about how he’d headed out the door, free, but then turned around for Tess. She could almost hear him, see him in the dim.
A scant light came from the windows caked with grime. She felt her way with her free hand and found herself at the bottom of the staircase. Her heart was thudding in that unpleasant way—fear, anxiety, the knowledge that she was acting like an idiot. She reached for the recorder, hit the record button. At least when they found her body they’d know that she’d come here, to the place where her friend was murdered, of her own accord—for “work.”
She steeled herself against the smell and started to talk.
“I’m in the Kreskey house. It has been abandoned for many years and looks it. It’s a shack—overrun with garbage, graffiti, the detritus of years. Hank Reams could have saved himself that day. He was hurt, yes. Had suffered. But the worst of what would happen to him lay ahead. He stood at the doorway, having killed the dog, Kreskey nowhere in sight. Instead of running, he went back inside to find our friend Tess.”
She took a step, testing the stair with part of her weight. It groaned but held.
“He climbed these stairs. How brave he must have been to do that. He was a small boy—thin, so young.”
She, too, started to climb, distantly aware of how stupid this was, how she shouldn’t be here alone—again.
“Meanwhile, I had been rescued and was in the hospital, trying to stitch together the broken pieces of my memory. What had happened? Who had been in the woods that day? Where had he gone? From the timeline we established later, I must have remembered about the same time as Hank was standing in the doorway, making the decision to go back inside.”
Another step up, the wood groaning.
“I have so much shame still for not being stronger that day. My rational mind understands the concept of shock, that I was a child, that I was badly injured and of no good to anyone. But the part of me that always wanted to be a hero, that wishes desperately that things were different—that doesn’t go away.”
She reached the top landing, flipped on her iPhone light.
Rain didn’t believe in ghosts. She wasn’t afraid of hauntings and ghouls. She was a reporter in search of the layers of a story.
Her phone pinged:
Holy shit. Are you at the Kreskey house???
Greg tracking her on Find My Friends. She’d turned it back on after their last argument, at his request. She’d meant to disable it again. Shit.
Just getting a few pictures. Heading home soon.
Rain, WTF?? Get out of there right now.
Yes. Leaving now.
She switched off Find My Friends, and flipped on the Do Not Disturb. (Only Mitzi’s number allowed.)
A low groaning—beneath her, in front of her. She couldn’t be sure.
Then a rustling movement.
Her throat closed up, heart lurching.
She should leave. Right now. That was obvious.
It was the last room at the end of the hall, that’s what Hank had told her. The door had been ajar, like it was right now. No light at all. Her smartphone light fell on scattered cans and bottles, a broken crate. Some magazines soaked through and covered with mold. She could hear her own breath, ragged, afraid.
Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she turn around? She couldn’t; she just kept moving toward the door as if it was her that day, coming back to save her friend. Wasn’t that part of it, too? She wished she’d been here that day, to help them, to save them. It was an irrational idea, a childish one. But it lived in her. She put her hand on the knob and pushed inside.
THIRTY-TWO
“I did some digging.”
It’s Andrea Barnes, the child advocate I called about Angel’s claims. I remember what her voice sounded like when we first met. It was light and flirty, always just about to dissolve into laughter. In contrast, it is now clipped and professional.
“There have been two other allegations of abuse against Tom and Wendy Walters, the couple who fostered Angel for six months late last year. A girl claimed that Tom Walters sexually assaulted her back in 2012. Then in 2014, a boy said that Wendy Walters slapped him hard enough to leave a bruise.”
“And—”
“Both claims were investigated and dismissed,” she says. “As you know, there is a high incidence of false reporting against foster parents.”
“Which doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of abuse.” Three allegations against the Walters in this case, including Angel’s. Where