Jilliane Hoffman (23 page)

50

‘How long do you think he’ll be gone for? I mean, do you think he’s ever coming back?’ Lainey asked, her cheek pressed to the cool, mildew-smelling wall. She was losing her voice.

‘Don’t know. Maybe he had an accident,’ Katy answered back. ‘I hope to God it hurt.’ The thought had occurred to Katy that the freak might not be coming back at all. That he had just left them in this hellhole – wherever it was – to rot and die. At first she was OK with that because it was better than what she faced if he came back. It was better than listening to the screams down the hall. Or smelling the nauseating stink of paint. Or feeling his sticky fingers on her skin. Now all she heard was quiet; all she smelled was her own stink in the corner. Then she got to thinking about the possibility that he really might not be coming back. She started to think about slowly starving to death in the darkness and how that would feel. And while death seemed preferable to living her life out in a blind dungeon, if he never came back, and she did die here, she’d started to consider the possibility that no one would ever find her body. Would her poor mother ever know what had really happened to her? Or would her parents think for years that she was living it up in Vegas or LA or New York? Would she rot like a mummy and wither to bones, only to be dug up in a century or two and studied by some dinosaur hunter who would wonder aloud why the hell she was buried where she was?

‘How’s your tunnel coming?’ Lainey asked. ‘Can you feel the other side of the wall?’

‘I hit rock.’

‘Oh. Are you quitting?’

‘No way.’ Katy lightly clenched her fists. She felt her raw fingertips rub against her palm, the nails broken, jagged stubs. They’d been bleeding for what felt like days. ‘I’m just going around it. This may be our only way out if he doesn’t come back. How’s your tunnel?’

‘I stopped. My fingers hurt too much.’

‘Lainey …’

‘I wanna go home, Katy. I don’t want to dig tunnels I’ll never fit through.’

‘Think positive.’

‘Don’t you want to go home, Katy?’

Katy closed her eyes. She didn’t like to talk about home. It hurt too much. ‘Yeah. That’s why I’m digging. Wishing you were home, warm in your bed, doesn’t fly, Lainey. There’s no wizard here to grant you your wish when clicking your heels don’t work.’ She sighed and sat back against the wall. ‘Tell me about your brother again. What’s it like to have a brother? And why was he called Bradley Brat?’

‘I don’t remember any more. I don’t remember why I called him a brat,’ Lainey whispered back. ‘Or why he made me mad so much. I just miss him. I can’t believe I’m saying that. I miss Brad. I miss him coming into my room and stealing my comics because he’s scared of the thunderstorm and he wants to read them under the covers. I miss his stupid, snorty laugh when he thinks something’s really funny. I used to think he was faking, but now I know it’s real.’

‘And your mom? Tell me about your mom.’

‘She’s probably really upset, but not telling anyone, you know? She’s gotta hold it in. She always does. We weren’t getting along, you know, like I told you, when this happened. And Liza – you know, my sister – she’s run away before and my mom was really pissed. She told her once not to bother coming home any more if she did it again. And Liza, well, you know, she probably doesn’t even know I’m gone, she’s always so busy. She has lots of boyfriends and stuff, so …’ Lainey broke off and rubbed her bandaged eyes. ‘She’s probably still mad that I took her jeans and her make-up.’

‘I wish I could re-do things,’ Katy said softly. ‘Do a do-over, you know? I thought things were so bad at home. Isn’t that funny? But sometimes you have to see the really bad to know what’s good. I fucked things up at home. It was my fault. It’s just too late to do anything about it.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Lainey yelled at the top of her lungs.

There was a long silence.

‘Do you think anyone is looking for us, Katy? Do you think anybody even cares?’

Katy rubbed away the tears on her cheeks with her shredded, bloody fingertips. There was no way she was gonna answer that, either in her head or out loud. She felt around for the hole she had started long ago. Her fingers caught on the rough limestone and she followed it with her hands till she felt the sharp drop-off into what she hoped was just plain dirt. She dug her hands in and began to feverishly tunnel, ignoring the pain in her fingers, the ache in her back, the grumble in her stomach, the fear in her heart. ‘That’s why we need to get the hell out of here, Lainey,’ she whispered. ‘And we need to get out of here now.’

51

‘Where is she?’ Bobby asked as soon as he opened the front door to his house. Charlotte Knox, a close friend of LuAnn’s from the hospital, was sitting on a chair in the dimly lit living room, a
People
magazine on her lap, waiting for him. Nilla met him at the door with a tail thwap and a howl.

‘She’s sleeping in the family room, on the couch,’ Charlotte replied, with her finger to her lips. She stood up and gathered her purse. ‘She’s not so good.’

‘What the hell happened, Charlotte? They won’t tell me anything at the hospital. I flew here as soon as you called –’

‘She’s gonna be OK, Bobby. They did a dozen tests, and it looks like she just fainted. But she hit her head on a chair on the way down, so she’ll have a shiner and a nasty headache when she wakes up. She whacked it hard enough for a concussion, so she has to take it easy for a couple of days and see the doc before they let her go back to work.’

‘Fainted? Jesus … what?’

‘Don’t know. One minute she’s plucking asphalt out of the back of a motorcycle accident victim, the next she’s down in the middle of the ER waiting room. She was only out for a few minutes. She didn’t want to alarm you while they did tests.’ Charlotte’s voice lowered. ‘I see you’re on that big case. It’s been all over the news today.’

‘This was her idea not to call me?’

‘She didn’t want to scare you, is all.’

Bobby, it’s Deirdre. Dispatch just put a call through from someone at Broward General looking for you. I picked up. I … I don’t know how to say this. Something’s happened to your wife, Bobby
.

He shook his head and looked past Charlotte in the direction of the family room. His hands were still shaking. ‘Too late, Charlotte.’

‘She’s gonna kill me when she finds out I called you. I just didn’t want her to come in tomorrow like nothing ever happened. She’s been working way too much. I think the girl’s plain exhausted.’

‘You did the right thing, Charlotte,’ Bobby said, walking her to the door. ‘She’s been under a lot of stress.’

‘Obviously,’ Charlotte said as she headed down the front walk to her car. ‘Take care of our girl. Goodnight, Bobby.’

The family room was dark. In the kitchen, which opened on to the family room, only the light above the stove was on. Still, with the moonlight filtering through the palm trees outside, he could make out her small frame on the oversized navy blue chenille couch. She was curled up like a baby. A cotton ball was taped to the crook of her elbow. Another was on her wrist, presumably where they’d taken blood and run an IV. Right below that was her hospital patient ID.

‘Hey there,’ he said in a hushed voice as he knelt beside her, pulling the old knitted throw back up over her shoulders. He stroked a piece of her long blonde hair off her cheek and saw the black stitches over her left eye, which was swollen and already bruised. A raw-looking red scrape ran across her cheek. It must have been one hell of a fall.

LuAnn opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘She told you,’ she murmured.

‘You should’ve called me, Belle. What happened?’

LuAnn’s eyes welled up and she suddenly started to cry.

‘Honey, honey. What is it, Lu?’ he asked as he scooped her up in his arms and held her head against his chest. ‘Is it bad? Jesus … Did the doctors tell you something bad?’

She shook her head.

‘Then what is it, honey?’

She shook her head again.

‘You’re gonna be OK, Belle. Everything’ll be all right.’ He stroked the hair off her face and tried to find her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I saw it on the news. I know, Bobby,’ she managed, her voice barely a whisper.

‘Saw what?’

‘That reporter on the runaway case you have. I saw him.’

‘LuAnn …’

‘I want the truth. I want you to tell me. Does he have her? This killer, Picasso?’

‘What? LuAnn …’

‘Does he have her?’ she barked. Then she buried her head in his shoulder. ‘Does he have my girl?’

LuAnn was normally so composed. So much so that she could come across as cold to some, especially since Katy left. Bobby knew it hurt for her to talk about their daughter – about what had gone so wrong in between the bottle feedings and adolescence – so they never did. But seeing LuAnn break down this way was awkward, not because he didn’t want to hold her, not because he didn’t want to listen and tell her to get it all out, not because he didn’t want to tell her he had the same exact fears as her, but because he knew she didn’t want him to see it. He knew tomorrow she would likely regret her indiscretion, and cold might turn to freezing.

‘No, Belle. He doesn’t have her. She ran away, is all. She’s somewhere with Ray, but I know she’s safe. I know she is. She’s been gone far too long to be a victim of this guy. She’s too smart. And I don’t know where this reporter is coming off, saying it’s a serial or that our bad guy is targeting runaways. He’s trying to make headlines, is all. He’s trying to make a career for himself.’

‘Bobby, it can’t be her.’

‘She ran away with Ray. She’s with him.’

‘Tell me I’m not a bad mother. Oh God, tell me it wasn’t me. Lie, if you have to. I just need to hear it …’

‘Jesus, Lu, it wasn’t you. Why would you think that?’

‘It was
me
she ran from, Bobby.
Me
. I was too strict. I made her cheer and she didn’t like it. I made her study and kept her home on Friday nights sometimes. I told her I hated that boy. I told her he was no good for her, that he was a loser and trailer trash and a druggie, and she left. She left because of
me
…’

He lifted her face to make her look at him. ‘Don’t be crazy,’ he said firmly. ‘She left because she made a choice to leave. She wanted to be with Ray and she was doing drugs. She made the choice. It was never you. You’re the best mother. The best. And I’m not lying. Every time I saw you with her, whether it was walking her in a stroller or sitting on the sidelines, it was perfect. And until that piece of shit came into Katherine’s life, everything was good. She loved cheering. She told me she wanted to try for a scholarship. I asked her once if she wanted to stop, because of all the homework and stuff, and she said no. She said she loved it. So it wasn’t you.’

There was a long silence. He closed his eyes as he rocked LuAnn in his arms, with her head against his chest, still kneeling beside her on the couch.
‘I
should’ve seen that she was trying stuff,’ he began quietly, whispering into her hair. ‘
I
know the signs.
I
should’ve checked her arms sooner, gone through her backpack or her drawers.
I
should’ve tested her.
I’m
the cop, LuAnn,
I
should’ve seen this, not you. I didn’t want to think she’d do it. I didn’t want to think
my
kid would do all the things I told her never to do. Things only bad kids do. Ray … goddamn it, I knew he was bad news. I knew he was a banger … I never should’ve let her work at the fucking Dairy Queen. I should’ve told her she didn’t have to get a job. I should’ve just given her more spending money. It was me, LuAnn, not you. It’s me who should be crying and asking you to forgive me for not doing my job.’

She pulled his face down then, close to hers, her fingertips wiping away the tears that had welled in his eyes before they even fell. Then she kissed him on the lips, her warm tongue finding his, pushing deeper into his mouth. It had been a long time since they’d kissed. Even longer since they’d kissed passionately. LuAnn had the most beautiful mouth, with warm, full red lips that quivered slightly when she kissed you.

He pulled her closer, his hands buried in the tangles of her long hair, pressing against her back. He wanted to feel all of her, all at once – her warm skin, the curve of her cheeks, the arch of her back. He wanted to touch all of it, take it all in, because he knew the next day it would all be over, and he had to savor every second of this feeling before it left him again.

She didn’t move away. Instead, she pressed close to him, her hands moving over him as his did with her. She pulled his dress shirt out of his pants and ran her hands underneath it and over his back, her nails tracing his skin, moving to the front of his chest, finding his nipples, moving lower, over his abs. With both hands she pulled his shirt up and over his head.

He looked at her lying on the couch before him, feeling a bit like a teen on a date that has just gotten the signal that tonight’s the night. He was excited, hungry to touch her, to feel himself thrusting inside of her, but hesitant, wanting to make sure this was the decision she wanted to make. Wanting to know that she was sure of the next step. As though she’d read his mind, she sat up on the couch and pulled her sweater over her head. Then she reached back behind and unhooked her bra. It slipped off on to her lap, exposing her beautiful, full breasts, her erect nipples. She reached out and took his hands and placed them on her.

‘Make love to me, Bobby. Please.’

He had never needed her more. He stood up before her and undid the Velcro keepers on his belt that held his gun holster in place, and set it on the coffee table behind him. LuAnn reached over, undid his buckle and unzipped his pants, pulling them, along with his briefs, slowly down over his thighs till they fell on the floor. He stood there, exposed before her, his penis hard and erect.

Then he climbed on top of her on the couch and did as she had asked.