Chapter 8: Paul
He came to the door in a weekend shirt, a coffee mug in his hand.
Daniel had called him that morning and said he was in the area and wanted to stop by.
Paul had sounded pleased.
He'd said to come around eleven, he'd just put a fresh pot on.
I wasn't supposed to be there.
That had been the plan.
But I was in the car, and when Daniel pulled up I got out too, and Daniel didn't tell me to stay.
Paul opened the door and saw us both and his face did something very fast — a flicker, there and gone.
"Hey," he said.
"Didn't know you were bringing company."
"Can we come in?" Daniel said.
We sat in Paul's living room.
He'd put out mugs.
He offered biscuits.
He was warm and easy and normal in a way that made my back teeth press together.
"So what brings you two all the way out here?" he said.
Daniel looked at him.
"We found Nora," he said.
Paul's mug stopped halfway to his mouth.
"What?"
"She's alive.
She's been alive.
We found her three days ago."
The mug went down on the coffee table.
Paul's face moved through something complicated — surprise, relief, something that looked like joy.
He was good at it.
"Daniel, that's — that's incredible.
That's—" He leaned forward.
"Where is she?
Is she okay?
What happened?"
"She's safe," Daniel said.
"She's been talking to a lawyer."
A pause.
Very small.
Almost nothing.
"A lawyer," Paul said.
"About the man who took her.
About the people connected to him." Daniel's voice was completely level.
"About the people who helped him find her."
Paul set both hands flat on his knees.
The same gesture Daniel made when he was holding something tightly.
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"His name was Caleb Voss," Daniel said.
"He's in federal custody.
He's been cooperating with prosecutors.
He gave them names."
"Daniel—"
"He gave them your name, Paul."
The room was very quiet.
Paul looked at me.
I looked back at him.
"I don't know what he told them," Paul said.
"But whatever it was—"
"She was sixteen," Daniel said.
"She was sixteen years old and you told a man you owed money to where she lived, what her name was, what her routine was."
"I didn't know what he was going to do."
"You knew she was a child."
"I didn't know—" Paul's voice cracked.
He pressed his hand over his mouth.
When he took it away, his eyes were wet.
"I didn't know he was going to take her.
I thought — I don't know what I thought.
He said he knew her from somewhere.
He asked questions and I answered them and I told myself it was nothing."
"You told yourself it was nothing," Daniel said.
"I know." Paul's voice dropped.
"I know.
I've known for eight years.
Every single day."
"Then you stood at her vigil," I said.
It came out very quiet.
"You stood next to my husband and you read from the Bible and you knew."
He didn't answer.
"You came to our house," I said.
"You sat at our table.
You watched us fall apart."
"I'm sorry." He said it to the floor.
"I am so sorry.
I didn't know how to—"
"There's a federal prosecutor," Daniel said.
"Nora has already given a statement.
Diane Forsythe is her attorney.
You should get one too."
Paul looked up.
"Daniel—"
"Don't." Daniel stood.
"Don't say my name like that.
Don't ask me for anything."
Paul looked at me instead.
His eyes were red.
"Is she — will she—" He stopped.
"Does she hate me?"
I thought about Nora at Ruth's kitchen table.
Her steady voice.
Her careful hands.
The eight years she'd carried alone.
"She wants you to face what you did," I said.
"That's not hate.
That's justice."
We left him sitting there.
Daniel didn't speak until we were two blocks away.
Then he pulled over and put the car in park and sat with both hands on the wheel.
"He cried," he said.
"Yes."
"I don't know what to do with that."
"You don't have to do anything with it," I said.
"That's for him to carry."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"Is it enough?" he said.
"What's coming for him — is it enough?"
"I don't know," I said honestly.
"But it's real.
And it's specific.
And Nora gets to watch it happen."
He nodded slowly.
He put the car back in drive.
Behind us, Paul's house sat quiet on its street.
The door was closed.
The curtains were still.
Diane called that evening.
"Paul Vance's attorney contacted the prosecutor's office at four o'clock this afternoon," she said.
"He's agreed to cooperate fully in exchange for a reduced charge.
He'll plead guilty to one count of facilitating the @buse of a minor."
"What does that mean in terms of consequences?"
"Likely two to four years, possible probation after.
Mandatory registration.
His name on the public record." A pause.
"It's not everything.
But it's real."
I was standing in the hotel room again.
Nora was sitting on the bed behind me, her knees pulled up, waiting.
I turned around and looked at her.
"He's pleading guilty," I said.
"It's done."
She didn't say anything for a moment.
Then she put her face in her hands — not crying, just breathing — and when she looked up, something had shifted in her face.
Something that had been held very tightly for a very long time.
"Okay," she said.
May you like
Just that.
Okay.
