Cemetery Girl Page 16

  “He didn’t really give me one.”

  “Don’t you see?” She pointed at me. “That’s how Caitlin acted. I know he’s your stepbrother, but—”

  “Half brother.”

  “I think we need to talk to the police about all of this, don’t you?”

  “It’s not that simple, Abby. He is my brother. We grew up together. He was always there for me when we were kids. No matter how bad our home life got, Buster was with me. He stood by me.”

  I opened the oven door and looked in. The cheese on the lasagna was bubbling.

  “This food is ready,” I said. “Have you heard anything from upstairs?”

  “She was pretty sound asleep when I was up there, but I thought I just heard some footsteps.”

  I closed the oven door, then looked up. “Probably going to the bathroom.”

  “Tom, I need to know you’re taking this seriously. I’ve always been nervous about Buster, with the way he seemed so . . . fascinated by Caitlin, you know? Like they were two kids with crushes on each other instead of uncle and niece.”

  “Abby . . .”

  “You’ve seen it, too. You’ve commented on it. Don’t make this all about me, Tom. You can’t.”

  She was right. I’d noticed Buster’s interest in Caitlin. I’d always managed to chalk up the closeness between them to the fact that she was his only niece, so he showered her with attention whenever he was around. But still . . . an older man, a younger girl. Buster’s checkered past. His absences from our lives over the past four years.

  Abby jerked up her head.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “She’s moving around up there again.”

  “Okay, I’ll go tell her we’re ready to eat.”

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Abby said my name. I stopped.

  “This isn’t going to go away,” she said. “This Buster stuff.”

  I nodded. I knew it wasn’t.

  At the top of the stairs, I could see the bathroom light under the closed door. Caitlin’s bedroom door stood open. I didn’t want to stand around, hovering outside the bathroom door while she was inside, so I stuck my head in the bedroom. The covers were thrown back, the lights off. A thick, musty odor hung in the small space. I remembered Caitlin’s greasy hair at the police station, her dirty clothes. I listened for but didn’t hear water running in the bathroom. She needed to shower. She needed new things to wear. I looked at the floor. It was empty. No discarded clothes, no shoes or socks.

  I went back to the bathroom door. I rapped lightly with my knuckles.

  “Caitlin? Honey?”

  Nothing. My heart started to thump. I knocked again, using more force.

  I raised my hand to try the knob, but didn’t. I couldn’t just barge in on her, in whatever delicate state she might be in.

  “Caitlin? If you don’t say anything, I’m going to open the door and check on you.”

  Still nothing.

  I tried the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it gave right away. I pushed in. The lights were on, gleaming off the polished surface of the vanity and mirror. The window was open too, wide open, the curtains swelling in the cold breeze. Caitlin wasn’t there. She was gone, out the window and into the night.

  Abby stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Tom?”

  “Call the police. She went out the window.” I didn’t break stride. I went out the back door and into the yard, calling her name. “Caitlin! Caitlin!”

  Nothing. No sign of her. The cars still sat at the end of the driveway. I looked in the windows, cupping my hands against the glass. Empty. An unbidden thought popped into my head—I didn’t know if Caitlin knew how to drive.

  I turned away from the car. “Caitlin!”

  I looked back at the house. She’d gone out the window and onto the porch overhang. From there, it was about a ten-foot drop to the ground. Hardly a challenge for someone young and in any kind of decent shape.

  Abby came to the back door. “Tom? The police are coming.” “We should call Ryan.”

  “They said they’d tell him.”

  “I’m going to take the car and look,” I said, already moving. “She can’t have gone far. Jesus Christ, Abby. I should have seen this coming. The way she acted in the car . . .”

  “I think you should stay.”

  “I’m going,” I said. “Around the neighborhood.”

  “Tom, I want you to stay. Please. I don’t want to be here alone.”

  I held my keys in my hand and moved toward the car. I looked back at Abby under the glow of the back porch light. Her face was full of pleading and fear.

  Last time, I sat in the house, waiting. A fool. Not again, I thought. Not again. I couldn’t let Caitlin disappear this time without doing something. Immediately.

  “I have the cell,” I said. “Call me if anything changes.”

  “Tom.”

  I didn’t look back. I got into the car and sped off.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  He took her.

  As I made my way through the streets around our house, up one and down the other, peering into front yards and up driveways, trying my best to see through the darkness, one thought circled through my brain: He took her. Buster took her.

  Televisions glowed blue behind drawn curtains, and regular people washed dishes or put out trash cans. They lived their lives, ignorant of and unaffected by my drama.

  I didn’t see Caitlin anywhere.

  The cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Abby. I answered.

  “Tom, the police are here.”

  My heart raced even more. “Did they find her?”

  “No. They want to talk to you.”

  “Tell them I’m looking.”

  “They don’t want you to look,” Abby said. “They want you back here.”

  “You want me back there,” I said. “The cops don’t care.”

  “Tom—”

  “Tell them to call Buster.”

  “Do you really think—?”

  “Tell them.”

  Once I drove through our neighborhood, I headed toward campus and looked along the streets there. Students filled the sidewalks, shuffling to evening classes. I quickly felt like a man adrift, without hope. Engaging in a fool’s errand. Even in a town this size, what were the odds of finding one person, especially one person who apparently didn’t want to be found?

  The phone buzzed again.

  “Shit.” I checked the display, expecting to see Abby’s name. I was relieved to see it was Ryan. “Hello? Did you find her?”

  “Tom, you should come back here. We have men looking.”

  “Where? I’m over by campus, and I don’t see them.”

  “Your wife needs you at home. If Caitlin comes back, you need to be here.”

  “If, if, if, Ryan. I’m not going to be passive this time,” I said. “I should have seen this. I should have stopped it. I’m not going to sit at home while my daughter is lost, God knows where.”

  “Listen to me, Tom—”

  I hung up. I decided to head out toward the mall, to Williamstown Road, where they’d found Caitlin walking just that morning. It seemed like the next logical step. I backtracked through our neighborhood to get to Williamstown Road, but I avoided our street, figuring that if there was news, someone would call. And if there wasn’t, I didn’t want to get sidetracked. I took a longer way around and ended up abreast of the cemetery. I hit the turn signal and pulled in through the gate, heading toward the back to Caitlin’s headstone. I wasn’t supposed to be there. It closed at dark, but they didn’t always shut the entry gates. This was one such night.

  The road through the cemetery was narrow and closely lined by trees. My headlights illuminated the gnarled trunks and bounced off the headstones, showing the names and dates in brief flashes. I took a fork in the road, one that bent to the left, and I knew I was getting close to the headstone.

  Then I saw the girl.

&n
bsp; First she was a white blur in the headlights, held in relief against the darkness. I hit a bump in the road, and the headlights jostled up and down. I lost sight of her for a moment, then picked her up again. She stood in front of Caitlin’s headstone, her hands resting on the top, as though she needed it for support. It was the same girl from the park that day, the one who ran off into the trees when I approached her.

  Caitlin?

  I hit the brakes, skidding to a stop. I pushed open the door.

  “Hey!”

  The girl turned and ran off, dashing into the darkness like a frightened animal. I went after her, dodging around the tombstones. But there was next to no light. As I ran, I saw the girl ahead of me, her light clothes showing up in the darkness, but in a short while she faded from my view, swallowed up by the night.

  “Hey!”

  I stopped running, my breath coming in short, huffing bursts. She was gone. I listened but didn’t hear the sound of twigs snapping or grass being trampled. If she was still out there, she was being stealthy and quiet, moving in the night like a guerrilla.

  Beyond the edge of the cemetery were tracts of new and fairly expensive subdivisions. She could easily be from one of those homes, I reasoned, a kid who wandered out of her yard to play.

  But what did she want from me? What did she have to do with Caitlin?

  When my wind came back, I turned for the car. The headlights were angled toward Caitlin’s headstone and held it in a cone of light that carved through the darkness.

  A fresh bouquet lay at the base of the stone, below Caitlin’s name and dates. It looked like the kind from the grocery store, fresh-cut flowers wrapped in cheap and crinkly cellophane.

  I hadn’t been back to the cemetery since the first day I saw the girl, a few weeks earlier. I didn’t know if Abby was visiting the plot. I imagined she would—Abby on her knees at the headstone, her hand reaching out to brush away a stray leaf or spiderweb, then bowing her head in prayer or reflection. She might even bring Pastor Chris with her, a spiritual companion to share her journey of grief. I shook my head, allowed myself a little moment of I-told-you-so triumph. I’d been right. Caitlin was still alive. She’d come back. No need to turn the page or move on.

  There was a piece of scrap paper affixed to the cellophane with a paper clip, a note written in pen, a scrawled, scratchy handwriting. Not a child’s writing, and not a woman’s either. I could read the note without bending over.

  Good-bye, it said. Don’t come back.

  My knees felt jittery, like they were full of sand.

  I grabbed the bouquet and brought it with me to the car.

  I returned home just before nine o’clock. Ryan and Abby were in the kitchen. They sat at the table, sipping coffee. I carried the bouquet.

  “I found these,” I said. “At the cemetery.”

  They didn’t say anything, but I could tell they didn’t get it.

  “At Caitlin’s headstone,” I said. “There’s a note. Somebody left a note for her.”

  Ryan came out of his chair.

  “Put it down,” he said. “Put it down.”

  I laid it on the counter.

  “Did you touch the note?” he asked.

  “No. It’s still there.”

  He put his glasses on and read the note. “Do you know the handwriting?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Abby,” Ryan said, “will you get me a ziplock bag, one of the large ones for the freezer?”

  Ryan carefully picked the note up by its corners, his fat, sau-sagey fingers looking almost delicate, and dropped it into the bag Abby was holding open. He sealed it with a quick motion of his thumb. “It’s unlikely there will be any prints, but we can try.”

  “Who is that note for?” Abby asked “Is it for her? Or us?”

  “It might be a joke,” Ryan said. “Some sort of hoax.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Earlier, when Caitlin was asleep, I looked in on her. She was saying something in her sleep. She said, ‘Don’t send me back. Don’t send me back.’ At first I thought she was talking about us, that she thought we were going to send her back to wherever she came from. But the way she said it . . . I don’t know.”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Ryan said. “I’m going to take this with me. And I’ll call as soon as I hear anything. Just hang in there.”

  “I guess we know all about that,” Abby said.

  “Ryan,” I said. “My brother, Buster.”

  “Abby mentioned—”

  “He was here, right before. I think . . .”

  I didn’t know what I thought. Not really.

  “We’re looking into everything,” he said. “But no promises, no guarantees.”

  And that’s the way he left us, waiting for our daughter again.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I fell asleep in a living room chair. Someone knocked on the front door and it took a moment for the cobwebs to clear, for the events of the day to reappear in my mind. Caitlin at the police station, the hospital, back home. Then Caitlin out the window, into the night, the cemetery, the note . . .

  They knocked again.

  “Tom?”

  Abby’s voice reached me from upstairs.

  “Tom, it’s the police. I’m getting dressed.”

  I went to the door and opened it. Ryan stood there in the porch light. He looked haggard, unshaven. I feared the worst. They found her, but she was dead, and Ryan was here to bring me the bad news.

  “Is she . . . ?”

  “She’s in the car,” he said. “We got her.”

  Abby appeared beside me, and then we both moved out of the way, letting Ryan in. I gestured toward a chair, but he shook his head.

  “I have to get home,” he said. “This won’t take long.”

  “Is she in trouble?” Abby asked. “Did she do something?”

  “No, we found her north of downtown, not far from the police station actually. She was walking, but we’re not sure where. There isn’t much out there really.”

  “Thank you for bringing her back,” Abby said.

  “Is there something we need to sign?” I asked. “A report or something?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No need.” He didn’t make a move to leave or sit down. “I know how difficult this is, and that the two of you have been kind of thrown into the deep end here,” he finally said. “This is a huge adjustment for both of you. I’ll help in any way I can, but . . .”

  “What are you saying?” Abby asked.

  “It can start to get dicey when man power is being diverted in this way. If the media finds out, it becomes a spectacle. And you and Caitlin don’t need that right now. Let’s just utilize the resources we have at our disposal. We’re in a critical stage with Caitlin, and we all have to be on alert. Especially the two of you. You’re on the front line here.”

  “Of course,” Abby said.

  “Who was she with?” I asked.

  “No one,” Ryan said. “She was alone.” He looked me in the eye. “We never got ahold of your brother.”

  Someone knocked lightly on the screen door, so we turned. In the faint porch light, Caitlin looked calm, unaffected. Two uniformed cops walked behind her, but they didn’t appear to be forcing her to move along or into the house. She came in on her own, as though it were perfectly natural to be brought to our door by the police at sunrise.

  I took a quick look up and down the street. The neighbors had received quite a show. News vans and cops and now this.

  Neither one of us touched Caitlin when she came in. She stopped in the living room and stood with her hands jammed into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt. She looked like any slightly grubby teenager waiting for a bus.

  Ryan nodded at us. “I’d like to see you keep that appointment in the morning” he said.

  Rosenbaum. I understood what he was saying.

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  “You could even call him now,” Ryan said. “He might have some
ideas—”

  “We’re okay,” I said. “We’ve got it.”

  When Ryan was gone, Abby broke the silence.

  “Do you want something to eat, honey?”

  Before Caitlin could form a response, I cut her off.

  “No,” I said. “She needs to sit down. We have some things to talk about.”

  “Tom—”

  “Sit down,” I said. “All of us.”

  Caitlin didn’t move. She stayed rooted in place, her eyes a little vacant, her mouth a narrow line.

  “Caitlin?” I said.

  “I don’t want to sit,” she said.

  My voice rose and I pointed at a chair. “I’m telling you to.” “I want to go to bed.”

  “And run off again?” I said.

  She didn’t say anything else. She stared past me toward a point somewhere in the air.

  “Where were you going tonight?” I asked.

  When she didn’t move or respond or even change the expression on her face, I felt anger welling up within me. I wanted to reach out and take her by the shoulders and shake.

  “Tom, why don’t we just get her something to eat?” Abby said.

  I stormed off toward the kitchen. I wasn’t going to eat. I took a piece of paper from the counter and returned to the living room. Caitlin and Abby started to follow me, but when they saw me coming back, they stopped in the dining room. My dirty dish was still there, the tomato sauce hardening like dried blood.

  I held up the sketch.

  “Who is this man?” I asked Caitlin. “Is this the man you were going to see tonight? Is it?”

  She blinked a few times and leaned closer. She studied the sketch like it was a rare bird that fascinated her.

  “Is this the man who took you?” I asked.

  “Tom.”

  I moved the paper closer. “Is this the man who took you to strip clubs and made you watch him?”

  She blinked again, surprise showing on her face.

  “Did he give you flowers in the park? For Valentine’s Day? What’s his name, Caitlin?” I asked.

  Her chin puckered. “You . . . said . . . you weren’t going to ask me those things.”

  And then she crumpled. She fell into Abby’s arms, sobbing, her face pressed against Abby’s neck, her body shuddering so much that Abby had to hold her up. Abby rubbed her back and held her tight and looked over Caitlin’s shoulder at me, her face sending me a clear message.