She nods, distracted as I lead her out the door and down the stairs. “I should have checked on her. Pushed her to come home or at least tell me where she was.”
We’re in the Range Rover a minute later and I’m driving to the hotel. I push a button to call Peter who answers on the second ring. He’s available 24/7. It’s why I pay him the amount I do.
I tell him to get some men out to the property, a motel along Highway 87. I can imagine the kind of place knowing the area.
“Make sure they just keep an eye on her room. Thirty-three, that’s right. No one goes in.” I disconnect the call and glance at Persephone who is staring straight ahead. “She’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t get the phone number. I should have gotten the number.”
“She wasn’t calling from her cell phone?”
She shakes her head.
“Did she tell you anything?”
“That she made a mistake.” She looks at me. “She sounded terrified.”
I nod, push on the accelerator. “My men will be there within the hour. We’ll be there in less than two. Don’t worry.”
She leans back in her chair. “I hate Halloween. I hate it.”
“It’s not Halloween anymore.” It’s past midnight now. Technicality.
My mind wanders to the contents of that envelope which I stuffed into my pocket as Persephone picked up clothes for her sister. They’re burning a hole there now.
You know there was someone else. Someone she loved.
No. I can’t think about that right now. “Do you always take candles out there?” I ask, remembering the thick altar candles which looked brand new.
She turns to me. “Sometimes. But I didn’t tonight.”
“What do you mean? Who then?”
“Someone called me, Hayden. A man. It was a little before midnight. They knew I would go out there.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I…I’d been drinking.” She pushes her hand into her hair. “It’s all so much now. Too much.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. He called and said I was late. And he said,” she turns to me. “He said I’d better get down there before my boyfriend does.”
“Another mystery man.” She doesn’t comment. “He called you on your cell phone?”
She nods.
“Give it to me.”
“There was no caller ID.”
“Give it to me.”
She reaches into her coat pocket and hands me her cell phone.
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I take it.
“What’s your password?”
“8789.”
I punch it in and scroll through her calls. I see more than one without a caller ID in missed calls and the one she answered a few minutes before midnight.
“You didn’t recognize the caller’s voice?”
“No.”
“Any idea who it could be?”
“Someone who knew about my visits.”
I look straight ahead absently reading the sign we pass. “Who knows you go out there?”
“No one. Lizzie maybe, but no one else. My dad.”
I’m thinking. Who would want her to have that letter?
“My father was sleeping with her,” she says quietly. “That’s why you’re doing this.”
I keep my gaze straight head, grip the steering wheel harder than I need to. I nod.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you find out?”
“Autopsy revealed she was fourteen weeks pregnant. I investigated.”
“He was broken up over her death.”
“Don’t talk to me about how he felt. I don’t care how he felt.”
“You don’t know—”
“She was fifteen,” I bark. “That’s all I need to know.”
“I was going to say you don’t know the whole story.”
“And you do?”
She exhales, shifts her gaze to her lap.
“You were close with her. You never suspected she was pregnant? Suicidal?”
She shifts her gaze out the side window. “You said once that you don’t know people. That you never really know someone, not what’s really inside their head.” She returns her gaze to mine. “You were right because I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about any of it.”
The way she says that is strange, but before I can ask what she means, she continues.
“She was sad, I knew that. Even when she tried to pretend she wasn’t. Especially at the end.”
It’s silent for a long minute.
“But the baby wasn’t my father’s. She said it herself. He was trying to help her.”
“He was trying to cover up his mistake. Whether or not the baby was his doesn’t change the fact that he raped a fifteen-year-old girl.”
She winces at my use of that word and I see that letter again like it’s tattooed into my brain.
Dear Q,
I can’t lie to you anymore. It’s not yours. And I can’t accept your money because I can’t get rid of it. I’m sorry. I love him.
Nora
“You have to admit there was someone else. You can’t deny it, not after seeing that letter,” she says.
“Who is he then? This man she loved?” I turn to her to see the back of her head because she keeps her gaze out the window and it’s silent again and I realize something. “You know.”
She looks at me but just then her phone rings and she shifts her gaze to it.
“Answer. Put it on speaker.”
She does as she’s told. “Hello?”
“There’s a car outside, Percy. There are men inside it. I think they’re back.”
As if on cue, my phone buzzes with a text from Peter telling me our men are in place.
“It’s all right.” I say. “They’re my men.”
“Percy?”
“That’s Hayden Montgomery. It’s okay, he’s coming with me. He’s helping us.”
Silence, then: “Can you stay on the phone with me until you get here? I don’t want to hang up.”
Persephone nods. “Yes. Yes, we won’t hang up.”
28
Persephone
Hayden’s attention remains fixed on the road, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He’s processing what he’s just learned. Trying to make sense of it. I know. I did the same thing when I first found out.
I tell Lizzie about my visit to dad. I talk to keep her distracted as much as to keep from being questioned by Hayden, telling her about the facility, telling her I think it’ll be good for him. Both the doctors and the facility are top-notch.
“They’d cut his hair and he looked good,” I tell her. I want to say he looked better but that may be me wanting to see something that isn’t there because the doctor was very clear that there was no change and not to expect one.
“Will you take me to visit him tomorrow?” she asks.
“Yes. We’ll go together. He’ll like that.”