Lucinda shrieked.
Jonah felt himself jerked to the cold snow by the collar of his bathrobe, the robe falling open, his vision obliterated by snow and by blood gushing from his cut eyebrow.
“What are you doing?” a man’s voice bellowed. “What are you doing?”
Jonah struggled to sit up, wiped the blood and snow from his eyes, pulled his robe closed with his numb hands.
The man towered over him.
Maurice. Glowering. Taut with menace. “What are you doing with my daughter?”
“She—”
“What are you doing here, Daddy?” Lucinda said.
“Getting you. You took off and I asked around and someone told me they’d seen you by his house. But you weren’t there and neither was he—” He took a labored breath, sweating, shaking with anger and fear, hands on his hips. “I was looking around the yard and an old woman walking by said she’d seen you run from the house, looking scared. And he”—Maurice glared at Jonah—“was chasing you in his robe.”
“Maurice—” Jonah began.
“Shut up. I’m talking to my daughter.” Maurice addressed Lucinda. “What’d he do to scare you?”
“Nothing, Daddy. I wanted to show him the pit, but he didn’t want me to. He went to call you instead, to come get me. But I ran off. And he chased after me because he was worried about me going into the woods alone.”
“He didn’t scare you? Or hurt you?”
“Daddy. It’s Mr. B. He would never hurt me. He’s our friend.”
“Why did you want him to come here?”
“You didn’t believe me, that Sally might be here. You wouldn’t come.”
“Sweetie.” Maurice went to his knees and held his daughter’s cheeks in his palms. “Of course I believed you. I came here at daylight, before the new snow fell. There’s nothing here, sweetie. No sign of whoever or whatever you saw. It will be hard to figure out who it was if you didn’t see a face, if it had anything to do with any of this at all. But if it does, Daddy’ll find out. I will find out.”
Maurice stared at Jonah on the ground. Then held out his hand. Jonah took it and got up, brushing snow from his tangled bathrobe, hugging it around him and tying the belt tight. He could barely feel his legs they were so stung with cold.
Maurice looked off into the woods, shaking his head. “This whole damned thing. What a damned mess.”
“Daddy, those are bad words,” Lucinda chimed.
Maurice patted his daughter on the head, tucked her close to him as she hugged him. The act pained Jonah to see. He’d have swapped the rest of his life for one more hug from his daughter. Maurice looked at Jonah. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Not just about this. I never took the time to say I’m sorry. For what’s happened. The girls disappearing and me pressing you for answers, truths that don’t matter a lick in the scheme of things. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“This man the girls saw, we need to follow up on it,” Jonah said. “He’s got to be—”
“Do you believe it?”
“It’s something. We can’t just dismiss it. We wanted theories. Now we have one. Until we can prove otherwise, I believe it. We need to believe it, look into it; the police, you, need to follow up.”
“We’ve got nothing, even if he is real. A pair of brown boots. Green pants. It eliminates no one.”
“We have to try.”
“I will. I will. I promise.”
“He exists,” Lucinda said. “And he’s still out there.”
Maurice sighed, hugged his daughter tight. “I wish I could wave a wand and reveal him, or whoever it is, and put an end to all this for everyone.”