The Girl In The Woods Part 16

They were halfway across the lawn, approaching the spot where Diana had been digging, before anything was said, and then it was just Diana mumbling an apology she didn't think she owed but felt obligated to deliver. She was more sorry for herself, she knew, sorry to have been exposed as fragile and shaken in front of both Dan and Janine.

Dan ignored the apology.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he said.

Diana shook her head. "You're not going to like it," she said.

"If you want some inside dope on the Foley case, I don't know anything more than what they're saying in the papers. I really don't. And you should let it go-"

"I've heard that before. Let it go." They were down by the street. Diana looked back at Dan's house and saw the curtains move in a bedroom window. Janine watching them, no doubt making sure Diana left without planting a wet goodbye kiss on her husband's face. If only it were that simple. "It's not about the Foley girl. Not directly anyway."

"Then what?"

"Margie Todd."

Dan's face changed. The anger and tension drained away in favor of something else, something that almost resembled fear.

"What about her?"

"I read an old newspaper article about her, written right after she disappeared. In the article you said that it looked like she was taken, that there was nothing to indicate she ran away. You sounded so certain. But in your office you told me that she ran away. Why the change?"

"You've never changed your mind?" he said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"Tell me what's really going on, Dan. Somebody took that girl, Margie Todd. She didn't run away. She was having an affair with her boss, John Bolton, and then she disappeared. What do you think happened?"

"We investigated Bolton, and we cleared him. He had an alibi. Solid as rock. You know, not every girl who has an affair with her boss is an innocent victim."

"What does that mean?"

"Maybe Margie Todd pursued him. Maybe she broke it off and ran away. Lots of girls run when the going gets tough, Diana. It happens."

Diana felt the tears burning her eyes again, and again she fought them off. She wasn't going to let them out here, not in front of Dan. Not again.

"As I recall, you made the first move," she said. "And I'm sure John Bolton did the same. It's an old tradition."

A car turned the corner and came toward them, its headlights cutting through the night. Dan squinted against the glare, then turned to Diana again.

"You ask me what's going on here, Diana? I want to know what's going on with you. Showing up at my house. Digging in my front yard like a rat. And then accusing me of things, suggesting I know something about a crime but am choosing not to do anything about it." He gestured behind him. "My house is in order now, finally. Maybe you need to get yours in shape. Get a job or go to school. Or move on. It's a big world, and you can do a lot in it, but you won't do anything if you keep chasing after ghosts. The Foley girl was kidnapped. And we'll find who's responsible. Soon. Margaret Todd and your sister...they're long gone. You don't want to turn into a lonely old woman with nothing to keep yourself company except bitter feelings about the past like that Todd woman."

"Or my mother," Diana said, mostly to herself.

The car had stopped in the street, and the driver's door opened. Diana looked up. It was Jason. He looked confused and worried, and he took two quick steps toward them and stopped.

"Are you okay?" he said. "I've been looking all over."

"She's fine," Dan said. "Make sure she gets home okay."

"Sure thing, Captain," Jason said.

Dan turned and walked back to his house, and Jason draped his arm over Diana's shoulders. He started guiding her to the car like she was a child, but she wriggled out of his grip.

"I'm okay," she said. "Don't listen to what he says. I'm okay."

Diana drove herself home, with Jason following close behind. His headlights filled her rearview mirror like giant, watchful eyes, ones she couldn't escape. She simply wanted him gone. She wanted to be alone, to not think anymore about everything that swirled around her. Maybe Dan was right. She should focus on her own life and let the problems of others go. If not, she'd be Kay Todd in forty years, filling a broken-down trailer with cigarette b.u.t.ts and resentments.

After she pulled into the parking lot, she turned off the ignition and waited without getting out of the car, hoping that Jason would take the hint and drive off. No such luck. He took a spot near hers and climbed out of his car, which meant she had to deal with him at a time when she had no capacity to deal with anyone. She opened her door and stepped into the cool night.

Jason just stood there.

"I'm fine," she said. "You can go on."

"Are you really?" he said.

Diana could read the mixture of concern and confusion in his eyes. She understood but didn't have the patience for it.

"Yes, I am."

"What were you doing at the captain's house? I mean-" He stopped himself. "It's none of my business, but if you're starting something up with him again, I'd just as soon know now."

"So that's what you're really worried about, whether I'm shacking up with the Captain again? You're not really worried about me."

"I want to be prepared, you know, for when everything falls apart again." Jason shrugged, a helpless gesture. "Can we talk inside rather than out here?"

"No, I don't want to talk. I just want to be left alone."

Jason let a long breath out through his nose. He placed his hands on his hips.

"You know," he said, "I thought about you all day. I thought about how much you care about that girl who disappeared, Margie, and how much you want to find her."

"Jason."

"And I found myself wis.h.i.+ng that I could care that much, that I could do for this Foley girl what you're trying to do for the Todd girl. You know? And it kept me going all day, through all the woods and all the fields and all the bulls.h.i.+t, it kept me going. And you know what else, Diana? They're wrong about the Foley girl. They're wrong. They're looking in the wrong place."

"What do you mean?" Diana said.

"They're looking east of town, far away from where she liked to ride. But it doesn't make any sense. Who would kidnap someone out in the middle of nowhere like that and then drive the person they kidnapped so far away and just dump the bike like they were throwing away a paper cup? Would you do it that way?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that people are creatures of habit, right? They do the same things over and over again because it's easy or because it's safe or because they like it. Right?"

"Right."

"So the Foley girl rode her bike on the same route all the time, out there in the middle of nowhere on County Road 600. And that's where someone took her. But we're looking in the other direction just because we found her bike out there. But why would someone who lived east of town be driving around on County Road 600? Why? It doesn't make sense, does it?"

"You're saying that whoever took her probably lives out where the Foley girl likes to ride?"

"Of course. And the bike was dumped east of town to throw us off. It looks like it was planted, right there on the side of the road. Do you know that the woman who found the bike is eighty-five years old? A retired schoolteacher with cataracts and she can see the bike on the side of the road. Maybe it was meant to be found."

"I don't know," Diana said. "Think of all the stupid people and the stupid crimes they commit. Maybe it happened exactly the way they think it happened."

"But what if it didn't?"

Diana shook her head. "You know what? I don't care. I'm out of this business. If you think it happened that way, you should do something about it. I'm not a cop anymore. It's not my game. What do you think I can do?"

Jason grunted out of frustration. "I don't know, Diana. Just...don't give up on it. We'll figure something out."

Diana looked away. She let her eyes wander up to the sky where the stars were scattered and distant. She still felt a dull ache at the base of her neck and slight fatigue. The vision hangover. The two had to be related, she thought. She'd gone years without one, and then when Kay Todd shows up and muddies the waters, the visions start again. She didn't want to live that way. She didn't want to be that person. Dan was right. She had to stop chasing ghosts.

"I'm sorry, Jason," she said. "I just can't do it."

He looked sad, like a little boy, and Diana wished she could take him in her arms and bring him inside with her. They could spend the night together and hold each other and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist. But it did. It always came knocking. Better to limit the complications and false hopes before they grew too unwieldy.

"Are you sure?" he said, taking his last chance.

Diana started backing away.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

While she went up the stairs to the second floor landing, she heard Jason's car door slam and his ignition start. She felt a mixture of sadness and relief but told herself it was for the best. Telling herself that was easy, believing it was something else entirely. But she decided to work on that tomorrow. She wanted to go to bed, close her eyes and forget, although even the prospect of sleep scared her. She didn't trust her mind, didn't know what journeys it would take if left to its own devices.

But when her apartment door came into view, she froze.

Something sat on the ground just outside the door. A foot high, colorful.

Flowers?

"No," she said. "Oh no."

She hustled to the door and bent down. Sure enough, it was a tidy bouquet of wildflowers in a cheap gla.s.s vase. With a card from Carter Florists on the south side of town.

Diana found the small envelope with her shaking hand.

You can just throw them away. Ignore the note. Ignore the whole thing.

But that was just it-she couldn't. Whoever sent them-Kay? Jason? A psychopath?-knew she couldn't walk away either. She had to open that envelope. She had to know.

So she tore it open, right there outside her door.

Diana-Keep going. You'll find the girl in the woods.

She took the flowers in her hand, vase and all, and threw them as hard as she could out into the parking lot. They arced through the sickly glow of the streetlights and then shattered against the pavement, sending a spray of gla.s.s through the night.

"f.u.c.k you!" Diana screamed. "If you want something from me, ask for it! Otherwise, f.u.c.k you!"

Her neighbor's door opened, the retired postal worker next door who never spoke to Diana, but slinked past her when they saw each other as though he thought she would bite. He stuck his head out, a turtle peeking out of his sh.e.l.l.

"What?" Diana said, venom in her voice.

The man pulled back in, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

He had the right idea, Diana thought. Stay the h.e.l.l away from me.

Part Two:.

Recoveries.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Ludwig's wagon sputtered, and the gears ground as he s.h.i.+fted. He realized that the car made him something of a cliche, the college professor in the Volvo, but that thought didn't faze him as much as his wish that the car would survive just one more year. He'd had it for ten, and if he could get one more out of it, he'd be happy. He took his hand off the gears.h.i.+ft and patted the dashboard encouragingly.

"Come on, little car. Give me another year."

Is this what my life has become?

He was on yet another county road, out amidst the corn stubble and the farmhouses and the wide, empty fields that stretched beyond the horizon. He had his maps and his papers on the pa.s.senger seat, the windows rolled up to keep them from flying away. He'd been driving around like this for weeks, ever since the Foley girl had disappeared, and he was beginning to wonder if he had any sense or sanity left at all. Here he was, two years from retirement, a time in his career when he should be relaxing and enjoying the years of hard work in the rearview mirror and antic.i.p.ating his escape from the world of student papers and committee meetings and departmental backbiting. He had seen a number of his colleagues retire and move away. To Florida, the Carolinas, Vermont or Tennessee. And he had enough money and a nice enough pension to make the same choices. He was single, in good health, and soon to be free.

So what did he do with his time instead?

He drove around the middle of nowhere Ohio looking for the origins of a group that may never have existed, gathering the loose strands of rumor and innuendo and fear and trying to weave them into something coherent and sensible. And so far, not only had he not succeeded, but he had begun to wonder if his entire enterprise was simply a fanciful lark, a goofy dream that he had allowed to consume his life. He had nothing to show for it except extra miles on the Volvo and countless hours studying doc.u.ments that didn't add up. And not only that, but his professional reputation had suffered. No one had come out and said it directly, but he recognized the looks and comments from his colleagues. They thought he was off his rocker, pursuing lowbrow research into a silly local legend, the kind of thing that would never get funded or published or respected. They might be right, Ludwig thought, but he really didn't care anymore. One of the benefits of being old and having tenure was that he just didn't have to listen to what anybody else said. He was the captain of his own fate, and if the s.h.i.+p went down, at least he'd been the one whose hands were on the rudder.

He turned on the radio and found a news station. It was the top of the hour, and despite the stream of information slowing to a trickle regarding Jacqueline Foley, Ludwig still felt compelled to listen to the news whenever he had the chance. What if something changed? What if something broke? He wanted instant knowledge, instant gratification, just like the students he complained about so much with their text messages and emails and internet addictions. But the news came and went without even a mention of Jacqueline Foley. Her case had reached that stage where they didn't even mention her name anymore. How long before she'd be forgotten, erased by the tides of time and progress? Maybe he was the one who would keep her from disappearing. Maybe that's what he was supposed to do with the end of his career.

He had been out in the countryside for close to an hour already. It was getting on toward noon, and his stomach started to grumble, making him wish he had bothered to bring something along to eat. So many times he worked through meals and ended up not eating at all. At times like those he wished he had someone looking after him-a wife, a girlfriend. He'd even settle for a nagging mother or aunt. But they were all gone now, leaving him to live out his days as a lonely scholar, crisscrossing roads that seemed to be leading to nowhere.

He found himself back on County Road 600, the road Jacqueline Foley was presumed to be riding on when she was taken. But if there were no witnesses how did anyone know for certain she was taken there? The police surmised, based on the girl's usual route, rate of speed and time of departure, that she would have been in the vicinity of County Road 600 when she was taken, but they had no real way of knowing. But despite the fact that it was simply a guess by the police, people in town and at the college had latched onto it. Ludwig cruised down the road, the fields on either side cordoned off by raggedy and rusted barbed wire, until he saw the makes.h.i.+ft shrine that had sprung up in honor of Jacqueline Foley. He stopped, turned the car off and climbed out.

The air was turning cooler. The sky was clear and blue, the sun s.h.i.+ning bright, but the air had a cold bite to it, an indication that fall had settled in, and soon enough, he would have to turn the heat on in his house and prepare for the inane parade of trick-or-treaters and their parents who liked to beat on his door and beg for candy. His scuffed shoes scrunched across the roadside gravel as he approached the shrine.

The local paper had done a story on the shrine as soon as they became aware of it, and Ludwig read it with fascination. What motivated people to spontaneously gather at a place that may not truly harbor any real significance? Why the intensely human desire to cling to any hope, be it false or imagined? It started with flowers left by the Foley girl's sorority sisters, but then townspeople drove out and left notes and teddy bears. They burned votive candles at night and prayed. Ludwig bent down and examined a water-stained piece of paper attached to a withered rose. We're praying for you, it said. He found another attached to a small wooden cross. Come home soon, girl. We'll party again. He wanted to shake his head and scoff, to take the academic's pose and look down his nose at the pipe dreams of the ma.s.ses, but he stopped himself.

Who was he to criticize someone else's pipe dream? Who was he to scoff at someone who still believed in the impossible? Wasn't his whole life-professional and personal-dedicated to the pursuit of proving the impossible?