Everyone Here Is Lying(36)
The grief and guilt are becoming too much for her to bear. She hadn’t protected her daughter.
Maybe William is telling the truth about slapping her and leaving her alone in the house. That is his way—he loses it and then retreats in shame. Maybe someone else took Avery. She thinks again about the Blanchard boy. William says someone saw Avery getting into his car on the afternoon she disappeared—if that’s true, then William is innocent and Ryan is the guilty one. She knows the Blanchard boy’s had trouble with the law before. She wants to go over to the Blanchards’ house and get Ryan in a room alone and shake him violently until the truth spills out.
And Jenna’s brother, Derek—could Derek have been molesting Avery? She’s always thought Derek was a nice enough boy. But he would have seen Avery more than anyone, whenever Avery spent time over at their house.
She hates hiding inside, waiting. She must do something to find her daughter.
Twenty-two
The sodden ground squelches beneath Gully’s boots as she walks through the woods on her way to the tree house. She has an off-duty police officer with her, one who was involved in the search of the area; he knows where to go. As she follows him deeper through the trees, cold water drips off the branches and down her neck beneath her jacket, giving her a chill.
They soon come to a small clearing, and the officer in front of her stops. An enormous oak tree rears up in front of them. Its leaves are almost gone, fallen to the ground, so the tree house is clearly visible. It sits in a notch of the tree, made from salvaged, mismatched wood. It has four walls and a rusted tin roof and a door with hinges. A crude window is cut out of the side facing them. There’s a rope ladder hanging down the broad trunk. One that could be pulled up by the people inside if they didn’t want to be discovered, Gully thinks.
The officer says, “As you know, it was thoroughly searched. No obvious sign of the girl, her clothes, anything.”
Gully walks around the tree, observing it from all sides. Then she says, “I’m going up to have a look.”
Gully is fit and athletic, and she climbs the ladder with relative ease. When she arrives on the platform in front of the door, she pauses and gazes down below. Heights have never bothered her. The vantage point is good from here—you could see someone coming, probably hear them too. She opens the door—there’s a small piece of wood nailed to the tree house that you twist to open the door. Inside, she sees a dirty futon, some soda cans. Gully stands there for a while trying to imagine what went on in here. Avery was here, with Derek Seton. The two of them, alone. Michael discovered them. He says they weren’t doing anything. But how would he know? He said they dropped the ladder for him, so it must have been pulled up. They had time to stop whatever they were doing. What was fifteen-year-old Derek doing with a nine-year-old girl?
But even if someone like Derek—or Adam Winter, or anyone else for that matter—was molesting Avery in the tree house, it’s unlikely she was killed here. There was no sign of a struggle here. There was no sign of her body or her clothing found in these woods, no indication of her having been dragged or transported through here. What would the killer have done with her?
Where the hell is Avery Wooler?
Gully climbs back down. Avery could have been molested in the tree house. With the ladder pulled up, there would be plenty of privacy. She’d better talk to Derek Seton. As they turn away from the tree house, Gully gets a call. It’s Bledsoe. “What’s up?”
“She’s willing to come in, the witness who saw Avery getting into Ryan Blanchard’s car.”
“Jesus, that changes things,” Gully says.
“It does.” She can hear the excitement in Bledsoe’s voice.
Bledsoe tells her that the woman hadn’t given her name on the call but had said she was coming to the station to tell them what she knew and that she’d be there in half an hour. Gully’s excited now—this could be the first real break in the case.
“With any luck,” Bledsoe says, “we can pick up Ryan Blanchard this afternoon. Have another go at him.” He adds, with obvious satisfaction, “Wipe the smirk off his attorney’s face.”
Gully arrives at the station, but the witness doesn’t. The half hour passes, then an hour.
“She’s fucking with us,” Bledsoe says in frustration.
“She’s either lying,” Gully says, “or she’s afraid to come forward, to identify herself for some reason.” She wonders what that reason might be—if there is one, it must be good. She’s as frustrated as Bledsoe.
They speak to the officer who took the call on the tip line. It’s the same officer who took her first call, Officer Weeks, and he assures them that it was the same woman. She wouldn’t give her name on the phone but admitted she was the one who had called earlier. She wanted to know why Ryan Blanchard hadn’t been arrested yet. He’d explained that they couldn’t do much based on her information, unless she came forward—an anonymous tip wasn’t enough. She’d reluctantly agreed to come in. “But she’s obviously had a change of heart,” the officer concludes, clearly disappointed. He adds, “She told me that when Avery got into the car, she was wearing a T-shirt and jeans; she didn’t say anything about a jean jacket. I pressed her for more details, thinking she’d add the jean jacket. She didn’t, but she said Avery had her hair in one braid down her back.”