Luna took a breath, got lost in a memory. Then she turned to Agent Murdoch and whispered in his ear, “He’s lying.”
“You sure?” Murdoch said.
Luna nodded.
“What the fuck you two talking about?”
“How about another name?” Luna said.
John seemed stumped by the question. Luna saw the brief expression of confusion before it was replaced with resolute anger. “One at a time,” he said.
Luna turned to Murdoch and shook her head.
“I think we’re done here,” Murdoch said to the guard.
While John Brown unleashed a stream of curses and railed about all the girls who would never be found, Murdoch ushered Luna out of the room and down the hallway, to a quiet place where she’d feel almost safe.
She took a moment to catch her breath.
“You okay?” Murdoch asked.
“I’m really sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. If you needed to get out of there, I understand.”
“There weren’t other girls,” Luna said. “He would have remembered their names.”
“He said Daria,” Murdoch said.
“He said Daria after a pause. He had to think about it. She was my babysitter when I was younger. He might have thought about killing her. But I’d have heard if she went missing or died back then. If what he’s saying were true, he would have used the information sooner. He wouldn’t have waited eight years to barter. He was waiting until I was an adult. This was his only way to get to me.”
It made sense, Murdoch thought. “Does anything he said ring true?”
Luna shook her head. “No. I could always tell when he was lying. There’s a way he squints a little, stares at you, dead in the eye. I knew back then. I was never innocent. I’m not saying I saw him do it, but I think I always sort of knew that maybe he had.”
The girl appeared shaky and pale, Murdoch thought. Something was happening that he was ill-equipped to handle.
“You were eleven years old,” Murdoch said. “Don’t let old mistakes poison a new life. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Murdoch and Luna stopped at a diner on the way back. Luna ordered a vanilla shake after Murdoch dissuaded her from the spinach salad.
“Did you tell your mother you were coming out here?” Murdoch asked.
“No,” Luna said. “It’s better if she doesn’t know.”
“The parent is supposed to protect their child. Not the other way around.”
“Maybe,” Luna said. “But I understand. Mom left me alone with him all the time. I think she felt guilty about that.”
“When did your father pass away?”
“A month or two after John was found not guilty. Heart attack. If you see photos of him before and after the trial, he was like a different man. I think he might have suspected the truth. I’m glad he didn’t live long enough to be sure about his son or to know what I did. That part would have killed him.”
“This visit, it might stick with you for a while. Make sure you talk to people, okay?”
“Okay,” Luna said.
“Have you or your mom gotten letters from Gregory Wells recently?”
“How do you know about that?” Luna asked.
“Your aunt mentioned it when I was trying to track you down.”
“He used to write a couple of times a year. It’s been a while. Did something happen to him?”
“He was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. He’s been out for a few months. I just wanted to be sure they hadn’t resumed.”
“No,” Luna said.
“Let me know if that changes.”
Murdoch drove back to the Denver field office. Luna signed some paperwork there and talked to a shrink for a while. She promised to follow up with a phone session a week later.
Murdoch offered to buy Luna dinner. She said she was tired and wanted to order room service again. Murdoch understood. There were some days when the mere thought of hiding out in a hotel room at night, wearing a white robe and eating food on a tray, seemed like heaven.
Luna just wanted to get away from him before she fell apart. It was like she was holding off an avalanche. Once she returned to the hotel, she took cover in her room. She didn’t know what would happen when she didn’t have to pretend anymore. She waited for tears. There were none. She bent over the toilet, thinking she needed to vomit. Nothing. Instead, what she felt was like a poison going through her. Not enough to actually kill her, but enough to feel like a half death. It just stuck there, stagnant in her body.