Page 34 of Behind These Four Walls

Bowen pushed his plate away, downed the rest of his coffee, and slid off his seat. “And that’s my cue. Don’t mind her, ma’am. Everyone’s treated the same around here. At least by me,” he said breezily. He nodded at the both of them. Had his eye lingered a hair too long on Isla? She couldn’t be sure, but she brushed it off as nerves. He hadn’t recognized her. If he had, he would have said something for sure. Right?

“I think you offended him,” Isla pointed out innocently.

Becca dismissed him with a wave in his recently vacated direction. “I didn’t mean him anyway,” she said.

“So she went to the local high school,” Isla redirected to get them back on track. “That’s pretty cool that they let her.”

“Yeah, she was special. Loved the theater. She was in the theater club with my niece, Sara.”

Isla silently said,Of course Eden would have been.

“But about six or so months into the school year, she left to go live with her mother in Florida. At least that’s what Sara told me.”

That tracked. Eden had shown up in the middle of a school year, though they hadn’t attended the same school. Different districts. “Why do you think she left so suddenly during a school year, especially since she seemed to love the theater club here so much? This would have been her junior year maybe?”

Shit. Becca had never mentioned what grade they were in, or Edie’s age. Isla might have messed up. Thank goodness Becca had chased the cop away, because he surely would have picked up on that. Hopefully Becca wouldn’t notice. Isla held her breath.

Becca’s eyes darted around the relatively empty diner, and she lowered her voice. “I couldn’t tell you. But Sara might know, since they were close. She lives a few blocks from here—on Third, fourth house on the left. Little blue number. Really cute. I’ll text her and let her know you might be stopping by?” Becca raised an expectant eyebrow.

Isla affirmed. “Thank you. You were a huge help.”

Becca gave a satisfied nod. “Good luck on your profile. And kudos to you for getting in that ivory tower.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Isla packed the last of her belongings and glanced around the small motel room. It was nothing spectacular by far, but in these past several weeks it had become her refuge and grounding place, a small squarish room that was the only place where she could be her truest self. She wasn’t sure when she could come here next without sparking curiosity or suspicion. She’d committed her wall to memory, and from here on, anything new would have to be worked out in another way.

“By the time I come back here,” Isla began, pausing at the doorway with a duffel and a large hard-shell rolling suitcase at her feet, with her laptop backpack secured on her back, “I’ll know what happened to her.” She promised this to the empty room that had once been her and Eden’s three-day sanctuary on their way to living life on their own terms.

She kept the motel room. Her complete privacy wasn’t guaranteed at the estate, and she wouldn’t be able to explain the case board of Corrigan facts and notes she’d accumulated.

Now comes the real work, she thought.No turning back now.

She’d already paid through another month, but still stopped at the front desk to explain that she was leaving for a work trip and wouldn’t need any services to her room while gone.

She’d just made it back to her apartment when her phone alerted her to the arrival of her car, courtesy of her new temporary employers.The trademark Corrigan car waited at the curb, and Pete, the driver, was already out of the car and approaching to take her bags before she had cleared the entrance.

As they wound up the mountain, the steady flow of traffic tapered as they neared the estate’s property lines until theirs was the only vehicle on the road. She would never get used to how close they were, right on the other side of the railing, to the drop-off edge, no matter how many times she’d been on this road or the winding ones in California. The thought of one wrong move plunging a person to their death rankled her.

“Has that ever happened before?” Isla voiced her thoughts. “A car going over?” It was one of those questions she really didn’t want the answer to, but she had to know, like the glutton for punishment she seemed to be.

“Oh yeah, sure.” Pete’s answer was casual with no VIP in the back seat. “Only once that I really heard of, but that was, like, over a decade ago.”

Isla’s imagination took her places no one should go.

Pete continued, unaware there was a struggle behind him. “But I don’t know much about it ’cept that it was a family from out of town or something. Really sad.”

“Were they visiting someone here?”

The car pulled up around the impressive spouting water sculpture situated in the middle of the circular driveway and stopped in front of the stone staircase leading to the estate’s front doors. The scene in the bright of day was even more amazing than at night.

“Not on this mountain. It was around where the old Abbott farm is, another one nearby. A lot of people hike trails, go hunting and off-roading around here. Visitors come here to do the same. But their story, I’m not sure. Wasn’t as much talk about it as you’d think, it being an entire family and all. There wasn’t a lot in the media about it either. Some people around town say it’s a cover-up, because who wants to vacation where an entire family died like that?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ten Years Ago

The day they decided to leave Daytona, Isla was sixteen and worried about what she would do once she aged out of the system, and Eden was eighteen, grieving the death of her mother. She was now just as alone as Isla was. They had been like sisters ever since the day they met. Eden’s mom was like a mom to Isla; their home was her pseudo foster home. Theirs was a place she could get away to when her days at the group home were too much. They’d planned their getaway while sitting in the back booth while Isla was on break during one of her shifts.