He tried to understand, wanted to be the person he would have wanted if someone had questioned him when he was a child, trying to unearth things which seemed desperately inexplicable to his young mind. “Like . . . pressure?” he asked.
“Pressure?” she repeated.
“Yes, like when something heavy is pressing down on you.”
She nodded, her eyes opening wide as if with excitement. “Yes, pressure. Heavy. Achy. Some people, some places, are so heavy, I can’t move.”
Camden watched her for a moment. He didn’t know what to think of what she was saying, but he also wanted to get the information from her while she seemed inclined to give it. Perhaps it was the side of him that had worked law enforcement for several years now, or perhaps it was more that he had grown up escaping to these woods every chance he got. He’d sensed things here too, things he could never explain, things that made him feel strange. And he also wanted this little girl to trust him, Scarlett’s daughter.
Maybe Haddie’s words were simply the way a child would explain her fear and confusion. Things that were scary to her caused pressure to build inside. He thought about how Haddie had appeared frightened of him the first time he’d been in her presence. So frightened she’d wet herself. “Am I heavy, Haddie?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “You’re light. Like my mommy. Only . . . different.” She appeared to think for a moment. “She’s light like air. You’re light like fire.”
She stared at him with a surety he’d never seen before in a child’s eyes and tenderness filled him. Whatever she’d been afraid of that day, it hadn’t been him. He felt inexplicably honored by her words. Humbled. Relieved. “Thank you, Haddie.”
He stood and so did Scarlett. She took his hand in hers, squeezing it gently. “What do we do now?” she asked.
Camden looked behind him, squinting out into the canyon. “We call the authorities. We get as many people here from outside Farrow as we possibly can.”
CHAPTER FORTY
It had been two days. Two days since the state and local authorities had come to lift Kandace’s body out of the hidden cliffside cave, along with the ancient bones found deeper within, those believed to belong to an indigenous woman named Taluta, and her husband.
In that time, it had been verified that it was indeed Kandace Thompson’s body that had long lain in wait, and that she had sustained two gunshot wounds, one to her shoulder blade, and the other, surely the fatal blow, to her upper torso. In those forty-eight hours, Scarlett’s emotions had swung wildly between heartbreak and deep anger, knowing that her friend had died alone in a dark cave, and that somebody had known how and why all this time. Murdered. At seventeen. Her family had cast her away, and this was what happened. Kandace, I’m so sorry . . . for what you went through . . . for how it ended. I’d give anything to go back in time and help you. God, she ached.
Things were unraveling. Scarlett could feel it, and yet a sense of doom pervaded, sucking the air from the room. This town had long-held secrets. They weren’t going to let go of them so easily.
She had to help ensure they didn’t have a choice. Light exposes darkness, she reminded herself. It always does. And Kandace’s remains might just be that beacon. Her friend deserved that justice, among many others.
Camden had spent the night with her, slipping from her bed and leaving Lilith House quietly in the pre-dawn hours so as not to wake Haddie in the next room. Scarlett continued to catch her daughter shooting Camden curious looks, despite his commitment to follow her lead into the dark forest upon her word alone, and despite that he’d listened so kindly, so intently, as she’d attempted to explain the Haddie-isms Scarlett was well acquainted with. But Scarlett figured that was normal. Her daughter had never once seen her with a man. It was a new, and possibly upsetting, experience for her. It would take time. And it would take smoother waters before Scarlett had the luxury of addressing her new relationship with her child. Now was simply not the time.
She smiled softly as she walked past the open bedroom door where Millie and Haddie were playing, Haddie teetering across the floor in an old pair of Scarlett’s heels, Millie swinging one of Haddie’s dress-up boas around her neck and saying something in a French accent that made Haddie giggle.
Scarlett’s cell phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket, hurrying down the hall and sitting on a window seat overlooking the woods as she answered the unknown number. “Hello?”
“Scarlett? This is Dru Dorrington, formerly Thompson.” She gave a small laugh. “I was a Kaufman and a Hadlock between the two.”
Scarlett was glad the woman couldn’t see her grimace. She’d been married twice more in the years since Kandace had gone to Lilith House and never come home? Didn’t it seem right that one should run out of chances to obtain a license after failing at marriage half a dozen times or more? “Thank you so much for getting back to me, Mrs. Dorrington. I really . . . I just wanted to give my deepest condolences.”
“Call me Dru, darling. And thank you. I’m so glad you called. I’m just stunned. I don’t know how to feel. Murdered. My Kandace.” She paused. “I can’t say it was a shock to learn she’d run away, nor a shock to learn she’d got mixed up in something ugly that cost her life. But . . . there’s relief too. I can bury her now. Lord knows, I’m more experienced buying white dresses than black, but I’ll have to stretch my wings.” She gave a short laugh that felt like a needle pricking Scarlett’s heart.
The woman hadn’t changed. She didn’t need to imagine what it might have been like to be raised by a such a mother. She knew very well from Kandace. Heartbreaking. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through not having any answers.”
“Well,” she sighed. “I imagine you can. You were her friend too. She cared very much for you, in case you didn’t know.”
“Thank you, Mrs.— Dru.”
“I’d given her one final chance. All this time, I imagined she just decided not to take it. I’d resigned myself to the fact that we would never know how she got caught up in foul play. Farrow’s sheriff implied drugs. I . . . well, I had no reason to disagree. Kandace . . . she made bad choices.”
Scarlett’s skin felt suddenly icy. She didn’t think drugs were the reason Kandi had been killed, but there still wasn’t any proof. And whatever choices Kandace might have made, she didn’t deserve to be murdered. All she could do was wait and hope that those not involved in the crime would uncover something. In any case, it was clear to her that this would be the last time she spoke to Dru . . . she’d already forgotten her last name, which was well enough. Why use brain space for something that would inevitably change in the very near future?
“She was smart and vibrant,” Scarlett said. “She was stronger than she ever knew.” Than you ever knew. “And she had her whole life in front of her. Someone should be punished.” And if she had even one word to say about it, someone would. Scarlett brought one knee up and rested her arm on it as the sun shifted shades, lemon to gold.
“Yes, of course,” Dru said dismissively. Scarlett pictured the incredibly beautiful woman flipping her hand in the air like she remembered her doing. “Oh, one other thing,” Dru continued. “The medical examiner called this morning and well, there’s no need to make this public, but . . . as her friend, I think you should know.”