Since She Went Away(97)

Her words brought him up short. He stood frozen in place, his hand still resting on Natalie’s shoulder.

Natalie looked up. “She’s right, Jared. The whole time I was coming here, I knew I was going to have to face this. I’ve been preparing for it.” She made a sound like a short, bitter laugh. “I guess I’ve known my whole life I might have to testify against my dad. It was always going to come to this.”

“Are you ready now?” Jenna asked. “Do you want to eat something else?”

“I’m good. I’m tired, but I’m good.”

“You’ll like Detective Poole,” Jenna said. “She’s very understanding.”

“As understanding as the two of you?” Natalie asked.

“She’s pretty good. But she might not heat up leftovers for you.” Jenna reached for her phone and dialed.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE


It was nearly four in the morning by the time Detective Poole finished with Natalie. The detective conducted most of her questioning in the kitchen, after Jenna brewed a pot of coffee and she and Jared retreated to the living room to give them space. Jenna turned the TV on, and the two of them channel-surfed, breezing past shows about dolphins and biplanes and priceless junk people found in their attics. They settled on a soccer match, the endless bouncing of the ball from one side of the green grass pitch to the other soothing their minds.

Jenna saw the tension and sadness on Jared’s face, even as her own eyelids grew heavier. She tried to say something to soothe him, something that would make the whole thing easier, but the right words didn’t come.

She dozed off at some point. She came awake with Naomi Poole standing over her, the detective’s large glasses pushed up on top of her head and resting in the cottony billows of her hair. Jenna looked over and saw that Jared was gone. The TV still played, only it showed an infomercial for a chicken roaster.

“He’s in the kitchen with Natalie,” Naomi said. “They’re having a moment.”

“Are you finished?” Jenna asked, stretching.

Naomi took a seat in the spot on the couch Jared had vacated. “For now. I’ve already called in her father’s last known location. At least as close as we could get based on Natalie’s description. She’s young. She doesn’t know the highways and towns the way an experienced driver would. She didn’t even catch the name of the place.”

“She’s not from around here.”

“Right. Anyway, she was very helpful. And she’s quite strong, considering everything she’s been through.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Naomi spoke in a lower voice. “It’s too early to tell about any physical or sexual abuse. Psychological abuse, yes. The girl’s been pretty close to a prisoner. But it actually seems like her father wanted to keep her from harm. In a twisted kind of way.”

“That’s a relief. I guess.”

“It’s a hard one to unravel. He let the girl go to school. She was able to go out other times. He didn’t have to take her away from here and go on the road with her. He could have . . . he could have been done with her.”

“I thought of that. He seemed to want to have her around.”

Naomi nodded. “I hate to use this word, since it seems like a perversion of the word and the idea, but maybe he really did love her. Maybe he really felt something for the girl.”

Jenna found the remote and turned the TV off. The more it ran, showing nonsense, the more her brain cells died. “What about that other stuff she said? The stuff about Ursula and Bobby?”

Naomi raised her eyebrows. “We’ll certainly be looking into that. Very soon.”

“What else happens now?”

“I send all this information to the state police, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI. They share it along their networks and with the media. We hope somebody sees him. He’s getting tired and desperate, according to Natalie. That’s mostly to our advantage.”

“She said she thought he might have wanted her to get away. Do you think that’s true?”

“My experience is guys like this don’t give up their toys so easily. He was probably just exhausted and she took advantage of it.”

Jenna rubbed her eyes. Sleeping in the chair gave her a crick in her neck. “What happens to Natalie? She’s welcome to stay here as long as she wants.”

Naomi was shaking her head. “I’m going to have to call Child Protective Services. She’s only fifteen, and they need to open a file on her and get her examined by a doctor and a shrink. They’re going to want to give her a full workup. As they should.”

“And then?”

“She’s going to go into the foster system temporarily, Jenna. They’ll try to locate a family member, but from what Natalie says, there aren’t any. They’ll find her a place to stay.”

Jenna sat up straighter, her neck pain forgotten. “Let her stay here. We’ve got room. We care about her.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I wish it did, but there’s a whole process in place.”

“Goddammit.”

Jenna placed her head in her hands. She wished she could remain in that position long enough—not looking, not seeing—that the problems around her would be resolved in some favorable and benevolent manner. But she knew they wouldn’t be. She wasn’t a little kid who could play hide-and-seek until somebody else—somebody older and more capable—shouted the all-clear.