At the Quiet Edge(78)
He bucked up in a panic, and the mattress tilted high, slipping off the bed. Everett found his hands had been right. There was nothing there. No comics, no coins, and no brown leather notebook.
CHAPTER 29
Lily felt frozen with embarrassment once Everett left. She could see that it was a silly response. After all, Alex was dealing with a cousin suspected of murdering young women, and her ex-husband had only been a thief. Still, there would always be this surreal film clinging to her, that her life had been so completely defined by a terrible thing she hadn’t done. Would she be forced to apologize for Jones until she died?
“I am sorry,” Alex repeated. “And I assume that’s why you’re not tripping over yourself to trust the Herriman police either.”
Lily crossed her arms. “I definitely have a complicated history with the cops here. When they couldn’t get access to my ex-husband, I was the only person they could put pressure on.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It wasn’t pleasant.”
“So you understand why I don’t want to piss off the local cops. No fuss was made about these women disappearing because they were already living on the edges. Already discarded by polite society. They came from poor families, some were dropouts, some were drug users.”
He tapped a picture. It was the girl with the dog. The corner of a picnic table edged into the scene, loaded with barbecue fixings. A hand reached toward the girl, the gesture a sign of her bond with family or friends, people who missed her and probably always would.
“Marti had been arrested for shoplifting the month before. Now it could be that their lifestyles simply put them in the way of a predator. Criminologists refer to them as high-risk victims, which has always sounded a little like victim blaming to me, but it’s meant to convey that some people are more likely to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Lily couldn’t help but glance over at the rows of buildings and wonder if she was a high-risk victim. She lived alone in a business park instead of sheltering herself within a safer community. What would they say about her if something happened out here?
“That said, there’s also a history of predators purposefully targeting victims no one will miss. Their victimization isn’t a byproduct of habit; it’s strategy.”
“And you think that’s what happened here?”
He touched the paper again. “When Marti disappeared, her family raised hell. Her aunt lived down in Dallas and was an executive at a microchip company. She had money to spend on organizing, and she did. There were flyers and searches and news reports. Pressure was applied to the Herriman Police Department.”
“And after that attention this supposed serial killer stopped killing?”
“Yes. I think he moved on after things got too hot. But that means they could have stopped this killer sooner.” He gestured toward another photo.
This dark-eyed girl smiled for the camera, but only with her mouth. There were no crinkles of happiness around her eyes. No bunching of the muscles of her cheeks. This looked like a forced school portrait, and she’d barely played along, hopelessness glowing from her eyes.
“Tiffany Miller was so far off the radar that I can’t really say if she disappeared or not. She was in foster care, no family here in Herriman. I have a tape of two officers discussing the case with some crony reporter of theirs. They’re laughing about Tiffany, calling her trash. One of those officers is the chief now.”
“Jesus. That’s so sad.” She thought of Detective Mendelson so diligently searching for the young woman Lily had helped disappear. It broke her heart that the old Herriman Police Department had just let these girls vanish without any alarm raised. “I assume the department never acknowledged they might be connected?”
“No. Never. Marti Herrera’s aunt was the one insisting her disappearance must be related to some of the other girls, but the police kept repeating there wasn’t a bit of evidence of any foul play, much less connection between them.”
She shook her head and sighed, looking over the sad board and its sad contents. They all looked like girls she’d known herself. Girls who were trying too hard, just as she had, swinging too far into fads and trends, even if you could only afford an approximation of the look. The growing pains of trying to find your place in the universe during adolescence.
She sighed. “I’d better get inside with Everett before he . . . I don’t know. Becomes a cat burglar spy in my absence? Thank you for explaining everything.”
“It’s all right.”
“No. You have every right to be furious about what Everett did, so I can’t thank you enough for understanding.”
“He was worried about you. How could I be mad at that?”
“Well . . . he did violate your privacy and your uncle’s privacy.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s a small town. There isn’t much to begin with. And Uncle Alex said he was a nice boy. He really does love kids. He’d love it if Everett came to see him again.”
“That’s a kind offer,” she said, her heart twisting at the idea of Everett having a grandfather figure in his life. He’d missed out on so many normal things. What if she’d already irrevocably warped him with this isolation?
“I might stay in Herriman for a while to work . . . ,” he said.