“So they came to you with problems, instead?” Alice asked. “Did you spend a lot of time with them alone?”
It was the accusation they’d been inching toward. She pulled it out and laid it on the table between them so that he could see, so that he could realize. Alice knew the darkness in him, knew his dirty secrets, knew what he did when he thought no one was looking.
He didn’t react to the gauntlet thrown, but she knew that he would now be looking for an opening, a vulnerability.
“Not often,” Sterling said, his hands still relaxed on the table. The man’s body language was that of utter control. Rage and control. The echo of her conversation reverberated along her skull. Rage. Control. “They would talk school. Their various projects. Trudy was tutoring an underprivileged boy.”
“And Ruby? What did she talk to you about?”
He leaned back into the chair, crossing one leg over the other, finally closing himself off. Here was another nerve. If they’d had any doubts. “Trivial things, as five-year-olds do. You must know what that’s like.”
There. The counterattack. He’d found his footing. “Yes.”
“You had a daughter, didn’t you, Detective?”
There was a rustling behind her, Nakamura straightening against the wall. She wished he wouldn’t move.
“I did,” Alice said. The bile burned in her throat. It was tempting to scrape her fingernails along his face, draw blood so that it oozed thick and viscous over the smooth skin. So that everyone could see what lay beneath the mask.
“She was Ruby’s age when she died?” His face was fashioned into a pantomime of empathy, but there was no hiding the hunger in his eyes. He smelled blood in the water.
“We’re not talking about my daughter,” Alice said, though the words wobbled on the edges far more than she would have preferred.
“If you cannot even protect your own daughter, Detective, how do you expect me to trust you to find my granddaughter’s killer?”
Her pulse pounded in her ears, and she forced herself to concentrate on that. He was baiting her. He was running the table while she scrambled to grab hold of her fragile self-control. And they still didn’t know where Trudy was.
She thought about her rib cage, thought about the air filling her lungs and the bones expanding to make space. Her mind traced over the idea of ivory nestled beneath flesh as she counted each rung. When she got to her collarbones, her pulse had returned to normal, and she was able to look up.
Maybe that was a mistake. The smugness in the set of his shoulders told her it was. The arrogance in the corners of his lips told her it was. His hands folded and relaxed over his knee told her it was.
But he wasn’t the only one holding a sword.
“Do you know what I’ve found, Sterling?” she asked, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. “When you have little girls, you realize just what kind of monsters are out there.”
“It’s Judge Burke, Detective. Or Your Honor, if you prefer,” Sterling said, and it felt like a victory. It felt like she was getting to him. “And I’m well aware how dangerous the world is.”
“The type of person it would take to prey upon someone so young . . .” Alice trailed off.
“Is out there right now, Detective,” Sterling said. “While you’re here wasting time talking to me.”
“You think it’s a waste of time? Talking to the victim’s grandfather? The head of the family?”
Sterling had thought she would break down at the mere mention of Lila, she could tell. This was not what he’d planned. He pressed his lips together before relaxing his entire body again. “I’ve given you what I can. Now it’s time for you two to catch the bastard who did this.” The hint of “or else” hung in the air, a vague threat that wasn’t actually vague.
They stared at each other, neither of them victors despite both scoring points. Then he stood up in one graceful move. The interview was over. It was to be a draw, it seemed.
“We’ll be in touch,” Alice said, remaining seated. It was all she could say. She had no power here, not unless she wanted to arrest him, and it wasn’t time for that yet.
He gave one nod before crossing the room.
“Oh, Sterling,” Alice called out just as Nakamura was about to open the door for him. “Something you should know? I’m really good at recognizing monsters. Even when they’re in disguise.”
Sterling’s cold eyes flicked over her face. “Funny. I am as well.”
“Don’t touch me.” Alice shrugged Nakamura’s hands off her shoulders. They were standing in the hallway, just outside the interrogation room. Everyone else had cleared out while they’d lingered behind. “Just—I need a minute.”
You had a daughter, didn’t you, Detective?
She scrubbed at her skin, wanting to rid herself of the memory of Sterling. It lingered anyway like bad perfume, thick and repulsive. Nauseating.
“Get some air,” Nakamura said, and his voice came from a distance. The black was creeping in at the edges of her vision, and she started for the doors without acknowledging him again.
The night was warm against her too-cold skin.
You had a daughter, didn’t you, Detective?
She leaned against the brick wall of the station, her fingers finding the cement grooves, tracing along them, over and over.
And she breathed. In. Out. In. Her lungs burned as they devoured the oxygen and called out for more. Her eyes stung where tears she never let fall pressed against the ducts. Her lips cracked from where her teeth sank into the soft flesh.
It had taken all of herself not to kill him in that room. Not to dig her thumb into his windpipe and watch the life fade from his evil eyes. Not to break every bone in his fingers, the ones he’d used to lay hands on a little girl. The ones he’d used to ruin Charlotte. To ruin Trudy.
You had a daughter, didn’t you, Detective?
“Detective?” The woman’s voice was kind, honeyed. She was from the South and liked to slur her words together until they became one. “You can go in now, hon.”
Alice blinked, having trouble focusing her eyes. Everything was blurred and a bit sideways.
She followed the guard into the visitation room. It looked like every single one she’d ever been in. Sparse, gray, depressing.
There was only one man on the other side of the glass, sitting three seats from the wall. Her shoes slapped against the linoleum. The chair squeaked when she drew it back. The lights gleamed off the metal counter. She blinked again.
And he came into focus. The monster.
He didn’t look like one. He had sandy-blond hair, thinning only a little at the sides and top. His face was classically handsome, with wide-spread blue eyes, a patrician nose, and a strong jawline. He had broad shoulders and muscle definition most often seen on those who spent their time behind bars.
He had taken her entire life.
She picked up the phone, and he mirrored the gesture. He didn’t say anything, just waited for her. Monsters shouldn’t be considerate.
“Why?” It was stupid and naive, as if she hadn’t been a cop for years, and she asked it anyway. It was a weakness humans had, always having to know. Why?
He sucked on his lower lip, his eyes on her face. “I was bored.”
Fierce pain bloomed in her chest, spread along her collarbones, along her arms, down through her pelvis. Her womb pulsed with it. She slammed the phone against the glass, wishing it would shatter, wishing she would shatter. Wishing the shards of her would slice him, a million tiny cuts that would bleed out onto the bleached speckled tile.
But it didn’t break. The window separating them. He was safe from her. Protected.
He smiled.
And then he hung up the phone, stood, and walked over to the guard.
He didn’t look back as they led him from the room.
“Hey.” There was something being pushed into her hand. Her fingers worked even though her mind was sluggish at understanding what was happening.
She drank because it was something to do. The liquid was lukewarm and thicker than it was supposed to be, but it was caffeine injected into her bloodstream.
“You okay?” he asked, though clearly she wasn’t. You okay? I’m fine.
The script. The one she would have to follow forever and always. I’m fine.
“No,” she said instead.
“Okay.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHARLOTTE
August 3, 2018
Five days after the kidnapping
Charlotte didn’t turn around to watch as Alice left the diner. Instead, her gaze remained on the child in the photo Alice had left behind. She ran the tip of her finger over the smiling face. The girl had Detective Garner’s eyes, but the similarities ended there.
It hurt to look at it, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away even when the waitress came to check on her again.
“A grilled cheese,” Charlotte ordered, because Alice had told her to get something.
The waitress walked away without any other acknowledgment.
Charlotte turned the picture over. On the back in sloppy handwriting was “Lila, Age 4.”
She swiped at her eyes, angry and frustrated. At the world. At the detective. At herself. There were countless pictures of Ruby, just like the one on the table. Her own labeling was neater, but the sentiment was the same. A moment captured in time, a race to remember a little girl before she became older in the next split second.
Life softened those changes so that they weren’t noticeable as you were living them. The day to day became routine. There were still milestones: a lost tooth, a first day of school. But most of the time, Ruby was just Ruby. Her bright, shining stardust girl.
Looking at those pictures, though, the ones that were just like Lila’s, sharpened the moments. Stopped them when otherwise they would have rushed by without a thought.
Now all she had left were those ones that she had managed to capture. There seemed to be too few.
Warm toast and melted cheese slid in front of her, and the edge of the plate covered the picture. Panic raced through her at the thought of it being damaged. She smoothed the glossy paper down with a hand gone shaky.
What happened, Charlotte?
She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t. What happened?
There was a wisp of a memory there. Sand. Heat. A tiny sweaty palm in hers. But every time she chased it, it only dissolved further. Sky. Beach. Waves. The smell of strawberries.
Had it been Sterling? She searched for a glimpse of white hair, of that profile she knew too well. Of Ruby hearing her name called by a loved one.
It was blank.
What happened, Charlotte?
It had to be him. It had to be.
“I don’t wanna go,” Ruby shouted into the quiet of the house, her face red, her cheeks tearstained.
Frustration and desperation turned Charlotte’s hands rough. She grabbed at the girl’s soft arm, and Ruby cried out again when fingers dug into flesh.
Charlotte shook her head. No, she didn’t remember that. All she remembered was beach. Waves. Sky. A tiny sweaty palm in hers. The smell of strawberry shampoo.
What happened, Charlotte?
“Get up.” Charlotte tugged on Ruby’s arm. Her fingers would leave bruises, but she would feel sorry about it later. All that mattered now was getting Ruby out of the house.
“No,” Ruby wailed at the top of her lungs. They would wake everyone if this continued much longer. It would ruin everything.
Charlotte slapped her hand over her daughter’s mouth, pressing hard.
Everything after the memory was blurry, but she could still feel Ruby’s damp lips against her palm.
Before she realized it, she was up and moving. There were more people in the diner than there had been earlier, but they were all just blurred shapes and indistinguishable voices. She heard the waitress call after her as she slammed through the door and the bell hanging over it tinkled, wild and angry. Ignoring both, she ran down the stairs, stumbling a bit as she jammed the key in the car’s lock.
It happened again. That gap. One minute she was in the parking lot by the diner, trying to control her pulse, her breathing. The next she was pulling to the side of the road. She didn’t know where she was.
She turned the car off, and then her fingers found her eyebrows and plucked at the patchy hair there.
The small bite of pain helped her focus. She looked around, realizing it hadn’t been mindless at all. The drive.
For thirty-six years, without fail, Sterling Burke had kept a long-standing appointment at the Old Tavern. It didn’t matter who joined him; he would always sit on the patio and order Scotch neat and smoke a cigar.
He’d brought her there for the first time when she turned seven. The hostess had known who they were, had taken them right over to Sterling’s table despite there being a line of people waiting. It had been her first taste of what their name meant in this town. It had been her first taste of knowing what it was like to be a Burke.
Sterling had let her try his Scotch and then ordered her a Shirley Temple. It had been too sweet, but she drank it all anyway. She’d felt classy, sophisticated. Good.
He’d always been able to do that for people, Sterling. He was skilled at reading them, at knowing what they desired most and giving it to them. More than his brains or his charm or his luck, it was that ability that he had used to drag himself out of poverty.
No one looking at him now in his $3,000 white linen suit would know he’d come from a modest family in the suburbs of Jacksonville, the son of a mechanic. At some point in his rise to prominence, someone tinted the scene to tell the story of a boy and his bootstraps, which appealed to the vast majority of Southern voters. But it had been more about a boy and his ability to lie and manipulate his way into positions of power and authority.
All of it became second nature to him. If he wanted something and he could get it, why not? Did it really matter if someone got hurt in the process?
She knew how dark the underbelly of the power was now, but back then, with her cherry-slicked lips and the stars in her eyes, it had seemed magical.
Tires squealed on asphalt to her left, and she jolted, only then realizing that she still had the photo from Detective Garner in her hand. It was crumpled against the steering wheel, a crease down the middle of the little girl’s face. A tiny whimper escaped her lips as she tried to smooth it out, but she knew it was a lost cause. It wasn’t fair that they damaged so easily.
She slipped the picture into the visor before her eyes found Sterling.
He was laughing, his head thrown back, one hand on his belly, the other clutching at his glass. The lazy fan above them was doing little to battle the humidity of the late-afternoon sun. But Sterling was unfazed. A Southern gentleman who could handle the heat.
Her fingertips rested on her knees, and then slowly, ever so slowly, inched down toward her calf and the underside of her seat. They crept along the fabric until they touched the cold, smooth metal of the gun. Ever since Enrique had given it to her, she’d kept it underneath the seat for easy access. She curled her palm around the grip and brought it up to her lap. It sat heavy against her thigh, and she stroked the length of the barrel, her eyes still on Sterling.
She hadn’t slept at all the night before the beach. She hadn’t slept for far too many nights.
Ruby had been warm in her arms on the porch. Ready for an adventure, any adventure. Charlotte had cataloged each second, each minute, of sitting there, rocking in the old, worn chair. She hadn’t known when she’d see Ruby again.
The plan involved Trudy disappearing completely. No trail for Hollis to trace. No way for them to be found.
When Charlotte let herself dream, she pictured finding Trudy and Ruby. They’d buy a little house in South Carolina or California or Montana. Somewhere pretty. Somewhere they could breathe and stretch and see the s
ky. Somewhere they could forget they were broken. Somewhere they could try to actually live instead of survive.
It wouldn’t have been like that, though. Charlotte had known even as she’d held her baby girl in her arms for probably the last time. She’d known.
What happened, Charlotte?
Why had Detective Garner asked her about Sterling? The tip of her thumb skated over the muzzle of the gun, and she thought of the bullets that were nestled in the magazine.
What if Sterling had found out?
There’d been passports, Social Security cards. Money. Wads of it, stashed under floorboards and in the bottoms of safes. What would he have done if he realized they were escaping?
Charlotte thought he might love her, in some dark and twisted way. It wasn’t that he didn’t pay attention to Ruby and Trudy, but she was the one he always wanted to control, to own, to break.
My favorite girl. It was a whisper, a promise, a vow. Always my favorite girl.
What if he thought she was leaving? What if he thought she was going with them?
Would he kill for that? Would he take away her incentive? Without Ruby she had no reason to escape.
Beach. Waves. Sky. A tiny sweaty palm in her own.
Had he been there? Why couldn’t she remember?
Her finger found the trigger, but not to squeeze. Not yet. Just to test, to feel beneath her skin.
It felt like power.
For once in her life, she didn’t feel weak, and all the noise and voices and sound just sort of . . . stopped. They all stopped.
Only when her lips started to tingle did she realize she’d been holding her breath, and when she sucked in air, everything else came rushing back with it. She slipped the gun under the seat once more and ducked low beneath the brim of her baseball cap when she thought she saw Sterling glance over.
Then Charlotte was driving again.
There was a moment on the beach she remembered. She’d been looking at the water, so dangerous and alluring to a five-year-old, and in that heartbeat realized Ruby wasn’t there. She’d charged toward the waves, not stopping until she was thigh-deep in the ocean, her hands dragging through the water as if she could snatch a limb, a hand, a clump of hair. As if she could drag what would be Ruby’s lifeless body into the oxygen.
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