The writing blurred as Lauren’s head swam. She wanted to be sick. Here was a predator’s view of her child. What he liked, what he didn’t. There was a note about Leah, a mention of Lance on the sidelines after a softball game. He listed her risk factor at 7 and noted that she seemed to have a lot of independence coming and going from the home.
Leslie was a young woman, sixteen. Lauren and Lance had given her a certain amount of freedom and with that freedom, responsibility. Leslie had always been good about letting them know where she was, who she was with. It had only been just before her abduction that she had begun to push against their boundaries. Normal teenage rebellion. She had never experimented with alcohol or drugs. She had yet to go on anything other than a group date with a boy. One time she had snuck out when she had been forbidden to.
And Roland Ballencoa had been waiting.
Fighting tears, Lauren closed the book and just stood there in the middle of Roland Ballencoa’s bedroom wondering what to do. If she took the book to Mendez, what would he do with it? He would want to know how she had come to have it.
What did it matter how she had come by it? The real question was: What did it prove? That Ballencoa had had an interest in Leslie? He had had an interest in many girls. Only one of them had gone missing.
But at the same time as she told herself the book proved nothing, she knew Ballencoa would be upset to lose it. He had taken pains to hide it. If she took it, he would want it back. What would he do to get it?
Lauren tore a page from the journal and wrote on it with a pen she had found in the drawer of the nightstand. She placed the note on the center of the naked box spring as a car door slammed outside.
The sound went through her like a gunshot.
If Ballencoa was coming, she couldn’t go back through the living room to get to the kitchen, to get to the back door.
She grabbed all four journals and tucked them into her tote. Her heart was beating so wildly that her head was spinning. There was nowhere in the room to hide.
She went to the window that looked out on the backyard. Her hands felt weak as she fumbled with the latch.
Maybe the car door was someone parked at the curb. Maybe it was a neighbor. Maybe it was a salesman or a missionary coming to spread the good news.
A key rattled in the front door lock.
The old window stuck and struggled against her as she struggled to lift it.
Then it was up and she was out.
She hit the ground hard, bouncing off a shoulder, rolling, grunting, scrambling to get her feet under her. Out of balance, she ran stumbling for the shed at the back of the property and ducked behind it.
The air was like fire billowing in and out of her lungs. Her heart beat wildly. Her legs felt like columns of water beneath her. She pressed a hand to her belly, feeling the gun still strapped to her middle. She still had her tote bag.
She wanted to know where Ballencoa was. Had he gone into his bedroom? Had he seen the mess? Had he seen the note? Had he seen her running from the scene?
She couldn’t know, nor could she stay to find out. For all she knew, he was coming across the backyard as she stood there sucking wind.
If she ran to the left and took the shortest route to her car, she exposed herself to Ballencoa’s backyard. If she ran to the right and kept to the alley, she had the better part of the block to go. He could easily run her down.
Thinking fast, she dashed another thirty feet down the alley, cut left and lost herself between two hedges that snatched at her as she ran. She fought her way down the narrow trail and popped out onto the sidewalk maybe fifteen feet from her car.
She didn’t know if anyone saw her. She hoped to God no one had called the sheriff’s office to report a suspicious person running through the neighborhood.
She felt safer inside the car, though her hands were shaking violently as she fumbled to get the key in the ignition. The engine caught and purred. Lauren put the car in gear and let it slide away from the curb, resisting the urge to hit the gas and call more attention to herself.
She was safe now. For the moment that was all that mattered, though she knew it wouldn’t last.
In her mind’s eye she could see the note she left on Roland Ballencoa’s bed:
47
Mendez turned his car around at the end of Old Mission Road and parked. Lauren Lawton’s phone had gone unanswered. Her BMW wasn’t in the driveway. An uneasy feeling churned through him.
He kept seeing the words she had written on the note Ballencoa had brought in:
A threat, Ballencoa said. Mendez had the terrible feeling it was more a promise.
His own words to Vince Leone kept echoing in his head:
Everyone had failed Lauren. Law enforcement had failed her. Her husband had failed her. God had failed her. In her mind there had to be only one person she could rely on: herself.
She had come to Oak Knoll because she had known Ballencoa had set up shop here.
She drank too much.
She had a gun.
“You can’t help me,” she’d said. The look in her eyes haunted him. The word
He got out of the car and found a way over the fence. Easily done. So much for her sense of security behind the gate.
Maybe her car was in the garage. Maybe she was in the house—in which case he needed to make himself known before she shot him.
“Lauren?” he called. “Mrs. Lawton? It’s Tony Mendez. Are you home?”
He went to the door and rang the bell, hearing it sound inside the house.
Damnit. Where was she? Was she stalking Roland Ballencoa while he stood here like a moron ringing her doorbell?
He got back in his car and headed toward Ballencoa’s neighborhood.
Lauren drove around the block and parked at the far end of Ballencoa’s street. She wanted to know what he was doing. How was he reacting to her having violated his space? Not well, she suspected. She remembered the rage that had spewed out of him the night before at the tennis courts when she’d broken his camera.
He liked to be in control. He wanted to be the one trespassing on boundaries. That a woman had turned the tables on him had infuriated him.
The rush she got from knowing that was exhilarating.
She watched his front door. Was he inside calling the sheriff’s office? What would he tell them? The same thing she had had to tell the police after he had broken into her home: that someone had broken in but had taken nothing. He couldn’t tell them she had stolen his stalking journals.
She imagined with pleasure his frustration as the detectives gave him their blank cop looks. Someone had broken into his house and messed up his neatly made bed. Some crazed person had come into his home and torn his clothes from the hangers.
She hoped Mendez answered the call. He would see the significance. He would probably know it had been her doing.
The front door of the bungalow opened then and Ballencoa came out. She was too far away to see if he was
