She heard soft crying coming from the closet and slowly opened the door. The woman, Becky, was sitting on the floor, trembling. Wylie lowered herself to the ground and climbed in next to Becky, setting the flashlight on the floor in front of them. The girl stood just outside the closet door, listening.
“He’s out there, isn’t he?” the woman asked, her voice shaking with fear. “He’s come for us.”
Wylie tried to smooth the edges of the creased photograph and then handed it to Becky. She stared at it for a long time as if trying to place the person in the photo. Though she wasn’t looking at Wylie, the woman was listening so intently she was barely breathing.
“Becky,” Wylie said softly. “It’s me. It’s Josie.”
The woman lowered her head and shook it from side to side in disbelief. Tears streaked down her face leaving a ragged path through the dried blood.
Wylie reached for the woman’s hand and she flinched as if burned. Wylie kept a gentle grip on her hand and turned it over, palm up. She traced the horseshoe-shaped scar with her finger. “I have one too,” Wylie said trying to keep her voice even and calm. The knowledge that Jackson Henley was locked in the toolshed would keep but not for long. But first, Wylie had to make Becky understand who she was.
“We were ten, I think,” Wylie said. “We got the idea that we should be blood sisters. We used my mother’s paring knife. You were braver than I was and made a deeper cut. That’s why you have such a noticeable scar. But I have one too, see?”
Wylie held out her hand and the woman’s eyes flicked toward it and then away. “Sisters forever,” the woman murmured.
The girl, seeing her mother’s distress, climbed into the closet with them.
Wylie waited for the woman to speak, to say something, anything. But there was only silence, and for a moment, Wylie thought she had gotten it all wrong. This wasn’t Becky—only a scared, lost stranger looking for safety in a storm. Wylie suddenly felt foolish. After all these years, she had forgotten how to hope and understood why. It was too painful. She pulled her hand away.
Finally, the woman spoke. “I’d forgotten what you looked like. I mean, if I closed my eyes really tight, I’d get little flashes.”
Becky looked up at Wylie, her eyes shining with tears, and then she smiled, and there she was. The Becky Wylie remembered.
“I thought you were dead,” Wylie said. “We all did, except for your mother. She never gave up looking for you.”
Becky wiped her eyes. “I thought she was dead. He told me she was dead. That no one was looking for me anymore, that no one cared.”
“We all cared, everyone cared,” Wylie tried to assure her. “Agent Santos did everything she could to try and get Jackson Henley convicted.”
“Jackson?” Becky asked, her forehead furrowed in confusion.
Wylie nodded. “Yes, Jackson Henley. There just wasn’t enough evidence to arrest him for killing my family and your disappearance. They couldn’t find the gun he used or my brother’s missing truck. They couldn’t find you. But don’t worry. He’s caught now. I locked him in the toolshed. He’ll never hurt you again.”
43
Wylie and her mother were sitting in the closet, whispering. She squeezed into the space between them and rested her head on her mother’s lap. Tas, not wanting to be left out, lay down in front of the open closet door.
Wylie talked while her mother and the girl listened. She told them about when she and her mother were young. Talked about school and overnights and birthday parties with cake and ice cream and balloons and long afternoons at the pool. Things that the girl didn’t even know were possible.
Wylie and her mother had known each other before. Before her father, before the room in the basement, before her.
Wylie also talked about how she had moved far away when she was twelve, became a writer, got married too young, and had a baby named Seth. “I never thought I’d get married,” Wylie said. “Or have children.” She glanced over at the girl, then said, “I didn’t think I deserved it after what had happened. But I miss my son. I miss Seth very much.”
Wylie crawled from the closet and came back a moment later with a picture. “This is Seth, this is my son.”
The girl wanted to know what she meant. Wanted to know what Wylie did that was so bad that she didn’t deserve a nice husband and a son with laughing dark eyes and deep dimples, but she didn’t want Wylie to stop talking. She liked the sound of her voice, wanted to know more.