“That sometimes we see what we want to see. That it’s a form of wish fulfillment to see that girl.”
“Right.” She dropped the cigarette and ground it out. “And it’s the same for Tracy.”
“Why would Tracy
“Not why she would want to see that man, but why would she want to tell her story. To you. Why would she care about that man being captured or revealed?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“You’ve met Tracy. Do you think that’s a primary motivation for her?”
I stood up. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. “Get out of here,” I said to her. “If you’re not here to help-if you’re just here to talk in riddles-then get lost. I’m calling the police.”
“Tom?” she said.
“Fuck off.”
She reached out and put her hand on the phone. “Tom? Are you sure you want to know what Tracy knows?” She nodded her head toward the house. “Your daughter is home. She’s alive. When we talked, you were worried about her being dead. That was your fear. Well, you have your answer.”
“I’m calling,” I said.
She kept her hand on mine. I waited.
“Put the phone away,” she said.
I held on to the phone, but I sat down.
“Tracy Fairlawn,” Susan said. “She was taken.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tracy told me about this as I got to know her. It took a long time for her to confide in me, which is why I struggled with telling you this.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“About six years ago, when she was fourteen. She was walking home one night, alone, and a man stopped and offered her a ride. She took it. The man took Tracy to his house. She doesn’t know where he lived. He drove around a lot, in the dark, and she didn’t know the streets very well because she wasn’t driving yet. When she got to the man’s house, he fed her and gave her something to drink. They talked and listened to music, and when Tracy wanted to leave the house and go home, he wouldn’t let her. He held her there against her will, in his basement. He locked her in. He raped her repeatedly.”
For a long moment, I couldn’t say anything. I felt cold again, even though the wind was calm and the trees still.
“How did she get out?” I asked finally.
“He let her out,” Susan said. “After about six months-six months of rape and terror in a locked basement room-he put her in his car again, blindfolded, and drove her around and around. Eventually he let her out on a country road in Simms County, twenty miles away from here. She made it to a gas station and called her mother.”
“What did the police do?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.
“What do you think they did?” she asked.
“A girl was kidnapped and raped.”
Susan shrugged. “A girl with a drug problem, a girl already in trouble with the police. A girl who couldn’t say where this man was who’d held her. She couldn’t identify the house, the car, even the neighborhood. All she did was tell this wild story of being taken against her will and held in a basement, and then miraculously being let go.” She shrugged again. “They didn’t pay much attention to her. I only got involved through my volunteer work.”
“The police sent her to you?” I asked.
“Not directly. The police didn’t see her as the victim of anything. But we had a mutual friend, a woman who taught at Tracy’s high school. This teacher knew about my work for the police, so she put us in touch. I just tried to be a sounding board, a sympathetic ear. Tracy needs much more help than I can provide, but it was a start.”
“Do you know Liann Stipes?” I asked.
“That’s Tracy’s lawyer, right? The woman whose daughter was murdered? Tracy mentioned her. Complained about her really. I get the feeling I was a better listener than Liann or anyone else in Tracy’s life.”
“And that man. .?”
“She says it’s the same man, the one she saw in the club with your daughter.”
“How did she see him in that club and still dance for him? Why didn’t she run or call the police right then and there?”
“She was terrorized, Tom. Terrorized. She thought that he came back there to taunt her, to intimidate her. It was like he wanted to remind her he still held some power over her. Which he did. Why didn’t she say or do anything? It’s a miracle she’s ever said or done anything. She feels as though saying anything is taking her life in her hands. She went to Liann because she couldn’t stand to not do anything about it.”
“And now Tracy’s gone.” I brought my hand to my face and chewed on some loose skin around my thumbnail. “This man released her over five years ago, about a year before Caitlin disappeared. And now that Caitlin is back, Tracy is gone again. You think. .?”
“Frightening, isn’t it?”
I thought back to the first time I’d met Tracy, our conversation in the strip club. I calculated. “Tracy told me her daughter is almost five,” I said.
Susan nodded. “She has a constant reminder of what this man did to her.”
I curled my hands into fists, and when I did, they shook. “He let Tracy go because she was pregnant,” I said.
“Who knows? I wouldn’t assign humanitarian motives to him.”
“What should I do now?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, Tom,” she said. “But I wanted you to know everything you needed to know. The police, they might have their own agenda. There are things they don’t want to tell a crime victim. Or they want to tell them on their own schedule and terms.”
“And Liann? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know Liann,” Susan said. “I can’t speak for her. But you’ve been chasing ghosts. Maybe this will make things more concrete.”
“And what happens if I catch up to the ghosts?” I asked.
“You’d be lucky to put them to rest.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Ryan didn’t answer. I tried two times after Susan left, leaving two messages. Before I could call a third time,
Abby came out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam closed behind her.
“Who was that, Tom?”
I shut the phone. “She’s helping me.” I pointed to the house. “Did you leave Caitlin in there alone?”
“Chris is talking to her.”
“Lovely.”
“Is that woman a therapist of some kind?” Abby tried to stop me from going inside. “Tom, I think you do need help. Real help.”
I went past her and up the stairs. At the half-open door of the master bedroom, I heard Pastor Chris’s cheery voice chirping inside. I pushed in. They were sitting on the floor.
“Tom,” Chris said. “I was just counseling Caitlin here-”
“Do you know someone named Tracy Fairlawn? She’s a stripper at those clubs you used to go to with the man in the sketch. Did you talk to her?”
“If I say I don’t know,” Caitlin replied, “will you slap me again?” She scooted closer to Pastor Chris.
“Tom, if you’d like to join our conversation, it might-”
I turned and left the room, letting him talk to my back.
