Don't Say a Word (Strangers Series) (8 page)

CHAPTER 12

BUT THE SCREAMS didn’t come.

Allie had slept restlessly, and when her eyes fluttered open at three in the morning, her first thought was that something was wrong.

The house was too quiet.

She jumped out of bed and hurried to the twins’ bedroom. As she was about to push their door open, she heard Zoe talking in the room. She wondered what the girl was doing up so early.

Was she having trouble sleeping?

She was also curious whether Carrie was responding. Or, if Carrie was mute with Zoe, too. She listened for a moment, but heard nothing but silence. She then realized that maybe they knew she was standing at the door, so she stepped away.

Unable to go back to sleep, she brewed coffee, and sat in the darkened kitchen, staring out into the backyard. She watched the entire tree line and the spot where Gary had emerged from the woods the previous morning. She wondered where he’d gone. And if he was still out there somewhere, watching them.

She peered out the window until the inky sky brightened into smatterings of gray and lavender, wondering how differently things might’ve turned out if Johnny hadn’t been there. The same Johnny who hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to send a text or Facebook message after his hasty departure back to Dallas. Her mind continued to slip over the dark possibilities until she realized what she was doing. Then she found the big Stop sign in her mind and waved it in front of her eyes.

Stop!
It’s okay. Everyone’s safe.

She downed her coffee and poured another cup, then crossed the living room and went to the front window. She peered out to make sure the patrolman was still there.

She relaxed a little, seeing that he was.

Allie and Sammy were in the middle of breakfast when they heard a door down the hall click shut, then footfalls heading toward the living room.

Bitty appeared in the entryway, carrying a notebook and her cell phone.

“Grammy!” Sammy squealed. He scrambled from his seat and ran to her.

The old woman’s eyes lit up. “Good morning, pumpkin!”

After they said their morning hellos, Sammy walked up to Allie. “May I be excused, Mommy?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, you may.”

“Yay!” Sammy shouted. Then he darted from the room, Piglet the Protector at his feet.

“I take it no preschool today?” Bitty asked.

Allie shook her head. She had called Sammy’s preschool to let them know he’d be absent a few days. There was no way she was going to let her son out of her sight until she knew Gary Willis was no longer a threat.

“It’s probably best,” Bitty said.

As Allie cleared their dishes, Bitty told her she was going to make more phone calls and continue to investigate Gary and the girls’ family. Bitty had many gifts. One of Allie’s favorites, though, was that she had a special way with people. She had a way of making them comfortable. Of getting them to open up. While Detective Lambert seemed personable, he had a disadvantage in that he was law enforcement. From what Allie understood, the county had recently seen a surge in methamphetamine production, and since many members of the community or their families were connected to the trade in some way, they were hesitant to call attention to themselves by stepping forward. And if they felt forced to talk, the investigators received the bare minimum of what they knew . . . if even that.

A little before eight o’clock, Allie answered the front door to find the girls’ caseworker. “I’m sorry to show up so early in the morning, but I wanted to bring these before I got my day started,” Miss Judy Marsons said, nearly out of breath. Allie wondered if she was always so harried. Miss Marsons held out two brown paper shopping bags. “It’s a few changes of clothes for the girls.”

As Allie took the bags, she caught a whiff of an overly sweet and discomfortingly familiar smell: the odor of decomposition. She flinched, and her eyes teared up. It was an odor she’d smelled a few times in her youth. One that brought back awful memories.

“Dreadful, isn’t it?” Miss Marsons said. “It was extremely difficult being in the house, so I just grabbed what I could . . .
quickly
. I just hope the smell washes out.” She made a face. “The . . . odor . . . from the bodies is still so strong.”

Allie nodded. “Did you want to speak with Bitty?”

“Yes. Is she up?”

Allie led the caseworker to the home office, then went to the laundry room and upended the paper bags, dumping the clothes in the washer. She programmed the machine to its hottest setting, then closed the door tightly behind her.

After making breakfast for the girls, she checked the backyard again. Aside from grass and trees, it was empty. In the distance, she saw a dark cloud of buzzards circling high above the woods. There seemed to be at least a hundred of them. They were always lurking over something in the woods. A dead rabbit. A dead deer. Allie cringed at the constant reminders of death, then let her eyes drop back to yard level. She was studying the tree line again when she heard footsteps behind her.

Turning, she saw Zoe lingering in the entryway. She was in her nightgown and looked small and pale.

“Good morning. How’d you sleep?” Allie asked.

Zoe shrugged. “Good, I guess.” She stepped hesitantly into the room.

“Is Carrie up?”

“No.”

“Well, come sit down. I made breakfast.”

A few minutes later, Allie sat across from Zoe. The girl moved her fork around, quietly, picking at her food.

“I can make you something else if you don’t like eggs,” Allie said.

Zoe looked up. “No, thank you. Eggs are good.” She looked down at her plate again and took a small bite.

Not wanting to stare, Allie peered out the window, at the dark clouds floating through the sky. The weather was going to get bad again, and the temperature was expected to drop another ten degrees.

A brisk wind sent orange and yellow leaves dancing across the yard. Allie took a sip of her coffee and glanced at Zoe, and found the girl was watching her intently. Allie wanted to know more about her and her sister, and wondered how forthcoming Zoe would be if she asked questions.

“So, what kinds of things do you like to do, Zoe?”

Zoe chewed her food slowly and continued to study Allie’s face through swollen eyes. She was quiet for so long, Allie began to wonder if she’d even heard the question.

“What do you mean?” she finally asked.

“What do you enjoy doing? Do you play any sports?”

Zoe shook her head. “No.”

“You like movies? Any television programs?”

“Yeah. I like both. I watch
Modern Family
a lot on the iPad.”

“I haven’t seen that.”

“It’s good. It’s funny.”

“You like comedies?”

Zoe nodded. “But I mostly like it because of the families. Even though they fight sometimes, you can still tell they really love each other.”

Allie was encouraged that Zoe was opening up a little. “My brother used to watch old shows like
Leave It to Beaver
for the same reason. The family was totally different than ours.”

“Where is he? Your brother?”

Allie’s eyes stung. “He died.”

Zoe studied her for a long while, then looked down at her eggs. “Yeah. My brother died, too.”

They sat, silence growing between them. Allie searched for another question, but came up with nothing. She stood up. “You don’t drink coffee, do you?”

Zoe shook her head.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to get another cup. I’ll be right back.”

Allie went to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee. She lingered at the counter for a moment, and studied Zoe from afar. Now that she was no longer in the room, the girl was shoveling food into her mouth. She’d been hungry but hadn’t wanted to eat in front of her. In that moment she reminded Allie a little of a wild animal. One frightened and far from home. Suddenly Zoe turned and stared into the kitchen—and directly into Allie’s eyes.

Crap, busted.

Allie put on another smile, then grabbed her coffee and walked back into the dining room.

Thirty minutes later, Allie pushed open the girls’ bedroom door to find Carrie still fast asleep in her bed, tangled up in the covers, the stuffed bear cradled in her arms.

Allie sat down softly on the edge of the bed and watched the girl sleep. It was the first time she’d been able to really get a close look at her. She was a cute girl with almond-shaped eyes, long pale lashes, a snub nose, and thin, pale eyebrows. Aside from a smattering of caramel-colored freckles, her skin was almost colorless, and sallow beneath the eyes. Again, she reminded Allie of a porcelain doll. As she slept, the fingers on her left hand kept twitching.

One of her feet was hanging from the edge of the bed. Allie noticed the top of it, just below her toes, was blistered, the bottom edges a little red. She frowned, then left the room to get the first aid kit.

Back in the room, she touched the girl’s arm. “Carrie?”

Carrie’s eyes moved beneath their lids. A few seconds later, she inched her eyebrows together, then sniffed and opened her eyes. Allie could see her trying to acclimate herself. Once she did, she sat up and peered at Allie through bleary brown eyes and carefully adjusted the stuffed bear beneath her left arm.

Allie pointed to the blister on her foot. “That looks bad. How did you get it?”

Carrie stared down at her foot, but didn’t say anything.

“Mind if I clean it?”

Carrie looked away. Allie took it as a cue that she wouldn’t mind, and gently cleaned and bandaged the wound.

When she was done, she sat next to the girl, then giving in to a peculiar impulse, reached out and folded the girl’s cool limp fingers into hers.

Carrie didn’t squeeze back, but she also didn’t flinch or pull her hand away.

Allie felt a warmth pass through her again. Carrie’s hand seemed strangely right in hers. Like it belonged. Almost like Sammy’s or Bitty’s. The fact that it did stunned her.

CHAPTER 13

AFTER CARRIE HAD eaten her breakfast, Allie assigned the girls their chores.

Throughout her years of fostering children, Bitty had learned that many troubled kids had never been given responsibilities, rules, accountability, or even much attention—all important ingredients to raising healthy human beings with good self-esteem. Young people who would be able to function independently in the real world. So Bitty was diligent about giving her foster kids this nurturing.

Allie remembered when she’d first arrived at Bitty’s as a sixteen-year-old foster child. She’d been an elementary school dropout and her mother had barely interacted with her, so Bitty’s rules were the first she’d ever been given. Allie’d been surprised to find that she liked having rules. They gave her a sense of security. She also enjoyed the new responsibility because it freed her mind from her dark thoughts and worries for stretches of time.

Plus, the accountability had felt good. The fact that someone was actually paying attention to her, actually putting serious thought and time into her welfare for the very first time in her life, made her feel valued.

As Allie gave the twins their chores, Sammy clutched her leg and stared. Allie showed the girls step-by-step how Bitty liked everything done. Both girls dutifully did what they were asked. The only hesitance Allie sensed was when she asked Carrie to put away the stuffed bear while she cleaned. Carrie had frozen a moment, clutching the bear even tighter. She’d peered quickly at her sister, but then eventually did as she was asked.

Allie watched from the living room as she did the week’s meal planning, Sammy sat snuggled against her, playing an Xbox Lego game.

Allie realized her attention lingered on Carrie. She wasn’t sure why she was so drawn to the girl. Yes, the similarities between her and Carrie were obvious: they were both orphans and their mothers had both been murdered . . . but she had the same thing in common with Zoe, yet she didn’t feel quite the same pull toward her that she did with Carrie.

Maybe it was because Allie’s and Carrie’s personalities seemed more similar? Where she had pegged Zoe to be the confident type, Carrie appeared to be more self-conscious. She also seemed to be the more wounded of the two.

After the girls finished their chores, Allie showed Zoe how to use the Xbox to find age-appropriate programs, movies, and games. Bitty didn’t want the girls to have access to local television networks because she didn’t want them to see news coverage of their parents’ murders.

Network television was rarely watched in the house anyway. Bitty didn’t watch television at all, and Allie liked to control what she and Sammy saw. The fewer unrealistic images she saw, the better for her BDD. The fewer unrealistic images Sammy saw, the healthier his expectations would be when he was old enough to be interested in females.

Allie noticed that when the girls were around, Sammy watched them carefully. Sammy had always been an observant child. A spider the size of a small tick couldn’t cross the room without him noticing. He’d been that way since he was very young. He also had a strong sense of wonder and curiosity. Allie loved seeing the world through his eyes. It was almost as though she were seeing things for the very first time again. As though she were reliving her childhood.

But this time around, a normal one.

Sammy liked to be sneaky and spy on people.

But he didn’t spy on them to be mean.

He did it because it was fun.

Today he’d been spying on the twins a lot. Quiet Carrie and her sister, Zoe. He thought they were both a little strange. First, Carrie didn’t talk . . .
at all
. And she cried a lot. Both of them did, especially when they were in their bedroom with the door closed.

He’d also caught Zoe earlier that morning in his mommy’s room, smelling a shirt in her closet. He stood behind her for a while, watching. When she turned around and saw him there, she jumped like she was really surprised. Then she let go of his mother’s shirt and without even looking at him, went into her bedroom and closed the door.

He’d also noticed that Zoe stared at his mommy a lot when she wasn’t looking. He had no idea why. He just knew it seemed a little weird.

Now his ear was pressed against the girls’ bedroom door. He could hear Zoe saying something to Carrie. And she sounded angry. He strained to hear her words, but couldn’t. But then, someone started walking toward the door . . . toward him.

And he ran down the hallway as fast as Flash.

Before Allie knew it, the sun was going down. Thankfully, the day had flown by without any sign of Gary or any phone hang-ups or strange trucks.

Over the course of the day, she had washed the girls’ clothes in hot water three times, but the dizzying odor lingered, so with Bitty’s okay, she ordered the girls each three new outfits online and had the shipping expedited. Bitty would take care of the rest of their wardrobe later at a discount store in Tyler.

She watched the kids in the living room. Sammy was sitting on the floor playing with his Legos, and the twins were sitting on the larger couch. Zoe was reading an old Judy Blume book, one of the many books Bitty kept for the kids, and Carrie was curled into a ball, fast asleep.

Allie went to check on Bitty and found her in the home office, chewing on the end of a pen, staring at something she’d jotted down in her notebook.

“Hey,” Allie said. “How’s it going?”

Bitty peered at Allie through her spectacles. “Well, it’s certainly been interesting.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Anyone in the hallway?” Bitty asked.

Allie quickly poked her head out. “No. Why?”

“I just stumbled upon something odd.”

“What?”

“Remember how I told you that the Parishes won all that money in the lottery?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, rumor has it that a day before the murders, the girls’ mother, Julie, wrote Gary Willis a check for seven hundred thousand dollars of it.”

“Holy crap! Seven hundred thousand dollars? Why?”

Bitty removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I certainly plan to find out.”