asked.
“You’d be lucky to put them to rest.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Ryan didn’t answer. I tried two times after Susan left, leaving two messages. Before I could call a third time,
Abby came out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam closed behind her.
“Who was that, Tom?”
I shut the phone. “She’s helping me.” I pointed to the house. “Did you leave Caitlin in there alone?”
“Chris is talking to her.”
“Lovely.”
“Is that woman a therapist of some kind?” Abby tried to stop me from going inside. “Tom, I think you do need help. Real help.”
I went past her and up the stairs. At the half-open door of the master bedroom, I heard Pastor Chris’s cheery voice chirping inside. I pushed in. They were sitting on the floor.
“Tom,” Chris said. “I was just counseling Caitlin here-”
“Do you know someone named Tracy Fairlawn? She’s a stripper at those clubs you used to go to with the man in the sketch. Did you talk to her?”
“If I say I don’t know,” Caitlin replied, “will you slap me again?” She scooted closer to Pastor Chris.
“Tom, if you’d like to join our conversation, it might-”
I turned and left the room, letting him talk to my back.
When Liann came home from church, her family in tow, she found me waiting on her front porch. She told the family to go on, and when they were inside, she still didn’t say anything.
So I spoke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
Her shoulders sagged a little. She knew what I meant.
The phone rang in my pocket. I ignored it. “You knew this about Tracy all along,” I said. “The man, the baby. . you kept it all from me. You told me you were her lawyer for a drug case. You didn’t mention she’d been the victim of a violent crime.”
“Tom, she did come to me needing legal help. That’s where my contact with her started. And in the process of helping her with the drug case, I found out that she had been taken and assaulted. The police turned their backs on her, Tom. They just turned their backs on her. Someone had to help that girl. She trusted me, and I couldn’t-”
“No. I don’t want to hear any bullshit.”
The phone rang again, so I checked it. Abby. I silenced it.
“So you decided not to tell me everything you knew about Tracy?” I asked. “Answer the question.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Not relevant?”
“What mattered was catching the guy,” she said. “Tracy was skittish. She was scared of the police. But she did see Caitlin in that club, and it was easier for her to talk about that than about what he did to her. That’s why I brought Tracy to you with her story. I helped you.”
“I trusted you,” I said. “You came to us when Caitlin disappeared. You cut through the bullshit and helped us. I thought you were on our side. But you kept this information from us. From me.”
“What do you want me to do, Tom?” she asked.
“All those things that happened to Tracy. The kidnapping, being held hostage. The rape. That’s what happened to Caitlin, isn’t it?”
“What matters now is that we find that man-”
I was up and past her. “Call me if your agenda changes, Liann.”
Chapter Thirty-five
I sat in my car in front of Liann’s house. I wasn’t ready to drive off. I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to.
I looked down at the phone. Two more calls from Abby. Three messages.
The slap. My confrontation with Caitlin.
There was music to face on all sides. And what did they say about home-when you go there, they have to take you in. .?
So I drove home.
I stepped inside the back door. “Abby?” She didn’t answer my call, but I found her in the living room, sitting on the end of our couch, her elbow on the armrest and her chin cupped in her hand. It looked precarious, as though her head could slip loose at any moment. “Abby?”
She still didn’t look up, but I could tell something more was wrong, something besides the fight and the slap. The room felt devoid of air, like someone had died.
“What’s the matter, Abby?”
She jumped a little. She looked over, moving her head slowly, as though turning took a great deal of effort. “Oh, Tom. It’s you.” She held the phone next to her on the couch.
“What gives?” I asked. “Why did you call me so many times?”
“Ryan called,” she said. “They found that guy, the one from the drawing. They made an arrest.”
Abby told me the little she knew. Ryan had called shortly after I’d left the house and told Abby they had someone in custody, someone who matched the description given by Tracy. Someone they believed to be the man Caitlin was seen around town with. Abby didn’t know how or where t
hey’d found him or what tipped the police off, but Ryan was going to come by the house at any minute to fill us in. And talk to Caitlin.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the morning.
If the man was in custody, where was Tracy? She hadn’t been seen in weeks.
“Caitlin told me about the fight this morning,” Abby said. “Actually, she told Chris about it.”
The fight and the slap seemed so distant somehow, something that had happened in another life.
“I lost my cool. And I’m sorry for it. She must have gotten a thrill out of being able to tell Chris about it and make me look like the bad guy.”
“It’s not like that, Tom.”
“I know. In a strange sort of way, I’m glad he got her to talk to him. About anything. I thought slapping her was going to wake her up.”
Abby didn’t respond. She still wore the slightly stunned, slightly spacey look she had been wearing when I’d first come into the room.
“Abby? Does Caitlin know about this?”
She shook her head. “I’m scared, Tom.”
“Of the man?”
“I thought we’d turned the page,” she said. “I was ready to just go on. When she talked to Chris today, I thought things might really be moving ahead.”
“I’m going to go tell her,” I said.
“I couldn’t do it, Tom. I thought telling her would make it more real. I called you. I was glad when you didn’t answer.” She knotted her hands together, a lump of flesh and fingers. “Chris left, so I was alone.”
I heard something and turned my head. I held a silencing finger up to Abby. A rustling at the top of the stairs. Faint. I listened and heard nothing more.
“I’m going to go tell her,” I said. “She has to be ready to face Ryan.”
“I didn’t like the way he talked to her last time,” she said. “It was too harsh.”
“I know,” I said. “But he was trying to push her a little.”
“It sounded like he was blaming her,” she said. “Do you think they’ll let Chris be there or talk to her? She opened up to him.”
“She wasn’t opening up to Chris,” I said. “She was getting back at me.”
Halfway up the stairs, I stopped. They were holding the man, physically. He was in custody. He could answer for-explain even-everything. For ripping the fabric of our lives to pieces. For Caitlin. For Tracy. For God knew how many others.
My grip tightened on the banister. Something clouded my vision. Red and white splotches. My heart thumped. When the splotches disappeared, I found myself pulling against the banister, trying to rip it out of the wall. It didn’t give and my grip slipped. I fell back against the opposite wall of the staircase, making a loud thump. It hurt my back, and I welcomed the pain. It brought me back to reality. My home. My daughter.
The man in the sketch.
I took several deep, gasping breaths. Abby appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“Tom?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I fell.”
She took a step up. “You look sick, Tom.”
“I’m fine.” I held my hand out. “I’m going to talk to Caitlin.”
She was in the master bedroom, the door closed. I knocked, and when I didn’t get any response, I knocked again. “It’s your dad,” I said, trying the knob and feeling it give. Not Dad. Your dad. A more distant and formal designation, as though I were talking about two strangers.
Caitlin was lying back on the bed, reading a book. I couldn’t make out the title, but it looked like the kind of thing she used to read before she left, something aimed at preteen girls. She didn’t look over at me when I came in but kept her eyes on the pages of the book. Her brow was furrowed and her lips moved as she scanned the words. She looked like a certain kind of kid who passed through my classrooms, the ones who came from areas with poor public schools and adults who never attended college.
“I need to tell you something, Caitlin.”
She didn’t look up from the book.
“Did you hear what we were talking about downstairs? Were you at the top of the stairs?”
“I heard some,” she said. “You were talking about the police. And Pastor Chris. Then I heard you try to rip the banister out of the wall.”
“Detective Ryan’s coming over again.”
She stiffened a little. “Why? To ask me more sex questions?”
“They found him, Caitlin. They arrested him.”
She considered this for a long moment without looking at me. “You’re a fucking liar,” she finally said. “You’d lie to me about anything.”
“No.” I kept my voice firm. “He’s in jail, right now. Detective Ryan is coming over to talk to you, and this time there’s no point in keeping everything a secret. They have him, so we’re going to find out what it’s all about. He’s hurt other people, Caitlin. Other girls like you. He’s not going to be able to do that to anyone else.”
“He wouldn’t hurt someone.”
“He did.” I took a step forward into the room. “Remember, just this morning, you said that he did things to you. He hurt you.”
She sat up on the bed, letting the book fall to the floor. Her face showed real animation. “Are they bringing him here?” she asked.
“No, they’re not bringing him here. He’s in jail. Didn’t you hear me?”
She looked at the floor, her chin quivering. She took hold of the necklace and rubbed the stone.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. I stopped myself, gathered my thoughts. “Caitlin, I know this is confusing for you. I know that after what’s happened, you might be confused about your feelings, especially your feelings for this man. It’s part of what you’ve been through, but you need to start getting through that. This man. . he needs to go to jail.”
“They’re not going to hurt him, are they? Tell me you won’t let them hurt him.”
She turned away and flopped back onto the bed, burying her face in the covers so I couldn’t see her. It sounded like she was crying.
Chapter Thirty-six
Ryan looked more tired than usual when he showed up at our door. He wore a polo shirt, tan pants, and no jacket despite the cool temperature. He didn’t come inside, but instead motioned the two of us out onto the porch.
When we were all seated, Ryan started talking.
“I imagine you want to be brought up to speed as soon as possible.” He flipped open the small notebook. “Yesterday, just before five a.m., the fire department responded to a call for a house fire out on Smith Springs Road. When they arrived, they found the house engulfed and beyond saving. A neighbor had seen the flames and called it in, but no one was certain if anyone was home at the time. It’s still too hot to do a thorough search of the house, but the preliminary investigation hasn’t revealed any evidence of human remains yet. Records indicate that the house belongs to a John Colter. Does that name mean anything to either of you?”
“Is that the man?” I asked. “Is that his name?”
“Does the name mean anything to either of you?” Ryan asked.
Abby shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Tom?”
I scanned through every student name I could remember, every coworker, every maintenance person who ever passed through school or our home. “I don’t think I know him.”
Ryan went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “The preliminary investigation shows that the cause of the fire was arson. A pretty amateur job. Whoever set the fire didn’t make much of an attempt to cover their tracks. They simply poured gasoline over everything, and investigators even found the melted plastic gas cans in the debris. Initially, we thought it looked like insurance fraud of some kind.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“They also found something else in the basement of the home.”
“Do we want to know?” Abby asked, more to herself than to us.
“They found a room. At first, it looked to be a bedroom, something created after the home was built. I
t didn’t appear to be part of the original structure. The door to this room was heavily fortified. Several different locks as well as some sort of reinforced steel sheeting.”
I stared at the sky. It was perfectly blue like a robin’s egg. I was numb.
“It looked like it was meant to keep someone locked up.”
“You think. .” Abby left her thought unfinished.
“Like I said, it’s going to take some time before they can complete a more thorough examination of the house, especially the basement. Given the nature of the fire damage, it seems unlikely we’ll be able to find any definitive proof that any individual, Caitlin or otherwise, was ever in that basement room. It seems possible the fire was set for that very reason. To obscure evidence.”
“Maybe he didn’t want the police to know he held Tracy Fairlawn there as well,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Ryan said.
“Tracy.” I looked at Abby. “You know, the girl from the strip club?”
“Why are you bringing her up?” Abby asked.
“Maybe Detective Ryan should tell us,” I said.
“I don’t think this is relevant, Tom,” he said.
I turned back to Abby. “Tracy was held captive by a man for six months about five years ago. He took her off the street and brought her to a house. She didn’t know where. He held here there. He raped her repeatedly. She managed to get away, and then she had a baby.”
Abby looked stricken. “Are you going to tell me there’s a connection?”
“We don’t know-” Ryan said.
“She says it’s the same man.” I kept my eyes on Abby, boring in. “The man she saw in the strip club with Caitlin was the man who took her and held her and raped her. The same man. Detective Ryan here just declined to share that information with us.”
Ryan stiffened. “Where are you hearing these things, Tom?”
“I have my sources, too.”
“Well, I came here because I’d like to talk to Caitlin,” Ryan said. “And I’d like to be able to talk to her alone.”
“Shouldn’t we be there?” Abby asked. “Someone to look out for her.”