good,” she says, and she smiles at me.
I smile back. Then the smile disappears. “Tell me about Alyssa,” I say.
“Drew,” she says, “well, Drew thinks she up and left. People do that — Acacia is proof of that, right? People are up and leaving other towns and cities to move here, only makes sense the opposite is true too, and Alyssa is certainly of that age where people want to flee the nest. At least that’s what people seem to think.”
“So the police haven’t classified her as missing?”
“No,” she says.
“But you think she is.”
“She’s a good kid. We know her pretty well. She used to babysit Damian for us,” she says.
“But not Harry?”
“By the time Harry came along she was too busy with school and exams.”
“So why do you think she’s missing as opposed to having left town? Drew’s a good cop, and I can’t imagine him taking this lightly.”
“She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”
“What about her phone? Her handbag? Her car? Were those things gone?”
“Yes, and before you say anything, you know as well as I do that doesn’t mean anything. The person who took her could easily have taken those things too.”
“Any clothes missing?” I ask. “A suitcase?”
“They were gone too,” she says. “But she just wouldn’t leave like that.”
I twist in my seat so I can get a better look at her. She keeps looking ahead. She knows what I’m about to say. “Look, Maggie, unless you have something more than that, you might as well turn the car around and take me back to the airport. People aren’t going to be thrilled to see me here, and unless—”
“Father Frank said you’d help.”
“Father Frank?”
“He said for a few years after her abduction she used to have nightmares. There was a figure in her dreams she called The Bad Man. She said she was scared, but she always knew things would be okay because Deputy Harper would save her. She says Deputy Harper promised her in the hospital that he’d find The Bad Man if he ever came back.”
I remember. I crossed my heart and told her I’d do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
“What makes you so sure there’s a bad man?”
“It’s probably easier if I show you,” she says, and we carry on driving into town and into the memories I have of this place, most of them good, worried there’s a whole fresh set of bad ones on the way.
Ten
Saint John’s isn’t the only church in town, but it is the original — at least in spirit. When the town was built, the church was in the center, a hundred yards from the original sawmill, the founders of the town figuring if it was good enough for the Roman Empire to have all roads leading to Rome, then it was good enough to have all roads in Acacia Pines leading to Saint John’s. Which it was, up until it burned down a hundred years ago. Perhaps that was something else the Roman Empire taught the founders.
The church was rebuilt half a mile away. The rebuild allowed for a bigger cemetery, one that would need to expand as the town expanded, and as the town grew bigger in various directions, the church became more and more off-center.
The new church is white weatherboard and in need of painting, one end of the building low and flat, the other peaking three stories high like a rocket ship, with a cross on the top. The gardens surrounding it are beautiful but overgrown, stretching out into the adjoining cemetery. The church can seat two hundred people, though I’m not sure how many go on a Sunday to feel closer to God. I’ve only ever been for weddings and funerals.
The parking lot between the church and the road is empty. We drive through it and around the church to the residence out back, a rustic-looking home with a low roof and wide eaves that also needs painting. I remember Father Frank Davidson being meticulous. When he wasn’t preaching, he was painting, or mowing, or trimming. The last time I came here was to tell him his sister had been killed. Maggie parks the car and we step out into the sun. The heat of the gravel comes through my shoes. Out here summers always feel like they’re going to burn the town to ash. I’d forgotten days could be like this.
The residence has two bedrooms and a kitchen and a lounge and not a lot else. That I remember. There’s an apple tree next to it with branches so heavy with fruit they’re at breaking point. There’s a wooden porch out front that at this time of the day is half shaded by the eaves. We climb the steps and Maggie doesn’t knock. We step inside and the smell tells me everything I need to know. It tells me why she thinks Alyssa never ran away, but it also tells me that Alyssa had good reason to.
The décor is out of date and unlikely to ever swing back into fashion. The carpet is worn to the point I’m not sure it can still legally be called carpet. The first bedroom is Alyssa’s. The bed has been made, but everything else looks slightly askew. The next bedroom has Frank in it. He’s lying on the bed in a pair of shorts and a thin white top. There’s a fan on and the windows are open but it doesn’t help with the heat, doesn’t help with the smell. A tube runs from under Father Frank’s nose to an oxygen machine that’s plugged into the wall.
There are sores on Frank’s skin and blisters in various states of erupting. There’s bruising on his arms and legs, a side effect of the medication. His eyes have sunk into his skull. He’s lost most of his hair, most of his color, most of his life. It’s like looking at a poorly made showroom mannequin. There’s a clock on the wall, and I can hear it ticking. If I were dying, I’d want that clock in a different room. Or out of the house. The oxygen machine hisses and the fan whirrs. The mystery of his missing niece is keeping him alive. Perhaps that’s why she’s run away. Father Frank has declined permanent care, just as strongly as he declined to spend his final days in a hospice. A nurse, Maggie’s sister Victoria, comes in every morning to check on him, and a doctor every evening.
I don’t know where Father Frank is, but this isn’t him. This is only half of him. Whatever is eating him has worked away at the muscle and is now working away at the bone. I think back to the last time I saw him, at the hospital the night I found Alyssa. He told me what I had done was the kind of thing that would weigh heavily on good men. He said I would come to question my actions. He was right. When I left Acacia Pines, I left knowing I would never be a cop again. I couldn’t risk being in a situation where I lost myself the way I had lost myself that night.
His eyes flicker open. He smiles, and for the briefest of moments the disease is beaten back and the man he used to be is out on display. “You came,” he says. His voice has a whistling effect to it, like there’s a hole in his throat.
There’s a chair by the bed. I take it. Maggie stays standing in the doorway. My clothes are sticking to me.
“It’s good to see you, Frank,” I say.
He laughs, and the laugh turns into a cackle, turns into a cough, then ends with a spasm. Something rattles in his lungs. He reaches for a small bowl and coughs phlegm into it. I hand him a glass of water. He sips slowly, and hangs on to it.
“Two pieces of advice,” he says. “Number one. Don’t get old. Number two. Don’t get cancer.”
“How long?” I ask.
“I should be dead already, but I’m sure as hell not dying without . . .” he says, and he closes his eyes and turns his head away as something — a bolt of pain or nausea — fires through his body. He holds on, grits his teeth and turns back to me. “I’m not dying without answers.” He smiles at me, and it’s the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “It’s . . . it’s a funny thing to describe, Noah, it really is. I can feel it coming, this death of mine, I can feel it coming and yet I’ve been taught my whole life not