Here and Gone(42)

‘Ma’am, I—’

‘Please, address me as Your Honor.’

‘Your Honor, I need help.’

‘Sweetheart, that ain’t news to anyone.’

Audra pointed back over her shoulder at Sheriff Whiteside. ‘That man, him and the deputy, they took my children. Sean and Louise. I think my husband paid them to do it. I need to get my kids back. They’re all I have in the world. I’ll die without them. Please help me. Please do something.’

Judge Miller gave her a kind smile. She reached across the table and took Audra’s hand in hers.

‘Honey, the only help I can give you is advice. Just tell the truth. Whatever happens, whatever they say to you, just tell the truth. It’s the only thing that ever helps anyone. You hear me?’

Her fingers tightened on Audra’s wrist.

‘Just tell them what you did with your children,’ she said. ‘Just tell them where the bodies are and it’ll all be over. I promise.’





21


THE WALK FROM the town hall to the guesthouse took less than five minutes, but for Audra it lasted a lifetime. Hendry had refused to escort her, saying as he walked away that he’d discharged his responsibilities. As they huddled around the table in the makeshift courtroom, Sheriff Whiteside offered to do it, but Audra said no, she’d rather brave the journalists on her own.

‘Shit,’ Special Agent Mitchell said. ‘I’ll do it. Detective Showalter, Special Agent Abrahms, you’re coming too. Let’s go.’

Showalter stood back from the table, said, ‘Nuh-uh, not me. No, thank you.’

‘I wasn’t asking, Detective,’ Mitchell said. ‘Abrahms, take off your jacket.’

Audra resisted for a moment as Mitchell’s strong fingers gripped her upper arm and hoisted her up out of the seat, but then she allowed herself to be guided toward the door. The press had mostly left the meeting room, and Audra could hear them buzzing outside the town hall’s main entrance, waiting to get a shot of her, maybe throw questions at her. They had all been crammed into the makeshift courtroom when she arrived, a constrained murmur running through them as she entered, wrists cuffed, a state patrolman at each arm. Now they were out in the wild and sounded ready to bite.

Mitchell spoke to Whiteside. ‘Is there another way out?’

‘Fire exit out to the side,’ he said, jerking a thumb in that direction. ‘Through the main hall there, over to the right. Probably alarmed, but—’

Mitchell didn’t wait to hear the rest. She dragged Audra toward the large doors to the hall, then through, letting them swing closed. One caught Showalter on the knee and he cursed.

A dozen or more police officers turned to look. The hall had been turned into some kind of operations center, a large map of Arizona mounted on an easel, red pins tracing a line across the state. The cops watched as Mitchell guided Audra through them toward the pair of doors to the right-hand side. A green sign above the push bar declared it an emergency exit. Mitchell didn’t break stride until they reached it. She paused there, nodded to her colleague.

Abrahms draped his jacket over Audra’s head and shoulders, leaving her a narrow opening to see through. She heard rather than saw Mitchell hit the push bar, then the blare of the alarm, felt the heat of the afternoon sun as she was guided out. Not far away, reporters shouted, ‘There, down there, there she is.’

‘Move,’ Mitchell said.

Abrahms holding one arm, Mitchell the other, Audra’s feet skipped over the ground in the alleyway, out through a parking lot, then turning onto a sidewalk. Behind, the sound of running feet. And the voices, calling her name.

‘Audra, where are your children?’

‘Audra, did you hurt them?’

‘Audra, what did you do with Sean and Louise?’

Mitchell’s hand tightened on her upper arm. ‘Just keep your head down, keep moving.’

All Audra could see were her own feet skimming the cracked sidewalk. The footsteps coming from behind, running, passing her.

‘All right, get back, out of the way.’ Showalter’s voice, hard and angry.

‘Audra, where are the bodies of your children?’

Had it not been for Abrahms and Mitchell holding her upright, she would have fallen then. The realization hit her: They think I killed my children. Of course the authorities believed it, but now she knew that the world believed it too. The thought horrified her.

Mitchell said, ‘This way,’ and pulled Audra along another alleyway, back to the main street. Still the footsteps all around, the questions, the shouts, the accusations. Audra focused on keeping her feet moving, not stumbling. All she could think of was getting off the street, out of the way of the reporters.

The dogs, the dogs, they’re chasing me.

A flash of a memory, a little girl near her grandfather’s yard, a neighbor’s terriers scrabbling after her, barking, teeth bared.

Help, they’re chasing me.

She wanted to run, adrenalin hitting her hard along with the fear.

‘Almost there,’ Mitchell said. ‘Almost there.’

They reached a short flight of wooden steps, and now Audra did stumble, her fall caught by her escorts, but not before the edge of a step caught her shin and knee. The voices all around, the questions, reached a crescendo, and she heard the same words over and over, hurt, bodies, harm, children. And their names. They kept shouting her children’s names and she wanted to scream at them to shut up, to leave her alone, to never utter another word about Sean and Louise.