Don't Look for Me(78)
Reyes. Another lie? But why? How could she not have seen it? Or felt it? The thought had disgusted her.
“Promise me, Daddy. Promise me you don’t know where she is. On my life. On Evan’s life. Promise me right now.”
* * *
Thirty miles north of Hastings, Nic had found a shopping strip. It had employee parking in the back, hidden from the road.
Nic had climbed in the back seat and laid down on her side, curled in a tight ball like a child. She’d closed her eyes, and heard her father’s voice in her head. Over and over.
I promise.
* * *
It was morning now, and she called Chief Watkins. He came within the hour. He parked his truck two spaces over, the gray Silverado, then got out and walked to the blue Audi.
Nic turned on the ignition and opened the window.
“Are you okay?” Watkins asked.
Nic unlocked the door. “Can you get in?”
Chief Watkins went back to his truck, then returned with two Styrofoam cups. He opened the door to the Audi and climbed into the passenger seat. He wore the same uniform as the day Nic had returned to Hastings—just three days ago. Three days. So much had happened.
“Here,” he said, handing Nic a cup of coffee.
“What’s going on?”
Nic wiped her eyes which were sticky with exhaustion. She breathed in the smell of the coffee. Then took a long sip.
“Thanks for coming. I’m sorry if I was cryptic.”
Watkins shrugged. Drank his coffee. “That’s one way to describe it.”
Nic had told him where she was and that she needed to see him. She’d asked him to tell no one.
She looked straight at him now. “I’m going to ask you some questions and they’re going to sound really strange but can you try to just answer them without asking me why or what for…”
Watkins held out his hand gently as though he could magically slow down her racing mind and the words that were pouring from her mouth.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll answer. Just take it easy. You seem a little wired.”
Nic started with the little ones.
“Did you know Daisy Hollander?”
Watkins’s face changed abruptly. She could see the questions begging to come out, but he held them back just as he’d promised.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Did you get her a scholarship to a camp in Woodstock?”
“Yes.”
“Did you drive her out of town the day she left and never came back?”
Now a long pause. But then an answer. “No.”
Nic was surprised. “You didn’t drive her to Boston?”
Watkins exhaled loudly. Hung his head.
“You’ve been talking to crazy Roger Booth.”
“Yes,” Nic answered.
“Okay—truth is, I was going to drive her to a train station, Hartford, most likely. But then she said she had a ride.”
“Did she say who it was?”
Another pause.
“Do you know? Tell me if you know.”
Watkins answered. Reluctantly.
“Officer Reyes. Look, I know he lies about that. But I would have lied too. Daisy was desperate to get away from Booth. The only reason Reyes took her and not me was because he had the time to take her all the way to Boston that day.”
“I don’t get it. Booth doesn’t seem like a bad guy.”
“He’s not—it’s just that she wanted a different life. And after the childhood she endured, and the gifts she had—she was brilliant, you know. And pretty. She was the only one of that lot, those crazy Hollanders, who had a chance. Booth would have pestered her for the rest of her life. You think he’d ever get a girl like that again?”
Nic let this sink in. Reyes knew Daisy from that camp. But had Daisy known Reyes then? Was it a coincidence that he moved here the following year?
Watkins was the one who’d hired Reyes. Saved him from his guilt after he shot that unarmed man. The suicide-by-cop.
Or did he?
“Tell me what you know about Reyes,” Nic asked.
Watkins rattled off the same set of facts Reyes had given Nic the night she drank with him and let him into her room. Into her bed. The thought made her shudder.
It was the exact same story—the shooting in Worcester, how Reyes had quit his job, fallen apart. How he’d applied for an opening in Hastings and Watkins had hired him, pieced him back together.
Only now, a new fact—he’d arrived three months after Daisy Hollander went to that camp.
Nic didn’t tell him what she’d seen in that yearbook. But she pressed on with her questions about Daisy and Reyes.
“Was there anything between them? Maybe something Roger Booth didn’t know about?”
“Reyes? No way. Never saw them together. Daisy didn’t give any man the time of day unless he could do something for her. She had gifts but she was also wily as hell. A survivor, you know?”
“And what about you?”
“Me? Me and Daisy?” Watkins laughed then. “Look, I have my vices, especially since my wife died. But she could have been my daughter. I’m not one of those creeps.”
Nic thought about what she’d seen in the parking lot of the casino. The way he’d treated that prostitute. He may not be one of those creeps, but he was something.