For a while, her mother didn’t say a word. She just listened and stroked the girl’s head. The girl felt an ache in her chest that she couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t sadness or anger. It felt more like hope.
“I thought if I wrote everything down,” Wylie said, “I might be able to move on. Live my life, be a good mom. Instead, I’ve been hiding out here, trying to write a book about what happened but not really wanting to face it.”
The girl’s eyes grew heavy. She was warm and safe and with her mother. Everything was okay. She could sleep now if she wanted, and all would be well.
“Your mother still works at the grocery store,” Wylie said, and the girl’s eyes opened. A small sound escaped her mother’s lips. Her mother rarely talked about once having a mother. It made her too sad.
“I haven’t talked to her since I’ve been back,” Wylie went on. “I was too much of a coward. I haven’t talked to anyone.”
Her mother lowered her head. Tears spilled from her cheeks to the girl’s, but she didn’t move.
Finally, her mother spoke. “He told me she was dead. He told me that you were all dead—your family, your dog—and it was all my fault. But I snuck out of the basement and I called home. And she answered. My mother. She wasn’t dead. But I couldn’t say anything. I just hung up.” Her mother wiped at her eyes. “But your parents? Your brother?”
“Yes,” Wylie said. “He killed them.”
Her mother’s shoulders sagged. “I thought so,” she said in a soft voice. “He put me in your brother’s truck and told me he would kill me too.”
“My parents must have gone to get Ethan’s truck from the gravel road and brought it home that night,” Wylie murmured.
“He hid the truck in his garage all these years,” Becky went on. “It’s the one we took when we ran. He painted it black, but I knew it was Ethan’s. We had to get out of there. I didn’t know how to drive but it was our only choice. With all the snow and ice—” she shook her head regretfully “—I couldn’t stay on the road. I lost control and crashed. I’m so sorry.”
Wylie reached for her mother’s hand and held it gently in her own. They sat like that for a long time, waiting. For what? The man in the shed to come for them or someone else?
It didn’t matter. For the first time in a long time, the girl felt like things just might be okay.
44
Present Day
There was a knock at the door, and Wylie and Becky went silent. The girl looked up at them anxiously.
“Please don’t answer it,” Becky begged. “Please. It’s him—he has so many friends. He always told us no matter how far we ran, he’d find a way to get us back.”
“You’re safe. I locked him in the shed. I think I should answer it,” Wylie said, getting to her feet. “I know you’re scared but we need to get the police here, and we need to get you to a hospital. We can’t stay here any longer. We need to leave.”
There was more knocking on the door. “Hey,” a voice called out. “Everything okay in there?”
“It’s him,” Becky said, holding her daughter close and pulling her as far back into the closet as she could. “He’s come for us.”
“Stay here, I’ll go check,” Wylie said.
“No, no, don’t leave us,” Becky begged.
“I’m not going anywhere. Just hold on,” Wylie went to the front window and pulled aside the curtains. “It’s Randy Cutter again,” she said with relief, letting the curtain drop. “He was here earlier. He said he would come back. He can help us.”
“No, it’s him,” Becky whispered. “He’s the one. It’s Randy.”
“Randy Cutter?” Wylie asked in confusion. “It can’t be. I told you, it’s Jackson Henley. All they really had on him was the cloth with your blood on it. But it wasn’t enough.”
“Blood?” Becky asked. “What blood?”
“A search dog found a rag covered in your blood near the Henley property, but it just wasn’t enough. But don’t worry, he’ll never hurt you again.”
“I know who took me,” Becky insisted, panic rising in her voice. “Josie, it was Randy Cutter.”
For a moment, Wylie couldn’t speak. No one had called her Josie in years. “But it had to be Jackson,” Wylie said. Her grandparents had told her that a few days after the murder, Jackson Henley had been arrested on weapons charges. She had confirmed it when she was researching the book. He had been badly burned during the arrest and spent several months in a burn unit in Des Moines, and when he was well enough he was sent to the men’s prison in Anamosa for eighteen months.