Exposure

cops to give them inside information. What if one of those paid sources told them what Martin had said in his interview last night? What if Martin had recognized one of those men and just didn’t want to tell her about it? Maybe that’s why the man came by this morning. Martin was trying to assure the robbers he wouldn’t talk. He’d do that to protect her and Tammy.

That was it. Had to be.

Lorraine buried her face in her hands. “Martin, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for doubting you.”

“If he finds you here we’re going to lose a lot of money.”

“No.” She shook her head. Martin had just been scared for her and Tammy. He wasn’t talking straight.

“I just want Tammy to get well.”

Anger at her own traitorous thoughts shoved Lorraine off the bed. She swept hair from her eyes. Enough of this. She’d go crazy spending the rest of the day in this motel room, with nothing to do but think. She should go out and take care of the horrible business that awaited her. She needed to stop by the bank and talk to someone about picking up Martin’s final paycheck. She had to find a funeral home and casket for Martin that she could afford. Detective Tuckney said it might be a few days before Martin was released after the autopsy, but she should get this much over with.

Because maybe, just maybe, cleaning her husband’s blood off the floor wouldn’t be the worst of her tasks. What if that voice inside her head was right? What if she and Tammy were no longer safe in this town?

“He’ll kill us all . . .”

But where would she find the energy to do these tasks now? The mere thought turned her limbs to water.

Tammy stirred on the bed. Lorraine watched her daughter, feeling so helpless. She didn’t want Tammy to wake up. She didn’t want to answer the questions and dry the tears.

“I just want Tammy to get well.”

Tammy’s eyelids rose, her gaze still blank from sleep. She sighed and uncurled the fist at her neck, then slid the hand down to her belly. One leg straightened. Her chin tucked down, and she blinked at Lorraine. “Hi, Mommy.”

The little voice brought fresh tears to Lorraine’s eyes. “Hi, sweetie. How do you feel?”

A huffy breath. “Better.”

“I’m glad.”

Tammy looked around the room. “Where’re we?”

“The motel. Remember I brought you here to sleep?”

“But why can’t we go home?”

“Because . . .”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s . . .” Lorraine sat on the edge of the bed, summoning courage, but all she felt was exhaustion. Her throat tightened. “He’s at work.”

“But he got hurt. Wasn’t he hurt?”

Lorraine nodded.

Her daughter’s eyes rounded, and the bottom lip pooched out. “Will he get better?” Tammy whispered.

An ache spread in Lorraine’s chest. She searched her brain for something to say. Not a lie, but not the truth. Not yet. She pressed her lips in a sick smile. “Come here, honey.”

Tammy sat up, and Lorraine drew her into both arms, resting her chin on the warm head. Her daughter snuggled in, trusting in her so completely. Lorraine’s eyes squeezed shut.

“Mommy?”

“Hm?”

“I want my bear.”

Lorraine thought of the scene on TV. The yellow crime tape, strangers going in and out of her apartment. And here they were — homeless. Tammy had lost her daddy. And now she couldn’t even have the stuffed animal that comforted her most.

“Okay, sweetie. I have to go out and do a few things. On the way we’ll stop by the apartment and get Belinda.”

TWENTY-NINE

The back of Kaycee’s neck crawled as she pulled into a parking spot in front of Studio Creations on Main. She stared at the darkened, bagged photo on the passenger seat floor. After Mark’s phone call she cringed at the thought of touching it. She didn’t want to think what she was thinking. Never would she forgive herself for this.

Leaning over, she picked it up with thumb and forefinger and slid it into her purse.

She got out and locked her car — something she rarely did on Main Street. But then most of the time, at least in warm months, she walked the two blocks here.

Her eyes pulled toward the railroad tracks and the continuation of East Main beyond. Some distance down that way Hannah had last been seen.

“A young man called,” Mark had told Kaycee on the phone. “He was coming up Main toward the tracks last night around ten. Said he saw a girl on the sidewalk, pulling a suitcase.”

“And he didn’t stop? He didn’t ask her what she doing out by herself?”

“He’s twenty-one years old, Kaycee. He didn’t really think much about it. Just figured she was going somewhere close to spend the night or something.”

Right, at ten o’clock on a school night.

But that young man wasn’t to blame for this. Kaycee Raye was. Hannah had been headed toward her house. And what had she found when she got there? Emptiness. Darkness. Courageous Kaycee had run off to her girlfriend’s.

Did Hannah think she’d simply refused to open the door? The thought turned Kaycee’s insides. She was always home at night, Hannah knew that. She imagined Hannah ringing the bell again and again, crying and begging for Kaycee’s help after she’d made it all that way in the dark. How rejected she must have felt — on top of the rejection she’d already endured.

But what if Hannah never made it at all? A young girl alone at night, walking a main road through town. She could so easily have been picked up and snatched away. A right turn at the next stoplight, and the abductor would be on Highway 29 headed toward Lexington. From there, the interstate.

Hannah could be anywhere.

Or what if she had made it to Kaycee’s — and they were there?

Shuddering, Kaycee slung the handle of her purse over her shoulder.

She felt the watcher’s eyes drill into her as she turned to walk across the street. She cast a penetrating look up Main. At a long diagonal across the road, a car was turning out of the gravel parking lot for Scotts Station, the white wood B&B facing the intersection of South Maple. The car headed in the opposite direction, passing the Front Room next to the B&B. The owner of the Front Room sold gifts and small antique items in the front area of the house, while she and her husband lived in the rest. Every time Kaycee had gone inside she’d found sweet tea waiting for customers, plus some kind of homemade dessert bars.

In front of a yellow wood apartment building on the other side of the Scotts Station parking lot, two elderly men sat on one of the matching benches lining the sidewalk. One of them raised his hand in a greeting. Kaycee waved back.

Her gaze raked past them, down the familiar storefronts. AdOne Media; White Casting, the jewelers; a doctor’s office. Next to that stretched the green awning of the drugstore, which housed Tastebuds, the old- fashioned soda fountain she frequented three or four times a week. Tastebuds also made the best pizza Kaycee had ever eaten, with some of the most creative ingredients. And those vanilla sodas. Something about them made her