Secondhand Sinners (27 page)

Alan pushed open the door to a room with Hoyt’s name in the placard on the wall and ushered her in. It had been years since she’d seen him. They had not been kind years. He was a skeleton, lying in his bed, sleeping and slowly dying. Alan locked the door, reached behind him, and pulled a gun out from the back of his waistband. “Here. Take this.”

“No. You said you’d tell Owens I tried to get the gun from you.”

“Now I’m saying that if you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, the next time you see your kid, you’ll be locked up for drugs and escaping custody and anything else I can think of.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

He motioned toward Hoyt. “Aim and shoot.”

“No way.”

“Take it.”

“Look at him. He’s nearly dead. What good will killing him now do?”

“I didn’t choose to have Hoyt in my life. That was my mom’s doing. After I came back and discovered he still had that box at the bank, I spent years thinking there was going to be some kind of payoff for having him in my life. That bastard didn’t just cheat me out of a stash of cash. He stole years of my life. I can’t think of anything more fucking poetic than for the bastard to die by your hand…your perfect, oh-my-poor-Daniel, self-righteous hand.”

“No, I…” Up to now, Emily had thought he was messing with her, and now it was clear that he was serious. Everything around her started to move in slow motion. “I can’t kill someone. That’s not me.”

“It is you. Hey. Wake up, old man.” Alan poked Hoyt in the shoulder with the barrel of the gun until he opened his eyes. He looked around the room as though he couldn’t see anything, then when his gaze fell on Emily, recognition hit. Emily could swear he had a smile on his face. “It is you, and you don’t even know it. Hoyt knows it, don’t ya?” He poked Hoyt with the gun again.

“I’m not going to kill someone.”

“You think you’re so much better than me, that you wouldn’t do anything it took to get what you want.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

“I’m going to show you how right I am.” He tucked the gun back into his waistband, reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.

“Yeah?” a woman’s voice came over the speaker.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead and send them. Then start the timer.” Alan stared at the screen until an alert sounded. Then he smiled and rotated the phone around and showed her a picture of Jack.

“Oh my God.” She grabbed the phone and stared at the image of her little boy lying on a blanket, eyes closed, on what appeared to be some kind of cot.

“There’s another one.”

Emily gasped when she scrolled over. It was the same picture except for one detail—next to Jack’s head was a syringe. “What is that for? Wait. What timer?”

“You still there?” Alan asked.

“Yes, and it’s all set,” the woman said.

Alan took the phone from Emily and laid it on the table beside Hoyt’s bed. “My friend, the one who took those pictures of your son, has set a timer for five minutes. If she doesn’t hear a gunshot and then my voice saying Hoyt’s dead, she will inject your brat with a syringe full of bleach.”

Emily could feel the blood drain from her face. “You can’t. You’d never get away with it.”

“Think about it. Your kid went missing right before your mom went on a family murder spree. When they find him dead with bleach in his system, they’re going to know she did it.”

“What will they think when they find Hoyt dead from a bullet that came from your gun?”

“This ain’t my gun. It’s Hoyt’s. You must’ve stolen it when you were at my house. You know…after you escaped my custody.”

“I haven’t been to your house.”

“Well your purse is there.”

“Why would I go to your house if I had just escaped from you?”

“Who knows what kind of crazy thoughts were running through that head of yours? Maybe you’re obsessed with me. I mean, anyone who deals drugs and lets her kid wander off while she’s having rough sex can’t be all there, you know? Not to mention the fact that your mom is out there killing people. Doesn’t insanity run in the family? That’s it! You can make an insanity plea when you go to trial. Tell you what. I’ll testify for you.” He offered her the gun. “And don’t forget, she has to hear me say I’m okay, so don’t even think about trying to shoot me.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I think the more important question is why are you still talking when the timer is running? How many minutes?”

The woman on the other end of the phone answered, “Three.”

It took everything in her not to throw up as she took the gun and closed her hand around the grip. “How do I know she won’t hurt him anyway?”

“Jen? What happens if she shoots?”

“I drop the kids off at the nearest gas station.”

“Swear it,” Emily pleaded with Alan’s accomplice. “Swear it on your life.”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Say it.”

“I swear on my life. Your kids will be safe.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she tried to appeal to the sincerity she heard in the woman’s voice that gave her hope she didn’t want to hurt Jack. “You can hang up now and call the police. You don’t have to wait for me to—”

“That’s enough,” Alan said. “Jenny’s not going to listen to a word you have to say. She’s got incentives of her own, don’t ya, Jenny?”

“Two minutes,” the voice said.

Emily tightened her grip on the gun. Alan was right. About everything. No one was looking for Jack, not in the right place. She would do whatever it took to keep him and Abby safe. Alan’s words,
It is you, and you don’t even know it
, pulsed in her ear, like they had somehow gotten into her bloodstream and were working their way through her body straight to her hands, causing them to shake uncontrollably.

“Here. Let me help.” Alan led her to the foot of the bed and stood behind her. He pressed his body up to hers, pinning her between himself and the bed. He ran his hands tenderly down her arms as he lifted them and pushed them together, forcing her finger on the trigger as she pointed the gun at Hoyt. “Think about all those times he made Daniel go without his medicine,” he said in a low voice into her ear. “If he hadn’t been such a sorry excuse for a human, Daniel would probably be alive right now. Think about your boy. Abby. Everything you love can be saved by one squeeze of a trigger. That’s it.”

Hoyt was staring at her. The recognition was gone. Now he was silently pleading. She couldn’t tell if it was for his life or for his death. It didn’t matter. Emily took a deep breath, knowing that within the next few seconds, Hoyt would be dead. And she’d be a murderer.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Miller

Leaving Emily alone in that hospital room was one of the hardest things Miller ever did. Probably because he knew how impossible it would be to keep him cooped up in a room while his daughter was missing. As bad as not knowing where Abby was, at least he was able to get out there and look for her. Emily was stuck in his worst nightmare. Not knowing where his child was and not being able to look for her…or him…was on his
Please God, No
list, right up there with Alan being in his home again.

The man was either a psycho or a sociopath. Or both.

His first stop was Dr. Nichol’s office to talk to the Capricorn.

When he raced into the office, she looked over her shoulder quickly. She stood up and whispered, “What are you doing here?”

“I need Jenny Abernathy’s address.”

“I said I’d get it to you.”

“I need it now.”

“I tried, okay? I almost got caught.”

Miller had no idea how far he could push this girl until she recanted her offer to help, so his only strategy was to take it easy and appeal to whatever it was in her that wanted to help him in the first place. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. It’s just that my daughter is missing, and I think Ms. Abernathy might be my best chance of finding her. You are my best hope for finding Ms. Abernathy. I don’t think it’s merely a coincidence that your horoscope told you to help me.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “The universe works that way sometimes.”

“Exactly. I’ve always believed there’s no such thing as a coincidence.” Abby would be laughing at him if she was there, listening to him discuss the ways of the cosmos with a girl who had a streak of pink in her hair and a stack of
Glamour
magazines at her desk.

“I’ll try again. He has one more appointment left. He should be out of here by five-thirty.”

“That’s a whole hour away.”

“I’m sorry. Did you try Facebook?”

“I’m not even on Facebook.”

“If she’s friends with someone you know, they can send her a message.”

If Miller had any friends, and if these hypothetical friends were on Facebook, he doubted they’d be friends with a nurse in her early-twenties. “Thanks, anyway. I’ll have to wait to hear from you.” He walked out of the office, out of the hospital and went to his car with no idea where to go next. Owens said he had been to Alan’s and didn’t see a trace of Abby there, which wasn’t a surprise.

Alan was smarter than he had given him credit for. He’d been three steps ahead of them all day, and Miller was sick of it. It was time to get his hands a little dirty.

“Tit-for-tat, asshole,” he said to himself as he pulled out of the parking lot of the hospital and went in the direction of Alan’s home. He was going to find his daughter, even if he had to tear the place up. He owed Alan a little home invasion payback, after all.

***

When he got to Alan’s, he didn’t even bother knocking. He got his baseball bat out from behind the seat and slammed away at the cheap knob on the old door until it gave in. Idiot. People like Alan should really invest a little more in the barriers they erect between them and all the angry people who wanted to kill them.

Once inside, he called out for Abby as he moved through the house. There was no one in the house. Maybe Alan had written Jenny’s phone number or address down. Where to look, though? The only thing to do was start at the back of the house and work his way forward, so Miller headed for Alan’s bedroom.

He started by rummaging through the drawers in Alan’s chest of drawers. Then he moved to the drawer in the bedside table, in which he found a Jack Daniels, condoms, and porn. Miller knew that if he stopped long enough to think about the fact that this bastard had been alone with Abby for any length of time, he’d lose his mind.

He sat down on the bed, knowing Sara had probably been in it with Alan. How had another man, who liked porn and younger women, gotten ahold of his life? Was Alan that cunning, or was Miller that oblivious? What was he doing that he couldn’t see Alan had worked his way into Sara’s head? Where was he when Alan was using the key Sara had given him to let himself into his house and into his wife? They were quite a pair—Alan was too focused on righting wrongs of his past while Miller was too worried they’d be discovered.

He was beginning to feel the same sensation as walking through Abby’s room and seeing that everything had changed. On his way out of the house, he passed by the kitchen and saw a laptop. He opened it, opened the browser, typed in the Facebook address and Alan’s ugly mug stared back at him in the form of a selfie. He knew enough about the website from Abby to know Alan would have a friend list. When he found that, he typed
Jenny A
into the search box. There she was. His first break of the day. He clicked on her name and scanned that page until he saw the
About
box and the words:
Blue, OK.
That was only a few miles away. Not bad. It wasn’t far at all, and he knew the town well because he used to live there. He clicked on the link to that page, but there was no street address listed.

Miller was furiously scanning the page to find some more information when a box popped up on the bottom of the screen with Jenny’s picture.

Jenny: Why u on fb?

Miller: Forgot ur address.

Jenny: Whatever.

Miller: No. rlly.

Jenny: 1212 Lilac.

Miller: How’s the girl?

Jenny: Scared.

Miller smiled to himself a little. He was about to get his daughter back.

He was about to close the browser when he noticed the box at the top that asked:
What’s on your mind?
He typed:

I have a small brain and a smaller penis.

Post
.

While not exactly payback for everything Alan had done, it was a good start.

He closed the laptop and was about to stand up when he looked closer at the papers on the table. There had to have been fifteen pads of yellow paper, and each pad was filled with Alan’s handwriting, full of phrases like
if…next…then…do…don’t…
This was how he planned everything.
How long had he been working on this?

He picked up a handful of the pads of paper. He could show one of them to Sheriff Owens, and the old man would have to see Alan had been lying to him. Miller’s eye caught a splash of red peeking out from underneath what was left of the pile. It was a red heart sticker. No, not one. Lots. He pushed the pads of paper out of the way and uncovered the blue notebook that Hoyt had saved in a safe deposit box for so many years.

He swallowed hard, opened the book and saw what had made Alan so angry—Emily. It was full of pictures of Emily. The pictures were crooked, taped to the pages with old masking tape. The first few pages had pictures of her and Daniel together. The next three or four were full of torn pieces of paper from doodles she used to do when they all studied together and then threw away when they were finished. He recognized them because she always drew flowers when she doodled. He flipped to the end of the book. The last thing in it was a lock of hair he could only assume was Emily’s as a baby. It was tied with a yellow ribbon and taped down with the thick, yellowing tape. It looked like a stalker’s homage to his prey, like an old man obsessed with a young girl, like Hoyt was in love with Emily. With his worst fears confirmed, Miller sat down again and waited for the storm of emotion to pass. He couldn’t show up to get Abby with so much dread hanging off him. She’d see it, she’d know something was wrong, and since he refused to lie to her anymore, he’d have to tell her the truth.

How could he explain such a thing? How could such an amazing creature be the product of something so vile? How could he make her believe that it didn’t matter to him where she came from, and he was simply glad she was in his life?

Miller opened the notebook again and looked at the lock of hair. It was the same shade of blonde as Abby’s, had the same texture, even. It reminded him of the lock of Abby’s hair that was in her baby book.

Her baby book?
He went back to the beginning and thumbed through it once more, this time looking at it through the eyes of a father who couldn’t acknowledge his own daughter. With his focus shifted, he no longer saw photos of Daniel and one of his friends. They were pictures of a brother and sister. Then the second wave of realization hit. Emily’s family hated her, hated the time she spent with Daniel and his family, hated the very mention of Hoyt’s name. The horrible screech with which Violet called out Hoyt’s name in the nursing home came back to him. What was it she said?
I kilt one ‘a your bastards before, Hoyt Thornton, and I’ll do it again. I swear to Jesus I will.

Miller replaced the notebook and pads of paper, carefully arranging them like they were. Then he thought about it and took one of the pads. Owens might be interested in seeing it. He was walking out the door of Alan’s house as the third wave hit. Abby didn’t get her Wilson’s from Hoyt. She got it from Emily. He was going to go get his daughter. His and Emily’s.