Chasing Amanda Read online

  “Oh,” Tracey said, although she still wasn’t sure she could ever put someone in a hole. “Were you with her when she....when she died?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, until the very end. I held her hand and sang to her.” She smiled, rubbed Tracey’s hand. “We prayed a lot, asking the Lord to accept her, to take care of her, and to watch over me. When she died, she was happy. She closed her eyes like she was sleeping and just didn’t wake up.” She stopped rubbing Tracey’s hand and held it in her own. “After she died, I prayed for her soul to be accepted by the Lord. I prayed that she would always be with me,” she covered her heart with her hand, “here, inside me, and I know she is. I can feel her. She’s beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful, too,” Tracey said, shyly.

  Mummy reached out and took Tracey in her arms again, hugging her tightly against her, sharing her strength with her. The embrace felt good to Tracey, it felt right. She hugged her back.

  Twenty Three

  Molly ran much further than she’d anticipated, rounding out the three-mile loop down Barnesville Road, and heading toward the Country Store, giving a quick wave to the passing cars that veered to the opposite lane to give her room to run. The lack of a shoulder on the rural roads was hazardous, and Molly appreciated the kindness of the drivers. She picked up her pace as she ran down the final hill, passing in front of the Country Store, where Edie stood in the window wearing a strange look of dismay. The Boyds Boys sat out front.

  “Hey, guys!” Molly yelled, waving.

  Harley turned away, Mac looked down, and Joe began to lift his arm, then, with a quick nudge from Mac, he lowered it and looked down at his feet. Molly was becoming increasingly annoyed by their behavior and began to wonder if there was more to their reputations than met the eye. Her run came to a halt at the bottom of the road where fire trucks and police vehicles blocked the entrance to the Perkinson driveway and lined the road near the lake. The grassy areas were roped off. Yellow tape, announcing, Police Area Do Not Cross, hung from the thick ropes. Molly ran across the road and sidled up to one of the officers wearing not only his uniform but an orange traffic vest as well. He looked to be about Molly’s age, dark hair, graying at the temples, and a pinched face.

  “Hi,” she said, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

  He looked over and down, his blue eyes settling on her, annoyed. “Ma’am,” he said. His mouth quickly formed a fine line across his face.

  “Excuse me, but can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “We’ve got divers in the lake, ma’am.”

  A helicopter hovered overhead. “For what?” she asked. Molly instantly thought of Hannah kneeling over the ground in the woods.

  “Looking for a missing party, ma’am,” he said, sternly.

  “Does this have to do with the little girl who is missing, Tracey Porter?”

  “I can’t say, ma’am. We’re checking the lake.”

  “So you think she’s in there?” Molly crunched her face, as if protecting herself from hearing the news.

  “Just doing our jobs, ma’am.”

  “The helicopter?” she asked. “Is that part of the investigation as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It has heat-seeking devices. They can track bodies in the water.” He planted his hands on his hips, rigid.

  Molly realized how annoying it must be for him to answer questions like hers over and over. “Thank you,” she said and began jogging toward her car. She turned on her heels and said, “Sir?”

  He reluctantly turned toward her.

  “How long does something like this take?”

  “Not sure, ma’am. Could take a full day or even two depending on what they do or don’t find.”

  “Thank you again,” she said and continued jogging.

  Molly settled into the van and let her head fall into her hands. Tears burst forward as if they had been trapped behind a dam that had suddenly cracked. Her body shook with sobs. How could this be happening again? she wondered. She pounded on the dashboard, “She’s not dead,” she said to the rearview mirror. “I would know. I would have felt it.”

  Molly sat in her car for hours, watching the divers come up empty handed, the helicopter hover and dip, spraying water like scattering bugs. A crowd of spectators had gathered at different points around the lake. Finally, at around five P.M., the divers were out of the water, the helicopter had flown off to the south, and Molly made her way back to the officer with the graying temples and the traffic vest.

  She tapped him on the back, noting his surprised look when his eyes settled on her once again. “Well?” she asked.

  “Ma’am? You’re still here?”

  “Yes. Did they find her?”

  “No, ma’am, they didn’t.”

  Molly’s heart skipped a beat of hope, and she was sure she saw a faint smile in the officer’s eyes.

  “For sure?” she asked cautiously.

  “For sure,” he nodded, laying his hand on her shoulder, heavy, reassuring. “She’s not here, ma’am. That much we know.”

  Molly turned away without a word. She didn’t realize she was crying until she climbed back into the van and looked in the mirror.

  Molly arrived to a darkened home, Cole’s car in the driveway. She called to him when she opened the front door, the dogs vied for her attention. Soft music sifted through the quiet. She followed the sound to the candlelit dining room. Molly put her backpack down and headed upstairs, “Cole?”

  No response.

  The shower ran in the bedroom, and Molly hurried in and gathered a black sweater, jeans, and clean undergarments, then raced into Erik’s shower to rinse off. A few minutes later she was greeted at the bottom of the stairs by Cole, who held a glass of White Zinfandel in one hand, extending the other toward her.

  “I thought you could use a little relaxation,” he said, kissing her cheek.

  “You have no idea how much,” she took the wineglass and came down to the bottom riser, almost eye-to-eye with Cole. He stood so close that she could taste the toothpaste on his breath. “Hi,” she whispered.

  He kissed her, softly, on the lips. “Hi,” he said, leaning his head to hers.

  They stood that way for a long moment, forehead to forehead, toes to shins—not an uncomfortable silence, but a testing of the waters.

  “Thanks for doing all this,” she said, making her way to the dining room.

  “I didn’t,” he said. He disappeared into the kitchen only to return carrying sashimi, California rolls, and sushi arranged artistically on one tray, salad and miso soup on another. “Tsukiji’s did,” he smiled.

  They sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping their wine and letting the stress of the day dissolve, until Molly couldn’t stand it anymore, she had to talk about what she’d seen. She asked him if he’d seen the fire trucks, which he had. They discussed how scared Tracey’s parents must have been, and Molly told him of her feeling that she would have known if Tracey were dead. Molly saw the stress return to Cole’s eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, carefully. “This isn’t Philly, and she’s not Amanda. We’ve been over this,” she looked away, pained. “I couldn’t help her. But maybe I can help Tracey.”

  “I don’t know how you make it through each day as wrapped up as you are in all of this,” he said, his voice rising. “I can barely make it through my own stuff, and here you are gallivanting around town trying to do the police officers’ jobs.”

  “I’m not trying to do their jobs,” Molly said, playing with her chopsticks. “I just feel…compelled to help find her. I know you think it’s weird, or twisted, or whatever you think, but there’s something there, Cole,” she said defensively. “There’s something that won’t let me let go of this search. It pulls on my mind whether I’m concentrating on it or not. It’s like…it’s like it’s pleading with me to figure it out.”

  “I know you feel that way,” he said, dismissively, a little sarcastically. “That’s how it starts, and soon you�
��ll be wandering around the house unable to find any direction to your days, and wondering where you went wrong.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” They stared at each other from opposite ends of their beliefs, neither having the ability to change the other. Molly’s need to find Tracey and Cole’s need to bring her to her senses hovered in the air as if caught in the silk from a spider’s thread, fragile, yet unyielding.

  The phone rang, and Molly jumped up to answer it, relieved by the distraction. Cole turned away, annoyed. She was met with an unfamiliar foreign voice.

  “Who’s this?” Molly said cautiously.

  “Edie. From store.”

  “Edie?” It took a moment for Molly to reconcile the voice and name with the Boyds Country Store.

  Edie spoke fast, her voice carried a hint of fear. “I want to talk to you. You meet me?”

  “Sure, Edie. I’ll come by the store tomorrow,” Molly said, thinking it odd that Edie would call her.

  “No. Not store. You meet me at Blue Fox. One hour.” It was not a question.

  The line went dead.

  The restaurant was an inconspicuous little brick rambler with brown shutters, a brown roof, and a small wooden deck out front, adorned with several small wrought-iron tables and chairs. Molly walked in, still wrestling with Cole’s last comment as she’d walked out the door, You didn’t kill Amanda, Molly, but you may be killing us. It took a minute for Molly’s eyes to adjust to the dim light. The flames of small candles in shot glasses rose from the center of each small empty table and flickered with the change in air as she closed the door. An older, thin man wearing a tattered vest that looked like it had seen better days, stood behind a small bar, just feet in front of the entrance. Molly smiled at him. He grimaced, whipped a white cloth napkin off of his shoulder, and began wiping down the bar.

  Molly turned at the sound of an uneven gait. A small, hunched-over woman walked through a swinging door with black letters that read, Kit hen. She wore an apron around her thick waist, and a red and white polyester dress that was made not a day earlier than the bartender’s vest. On her tiny feet she wore black shoes and white socks. Molly felt as though she had stepped back in time into some small rural establishment of years past, before electricity, before fashion. The woman stood before Molly, a scowl on her face, her head the height of Molly’s chin. Her back was bent in such a way that she could not look up at Molly without twisting her entire body to the left, which she did. Molly smiled. The woman did not smile back.

  “This way,” the woman directed, gruffly.

  Molly wondered how the business remained open with such a gloomy environment and less-than-stellar service.

  “Excuse me,” Molly said, politely.

  The woman stopped walking, and Molly almost tripped over her. She twisted her body up towards Molly again, scowling.

  “I’m sorry,” Molly said gently, “but I’m meeting someone here.”

  The woman made a guttural sound, turned around with difficulty, scuttled back to the table next to the door, snagged another menu, and, mumbling, trudged back toward Molly, then right past her. “Come on,” she said gruffly, motioning for Molly to follow.

  Molly suddenly saw the comedy in the scene and stifled a laugh. The table she was led to was one of six. The square wooden table rocked with the weight of Molly’s elbow. Headlights flashed through the front window of the restaurant. A moment later, the front door swung open, and Edie stepped in, a black hat covering her dark hair. Sunglasses and a brown knit coat completed her disguise.

  “Edie, don’t you think the sunglasses are overkill?” Molly joked. Edie approached the table.

  Edie glanced suddenly and suspiciously behind her. She took off her coat and sunglasses but left her hat pulled tightly down over her head. “I didn’t want to take a chance. Didn’t want no one to recognize me,” she said.

  “Well, there isn’t anyone here,” Molly pointed out. “I think you’ve picked the one restaurant that throws you back in time.”

  Edie looked at the bartender, who continued washing the glasses, but lifted his chin in a slight greeting.

  The old woman returned to the table. “Drinks,” she said in a monotone.

  Molly ordered water with lemon and Edie ordered tea. The woman turned around without acknowledgement and hobbled away. A moment later she hobbled back out with the drinks.

  Edie ran her finger around the rim of her mug, avoiding Molly’s eyes.

  “Edie, what’s going on?” Molly asked.

  She didn’t answer. She looked down, and then, slowly, up at Molly. “I should not tell you,” Edie said, sipping her tea and looking away.

  “Should not tell me what?” Molly asked, becoming annoyed at the cat and mouse game.

  Edie stared blankly at the table and said with no emotion, “I wrote notes. I pay girl to call you.”

  Molly’s jaw dropped. “Why?”

  Edie continued looking down, avoiding Molly’s accusatory gaze.

  “Edie, I just don’t understand.” She was becoming angry. “If you know something that might help Tracey, you have to tell me! There’s a little girl’s life on the line,” Molly pleaded.

  Edie’s gaze held both fear and hope. She took Molly’s hand in her own trembling one. “You no understand, Molly,” she began. “There are many people’s lives at stake here, not just Tracey.” She bowed her head and mumbled something in Korean, then released Molly’s hand.

  “Edie,” Molly said, frustrated. “Why are we here? Who are we hiding from?”

  Edie made a low growling sound. “Jin must not know I’m here,” she said, firmly. “Ever!”

  “Okay, okay,” Molly held her hands up in surrender.

  “Many years ago,” she began, her hands clenched around her mug, “a very bad thing happened, a very, very bad thing.”

  “Rodney’s murder?”

  She nodded. “Rodney, Kate, it was all very bad. Rodney did not kill that girl.” She paused, “He did not hurt that girl. He did not take that girl. He did not.”

  “I hear you,” Molly said.

  “Rodney was a good boy. No trouble to anyone. He just…different.” She gave Molly a knowing look. “You know this, Molly. You know why he different.”

  “Yes,” Molly said. “He was slow.”

  “No, no, no!” Edie hit the table with her fist. “Not because he slow!” Her dark eyes pierced Molly’s like daggers, a vehemence Molly had never before seen in Edie, alarming her. “He different like you,” she said with conviction.

  “Wait, Edie, what do you mean?” Molly’s heart raced, her eyes darted from Edie to the bartender and back.

  “Different. You know, Molly. Different,” she accused.

  Molly tried to laugh it off. “We’re all different, Edie. What does that have to do with Rodney?”

  “I know,” she tapped her temple with her index finger. “I know about you. You like Rodney. You know things.”

  Molly stood, nervously pacing, crossing and uncrossing her arms. Her movement caused the old woman to walk toward them. Molly held her palm up, staving her off. She took a deep breath and rejoined Edie.

  “Okay, so you know. How?” she asked.

  Edie stared at Molly, silently tapping her temple.

  Molly felt as though her life had become a comic strip—this was some type of sick joke.

  “Something about you…just like Rodney,” Edie said.

  “Great. He’s dead.” Molly threw her body against the back of her chair, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. “That gets us nowhere.”

  “Rodney knew about Kate Plummer,” she said. “He knew things about where she was.”

  “I know that, Edie. That’s not new.”

  “He only knew some details, not all of it. But the two of you,” she looked at Molly, “together, you might know about the girl.”

  “What does that mean, Edie? He and I can’t do anything together. He’s dead.”

  Edie folded her trembling hands in her l
ap, and spoke in a hushed voice. “Rodney is only one that can help.”

  “Edie,” Molly said, exasperated.

  Edie leaned forward, “What I tell you, you no hear from me.”

  “Okay,” Molly said, believing she’d found someone crazier than herself.

  “You no tell anyone. You no tell Jin,” she said Jin’s name with a faltering, quivering voice.

  “I promise, Edie,” Molly said.

  Edie looked around, as if expecting someone to suddenly show up, catching her in the act of telling her secret. “Rodney didn’t take her. He just saw her, here,” she pointed to her head. “People think he took her, think he hurt her, because police take him in.”

  “That’s why they killed him,” Molly nodded.

  “Yes, beat him.”

  “Awful,” Molly said, sadly.

  “His sister take him away, back home. She take him that night. Pack him in the car and go, before he got more hurt.”

  Molly perched on the edge of her seat, More hurt?

  “His sister take him to Delaware, but his parents no want him. Too much trouble. They—”

  “Wait!” Molly interrupted. “He was dead. What do you mean too much trouble?”