Page 106 of Is Anyone Listening?
"He also used her. Dorothy would tell him about the women who were lonely and sad, who had no family, beautiful women who had brown hair and brown eyes, like Lily. It was about Lily, the girl he loved, but who didn't love him. Everyone who looked like her had to pay for her rejection."
"I had no idea," she breathed, new horror in her eyes. "Honestly, Cassidy, I didn't know Jeff was evil or sick. Tom didn't know, either. He wasn't protecting him."
It felt like she was being sincere, and I wanted to believe that this version of her was the truth. A grandmother who ran an underground railroad to save women was definitely better than a human trafficker.
"I have to interrupt for a moment," Finn said. "Because I think we may still have a problem. And I don't want to wait on this any longer."
"Wait on what?" I asked, surprised by his words.
Finn gave me a worried look. "You told me that Jeff said he didn't kill Jessica."
"That's right. He said he didn't know what happened to her."
"That makes sense, because Nathan woke up, and he told me that Jessica escaped in a truck, driven by Ray."
Ellen sat up straighter, but instead of giving me a defensive explanation, she said, "That's true."
"That's true?" I echoed. "Why? Where did Ray take her?"
"After Natalie disappeared, there were a lot of eyes on this town, on this inn. I was going to take a break for at least a year, but then, Jessica needed my help. I was afraid to use our usual system. I didn't want it to look like there was a pattern. And as I said before, I believed Natalie was safe, like all the others. I wanted Jessica to be safe, too, so we set up the boat trip. She was to sail out to the cove, then push her boat out to sea so it would look like she drowned. But there was a problem."
"Nathan," I murmured.
"Yes. He saw her trying to shove the boat into the rocks. He came into the cove and asked her if she needed help. She said she didn't, and she'd make it worth his while to say he found the boat but never saw her."
"Oh, my God!"
"She gave Nathan the ring," Finn interjected. "To buy his silence."
"Yes. She told Ray what she'd done when he picked her up," Ellen said. "We hoped that Nathan would stay silent. The ring was worth a lot of money. But I knew Nathan when he was a kid, and he was always unpredictable. After some time passed, it seemed like we were in the clear."
"Where did Ray take Jessica?" Finn asked.
"To a bus station about thirty miles away, and then she made her way further up the coast to a safe house. She's fine. She's safe."
"I don't think she is," Finn said, his gaze troubled. "Nathan told me that Tyler came to see him yesterday. In fact, he thinks Tyler drugged him, intending to kill him after he told him about Jessica and Ray."
"Tyler?" I gasped. "That's crazy. He wouldn't kill Nathan."
Finn didn't look convinced, and neither did Ellen.
"Why would he?" I continued. "Tyler is just trying to find Jessica."
"Why?" Finn asked. "I know you said Jessica was his friend, but I'm not sure I buy that. Did he have another reason for wanting to find her?"
"Yes," I replied. "He did have another reason. Jessica is a witness to something that his brother is being charged for. He said she's the only one who can clear his brother's name, so he has to find her and bring her back, or his brother will go to prison."
"Jessica isn't safe," my grandmother said, jerking to her feet. "I have to warn her."
"Warn her?" I repeated. "You just said you don't have contact with the women after they leave here, that you don't know where they are."
"Jessica was…different."
"Different?" I questioned. "How?" At my grandmother's hesitation, I added, "Seriously? You cannot hold out on me now. I have to know everything. I almost died today because people refused to talk about what was going on. And maybe you don't give a damn about me, but?—"
"Of course I give a damn about you," Ellen interrupted. "Jessica is different because she's the daughter of one of the first women I helped thirty-six years ago. When I helped that woman get away from a terrible situation, she was pregnant with Jessica. And she told Jessica if she was ever in trouble, she should come to me, that I was the only one she could trust."
Despite her explanation, there was something she wasn't telling me. I thought about what she had told me. "Thirty-six years ago," I said slowly. "That's about the time my dad left, isn't it? Are you talking about Lily?"
