Glow (16 page)

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.

“Cunningham knew Sissy, didn't he?” She turned to him when he didn't immediately respond. “She was his meth dealer?”

He nodded once.

Alice felt a little numb, but she wasn't surprised by the news. Not really. Men and women of the caliber of Avery Cunningham regularly pulled up into the drive of their shabby, garbage-strewn double-wide in Little Paradise. It was voices like theirs—rough, guttural, and at times, savage—that Alice regularly heard vibrating through the walls of her bedroom. That was Alice's life. She was a mouse cowering in a den of pythons, constantly trying to disguise her vulnerability, to make herself darker and tougher than she was.

“Apparently, Sissy and Cunningham went way back,” Dylan said. “They met in Cook County Juvenile Detention Center back in the eighties.”

Alice swallowed thickly, trying to absorb this strange reality. Jesus. Had she and Cunningham ever been in the trailer at the same time? Typical Sissy, to welcome her daughter's kidnapper and would-be murderer into their home with open arms. Cunningham had been an old crime buddy and paying customer, after all.

“According to Cunningham, Addie was pretty banged up after he fished her out of the creek,” Dylan continued gruffly. “She was drifting in and out of consciousness when he put her back in the car. At some point, she must have come to, though. He said he fed her while they were on the road. I think it was at that point that Cunningham realized something miraculous had happened. Addie was amnesic not only in regard to the kidnapping and Cunningham's attempted murder, but also to her own identity. Sidney assures me that given the physical trauma she endured, in addition to all the psychological stress and fear, amnesia is a very realistic coping mechanism, especially for such a small child. Sidney thinks it also could have just been the fall that caused the amnesia, the heavy sedatives she'd been given, the trauma, or maybe it was a combination of all those things. For Cunningham, it must have been like the slate had been wiped clean of all his sins toward her. He also must have realized that in the state she was in, Addie would be less likely to betray him if they got her medical care. She couldn't even remember her own name.”

“They told her that her name was Alice, and she believed it,” she said dully.

“There's no reason she wouldn't,” Dylan said forcefully. “She was a traumatized, injured, tiny little girl who had been ripped from her parents and almost died at the hands of a ruthless criminal.”

Alice nodded, trying to disguise her unrest. “Go on.”

His nostrils flared slightly as he stared at her, obviously reluctant.

“Please, Dylan.”

He briefly shut his eyes and inhaled. “Cunningham put a call in to Sissy and they agreed to meet at a hotel in Michigan City, Indiana. Sissy helped him put a dark rinse on Addie's hair. Addie's hair was a remarkable color—a rose gold. They needed to hide that telltale characteristic.”

Alice shook her head slowly. “For as long as I can remember, Sissy put a rinse on my hair. When I got a little older, she told me she'd been abused as a girl. She said she didn't want me to be obvious prey, there in Little Paradise. She was the one who taught me to hide myself. Darken my hair, hide my body, make myself look tougher. It was actually one of the few useful things she'd ever told me,” Alice said with a rough bark of laughter. “And now, I find out she had an ulterior motive, even for that. She was trying to disguise my identity, not protect me.”

“I'm sorry,” Dylan said after a pause.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts and focused on him.

“Go on.”

“Addie's amnesia didn't remit, and Sissy ended up taking her to a local ER. Her lack of memory made things easier. Whatever they told her—”

“Became reality,” Alice filled in, anger entering her tone. “That's my first memory—or at least it
was
before coming here—waking up in the hospital,” she said, staring into space as she relived that fuzzy memory, now through an unveiled mind's eye. Shivers of dread crawled beneath her skin. That feeling of belonging to strangers, to people whom she had nothing remotely in common with had started
there
, in those moments when she'd awakened in that hospital bed.

“Alice?” Dylan asked uncertainly.

She blinked. She realized she was hugging herself as if for warmth. Steeling herself, she dropped her arms.

“And Cunningham just gave Addie”—
me
, she screamed silently in her head—“to Sissy to raise after that?
Why?
”

Dylan shook his head slowly. “All I have there is speculation. I told you what Cunningham claimed. He says he regretted kidnapping and hurting that little girl . . . almost killing her. He didn't want to continue in his mission, but was too much of a coward to take her back and risk getting arrested. But I think he also needed a female accomplice, and thought of Sissy. As the only witness, I'd told the police and FBI about the two males I'd witnessed who took Addie. They wore masks and hats, but I was positive that they were both men. A woman claiming to be Addie's mother in the emergency room would have been less suspicious.”

“But why then
give
Addie to Sissy to raise on a permanent basis? I know you don't know exactly why he did it, but you must suspect something,” Alice implored, desperate to understand.

He was sitting forward now, his elbows resting on his spread knees. He looked down at his clasped hands.

“Alice . . . I don't think Stout and Cunningham actually masterminded the kidnapping.”

“You think someone else planned it? That they were hired to do it?”

He met her stare. “Yes,” he said with quiet conviction.

She chafed her hands over the roughened skin of her arms.

“I've always thought that Cunningham and Stout had been fed information about Addie's habits and activities. They chose the
ideal
circumstances to snatch her. Someone would have had to hole up in the woods for days on end in order to observe and understand the moment when Addie was most vulnerable and when their escape would be easiest.”

“But that's what they did, right? Staked out the area in order to determine the prime moment?”

“That's what they would have
had
to do, but there's no evidence to show they actually
did
that. If they had, they would have left traces . . . evidence of their presence while they spied for days, maybe even weeks, in the woods and on the grounds. It had been a dry hot summer before the kidnapping. There was no rain or wind that would make evidence vanish. The FBI combed the woods and grounds on the estate following the kidnapping. They never found anything to indicate that Stout and Cunningham had been hiding out repeatedly to discover the best moment for the kidnapping, they just suspected they
must
have. Somehow. The agents did locate where they thought the escape vehicle had most likely been parked on a side road just past the bluff, but there was no indication of several trips, no multiple tire tracks. There was a single trip on the day they successfully took her. Plus, the riding lesson I planned for Addie that day wasn't our typical routine. Someone
must
have told Stout and Cunningham when and where the ideal moment presented itself.”

“Who?”

He shook his head, his mouth clamped together. Alice sensed his profound frustration at his inability to answer her. “Any number of people could have informed them from the camp—employees and campers who were frequently at the stables, anyone that the Durands conversed with about Addie and her activities, like Alan's and Lynn's friends and confidants. Personally? I always had my suspicions about Kehoe, but never had anything solid to go on. I never said anything to the agents, because my suspicion seemed pretty groundless. I told Jim Sheridan about my concerns, but Jim has never really been on board with that. The problem is, I can't figure out a motive. Whoever did it not only had the means to hire Cunningham and Stout, they must have anticipated the
outcome of the whole thing. As Jim has always reminded me, Kehoe couldn't benefit in any way from Addie being taken.”

“So why do you suspect him?”

“I'm not sure,” Dylan admitted uneasily. “It's just a feeling I have about him.”

“Well, he certainly doesn't like you much.” Dylan glanced over at her. “It's kind of hard not to notice. He was running the camp back then, wasn't he?”

He nodded. “I was a camper here for the first time during the second year the camp ran, and Kehoe was already the head guy. It was because of all the good work he did here that he was promoted to VP of human resources in that time period.”

“What did Kehoe think of you back then?”

“What did he think of me when I was twelve, thirteen . . . fourteen years old? Very little, I'd guess. I don't remember many personal interactions with him at all. He was decent not only to me, but all the kids, as I recall it.” He pressed his fingertips to his eyelids and shook his head. “Maybe it's just paranoia on my part when it comes to Kehoe, and the bad vibes I get from him are solely due to his dislike of me. Like Jim always tells me, Kehoe would have absolutely no motive for kidnapping Addie.”