Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

My alarm went off at six, and though it was still dark in the room and my eyelids were refusing to open, I reached blindly for the coffee I could smell on my nightstand.

Jack's side of the bed was cool, and I knew he'd already had a workout, showered, and checked in with his shift commanders for the day.

The automated blackout shades started to rise, and let in a pearly glow of morning light, and I made my way out of bed with my cup and headed for the shower so I could wake up. We'd already decided to talk to Robert Lidle first thing, and then we'd drive to Prince Frederick, Maryland, and talk to Emma Lidle.

Jack came in moments later while my head was covered in suds and soap dripping into my eyes.

"You're always a picture in the morning," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Shut up," I said, ducking my head under the spray.

"Change of plans," he said. "We'll drive to Prince Frederick first. The hospital called and said Kitty Lidle passed away around half an hour ago."

"And now we have three homicides on our hands," I said, hurrying to finish my shower. I turned the water off and Jack handed me a towel.

"Let's go ahead and move out," Jack said. "I want to be back in time to see the entire family together and how they react to knowing their mother was murdered."

"Is it raining?" I asked, standing in the closet in my underwear. I'd spent the last month perpetually damp, and it made a difference when picking out clothes in the morning.

"No rain in the forecast for today," he said.

"Is it cold?"

"A little chilly out now," he said. "It'll warm up this afternoon. You could just check the weather app."

"Why when I know you already looked?" I asked, pulling a pair of wide-legged gray slacks from the hanger and slipping them on.

I wasn't a hundred percent sure what was on the agenda today at the funeral home either, but I'd check in with Sheldon at a reasonable hour. I found a stretchy turtleneck in dark purple and grabbed the suit jacket that matched the pants, and then I put my feet into soft leather boots that would need to stay away from any remaining puddles.

I looked at Jack and the black slacks and white dress shirt he wore. "I thought you didn't have to go back to court?"

"I don't," he said. "But impressions matter to Robert Lidle. He doesn't want to think of me as someone who actually works the job. Seeing me in uniform won't make questioning him easier."

"Yeah, I got the impression he was a real piece of work when I listened to him on the phone with Martinez."

"Just a man who's used to getting exactly what he wants," Jack said. "He's mostly harmless. A lot of bluster. I think he's always been intimidated by his wife's status and power. It can't have been easy to marry into a family like that. Then he runs for Senate, using his wife's money, and he still loses."

"Now he gives headaches to the entire institution," I said.

"Like his son said, it keeps him busy."

We stopped in the kitchen to top off our coffee, and then I stuck my head in the study door. Doug and Oscar were dead to the world. Oscar hadn't moved from in front of the fireplace, and Doug was asleep on the couch. Margot was still humming and documents were still being organized on the screen.

"Should we wake him?" I asked. "Let him know we're headed out?"

"I'll call him on the way back to King George. Let him get some sleep."

Jack's police unit was parked in front of the house like it usually was, but he pointed to the garage instead. I thought for sure he'd be taking the Porsche, but the lights flashed on his black truck. It was big and sleek and there was something about the bug-eyed headlights that were just sexy. It smelled like leather and was as comfortable as any car we had.

"Just in case there are still areas with high water," he said. "I don't want to take a chance in the Porsche."

I grunted and hoisted myself into the truck, and then we were off to Prince Frederick.

I'd never actually been to Prince Frederick. There'd been no reason. It was about the same size as Bloody Mary, and it looked the same in a lot of ways. Old houses, big trees, brick-front buildings down Main Street. It was the county seat, which was saying something since every other surrounding town was much smaller. It was an area where people who hated living in the city moved to. A majority of people commuted into Baltimore or DC for work.

Jack looked down at the clock and said, "We'll check her house first. Maybe we can catch her before she leaves for work."

Ten minutes later we pulled up in front of a cute white house with vibrant front flower beds and blue shutters.

"Cute," I said. "Doesn't look like anything the Lidles would own.

"I'm guessing that's the point," Jack said as he parked in front of the house and we walked to the front porch.

"What is she? Eighteen? Nineteen? Even with whoever is helping her this can't be easy. She moves to a town where she knows no one, new name, no job skills, and she's made a go of it."

"Yeah, something must have scared the hell out of her," Jack said. "We both saw the family she grew up in. What made her leave the comfort of her mother and father's home?"

Jack knocked on the screen door, and I jumped slightly as a cat appeared in the window next to the door, eyeing us suspiciously.

"I don't see a car," he said, leaving the porch and walking to the side of the house. "No one here. Let's check the landscaping company. It's less than a ten-minute drive."

"You think she planted all these flowers herself?" I asked as we got back into the truck.

"Looks like she learned a skill," he said.

"I would have killed all of these," I said. "Why don't my plants ever live?"

"Because you have other skills," he said, squeezing my hand.

Miss Mossy's Landscape Design was off the highway. There were two arched greenhouses connected by an open wooden pergola with mountains of hanging baskets in all sizes and colors.

"Don't even think about it," Jack said.

"I love hanging baskets. We could get some for the patio now that the rain has stopped."

"You'll kill them like you always do."

"But I want them to live, so that should count for something."

"I don't think it does," he said. "Come on. Let's find her and get out of here before you make bad decisions."

There was an older woman under the pergola who was misting all of the baskets. She wore a green apron and jeans and a white T-shirt. Her red hair had probably once been vibrant, but there were white streaks that shimmered throughout the long tail she wore. Her eyes were shaded with a green visor that matched her apron.

"Good morning," she said, smiling brightly. "Y'all are getting an early start. Doesn't look like you're ready for gardening."

"No, ma'am," Jack said, giving her his full-watt smile.

She looked at me and said, "Goodness."

"Tell me about it," I said. "Try living with him. I never get a thing done."

"I believe it," she said. "But I was married to a cop, so I know one when I see one. Any trouble I need to know about? I'm Sharon Mossy. This is my place."

"No trouble," Jack said, showing her his badge. "We're looking for an employee. Emily Lazarus."

A hard glare came into Sharon's eyes, and her hand fisted at her hip. "Oh, no," she said. "That girl is as good as gold. I'm not going to let you come in and mess up the life she's made. There's no way she's done anything wrong."

"She's not in trouble," Jack said.

"Then you need to scoot," Sharon said.

"Sounds like you know a little bit about where she came from," I said sympathetically.

She paused and looked at me and said, "You're not a cop."

"No," I told her. "I'm the coroner for King George County."

She blew out a breath on a sigh. "I suppose everyone's past catches up to them eventually."

"We're not here to cause her trouble or bring notice to her," Jack said. "But we do need to talk to her. It's important."

"I hate to think of that scared look coming back into her eyes," Sharon said. "The first six months she worked here she jumped at every shadow and was constantly looking over her shoulder."

"It sounds like you're taking good care of her," Jack said. "We just need to talk to her. You have my word."

She looked at Jack steadily and then nodded. "She and a couple of the other crew are loading up the truck in the back for a job. You should be able to catch her before they pull out. Tell her I told you to use the breakroom, and that I'll drive her to the job site when y'all are done."

"We appreciate it," Jack said.

"Just straight through there," she said, pointing us toward the back of the pergola and behind one of the greenhouses. "Can't miss them."

I hurried my steps to match Jack's until we made it to the loading area. It was more practical and industrial back here. Graveled paths and rows of trees in five- and ten-gallon buckets for as far as the eyes could see. There were large boulders for decoration and bags of mulch and pebbles.

There were three of them loading the truck. All had on jeans and a Miss Mossy green T-shirt. But Emma Lidle stood out amongst them. She looked almost too small to be lifting the bags of mulch onto her shoulder and then onto the truck, but there was a hidden strength in her that wasn't visible to the naked eye.

There were two guys in the truck, probably college age or a little older, and they smiled at us as we approached. But not Emma. As soon as she saw us fear leapt into her eyes, and I saw the thought cross her face of running.

"Hi guys," Jack said casually. "We don't want to throw you behind schedule, but we just talked to Sharon and she said we could borrow Emily here for a few minutes. Just to talk." Jack looked straight at her as he said this. "Sharon said she'd drive you over to the site herself as soon as we're done."

"Sure, I guess," one of the guys said, taking the bag of mulch from Emma. "Meet you over there, Em. We'll go ahead and get started."

The other guy stared at Jack a little longer. "Is everything okay?" he asked, looking back and forth between Jack and Emma. He was protective, much like Sharon Mossy had been, and it made me wonder if something hadn't started to bloom between the two of them.

"Em?" he asked. "Want me to stay behind?"

She shook her head and then said, "No, no, it's fine. Y'all go ahead and I'll catch up. We won't be long."

"Sharon said we could use the breakroom," Jack said.

Emma licked her lips and her eyes darted to the side one more time, as if she were giving it one last thought to flee, but then she nodded. "It's through here."

She crossed her arms over her chest and walked quickly through the open garage door of the greenhouse. She hadn't changed much from the family portrait. She'd darkened her hair some so it wasn't so astonishingly white blond, and her face had refined and thinned down some from the baby fat it had carried before.

She walked quickly into a side room that said employees only and then waited until we entered before shutting the door behind her.

"Who are you?" she asked, not sitting down at one of the little round tables with metal chairs. There was a soda and snack machine against one of the walls, a microwave on the counter, and a small refrigerator.

Jack took out his badge and let her take her time looking at it. "My name is Jack Lawson. I'm the sheriff in King George County. This is my wife, Dr. Graves."

I noticed he didn't share the fact that I was coroner straight off, and I thought that was a smart move seeing as she looked ready to bolt at any moment.

"Emma, let's sit down. We have some important things to tell you."

She shook her head hard and hissed, "Don't call me that here. My name is Emily."

There was a twinge of hysteria in her voice and I took a step forward, putting myself in her line of sight.

"Emily," I said. "We are not here to hurt you or cause you trouble. But some things have happened and we need to talk to you. No one else knows you're here. Just us. We promise."

"How did you find me?" she asked. "If you can find me anyone can find me."

"That's not necessarily true," I said. "We've got a little extra help in the computer department. And it took him a while to dig out the information. You're safe. Let's sit down and talk, okay?"

She nodded and then took the chair facing the door, so she could see if anyone passed by or entered. She had strong preservation instincts. Which made me ask the question again and again why she'd need them.

Jack was letting me take the lead since she seemed to respond better to my voice. "Emily," I said again. "Some things have happened at home that you need to know about. It has to do with your sister."

I was pretty sure that a murder in King George County wouldn't have shown up on the local news in Maryland. Why would it have?

"My sister?" she asked. "Which one?"

"Evie," I told her.

Color leached from her cheeks and she reached out and grabbed my wrist in a vice. "What happened to her? Did they get her? Tell me!"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that she was murdered Monday night," I said softly.

"Murdered?" she asked. "I don't understand."

Jack got up quietly and went to the fridge, finding a bottle of water, and he set it in front of her.

"Why did you ask if they got her?" I countered. "Emily, Jack and I are working hard trying to find out who did this to her. We know there are a lot of people involved. Maybe people you know or people you were supposed to be able to trust."

Her eyes were big and round and her pupils were like pinpricks. "They hurt her?" she asked. "Did they hurt her like they hurt me?"

I turned my hand over so I grasped hers. "Yes, they did. But they went too far this time. They killed her."

"Because Evie wasn't like me," she said softly. "She wouldn't have just cowered and prayed for it to stop. She would have fought."

"You were just a child," I said. "It wasn't your fault. And there's nothing you could have done. Adults are supposed to protect you. They're not supposed to hurt you."

A big fat tear rolled down her cheek. "My mom and dad always protected us," she said. "But they didn't know. Didn't understand. I couldn't tell them. It would have brought shame to the family."

"Emily, listen to me," I said, my voice more firm. "I've met your mom and dad. I've seen your house. And they don't strike me as the kind of people who give two flips about bringing shame to the family. They seem like the kind of people who do what's best for them and their children, even if it isn't popular with everyone else."

She nodded slowly and looked at me, and the heartbreak in her eyes was almost my undoing. "I just didn't know how to tell them. I was Evie's age the first time. That's when I was old enough. Oh, God. Evie. She would be that age now. And the other girls right behind her."

"They're going to be safe," I promised her. "No one is going to hurt your family again. There's something else I need to tell you. About your grandmother."

"She knew," Emma said, her eyes going distant. "She knew the first time it happened. I could see it in her eyes. The other girls were still too small, but not me. I was old enough to start learning things. And I learned because the alternative was terrifying. I was told if I wasn't good enough and didn't please well enough that he'd just pick another sister." Her voice hitched. "They were so small. Just babies. I couldn't let him do that."

"No, I can see that," I said. "What did your grandmother do?"

"She drank," Emma said. "I think it was all she could do. And I started drinking too. I found some cocaine in Uncle Phin's jacket pocket. I took it when he wasn't looking and tried that too. And I found if I drank a little or snorted a little it wasn't so hard to go through the motions of acting like I was enjoying myself.

"And then when I was fourteen he sold me for the first time," she said. "Just to some friends, he told me. And that I was supposed to do all the things I'd been practicing, and that if I was good I'd get special gifts. New clothes. A car when I turned sixteen. And all the time I kept drinking and doing drugs, and my mom would look at me with the saddest look on her face because I know she didn't understand and didn't know how to help me. Sometimes I could hear her crying at night."

"No one else knew what was happening to you?" I asked.

She wiped her face with her hands. "Sometimes it seemed like no one knew. And sometimes it seemed like everyone knew. And then when I graduated from high school Mimi gave me a card and she told me to open it when I was alone and to not tell anyone. By that point I was pretty good at keeping secrets, so I waited a couple of days and then opened the envelope.

"Inside of it was a safety deposit key and some paperwork, along with exact instructions on where to go and how to retrieve it. I pretty much came and went as I pleased at that point, so no one even noticed when I took the train to New York and spent a couple of days there."

"What was in the safety deposit box?" I asked.

"The deed and keys to this house," she said. "A driver's license and passport. Social security card, high school and college diploma. And cash. About twenty-five thousand dollars. Also the passcodes and login for an account she'd set up for me."

"She helped you escape," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "She came up and met me in New York, and that was the last time I saw her. She said if I was going to disappear I had to leave everything for good. If I didn't then they would find me. I could tell she was afraid. For me and for herself."

"She tried to protect Evie," I said. "Evie was at your grandparents' house when she was taken, and your grandmother stayed in the room with her. Slept in the bed next to her. But someone drugged her. That's how they got Evie out of the house."

"I don't understand," she said.

"The drugs they gave her caused complications, and your grandmother passed away early this morning."

Her hand clasped over her mouth.

"This is all my fault. I should have said something. Done something. But I believed him when he said if I told anyone then my family would die. He said maybe in a nice house fire. No one would really miss my dad. He wasn't important. And my mother was a nobody. And I didn't even have a brother so there was no one to carry on the family name. He said all we were good for was spreading our legs and acting out our parts, and if we were good enough at it maybe we'd have our own fortune someday. But I didn't want a fortune. I just wanted a childhood."

She laid her head down on the table and sobbed, her shoulders shaking violently.

"This is not your fault," I told her. "The one who is to blame is the man who raped you. The man who sold you to his friends. And the only person to blame for your sister's and grandmother's murders is the one who killed them. And we are going to find the son of a bitch who did and take them all down. That is a promise."

She lifted her head and looked at me out of tear-drenched eyes, and I wondered if I saw hope or if that's just what I wanted to see.

"Who did this to you?" I asked her. "Just start there. Just a name. We'll take it the rest of the way."

She was silent for what seemed an eternity, and I wondered if fear was going to win in the end. But she finally nodded and said, "My grandfather."