Anathema (35 page)

Matt put out an alert for the vehicle, but it was a long shot. Several hours had already passed. Parke County was only minutes from Illinois. Reece could have taken Hannah and Caitlin and crossed the state line already. He sat at the desk with his head in his hands.
Think!
He knew Reece well, knew his likes and dislikes, his way of looking at the world. There had to be some clue he was missing.

He wanted to bang his forehead against the desk. Ajax whined and pressed his nose against Matt’s leg. “I’m okay, boy.” Matt rubbed the dog’s ears. Reece had no family. Like Matt, he was a throwaway kid. Reece ’s mother had given him to Irene, who had raised him for a time. When she couldn’t handle him anymore, he’d gone to Trudy. She ’d be sorely disappointed in Reece. Most kids who passed through her doors went on to live decent lives. Reece was fond of Irene too. Maybe she ’d have an idea where he could look. He and Ajax hopped into the SUV and drove out of town.

Reece used to go see her once a week. Maybe he resumed that tradition when he returned. It couldn’t hurt to run out and talk to her. She might have some idea where Matt should look. Something had happened between his grandmother and his aunt, and rather than ruffle his grandmother’s feathers, he’d avoided Irene. It was just easier that way. Keeping his grandmother pleasant could be a full-time job.

He rolled to a stop in front of the big old Victorian house. Irene ’s yellow dress was a bright splash of color against the red of the rose garden she labored in. The fact that she wore muddy Wellingtons ruined the perfect picture. Her hair was unkempt as well, and when she turned around, her gaze was foggy. It must be one of her bad days.

Most days her medication held the darkness at bay, but once in a while, the fog rolled in and took her into its murky depths.

He let Ajax out of the SUV, and his aunt came to meet him. “David, what are you doing here?”

It was worse than he thought. “It’s Matt, Irene. Not David.”

Her gaze drifted away from his face and out over the fields. “Of course it is. I should get the meadow tea in and make you some. You’ve always loved my meadow tea, David.”

Matt gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Listen to me, Aunt Irene. I need your help. Caitlin’s in trouble.”

“Your mother?”

“No, Caitlin. My daughter. Remember her?” He folded his arms over his chest. “Have you seen Reece O’Connor?”

Her hazel eyes clouded. “A few days ago. He’s not a good son.”

Who did she think he was talking about? When she was like this, it was almost impossible to get any sense out of her. “Did you take your medicine today?”

Her hand went into her pocket, and she withdrew a pill bottle. “No medicine, all gone,” she said in a singsong voice.

“I think Reece has taken Caitlin. And maybe Hannah Schwartz,” he said. She stared at him as though she ’d been expecting something like this. “Did he tell you he planned to take her?” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. She rocked on her feet, picking petals off a rose like some lovesick girl from the turn of the century. “Did he tell you?” he repeated.

“Caitlin puts me in mind of Hannah,” she said. “You made me lie to Hannah the other day. She ’s Caitlin’s mother, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Look, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to find my daughter before he disappears with her. Or hurts her.”

“Reece can’t be trusted. That’s why I turned him out.”

Matt didn’t have time to try to decipher her ramblings. “I think he killed the Schwartz family. And he threw Hannah down the steps so she ’d lose the baby. Only the baby didn’t die. And he left Caitlin on my doorstep.”

She still showed no real reaction. He ’d thought his accusation would incite her to protest or something. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Mother knows everything, sees everything, punishes everything,” she said in a singsong voice.

“Trudy knows all about it. Reece took Caitlin from her front porch. She didn’t hear a thing. She didn’t even know Caitlin was gone until she tried to call her for breakfast.”

“Mother knows. Don’t worry.”

He clenched his fists. “She ’s five years old! Not worry about it? We ’ve had a doozy of a storm all morning too.”

Still plucking petals, she exhibited an unnatural serenity. He wanted to rip the roses out of her hands and fling them to the ground. She
would
tell him what he needed to know if he had to drag her to her feet and shake it out of her.

“I’ve got work to do.” She tossed the flowers to the ground. “I hope you find her.”

He blocked her path. “Where would Reece take her?” Her eyes cleared, and he saw sharp intelligence gleaming in their depths.

She shook her head. “This isn’t about Reece, David. It goes much deeper than that. Much further back. You’d better start with Mother.”

“You’re not making any sense. Trudy doesn’t know anything about this.”

“No?” She smiled, a grimace that only made her eyes look sadder. “Everything that goes around comes around. This evil goes on and on. I think there ’s no end to it. At least none that I can see.”

“Start with the truth.”

“The truth? It depends on how you look at it.”

Matt couldn’t make heads or tails out of her babbling. He jerked his thumb toward the SUV. “Let’s go,” he told Ajax. “There ’s no help for us here.” He’d do what she said, go talk to his grandmother. Just in case he ’d missed something. He had to find his daughter. The urgency rumbled in his chest like thunder, but he took the time to call Gina and asked her to go check on Irene and make sure she got her meds.

REECE HUNCHED OVER the wheel as the truck zoomed along at breakneck speed. He had said nothing for the last fifteen minutes. Hannah huddled on her side of the seat. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Some of the area looked familiar. She vaguely remembered picnicking once at the top of the hillside the truck climbed. This part of Parke County had steep hills and hidden ravines. It had been all their horses could do to pull the buggy up here. Those were happy days, filled with love, discipline, and godly training. She hadn’t appreciated it fully at the time.

The truck left the gravel road and turned down a cow path, a faint depression in the grass that led through a break in the raspberry bushes. She thought they might be taking a back way into Turkey Run State Park. The truck bogged down in mud several times, but Reece managed to power it on through. Vegetation brushed against the side of the vehicle and tore at the side mirrors. The trees blotted out the light, and the thick foliage made it as cool and dark as midnight, cocooning them from the world. The tires rumbled over fallen logs and muddy ruts in the ground before coming to rest in a small clearing.

A cliff covered with vines and weeds loomed over them, blotting out even more light. “Honey, we ’re home,” Reece said. His chuckle fell flat.

“Wh-where are we, Reece?” Hannah didn’t want to get out of the truck. Menace coated the air.

“You’ll see. Hop out, hon.” He got out and removed her suitcase from the back.

Hannah shoved open her door and stepped out into the clearing. No birds sang here. A twisted tree raised dead branches into the air. No frogs croaked, no wind ruffled the leaves, and Hannah could not even hear the hum of insects.

She tightened her grip on the shoulder strap of her purse. “Now what?”

“Follow me.” He struck out along an impression of beaten-down grass.

Fighting his way along the base of the cliff, he held back brambles and bushes for her. The underbrush grew thicker and the silence more oppressive. Hannah wanted to turn and run for the truck. Reece seemed too smug. But Caitlin was somewhere back here, so she trudged on.

In the distance, she heard the roar of rapids, probably Sugar Creek. With the heavy storms the past few days, it would be in full flood stage. The roar of the water grew louder with every step until they arrived at a battered shack on the shores of the creek.

He unlocked the padlock on the door. “Step into my parlor,” he said.

“It’s a sugar shack.” She tried to peer in the window, but it was too dirty and fly-speckled.

He grabbed her arm. “Hurry up. We don’t have all day. The kid is inside.”

In a frenzy of movement, Hannah shoved open the door. An old rug had been thrown down on the floor, and inflatable furniture made it seem almost homey. A cot was on the far side of the space, and a little girl lay curled up on it with an afghan thrown over her. She appeared sound asleep. A chain dangled from one small ankle to the cot.

Hannah moved to the side of the bed. Her vision narrowed and her heart galloped. She looked at the child for the first time. Her child? The unruly auburn hair, the tiny hands fisted, the shape of the toenails and feet. Even the curve of her cheeks and the length of her lashes held an uncanny familiarity for her. She told herself not to let the lid off her hopes. “Is she ours, Reece?”

“Sure, hon.” Reece put his arm around her, and they stood looking at Caitlin. “I was wrong. I know that now. I want her too. It will be great now that the three of us are together.”

Hannah wanted to move away, but she didn’t dare. “All these lost years. Why did you give her to Matt?”

“I heard from Trudy about all the trouble his wife was having getting pregnant. It seemed right that someone should have her who would love her.” His tone suggested he’d done something heroic, something praiseworthy.

Hannah drank in the sight of her child. She wanted to touch the soft hair, kiss the round softness of Caitlin’s cheek, smell the little-girl scent. She wanted to pull the child onto her lap to experience her weight for the first time. She wanted to recapture every moment that had been stolen from her—the first tooth, the first word, the first stumbling step. Gone—it was all gone. Stolen. Destroyed. It would never come again.

She whirled and curled her fingers into fists. “How could you, Reece? How could you destroy our family like this?” Leaping at him, she tore at his eyes. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of hair. Kicking and pummeling, she wanted to inflict as much damage as she could. Nothing she did to him would ever be enough to pay him back for what he ’d done to them all.

He grabbed her in a bear hug and wrestled her to the floor, where she lay pinned under him. Panting, she tried to wrench her arm free. “Let go of me,” she spat. Hatred black as tar and just as immobilizing filled her heart.

“I will, just as soon as you calm down.” Blood trickled from his mouth, and a red lump formed on his forehead. “You’ve turned into a little spitfire. You’re going to have to learn to obey me, Hannah. Just settle down. I knew you’d be upset once you saw her. She ’s cute, isn’t she? Looks like you. Doesn’t seem to have anything of me in her at all.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe she’s not even mine.”

“Oh please. You kept me shackled to the house. Who would I have had an affair with?” Strength seeped from her bones and into the cold stone beneath her. What was the use? He always won. He was bigger, stronger, smarter. She lay still and stared up at him.

With tears blurring his face in her vision, she could almost imagine he wasn’t the monster she thought he was. Maybe everything was her fault. If she’d been a better wife, with a gentler, more submissive spirit, their lives wouldn’t be in this mess. “What do you want from me, Reece? I gave you all I had, and you trampled it.”

He brushed his lips across hers. “I want you to be a good wife, Hannah. To put me first like you should. I want us to grow old together, to raise our little girl to be a good, obedient woman. Think you can do that?” He released her arms and lifted his weight from her but continued to loom over her body. His stare seemed to prod into her soul as he searched for the truth in her face.

She breathed in courage. She reached up her hands and cupped his cheeks in her palms. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered. “It was such a shock. All those wasted years . . .” Tears slid from the corners of her eyes and ran down to soak the hair at her temples. “We could have had this time with her and with each other, Reece. I would never put her first. I know it frightened you, but you always came first with me.”

The hard stare of his gaze softened. “Ah, Hannah, that’s all I ever wanted. For someone to love me and put me first. You don’t know what it was like to grow up knowing no one really cared.”

“I’m sorry, Reece. You never talked about it.”

“It hurt too much,” he admitted.

She put on a stern expression. “I am your wife. I’m here for you to share those things with me. Don’t keep anything from me again.”

“We ’ll have lots of time together, the three of us.” His lips brushed hers again. Before she could react, he rolled off her and got up. He held out his hand to her and hoisted her to her feet. “I think our daughter is awake. But then, who wouldn’t be with the way you were yelling.” He wrapped a curl of her hair around his finger.

Hannah’s insides trembled, but she didn’t dare show how he terrified her. She smiled up at him until he released her hair. Then she let go of his hand and turned back to the cot. Caitlin sat with her small feet dangling over the edge of the mattress. Her eyes were round and fearful, and her lips trembled. She twisted her hands in her lap.

“Don’t be scared, honey,” Hannah said. She approached the bed and knelt in front of the little girl. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Caitlin touched Hannah’s hair. “You have hair like mine. I’ve never seen anyone with hair like mine. Daddy says it’s fairy hair.”

Hannah managed a smile. “Maybe he ’s right. My name is Hannah.”

“I’m Caitlin Beitler. My daddy is a sheriff ’s detective. He ’ll be mad that bad man took me.” She pointed at Reece. “Can you take me home now?”

“Soon,” she whispered too softly for him to hear. She craned her neck to face Reece. “Take off the chain. Give me the key and I’ll let her go.”

He shrugged. “Just make sure she doesn’t bolt. I don’t want to have to hurt her.” He dug into his pocket and found a small key that he dangled in the air above her head. “Say please.”

“Please, Reece.” She made a grab for the key and missed. He laughed. Forcing a smile, she grabbed his forearm. “You’re such a tease. Hand it over.”