David Bell - The Hiding Place

“Detective?” Janet said.

“Yes?”

“The other day with the reporter and then tonight-I was right, wasn’t I?”

“About what?”

“You don’t think Dante did it.”

Stynes couldn’t lie. But he wasn’t ready to admit anything because too many things were coming at him at once.

“Let’s just say, things appear to be in a state of flux right now. And do me a favor? Keep the doors locked. And if anything happens after I’m gone, make sure you share it with me this time.”

Janet went down the hall to the closed door of her father’s bedroom. Everyone else had left-Stynes to pursue evidence against both the man who’d assaulted Ashleigh and the man who might be Justin, Kevin back to his home and his family. Janet thought about leaving the old man alone, leaving him to stew in the bed-room with his own miserable thoughts, whatever they might be.

But she couldn’t just walk away from him. Something had changed, something profound. Justin might be alive. And in the wake of their earlier conversation, the one in which the darkest thoughts Janet had ever experienced about her father came to her mind, she felt a need to see her father’s face, to know how the news Ashleigh brought home affected him.

She heard the TV playing through the closed door. When she and Ashleigh had moved in, her dad had immediately gone out and bought his own television for the bedroom, something that allowed him to retreat from the shared living space of the house and be alone. He’d done this with more and more frequency in the six months since he’d stopped actively looking for work. And until that night, Janet rarely disturbed him. She rapped lightly, expecting an immediate response. But none came.

She knocked louder.

“Dad?”

Still nothing.

She placed her hand on the knob but didn’t turn it. Even as a kid, she wouldn’t have gone into her parents’ room when the door was closed. She couldn’t bring herself to do it as an adult. And a part of her felt relief. If he wanted to lock himself away, that was his problem.

But she’d let him off the hook so many times, given him so much space just to make his life easier and less confrontational. And, Janet had to be honest, to make her life easier as well. She didn’t want to tap into whatever the old man was thinking, so she avoided it. But the time for avoidance was past.

She made a fist and used it like a club, rapping against the door. The volume on the TV dropped and the door opened. Her dad stood there, still dressed, but his hair mussed in the back.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I want to know what you think of all this now,” she demanded.

“Oh, Janet-”

“No, you can’t just turn away,” she said. “Tell me something about tonight. What do you think about the fact that Justin might still be alive? Just say something.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that all of this is stirring your fantasies,” he said.

He tried to close the door, but Janet put her hand out and stopped it.

“This isn’t going to go away, Dad. We’re in the middle of it now, and we’re going to know something. Finally. We can’t avoid it.”

He met her eye and stopped trying to close the door. “I know that as well as you do, Janet.”

She let go of the door and straightened up. They stared at each other across a distance that felt much greater than the physical space separating them.

“I have to go somewhere tonight,” Janet said.

“So go.”

“I wouldn’t go anywhere if it wasn’t important,” she said. “But there’s someone I need to talk to.”

“The cop?”

“No. Michael Bower.”

“Jesus.” He rolled his eyes. “What’s he doing in town?”

Since the real explanation seemed too complicated, Janet made it short and sweet. “He’s visiting his mother. And I want to talk to him about everything that’s been happening. He’s a good friend, Dad.”

“That cop said not to leave the house.”

“He said to be careful,” Janet said. “I’m just going to see Michael-that’s it. But I didn’t want to leave without talking to you.” She lowered her voice. “I’m worried about Ashleigh. I don’t want her leaving the house.”

“So? Tell her.”

“I will, Dad. But I’m asking you to help, too. That man, he’s been hanging around our house. Make sure Ashleigh doesn’t go anywhere. Can you do that for me? Or do it for her if that makes it easier.”

His face lost some of its hard edges. He nodded. “But you shouldn’t be out running around either. Who knows what this maniac is doing.”

Janet recognized that her father had just issued the strongest statement of concern he could muster.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He left the bedroom door open but turned the sound on the TV up without saying anything else.

Janet stopped outside the door to Ashleigh’s room, which was, as usual, closed and probably locked. Janet tried to remember when Ashleigh started retreating to her room and shutting herself in. Had she been eleven? Twelve? Janet remembered the disappointment she felt when Ashleigh began locking herself away. Janet had hoped that she would have a few more years of a preteen daughter, a little more time before the full force of adolescence hit the house. But that wasn’t to be. Ashleigh walked her own path and kept her own counsel.

Obviously.

Janet didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified that her daughter had managed to keep such a huge secret for so long. Well, she thought, raise an independent kid and suffer the consequences.

She knocked on the door and wondered why she was always knocking on someone else’s door inside the house. Did they ever come and knock for her? Or was she always the one reaching out?

Janet thought she heard Ashleigh say she could come in, so she did, only to be greeted by a scrambling on the bed.

“Jesus, Mom,” Ashleigh said.

“I thought you said to come in. I’m sorry.”

Ashleigh tucked something away beneath her pillow, a scrap of paper or a note. Janet wouldn’t have been able to tell what it was anyway, but if Ashleigh felt better hiding it, so be it. Probably a love note from Kevin, if Janet had to guess.

Despite her secretive nature, there were times Janet saw Ashleigh as the kid she still was. Lying on the bed, wearing a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt, Ashleigh looked small, vulnerable even. Janet couldn’t forget the danger the girl had found herself in earlier that day and decided right then that she wasn’t going to leave the house, that Michael could come here or they’d talk on the phone or something. But she couldn’t leave her daughter alone. Not so soon.

“What?” Ashleigh said.

“It’s nice to see you, too.”

Ashleigh smirked. “I mean, what are you doing here?”

“Remember when you came home today and you were so sweet and emotional and vulnerable? Remember that girl?”

“You’re not funny, Mom.”

“I thought I was,” Janet said. “I was coming to tell you that I was going out for a little bit, but I changed my mind.”

“So you’re coming to tell me that you changed your mind?”

“I guess.”

Ashleigh looked at the clock, then back at her mom. “It’s almost nine. Where would you go anyway?”

“I was going to see a friend of mine.”

Ashleigh looked even more puzzled. Janet understood that the notion that her mother had friends, let alone friends she would socialize with on a weeknight, seemed too much to imagine. Real friends? People she had fun with? No way.

“Michael Bower,” Janet said. “You know who he is, right?”

Ashleigh perked up, suddenly interested. “Your friend,” she said. “He was in the park that day.”