Breaker's Reef (22 page)

“No, hon. I didn’t get names. Just heard some of the gals talking about it. Everybody was real surprised when it turned out he was a famous writer. Who woulda thought? And why would a dude like that go around killing people? You’d think he had it made. Money, fame … Unless he was just cracked in the head from the start.”

Sadie thanked him for the information, then stepped outside and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She dialed the number of the police station, and got Cade on the phone quickly.

“Yeah, Sadie. What is it?”

“Cade, I was just at the Flagstaff talking to the manager—”

“Sadie, get out of there! You don’t have any business there!”

“But listen. He told me Gibson was hanging around up here. That he—”

“We know all about that. We’re on top of it.”

“You do?”

“Yes. We know what we’re doing, Sadie. You need to get out of there and let me handle the police work. Will you do that? Will you leave right now?”

She sighed and looked around. She had come here to find out about the tenant in the room next to Amelia’s. She still needed to know. “Okay, okay. I’m leaving right now, as we speak.”

“What made you go there in the first place? Does your mother know where you are? Do Morgan and Jonathan? I know Blair didn’t send you there.”

“I was reading Amelia’s journal. I found it on the web. She talked about hearing a conversation outside her window, a conversation between two guys. That was her last entry. Have you talked to the guys in the room next to hers?”

“Yes, Sadie, we have. And I know the journal you’re talking about. We found it too.”

“Well, don’t you think it’s important?”

“Everything is important. Now I want you to get out of there right now!”

She didn’t want to lie, but she wasn’t ready to leave. “I’m already a block away.”

She could hear the relief in his voice. “Good. Keep walking, and don’t turn back.”

“I won’t.”

She hung up and looked back up at the room. Maybe she should just keep her word and leave … but there were still too many questions. The manager had mentioned a girl seeing Jamie and Amelia with two guys.

She pushed back into the managers’ office.

“Excuse me.”

“Yeah?”

“You were saying a girl saw Amelia and Jamie with two guys. Who were the guys? What were they doing?”

“She said she saw them getting into their car. I don’t know who they were.”

“She saw the girls getting into someone’s car? Did she tell the police?”

“Yep, she told ’em. I heard her myself.”

“Did she know the guys?”

“She didn’t know. Said she only saw them from behind, and it was getting dark. Got into a car she didn’t recognize. Couldn’ta been the girls’ car, since the cops found it here.”

“Were the girls going willingly, or were they being forced?”

“Lady, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”

“I will. Which room is she in?”

“212. Name’s Tina.”

Sadie hurried upstairs to 212 and found the door open. A girl who couldn’t have been older than fourteen lay on the bed watching
Lizzie McGuire.
She looked as if she hadn’t bathed in days and nursed a weeklong hangover. Her hair was greasy, and black makeup was smeared under her eyes, as if she’d just awakened and hadn’t bothered to look in the mirror.

Sadie knocked on the door casing, and the girl sat up. “Excuse me, are you Tina?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m Sadie Caruso, from the
Cape Refuge Journal.
I was just talking to the motel manager about the two girls who disappeared.”

“Yeah, freaky, huh?”

Sadie stepped into her room. “Listen, he said you saw the girls the night they disappeared, talking to two guys.”

“I thought I did. But now that time has passed I think I may have got it wrong.”

Sadie’s heart fell. “Got it wrong? How?”

“Well, I don’t think it was them. And the nights are all blurring together. Might have even been somebody else before they checked in.”

Sadie came into the room. “Look, I know you’ve probably gotten cold feet about talking to the police—”

The girl sprang off of the bed and pushed past Sadie to the doorway. She looked out in both directions, checking to see if anyone was listening. “I didn’t talk to the police, okay? And I’m sure not talking to no reporter.”

Sadie reached for the door. “Can we close this and talk where we won’t be heard? I promise I won’t print anything you tell me.”

Tina shook her head and peered out again. “No. I have to leave it open.”

“Why?”

“Never mind. I’m not talking to you anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

Sadie stood there a moment as the girl went to her bathroom mirror and leaned in, examining her face. “Man, I look awful.” She grabbed a used tissue and wiped under her eyes.

Sadie came further into the room and stood behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Look, I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but in some ways I’ve been where you are, and I can understand how real that fear is. I’m not here as a reporter, okay? I’m here because one of those girls—the one who’s still missing—is my sister.”

The girl turned around then and looked fully into Sadie’s face. She looked even younger now, with the smeared black makeup gone. “Your sister? Oh, yeah. You do look like her.”

“Then you did see her?”

Tina looked toward the door again, as if certain someone was listening. “We all saw her. You couldn’t miss those two. They looked like little preppies bopping up in here, perfectly innocent, like they expected to order room service and go for a swim.”

Sadie lowered to her bed. “Did you talk to them at all?”

“Yeah, once.” The girl’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. “I kind of passed out in my doorway, and they got me a glass of water.”

Sadie’s heart twisted. “They helped you?”

“Yeah, sort of. The one did, the one that looks like you. The other one acted like she was afraid she’d catch a disease just standing on my carpet.”

“What did they say?”

The girl’s eyes glazed over as she stared at her memory. “The one—Amelia—said she’d get me some food or take me somewhere. I told her I was fine. I told them they didn’t belong here, that it was dangerous for somebody like them. They just went on to their room. They should have listened.”

“Why were they in danger?”

Tina laughed then. “Are you
blind?
Haven’t you seen the people who live here? They were targets in the first ten minutes after they got here. They went to their room, all stiff, like they were scared to death. These dudes who live here, they smell fear, like animals.” She walked to her doorway, looked out. “Oh, man, what are they doing here?”

Sadie stood up and looked past her. She saw a police car pulling into the parking lot. She might have known Cade would send someone to make sure she’d left. She stepped back into the shadow of the room. “I think they’re looking for me.”

Tina turned around. “You in trouble?”

“No. They just didn’t want me here. Chief Cade is my friend. He’s a little protective.”

Tina watched out the door. “He’s gone now. Just drove through and looked around.”

Sadie peeked out the window into the parking lot below. She saw the squad car pulling back into traffic, and relaxed.

“Must be nice to have people looking out for you. Even if they are cops.”

Sadie supposed that was true … most of the time. “Listen, the manager told me Marcus Gibson was here, snooping around.”

“Yeah, talk about a weirdo.”

“Was he here that day? Did you ever see him talking to the girls?”

“No, not that day. But the way he crept around, he could have been here without my noticing.”

“Did he ever threaten anyone or hurt anybody?”

“No. He seemed harmless enough, until all this happened.”

“You said
they
smelled fear. Was he one of the ones you meant?”

“No, not him. People who live here.”

“Who? I need names.”

She grunted. “I’m not giving you names.”

“Is it the men who are out there right now?”

The girl turned away. “You’re crazy. You should go now.”

Sadie touched the girl’s arm and tried to turn her back around. “Tell me about the girls getting into the car with two guys. What did you see?”

Tina jerked her arm away and went to get a cigarette out of a glittery handbag with Audrey Hepburn’s face on the side. “Okay,” she said on a whisper. “I’ll tell you what I told the cops. I saw them with these two guys walking out to a car and getting into it. I didn’t see their faces, just the backs of their heads. Could have been anybody around here.”

“What kind of car did they get into?”

“Hey, it was dark. I didn’t see. Little boxy car, four doors. Dark colored, I think. I remember it rattled when it pulled away.”

“Did you see which direction they drove?”

“No, I didn’t think much of it, so why would I watch?”

Sadie got up and went back to the doorway, peering out over the rail to the parking lot below. “Can you think of anybody else that was out that night, anyone who might have seen them? Somebody who might have gotten a look at the guys’ faces?”

“No. We’ve all been talking ever since. I haven’t heard of anybody else who saw that.”

Sadie wanted to write it down, but she didn’t want Tina thinking of her as a reporter again. She looked up at her, and noted the look of hopeless vacancy. “Can I ask you one more question?”

Tina shrugged. “Not like I can stop you.”

“Do you know the guy Nate who lives on the end down there, next to where Amelia and Jamie were staying?”

She turned away and put her cigarette out. “Yeah, I know Nate.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s just another doper,” she said in a low voice. “It wasn’t him.”

“How do you know? You said you couldn’t see their faces.”

The girl pulled open a drawer, began searching through her wadded clothes for something. “It wasn’t him, okay? He has a walk.”

Sadie watched her. Why was Tina so nervous talking about Nate? The girl finally found what she was looking for—another pack of cigarettes. She pulled out the cigarette and lit up as she looked Sadie over.

“You ever get high?”

Sadie thought of those days when dope was readily available in her own home, when methamphetamine was going out as fast as other drugs were coming in. She’d experimented a couple of times, trying to escape the life in which she was trapped.

She hated the memory of it.

“No, I don’t get high.”

“Smart girl.” Tina leaned back against the wall, blowing her smoke up toward the ceiling. “I used to be like you.”

Sadie just looked at her feet.

“You’re all clean and prissy and probably think you’re so much better than me. But if you came from the kind of place I came from, you’d be where I am right now.”

Sadie
had
come from such a place. “We all have choices. It’s not too late for you, Tina. You can still turn around. I know some people who would take you in if you didn’t have a place to go.”

Tina laughed and brandished a hand across her room. “And leave all this? Are you kidding me? No thanks.”

Sadie thought of walking out, but something about the girl’s demeanor made her stay. She pulled her notepad out, jotted down her own name and the phone number for Hanover House. “Look, if you need help or decide that you want to turn your life around, call me at this number, okay? If I’m not there, talk to anybody who answers. Tell them I gave you the number. They can help you. I promise they can. I came here a lot like you—my mom was in prison and her boyfriend had taken over our house with his meth lab. I came to Cape Refuge all beaten up with a broken arm and bruises all over me … and Morgan Cleary found me and took me in. I was underaged too, but she didn’t send me back home. I’ve lived there for a year and a half now, and they’ve helped me change my life. It’s what they do. Most of the people who live there are right out of prison, all of them have drug problems—”

“I can’t afford a rehab program.”

“There’s no cost. Christian people donate money to keep the house going. God uses them to rescue people like you all the time.”

“I’m a crack addict.” The girl lifted her chin almost proudly as she said it. “You don’t know what that’s like. You can kick it, think you’re over it, that you’ve got it under control. But then your mind tricks you into believing that you can’t do without it or you’ll die, and when you get like that, you’ll sell your grandmother’s pacemaker to get a fix. In fact, you’ll sell whatever you’ve got.”

Sadie knew the girl had been peddling herself for that fix. She handed her the paper. “Take it. Call them if you ever feel like you want a hand out of here. Or call me. I’ll help you.”

Tina stared down at the number, and tears came to her eyes. She turned and stuffed it into her drawer. “You two are a lot alike, aren’t you? You and your sister?”

Sadie wanted to tell her that she didn’t know, because she’d never met her. “Why do you say that?”

“You both want to help me.” She closed the drawer, drew in a deep breath. “Thanks for the number. I don’t happen to need it, but—”

“Keep it anyway. One day you’ll find yourself crying out to God for help, begging Him for an escape, and He’ll remind you of that number. You’ll call, and you’ll find Jesus there. And that’ll be the beginning of your new life. Don’t lose it, okay?”

Tina leaned back against the wall again. “I won’t.”

Sadie left her room, feeling like she’d left a part of herself behind. She started down the stairs, as a wave of smoke drifted up to her. Someone was waiting down below. She slowed her step as she came down and saw a shadow of a man leaning against a car, right at the bottom of the stairs. She reached the bottom, stepped around the wall, and saw him. Nate leaned against a beat-up old Volvo, staring up at her with dull, impatient eyes.

“Want to tell me why you’re asking around about me?”

She stopped cold. “I wasn’t asking about you. I was asking about the girls—”

“I heard you ask about me by name.”

She knew there was no point in lying. If he’d heard the conversation upstairs, then she couldn’t deny her way out of it. “Okay, I
was
asking about you. I think you know something about my sister.”