by Laura McHugh
CHAPTER 5
SARAH, NOW
I woke to darkness, my pulse stabbing with the rapid insistence of a sewing machine needle. The phone was ringing, but lingering in my ears was the unmistakable sound of scissors slicing through the dark, the metal blades grinding against each other. A nightmare. I lay paralyzed, scanning the room for unfamiliar shadows. Breathe in, one, two, three, four, hold, one, two, three, four. Breathe out. I was surprised I’d slept at all, Abby’s face appearing every time I closed my eyes.
Downstairs, Gypsy started to bark. The phone was still ringing, or had stopped and started again, an annoying jangly tune reserved for calls, not alarms. Helen was the only one who ever called, and she only called in the night if something went wrong and she needed the emergency vet.
I swiped to answer and Farrow’s voice boomed in my ear. “Sarah, it’s Nick Farrow.”
“Nick.” I said it aloud, the single syllable sticking in my dry mouth.
“I apologize if I woke you, but something’s come up. Another girl’s gone missing. From Lone Ridge, south of St. Louis. We don’t know enough yet to be sure, but there are definite similarities.”
Another girl? My throat was raw, like I’d been screaming in my sleep. I tried to swallow.
“I wanted to do this on your terms,” he continued. “Give you a chance to get used to the idea, let you come to the decision on your own. And I think you would have, in time. But right now we need to throw everything we’ve got at this case. It can’t wait.”
“What are you saying? You’re going to force me to…do what, exactly?”
“Not force,” he said. “I know you want to help—I could tell when you saw Abby’s picture. I need to interview you today. Now. I know you want to put this behind you for good, and I don’t want to cause you any more grief, but if you won’t talk to me, I’ll have to bring your case back into the spotlight. Put it out to the media as the five-year anniversary of your unsolved abduction, stir up interest, hopefully drum up some witnesses, leads, suspects. Get everyone talking about it again. People might find you, figure out who you are.” He paused to let it sink in. “I don’t want that and I know you don’t either. But I need some insight into your case, and I have to get it somehow. I’d much rather get it straight from you.”
I was fully awake now. “This feels like a threat. Like blackmail.”
“It’s a choice,” he said. “I’m doing my job, and these missing girls are my number-one priority. I’ll do whatever it takes to find them.”
He had me cornered and he knew it. Talk to him in private or have reporters at my door. It wasn’t much of a choice.
“I’m not Sheriff Krieger,” he said. “This is different. You’re afraid it won’t do anything but reopen old wounds. That it won’t help. But what if it does?”
I hadn’t wanted to relive what had happened to me, but it was already too late for that. The nightmares were back, my anxiety flaring. He wasn’t going to give up. I could do it and get it over with. Tell my side of the story. Haul Sarabeth out of her shallow grave and then shovel her right back in again. When Abby appeared in my dreams, I could tell her that I’d tried.
“I don’t do interview rooms. None of those mirrored windows or cameras or closed doors. No police stations.”
“No problem,” he said. “We can take a drive.”
“Why can’t we talk on the phone, like we’re doing now?” I knew he wouldn’t settle for that. He wasn’t Sheriff Krieger, but he was still a cop. He’d want to see if I’d pick at my fingernails, if my eyes would dart. He’d read my expression and body language and decide if I was telling the truth, if I had something to hide. Sheriff Krieger had remarked, at various points in my hours-long interview, how odd it was that I hadn’t cried. Never seen anything like it. What you just went through, not a single tear. I’ve seen girls bawl over a traffic ticket.
“I thought you could come with me to Lone Ridge,” he said. “And just…observe. Look, listen, see if anything stands out.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You want to take me along to a crime scene? You’re really asking me that?”
“It’s not a crime scene. It’s a girl’s home. A girl like you. Who’s gone missing. I want to get your perspective. That’s all.”
“Is that even allowed? Because it doesn’t seem like it would be. Did your boss sign off on it?”
“It’s unorthodox, maybe. But two girls are missing, there’s not much to go on, and you might be our best chance to crack this open.”
He’d slithered around my questions without a real answer. “Let’s say you’re right, and the cases are connected. What happens if he’s there? What if I don’t recognize him but he recognizes me?”
“I’ll be with you the entire time. You’ll be surrounded by law enforcement. If anyone’s acting strange, we’ll be right on top of it.”
Every alarm in my body was going off, warning me that it was a bad idea, that nothing good would come of it. But two things kept me from saying no. One was the thought of the girls, alone in the dark. The other was the feeling, five years later, that I was still chained to that wall. Therapy and medication hadn’t made it go away, and I didn’t know what would. Farrow was right. You’re afraid it won’t help. But what if it does? This was a chance to do something. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference, but maybe it would. I wanted to try. Somewhere inside me, Sarabeth was clawing her way back into the daylight.
“It’s one day, Sarah. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll have you back tonight.”
I pulled the phone away to check the time. It was a quarter to seven, not the middle of the night like I’d first thought. Beyond the curtains, sunlight would be creeping up from the horizon.
“I just woke up.”
“Coffee, then.” He was five steps ahead of me. “I’ll grab some on the way to pick you up.”
“Wait. If I do this…if I tell you everything I know and do everything I can to help today, and nothing comes of it, do you swear that’ll be the end of it? You’ll stop calling and showing up at my house and leave me alone?”
“Yes.” He paused. “You have my word.”
I got out of bed and switched on the light. “We’ll have to drop off my dog on the way.”
“You got it,” he said. “Be there in ten.”
I felt light-headed, almost dizzy. I wondered if he was already at the coffee shop down the street, the order placed before I’d even agreed. He hadn’t bothered to ask what I wanted. I half suspected that if I looked out the window, he’d be at the curb, waiting.
* * *
—
Helen had answered my text right away, happy to keep Gypsy for the day since I didn’t know what time I’d get back. She glanced at Farrow waiting in the Tahoe, raised her eyebrows at me. “No plans for the weekend, huh?”
“It…just came up,” I said, my ears burning. “Last minute.”
“Mm-hm.” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m just messing with you. It’s none of my business. Though I am more than willing to lend an ear if you want to tell me all about it later.” She touched my arm and leaned in, like a girlfriend would. “You have a good time.” Helen waved as we pulled away, her fingers fluttering.
Though Gypsy had only been in the vehicle for a matter of minutes, she’d managed to leave hair on the dash, the seats, my clothes. I brushed it away as best I could, watched it float through the air. Aside from the fur, Farrow’s car was impeccably clean. The radio was tuned to a news station, but he’d turned the volume down too low to make out the words.
“Thank you,” he said, not looking away from the road. “For doing this.” I studied his profile, the tension in his jaw. His hands clamped the steering wheel tight enough to squeeze the blood from his fingers. He took the ramp onto the interstate and continued to accelerate, slipping past a row of semis.
“The girl from Lone Ridge,” I said. “What’s her name?”
“Destiny Jewell,” he said. “She’s fourteen. Lives on a farm out in the boonies with her mom. Homeschooled. Been missing for two days. They’re searching the woods and surrounding area but haven’t found anything yet.”
We drove past the strip malls and fast-food restaurants of the outer suburbs, the twisting spines of roller coasters at the Six Flags amusement park rising out of the trees in the distance. I liked living near the city, insulated by the trappings of civilization, surrounded by strangers. It made me feel safe, which was absurd; the murder rate in St. Louis was the worst in the state, and I barely interacted with my neighbors. Still, my stomach knotted with the knowledge that I was leaving the protective cocoon I’d hidden inside for the past five years. I wasn’t ready, but maybe I never would be.
It was unsettling how quickly signs of life faded away as we sped south, businesses and apartment complexes replaced first by fields and then rolling hills and then craggy cliffs where the road had been blasted out of solid rock. The same rugged, breathtaking scenery you’d see in a horror movie before a young woman takes the wrong shortcut. So many acres of isolation, of nothingness. There were still plenty of places for people to disappear.
“So,” Farrow said, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “You like your job at the shelter?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Make small talk. Just ask what you want to ask and get it over with. That’s why I’m here.”
“All right,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror and then clicking on the cruise control. “So you were taken by a man wearing a mask, and you woke up blindfolded. You were blindfolded until he let you go and kept in the dark. You don’t know how far you drove, you never saw anything inside or outside the place you were held, and you never saw the face of the person who kept you there.”
“Correct.”
“The medical exam revealed multiple injuries—bruising and wounds consistent with restraints, a bloody nose, contusions on the head and face, lacerations on your hands, and another bleeding wound on your hip. Your hair had been cut. But there was no exam for sexual assault. According to your interview, you claimed you were not sexually assaulted and declined to be examined. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” I thought of the nurse who tended to me, how she wiped off the dried blood, kept my body covered as much as she could with a paper sheet. She apologized for the bright lights, avoided looking me in the eye.
“I told you that I believe you, and I do. I don’t want you to take this as an attack on your credibility, I just want to make sure that we have all the right information. Given the nature of your family’s religious background…it would be understandable if you didn’t feel comfortable discussing that sort of thing with the detectives when they questioned you back then. I’m aware of the stigma in certain communities, how women are made to feel that they’re tainted somehow, and they want to avoid that. If anything happened that you were afraid for your parents or people in the community to find out, you can tell me now—they don’t need to know. It could be relevant to the case.”
“I wasn’t raped,” I said, the word ringing like a church bell. That had been a difficult thing for the sheriff to believe—if a man had abducted me, wouldn’t he have raped me? Why else would someone want to steal a teenage girl? In the end it didn’t matter what I said, people would think what they wanted.
“Okay,” Farrow said. “Then let’s move on.” He swerved around a shredded tire, the Tahoe vibrating as he crossed the caution strip. “I’ve read through your file I don’t know how many times, and the one thing I can’t figure out is probably the most important part of the puzzle. The motive. If you want to catch someone like this, it helps to know why they’re doing it, what they want. Did you get any hint of what he wanted from you? Some larger plan?”
“I don’t know. I mean, when I think about it now…it was almost like I was being prepared for something that never happened. Maybe he just hadn’t gotten around to whatever he was going to do.”
“If that’s the case, what was he waiting for? It makes me think you might have been the first, that he hadn’t quite worked everything out yet. But I also wonder if there was a personal connection…if he knew you, and that made him reluctant to follow through.”
His phone buzzed and he checked the screen, sighed, put it back down.
“All right, how about suspects. In your interview, you mentioned some young men from town, former classmates. This part’s a bit messy, but from what I could tell, they had alibis for the day you went missing…supposedly they went to a basketball game together. I don’t know how thoroughly that was checked out. One of them claimed that you’d told him you were going to run away, which Sheriff Krieger repeated in the newspaper, though the guy later claimed he hadn’t spoken to you. Do you think they might have been involved?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They’d come by the farm stand sometimes and make stupid jokes. Thought it was funny to mess with me. But I don’t know if one of them could’ve pulled off something like that.” I hadn’t given Jack’s name. Only the others. I didn’t like to think of Jack having anything to do with it.
“Maybe worth another look,” he said. “You used a neighbor’s internet from time to time. Did you have any online relationships you didn’t tell the police about?”
“I did a homeschool course online. My parents knew. I wasn’t allowed to use social media or anything like that.”
“But did you?”
“No.” The instinct was still there, to deny anything my parents would have disapproved of. “I mean, I looked at it. Tom—the Darlings’ grandson, it was his computer—he had accounts, but I never had one of my own. I’d look things up sometimes, maybe things my parents wouldn’t have liked, but I didn’t talk to anyone.”
“When you came back, did you notice anyone acting strangely toward you? Anyone change their behavior?”
“I didn’t have a chance to notice anything, really. I was kept at home after, until I left town. My family acted different around me, but I couldn’t blame them. They were worried about keeping reporters out, trying to pretend things would go back to normal.”
Outside the window, the scenery was unfamiliar. I hadn’t looked Lone Ridge up on the map. “How far south of St. Louis are we going?” I asked.
“About four hours,” he said. “A hundred miles from Wisteria.”
I gritted my teeth, feeling like I might puke. A hundred miles from home. Farrow was using the same strategy my counselor had employed to help me adjust to my new life. Baby steps. Just talk to me, he’d said. In the car. On the way to a crime scene. In the Ozarks. I didn’t want to guess what the next step might be, but it was too late to turn back now.
Farrow kept on with his questions, trying to extract something new out of the well-worn details of my file as we drove deeper into the Ozarks and entered the Mark Twain National Forest. He didn’t circle back to sex, didn’t obsess over the parts the sheriff had, how I had been undressed, bathed. I answered everything, keeping my eyes on the scenery to ground myself in the present. We passed a mobile home with a blue tarp on the roof and a yard full of battered Christmas decorations, an abandoned gas station with a Confederate flag hanging over the broken pumps. Buzzards gathered for the plentiful roadkill, gorging until we were nearly on top of them, their wide black wings swooping over the windshield.
“I’m working on getting the blood evidence from the nightgown retested,” Farrow said.
“They called it a nightgown in the news, but it was a slip, actually. Not that it matters. You can’t retest it because the sheriff’s office misplaced it. Or they threw it out when the evidence room flooded. Or it got stolen when a tweaker broke in to get his meth back. Those were some of the answers my lawyer got.”
“Huh,” he said. “They might have lost the slip,
but there were extensive bloodstains, and multiple samples were cut out to send to the lab. Those are still intact. I know you thought there was a chance there might have been some of his blood on you, and since some of the tests were inconclusive, I thought it was worth checking, see if they missed something.”
“Inconclusive? What does that mean? I don’t remember anybody saying that.”
“It might not have been mentioned if it wasn’t deemed important. Could mean lots of things. Maybe the sample was contaminated. Maybe not enough material to get an accurate result. There might be some different methods we can try, though.”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me we could redo the tests? When they said the slip was gone, I thought there was nothing left, nothing I could do.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Miscommunication? Incompetence? Omission? Whoever it was probably didn’t know about the samples. Sometimes it seems like things are swept under the rug, but usually it’s just simple human error. I know that probably doesn’t make you feel any better about it. It certainly doesn’t make it okay.”
The original analysis had identified no DNA but my own. The slip was all I had; the nurse had rinsed the blood from my hands without stopping to consider that it might be evidence. I’d thought that if they found his blood, it would prove that I was telling the truth. Sheriff Krieger hadn’t believed me when I told him what happened the night I was dumped alongside the highway. I was far from Wisteria when the results came back, but I didn’t need to see him face-to-face to hear his mocking voice in my head. All that blood, it’s all yours. You can see why nobody believes you, Sarabeth. Your story just doesn’t add up.