Don't Look for Me(88)

She killed Reyes in a moment of terror—rage and terror that was produced from years of abuse and captivity. They were comparing it to battered spouse syndrome. It may not have been self-defense in that moment, but justified by the culmination of years as a captive.

Watkins thought carefully before giving an answer to the question. Did anyone believe her story?

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Of all the people who have been coming forward now, saying what Reyes did to them with his cons—not one of them identified Daisy. She was very careful to stay behind the scenes. They found his beat-up truck behind the house—no prints belonging to Daisy. And the things all of you saw in the woods that day—the things you heard her confess about being Reyes’s partner in crime, not his prisoner—she has experts willing to testify that she was saying those things to take back control, or manipulate him. Years of captivity had messed with her mind.”

Nic knew all about the experts and their case studies—women who had been abused and battered and held captive who didn’t do or say the things that would be expected under the circumstances. Daisy had suffered abuse in her home as a child. And then Reyes had imprisoned her. They had come close to pleading diminished capacity—insanity—as a result.

Still, it was more than just the words Daisy had spoken in those woods.

“What about the note?” Nic asked now. “To Booth—and the texts to her sister?”

“She claims Reyes made her write them. Look—it fits. He forged that note he left at the casino, in the room he charged to your mother’s credit card. He proved himself to be pretty adept at planning a kidnapping and covering his tracks.”

Nic was far from satisfied. It was just now that she was feeling the extent of her anger at how things had unfolded in the aftermath of finding her mother.

She started rattling off the loose ends.

“And what about her sister—Veronica? Forensics found Daisy’s prints and hair all over the house … and I saw that jacket at her house the very same day.”

Watkins had more excuses.

“But they don’t know how old they are, and Daisy explained the jacket—said she stopped to see her sister for the first time that morning … on her way to rescue her daughter.”

Nic continued.

“But the witnesses who saw her over the years—free as a bird! In three different states! She was coming and going as she pleased this whole time! And she had the app for those cameras on her phone. Why would Reyes give her access unless she was his full accomplice? There are so many pieces that paint a different picture!”

Then, a new voice—

“Nicole,” her mother said. The voice was calm, resolved. “You’re forgetting about Alice.”

Nic hung her head. Alice.

The reason Reyes had targeted her mother—the girl who needed a mother.

Alice had been granted visits with Daisy Hollander. The social workers thought it would be good for her, to help put what had happened in those woods into some sort of context. After those visits, Alice had told the prosecutor a string of facts that backed up everything Daisy Hollander said. They were all lies. She spoke about the grate with the bars and the back room and the boarded-up window—all the things that had happened to Molly Clarke, Alice said had happened to her real mother—to Daisy Hollander.

“I still don’t understand why they believe her,” Nic said.

Watkins answered. “Again—this comes down to the discretion of the prosecutor. How can anyone ever prove that he didn’t do the same things to Daisy that he did to your mother?”

The truth was, they couldn’t. Those witnesses who saw her in different towns may have been mistaken about the woman they saw. The girls from the camp may have been jealous, or remembering things wrong. And Veronica would never turn on her sister. Daisy had likely been supporting her for years with money from the cons.

All Nic had was what she’d seen and heard in those woods. Not just the words, but the way Daisy had said them. And her laughter. Daisy Hollander had been willing to kill her own daughter that day. There was no chance she had been Reyes’s victim.

“Well—that’s where we are,” Watkins said. “She will get time. She will pay for the murder. Maybe not what she deserves, but not nothing.”

Then a pause, a sigh. And—

“There is something else, and I was waiting until today so I could tell you in person.”

“What?” Nic asked. “What else could there be?”

Watkins slid a folder in front of them. Nic opened it. There were three photos—one was from a security camera at the casino. The second was of a hole, dug in the ground, on some kind of construction site. The third, a copy of a partial, handwritten note.

Watkins explained. “Daisy’s lawyers hired an investigator. They went back through the footage at the casino and found that—the picture of that man at the registration counter. See the man with the baseball cap? The flannel shirt? That’s Reyes. Those items of clothing were found in the house.”

“So they can prove it was Reyes who charged the room to my mother’s card?” Nic asked.

“And not Daisy—that’s the point. Reyes acting alone.”

“And this second photo—the hole in the ground?” her mother asked.

Now a long pause as Watkins steadied himself. “Some workers found it and contacted the state troopers. It’s a hole near an abandoned building on Laguna Road. A hole big enough for a body. Daisy’s lawyers claim that Reyes dug it so he could kill her and bury her body. They found a shovel at Reyes’s house. The soil matched.”