Hiding Place (9781101606759) (20 page)

“Why…?”

He finally looked at her.

“It’s time to move on,” he said. “It’s been time to move on for a while, but now it’s really time. As long as that stuff sat up
there, as long as we could go up and look at those things whenever we wanted to, then we couldn’t go on. So I made the decision to get rid of it.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make.”

“When you moved out and grew up, it was okay to have it there. I thought it was good for you to have your own life. But when you moved back in, you started going up there again.” He shook his head. “And now all this stuff this week. It’s not good for any one of us.”

“That’s what we had left of your wife and son.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. And then, his voice flat and without emotion, he said, “It’s over, Janet. It really is.”

He reached for the remote and turned the TV back on.

Janet started to walk away, knowing she’d been dismissed. But she stopped immediately. She wasn’t ready to walk away.

Janet came back and took the remote again. She turned the TV off and stood over her dad’s chair.

“Dad, I need to ask you something.”

He reached for the remote. “Give me that.”

Janet took a step back but held on to the remote.

“I need to know why you don’t care about our family’s past,” she said. “What’s going on?”

Her dad looked puzzled. What she said wasn’t registering.

“You never want to talk about the past. You never want to talk about Mom or Justin or about what happened. Why is that, Dad? You couldn’t even come out of your room and talk to that newspaper reporter who came here. You couldn’t even make that much of an effort about your family. Why?”

“I’m not a woman,” he said. “I don’t live in the past.”

“Oh, no.” Janet raised her finger and wagged it in the air between them. “You’re not going to pull that one on me.” She
took a step closer and studied his face. Janet understood something then, something she’d thought about many times but had never given clear voice to: she really didn’t know her father. Or, to be more accurate, she’d never been allowed to know her father. He never opened up, never revealed anything of himself. Even standing over her mother’s grave, he never shed a tear, never gave voice to what he felt or lost.

What else could there be inside the man? What didn’t she know?

“Dad, can you look at me and tell me what your problem with the past is? What is it that you really don’t want me to know?”

Janet tried to put her father’s reticence together with the events of recent days—the man on the porch, the anniversary of the murder, Dante’s maintaining of his innocence, the newspaper stories. Michael’s return and questions.

What didn’t she know?

“Dad, just tell me. Is it something about Justin? Do you know something? Because I’ve been starting to think—some things have been happening…”

Her dad looked over and they locked eyes. For a brief moment, an understanding passed between them, something that placed them on the same wavelength for a split second. Together, they had moved closer to something, closed the gap that had previously existed.

But her dad didn’t say anything.

And before Janet could say more, the doorbell rang.

“I don’t care about the door,” she said. “I’ll ignore it. This is important—”

“No, get it,” he said. “Just go get it. I told you, I’m done with talking about all of this.”

Ashleigh ran until her heart nearly burst. She always ran well in gym class, even better than the girls who played on the school’s sports teams. She was light and fast and never tired.

But she finally ran out of gas two miles down Hamilton Avenue. She stopped running and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands on her knees, her breaths coming in great huffing bursts. She looked at her shoes and wouldn’t have been surprised to see the rubber of the tread smoking, she’d been going so fast. She straightened up, placed her hands on her hips, and started walking, hoping to cool down and breathe like a normal person again. Spots swam before her eyes. She hoped she wouldn’t faint.

The fucking creep. He touched me. My breasts—

No. Wait. That didn’t matter.

It really didn’t matter.

The name—the name on that ticket or whatever it was—

Justin Manning.

Her uncle, who was supposed to be dead for twenty-five years. He was alive? He was alive!

Her mind raced faster than her heart. She couldn’t make any sense of it.

Ashleigh looked behind her. She really didn’t think the creep from the apartment complex would be following her. He was
probably scared, probably still doubled over from her elbow and her kick. She’d never hit anybody, never even been close to a fight. Hell, she’d never had a guy touch her like that, either a creep or a guy she liked. But as she thought back over the scene in the apartment, she felt less scared and more exhilarated. A smile grew across her face, and she wanted to laugh.

Had she really just kicked that guy’s ass?

The return bus came along Hamilton. Ashleigh waited until traffic cleared, then managed to jog across the street. Her muscles burned from the exertion and her legs felt rubbery. She’d never been so glad to see a bus. If it hadn’t come, she wasn’t sure she could walk all that way, several miles. She needed to sit, to ride. To think.

She took a seat near the back. The air-conditioning was almost too cool, too intense. But she welcomed it. She fanned her face with someone’s discarded newspaper. The bus was mostly empty in midafternoon, just a few old ladies and their rolling shopping baskets, a mother with a baby near the front.

Ashleigh thought about what she’d seen on that paper—

Her uncle’s name. Did she really see it? Or did she want to find something so much she imagined the name?

No, no, she said. She saw it. She knew she saw it. He’d come to their house in the middle of the night. He’d told her mom he knew the truth about what really happened to Justin.

And he was Justin?

Who else could he be?

Ashleigh reached up and rang the bell when they were just half a block from the stop. She was so distracted she almost forgot, and the bus lurched as the air brakes whined. The bus driver, a middle-aged guy with greasy hair, looked in the giant rearview mirror at the front and shook his head at her. She
didn’t care. She needed to get off the bus. She had cooled off; her breathing was normal again.

She had things to do.

She had to talk to Kevin first.

“You did what?” Kevin said.

His manager had let him out of work early, Kevin told her. He’d walked to the library looking for Ashleigh and didn’t see her. So he texted her—at least three times. Getting no response, he returned to McDonald’s, where Ashleigh found him waiting in a booth, two hamburger wrappers and the remnants of an order of fries scattered before him. He looked up in anticipation, but then Ashleigh sat down and told him where she’d been.

“I had to know,” Ashleigh said. “I couldn’t wait.”

“You went there alone? To that strange dude’s apartment? Jesus, Ash.” He looked to the ceiling, as if he wanted divine intervention. “Did you do that because you were mad at me about what I said earlier?”

“I told you—I just couldn’t wait. I’ve been looking forward to this a long time. I couldn’t just sit in the library and pretend to read a book.”

Kevin almost smiled. “You’ve got balls, girl. I’ll say that for you. Damn.”

Ashleigh took Kevin’s drink, shook it, and when she heard liquid slosh in the bottom of the cup, drew from the straw. She swallowed, then said, “If you think that was ballsy, let me tell you what happened while I was there.”

Kevin listened while Ashleigh told the story. When she told him she went into the vacated apartment, his mouth fell open a
little. Ashleigh didn’t pause. She didn’t want him to be able to interject. And it wasn’t the most important part of the story.

She watched him carefully as she told him about the letter with her uncle’s name on it. As she said that, his mouth fell open even more. Something lit up in his eyes, something between joy and fear—she couldn’t tell which.

“Holy shit,” he said. He looked around the restaurant, which was fairly empty. He said it again. “Holy shit. Ash, you were right. You found something.”

“I know.”

Ashleigh tried to contain her own joy and enthusiasm, but her heart raced, and this time not from the adrenaline of the run and the close call with the creep, but instead from the pure joy of accomplishing something she’d set out to do. She felt like a little kid. If she’d let herself, she could’ve screamed and squealed with joy.

“Did you take the letter?” Kevin asked. “Where is it?”

A thin shadow of disappointment fell over Ashleigh. She’d dropped the letter. When the creep took hold of her, she let it go. Why couldn’t she have held on to it? If only—

“I don’t have it,” she said.

“You don’t? Didn’t the apartment manager let you take it?”

“Kind of…” She told him the story of the guy talking to her about school and trying to act like they were friends. Then she told Kevin about the sudden grab around her middle, the fumbling hands, the fight—

“No,” Kevin said. The response was simple, direct. She knew what it meant. Kevin was pissed. “He touched you.”

“He tried to,” she said. “Well, he did. He put me in a bear hug. But I got away.”

Kevin started to slide out of the booth. “I’m going back.”

“No.”

“Ash, that little creep. That asshole. I’m going to—”

She reached out, placed her hand on his. “Stop. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. I’m calling the police. Then I’m kicking his ass.”

“No, wait.” She kept her hand on his. She had to admit, she liked seeing this side of him—protective, passionate. He wanted to stand up for her, exact justice on someone who had wronged her. Ashleigh didn’t want him to follow through on his threats. She thought that her own defense of herself was good enough. But it felt good to have Kevin on her side. “Forget about that guy. We have something bigger to deal with, remember? This guy.” She lowered her voice even though no one was nearby. “The guy from the porch. He says he knows something about my uncle’s death. Well, now we know what he knows. He
is
my uncle.”

Kevin sat back in the booth, letting the news really sink in. While he sat there for a moment, still and quiet, Ashleigh noticed that they were still holding hands. Well, not really holding hands, but her hand rested on top of his—and neither one of them bothered to slide their hand away.

“But all that stuff,” he finally said. “The body they found. The body they buried. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” she said. “But what else could it be?”

Kevin looked thoughtful again. He leaned forward, his hand still underneath hers. “I know you’re not going to like this,” he said. “But we’re going to have to do something now.”

Ashleigh was already a step ahead of him.

And she agreed.

“I know,” she said. “We’re going to have to tell my mom.”

Janet took a few deep breaths and then opened the door to Detective Stynes. She thought she knew what he was there for. He had heard about the man from the porch. Someone had called to report him—maybe even Madeline, maybe someone else at work—and Stynes was at the house to ask Janet what she knew about the man.

And if he came in asking questions about the man, her dad would hear. Everyone would know the secret she’d been carrying with her.

Janet gathered her wits and decided to keep Detective Stynes out on the porch and handle the situation out of her dad’s earshot, but Stynes changed things by saying, “I wanted to talk to your dad for a few minutes.”

“My dad?”

“Is he home?” Stynes asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“He’s here,” Janet said, but she didn’t turn or make any effort to call for him. She hoped that by standing in the doorway long enough Stynes would feel compelled to explain the purpose of his visit. But apparently the detective possessed better waiting skills than Janet. He wore a patient look on his face, his eyes calm, his expression mild. He looked like a man without a care in the world—and all the time to pass. “Come on in,” Janet finally said.

The detective followed Janet inside, where they found her dad standing beside his chair, the TV turned off. His face still looked agitated from their argument, and before Janet could say anything, her dad said, “I don’t want to hear about all of this stuff anymore, Janet. I’m just tired of it.”

“It’s Detective Stynes,” she said. “And he says he needs to talk to you.”

Stynes nodded to her father, ignoring his complaint. For his part, her dad looked surprised and rendered speechless by the detective’s appearance. Janet wasn’t sure anyone could look good or react well when the police unexpectedly showed up on their porch.

“Is something wrong?” her dad said.

“No,” Stynes said. “Do you mind if I sit?”

He didn’t wait for an invitation. He took a spot on the end of the couch, and with nothing else to do that seemed reasonable, Janet and her dad sat down as well, her dad back in his chair and Janet on the opposite end of the couch from Detective Stynes.

“Like I said, Mr. Manning, I’m sorry I didn’t call. But this shouldn’t take long.”

“This? What’s this?”

Stynes reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and brought out a small spiral-bound notebook. Then he brought out a pen and clicked it with his thumb. While Janet watched, she couldn’t help but think his movements and gestures had become practiced and meaningful over the years. He wasn’t just taking out a notebook and a pen—he was stalling, drawing out the moment so the person on the other end of his questions grew more nervous and agitated as he waited.

So then why was he giving this treatment to her dad?

Did Detective Stynes suspect her dad of something, possibly some involvement with Justin’s death? Janet felt a hint of outrage start to grow, but just as quickly reined it in. Why would it bother her to see Detective Stynes think that when she had just been thinking the same thing minutes earlier?