Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(48)
“Uncle Al would bring me Sweet Adelaides and Jingdots every once in a rare while. I told you how Al was my favorite uncle,” she prompted, holding Dylan’s stare. He nodded. “It’d be like Christmas for me, every time he held out that plastic bag of candy. Sissy would start yowling at him, accusing him of spoiling me after I’d just mouthed off to her, or committing whatever sin I’d just committed. But Uncle Al would ignore her. And on a few occasions when she screamed too loud, he’d blaze up at her and say, ‘She deserves that candy, Sis, that and a whole hell of a lot more! Are you forgetting that?’”
Alice shook her head. “I never got before why she’d shut up after that,” she said hoarsely. The nerves in her hands and feet tingled. She blinked and started back, like she’d just taken an invisible slap.
“They knew,” she whispered to herself. The candies she still held fell from her hand heedlessly to her knee, rolling to the carpet. Dylan reached out and grasped her upper arm. Alice appreciated his touch. It steadied her.
“Why?” she asked him. “Why did they keep me? Why did they keep it all a secret? Who knew? All of them? How much did they know?” The questions spilled out of her in a pressured rush even as more formed on her tongue. How could she not have wondered about the Reeds before? It was like a defensive dam had crashed and she was being pummeled by roaring, crashing anxiety. “Dylan?” she demanded desperately.
Dylan shook his head. “I’m not entirely certain which of your uncles knew or how much—obviously Al knew something, given what you just said. But Sissy knew from the beginning.” She started to ask another question, but he held up his free hand. “I don’t have all the answers, Alice, but I’m going to tell you everything I found out from Avery Cunningham. But take a deep breath for a moment. Slow down.”
Hearing her mother’s name paired with the name of one of Addie Durand’s kidnappers sent another small shock through her. Her mouth snapped shut. She breathed slowly through her nose. Dylan was right. She’d felt a little dizzy there for a moment.
“Are you all right?” Dylan asked.
“Yes. Absolutely. Please go on,” she said quickly, worried he’d change his mind about telling her what he knew.
He gave her that look that she now recognized as extreme caution. She’d learned that expression well over the past few days.
“I’m okay, Dylan. I want to know.”
He inhaled, and she had that sense again of him forcing himself into the deep well of memories that he detested.
“I told you how Cunningham planned to throw Addie Durand’s body in the creek, but as he was letting go he saw her eyes flicker open. But it was too late. She fell into the water. Realizing she was still alive, he ran down the creek bed and jumped in to save her. There had been a heavy rain that night after an extended dry spell. He said the water was moving fast and strong. According to him, he must have hit his head on something when he was struggling to get Addie from the current, because he was disoriented after he’d pulled her to shore. He claimed that contributed to what made him alter his plans in regard to Addie.”
“You didn’t believe him?” Alice asked, noticing the derisive tilt of his mouth.
Dylan shrugged. “Given Cunningham’s constant cat-and-mouse games, I tried to remain doubtful about almost everything he said. Which was hard, because I craved any morsel of information he’d dangle. I don’t know what actually happened that early morning twenty years ago. I never will. All I have is what he told me—and the fact that the information did finally lead me to Addie Durand. But Cunningham’s explanation about being disoriented didn’t add up, in my opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cunningham claimed that the reason he didn’t take Addie back to Jim Stout and resume the plans for sending a ransom note to Alan Durand was that he was disoriented from a blow to the head. That, and he was somehow . . . moved by the fact that Addie was still alive.”
“Moved?”
Dylan met her stare. “Remember how I told you a few days ago that Cunningham kept talking about Addie’s eyes—the impact they had on him when he saw them open while he thought he was dumping her dead body? According to Cunningham, he was sort of—” He waved his hand impatiently. “Converted when that happened.”
“He saw the light?” she asked, stunned.
His gaze snapped to meet hers. “Avery Cunningham was a liar, a drug addict, and a murderer. He was the lowest common denominator of society. After he supposedly underwent this miraculous ‘conversion,’ he nearly tore a man apart with his bare hands while he was high on crystal meth. Cunningham’s supposed redemption didn’t help his victim a bit. He was playing me with that story, painting a picture of himself as he lay on his death bed, trying to convince himself as much as me that he had a sliver of humanity left in him.”
“What did he do with Addie after he pulled her from the creek?” Alice whispered, dread and curiosity waging battle in her brain.
“He made a phone call to an old friend.”
Goose bumps rose on her arms. Something Dylan had told her last week leapt into her brain to mingle with the new information. Cunningham was already in prison on a separate murder charge. He’d killed a man a few months before when he’d been whacked out on methamphetamines. That, and Dylan’s tight-lipped wariness at the moment told her what she dreaded.