The Overnight Guest(52)

“Why don’t you tell me your names? Tell me his name?” Wylie asked. “So when the storm lets up, I can go with you to the police and they can help keep you safe.”

“I can’t.” The woman shook her head. “I can’t say anything. Not until we get far away from here.”

“You’ve got to trust someone, sometime,” Wylie said in exasperation. “Why won’t you trust me?”

The woman got to her feet. “Come on,” she said to her child. “We’re going.”

Wylie laughed but then saw that the woman was serious. “Where do you think you are going?” Wylie asked incredulously. “Your truck went up in flames, you’re injured, and you think you’re going to drag your little boy out into this storm? No, way.”

“I’m not a boy,” came a small, defiant voice.

“What?” Wylie asked, looking at the child. “What did you say?”

“Shhh,” the woman said, glaring at the child. “Don’t talk.”

“I’m a girl,” the child repeated more forcefully, running a hand over her shorn head.

Wylie was dumbstruck. She had been working under the assumption that she had found a little boy lying in her front yard.

“What’s your name?” Wylie asked. The girl looked about to speak but her mother cut her off.

“Don’t tell her. I mean it,” the woman said fiercely, tears springing to her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, leaning into her mother. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you see now?” the woman asked. “Do you think I would cut my daughter’s hair like that, just because I wanted to leave my husband? Do you think this is just some custody battle that got out of hand?” The woman was yelling now. “If he finds us, he will kill us.” She paused, trying to gather herself. “Or worse. He’ll take us back home.” The woman pulled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. A wreath of scabs encircled each wrist.

Wylie was at a loss for words. The wounds on the woman’s wrists looked like she had been tied up with something—rope or zip ties or handcuffs.

Clearly, the woman and her daughter were desperate and terrified. They were literally running for their lives. Who was Wylie to drag the details from this poor woman?

They’d be safe here. As awful as her husband sounded, Wylie didn’t think he would break into a stranger’s house to retrieve his wife and child. He couldn’t be disturbed enough to do that, could he?

Wylie would give her some space. Let her rest. And when the storm passed, she would put the woman and her daughter in her Bronco and drive them directly to the sheriff’s office.

As for the child, her earlier behavior made so much more sense now. Finally, the girl was opening up to Wylie. She was finally trusting her. And maybe, even if her mother wouldn’t tell her their names, where they came from, the little girl would eventually share their history.



28


August 2000

Sheriff Butler parked in front of the Henley residence and examined the weedy yard and the crumbling front steps. The house’s gray exterior was pocked and blistered and in need of a coat of new paint. Butler navigated the broken front steps onto the front porch, the rotten wood groaning beneath his feet, and knocked. There was no answer.

He had met June Henley only a few times over the years. He knew that June and her late husband farmed for decades but that June sold the cropland soon after her husband’s death several years before. He remembered June as a friendly, sociable woman and didn’t relish the thought of having to question her about Josie and Becky visiting their property the day before, but it had to be done.

The couple had one son, Jackson, who was a pretty decent baseball player back in the day, enlisted in the army after high school and then spent some time in the military. His last stint was during the Gulf War in ’90.

When Jackson’s tour ended, he came home and started his ragtag salvage business. That’s when his many run-ins with law enforcement began—mostly related to his heavy drinking with a few petty crimes thrown in for good measure. It seemed there was also something in Jackson’s record that was more serious, but Butler couldn’t quite remember what it was.

Butler knocked on the door again. Still no answer. They didn’t have time for this. Every minute that passed meant time lost from finding those kids and who murdered the Doyles. He knew he had to talk to June and Jackson Henley, but he’d be more useful doing something else in the meantime. He’d send a deputy back later.

Butler climbed back into his vehicle and drove slowly down the drive to where the lane widened and he could turn the car around. He passed rows of broken-down vehicles and farm equipment piled on top of each other like carcasses. It was downright eerie, Butler thought as he swung the vehicle around and drove around a mountain of black rubber tires baking in the sun.

The house came back into view and Butler saw a white pickup parked in front of the house. Butler pressed on the brakes and squinted through the bright sunshine to see a tall, grizzled man with close-cropped dusty-black hair helping an elderly woman up the porch steps.

June and Jackson Henley.

When Jackson opened the front door, he looked over and spotted the sheriff’s car idling in the drive. His eyes widened in alarm.

“Hey, there, Jackson,” Butler said casually. “I was hoping you and your mother could help me with something.”