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She couldn’t tell if he blamed her. Surely his police training would temper that, but in a case like hers, didn’t it always creep into the shadowy edges of people’s thoughts: What was so horribly wrong with her that made her parents do what they did?
He opened his mouth, couldn’t find words and closed it again. Pivoting on his heel, he went to stand in front of her favorite window, staring out, his hands clenched tightly. And then he said the last words she’d ever expected to hear. “Your mother’s not dead.”
Lois gasped. So did Gramma, but hers turned into a sorrowful prayer. “Oh, dear God, no.”
Mila stared at Sam’s back, willing him to look at her. “That can’t be,” she whispered. “We saw them recover two bodies. The newspaper the next day said they both died on impact.”
After a long moment, Ben looked Sam’s way, then took over. “Your… Joshua did die. But the dead woman was the one he’d kidnapped. Lindy jumped out of the car at the last instant and was very badly injured. It was years before she could leave the hospital.”
Tears slid from Gramma’s face as she keened, low and mournful. Mila tugged her hand free and wrapped her arm around her. They had thanked God for fifteen years that Lindy was dead, and all that time she’d been out there, recovering, regaining her strength so she could punish them.
“She’s the one who tried to kill me,” Mila said flatly. It was a shock that her mother was alive, but not this part of it. Lindy had always hated her, always wanted her destroyed. She must blame Mila for Joshua’s death, for her own injuries. Blaming others was what Lindy did.
Lois came to sit on the other side of Jessica, hugging her, too. Did any of the officers understand that it wasn’t just the shock of finding out that Lindy had survived, but also of learning after years of freedom that she and Gramma had failed in their grand escape? They’d just had a fifteen-year-break from the terror that was her mother.
As if reading her mind, Sam finally turned, finally locked gazes with her. She couldn’t read anything in his but that taut control. His words, though the tone was harsh and stiff, were encouraging. “You’re not a child anymore, Mila, and you’re not alone.”
She would have felt less alone if he’d embraced her or touched her shoulder or held her hand. But first he’d have to unknot those fists that whitened his fingers.
Papers rustled as Ben opened a folder. He leaned forward to show her a photograph. “Is that your father?”
It was hard to look at the demon from her past, but she forced herself, a little voice in her head chanting, He’s dead dead dead. And you’re not alone. “Yes.”
Another photo. “Is that your mother?”
This time it was hard not to look. The woman who had brought her into the world. The woman who had fully intended to take her out of it. The woman who wasn’t dead dead dead. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she nodded.
One more picture. “This is what she looked like three months after the accident.”
Scars, lone wisps of hair, a face that didn’t fit together right, bandages, raw places that hadn’t yet healed… In an impersonal only-human way, it saddened Mila that the woman in the photo, who’d once been pretty, friendly, high energy—manic, Dr. Fleischer said—now elicited only shock, fear, pity or morbid curiosity.
One last picture. “That’s just before she let Poppy out of the car Saturday.”
“Oh.” Mila’s gasp was more vehement than she’d intended, and it made both Sam and Ben look at her expectantly. “I—I, uh, saw this woman. Just down the street. A week ago. The night we—” Sam hadn’t tried to hide anything from his officers, but she wasn’t sure if he wanted that to change. “The night Poppy and I ran into you and we went to Braum’s.”
She recounted the meeting for them, shuddering to remember how empty the street had been. The woman—her mother—had even commented on it. She also recalled how unnatural her hair had looked. A wig to hide the fact that much of it had never grown back? Even then, Mila had been torn whether the stranger was a man or a woman. Fast-forward to Saturday at the creek, no wig, convincing her the attacker was a man.
