The Last Thing She Ever Did(35)
Liz came to him. She was still drowsy from the pills and the wine, but not so foggy that she couldn’t see herself through his eyes.
“What next?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he took another slug.
“I need to know,” she said.
“You need to just let it be. Let things happen.”
“What things, Owen?” Her voice was tight, her words fractured.
“The things you started. You need to just back off. Let go of it. React to it like you would if you—”
“We should call the police.”
He grabbed her. Hard. He shook her.
“Are you crazy? Look, it’s too late for that,” he said. “Don’t you get it? You killed a kid. We got rid of the body. We’re both so screwed here that we’ll never get out of this if we get caught. Do you understand?”
“I did this,” she said. “You didn’t. I’ll tell the truth.”
“Liz, you can’t tell the truth now. We can never, ever tell the truth.”
“What if we get caught?”
“Let’s pray that we don’t. Let’s goddamn pray that no one saw you back into Charlie and that no one saw us cleaning up your mess.”
No one spoke for a minute. They just faced each other.
“They’ll find him, right?” she asked. “Carole and David will get to say good-bye to their baby, right?”
Owen poured himself another. “Yes. I’m sure it will be soon.”
“They’ll find out,” Liz said in a whisper. “They’ll know.”
“No,” Owen said. “You might have fucked up beyond belief, Liz, but I’m not stupid. I’ve never been stupid one second in my life. I’ve fixed this. I’ve thought of everything. You are not going down for this. You’re not going to end up with a goddamn needle in your arm. I won’t let that happen.”
Esther lay in her bed, facing the ceiling. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. She could not recall a time when she had been more exhausted. Not even the cruel machinations of her ex-husband as their marriage unraveled compared to the emotional drain of the first day of the Charlie Franklin investigation—and how it reminded her of the Corvallis case that ended with the dead boy and a family changed forever. She traced the steps she’d taken, the people she’d talked to, the interviews conducted with the family.
Mostly she wondered what was really going on in that Architectural Digest?class home on the river. The river. Divers told her that it was possible that the boy had drowned and got caught under a log, although they’d looked in all the likely points where a body could snag.
“Water’s not all that murky this time of year,” a diver told her. “Not like it will stay that way when the rains come.”
As she lay there, her fingers found the gold sea star pendant, and she reviewed the time line in her head. Phone records confirmed that Mrs. Franklin was on the phone for twelve minutes. It was within that period that Charlie vanished. If he’d gone off with someone, then it had likely been without a struggle. No one heard anything. No one saw anything. If Charlie Franklin walked away, it was with someone he knew.
Who was it? And why did they take the three-year-old?
Across town, the front page of the Bend Bulletin was rolling off the presses. The local TV stations had already aired the story of the missing little boy the night before as an add-on to coverage about the classic car show in Drake Park. By the time the papers hit newsstands and doorsteps that morning, everyone in Bend would know that Charlie Franklin had disappeared. Among the readership or the viewers who caught the update on the morning news would be the person who knew exactly what had happened.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MISSING: ONE DAY
The retriever was more bronze than golden, but she was almost twelve, and the change in her glorious coat came with the territory. Tony Lupita, Jessie’s owner, lamented that she no longer darted out at every squirrel or cozied up to the younger dogs when they were out walking to the top of Pilot Butte, an extinct cinder cone that rose almost five hundred feet above its stunning surroundings.
It was before daybreak, the best time to be there—especially after the scorcher of the previous day. It was just fifty-five degrees.
Tony looked at his watch. The sun would pour light like golden maple syrup over the sleeping city of Bend in about six minutes.
A warm glow.
Just like Jessie.
He loved that dog the way that he loved people. In fact, to his way of thinking, she was a person.
A couple of tourists in navy-blue running gear came toward the dog walker and the dog, racing to the bottom of the butte. They wore earbuds and the look of self-satisfaction. Tony, a widower in his late sixties, gave them a quick wave. It seemed odd that they’d be coming down the butte before the light show, but tourists were a very weird breed.
The morning air carried a chill. Tony wore old Nikes, faded 501s, and a windbreaker that he would almost certainly peel off once he made it to the top and felt the heat of his own body rev up from the walk. He’d been coming there with Jessie since she was a puppy. The top of the butte had restrooms and a few benches for soaking in the view, twinkly lights eclipsed by the sunrise. Mount Bachelor, the Three Sisters, and Mount Hood cut through the high-desert floor. Before pulling out his water bottle and taking a seat, Tony tossed a stick out for Jessie and she did just as she always did: took a circuitous route to go after it, nose to the ground, before bringing it back.