Page 53 of Everyone Here Is Lying
“Why not?”
Gully sighs again and says, “That’s just the way it is right now. There’s good reason for it, that’s all I can tell you.”
“That’s bullshit,” Erin says. She waits a moment and then asks, “Do you believe them? That Avery got into that boy’s car?”
“The witness is very credible,” Gully says, avoiding a direct answer.
“Why did they wait so long?” Erin cries.
Gully hears the raw pain in the other woman’s voice. “There’s a reason for that, but I can’t tell you what it is,” Gully says, feeling awful.
Erin abruptly disconnects.
Thirty-eight
Avery is sulking in the basement bedroom. She’s not happy that Ryan Blanchard is in jail. This was supposed to be about making her dad suffer.
She can hear Marion moving around upstairs. Marion wants her to leave. Avery will leave when she’s good and ready. Has her father learned his lesson? Has he suffered enough? She’s pretty sure he’ll never hit her again after this. Maybe it’s time to slip away and be found walking on the road in the middle of the night.
Her reappearance will create a sensation. Everyone will want to interview her. Maybe she’ll be asked to go on some really big talk shows, likeGood Morning America. Maybe there will be money in it. If there is, she’ll make sure it goes to her, not her parents.
She will say she was grabbed by a man from behind, and something put over her head so she couldn’t see, and forced into a vehicle and driven a long distance. Then she was taken from the car and into the basement of a house and locked in the dark for shedoesn’t know how long—she had no way to tell the time, no way to know what was going on in the outside world. She was terrified. The man never spoke. He wore a mask the whole time. He let her use the toilet in the basement, then he would lock her in the room again. She would never be able to identify him, would never know why he took her or why he released her. He didn’t hurt her physically—they would be able to tell he hadn’t touched her, so she can’t lie about that. She wants them to believe her.
She’ll say that he covered her head again, put her back in the car, drove a long time, and dropped her in the woods, took the hood off, and told her to lie down with her face to the ground and not get up till she counted to five hundred. Then she walked until she found a road.
Will they believe her? She thinks they will. The only one who might not believe her story is her father. He might guess the truth—that she ran away and hid somewhere and is making it all up. But he won’t dare say so—how would it look? And he’s the only one, besides her, who knows what happened in the kitchen that day. He’ll be worried that she’ll say something. He’ll be careful around her. She finds she’s actually starting to look forward to being home again.
Michael will be jealous of all the attention she’ll get. He’ll resent her, resent how crazy their lives will become. But she’ll enjoy it.
Avery will watch the eleven o’clock news and then she’ll decide. Maybe she’ll tell Marion that she plans to leave tonight after all.
•••
Erin Wooler isso angry. She’s angry at the world. She’s angry at her husband, Detective Gully, and the mystery witnesswho failed to come forward in time. Her rage is the size of a mountain. It gives her purpose, it gives her strength. She wants to speak to this mystery witness herself. She wants to determine if this anonymous person is telling the truth about Ryan Blanchard. If so, then he took her daughter, and she saves her biggest rage for him.
She paces the living room, thinking about Detective Gully. She wouldn’t tell her who the witness is—she’s obviously afraid to, after what happened with Ryan Blanchard. It must be someone close by, to have seen what they claim to have seen. To know Ryan’s car. To recognize Avery. It must be someone on this very street. She thinks of all the people on Connaught Street. She knows many of them by sight, and some to chat to, but she doesn’t know all of them. She could go, now, to each house, and ask point-blank if they called the police about Ryan Blanchard. Surely whoever it is will tellherthe truth, if she promises to say nothing about who it is? She is the mother of the missing girl. Most of the people on the street are parents themselves. She will shake the truth out of them if she has to.
Erin returns to the living-room window and looks out. She must know. She must know what happened to Avery. She can’t stay trapped in this house, which has become like a tomb, waiting for something to happen. She goes upstairs once more to her son’s room and knocks on the door.
When she opens it, she sees Michael back in his usual place on the bed, staring at his laptop. At least he’s eaten something. She wonders what he’s looking at but doesn’t ask; she doesn’t really want to know. It could be a game, or it could be something about Avery. He looks so lonely, so lost; she can’t bear it. She realizes that at some point, they will have to talk about his father, about what’sgoing to happen to them as a family. Maybe it will be just the two of them. But not now.
“I’m going out for a bit,” she says.
“Where?” he asks, looking up from his screen.
She considers a white lie but remembers what happened last time, when she told him she was going to see his father at the hotel, and the journalists printed all those photos of her standing over Ryan Blanchard in his living room.
“I’m going to talk to the neighbors,” she admits, “about Avery.”
He doesn’t try to dissuade her, as she expected. “Do you want me to come?” he asks.
That surprises her and nearly breaks her heart. He’s worried about her. He wants to protect her. She realizes that she might be all he has left; she cannot go to pieces on him. “No. I think someone should be home, in case...”
He says, “Okay,” and turns back to his screen. Everything about him seems hopeless.
She closes his door and makes her way back downstairs. In the vestibule she grabs her jacket and stands for a moment, staring at the empty spot where Avery’s blue-jean jacket had been hung, before it was taken away by the crime-scene team. Then she steps outside. There is no one there. The press has gone. She stands alone in the silence for a moment, feeling as if everyone has abandoned her. It’s dark and quiet. She locks the door behind her and decides to start across the street, at Alice Seton’s house. Because it has occurred to her that if Derek Seton has been molesting Avery, she wouldn’t put it past Alice Seton to call in a tip about someone else, true or otherwise.
Thirty-nine
