“Why don’t they arrest him?” Junie asked, her voice breathy.
“It’s not that easy, Bug,” Dad said, and in that moment I heard it, the way we all treated her like a baby, or worse, a doll, talking down to her, protecting her. How had I never noticed before?
“Agent Ryan took him in for questioning back in Saint Paul when that waitress first went missing,” Dad continued, “but he had to let him go. There wasn’t enough evidence to hold him. Then Godo shows up in Saint Cloud earlier than we’d first thought. Next thing you know, Elizabeth McCain disappears, and Maureen drowns. Agent Ryan took Godo in again, this time with Jerome’s help. Again, there wasn’t enough to hold him.”
Those words filled the room, impossibly heavy. Dad was staring into the bottom of his glass, didn’t look up as he finished his explanation. “We’ve all been working late nights, some overnights, trying to get the goods on him, but there simply isn’t time anymore. We decided it today. Jerome and a deputy of his are running Godo out of town.”
Junie nuzzled deeper into me.
I shook my head. That didn’t make any sense. They thought he murdered two girls and kidnapped a third, and they were going to run him out of town? “But won’t he just get away with it, then?” I asked.
Dad swirled his drink, threw back the last of it. “We’ll keep investigating. In the meanwhile, it’s the best thing for Saint Cloud to get him out of here. Ed and probably even Ricky, you can’t ever change men like them.” His voice seemed to walk away, but his body stayed in the room. “Women always try, but men like that are born bad.”
I wanted to call him back, tell him to get rid of this impostor who was all right with running off a man they believed to be a killer, running him off to some other town that had women and children, just like this one.
But I couldn’t find the words.
“Understand, this information doesn’t leave the room or it would cost me my job,” Dad said, focusing on me again, earnest. “I need you to know, Heather . . . I need you to know that if there is any injustice here, it will not go unpunished. I give you my word. Do you believe me?”
He was almost begging.
My dad was pleading for me to believe him.
So I nodded, feeling alone inside myself.
It was quiet in the house, a stillness punctuated by Dad’s snuffling noises. He only snored when he had too much to drink. He’d kept throwing it back while I told him everything I knew about Ed, which wasn’t much. At least I could confirm that Ed and Maureen had known each other. Dad had called Sheriff Nillson to tell him, his words slurred. He’d returned to the couch, falling asleep shortly after. I covered him with a blanket, then walked quietly to my own room.
I lay under my covers, fully clothed, listening to the clock tick and Dad snore. When everything remained the same for thirty minutes, I slipped down to the kitchen, unlooping the skeleton key from the hook. I grabbed a flashlight and made my way to the basement.
Dad might trust Jerome Nillson.
I did not.
BETH
A noise like a rodent running across wood jerked Beth out of her half sleep, and she shot to her feet, poised to fight or flee before she remembered where she was. She’d devolved into a creature of the dark, dozing then jerking awake, instantly alert to any change in her environment. This noise was soft, coming from the ceiling. Or was it outside the door? A skittering sound. It made her stomach growl. The last food she’d had was the heel of the bread, more crouton than loaf. That had been two days ago.
She’d fantasized about eating dirt. She remembered from health class that some pregnant women craved it, big, mucky handfuls of earth. Usually it pointed to an iron deficiency. If she did eat dirt, she’d harvest it from the farthest corner from her ammonia-smelling chamber pot. It’d been days since she’d pooped—what was there to evacuate?—but the pee still showed up. Not much, and what came was sludgy because she was rationing her water.
The dirt in the far corner, though, it had a good smell, hints of chocolate with an undertone of coffee. She chuckled, startling herself. She could shape it into a cookie, or a cake, and nibble at it with her pinkie up. Her laughter grew louder.
I can still laugh, you bastard.
If whatever was making the scratching sound was a mouse, she wouldn’t eat it, even though she was starving. She’d befriend it. They’d wait together because soon, she’d be free: she’d dug out that spike. That five-inch skull key. That’s what she’d decided to call it because she was going to drive it through his eye, and that would open the door to her cage and set her free.