She didn’t recognize me at first.
“Yes?”
As our eyes met, she realized who I was, and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? I thought you left town.”
I swallowed, trying to get rid of the knot growing in my throat. I had seen this woman’s face so many times in my nightmares. Her eyes haunted me, her deep-set crying eyes.
“Please find my daughter. Please help me find Kitty.”
“Can I come in?” I asked, barely able to speak. I had let this woman down. I hadn’t found her daughter when I promised to. I had run away instead. Because of what happened. I had done what I needed to do to survive but left my responsibilities behind. I had been her only chance of finding Kitty. I knew that. And yet I had gone away. Left. And since then, no one had been able to find Kitty. I didn’t even know if they tried anymore after what happened. The last I heard they closed the case and filed it under unsolved. They had told her Kitty had just run away. Lots of kids did that. It wasn’t unusual. And it wasn’t a crime.
“Sure,” she said and stepped aside to let me in.
I smiled and walked past her.
As I entered the mobile home, memories flooded back, creating a suffocating feeling in my chest. The cramped living room was filled with cheap furniture, the kind that people buy when they have nothing else. I could see that nothing had changed since the last time I had been here. The same old couch, the same old curtains, and the same old smell of stale cigarettes and despair.
She led me to the kitchen, where she offered me a seat at the small table. I sat down and looked around, taking in the emptiness of the room. The walls were bare, and the only decoration came from the dirty dishes piled in the sink. It was clear that this was a place where nothing thrived, where nothing good happened. It was a place where hope went to die.
“How have you been?” I asked, trying to make small talk to ease the tension in the room.
She scoffed, “How do you think I’ve been? You left, and my daughter is still missing. Fourteen years this year.”
I winced at her words, feeling the guilt wash over me. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “I shouldn’t have left. I should have helped you find Kitty.”
She looked at me with a mix of anger and pain. “You think?” she spat out. “You promised me you’d find her, and then you just left. You didn’t even say goodbye. You just disappeared. And now, fourteen years later, you come back here? Why? To rub it in my face that you failed?”
I shook my head, feeling tears in the corners of my eyes. “No, I came back because I want to help. I’ve been working on another case, and I think it might be connected to what happened to Kitty. I think I have a lead.”
Her eyes hardened as she listened to me. “And what makes you think I’ll help you? After what you did?”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” I said, my voice failing me. “But I need your help. And if this new case is connected to what happened to Kitty, then maybe I can finally give you the answers you deserve.”
She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine. Then she sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair.
“Okay, what do you want to know?”
“I need to know what happened to Cole, Kitty’s stepdad?” I asked.
She shook her head with a sniffle, then lit a cigarette. Her hands shook as she lifted it to her lips.
“What’s there to say? He killed himself. Hung himself with a belt in the back room. I found him one day when coming home. I rarely ever go in there anymore. I hate it so much. He was devastated when Kitty disappeared. He felt so guilty and helped search for her everywhere. He and his friends did. One of them was a cop, and he helped us so much. I think Cole couldn’t live with himself,” she said and blew out smoke. Then she shrugged. “At least that’s what I was told after it happened.”
I wrote it down on my notepad, then looked up at her again. “Were they that close?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t really remember much from back then. I drank a lot. I’m sober now. Three years.”
I smiled as she showed me her coin from AA.
“I know it hurts to talk about,” I continued, “but I would like us to go over all the people in your life once again. Everyone who came in contact with Kitty.”
She nodded. “I can do that. I guess.”
“I remember you talked about a family friend, someone who came here a lot, but he was never a suspect.”
She nodded. “I told your partner about him, and how much he cared for Kitty, but—what was his name again?”
“Travis.”
“Yes, Travis said he wasn’t a suspect.”
“Really? Hmm, that is odd,” I said. “He was the one who gave her those dolls, right? I remember you told us how much she loved those dolls, so much she gave them names. What were their names again?”
She thought about it for a minute, then said, “Oliver was the boy, and Emma was the girl.”
SEVENTY-ONEBILLIE ANN
I pulled away from Ridge Manor with a sense of unease and dread. I had learned pieces of the puzzle, and it was all starting to make sense. The old winding road curved and dipped through the darkness as I navigated my way back to Cocoa Beach. Streetlights flickered on as I turned onto the final stretch, feeling relief that I was almost home. But I wasn’t going back to my house. I had one more stop to make first. One important one.
I turned onto the familiar street, slowing as I came to the house that had been my destination. I stopped my car in the driveway and looked at it uneasily. It was a pale blue two-story house with a wraparound porch and a wide bay window.
Nerves surged through my veins as I got out of the car. I took a deep breath and made my way slowly to the porch, feeling as though I was walking into the unknown. I hesitated in front of the door, finding the courage.
Then I knocked.
The door opened, and I found myself face-to-face with the Chief. His face was weathered and creased, but his eyes held a twinkle of wisdom and kindness. He regarded me with curiosity, which made me feel even more nervous. He was very tall, and I had always found him quite intimidating, probably because of his seniority, but it was what I was here to say that was making me anxious. I was suspended after all, and I knew I had been pushing my luck on the case even when I was on it.
I had been to his house before, doing cookouts with the crew at his pool area. He would usually invite us over for Labor Day and sometimes Easter. I always found his house warm and embracing. It looked much larger than I remembered. The house seemed to be watching me, waiting for me to make a move. It was sitting on a big lot, ten acres, and reached farther than the eye could see. It was surrounded by tall trees and wild bushes. My favorite tree was the big magnolia in the middle of the backyard. It was more than a hundred years old, he would tell us, and covered in Spanish moss that dangled from its long winding branches. It was gorgeous. He had horses on the property as well, and his children loved riding and taking care of them, he often told us. His daughter had been in many equestrian competitions and won a state championship once, some years ago, before my time at his department.
