Behind the Lie, page 18
“My boss says we can download the files for you, but we need our IT guy. And since we have to call him in to do that, it will be a hundred dollars.” He seemed uncomfortable passing this on, as if he felt his boss was trying to make an extra buck from a sad circumstance.
She smiled with encouragement. This was excellent news, and she had a budget. “That’s great,” she said. “Here’s my card. Do you think you can get the guy to do this today? Or maybe tomorrow? I’m sure you understand in cases like this, we shouldn’t waste any time.” Then, to reassure him, “The fee is acceptable. I’ll have a check for you when I come by. Okay?”
The man nodded, took her card, and turned to the next customer who walked in.
The noonday heat was suffocating when she got back into her car, but there was something she needed to do before returning to the office. The police department overseeing Sunny River’s village was a small one, located in a distressed downtown with half the storefronts sporting FOR RENT signs. The young desk officer drooped, bleary with heat, and when Laney mentioned Sunny River, he frowned and sighed, then asked her to wait.
She only had the time to look at a chair before a detective hustled out of a side room and brought her into his office.
She showed him the photo of Bubba with the Volkins and Mona Powell, shared her suspicions about Mona, kept both Alfie and the Dubois family out of the story, and ended by saying she believed there might be a sort of safe house where these kids were being taken. Then she admitted it was conjecture and she had no proof of anything.
After listening carefully, the detective said, “How do you know these people?”
Yes, that was the tricky part, wasn’t it. “Vera and Step Volkin live on my block. I know them socially.”
“Huh, you don’t say!”
“Yeah, life is weird.”
“And how did you make this connection between them and the disappearances?”
Even trickier. Admit to sorting through her neighbors’ garbage? Breaking into their house? Maybe skip that. “When I visited Sunny River, I spoke to a social worker who works with the kids. When I asked her if she had a photo of the people who claimed to be Bubba Gardner’s parents, she showed me a pic of Step and Vera.” Laney shrugged. “Small world, right?”
The detective frowned but nodded slowly. “And Mona Powell? How do you know of her connection?”
Laney tried to keep the agitation from her voice. “She used to hang around Vera. I looked at Mona’s social media, the public posts. There were pictures of her with Vera.” She saw a question forming on the detective’s face and preempted it. “Vera Volkin is gone. She left last Saturday evening.”
His eyebrows climbed.
“The police are looking for her in connection with another incident. A shooting.”
He lowered his pen and sat back. “Well,” he said. “This is probably more information than we’ve gotten about any of the kids to date.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Mrs. Bird. I’ll be honest, that place has been an absolute shit show—excuse my French—for years. Kids disappear from it all the time. Oh, they report it, but what can we do? The facility has no security. The kids come from terrible situations, just terrible, terrible stuff. A few I know personally have mental illness, but the county psychiatric hospital is even worse, so we’re keeping them at Sunny River as long as we can.” He sighed. “We’ll follow up these leads, of course. And I’ll get in touch with Sylvan PD about Vera Volkin.”
Laney stood and extended her hand.
The detective took her hand and held it, tight. “Six months ago, a fourteen-year-old girl at Sunny River made a flamethrower out of hair spray and torched a fifteen-year-old girl. A month later three boys beat up an orderly so badly he lost an eye and spent a month in the hospital. Now, I’m not saying wherever they’re going is better, but …” He let go and sat back down. “We’ll look into it.”
“Right,” Laney said. “Okay then.”
Walking into the dusty parking lot, she realized she was no longer hungry but rather craving a drink. Even so, on her way to BSI’s office, she stopped to pick up sandwiches for her coworkers, something they took turns doing once a week for the sake of team spirit. She bought roast beef and Asiago for the boss, Mediterranean vegetables with hummus for the receptionist, turkey, ham, and provolone for Jack, and an iced tea for herself, into which she emptied a travel-sized bottle of Tito’s. A few bags of chips, pickles, and four cookies rounded out her donation to the company lunch table and earned her happy smiles and a pat on the shoulder from the boss. Jack seemed surprised when she handed him his pickle-juice-stained paper bag, but he took it and put it aside.
“Thanks. Listen.” He glanced out of his office to make sure no one was near and gestured for her to sit. She did. “I got your note,” he said. “About Mona.”
Laney shook her head. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s handled. I handled it.”
“Oh.” He frowned.
She shrugged. “I told Alfie he had to stop.”
Jack studied her face, sat back, placed an ankle on a knee. “Yeah? How did that go?”
“About how you might think.”
“What happened?”
Laney shook her head again. “Never mind. It’s done.”
“No, I mean, what changed your mind? Why did you confront him? Why now?” He put both feet on the floor.
“I think—” She closed her mouth. Jack knew her circumstances too well for her to tell him only part of the story. She’d have to confess to her suspicions of Mona’s involvement with the disappearing kids, and by association, Alfie’s involvement, spare as she hoped it was. And anyway, what was she doing with this man? Did she really think he’d be her friend? Her partner? No, she’d had enough partners to last her a lifetime. She’d been solving cases on her own for over a year, and there was no reason for that to end.
Getting to her feet, she felt her face heat. After what happened five years ago, she’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals than trust anyone with her child or her investigations ever again.
“I think it’s personal, Jack,” she finally said, and walked to her cube, where she unwrapped her cookie and shoved a huge chunk into her mouth, following that with a healthy glug from her tea bottle.
She almost choked when Jack sat down on a chair next to her.
He waited until she swallowed and gulped more vodka-tea before speaking. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on. I’m working on the Gardner case. I have a lead, so—” She gestured at her laptop.
He didn’t move. “What’s the lead?”
She wiped her mouth and said, “It’s not very clear in my mind yet. I’m still working it through.”
Jack nodded. “Got it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is your lead connected to the girl that was found a half hour ago up in Stony Point?”
A half hour ago she’d been at the deli ordering sandwiches. She had no idea what he was talking about.
He said, “I guess not.”
“Why, who is she?”
“Her name is Alyssa Vallebuono. She’s fifteen.”
Laney blinked. She didn’t like where this was headed.
“She disappeared from Sunny River three months ago. A man out fishing with his son found her by the hiking trail over there, by the water.” He handed her his phone.
The girl in the picture lay on her side, knees drawn up. The skin on her face, neck, and arms was flaming red and peeling, boiling off her flesh. It took Laney a second to realize that the girl’s top had been white when she’d put it on and not the rich carmine shown in the picture.
She gave him his phone back.
“She’s at Good Sam now, but my guess is some kind of chemical burn.” He leaned toward her, his eyes neutral. “Any ideas?”
Dammit, dammit, and dammit again. The image of the girl raged through her, vivid, painful. What did her son know about this? Was it possible he knew? No, no. No.
“Okay then,” she said, “Mona Powell is connected to Bubba Gardner’s disappearance. And possibly more disappearances.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “She works there. Or worked. At least until last week.”
He grew serious. “That’s your lead?”
Laney nodded.
“Shit, Laney, what are you saying? Are you saying that your teenage son’s adult girlfriend was involved in the disappearances of at least one and maybe more teenagers, one of whom was just discovered with her skin melted off her body?”
“All I know is that she worked at Sunny River and—”
He stood up and walked toward his office, then turned on his heel and came back. This time he didn’t sit. “Why didn’t you bring this to us as soon as you found out? You should have texted me at least. I spoke with her! I could have—”
“You did what?”
He glared at her. “What you asked me to do. I had a talk with Mona.”
Goddamn her impulses the other night. She should know better than involve strangers in her life. Or her son’s life. “And?”
“I think she’ll leave your son alone. But that’s beside the point now, isn’t it?”
“Where is she?”
“I had her, Laney. I could have gotten her to say a lot. I could have taken her to the precinct if you told me about this.”
He was right. By keeping this to herself, she’d cost them time and an opportunity. She rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t know you were going to see her.”
“You asked me to.”
“To be fair, I didn’t. You volunteered.”
“Laney.”
“Okay, fine. Fine. Where is she?”
He frowned. “If she’s still there.” Looked at his phone. “I have court in an hour. Call Ed and have him meet you there.”
He punched something into his phone. Her phone pinged right away. It was an address for a motel room near Main Street in Sylvan. The place rented by the day, week, or month and had been an ongoing point of stress for the local administration.
“I know where this is,” she said. “I’m going now.”
“And you’ll call me as soon as you’re done speaking with her.”
Laney was already closing her laptop and shoving it into its case. “Yes.”
“Laney.”
She paused.
His hands on his hips, his head angled away from her, he asked, “What else are you not telling me? What do you know about this?”
Heading for the door, she said, “Jack, I’ve told you everything.”
“What do you know about Holly working for the Volkins?”
Laney stopped. Working for them? She turned to look at him. “What are you talking about?”
He said nothing, waited for her to say anything else. When she didn’t, he shrugged and returned to his office.
CHAPTER
31
Holly
HOLLY’S SHOULDER WAS a flaming, throbbing knot of pain. She shifted to the left, tried leaning sideways to ease the pressure, but her mobility was limited by the seat, the tight space, the belt.
Vera drove in silence, her thinned lips the only indication of her feelings.
“I’m in a lot of pain,” Holly said.
“I’m sure Step is as well,” Vera said.
Holly stared at her in disbelief.
“Fuck you,” Vera said.
“Fuck you too,” Holly countered immediately.
Neither one of them raised their voices. They might as well have been discussing the merits of the local pizzeria (a little too much sauce, not enough crust).
Holly endured until the next exit before speaking. “Why did you—”
“Shut up!” Vera slammed on the brakes, jolting Holly forward against the seat belt and forcing an agonized yelp out of her as her eyes clapped shut. Horns blared behind them, and Vera stepped on the gas again, pressing them into their seats as they accelerated, to the braying of more horns.
“I’m sorry,” Holly repeated, and when she opened her eyes, she thought for a second, for just one moment, that Abigail was sitting next to her, her face contorted with anger.
“I don’t care,” Vera said. “It’s a pointless thing to say.”
Holly fidgeted and dropped her head against the seat. This woman shot her own husband to save Oliver. Why? “I didn’t know Oliver would come.”
“Pfft.”
Holly had never actually heard anybody say that—pfft—though she’d read it in novels.
“Vera?”
Silence.
“Why did you save Oliver?”
Vera rolled her eyes, a gesture so juvenile Holly once again had the eerie feeling she was sharing a car with her sister.
“I didn’t save Oliver from dying. I saved Step from becoming a killer.” She pressed her lips tight. “You really fucked it all up, you know that.”
Holly nodded. She did know that, though she thought they probably had different understandings of what exactly got fucked up.
“Where are we going?” Holly asked.
“Oh for crying out loud, can’t you keep quiet?” Vera shook her head. “We’re going someplace where maybe you can be useful. Just listen to yourself! Oh, boo-hoo, I’m about to lose my house. Oh, boo-hoo, I can’t pay off my druggie brother’s rehab. Oh, boo-hoo, my husband is boring!”
Holly sat up straight. “I never said Oliver was boring.”
“Might as well have.”
“Now you listen to me. You don’t get to say a thing to me about my family! Do you understand?” She was angry, and being angry felt better than being sorry. She leaned into it. “I mean, really! Fuck you and the beast from hell you rode in on! You and your Step! I mean, why do you think you’re better than me? You’re fucked up. You’re doing something awful to other people and you think you’re something hot, and you’re just a piece of fucked-up, cold-bitch-hearted, insane Eurotrash!” Her voice rose painfully at the end, sending her into a coughing fit.
“Well, Holly, tell me what you really think.”
Holly crumpled into a limp heap, her range of movement constrained, her shoulder an ache ranging from blinding hot to almost tolerable. “I think I made a mistake,” she said.
Vera jabbed the heel of her hand into Holly’s nose, so fiercely that blood spurted down Holly’s pastel blouse.
The next two hours passed in silence, Holly sniffling blood and watching the road. According to the few signs here and there, they were heading for the Catskills.
“Vera?”
“What.”
“Where are you really from?”
Vera checked her mirrors and switched lanes, remained quiet. Then she said, “From Kiev. But first from Moscow. The outskirts. There’s a neighborhood that’s called the Devil’s Land, if you translate it. That’s where I grew up. In an apartment block.”
“You didn’t like it there?”
This was met with a snort. “No, Holly, I did not like it there. My mother died when I was eight, father when I was nine. They sent me to an orphanage.” She grimaced. “I set fire to the orphanage before I left.”
“Are you serious?” Frowning, Holly studied Vera’s profile again, the clean lines of it. She knew almost nothing about Russia, but she had a feeling its orphanages were not great places to be.
“When I was in the orphanage, a man saw me and took me.” She cut a cool glance at Holly, then refocused on the road. “Not what you think. This man, he was like Fagin, you know? From Oliver Twist?”
Holly nodded. She knew Oliver Twist.
“Then he brought Step in, and we became friends.”
A tiny flare of understanding sputtered inside Holly. “You were both orphans?” Of course, that made sense. They were so close and Step always so possessive of Vera.
“You lived with that man?” And then again, a young, attractive girl, growing up without a mother to protect her, with strangers. Surely she’d been sexualized.
Vera shrugged. “I lived with that man. Step did too. Many of us did. He was okay. He taught us.”
“But did he … did he make you …”
“What? Prostitute myself? I did what I wanted.”
By now they were going through dark woods, the unlit road a serpentine spool into the forested depths. The odors of pines and fresh night air wafted through the partially open window, a whiff of wood smoke. Somebody had lit a campfire.
It would have been a peaceful and beautiful drive if it wasn’t for the fact that Holly was a hostage with a punched-in face, her husband most likely instigating divorce proceedings. And oh yes, let’s not forget the man who tried to kill him and now had a bullet in his ass. Or the drugs she stole. Or the corporate secrets she copied and gave away.
“We’re here,” Vera said, pulling onto a gravelly shore, the car’s headlights illuminating a black lake, a motorboat, and across the water’s expanse, a dark house like a cutout in the charcoal sky.
CHAPTER
32
Laney
UNSURPRISINGLY, MONA POWELL no longer dwelled at the address Jack had texted Laney. Not only that, but the door to her efficiency room gaped open, and when Laney knocked and then poked her head inside, she saw a maelstrom of clothes, unmade bed, fast-food wrappers, and soda bottles, but no Mona. Most telling, the bathroom, though grimy, was empty. No toothbrush, no makeup, not even a shampoo bottle.
The single narrow closet stood equally stripped, only a lone scarf dripping from the rod.
Laney’s phone vibrated, and she stepped outside to answer, steeling herself when she saw it was Bubba Gardner’s mother.
“Is it him?” Mrs. Gardner asked. “I heard they found someone at Stony Point. Is it him?”
Laney, recognizing the agony of not knowing, of guilt, put as much reassurance and calm into her voice as possible before saying, “No, no. Not him.”
“Are you sure? How can you be sure? I heard … I heard …” But what Bubba’s mother had heard was buried in her sobs.
“It’s a young girl,” Laney said, and winced at the memory of that blistered face, those emaciated arms, so red. “It’s not him. Listen. Are you hearing me?”
The sounds on the other end quieted. Then a wail. “Where is he?”
