The Darkest Corners (27 page)

“I think she was sold,” Robin Stevens says, with all the gall of a woman who gets an idea into her head, and damn it if she's going to back down from it until she sees proof otherwise. I'm thrown. It reminds me of Joslin. In the back of my head, I hear my father's muttering.

Stubborn brat. Takes after her mother.

On my screen, Robin Stevens dabs her eyes with a handkerchief. Even sitting, she's half the size of her husband. Her hair is bobbed and dyed the color of cherry cola. She adjusts her black cat's-eye glasses. “Macy was a beautiful, healthy little girl. Do you know how much they'd pay for a healthy white baby on the black market?”

The video starts to buffer. I exit the screen. I've heard all that I need to hear anyway.

Wanda doesn't look surprised to see me. She sets down a sheath of paper and sighs, a heavy one that uses her whole body.

“Me again,” I say.

“Honey, I don't know if I can help you.” Wanda looks guilty, and I know she must have gotten my message and chosen not to respond.

I lean into the edge of the counter. “It's important. I found something in my father's things. I think he knew something about a missing girl.”

Wanda swivels in her chair. Yells over her shoulder. “Bill, I'm taking my lunch now.”

She stands up. I move toward the security grate.

“No, you stay right there,” Wanda grumbles.

She meets me on the other side of the glass and motions for me to follow her outside. Off to the side of the building, there's an employee courtyard. Two long picnic tables where three guards eat from plastic trays.

Wanda and I sit at the unoccupied table. I notice she didn't bring her lunch.

“Is this about Macy Stevens?” she asks.

Something in me deflates. “I found a phone number. I called it, and something really weird happened. An FBI agent called me back and said the number was a hotline for a missing baby.”

I expect Wanda to look surprised, maybe to ask me to go on. Instead, she sighs.

“Your father tried to extort the family of a famous missing child,” she says. “And he wasn't the first. Over the years, at least half a dozen inmates said they killed that little girl, Macy Stevens.”

I blink.

“False confessions,” Wanda explains. “They're serving life sentences, they get bored. Claim to know something about a high-profile murder, then say they know where the body is just to send police on a wild-goose chase and draw attention to themselves. Happens all the time.”

“That doesn't sound like my father,” I say. “He wasn't even in jail for murder. What if he really knew something?”

“He called the tip line saying he'd tell them where Macy is,” Wanda says, “but only if they gave him the reward money first.”

“And he never said anything more about it?”

Wanda shakes her head.

And there it is. The one thing I never thought could break me has left its first fissure.

Proof that my father was a piece of shit until the very end.

As I turn onto Main Street, my phone begins to buzz in my pocket. The last thing I need is a ticket for talking on my phone, and there's nowhere to pull over on Main Street unless I do a risky parallel park. And damned if I'm going to let accidentally totaling Maggie's van be the thing that gets me sent back to Florida.

My phone stops ringing, and panic claws at me. If it's her, and I miss her, I may not be able to get her again.

My mother.

I squeeze into a spot in the post office parking lot just as my phone rings again. I dig it out of my pocket. It's Callie.

“Where are you?” Her voice is raspy, but better than it was yesterday. “I've been calling you.”

“Yeah, I realize that.” My heart is still pounding. I'm annoyed at Callie just for being Callie and not Annette. Until she says, “You have to come back. I think he messaged me.”

When I get back to the house, Callie is sitting cross-legged on her bed, laptop resting in front of her.

“He didn't ask to meet up or anything.” The words come out of her in a single breath. “But his username—”

I plop down on the bed and turn the laptop to me.

Private message from cpt818:

What's a nice girl like you doing on a site like this?

I look over at Callie. “
CPT
could just be fake initials or something to throw people off.”

“Look at his picture.” She points to the screen.

The profile picture is a man in a black hat and aviators. He's pointing a long-barreled shotgun at the camera. “This looks like a screenshot from a movie,” I say.

“Cool Hand Luke,”
Callie says, excited. “That's Captain, the bad guy in
Cool Hand Luke.
”

I look at Callie. “You've seen
Cool Hand Luke
?”

She shakes her head. “I emailed it to Ryan at work, and he recognized it. I told you he would be useful.”

I ignore that. “What are you going to say to him?” The blood pounds in my ears.
This could be him. The Monster.

Callie thinks for a second before she types:
What makes you think I'm a nice girl?

Captain doesn't respond. The icon in the corner says he's signed off. She covers her mouth.

“Shit,” Callie says through her fingers. “What did I do wrong?”

I get up and pace around Callie's room. Shit is right. I want to throw something, lean out her window, and scream
Shit, shit, shit!

We had the son of a bitch. We had him, and we lost him.

The next morning, Callie insists that she's feeling better and up for the shopping trip to the Briarwood Outlets that she and Maggie have been talking about. I'm too defeated about our failed plan to lure Captain that I don't even fight when Maggie suggests I come along.

At Pottery Barn, Callie picks out navy-and-white sheets for her dorm room. We pass by Old Navy, where a sign in the window advertises two pairs of shorts for twenty dollars.

Maggie's face lights up. “Oh, I could use a pair.”

Callie rolls her eyes, but Maggie drags us inside, to a table of shorts in every color you can think of.

“I only need one pair,” she says, rifling through the stack. Callie stands in the corner on her phone, yawning. Maggie finds a pair of shorts in my size and thrusts them at me. “Why don't you try these on? Shame not to take advantage of such a good deal.”

I know she just wants to buy me a pair of shorts so I'll stop sweating my ass off in the jeans I packed.

“Thanks,” I say. I disappear into the dressing room with the shorts. I slip them on and check myself out in the mirror. My legs are pale, but I've picked up a couple more freckles on my nose from all the time I've been spending out in the sun. My hair falls in waves around my face, instead of being the crown of frizz I have to combat every day in Florida.

From the outside, it looks like being in Fayette has been good for me.

The handle of my door jiggles, and I jump back, feeling violated even though I'm dressed. Callie steps into the dressing room, her eyes frantic.

“Look.” She shoves her phone into my face.

She's on Connect, her private message box pulled up.

Got any plans tonight, sweetheart? —CPTN

“Holy shit,” I say.

There's a knock at the door. “How do they fit, Tess?” It's Maggie.

“Fine,” I croak out. “Think I'll get them.”

When Maggie pads away, Callie starts typing a response to Captain. I grab her fingers.

“What are you doing?” I hiss.

Callie shrugs away from me. “I
have
to respond. He'll suspect something's up if I disappear.”

“Can't you ask him more about himself? Something we can use to figure out who he is?” I ask. Suddenly there's not enough air in the dressing room.

“If he's the Monster, he's too smart for that,” Callie whispers. “You know we have to do this.”

I force my trembling hands into the pockets of the jean shorts, and I watch Callie type a response back to Captain.

I get off work at 10. What kind of plans did you have in mind?

Rick is in bed by ten-thirty. Callie and I are watching a movie in the family room, each of us tucked into opposite corners of the couch. Maggie putts around in the kitchen. Starts up the dishwasher. At eleven, she pokes her head in to tell us to have a good night.

We've just started another movie. “We'll go to bed when it's over,” Callie says, with a yawn added for flair.

“Okay.” Maggie kisses us both on the head. I hear her wiggle the front doorknob three times to make sure it's locked, even though Daryl Kouchinsky is spending the night in a holding cell.

Maggie heads upstairs, and Callie and I are quiet. We watch forty-five minutes of a Fast and Furious movie before her phone buzzes with a text.

“Ryan's down the street,” she says.

We leave the TV and lights on, since Maggie thinks we'll be up for another couple hours watching the movie anyway. The Westfield Plaza is twenty minutes from Fayette. If Captain is on time and everything goes according to plan, we'll be back in an hour.

Said plan is, in Callie's words, “simple.” We wait in the dark in Ryan's truck until Captain arrives. We get his license plate number and a photo, and we get the hell out before he realizes that Sasha's not coming.

Like lighting a Roman candle, if we mess up the timing, it'll blow up in our faces.

Ryan's truck is parked two houses down. Lights off. He nods to us as we climb in, his eyes two worried orbs in the dark.

“Can't believe we're doing this,” he mutters as he turns the key in his ignition.

The truck engine stalls, and we all take a collective breath. But the engine starts as soon as he turns the key again, a firm rumble beneath us. In front of me, Callie grips the handle on the passenger door, her knuckles white.

We get to the shopping center fifteen minutes early. All the stores are dark, except for a seedy-looking bowling alley on the far side of the parking lot.

“There.” I point to the bowling alley lot. “It's darker over there. We'll wait there so he can't see the truck.”

In the side mirror, I see Callie open her mouth to protest. “We said Sasha would meet him in front of Target.”

“Tessa's right,” Ryan says. “We have to keep our distance till the last possible minute.”

“So he can realize there's no Sasha and get away?” Callie frowns. “One of us should hide behind the Dumpster over by Target so we get a clear shot of his license plate.”

“That's how you wind up
in
a Dumpster,” Ryan says.

I'm quiet, considering Callie's point. Ryan turns in his seat to look at me.

“What?” He furrows his brow.

“She has a point,” I say. “He might leave before we make it across the lot, and then we won't get his plate number. I could hide behind the Dumpster and run around the back of the store to Best Buy once I memorize it. You can pick me up from there.”

Ryan grips the steering wheel. “No one is getting out of this truck.”

“We've already risked a lot. I'm not risking him getting away.” Callie has on her stubborn face. Ryan sighs and puts the truck into drive.

“You get the license plate, and you get the hell out of there,” he says to me.

Thanks. I was planning on hanging out,
I want to say. I know he's only agreeing to this in the first place because it's me and not Callie.

We have fifteen minutes until Captain is supposed to meet Sasha. Ryan drives over to Target, and I hop out of the truck.

Ryan drives off to the bowling alley across the parking lot. Above me, the lampposts cast an orange glow on the pavement. I duck out of their way, to the side of the building where the Dumpster is.

I crouch next to a discarded, wet plastic bag. My bladder constricts, and I remember having to pee every time I played hide-and-seek as a kid. I consider the mechanics of going back here, but it's ten minutes before twelve, and Captain might be early.

I flip my cell phone open. There's a text from Callie already.
Your feet are showing.

I shift and look at the clock on my phone. Only a minute's passed, and I swear, time is moving more slowly. I run through every disastrous scenario in my arsenal. Captain isn't the same man who attacked Pam's friend. Captain
is
a cop, but the good kind, and he's coming to arrest Sasha.

11:56. Headlights wash across the pavement. I crane my neck to get a better look.

A silver Subaru Forester idles by the streetlamp farthest from the store, fifty feet away from me. The car parks and turns off his headlights but leaves the engine on, just like Captain told Sasha he'd do when he arrived.

Captain is early. Of course he is. My breathing becomes shallow, and I can't move.

Come on, Tessa.
I crane my neck slightly, but I can't see the license plate from here. He's too far away. It's too dark. A red light blinks against the brick wall next to me, and I freeze.

I look up; a camera is pointing toward the front of the store. I didn't notice it before. That's why Captain parked so far away; he knew his plates would be out of range of the security feed. Goose bumps ripple down my back.

I text Callie.
Can't see. Stay where you are.

I eye my options to the side; there's a row of shopping carts by a cluster of trees, about twenty feet from Captain's car and away from the lampposts. If I'm fast, I can dart behind the carts without him noticing. It should be close enough to make out his plates.

Just stay away from the light.

I suck in a breath and get to my feet. And I run.

I duck behind the shopping carts at the same time that the Subaru's lights go back on. It's bright enough that I can see the back license plate: CRK-1841.

“Shit,” I say as Captain starts his car up. The driver's window rolls down, and an arm in a denim shirt hangs out.

Captain pokes his head out the window, surveys the parking lot. His gaze skates over the shopping carts but doesn't rest on where I'm hidden.

I see his face through the carts. He's bald, with a beard, and my breath catches.

It's
him.

I know who the Monster is.

Lights wash over the Target lot. Not Captain's—Ryan's truck. Captain turns his head, sees the truck pulling up behind him. It looks like he mutters something, and then he gasses it. He's tearing across the parking lot without rolling up his window.

I run out into the lot, in front of Ryan's truck as he skids to a stop. Through the windshield, Callie's face is ashen.

I yank open the door and crawl over Callie to get into the backseat.

“Did you get the license plate?” Callie says, breathless, at the same time that Ryan shouts, “You got WAY too close. He could have seen you—”