The Hiding Place

“Hey,” the bus driver called.

It was Kevin. He ignored the driver and walked right back to Ashleigh’s seat.

She looked up into Kevin’s face. A cute face, she had to admit. Beautiful eyes. A little puppyish.

“What?” she said, trying to sound mad.

“You really want to do this?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Come on, goddamn it,” someone yelled from the back of the bus.

“I have one problem,” Kevin said to her.

“What?”

“Can I borrow fifty cents?” he asked, smiling.

She reached into her pocket and handed him the coins.

Chapter Three

Janet tapped lightly on Ashleigh’s door. Nothing. Then she knocked again, using more force.

“Ash?”

The knob gave as she turned. Janet stepped into the darkened room and saw that Ashleigh was already gone, so she pushed the door open all the way. It wasn’t unusual for Ashleigh to leave the house early. Not unusual at all. She’d be with Kevin most likely, or sitting at the library thumbing through books and magazines. Kevin. Ashleigh didn’t bring him around much anymore, not since they’d moved in with Bill. But the two spent all their time together. Janet tried not to pry, tried not to be a nosy mother, but she wondered sometimes. Did her moody daughter have a boyfriend? That at least was a normal concern for a mother to have, worrying about her daughter’s dating life. The other things Janet worried about were a product of her own childhood, and they made her heart flutter…

It’s okay, she told herself. It’s okay to let her out of the house. She’s not a child-she’s fifteen. She won’t get taken and it’ll be okay.

Janet reminded herself to breathe. She’d half entertained the notion of taking Ashleigh out to lunch or shopping, something to break the usual routine and mark the importance of the day. But Ashleigh was living her life, just the way Janet wanted her to. Why burden her or anyone else?

Janet turned her attention to the things in the room. She had to give Ashleigh credit for something else-the girl knew how to keep order. No teenage mess in that room. The bed was made, the closet closed. Janet went over and opened the blinds. The light fell across a neat row of photographs on the shelf above Ashleigh’s bed. The photos were all familiar. Janet and Ashleigh at a school awards ceremony. A portrait of Janet’s mother-high school graduation? — the grandmother Ashleigh never knew. And on the end, facing the light, the last portrait of Justin ever taken, the one that ran in the newspaper and on TV during the summer he disappeared. Janet picked the photo up, ran her hand across the dust-free glass.

Janet had once asked Ashleigh why she kept a portrait of her dead uncle above her bed. The girl just shrugged.

“It’s the past,” she said. “Our past. And isn’t the past always with us?”

Janet shivered. Out of the mouths of babes…

She went to get dressed for work.

Janet had begun working at Cronin College fourteen years earlier. She’d started in the mailroom just after high school, sorting packages alongside work-study college students from all over the country. Ashleigh was a year old then. Janet didn’t think she could work, raise a baby, and attend college, but she took the job at Cronin with an eye toward bigger things. She knew-knew-her daughter would go to college someday, and employees of the college received a huge tuition break. Janet even planned on getting a degree herself and had taken classes over the years as she worked her way from the mail processing center to the copy and print center to the chemistry department and finally to her current position working for the dean as office manager, overseeing a staff of five. She loved her job. She loved supporting herself and her daughter with her own work. She even enjoyed knowing that her job and salary helped her dad hold on to her childhood home.

But she didn’t love her job the day the story about Dante Rogers ran in the paper.

As soon as Janet walked into the office, she knew everyone had read about it. Nobody said anything-at least not right away. But she could tell by the looks on their faces. Her coworkers smiled at her, but they weren’t happy smiles. They were forced, toothless, the heads cocked to the side a little, the lips pressed tight. Oh, you poor thing, the smiles said. The tragedy. You were there that day…

You were supposed to be watching him…

In the break room during lunch, Madeline Hamilton, the office’s resident busybody, approached Janet, sitting down next to her and casually removing a soggy sandwich from a plastic bag. Madeline had known Janet’s mother, had landed the job in the dean’s office with Janet’s help. Janet knew Madeline’s interest wasn’t casual, and Janet even found herself happy to see the older woman cozying up next to her. She hoped someone would break the tension, pop the black balloon that seemed to be hovering over her head.

“So,” Madeline said, drawing out the O, her tiny mouth formed into a similar, circular shape. Madeline didn’t bite into her food. She raised her right hand and fussed with the pile of bright red hair on the top of her head. “Crazy day for you, huh?”

“Do you want to ask me something about the story?” Janet said.

Madeline took a bite of the sandwich and gestured with her free hand. “If you need someone to talk to…,” she said, the free hand floating in the air, a heavy, fleshy butterfly. “I’ve always thought of you as family. And I know today’s that awful anniversary. Are you going to the cemetery or anything?”

Janet shook her head. She had a Diet Coke and a bag of pretzels in front of her. She’d eaten two pretzels and barely touched the drink. “They’re interviewing me today.”

“Oh, really,” Madeline said. She wiped her mouth and set the food aside, shifting to all-business mode. “But you read that story? The one today?”

“Yes.”

“Can you believe he’s still here in Dove Point? Just living here? Among all of us?”

“Where is he supposed to go?” Janet asked.

“I’d think he’d want to live anywhere but here.”

“His parents are dead. He lived with his aunt…back then. But she’s dead, too.”

“See,” Madeline said. “No ties here. He could just pick up and move anywhere.”

“You make it sound so glamorous. He’s an ex-con. What’s he going to do? Besides, I don’t think he’s going to hurt anybody.”

“He’s already killed two people,” Madeline said. “First Justin and then your mother. She’d still be with us if not for the grief.”

Janet didn’t disagree. Her mother never recovered from her brother’s death. Diabetes-related complications, they’d written on the death certificate nearly eighteen years ago. Janet knew the truth-her mother had died of a broken heart. But Janet just couldn’t summon the same anger toward Dante Rogers that everybody else did.

“Don’t you feel sorry for him?” Janet asked. “Even a little? He looks so pathetic, so empty.”

“Sorry for him?” Madeline fanned herself with both hands. She looked like she was choking. “Sorry? For a killer? He better hope he doesn’t come my way or cross my path. I can’t be held responsible.”

Janet checked the clock. She needed to get back to her desk. The dean’s office didn’t rest in the summer, despite the shorter hours. In fact, summer brought more work. Annual reports, budgets, faculty travel arrangements. But she wasn’t ready to go back.

“Do you ever wonder?” Janet said. She knew her voice sounded dreamy, distracted. She didn’t know what she wanted to say. She didn’t know if she should even give voice to her thoughts.

“Wonder what?” Madeline asked.

“The way he maintains his innocence, even after all this time. He has no reason to. He’s already done his time.”