She Can Hide (She Can Series) (12 page)

“No.” She stretched taller in the seat, as if her decision to continue moving forward was holding her up. “We’re here, and I don’t want to waste time. I need to know what he’s been doing since he was released. If he’s guilty of poisoning me, he’ll run.”

“OK. I’ll call the chief.” Ethan shifted back to his own seat. “He has connections. If Whitaker won’t help us, Chief O’Connell will.”

Ethan drove to a convenience store on the highway and bought two bottles of water while they waited. Ten minutes later the chief called back with an address.

“Faulkner’s mother lives in Somer’s Point.” Ethan plugged the address into the GPS on his cell phone. Somer’s Point was the last town before the bridge to the barrier islands that comprised the Jersey Shore, the family resort not to be confused with the
Jersey Shore
television show filmed in Seaside Heights sixty miles to the north.

Twenty minutes later, Ethan pulled up in front of a boxy rancher the size of a doublewide. The entire lot was barely big enough to play full-court basketball. Instead of a lawn, the yard was covered in a thick layer of smooth, round beige pebbles.

“Let me check it out first. Lock the doors.” But one look at Abby’s face told him she wasn’t happy with his plan. “Was his mother at the trial?”

Comprehension dawned on her face. “Yes.”

“I hate to take the chance she’d recognize you and refuse to speak to us.”

“You’re right.” Abby slumped.

“In fact, she might even see you from the door.” Ethan rooted around behind the seat of his truck for a baseball cap. He handed it to her. “You can trust me, Abby.”

She pulled the cap low on her forehead and slid down in the seat a few inches. A second of silence passed before she answered. “I know.”

But did she? Her mother was depressed. Her father was a no-show. Had Abby ever had
anyone
she could fully trust?

Ethan got out of the truck. He yanked the zipper of his jacket up to his chin. Though it rarely snowed at the Jersey Shore and the temperature was milder than his mountain hometown, the wind barreling down the street was cold, damp, and thick with salt. Ethan scoped out the property as he walked toward the house. The stone-filled lawn surrounded the house. If anyone came running out the back door, Ethan would hear footsteps crunching in pebbles. Plastic flowers and cement gnomes lined the concrete walk. The only car in the driveway was an older model four-door Buick. A handicapped parking pass hung from the rearview mirror. The carport was empty except for a tan tarp piled on the cement like a snakeskin. After a quick look around the corner of the house, Ethan knocked on the door.

An old woman answered. She opened the door but kept the chain fastened. Her skin bore the permanent sun damage of a lifelong beach lover, as wrinkled and brown as distressed leather.

“Mrs. Faulkner?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”

“My name is Ethan Hale, ma’am.” Ethan gave her a respectful nod. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen your son, Zeke.”

“Are you one of his friends?”

Ethan contemplated lying, but he wasn’t very good at it, and the gaze leveled at him through the gap in the door was shrewd. “No, ma’am.”

“Then you can come in.” She shut the door. Ethan heard the chain sliding free. The door opened wide.

So Zeke’s mom wasn’t happy with him.

Mrs. Faulkner’s five-foot-nothing, ninety-pound frame was dressed from head to toe in pink velour. She could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old, but since Zeke was only twenty-eight, he placed her in the lower end of that age bracket.

Ethan stepped into the foyer. A living and dining room combination fronted the house, with a large picture window that overlooked the street. Figurines of cats cluttered every available surface. The house smelled like a combination of boiled cabbage and mildew. “So, have you seen Zeke?”

Mrs. Faulkner leaned on a walker. “Exactly who are you?”

Ethan produced his wallet and badge from his back pocket. “I’m a Pennsylvania police officer, and I’d like to speak with Zeke about a case I’m working on.”

“What’s he done now?” With a glance at his badge, she pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her fleece zip-up and wiped under her nose.

“We don’t know that he’s done anything.” Ethan folded his wallet and returned it to his jeans. “I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”

She snorted. “Whatever you think he did, he probably did it. That boy could never stay out of trouble for a whole day, let alone two weeks.”

“Have you seen him?” Ethan asked.

“I saw Zeke about ten minutes after he got out of prison,” she huffed, and bitterness soured her expression. “He cleaned out my rainy day fund and was gone in another ten.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. You didn’t raise the worthless son of a bitch.” Turning, Mrs. Faulkner pointed her walker toward a yellow kitchen. She clunked and shuffled down the short hall and eased into a metal-and-vinyl chair, either the effort or the pain of her son’s betrayal exhausting her. “Zeke comes by his worthlessness naturally. His father was also a waste of the life God gave him.”

“Do you have any idea where he went?” Ethan asked.

“He didn’t say outright, but Zeke isn’t the sweetest cookie in the batch. He was talking about contaminated evidence and how this fancy lawyer was going to sue the county for false imprisonment. Zeke said he’s going to be set for life.” Mrs. Faulkner rolled her eyes as she shuffled through some pamphlets on the laminate counter. “Big ideas. Small brain. That’s Zeke.” She grabbed a pen and wrote on the back of a postcard advertisement. “Here are the three most likely places.”

She’d listed three cheesy local motels.

Ethan folded the note and stuck it in his pocket. “I’m surprised he didn’t try to stay with you.”

“My guess would be he’s gorging on hookers, another habit he had in common with his daddy.”

Ouch
. “Other than the lawsuit, did he mention the old case at all?”

The loose skin of Mrs. Faulkner’s neck flapped turkey-like as she shook her head. “No, but he was acting nervous.”

“In what way?”

“In a way that made me suspect he left some people hanging when he went to prison and is afraid they’ll be looking for him now that he’s out.”

“Do you think there’s any chance he was innocent?” Not that Ethan thought for a second that Faulkner had been wrongly convicted. But what kind of a case did he present to his mother?

She snorted. “The one thing I know for sure about Zeke is that he sure as hell isn’t innocent. He never said he did it, but he didn’t deny it either. Not to me. His feeling was that his actual guilt or innocence was irrelevant. What mattered was that the county had to
prove
he did it, and they screwed up.”

“Does he have a car?”

“Yup. 1990 Camaro. White.”

Ethan spotted a photo on the fridge. Zeke was standing in front of the house with a couple of other men about the same age. He looked younger than he did in his mug shot. But then, no one took a good mug shot. “Who are those men with Zeke?”

“My sister’s boys. Zeke’s cousins are all nice young men. They have jobs and wives. My sister has three grandkids.” Mrs. Faulkner heaved a disappointed sigh, rich with all life’s milestones she would never reach.

Ethan stowed his pity. He couldn’t help Mrs. Faulkner. Some people couldn’t be changed. Zeke sounded like one of them. “Can I borrow the photo?”

“You can have it.” Mrs. Faulkner reached back, snatched the picture off the fridge, and handed it to Ethan. Anger animated her features. “When you find Zeke, call me. He owes me three thousand dollars.”

Steam followed Krista out of the shower. She wrapped her body in a towel, covering the bruise on her breast from last night. That wasn’t the worst of what he’d done to her last night. In place of the usual exhaustive misery weighing her down, the aches in her body were real. The evidence of Joe’s abuse mottled her body like purple camouflage.

Shame inched across her clean skin, making her feel like she needed to get back in the shower and scrub a hundred more times. But the darkness within her wanted to do it all over again.

What was she doing? Too drunk to drive, let alone wait tables, she’d called in sick to work last night. Her boss wouldn’t put up with many missed shifts. This had to end. She should send Joe packing.

But God, the pain was more addictive than booze.

In the bedroom, a naked Joe was lounging on her bed. She turned away from him. “I have to go to work.”

“First you have some work to do here.”

“Didn’t you get enough last night?” She tried to laugh off her fear. “I have an early shift.”

“I never get enough.” Joe’s young, hard body moved fast. In a second, he had her pinned against the wall. “I have a present for you.”

He held a small pipe in one hand. A tiny smoking chunk of bluish crystal sat in the bowl. That explained the strange smell coming from the basement last night. Krista’s stomach heaved. The remnants of last night’s beer and bile burned a path up her chest and into her mouth.

No. She couldn’t let this happen. Her own life wasn’t worth fighting Joe, but Derek’s was another story. She was already up for shittiest mother of the year. Meth addict was not a title she wanted to add to her résumé.

She pushed his hand away. “I don’t do that.”

“Come on. You’ll love it.” He wrapped a hand in her hair and towed her to the bed. Still sore from the night before, her scalp screamed. He released her, and she stumbled onto the mattress. The scarf he’d used last night was still in the covers. One look at it sent fear skittering through Krista’s bowels. She cringed and inched in reverse until her back hit the wall. Joe followed her, crawling across the bed like a big cat, a predator cornering a helpless mouse. On his knees, he pressed his body up against hers, pinning her with his hips. He wrapped the scarf around her throat and pulled the silky fabric tight.

Krista choked as he cut off her breath. The pressure around her neck increased. Lights danced in her vision. She pulled sideways, but his body held her against the wall. His erection ground into her stomach.

He was enjoying every second of her distress. She’d learned that about him. He liked to dish out pain and humiliation as much as she liked to receive it.

He put the pipe to her lips. “Just take a little hit.”

She shook her head.

“I said do it.” Twisting the fabric around his hand, Joe tightened the scarf then suddenly released it. Krista gasped, inhaling the smoke deep into her starved lungs. Coughing, she exhaled and sucked in a lungful of air.

“That’s my girl.” Joe put the pipe to her mouth again.

Krista gasped as the smoke filled her lungs. Euphoria flooded her. Her fears and pain melted. Joe whipped off her towel and shoved her hard against the wall. She slumped against him, her muscles as limp as her resolve.

Pleasure overwhelmed her. It flowed through her veins and penetrated deep into her body. Her thoughts went liquid, her despair vanished, and her determination to send Joe packing floated away.

Abby kept the ball cap on her head as they pulled up in front of the first motel on the list. The U-shaped building of about three dozen rooms sat on a poorly maintained four-lane highway. There was an office at the end. Across the parking lot, Dumpsters butted up against the last unit. A strip of scraggly pine trees obscured whatever was behind the property.

She didn’t want Zeke to run if he saw her. Ethan had filled her in on his conversation with Zeke’s mother, and nothing indicated Zeke intended to go after Abby. Had he tried to kill her? If it wasn’t Zeke, then the
who
and
why
of her attack became even more frightening questions. As if the sight of Zeke Faulkner didn’t make her bowels cramp every time she looked at the mug shot Ethan had brought along.

Through the glass doors, a burly bald man sat on a high stool watching a tiny television on the counter.

Ethan drove by the office slowly, then parked outside next to the only other car in the lot, which probably belonged to the guy behind the desk. There was no sign of Faulkner’s Camaro.

Abby scanned the motel. “Looks empty.”