You Believers (36 page)

The judge asked Jesse if he had anything to say before they led him away. And I was thinking,
Why give this man anything to say
? Then I remembered it’s always a good idea to listen between the lines of a confident man. The firmer his stance, the more likely you’ll be able to see the little cracks between those proud words. He stood, faced his parents. “I told you I was the devil. Everybody in this room ought to stand back in fear of me.” He scanned the room, hoping to see the fear he could stir with his words. His eyes passed over me but locked on Livy. He made a move to look away from her, but something
yanked his gaze back. He stood and stared, and she stared right back at him as if they knew each other from some other time. I could see her trembling. I squeezed her hand to bring her back to me. One of the guards nudged Jesse back toward his chair. Jesse jerked free, looked up at the judge. “Ain’t nothing but a devil can do the things I do. Go on and sentence me, judge. We’ll see how long that lasts. You go on and bang that gavel like you got some kind of power over me.”

And Jesse’s words, of course, set the judge to doing exactly what Jesse asked.

A Lucky Boat

Livy studied the blue-gray ocean rippling out on the horizon. She felt Shelby beside her but thought she’d lose all courage if she saw one more look of pity. “I know you’ve told me,” she said, “but what is the girl’s name again?” She hated the way things kept falling out of her head these days. But there was so much to hold on to, so many little facts, signs of what could have gone wrong. Anything could be a clue. The last time she had seen Katy, Katy had been nervous. She tried to hide it with a smile pasted on her face, but she kept fiddling things with her hands. The napkin she folded and folded into a little triangle just to unfold it and fold it again. The straw for her margarita, she chewed it the way she’d chewed things when she’d been a girl. They were at the marina restaurant even though Livy didn’t care for the food. But Katy said she’d heard it had improved. It hadn’t. The fish was dry and the salad drenched. Katy smelled like cigarettes, and Livy said something like, “I thought you gave up smoking.” And Katy just sipped her drink, squinted out at the sun, chewed an ice cube. Livy wanted to tell her to stop, she’d ruin her teeth. But the cigarettes were enough. “I just do it now and then,” Katy said, “when I’m drinking.” And Livy thought,
You seem to be drinking a lot these days
—Katy had had three margaritas. “Don’t fuss, Mom,” Katy said. “Aren’t you glad I came for a visit?” She kept checking the texts on her phone. She hadn’t made the sudden trip home to see her mom. Girls didn’t do that. A girl made sudden trips and watched for texts on a cell phone only for a man.

“She had secrets,” Livy said. “I know she did.”

“Who?” Shelby asked.

She glanced at Shelby, no sorrow, just confusion in her eyes.

“What were we talking about?” Livy asked.

“Molly Flynn, the girl from Land Fall,” Shelby said.

Livy wasn’t sure she would ever be ready for what she’d learn from the girl. She stood on the lawn of the girl’s father’s house: an upscale beachfront home, designed with gardens, stone paths, a pond where koi bobbed up for food. She felt Shelby waiting beside her, wanted to talk about how much water, how much dirt and work it must take to keep this beachfront property green. She said, “I don’t think I can stand this.”

Livy looked around at the hibiscus, the jasmine blooming. They were at the girl’s father’s house. The girl from Land Fall. “I was thinking about Katy. I was remembering. I know I should pay attention. It’s rude not to pay attention. This girl. What is her name?”

“Molly. Molly Flynn. We’re at her father’s house.”

“I know where we are,” Livy said. “The girl who lived. We’re at her father’s house. She doesn’t want to go back to her mother’s house. I don’t blame her. Who could go back to that place? This man raped her. How many times? You say he cut her legs, her belly, her throat? Her chest? He tried to choke her, but she fought him. She kicked free from the duct tape and ran out. You told me. It’s a miracle, you said.” A gull called, a hungry, screeching sound. She looked up to three of them circling above. “Hoping for a scrap,” Livy said. “Some things always want a scrap. I hate seagulls.” She felt a bead of sweat run
down her throat. She tapped it with a tissue. “We’re going to melt if they don’t let us in soon. What’s taking so long?”

“Roy is making sure the girl is comfortable. And the parents. They’ve been through hell, you know.”

“I know hell,” Livy said.

“The girl doesn’t have to do this. She’s already made a statement. But she wanted to meet you.”

“She’s pretty sure it was Katy?” The words felt like stones dropped into the pockets of Livy’s seersucker jacket, heaviness falling. She tried to remember, who was the writer who had waded into a river with stones in her pocket? Katy would know. Livy looked toward the house, willing Roy to come out, let them in. But there was another urge for her to get into the car, drive away, take a plane home to where she could try to pretend something, anything but this. “The girl, she must be very strong.”

“She has a strong will,” Shelby said. “And she’s lucky. She’s very lucky. Lots of things come into play in something like this. Sometimes it just makes no sense at all.”

“No sense at all,” Livy said.

“You need some water?” Shelby said. “We can wait in the truck. I can turn on the AC. I didn’t think we’d be out here this long.”

“I just want to get this over. I like to think Katy is strong, but she’s not, really. Her daddy broke her spirit a long time ago. I guess he taught her how to live with fear, taught her to take it. I used to like to think learning to live with fear was a strength. But now I think it’s a weakness.”

Her phone buzzed in her purse. She checked, saw it was Lawrence, clicked the ringer off. She listened to his message, then set the phone to silence.

He wanted to come down. He thought nothing good could come
from meeting this girl. He said she’d just upset Livy all the more. But Livy knew she needed to hear it. The girl said the man had bragged about the things he’d done to a tall, skinny girl who drove a blue truck with Tennessee plates. He’d said she’d gone fast. Shelby had told her that much. Lawrence said to leave it to the cops. Lawrence said she couldn’t solve anything. But Lawrence saw a problem out there as a simple thing: a woman missing; the cops will find her. He didn’t understand the tangle of wondering what Livy had done wrong to raise a smart girl who wanted to marry a pot-head bricklayer, a girl who couldn’t really tear her heart from the drug dealer named Frank.

She took out her phone, thought maybe she should talk to Lawrence, maybe he would say something sensible, maybe she’d believe whatever he said because whatever he said would be better than what she feared. When she’d told him about the other girl, he’d been doubtful. It seemed unlikely, he had said. “Too coincidental that the man who took Katy attacked this girl on the news. You’re hearing what you need to hear, Livy.”

She told Lawrence it was the sheriff who said this was a lead. She argued, and he kept talking over her until they were both talked out. “Just call me if you need me,” he started to say, but she didn’t want to hear it. She clicked her phone off. His words kept droning in her head:
You’re hearing what you need to hear
. But he was wrong. She wanted to hear that Katy was fine, that she’d just run away, the very words Lawrence kept telling her. She wanted to hear them from someone else, like Katy standing in front of her saying, “I’m sorry I scared you, Mom, but I just had to run away.” She tried to tell herself she would hear these words, but all she really heard was the voice deep and strong inside her whispering,
Katy is gone
.

Shelby touched her arm. “Let’s move to the patio. There’s shade
there.” As they walked, Shelby kept her eyes on the house. “This is taking longer than I thought. Maybe the girl has changed her mind about talking to you.”

“Maybe Lawrence is right. Unnecessary pain.”

Shelby stopped. “You don’t want to hear this?”

“No, I do. But I don’t. I mean all she has is a story. She must have been delirious. We don’t know anything for sure. There have to be a dozen girls driving trucks from Tennessee.” She heard her voice, the pitch rising with a desperate sound.

“You’ve got to follow every lead,” Shelby said. Her eyes went back to the door.

“I don’t want to hear what she says,” Livy said. “But I’ll go out of my mind if she turns us away.” Shelby nodded. “Lawrence keeps telling me I’m overreacting. We all knew she still wanted to be with Frank back home. She had a thing for the bad boys.” Livy paused, looked around her at the landscaping, the ocean view, the huge house of stone and glass that sat on the promontory. “This place is gorgeous,” she said. “This Molly, she comes from money, lives in a gated community. Horrible things aren’t supposed to happen to girls like that.”

“Horrible things happen to anybody.” Shelby was checking her phone.

“Don’t you hate it when you get a call? Always some new awful thing?”

“Not always,” Shelby said. “Sometimes it really is just a case of prewedding jitters. Sometimes we find a father has stolen his child for a good reason. Once we found this old woman with early-stage Alzheimer’s. Lost for three days. She’d been staying with a man she liked to call her gentleman friend. We found them in an IHOP having strawberry pancakes. It’s not always bad.”

“This story won’t have a happy ending,” Livy said.

Livy heard the front door open, saw a man standing there, white
shirt, gray slacks, all perfectly pressed, but his face, he was torn up inside. He nodded at Livy, looked to Shelby, and said, “She’s my daughter.”

Shelby nodded. “Just say the word and we’ll be out of here.”

The man gave a little gesture to come in, and a chill ran up Livy’s back. She kept her eyes on Shelby, who was leading the way. Livy took the hard first step, kept moving, one foot, the next, and again. She didn’t want to look up, but she would once she crossed that threshold. What would she say to the mother of Molly Flynn?
You are the lucky one
?

She walked into the house, not seeing anything until they were led to the living room. Livy sat, trying not to stare at the girl. The girl had picked the darkest place in the room to sit, a difficult thing to do in a room full of light with vaulted ceilings and a wall of glass that opened to a balcony overlooking the ocean. She was tiny, had the body of a little girl made smaller by the dark leather recliner. When Livy was introduced to her, she just gave a little nod. Livy couldn’t remember the parents’ names. Now the mother was in the kitchen. Livy could hear the clink of ice being dropped into glasses. The father was standing by the girl, his eyes giving encouraging little glances to Livy, Shelby, Roy. The girl looked at Livy, seemed to be watching her for a sign of something. Livy looked her in the eye, gave a nod—how many times had she nodded at the girl? She probably looked stiff as a doll with her head about to fall off. She forced a flicker of a smile, looked to the man, said, “You have a beautiful home here.”

“Thank you,” he said. He looked at his girl and lightly, so lightly, brushed his palm over the top of her head as if to make sure she was really there.

The girl leaned back, closed her eyes, and made a sighing sound. One bandaged hand rested carefully in her lap. Livy could see little
cuts on the fingers. The other hand lay cupped on her chest. The left side of her face was scraped, her eye black with the bruise reaching down her jaw. Her lip was swollen, scabbed. She wore yoga tights and a hoodie over her t-shirt. She was barefoot, her toenails bubblegum pink.

The mother brought out a tray of iced tea. The father stood, patted his ex-wife’s shoulder, took a glass to his daughter. She sat and sipped small sips, careful not to bump the scab on her lip. The man went back to the mother, served them all to keep her from moving around the room. Finally he gave the mother her own glass, led her to her chair by the girl, and took the tray back to the kitchen. Livy wondered if they were always so polite. He came back into the room and went to them, touched his daughter’s head, squeezed the mother’s shoulder. She looked up at him smiled, patted his hand. He looked around the room. “Everyone have what you need?”

They all nodded. Roy set up a recorder. “Miss Flynn, is it still all right if I tape? Sometimes when you keep telling a story, new things come up.”

“Tape everything,” she said. Her voice was strong, furious. “Do whatever you can to bury that bastard in jail.” Then, as if everything she had was spent, she sank back in the chair, stared at the ice in her glass. A tear slipped down her face. She wiped it away with her finger, her movement careful, as if even her own touch could hurt. She sat back in the chair and softly shook her head.

Livy couldn’t hold her glass for fear she’d drop it. Her hands were numb. She put the tea down, stood, and went to the glass doors, wished she could just slip out to the balcony, breathe the sea air, but that would seem crazy. Still, she had to move to keep from crying. She looked out. “I love the way the view looks out to just sea and sky. You don’t have to see the tourists on the beach.”

“I do like my privacy,” the man said. “No one knows Molly is here. We said she’d gone to Florida.”

“But I’m here,” the girl said. “I’m here.” She straightened as if ready. Her eyes darted from Livy to Roy and Shelby, back to Livy, then her dad. Finally her eyes settled on her mom. It would be the mother who would get things going. The mother looked at Livy. “I’m so sorry about your daughter. You must be—” She turned, looked at her girl. “I just hope we can help you in some way.” Her voice cracked.

The girl reached to comfort her mother. Livy saw the bandage on her neck, a bruise there. If the man had done all this damage to a girl who had lived, what had he done to Katy?

“Please have a seat,” the mother said. “Try to make yourselves comfortable.”

Livy realized her sweaty hand was pressed against the glass. She rubbed her hands on her skirt, looked at the glass, and saw her handprint smeared there. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked across the room to her chair, and she couldn’t see how she could get there without falling. She saw her handprints all over the glass. She stood there, looking at the girl, then back to the sea, the girl again.