The Girls I've Been(29)

“Are your eyes even blue?” she asks, and her voice cracks and my stomach drops. I’m moving toward her before I can think it through, but she shakes her head, short and decisive, and I freeze on the spot.

“They’re blue. Colored contacts make my eyes itch too much.”

She blinks, absorbing the information. “So you do this a lot. Change your appearance. Your name. Your . . .” She fades off.

“Not anymore,” I say, filling that dreadful, almost exhausted silence. “My mom raised me in it. But when I was twelve, I ran away,” I say, and it’s possibly the most understated way to put what I actually did. “Lee helped me. My mom’s been in prison since then. And I’ve been . . .” Now I’m fading off. Not because of exhaustion, but because I don’t know how to put it.

“She’s been in hiding,” Wes says.

Is that true, though? Have I been in hiding? Or have I been lying in wait?

“From who?” Iris asks.

“My stepfather.”

“But you said he was in prison, too.”

“He is. But he was powerful before prison, and just because he’s inside doesn’t mean he lost that power.”

“He wants to kill her,” Wes says.

“Wes.” I glare at him. He’s making it sound scary. But I guess it is, for him. And he knows it’ll be scary for her, too.

I don’t know if it’s scary for me anymore, or just a fact of life that I can’t let crush me.

“And she just told the guy out there all about it, because there’s a ton of money going to anyone who brings her back to Florida.”

Iris’s pale face barely flushes. “What? Why would you do that?”

“Because she’s completely incapable of staying safe.”

“I hate you,” I tell him.

“You do not,” he says back.

“Okay, fine, I don’t. But I am totally capable of staying safe. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past five years?”

He just shoots me one of those looks, and my love/hate relationship with his sarcastic streak swivels full into hate in that moment.

Iris rolls her eyes at us, then she zeroes back in on me. “How much are you worth?”

“The bounty’s up to seven million if they bring me back to Florida alive,” I say. “He adds to the pot every spring. Happy birthday to me.”

Something flickers in her face as she absorbs my words. “So he’s not a big fish in a little pond, your stepdad.”

I bite my lip. Telling Iris this is going to change things. She reads and listens to stuff about true crime and arsonists. She’ll have heard about him.

She’ll have heard about Ashley. About me.

I look at Wes, and he nods encouragingly. It’s okay. I know you can do it.

“My mother married Raymond Keane,” I say. “That’s who I put away.”

There’s a split second where the name doesn’t register, but then it clicks, and her eyes widen. She says, so fast her voice cracks, “The guy who allegedly chopped off his enemies’ fingers and fed them to alligators?”

“There’s no allegedly about it. He did that. It’s one of his favorite drinking stories.”

It was one of his favorite threats. He kept an array of cleavers around, from his days as an actual butcher—the nickname didn’t come out of nowhere. I didn’t just wonder if he could break down a person’s body like a side of beef . . . I knew he could. He taught me everything I know about knives. He probably regrets that now.

“Oh my God,” Iris says. “I—” But before she can even articulate whatever she’s feeling, I hear it: honking. It’s coming from the parking lot. Three long ones, then two short ones.

My knees nearly buckle in relief. Wes lets out a smile that’s a little too big for today’s situation.

“Oh my God,” Iris says again. “You did it. Casey’s safe.”

Then she promptly turns around and throws up in the trash can next to the desk.





— 29 —


    Phone Transcript: Lee Ann O’Malley + Clear Creek Deputies Receive Hostage #1 (Casey Frayn)


August 8, 11:25 a.m.




O’Malley: I’ve got the welding machine. Do you have one of the hostages?

HT1: I do. You’ll find that I’m a reasonable man. I’m giving you the youngest of the group. A little girl.

O’Malley: I appreciate that. A kid has no place in something like this. Are you a parent?

HT1: Are you?

O’Malley: Oh, you know family. It’s complicated. Why don’t I tell you how we’re going to do this?

HT1: I don’t think so. Put the welding machine in front of the back door. Stay at the end of the lot.

O’Malley: That can be arranged.

HT1: Call me when it’s done.

[Call disconnected]

O’Malley: We need to move to the back. He’s giving up one of the kids.

Sheriff Adams: Get this machine in position!

O’Malley: We’ve got to play this carefully, Sheriff. We don’t want to spook him with the rest of the hostages inside.

Sheriff Adams: I’ve got it, Lee. Stay back here, okay?