Page 27 of The Witch’s Orchard

TWENTY-ONE

W HEN I GET BACK to the field that leads to Crow Caw Cabin, I am soggy and cold and irritated.

I look at my phone and find that it’s nearly ten o’clock; apparently, a visit to the local psychic can really eat up a person’s morning.

I think about Susan and her story, her tiny shack in the forest where she makes herbal remedies, her applehead dolls.

I wonder if a transcript of Susan’s questioning is in the sheriff’s department files or whether the FBI had sole control at that point.

I’m so absorbed in my thoughts that I jump when I see a man sitting on the cabin’s front porch. Instinctively, I swing my hand around to my lower back, get my palm on cold metal, then realize who it is I’m looking at.

Hunched forward in the wooden chair, palms flat together, thin and lanky and birdlike but with deep lines around his mouth and wavy hair that’s more salt and pepper than chestnut now, is Greg Andrews, Max and Molly’s father.

“Hello,” I say as I step toward the porch.

He stands, and his hands hang awkwardly at his sides. He’s wearing Dickies and a button-up chambray shirt under a sun-washed barn coat.

“Hello,” he says. “Greg Andrews. I’m Max’s dad.”

“I’m so sorry about your daughter,” I say. “Truly.”

“Can we talk?” Greg says.

“Sure.” I unlock the door and lead the way into the cabin. I fill the coffeepot and flick the switch and the machine hums to life.

“When did you get in?” I ask.

“This morning,” he says. “As soon as Max called I found someone to finish my drive and flew back to Knoxville.”

I take two mugs from the hooks hanging above the back counter.

“I understand that Max hired you to find out what happened to Molly,” Greg says.

“Yes,” I say. “He hired me to look for her and then…”

Greg sits on the same barstool that AJ used the night before, and I remember the manila folder of autopsy photos, still sitting on the edge of the countertop. I pick it up, slip it into a drawer.

“And now you’re searching for her killer?” Greg says, watching me.

“Yes.”

He sighs.

“Well,” he says, “I’d like you to stop.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s police business,” he says, directing his eyes toward the wood grain on the counter instead of me. “It’s—look, it doesn’t matter.”

“It… What? What the hell does that mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Greg says. His voice is cool and emotionless.

“Look, Miss Gore, you’ve been here, what, three days?

And already you’ve turned my son’s life inside out.

I’ve already lost almost everything to this…

this applehead doll person. Whoever they are.

I lost my little girl and I thought it would kill me.

Then, it did kill my wife. I thought losing Janice would kill me—finding her like that—and, instead, I only wished it had. ”

He pauses, his jaws clamped together, and exhales through his nose before he starts again.

“I cleaned out all their things. I didn’t want us to be ruled by their memory.

I don’t know if, if that was right. But I did my best. I got my sister to look in on Max, make sure he was doing okay.

He was always a quiet kid but… I thought he’d finish high school, go to college, get out of here, leave it all behind.

Instead, he became obsessed. Wouldn’t spend his money on anything besides what would help him hire a PI.

And now you’re here. And Molly’s gone. Forever. ”

I sigh and sit down opposite him, make him meet my eyes. Like Max’s, they are a green-brown hazel like fall leaves, framed by long lashes and, in Greg’s case, deeply etched crow’s-feet. For all their beauty, though, they feel blank. Like someone tipped him over and drained all the juice out.

“Mister Andrews, I don’t think it would have helped.

I don’t think a change in scenery would’ve done anything to sway Max from looking for answers.

I don’t think he could have left it behind.

Finding out what happened to his little sister has been his purpose in life, if not since Molly was taken, then at least since—”

I bite my tongue before I say, “Since you abandoned him. Since his mother did.”

He stares at me, cold and hard. Then nods and looks away, back toward the farmhouse he left behind years ago.

“Please stop,” he says. “Now that Molly’s been found, maybe I can convince him to leave this place.”

“Mister Andrews—”

He holds up a hand, stands.

“Please stop,” he says. “I’ll pay you to stop. Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll pay you double. Whatever it takes.”

I shake my head. He stares at me, eyes watering, and he says, “Think about it. Think about what this is doing to him. If I lose him too…”

It’s less of a threat and more a moment of quiet anguish, frustration born of powerlessness.

“Please,” he says. He opens his mouth to say more, but then turns and leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him.

“Shit,” I breathe. Then again, “Shit.”

I march off into the bedroom and then the bathroom and strip down. I leave my damp clothes in a heap on the floor and my gun on the top of the toilet tank while I take a steaming-hot shower, running the honeysuckle-scented soap through my hair and over my skin. It smells like summer, I think.

And I think about that hot, desperate summer when three little girls were taken and one was brought back.

I think about the plant that closed and the jobs that were lost and the empty swing set at the church.

I think about the carved faces of the applehead dolls and their empty, black eyes and their lace-lined dresses.

“Shit…” I say out loud. I slam off the water, grab a towel, and wrap it around me. I pit-pat into the kitchen and yank the drawer open, take out the manila envelope, open it, slide the pictures onto the cabinet.

Yes, here is Molly clean and naked as a baby on the slab in the morgue and here, clothed in the forest, just like I found her. Her hair is arranged in beautiful waves around her, like a halo, and her skin is ashen gray except for the white scar on her chin.

And her dress. Red velvet. White lace.

“Red velvet, white lace,” I say. “Red velvet, white lace.”

I close my eyes and try to focus. I open them and call AJ.

“Hey,” I say. “Any luck on those original case files? I need to see something.”

“Working on it,” he says. “There are a lot of files. A lot of stuff is from the FBI and a lot of it is incomplete. Plus, here in good ol’ Quartz Creek, everything was still on paper ten years ago.

The files were all scanned into the system a couple years back but nothing was labeled the same or tagged like we do now so… ”

“I need the picture of the applehead doll that was left in Molly’s place.”

“Okay,” AJ says. “Let me see… I remember running across all that stuff when I came in. But then, there was a break-in at the pawnshop this morning and I’ve been caught up with—oh, okay, here it is.”

“Describe it to me,” I say.

“It’s red. Uh… with white around the… oh.”

“Red velvet. With white lace, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Damn. She’s dressed like…”

“A doll,” I say. “And not just any doll. She’s dressed like the doll that was left in her place.”

“And now she’s been returned,” he says.

My phone buzzes in my hand and I look at the screen.

“Hey,” I say. “I’ve got a call coming in. Come by tonight if you can, with the files.”

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll be there after work. Around seven.”

“See you then.”

I hang up and switch to the other call.

“Is this Annie Gore?” the voice says. It’s female and young. For a brief, heart-thudding moment, I think maybe it’s Jessica. A fantasy blooms in my mind that maybe she’s somehow found out that I’m looking for her, maybe she’s escaped—however briefly—found a way to get ahold of me.

“Yes?” I answer. “Jessica?”

“What? No, I… look, meet me at Starling Point,” the voice says. “Twenty minutes. I have information for you.”

“Wait, what—”

But the line is dead. I look at the phone in my hand, grab my keys, and go out the door.