Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(45)

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “But it’s more than we had. I’ll be in touch, I think the pastor’s coming to a destination.”

He is, but it’s his home; I recognize the car parked in the small driveway as another that had been in the church parking lot—the son’s ride, most likely. That one has a bumper sticker that says UNDER GOD surrounded by the red and blue of an American flag. Makes it extra easy to spot. I park and watch a moment, in case there’s something interesting to see, but there isn’t. Through the handy picture window into the dining room I can see food being set out. Three place settings, so Carol isn’t hiding here.

Something’s making my breath come faster, sweat prickle hot on the back of my neck, and for a second or two I don’t even know what it is.

Then I blink, and I see a house of similar lines superimposed over this one. A normal house on a normal street. A broken exterior wall to the garage with a wrecked vehicle jutting out of it.

My normal house. My normal street in a normal Kansas town.

And a dead girl hanging from a wire gallows in the exposed garage, the day all that ended. All those years spent in that house, living next to a monster, not knowing what was going on under the same roof. Making dinner. Setting the table, just as this woman’s doing.

I flinch and gasp and close my eyes. I have coping mechanisms for these flashbacks, and I use them, slowing my racing heartbeat and gearing myself down from the blind horror and panic that never, ever quit being fresh. I press my shaking hands down on my thighs. Past is past. Put yourself here, now. Feel the air. Take in the smells. Listen. Be here.

The overwhelming sense of being trapped slowly fades. Panic recedes. And when I look again, it isn’t my house, it isn’t my dining room, and the three people sitting down at that table are not my family. There isn’t horror hiding behind that wall, or if there is, it’s not mine to endure.

I check my text messages. J. B. has sent me the number that Pastor Wallace called. I know I should wait for J. B. to get that tracking data; it might—might—send me in the right direction. Or, if he’s told the young woman to run, I might lose her altogether.

On balance, I feel a real and urgent need to act. So I dial the number. Roll the dice.

A woman answers. “Hello?” She sounds young and tentative, and also worried.

“Don’t hang up,” I say. “I’m a friend, Carol. I know you’re afraid. Let me help you.”

I half expect her to hang up, but she seems to hesitate. Then she says, “You’re the one the pastor talked about.” She has an accent, but it isn’t from Tennessee. Sounds more northern states to me. Maybe even as far as Maine or Vermont. “The detective?”

“Yes,” I tell her. “My name is Gwen Proctor. And I can help, if you’re in trouble.”

“I don’t think you understand,” she says. “Nobody can help me.”

“Maybe I can.”

“He’ll never let that happen.”

“Who’s he?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. She sounds quiet now. Resigned. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I got out. I can’t ever get free. I thought I could, but . . . it’s never going to work.” I squeeze my eyes shut and listen desperately for any environmental clues. I hear a babble of voices in the background. An indistinct PA announcement. A metallic squeal.

I sense she’s about to cut me off, and I quickly say, “Carol, can you tell me what happened to Remy? Where he is?”

Silence. Silence for so long that I think the call’s dropped and she’s vanished into the air. But then she says, “Remy’s with the saints.”

Click.

But I heard enough. I can guess where she is.

She’s at the bus station.





14

GWEN

I’m taking a shot in the dark as to which bus station. She could have been at a regional stop, but if she wants to get out of town, Carol will be at the main Greyhound bus terminal. I’ve made it a point to know the city, since I do a fair amount of work for J. B. around here. I race across town, driving far more recklessly than Pastor Wallace would have approved, and I pull into the bus station in just under thirteen minutes, which isn’t bad.

But if Carol was about to board a bus when I called, it’s too late.

I head inside. There’s a sign on the doors of the station that guns aren’t allowed, and I approve of that, but I don’t have time to retreat and secure my weapon, and leaving it in a rental car’s glove compartment isn’t a great idea anyway. I make sure my coat conceals it and stroll inside. Or try to. The station is a fairly new construction, all glass and steel and open areas that ought to seem spacious but don’t, because it’s crowded with people and bags. Bus travel generally doesn’t draw in the first-class passengers, so most often it’s duffel bags, battered old suitcases, and backpacks. Lots of people who seem exhausted and dispirited.

I spot Carol because she’s sitting close to a group of Amish or Mennonite travelers; the women are in neat, long dresses with aprons and bonnets, the men in uncomfortable-looking square suits with beards bristling down over their starched shirts. Carol almost blends in, except that she lacks a bonnet. She’s a young, pale woman wearing a long-sleeved white blouse with a bow tied in front of the high neck, no jewelry or makeup, a long, straight dark-blue skirt. Waist-length dark hair. She’s got a fairly new-looking backpack with her, and for some reason it strikes me as . . . wrong. I’m not sure why. Yet.