Did You Miss Me? (45 page)

The book and Mitch disappeared to the garage.
Probably he came down here
, Cole thought. Mitch came down to the bomb shelter to remember their mother.

Cole didn’t need to come down here. The memory of this place was branded into his brain.
I hate this house
.

The day after Cole had found him reading the old book, Mitch was a changed man. Calm. Happy. He’d even whistled. He’d gotten his HVAC license, bought some equipment and started a business. Gone straight. Or so Cole had wanted to believe.

But he’d peeked at Mitch’s ‘license’. It was not in his own name or any combination of his names. His brother couldn’t get a license with his felony record, so he’d bought a fake ID. If Mitch got caught, he could go to jail for that, too.

I’m so tired of being afraid
.
Of cops, of school, of the kids
.
Of my own family
.

‘
I wish I was adopted,’ he muttered.

‘Not always an improvement,’ Kim croaked. ‘Do we have water down here?’

‘Yeah.’ He brought her a bottle and held it to her dry, cracked lips as she chugged it down. ‘Easy.’ He pulled the bottle away and capped it. ‘You’ll make yourself sick.’

‘Thanks. I was so thirsty. Can you untie me?’

He hesitated. Then shook his head. ‘No.’
Not until I can figure out what’s true
.

She sagged back to the cot. ‘Have you at least been thinking about what I said?’

Yes, and I still don’t want to believe you
.
Don’t want to believe my brother could do those things
.
That he could kill in cold blood
.

‘
Why did you say adoption wasn’t always an improvement?’ he asked instead. ‘Are you adopted?’

‘Yeah. Me and my little sister.’

‘The one my brother kidnapped.’

‘Yeah. Her name is Pamela. We’re not really sisters but we were both born in China. I’m telling you, kid, your brother is not who you think he is.’

His brother who went by Doug. Aunt Betty’s last name was Douglas. Cole knew that everything she’d said was probably true.
Damn you, Mitch
.

Cole sighed. ‘He’s exactly who I think he is. I’m just not sure who you are.’

‘We’re wasting time. We need to get out of here before your brother comes back.’

‘Sorry, no can do. We’re down here until Matt tells me to come back up. Mitch won’t be back till tomorrow. He had a job in an office building. They do a lot of the HVAC at night.’

‘You still think he works an HVAC job?’ She coughed and Cole held the water bottle to her lips again. ‘Thanks. He worked with me, kid. We steal stuff.’

‘Like what?’

‘Guns mostly.’ She went on to describe every one of the guns in detail. They were the same ones Mitch had hidden in the basement storeroom. ‘We steal from cops.’

Which actually made sense. Mitch hated cops.
I guess most ex-cons do
.

‘The HVAC job is a cover,’ she said when he didn’t say anything. ‘He’s got some plot to take down a state’s attorney. Montgomery.’ She spat the name.

‘That doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t even know any state’s attorneys.’

Kim laughed which made her start coughing again. ‘He knows
her
. He hates her. I hate her too. That’s how he reeled me in.’

‘Why does he hate her?’

‘You’ll need to ask him that question. He never told me.’

Cole wasn’t sure he believed her. ‘Then why do
you
hate her?’

‘Montgomery stabbed me in the back. Best deal she’d give came with a conviction. Now I’ve got a record and I can’t get a job. Bitch.’

Okayyy
.
‘
You said my brother killed people. How many?’

‘That I know of? One. Directly.’

Cole swallowed. ‘Who?’

‘A cop who was guarding the guy I was with two nights ago.’

‘I thought you and Mitch . . .’

‘
Doug
and I . . . Well, we
were
a couple. But never again. I was with the other guy – his name is Ford – only because Doug wanted him. At first. I was supposed to bring Ford to meet Doug, so they could talk. They were just supposed to talk. But . . . I didn’t want to do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because . . . Ford’s a nice guy. I started to feel sorry for him, not to want Doug to talk to him at all. That’s when your brother kidnapped my sister. She’s just a kid, about your age. I don’t know where she is.’

‘Did you set the nice guy up?’

‘Yeah. Because your brother had Pam. I brought Ford to that alley where Doug was just supposed to talk. Instead Doug goes all Rambo with a taser in each hand and kills Ford’s bodyguard. Why does he call himself Doug if his name is Mitch?’

‘Our aunt’s last name was Douglas. This was her house.’
Oh God
. Cole felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. ‘Mitch killed a bodyguard? In an alley? A big black guy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh my God. That was on the news. That guy was a cop.’

‘That’s what Doug said. Look, Cole, you seem like a decent kid. I need to get out of here. He’s got my sister. She could be dead.’

Cole thought of the new padlock on the door in the basement. It hadn’t been there three days ago. ‘When did he take her?’

‘Monday night. You know where she is, don’t you?
Don’t you?
’

‘Maybe.’ He looked up to the door that led to the garage. Matthew would tell him when it was safe to leave. He didn’t want her sister to die, but he didn’t want to go to jail for taking a gun to school, either. ‘We’ll wait a little longer.’

‘Why?’ She struggled to sit up. ‘
Why?
’

‘Because I said so. Shut up,’ he snapped when she started to yell. ‘If you want, I can tape your mouth. But we don’t leave until the coast is clear.’

‘I’m going to kill you,’ she muttered. ‘If my sister dies, you’re dead.’

‘Good to know,’ he said grimly.

Wheeling, West Virginia, Wednesday, December 4, 9.45
P.M.

There was a collective gasp and looks of shock from everyone but the local detective, McManus, who looked grim. He’d known the story, Daphne realized, but had let her tell it her own way. Whether out of pity or suspicion, she wasn’t sure.

‘Beckett was in your
house
?’ Novak demanded.

‘In my house. I couldn’t believe that he was there.
In my house
. I didn’t understand at all how he could be. I remember cowering behind the sheriff’s legs and him lifting me up, to give me to my father. Then Beckett drew his finger across his throat. I started to scream and my parents didn’t know what to do. Vivien was screaming too. “Where is
my
daughter?” Then Beckett went to her, put his arms around her, soothed her, called her “sweetheart” and “dear”. And that’s when I figured it out.’

‘He was Vivien’s new husband,’ Ford said softly. ‘Oh my God, Mom.’

‘Yeah. Then my mother told me that he was my Uncle Wilson. Beckett just smiled at me. My parents brought me here to this hospital to do an exam. That just made everything worse. They were relieved to find out I hadn’t been assaulted but I couldn’t say a word. I didn’t speak a word for almost eight months, I was so traumatized.’

‘Did you ever tell them?’ Agent Kerr asked.

‘No. My folks brought me home from the hospital and Aunt Vivien was there, waiting for me. She screamed at me again, but I couldn’t speak. My dad told me that I had to talk. We had to get Kelly back. Aunt Vivien shook me so hard my teeth rattled. The whole time Beckett stood where no one could see him and then he drew a line across his throat. My father dragged Vivien away and he and my mother had a huge fight with her. And while they were screaming, Beckett made it look like he was helping me, but he whispered in my ear, “Did you miss me?”’

‘Bastard,’ Ford whispered.

‘The next morning there was a commotion downstairs. I crept down, peeking through the rail. My cat had been hit by a car and my parents and Vivien were arguing over whether to tell me. Beckett saw me watching, drew the line across his throat. Then he winked and I knew he’d done it. Three days later they found Kelly’s body about twenty miles from the rest stop in Dayton where I’d been found. Her throat had been slit.’

‘And the investigation moved north,’ McManus said. ‘They assumed you’d both been held in the Ohio area. Nobody looked around here anymore.’

‘What happened then, Daphne?’ Hector asked.

Joseph had been quiet for a while, she realized. His fists were clenched, the muscle in his taut cheek twitching. He was angry,
for
her. That helped. A lot.

‘We had Kelly’s funeral. Beckett delivered the sermon. I . . . threw up.’

‘Your parents made you go to the funeral?’ Novak asked disbelievingly.

‘My dad thought it might shake me out of my “hysteria”, but it just made it worse. Then my mother compounded it by a million when she invited Vivien to stay with us.’

‘What?’ Ford exploded. ‘Why?’

‘Vivien was a wreck. Mama said she needed her family close. And it may have been guilt that Mama got her daughter back and Vivien didn’t. But that meant Beckett moved in too. I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. I wouldn’t leave my mother’s side. I avoided my father because he kept trying to make me talk. He became almost desperate.’

‘Why?’ Agent Kerr asked. ‘Kelly was his niece by marriage. I would have thought the family pressure would be on your mother.’

‘There was tremendous pressure on my mother from her family. But my father wasn’t from around here. And Kelly had lived with us. Looking back, I think he was worried from the beginning that people would accuse him. I was oblivious to that then.

‘Everyone kept trying to get me to talk, but I just withdrew. We went on like that for a few weeks, through the holidays. Everywhere I turned, Beckett was there. He’d whispered, “Did you miss me?” Sometimes he’d whisper that I had to sleep sometime.’

Joseph’s eyes were closed, his throat working as he tried to swallow.

Beside her, Ford trembled with anger but kept his mouth closed.

‘They took me to a therapist who kept trying to get me to speak. She finally told me to draw the “bad man”. So I did.’

‘You drew a picture of Beckett?’ Joseph asked.

‘I tried to draw a picture of Vivien, Beckett, and Kelly – but I was eight years old and a very bad artist.’ She sighed, remembering the agony that had followed. ‘They thought I was drawing my own family. They thought I was accusing my father.’

‘Oh no.’

She wasn’t sure who’d said it, because she’d closed her eyes, battling back tears. ‘I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face when the police came that night. The therapist had told them about my picture and they came to question him. He stared at me, so betrayed. And I couldn’t speak. I tried to scream, to tell them “No!”, that it wasn’t my father. They took him in for questioning and when he came home . . . he just looked at me. He was so damn hurt.

‘The news picked up on it. My mother’s family ganged up on him because they’d never really trusted him. He was a musician Mama had met in California. Beckett was a minister and he went on TV calling my father all sorts of names. It was a nightmare.’

‘What did your father do?’ Agent Kerr asked.

‘He and Mama had been fighting about me all along. My father had been saying they needed to make me talk. Mama protected me, saying I’d talk when I was ready. I remember hearing them fight that night – it would be the last time I heard my father’s voice. He accused Mama of believing the lie. She was crying so hard. So torn.’

She opened her eyes, met Joseph’s sorrowful gaze. ‘I’ve seen this happen in my job,’ she said. ‘A child is abused and the father is blamed, maybe by the child or maybe by a social worker. There’s that one moment that the wife has to choose – do I protect my child or do I believe the man I love could never do such a hideous, heinous thing? Mama found herself in that moment and she stood by him. But my father had seen that flicker of doubt in her eyes and he confronted her with it when he came home from being questioned. She tried to tell him she was sorry, but he was so hurt . . .

‘He came into my room that night and stared at me. Just stared, saying nothing at all. He looked so sad and I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs that it was not true! That he didn’t do anything. But I couldn’t make my mouth speak. I don’t know if he was waiting for me to say something, to do something – I just don’t know. He looked . . . sorrowful, but so angry, all at once. The next day he went to work, and after work went straight to play with his band. After that, no one saw him again. He never came home.’ She swallowed hard. ‘The next morning I woke up and my mother was screaming. Someone had killed one of Fluffy’s kittens.’

‘Beckett,’ Ford said coldly and she patted his hand.

‘I knew that, of course. Mama thought it was somebody angry at my father. The community rose up against him, but my father was nowhere to be found. They assumed he was guilty, that he’d run before he could be arrested. It got bad, like pitchforks and burning torches bad. I withdrew even further.’ She sighed. ‘Seeing Beckett gloat over my father being the perpetrator was so hard. Vivien ripped into my mother, so furious that my father had butchered her child. The family sided with Vivien and Mama broke relations. She and I moved to Riverdale and Mama got a job cleaning hotel rooms. She got a divorce a few years later. In absentia, of course, because he never came back.’

‘Did you ever tell your mother about Beckett?’ Joseph asked.

‘Yes and no. When I finally started talking again I went to her and said, “It wasn’t Daddy.” I needed her to know that much. But I was afraid to tell her who it was. The morning after I told her that, I woke up to find my new cat dead. Mama had been on the phone with Vivien the night before, telling her what I’d said. It hadn’t made a difference to Vivien, but I knew she must have told Beckett. After I found my cat, I knew I could never tell my mother Beckett’s name. I knew he’d kill her, just like he promised.’

‘Did you ever see Beckett again after you moved?’ McManus asked.

‘He’d pop up from time to time.’