Down the Darkest Road (21 page)
Read Down the Darkest Road Online
Authors: Tami Hoag
In her experience, victims sometimes needed to be pulled out of their myopic self-absorption in their own terrible tales. Not to minimize what they had gone through, but to show them others had gone through terrible things too, and had worked their way through to move forward with their lives.
“Oh my God,” Lauren said. “Does she remember what happened ?”
“Some of it,” Anne said. “She used to wake up screaming every night. Gradually, we’ve worked through it with her. The most important thing she needed was to know that she was safe again.”
“I know the feeling,” Lauren said quietly, her eyes on Haley—laughing and happy. Anne suspected she envied the little girl that.
“When you’ve been through a nightmare, it’s hard to imagine ever feeling normal again, isn’t it?”
“Impossible,” Lauren murmured.
“Let’s go inside,” Anne suggested. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee. Have you slept in the last . . . year or two?”
“God. Do I look that bad?”
“I’m not one to pull punches,” Anne said as they started back toward the main building. “I’m sure you know the answer to your own question. I know I was well aware I looked like I’d been run over by a truck for the first few months after my ordeal. I didn’t care.
“Some women do, though,” she said. “I’ve seen people go to great lengths to pretend they’re just fine when they’re anything but. That’s a heavy lie to bear. They always crash eventually and have to start over from square one.”
“So are you saying I’m ahead of the game?” Lauren asked drily.
“I’m saying you might as well be honest. A perfect, controlled façade can be worse than a prison,” she said, thinking again of Leah, wondering what exactly the girl was trying so hard to keep locked within.
They went inside the building and down the cool, dark hall to Anne’s office.
“I just wanted to stop by to thank you again for letting Leah stay last night,” Lauren said. “Was everything all right? Leah hasn’t stayed over with a friend for a long time.”
“She did fine,” Anne said. “I checked on the girls a couple of times during the night. Once the gabfest was over, it looked like everyone slept soundly.”
“Good,” she said quietly. “She hasn’t gotten to have much of a childhood the last few years.”
Anne opened her office door and was greeted by the intoxicating aroma of coffee and fresh-baked blueberry muffins.
“Oh my God, smell that,” she said on a groan. “The kitchen staff is spoiling me into obesity.
“Leah is delightful,” she said, going to the coffee bar and pouring two cups without asking. Lauren was going to welcome the coffee, and she was going to eat a muffin if Anne had to sit on her and force-feed it to her.
“Any time Leah wants to come stay is all right by me,” she said. “Antony and Haley loved having her. If she ever wants to make a little money, she can help Wendy with the babysitting duties.”
Lauren frowned a little. Anne read her concern.
“Remember, my house is like Fort Knox. There’s always somebody watching if Vince is out. Even if it’s just date night. Nothing is left to chance.”
“That’s an interesting arrangement you have with the sheriff’s office.”
Anne pushed the cup of coffee into her hand and motioned for her to take a seat.
“They’re like family,” she explained, bringing the basket of muffins to the coffee table. She kicked her shoes off and curled herself into a chair. “Vince has done a lot of work with Sheriff Dixon and his detectives, but he won’t take their money, so they give back in kind.”
“Do you know a Detective Mendez?” Lauren asked cautiously. Unable to resist, she sipped at the coffee. The steam rising from it put a hint of color into her cheeks at least.
“Tony?” Anne said, surprised. “Absolutely. He’s my son’s godfather—and namesake, sort of. It’s a long story. Anyway . . . Do you know Tony?”
“We’ve met,” she said, carefully neutral. “He’s a good detective ?”
“He’s excellent. Vince wanted to recruit him to the Bureau back when, then life took some crazy turns for all of us, and here we all are still in Oak Knoll. Why do you ask? Is everything all right?”
Lauren looked down at the arm of the chair with the expression of someone tempted to burst into hysterical laughter. Clearly, everything was not all right.
Before she could peddle a lie or a platitude, Anne leaned forward and forced eye contact.
“Lauren, I know we’ve just met, and I’m sure you don’t trust people any easier than I do,” she said. “But when I tell you that you can tell me anything, I mean it. You don’t have to be a client. I feel connected to you through Wendy and Leah, and the fact that we’ve both had to deal with some rotten shit in our lives.
“I will never judge you,” she said. “I will never tell you you should or shouldn’t feel one way or another. And if there’s any way I can help you, I will.”
Lauren still wouldn’t really look at her. Tears rose in her cool blue eyes. Anne had never seen anyone more in need of a hug in her life, but she also knew better than to offer it. She suspected it would not be well received.
Lauren had spent the last four years fighting for her daughter, fighting to keep herself together, fighting the dark energy that stalked every victim of violence. She had taken on a warrior persona that would never allow vulnerability.
Anne knew at the heart of that lay fear—the fear that if she allowed a chink in her armor, that would be the end of her. She would crumble. The strength that had gotten her through every day of her personal hell would dissolve, and then where would she be? Who would she be? How would she get from one day to the next? How could she be a mother for her remaining daughter?
“No matter what it is,” Anne said, “you need friends to help you get through it. You will never find anyone more qualified for that job than me.”
Lauren tried to force a smile. She managed to nod, but she still looked away. In the smallest, tightest whisper she murmured a thank-you.
Anne wondered if this was what Leah looked like behind the wall she had built around herself—terrified, eaten raw by the acid of grief and guilt and uncertainty. She suspected so, and a part of her wanted to broach the subject with Lauren, but Lauren seemed so fragile . . . She would tread as carefully as possible.
“That offer goes for Leah as well,” she said. “The two of you are in the same boat. You’re both dealing with the same situation, and you both have to feel like you’re drowning in your emotions. One of you can’t turn to the other, but both of you need to be able to turn to someone. You need a place you can open the pressure valve and get some relief—so does Leah.”
Anne could see the mom alarms going off in Lauren’s head.
“You said Leah was fine last night,” Lauren said. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, really,” Anne said, cursing herself.
“Did she say something?”
“No. I’m just concerned because I know girls her age tend to go one way or the other. They’re either drama queens or they’re afraid to show anyone anything they’re really feeling. Leah falls into the second group, and the feelings she’s holding in have to be huge,” she said. “Keeping that all trapped and bottled up can be toxic.”
To say nothing of dangerous—and she said nothing of the dangers. She didn’t say that girls wound as tightly as Leah had a risk of turning to self-destructive behaviors—everything from alcohol and eating disorders to cutting and suicide. She hadn’t seen any evidence, but the threat was there, lying under Leah’s very controlled surface. Her mother needed to be aware.
“I know I’m not exactly Mother of the Year material,” Lauren began.
“I didn’t say that,” Anne said. “I’m sure you’re a great mom; otherwise Leah wouldn’t be the sweet girl she is. And I’m sure you love her very much. I’m saying when one blind person is leading another they aren’t going to get where they want to go without banging into some walls. Let someone who can see do the steering.”
She watched Lauren carefully, hoping she hadn’t pushed too hard.
She plucked a muffin from the basket on the coffee table and tossed it to Lauren like a ball, surprising her out of her tormented thoughts.
“I’m not letting you out of here until you eat that.”
Lauren looked at the muffin like it was something to dread, but dutifully broke off a little piece of the top and put it in her mouth.
“So what did you do with your evening to yourself?” Anne asked. “I hope you had a chance to relax, soak in the tub, read a book, have a nice glass of wine. That’s what I would like to do, but being the mother of a toddler, I need to relax vicariously through other people.”
“Yeah, that was pretty much it,” Lauren said, still staring at the muffin.
A lie
, Anne thought. She wondered if Lauren had sought any kind of help for the anxiety, the depression, the sleeplessness. It pained her to see someone suffering as much as Lauren Lawton appeared to be suffering, knowing that at least modern science could be helping her out if she wouldn’t allow a friend to do it.
, Anne thought. She wondered if Lauren had sought any kind of help for the anxiety, the depression, the sleeplessness. It pained her to see someone suffering as much as Lauren Lawton appeared to be suffering, knowing that at least modern science could be helping her out if she wouldn’t allow a friend to do it.
“One night next week,” Anne said, “you and Leah are going to come for dinner. And I’ll tell you right now, I won’t take no for an answer, so don’t even think of trying to weasel out of it. Remember: I can always have a deputy pick you up and bring you,” she said teasingly.
Lauren didn’t look convinced, but Anne had made up her mind. She was going to be a friend to this woman whether she thought she wanted one or not. Anne was becoming convinced that two lives could hang in the balance.
25
Roland Ballencoa did indeed have electricity.
He was living at 537 Coronado Boulevard.
Mendez hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. He felt like he’d just found a big fat poisonous snake living under the cushions of his sofa. A predator had slithered into his town and taken up residence with no one the wiser. If not for Lauren Lawton, Ballencoa could have lived there for who knew how long, establishing his territory, settling into his routine . . .
He got up from his chair and started shrugging into his sport coat, drawing a look from his partner.
“Got him,” Mendez said.
“Where?”
“Five thirty-seven Coronado. A target-rich environment. Three blocks from the high school in one direction. Seven blocks from McAster College in the other direction. Hot and cold running coeds all year round.”
And maybe half a mile from his own house. Mendez knew the neighborhood well. He jogged up and down those streets routinely.
“Oh, man . . .” Hicks muttered, rising from his chair. “That’s like turning on the kitchen light in the middle of night and finding a rat in the middle of the floor.”
“Only we can’t just shoot it and throw a rug over the hole,” Mendez said as they headed for the side entrance and the parking lot.
Mendez got behind the wheel. He was feeling aggressive now, protective of his city and, if he had to admit it, of Lauren Lawton too. Not for any romantic reason, but because he felt responsible for her—as he felt responsible for anyone else who might come to him for help.
He took the oath “To Protect and Serve” seriously. Maybe a little more seriously where women were involved, but that was how it was supposed to be—at least in his mind, and in his family culture, and in his Marine culture. The man protected the woman. Period.
Ballencoa’s house was on a corner lot, an unassuming bungalow with a detached one-car garage and a similar building at the back of the property on the alley. The yard was neat, and yet the place had a strange feeling of vacancy about it.
There was no car in the driveway. There were no potted plants on the steps, no bicycle parked on the front porch. The shades were drawn. Not unlike the house in San Luis Obispo, there was nothing to suggest anything about the inhabitant, if there was one. Mendez half expected to peek in a window and be struck by the same still emptiness he had felt there.
Hicks rang the doorbell, and they waited.
“How would you like to be a neighbor and find out this guy had moved in next door?” Hicks asked.
“Or worse,” Mendez said, “not know this guy had moved in next door.”
Of course Ballencoa’s neighbors didn’t know who had moved in next to them. His one conviction had been pled down to nothing, and it was so long ago, no one kept tabs on him. And, as convinced as Lauren or Danni Tanner or anyone else might have been of his complicity in the disappearance of Leslie Lawton, the man had never been charged with anything. By strict letter of the law, there was nothing to warn the neighbors about.
Hicks rang the bell again, and they waited.
Finally the door opened and they had their first look at Roland Ballencoa. Mid-thirties, olive skin, large dark eyes with heavy lids. His brown hair was straight, shoulder-length, clean, and parted down the middle. He wore a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. He looked a little like John Lennon, Mendez thought, or, as Danni Tanner had said, like an extra in one of those life-of-Christ movies.
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