by David Bell
“No, no,” I said. “If you’d told us when you saw him in the park-” I stopped. My anger and my voice rose. If, if, if. . If I’d seen them drive by the house. If I hadn’t let her walk the dog. If I hadn’t allowed us to live with such an undisciplined pet. If, if, if. . “What made you stay?” I asked. “Why, after all that, did you stay? People saw you with him in public places. You could have screamed and cried. You could have run away. Why did you stay with him? Why did you do that. .?” I resisted for a long moment. I tried to swallow it back, but finally I couldn’t hold it in. “Why did you do that to me, Caitlin? Why?”
She shook her head. “To you?”
“Yes. Why?”
She looked at the glass and set it aside. “No,” she said.
“No? What do you mean?”
“No, I’m not telling you anything else until you take me to see John.” She pursed her lips and set her jaw. “I just gave you a down payment. I gave you something.”
“You just started. That’s only the beginning.”
“What else do you want to know?” she asked. “Do you want to know everything? Every detail?”
“Tell me that he made you stay,” I said.
“Take me to him. Or just stand aside and I’ll go there myself.”
“But he did make you stay, right?” I asked. “He held you there. He forced you.”
“I can’t tell you something that isn’t true.”
I pounded my fist against the table, rattling my mug.
“He made you stay. I know it. You wouldn’t have imagined our voices if you didn’t want to leave. Right, Caitlin? You wouldn’t have imagined you heard us, would you?”
“What makes you think I imagined them?”
“Because I didn’t know where you were. None of us did.”
“I don’t know that. I don’t.”
I stood up, almost knocking the chair over. I shoved it out of the way and moved toward her. “No, honey, that would never happen. Never, ever. Never.”
She cringed. Her body locked when I approached, and she took two steps back. She held her hands out in front of me as though she wanted to shove me away. “Just take me to him,” she said. “We made a deal. Take me to John if you want to know anything else from me.”
She left the room before I could say anything.
Chapter Fifty-one
I pulled the phone book out and looked up the number. It took two tries for me to find the right one. An older woman answered, and I asked for John. A long pause followed, a staticky stretch of dead air. “Why can’t you all leave him alone?” his mother asked.
“I’m not a reporter,” I said. Another long pause. “I’m the man who was at your house last night talking to John.”
“Oh, I see.” She sniffed. “Are you really that girl’s father?”
“I am.”
“Well. . Johnny. . he’s always loved children. I mean. . he wouldn’t really hurt anybody. He wouldn’t. Not intentionally. Now did you ever think these girls-they ask for it, don’t they? They wear certain clothes. Even the young ones. .”
“Just put him on.”
She breathed a deep sigh into the phone, then the receiver clunked against either the counter or the floor. “Johnny?”
Someone picked up the phone; then I heard voices arguing. I couldn’t make it all out, but Colter’s mother said, “I can’t have you in trouble again. My house, Johnny.”
“Get out of here,” he said. He must have waited while she left the room, because it took a few more moments for him to come on the line and speak to me. “Mr. Stuart?”
His voice caused a shiver of revulsion to pass through my body.
“It’s me,” I said.
“I’m glad you called. I knew you would, though.”
The phone felt warm against my ear. “You’re awfully confident.”
“Don’t we both have things the other wants? Don’t we have a. . what you might call a symbiotic relationship?”
“Symbiotic?”
“It means that we mutually benefit.”
“I know what it means.”
“Hell, we’re practically family. So what’s your answer?”
“I spoke to Caitlin today.” I swallowed hard. “She’s game, and I am too. So. .”
“You’re agreeing to bring her to me?”
I hesitated. I wanted to know. I simply wanted to know. “Yes,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” What he meant was: Now we’re in business. I heard a door close on his end of the line, and he must have moved into another room or outside the house for privacy’s sake. When the movement stopped, he said, “Okay, how are we going to do this?”
“Start talking.”
“I got a call from my lawyer this morning. Apparently, they have a new witness and new information about the case. He told me to expect an arrest and a new indictment any day now. For all I know, they’ll be showing up today to put me in chains. What I’m saying is, if we’re going to do this, we don’t have much time to make it happen.”
“Maybe I should just let it all go then. You can go on to jail, and Caitlin would never have to face you in court.”
“I told you-I’m leaving no matter what. And if you don’t ante up, you’ll never know what you want to know.”
“I know some things. Caitlin told me a few of them just today. Hell, maybe I know enough already.”
I walked through the house to the living room and stopped, staring out at the front yard. The trees were almost bare, the leaves carpeting the ground or else piled at the curb by my industrious neighbors. The clouds hung low, seemingly just above the treetops. They were as gray as cold ashes.
Colter hesitated. “What could she have told you?” he asked.
“She told me plenty. How you got her in the car, looking for the dog. She told me how you got her back to the house. Your dumpy little house.” As I talked and looked into the yard, I pictured that day. The car circling the park, then leaving with Caitlin inside. I pictured it driving right past our house, Caitlin in the front seat perhaps, staring out the window as she went by here for the last time. “I can go to the police with that, tell them what Caitlin told me. I can add to what they already have.”
“Hearsay.”
“How did you get her to stay in your house?” I asked. “How did you keep her there?”
He ignored my questions. “No one will believe you. After you told the cops about seeing ghosts and all that bullshit, you have no credibility.”
“The parent of a crime victim always has credibility. Now tell me-how did you keep her there in your house?”
“I want to see her before I tell you anything. That was the deal I offered.”
I turned away from the window. “If you want to see her, you have to give me something. You have to tell me some facts.”
“Why should I deal with you?” He lowered his voice, added a hint of menace to it. “You want this more than I do. You’re obsessed with knowing. I can hear it. You know, Caitlin told me some things about you. She told me about your stepdaddy. How he didn’t love you. How he used to come in your room and scare you, like you were a little baby.”
“Caitlin didn’t know that.”
“Somebody told her about it. Somebody in your family.”
“Do you know my brother?” I asked. “You saw him at your house. Do you know him?”
“That’s the angle the cops are working, right? That your brother put me onto Caitlin’s trail?”
“Do you know him?”
“Let’s just say I’ve crossed paths with a lot of people in my time. It’s possible your brother was one of them.”
“Caitlin says she heard his voice there, in your house.”
“He might have been there. Like I said, I can’t keep track of everything that happened in four years. And someone in Caitlin’s situation-living in a strange house, away from everything that used to be familiar-she might imagine some things. It might even be that a guy like me might help her
along in that direction.”
“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 wan
ted.”
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?