Sadie(64)

Sadie ended up at Silas Baker’s.


JAVI CRUZ:

Kendall and Noah blew up my phone about it. I never answered their texts, but …


WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]: The Bakers are not granting any media requests.


JAVI CRUZ:

They said Sadie showed up at their place because I told her to meet me there, which was a lie. Noah tried to get ahold of me, but I wasn’t answering my texts.

I guess it was fine, for a little while, and then Mr. Baker came home. They told me Sadie wasn’t who she said she was and that I was a dumbass for falling for her. They said she stole Mr. Baker’s phone and attacked him— WEST McCRAY:

Attacked him?


JAVI CRUZ:

Yeah, with a knife. In their driveway.

They said she got in her car and cleared out before anyone could do anything about it and that Mr. Baker didn’t want to press charges because it was obvious she was “disturbed.”

All the time that was happening, the police were at that house.


WEST McCRAY:

So Kendall and Noah suggested it got physically violent between Mr. Baker and Sadie. Did they say that he hurt her?


JAVI CRUZ:

They didn’t say anything about that. Doesn’t mean he didn’t though, just that they knew not to put it in writing, if he did.


WEST McCRAY:

And Sadie wasn’t hurt when you met her the previous night at Cooper’s or that morning at Lili’s?


JAVI CRUZ:

Like hurt … how?


WEST McCRAY:

According to a young lady who met up with Sadie when she was in the process of leaving Montgomery, Sadie was injured. She had a bruised face, suggesting a broken nose, and a scraped chin.

If it didn’t happen at the Bakers’ house, it would have happened shortly thereafter.


JAVI CRUZ:

Jesus.


WEST McCRAY:

Did Sadie ever mention a man named Darren or Keith to you?


JAVI CRUZ:

No … no, not that I can remember.

You think she’s okay?


WEST McCRAY:

That’s what I’m trying to find out.


JAVI CRUZ:

But do you think she’s okay?


AUTOMATED FEMALE VOICE [PHONE]: You have reached the voicemail of— MARLEE SINGER [PHONE]: Marlee Singer.


AUTOMATED FEMALE VOICE [PHONE]: Please leave a message at the tone.


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Marlee, West McCray here.

Look, I know you don’t want me to keep calling you, but here’s the thing—I have mounting evidence that suggests you saw Sadie, that you directed her to your brother, Silas’s house. You knew Darren. I think it’s likely Silas did too. I would really appreciate if we could talk about that. I’m just trying to bring a girl back home to a family who misses her.

Please call me.


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Hey, May Beth. Is Claire around?


MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]: No. She’s still … she hasn’t been back.


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Since I last called? Are you kidding me?


MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]: No. I don’t know if—I mean, she’s got some things here I’d like to think she wouldn’t have left without, but …


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: I’m headed back to Cold Creek. Call me if she turns up in the meantime.


MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]: Why, what have you found?


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: I don’t know.





sadie

Farfield is five days from Langford.

I feel every single mile like a cut across my skin. This drive has been the hardest. The ache of it, the ugliness. The pain of holding the same position for hours, the way the joints in my fingers have started to seize from gripping the wheel so tight that when I finally stop the car, I know I’ll still feel it there in my hands.

When the town sign comes into view at last, there’s no relief in it.

Farfield makes up the averages of all the places I’ve been; not so riddled by poverty it hurts to look at, or as painful as Montgomery was in all of its shine. Here, some parts are ravaged, others only a little down on their luck, then it turns into this economic gradient going up: nice, nicer, nicest. The place Keith is living is on the Down on Its Luck side of a town, a kiss in the direction of something nicer, except it’s facing the wrong way. It’s a plain two-story with flaking white paint on its worn siding.

I park across the street.

My heart pounds, my blood flows through my veins, everything working how it’s supposed to. I watch the house for a long time, like I did outside of Silas’s, steeling myself for that moment I’ll have to see him before I do anything else.

All I have to do is survive that moment to get through the rest.

I’m hot, sweating. I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes briefly, or maybe longer than that because the next time I open them, there’s a little girl on the front stoop. She’s surrounded by paper, scribbles all over them, but at some point she abandoned drawing for the well-worn book in her hands. She looks so much like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting that I don’t believe she’s really real. She’s small. Ten, maybe. She’s wearing pink denim shorts, a striped shirt and her brown hair is tied in pigtails so lopsided, I can only guess she’s done them herself. The book is a paperback and she’s clutching it like it’s a lifeline. She’s getting close to the end. She has Band-Aids on each of her knees.