Finding Claire Fletcher (17 page)

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s not why I was buying you drinks, you know, Claire,” he said.

I smiled, something that felt unnatural to the contours of my face after the last two years. “I know that,” I said. “Please. I want to go somewhere with you.”

“
Um, well okay. But where? My apartment?”

I shook my head, and the ground tipped up ninety degrees and back. Rudy caught my shoulder so I wouldn’t fall. “No, not your apartment,” I said. “Where else can we go?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, and before he spoke again, it was obvious the suggestion was couched in much hesitation. “Well, there’s a motel just down that way, past those trees about a quarter mile.”

I smiled again and leaned my body into his. “Let’s walk,” I said.

Rudy wrapped a hand around my upper arm to steady me as we walked. The motel was small, sided in a shabby brown with ten identical doors. I waited outside as Rudy paid for a room. We were in number six. The room had only a bed, nightstand, and a small bathroom off to the side, hardly bigger than a closet. I peed with the door open, and when I came out, Rudy stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, hands thrust into his pants pockets.

I went over and stood in front of him. I smiled and pulled my dress over my head, dropping it beside us. I unhooked my bra and he flushed deeply.

“Wow, Claire,” he said.

“Kiss me, Rudy,” I said, enjoying the sound of a stranger’s name on my lips.

He held my face and kissed me sloppily, his tongue flopping around in my mouth. I plopped onto the bed and kicked off my shoes. He looked down on me in raw amazement. “Come on,” I said. “You have something, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, I...,” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a wallet and from that a condom, which looked as if it had spent the better part of its shelf life in his wallet.

I had only to gesture for him to come closer, and he was fumbling at the front of his pants. He did not take off his clothes. He climbed on top of me, making a haphazard attempt to feel between my legs and graze my breasts with his hands. It took less than a minute. I felt nothing.

He lay beside me afterward, panting. “Wow, Claire,” he said again. “Wow.”

I said nothing, did not even look at him. I looked at the water-stained drop ceiling and felt the full satisfaction of my betrayal. Another man had touched me—finally. Another man had been inside my body. I was no longer only my captor’s reluctant treasure.

In minutes, Rudy was snoring beside me. I pulled my clothes back on, not bothering to wash the smell of his sweat or sweet and sour breath from me. I watched him sleep for a while and wondered what I would do next. Some part of me realized that I could go home now. I was free. But the prospect of taking that road terrified me almost as much as returning to the shack in the woods with the dead girl in the backyard. I couldn’t tell why.

I tore a page from the bible that sat on the end table and fished a pen out of Rudy’s pocket. On it I wrote only my name—my real name—and my former address. Perhaps he would go there and look for me. Perhaps he would tell my family he had seen me, and they would know that I was alive, even if I could not return home.

I walked out into the cool night air, my feet padding silently along the road. I sauntered back to the truck, embraced and tightly held by the darkness all around me, filled with the sounds of cicadas and night-flying birds. I was almost to the door of the truck when I saw him. His car was on the other side, and he was pacing back and forth between the vehicles, his face set in angry lines, fingers drumming madly against his thighs.

He flew around the front of the truck and grabbed the back of my neck. I thought I saw tears streaking his face, but it was too dark to tell. He turned me around to face him and delivered a sharp uppercut into my middle. He pulled me up by my hair, opened the truck door and stuffed me inside, pushing me to the passenger’s side so he could climb in after me. I curled into the pain in my stomach and pelvis as he drove back to the wooden house. He dragged me inside and into my room, where he threw me to the floor.

Venom dripped from his mouth with every word and spittle flew as he kicked me.

“You disgusting, filthy little whore,” he said. “You dirty, disgusting slut. How could you do this to me? To us? I gave you everything. I’ve done everything you’ve asked, given you all that you asked for and this, this is how you show your gratitude?”

He spit on my curled form. Dimly, I thought of reminding him that I had only asked for two things: my freedom and books. I had only books. In fact, he had only given me one thing I asked for. I thought it went without saying that I would give any amount of books for my freedom.

“You’re disgusting,” he said, his voice husky and moist.

He bound me hand and foot and left me tied to nothing, lying in a spit-soaked heap on the bedroom floor.

He did not return for several days.

When he returned, he was crying. Like a small child. He sprawled on the floor and pulled my head into his lap. He poured water over my lips, and I tried to drink it as fast as it came but ended up choking on most of it.

He stroked my face and hair and rocked me back and forth. “I’m sorry, my sweet Lynn,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I should not have blamed you. It’s my job to keep you safe and I didn’t. It’s all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, my voice only a whisper.

“I’ve made it right,” he said, rocking, rocking, rocking. “I’ve made it right.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said.

“I’ve done it,” he said. “I’ve made it right. You’ll see.”

He carried me into the living room, my small body crushed against his side, my head lolling like the broken stem of a heavy flower on his shoulder. He lifted my chin gently and turned my head toward the front door so I could see what he’d done. He had to gather me up like a pile of falling leaves when the dry heaves set in.

“I’ve made it right,” he said softly, lowering me to the floor.

Rudy had been bludgeoned to death. At the sight of his body, I swayed back and forth on my hands and knees. My stomach had nothing in it to expel. My body tried to turn inside out. Then the room expanded so that everything in it seemed miles away. It snapped back, slingshotting toward me and knocking me to my side. I felt the boulder of panic crushing my chest. There was no air, but there was blackness. I let it take me.

Rudy took his place in the backyard next to Sarah. I watched the dirt cover his body, one shovelful at a time until all that was left was a slightly raised mound of freshly turned earth. Now in my hell I had my own private cemetery of people whose lives had been taken in my name. A fictitious name, a name given to me by a man who had taken by force everything that mattered.

Each night I sat in the darkness, forehead pressed against my window and held vigil over the two unmarked, unconsecrated graves.

I could never go back. I understood that finally.

I had a new fantasy. In it my captor left for work, or wherever he went when he was not devising new and innovative ways to twist my soul and body around his depravity. He did not return. Ever. Though I would have no way of knowing, I still imagined that he was killed in some random disaster. A car wreck, a fire, earthquake, flood, or some freak occurrence like being struck by lightning.

I hated him with an intensity that rocked my entire being but knew I could never kill him myself. I could never do what he did so easily and without compunction. Having seen the things I had, I knew that taking a life, even one as abhorrent as his, was not within my capabilities.

Each time he left the house, sometimes leaving me locked in my room but no longer binding me, I willed him not to return. I would pass my days reading and rereading the books he had brought. If I got out of the room, I would nourish myself until the house was emptied of its contents. Then if I was lucky, I would die. Maybe after a while someone would find me, and the mystery of my disappearance would be solved to some degree.

My family could lay me to rest, and they would never have to know all the things I knew. Perhaps they could live peacefully in that way. The bodies in the back might be found and identified, more mysteries finally laid to rest. Their own families could give them proper burials, and no one would know my part in their demise.

Connor didn’t believe a single thing Irene Geary had told him. He doubted she had knowledge about Claire’s abduction, but she was definitely hiding something. He’d have to put a call out to the Phoenix PD and see if they could spare someone to make a house call. But first he dialed Noel Geary’s number.

She answered on the fourth ring. Connor identified himself, explained that he was investigating the disappearance of a woman named Claire Fletcher and the possible connection between her and a former tenant of Irene Geary, who’d lived at 1653 Larkspur Avenue in 1995.

“A tenant?” Noel said. “We never had any tenants. Who told you that?”

“Your mother,” Connor replied.

Humorless laughter, sharp and derisive filtered through the phone line. “Is that what she’s telling people now?”

Connor leaned his elbows on his desk and pressed the receiver close to his face. “You did not have a tenant at that address at that time?” he asked.

“He wasn’t a tenant,” Noel said. “He was her boyfriend.”

The spiral of excitement that had fizzled when Irene Geary hung up on him suddenly exploded, sending a buzz through Connor’s body.

“Her boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Noel said. “One of many. He was a freak, a real weirdo, that guy. I never saw him again after we moved, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something disgusting to some unsuspecting female.”

“Do you remember his name?” Connor asked.

“Sure,” Noel said. “It was, uh, Rod something. Rod...” she trailed off. “Shit, I can’t remember his last name, but I could probably think of it if I tried.”

“Ms. Geary, would you be willing to meet in person?” Connor asked.

“Sure,” she said. “There’s lots I can tell you about that perv. But I gotta work tonight. You could come by tomorrow at like, noon.”

“That would be great,” Connor said.

“You got my address?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Connor replied.

“I’m on the second floor, number twenty-nine. Just knock.”

“Great,” Connor said. “I’ll see you then.”

Connor felt like he might be propelled right out of his chair by the adrenaline coursing at warp speed through his body. Whatever Noel Geary knew could very well break the case wide open. Connor tried to quell his excitement. Yes, Noel Geary could break the case, but it was also possible that the lead could go nowhere. Plus he had a whole day to kill before he met with Farrell.

Connor spent the day at his desk. He tried Irene Geary several times, but she did not answer. He threw himself into paperwork. It wasn’t nearly as exhilarating as what he normally did in his capacity as a detective, but it kept him occupied. He left the office at six in the evening. Night closed in as he pulled into his driveway.

Connor locked his car door. He heard a noise coming from the back of his house. The impending darkness cast dusky shadows over the street. Connor stood perfectly still and listened. He heard something muffled and quick, but he could not identify it. Normally he would have dismissed it as a neighbor’s escaped dog or cat, but tonight Claire’s words hung heavy on his mind.

You might be in danger.

Slipping his hand inside his jacket, he drew his gun and stepped quietly to the side of the house. He lifted the latch on the wire fence and opened it wide enough for his body to slide through. He stayed off the cement path that led to the backyard, padding his steps in the grass. He kept close to the house, gun held in both hands, pointed slightly downward.

It was darker toward the back of the house, and Connor paused long enough for his eyes to adjust before turning the corner into his backyard.

There was a figure cut from the shadows, tall and solid. The man’s back was turned to Connor. He peered through the sliding glass doors, seemingly unaware of Connor or the gun trained at the center of his back. Connor took two steps forward and said, “Turn around with your hands in the air.”

The man’s hands shot up over his head, and he turned immediately. “Parks, it’s me,” he said.

Connor squinted. “Mitch?”

“I’m stepping toward you,” the man said.

Connor backed up one step and out of the shadows stepped Mitch Farrell, hands held aloft, grinning. Connor sighed and lowered his weapon. “Farrell, what the hell are you doing? I could have shot you.”

Farrell looked as relieved as Connor felt that Connor hadn’t shot him. He put his hands down and shook his head. “I’m too old for this shit,” he said. “You almost scared the piss out of me.”

Connor holstered his weapon. “I scared you? Farrell, I thought you were breaking into my house. I could have killed you.”

The two men walked around to the front of the house. “I got here before you. I told you I wanted to check out your security measures,” Farrell explained.

Connor let them into the front door and flicked on the living room lights. “By skulking around in the dark and peeking in my windows?”