Chapter 7: Richard
Donna drove me home that evening.
Walsh had asked me not to contact Richard Calloway or anyone at my company until investigators had the chance to approach him.
I agreed.
I sat in the passenger seat and watched the highway and said nothing for thirty minutes.
"You're not going to be able to sleep," Donna said.
"No."
"Come stay with me."
"I need to go home."
She didn't argue.
She pulled into my driveway and put the car in park and sat with me while I looked at the house.
Gary's car was gone.
He'd been formally detained at the airport pending charges.
The house was dark.
"I'll come in with you," Donna said.
"I'm okay."
"Laura."
"I just need an hour alone.
Then you can come back." I looked at her.
"I need to think without anyone watching my face."
She understood that.
She waited until I was inside before she drove away.
The house was exactly as I'd left it that morning.
Gary's coffee cup was still on the counter.
His reading glasses were folded on the arm of the sofa.
Sixteen years of a life that had been something other than what I thought it was.
I didn't touch anything.
I went upstairs to Cynthia's room and sat on the edge of her bed.
Her things were still there — her books, her posters, the small ceramic elephant she'd bought at a school fair when she was eleven.
I'd kept everything exactly as she'd left it.
Gary had watched me do that.
He'd stood in this doorway and watched me preserve our daughter's room and he had known where she was every single day.
My phone buzzed.
A number I didn't recognize.
I answered.
Silence.
Then a sound — breath, close to the receiver.
Young.
Careful.
"Mom?"
I couldn't speak.
"Mom, it's me.
It's Cynthia."
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
"I don't have long," she said quickly.
"They moved us two days ago.
I don't know where I am.
But I found a phone — one of the other girls left it in the bathroom.
I only have a few minutes."
"Are you hurt?" I managed.
"No.
I'm okay.
Mom, listen — Dr.
Marsh knows the police are looking.
She's been talking about moving us again.
Tonight maybe."
"Cynthia, I need you to tell me everything you can see.
Anything.
What does it look like outside?"
"Trees.
Mountains maybe.
There's a gas station sign I can see from the window — it's a blue and white one.
And there's a church across the road.
White with a red door."
"What else?"
"There's a water tower.
I can see the top of it.
It says—" She stopped.
A sound in the background.
A door.
"Cynthia—"
"I have to go." Her voice dropped to almost nothing.
"Mom.
Dad told me you didn't want me.
He showed me papers.
He said you signed them."
"He lied.
Cynthia, he lied about everything.
I never signed anything.
I have been looking for you every single day."
A pause.
So small.
So enormous.
"I know," she whispered.
"I think I always knew."
May you like
The line went de@d.
I was already calling Walsh before I'd lowered the phone from my ear.
