“I got her back,” I say, weaving my pointer finger through a loop in the crocheted blanket. “I went to the house and got her back.”
Marie frowns. “They just let you take her?”
“No.” I pick up a spool of thread from the bowl on the table and roll it in my palm. “Things got out of hand, and I regret that. I truly do. Anyhow, after that, they put a price on my head. Got the word out everywhere.”
Marie shifts her weight on the couch. “When you say things got out of hand…”
“Someone got hurt. Not bad, but still. It wasn’t my intention, going in there, but it happened.”
It’s the first time I’ve told the whole story aloud. I see the inconsistencies, I hear how it sounds, I remember the newspapers and the way they painted the picture. “We would’ve been in court, duking it out for months and months. Over a year, maybe. In the end I would’ve lost, anyhow. I would’ve lost her.” I clear my throat. “So I handled it.”
Marie doesn’t say a word so I keep going.
“For six weeks we lived in a tent until I decided I owed your brother a call. I didn’t want to bother him, but I was also feeling like a sneak out here, living on the property and not even telling him about it. Plus once Scotland showed up, I figured I better tell Jake. Finch and me drove out to the gas station and used the pay phone. The only thing Jake asked was whether we were all right. Whether we needed anything. Didn’t tell me I’d screwed up. Didn’t try to convince me to change my course.”
Marie begins to quiver, her shoulders bobbing up and down.
“I’m sorry. Should I have skipped the part about Jake?”
She shakes her head. “No. No, I want to hear it.”
“Finch loved him, you know. Broke her heart when I had to tell her he wasn’t coming. Kids, they used to flock to him, over there, too. No matter where we were, they’d find him. Follow him around. Gathered around him like you see pictures of kids with Jesus. There was something about him.”
“At the end, he had round-the-clock care,” she whispers. “He couldn’t even get to the bathroom on his own. Couldn’t even feed himself.” She tucks her chin into her shoulder and begins to shake hard.
I reach out and press my hand to hers. “It should’ve been me,” I whisper. “I offered to go first because it was more dangerous. I went right through and missed it. I don’t know how. I’ve replayed it over and over, and I don’t know how or why it was him and not me.”
“You saved his life. That’s the way he saw it.” A tear skims her cheek, skating back and forth. “I want you to know, Cooper: I understand why you came here.”
“I couldn’t lose her. Not after—I couldn’t.”
“I know.” She sighs. “I understand what you’re trying to protect. But Cooper, that girl. If you and Finch saw her in the woods, one way or another, you need to tell the authorities.”
I shake my head, pull away from her. “I can’t do that.”
“I understand there’s some risk for you, but you can’t just keep that type of information to yourself. It’s not right. Think of the girl’s parents. Think about Finch. If she went missing and someone had seen her, you would want to know.”
I stand up, walk to the sink. Her words strike a nerve and I don’t like it. “I only saw her the one time.” I don’t mention the footprints, or the lens cap, like maybe the girl had been there before, because the bottom line is: we didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t go looking for trouble—it came to us.
“But Finch said she lives here, in your woods.”
“Finch also said she’s a princess and a wood nymph. You know how she gets; you can see it. She attaches easily, she obsesses. She has a vivid imagination. You’ve heard her.”
“Still,” Marie says, “you’re holding what may be a vital piece of the puzzle, and you’re refusing to share it. She’s a minor, Cooper. A kid. You have an obligation to share that information. A moral obligation.” She follows me to the sink and wraps her fingers around my hand. “You see that, don’t you?”
I stare out the kitchen window, the moonlight illuminating the ground, still speckled with snow. I see her point—I really do—but there are odds to be weighed here, losses to be calculated, and there’s too much at stake. “I can’t draw attention to us. I go to the police, Cindy’s parents find out about us, it’s over.”