The Darkest Corners (25 page)

The Midway Truck Center looks like the blueprint of a nightmare. Next to a truck with Oregon plates, a man pisses right onto the curb, barely lifting his eyes at us as Ryan pulls into a parking spot.

There's a convenience store and a Dairy Queen. We get out of the truck and head for the convenience store. Callie and I hang back and let Ryan go up to the counter with the photo of Emily.

“He said check out the DQ,” Ryan informs us. “Says ‘lizards' hang out there.”

Callie frowns. “Lizards?”

“It's what the truckers call the prostitutes,” I say.

“I don't want to ask how you know that,” Callie mutters on our way out the door.

The term always seems to pop up when people talk about Kristal Davis. A lizard usually trades sex for drug money. Before the police connected all the murders, a lot of the people who knew Kristal Davis assumed that she was killed after trying to rob the wrong trucker.

I spot them at a booth by the bathrooms—three women. They're clearly not a family; one is Hispanic, one black, and one white. There are balled-up burger wrappers on the table in front of them.

The white woman's face is pockmarked, her arms stained with spots of purple. Heroin track marks.

Over the lid of her soda, her eyes narrow at us. She nudges the woman next to her, and their laughter subsides.

“There a
problem
?” the black woman demands. A thorny rosebud vine is tattooed on her neck, encircling the name
Micah
.

Callie and Ryan are useless, so I open my mouth, despite the fact that these women intimidate the crap out of me. “We're looking for someone,” I say.

“Yeah, well, we don't know someone.” The woman with the heroin tracks is also missing one of her front teeth. Next to her, the youngest-looking woman of the bunch—the one who's been quiet so far—shifts in her seat, eyes trained on her soda straw.

“Maybe we can show you her picture,” Callie offers in a meek voice.

The black woman sets down her drink. “Maybe you can fuck off, because for all we know, y'all work for the cops.”

“Look, we don't want trouble or anything,” Ryan says. He sounds so much like a cop that I'm embarrassed for him. “We're just worried that our friend is hanging around a guy who may hurt her.”

“Then you're not doing her any good by looking for her,” the white woman grunts. “Do yourselves a favor and get home before your bedtimes.”

“Yeah, the bad men are gonna come out soon.” Micah wiggles a penciled-in eyebrow. The two of them laugh and smack the table, jolting the younger girl.

Ryan mutters “Let's get out of here,” and we turn around, heading for the exit. Just before we get to the door, the white woman calls after us, asking if we've got a cigarette.

I clench my fists at my side as I push open the Dairy Queen door for Callie and Ryan. I'm not deluded enough to think I have any street cred, but I might have gotten those women to talk without Small Town Barbie and Ken with me.

“Well, that went well,” Ryan says darkly when we're in the parking lot. Callie looks like she's stepped out of an episode of
Beyond Scared Straight.

“You should have let me handle it,” I mutter. “They felt like we were ganging up on them.”

Callie clears her throat and nods over my shoulder. The youngest girl from the table is standing behind me.

“They act like that when they're scared,” she says quietly. “Shanice got busted trying to buy from an undercover cop, and then that girl got killed down in Mason…”

The girl wraps her arms around her body. “I'm Pam.”

There's the slightest hesitation in her voice, like it's not her real name. She doesn't look like she's much older than us. No doubt this girl's on a missing persons poster stuck to a pole somewhere.

“Do you have that picture?” she asks. “Maybe I can help.”

Callie pulls out her phone and shows her Emily, and Pam shakes her head. “Nah, I don't know her. But it doesn't mean she hasn't been through here. Lots of girls come through here.”

“What about the girl who got killed?” I ask. “Did you ever see her around?”

Pam shakes her head. “She wasn't one of us, you know? From what I been hearing, she used Connect. Sometimes those girls meet men here, but I never seen her.”

“Do a lot of truckers use that site?” I ask.

Pam looks uncomfortable. “No. Using the site to find men ain't smart at all. We don't do it. I mean, I've heard horror stories.”

“What about a guy who calls himself Captain?” Ryan chimes in. “Our fr—her sister met a creepy guy on Connect. He didn't want sex from her.”

Pam's expression changes, and a flicker of hope lights in me.

“We look out for each other,” she says. “We got, like, a list of guys to stay away from. You can't tell nobody about this, okay?”

Callie and I nod. Ryan doesn't. I glare at him.

“Okay,” he says.

Pam hesitates. “So, like, I used to work the Penn Welcome Center off 81, before they shut it down. It was rough, like rougher than here. This woman kind of took me in. I can't tell you her name or nothing 'cause she asked me not to. But she also danced at a strip club that used to be across the highway.”

Pam lowers her voice. “So one night we're talking about johns to stay away from, and she tells me that four years ago, she met this guy while she was dancing. She brought him in her car to the stop. And it was just like you said—he didn't want to touch her or nothing. She got real frustrated and made a move, and he hit her in the face. She tried to fight back, and he
choked
her.”

Callie stiffens next to me.

“So she, like, passed out and stuff, and when she woke up, they were parked in the woods and the man was going through her trunk. But she always carried a box cutter, and she played like she was still passed out.” Pam pauses for effect. “When he opened the door, she cut him in the face. He had her keys, so she had to run screaming for help, and he chased her for a while, but eventually he gave up and she got away.

“Anyway,” Pam says. “It reminded me of your Captain guy, because she said he was in like a uniform of some sort. She didn't talk about it for years, 'cause she thought he was a cop and he'd find her and finish the job, you know?”

I swallow to clear my throat. “Did she tell you anything at all about what he looks like?”

“Like they all do.” Pam rolls her eyes. “In his forties, maybe. Average height, balding. She told me to look out for two things, though.”

The three of us practically lean forward.

“His eyes,” Pam whispers. “She said his eyes are friendly.”

Callie glances at me. I know what she's thinking. If this is Captain, he sounds nothing like Daryl Kouchinsky.

“What's the other thing?” Ryan asks. “That she told you to look out for.”

“Oh, well, she got him real good on the face,” Pam says. “So he's got to have a scar.”

Pam looks down at her nails, which are bitten to the cuticle. “I don't know. I just been thinking of him lately since that girl got killed. He's probably not who your girl is hanging around with,” she says quickly, her eyes sympathetic.

I almost want to tell Pam that we don't have a missing friend at all, but under her innocence I sense a woman who knows how to take care of herself. A woman who wouldn't like being lied to for information.

We thank Pam and head back toward the truck. Callie stops, like she forgot something. Ryan and I turn and watch her take a twenty from her wristlet and give it to Pam. I feel my eyes narrowing as Callie says something, and Pam nods.

“What did you say to her?” I ask when Callie catches up.

“Just to be careful.” Something in Callie's demeanor has changed since we got here—as if all her bravado had been stripped away. She's silent as we climb into the truck and start the hourlong journey home. From the backseat, I watch her reflection in the side mirror.

She barely blinks the entire ride, like she's afraid to fall asleep now that she's finally awake.

Somewhere around exit forty, I break the silence in the truck.

“I think the guy Pam described is Captain, and I think he's the real Monster.”

Ryan says nothing.

“Tell me you think I'm wrong.” I find his eyes in the rearview mirror. “You risked getting your uncle in trouble by telling us how Ariel was killed, you didn't rat Nick out, and you came with us tonight. You believe that they got the wrong guy for the Monster murders too.”

Ryan's quiet.

“And if you didn't know already, Callie and I didn't see Stokes in her yard that night,” I say. “We were just kids, and they manipulated us to get the statement they wanted.”

Callie leans her head against the window. I can't tell if she's mad at me for telling Ryan. Maybe he already knew. Either way, his face is expressionless. Some people are impossible to read.

Ryan finally speaks after a loaded pause. “If the Monster murdered Ari, why did he start again? Why risk being caught after all these years? It doesn't make sense.”

“He tried to kill another girl. He would have killed Pam's friend if she hadn't gotten away,” I say. “He probably figured he had to lay low for a while in case she told someone about him. He's smart enough to have stayed hidden all these years. Obviously, he knows law enforcement. Maybe he's even—”

“Don't say it,” Ryan says. “That he could be a cop.”

“Why? The man Pam described sounds nothing like your uncle.”

“Tessa.” Callie's voice is sharp. “Just stop.”

There's quiet for a beat, until Ryan speaks up. “Cop or not, no one's gonna believe the word of a prostitute. Nick is the only one who can corroborate that this Captain guy exists, and without the chat history on Ari's phone, his word is as good as nothing.”

“He's going to do it again,” I say quietly. “If he thinks he can get away with it, he'll do it again.”

“I have an idea,” Callie says, so firmly that I suspect she's been thinking of it this whole time. “Of something that we can do. To draw him out.”

“No way,” Ryan says. “I know what you're probably thinking, and that's nuts—”

It dawns on me, what they're talking about.

“It could work,” I interrupt, my toes tingling. “We create a fake profile on all the escort sites and see if we can bait him. We know his type. Skinny, big eyes. Lonely.”

“It's dangerous, and it
won't
work.” Ryan grips the steering wheel. “This guy has gotta be on high alert right now. If he's smart enough to stay hidden for ten years, he'll sense he's being set up.”

“So we make him think we're legit,” I say. “He won't smell a cop, because there aren't any.”

“If he contacts us, we'll see where he wants to meet up,” Callie says, excitement in her voice. “But instead of meeting him, we stay in the car and scope it out. See what he looks like, and get a picture to show the cops.”

We're almost at the exit for Fayette. Callie puts her hand on Ryan's knee. It's the first remotely affectionate gesture I've seen her make toward him.

“If it were you—if you were so wrong about something and it wound up hurting someone, wouldn't you do anything to make it right?” Callie says.

Even though she's not looking at me, I know she's talking to me. I know that in her own way, she's saying she's ready to be wrong, and for everything it means. That even if we'll never know what really happened to Lori that night, we can undo some of the damage we caused if we can just find the Monster who killed Ari.

There's an uneasy feeling in my gut.
Anything to make it right.

Gram always says that people get what they deserve in the end. But could ending everything be as easy as finding Captain?

If making things right isn't the end of this ten-year nightmare, then what is?

Ryan drops us off at the bottom of the Greenwoods' driveway.

“You can't tell your uncle about any of this,” Callie says through the window once we step out.

“You do realize that eventually we're gonna have to tell someone?” Ryan says.

Callie is stone-faced. Ryan snorts. Shakes his head.

“What?” Callie demands.

“I don't know why you do that,” he says quietly, as if only she could hear.

“Do what?” she says, and I step back, wishing I could disappear.

Ryan just shakes his head again. “Act like you don't need help, when everything about you is crying for it.”

So maybe I underestimated Ryan Elwood. Callie's lip twitches, but she doesn't say anything. Neither of us says anything as Ryan pulls away, his headlights disappearing down the street.

“He's right,” I say. “About telling someone. We're running out of time, and I can't stay forever.”

I don't get to see Callie's reaction, because she screams. There's someone crouched behind the minivan. Daryl Kouchinsky emerges from the shadows and blocks our path up the driveway.

It all happens too fast for me to react. Before I can even move, Callie's shrieking and Daryl's cursing and has her by the throat, lifting her off the ground by one hand. He slams her against the minivan, her head bouncing against the window.

“Heard you visited my daughter yesterday,” he grunts. “You trying to put ideas in her head, you little bitch?”

Callie tries to shake her head, but Daryl is pressing his thumb into her trachea, and she can't move.

I run for one of the potted plants lining the driveway and lift it up. It's heavy, and it teeters as I raise it as high as my arms will allow. I come up behind Daryl and smash it into the back of his head.

He sways backward. I freeze, afraid that I've killed him. Callie crumples to the ground, crying. Daryl's on his feet again, and he turns to me and blinks, stunned. He steps toward me, but there's yelling across the street and he freezes.

“Callie? What's going on?” a woman screams from her porch, clutching a phone.

Daryl takes one look at her and makes a break for his truck, which is parked in front of the next-door neighbor's house. We didn't even see it.

The woman across the street runs toward us, but I'm already on the Greenwoods' porch. I throw open the door and scream for Maggie. Footsteps thunder on the stairs as I turn and run back down the driveway.

Callie is slumped against the minivan, gasping for air, hands clutching her throat. The woman from across the street is on the phone.

“Yes, she's been attacked,” the woman says, and gives the operator the Greenwoods' address. I'm shaking as I sit beside Callie, and I think I've peed myself a little. Maggie and Rick round the corner of the minivan and gasp.

“What happened?” Maggie shouts. “What the hell happened?”

“Daryl,” Callie says, her voice hoarse.

Rick slams his hand against the car and says he's going to get his keys. I catch “I'm going after him.”

Maggie grabs Rick's sleeve and shrieks that no he's not, and the neighbor shushes them because she's still on the phone with 911. Maggie sinks down next to Callie and holds her face in her hands.

“I'm okay,” Callie says. She repeats it and turns her head toward me. “Tess…”

“What?” Maggie snaps her head toward me. Her eyes drop to my filthy hands, the broken flowerpot on the driveway.

She lets out a sob and pulls me to her chest. Maggie holds me so tightly that a single word materializes in my head.
Safe.

I break away as an ambulance pulls up to the curb and stops, a police first responder SUV right behind it. Two EMTs throw open the back doors of the ambulance and roll out a stretcher. Red light and blue light spill over the driveway.

“For Christ's sake,” Callie says. “I'm
okay.
”

Maggie isn't hearing it. She makes them load Callie into the ambulance. By the mailbox, Rick is raising his voice at the police first responder, a guy who looks barely old enough to drink.

“—u-c-h-i-n-s-k-y,”
Rick spells. “I'll drive you to his house right now—”

“Sir, that's really not necessary.” The guy holds up a hand. He presses the radio mic on his belt and tells the person on the other end to send another unit to the house. He points a pen at me.

“You were here?”

I describe what happened—that Daryl was waiting for us, I hit him over the head with the flowerpot, and he took off when the neighbor came outside. When the first responder asks if there's a reason why Mr. Kouchinsky would want to attack Callie, I hesitate, stealing a glance at Rick.

“We saw his daughter in the hospital yesterday,” I say. “Someone beat her up, and it's not exactly a secret that Callie thinks it was him.”

Rick's mouth forms a line. The first responder writes something on a notepad. A police cruiser pulls in as the ambulance pulls away, taking Callie and Maggie with it. Rick tells me to wait inside and says he'll call me out if the officers need to speak with me further.

My knees wobble as I pick my way up the stairs. I change into my pajamas and lock myself in the bathroom. I vomit into the toilet—sour, nasty, adrenaline-crash vomit. I brush my teeth and head back downstairs. The flashing lights of the police cruiser have lit up the living room.

I have to talk to someone about what just happened,
everything
that's happened in the past eight hours. But if I tell Gram I spent the day chatting with escorts at a truck stop before assaulting a man with a flowerpot, she may get on a plane and come up here.

I have to get away from the lights in the living room before my head explodes. I slip into the family room and sit at Rick's desk, forcing myself to do the breathe-in-through-the-nose-and-out-the-mouth thing. It settles me enough that my fingers stop trembling, and I shake the mouse to wake the computer up. With Callie in the ER, I might as well read up more on Macy Stevens and try to make sense of the phone call.

In the most popular photo, Macy is holding a stuffed frog. Her light brown hair is in a stubby little ponytail on top of her head. I click through the other photos: Macy in long johns, a Christmas gift on her lap. Macy in a high chair, her mouth circled with something sticky and orange.

An age-progression picture, showing what Macy might look like now, at twenty-seven. The face is unsmiling, but the girl is striking. She looks like Amanda Stevens, who had enormous green eyes and milky-white skin. I make the image larger, and my blood chills.

I missed it earlier when I was looking at the photos—the small, angry pink gash on Macy's chin. One that would have turned into a scar in a few years.

I enlarge the photo more and zoom in, my pulse thrumming in my ears.

Is it on the same side?

No.

Yes.

I zoom in on the age-progression photo of Macy. They got her mouth wrong—she didn't get Amanda Stevens's full upper lip. But her eyes, the slight point of her chin—there's no doubt in my mind that it's her.

Joslin.

That son of a bitch. Did he know?

My father didn't kill Macy Stevens and hide her body. She lived in Fayette with him for most of her life.