Karin Slaughter - Faithless

Esther hesitated before taking the card, then tucked it into the sleeve of her dress. She gave Jeffrey a single nod, as if they had come to an understanding, then backed away, letting them enter her daughter’s room. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Jeffrey and Lena exchanged another glance as Esther returned to her family. Lena could tell he was feeling just as apprehensive as she was. Esther’s plea was understandable, but it only served to add more pressure to what was going to be an incredibly difficult case.

Lena had walked into the room to start the search, but Jeffrey stayed outside the doorway, looking toward the kitchen. He looked back to the family room as if to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then walked down the hall. Lena was about to follow him when he appeared in the doorway with Rebecca Bennett.

Deftly, Jeffrey led the girl into her sister’s bedroom, his hand at her elbow like a concerned uncle. In a low voice, he told her, “It’s very important you talk to us about Abby.”

Rebecca glanced nervously toward the door.

“You want me to shut it?” Lena offered, putting her hand on the knob.

After a moment’s deliberation, Rebecca shook her head. Lena studied her, thinking she was as pretty as her sister was plain. She had taken her dark brown hair out of the braid and there were kinks of waves in the thick strands that cascaded down her shoulders. Esther had said the girl was fourteen, but there was still something womanly about her that probably drew a lot of attention around the farm. Lena found herself wondering how it was Abby instead of Rebecca who had been abducted and buried in the box.

Jeffrey said, “Was Abby seeing anyone?”

Rebecca bit her bottom lip. Jeffrey was good at giving people time, but Lena could tell he was getting antsy about the girl’s family coming into the room.

Lena said, “I have an older sister, too,” leaving out the fact that she was dead. “I know you don’t want to tell on her, but Abby’s gone now. You won’t get her into trouble by telling us the truth.”

The girl kept chewing her lip. “I don’t know,” she mumbled, tears welling into her eyes. She looked to Jeffrey, and Lena guessed the girl saw him as more of an authority figure than a woman could be.

Jeffrey picked up on this, urging, “Talk to me, Rebecca.”

With great effort, she admitted, “She was gone sometimes during the day.”

“Alone?”

She nodded. “She’d say she was going into town, but she’d take too long.”

“Like, how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“It takes around fifteen minutes to get downtown from here,” Jeffrey calculated for her. “Say she was going to a store, that’d take another fifteen or twenty minutes, right?” The girl nodded. “So, she should’ve been gone an hour at most, right?”

Again, the girl nodded. “Only, it was more like two.”

“Did anyone ask her about this?”

She shook her head. “I just noticed.”

“I bet you notice a lot of things,” Jeffrey guessed. “You probably pay more attention to what’s going on than the adults do.”

Rebecca shrugged, but the compliment had worked. “She was just acting funny.”

“How?”

“She was sick in the morning, but she told me not to tell Mama.”

The pregnancy, Lena thought.

Jeffrey asked, “Did she tell you why she was sick?”

“She said it was something she ate, but she wasn’t eating much.”

“Why do you think she didn’t want to tell your mother?”

“Mama would worry,” Rebecca said. She shrugged. “Abby didn’t like people to worry about her.”

“Were you worried?”

Lena saw her swallow. “She cried at night sometimes.” She tilted her head to the side. “My room’s next door. I could hear her.”

“Was she crying about something specific?” Jeffrey asked, and Lena could hear him straining to be gentle with the girl. “Maybe someone hurt her feelings?”

“The Bible teaches us to forgive,” the girl answered. From anyone else, Lena might have thought she was being dramatic, but the girl seemed to be relaying what she thought of as wise advice rather than a sermon. “If we cannot forgive others, then the Lord cannot forgive us.”

“Was there anyone she needed to forgive?”

“If there was,” Rebecca began, “then she would pray for help.”

“Why do you think she was crying?”

Rebecca looked at the room, taking in her sister’s things with a palpable sadness. She was probably thinking about Abby, what the room had felt like when the older girl had been alive. Lena wondered what kind of relationship the sisters had shared. Even though they were twins, Lena and Sibyl had been involved in their share of battles over everything from who got to sit in the front seat of the car to who answered the telephone. Somehow, she couldn’t see Abby being that way.

Rebecca finally answered, “I don’t know why she was sad. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Jeffrey asked, “Are you sure, Rebecca?” He gave her a supportive smile. “You can tell us. We won’t get mad or judge her. We just want to know the truth so that we can find the person who hurt Abby and punish him.”

She nodded, her eyes tearing up again. “I know you want to help.”

“We can’t help Abby unless you help us,” Jeffrey countered. “Anything at all, Rebecca, no matter how silly it seems now. You let us decide whether it’s useful or not.”

She looked from Lena to Jeffrey, then back again. Lena couldn’t tell if the girl was hiding something or if she was just scared of speaking to strangers without her parents’ permission. Either way, they needed to get her to answer their questions before someone started to wonder where she was.

Lena tried to keep her voice light. “You want to talk to me alone, honey? We can talk just you and me if you want.”

Again, Becca seemed to be thinking about it. At least half a minute passed before she said, “I-” just as the back door slammed shut. The girl jumped as if a bullet had been fired.

From the front room, a man’s voice called, “Becca, is that you?”

Zeke plodded up the hallway, and when Rebecca saw her cousin she went to him and grabbed his hand, calling, “It’s me, Papa,” as she led the boy toward her family.

Lena bit back the curse that came to her lips.

Jeffrey asked, “You think she knows something?”

“Hell if I know.”

Jeffrey seemed to agree, and she could feel her frustration echoed in his tone when he told her, “Let’s get this over with.”

She went to the large chest of drawers by the door. Jeffrey went to the desk opposite. The room was small, probably about ten feet by ten. There was a twin bed pushed up against the windows that faced the barn. There were no posters on the white walls or any signs that this had been a young woman’s room. The bed was neatly made, a multicolored quilt tucked in with sharp precision. A stuffed Snoopy that was probably older than Abby was propped against the pillows, its neck sloped to the side from years of wear.

Neatly folded socks were in one of the top drawers. Lena opened the other, seeing similarly folded underwear. That the girl had taken the time to fold her underwear was something that stuck with Lena. She’d obviously been meticulous, concerned with keeping things in order. The lower drawers revealed a precision bordering on obsession.

Everyone had a favorite place to hide things, just like every cop had a favorite place to look. Jeffrey was checking under the bed, between the mattress and box spring. Lena went to the closet, kneeling to check the shoes. There were three pairs, all of them worn but well taken care of. The sneakers had been polished white, the Mary Janes mended at the heel. The third pair was pristine, probably her Sunday shoes.