30
NORAH
Present Day
THE WOMAN CRAWLED from the hole in the floor and scurried to Norah’s side. “Shhhh!” She looked frantically over her shoulder. “He’ll hear you!”
Norah’s throat and eyes burned with the realization. It couldn’t be Otto’s shed. The place no one ever went. His “man cave.” Why would he have a woman here? Why—?
“How long have you been here?” Norah whispered.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know. Months maybe. I didn’t want to hurt Otto—don’t tell anyone.” Her frantic words made no sense. If Otto had held her here, why would she want to protect him and at the same time beg for help to get away? “Please don’t get Otto in trouble. He’s just an old man.”
Norah tentatively touched the woman’s shoulder. She couldn’t be older than Harper or older than Naomi had been. “It’s okay,” she tried to reassure through the shakiness of her voice. “Let’s just get out of here. We’ll figure it out.”
The woman nodded.
“What’s your name?” Naomi whispered.
“Lyla,” she answered.
A door slammed open, and the two women huddled together against the lawn mower as a beam of light swept over them.
“Norah?” Otto’s exclamation of disbelief broke through the night. He cursed. “What’n the heck are you doin’ in my shed?”
He stepped closer. Norah held up her hand to shield her eyes from the flashlight’s beam he aimed in their faces.
Lyla pressed into Norah’s side, and Norah wrapped her arm around the teenager. “Otto, turn off the light. You’re blinding me!”
Otto flicked it off, but there was bite to his question, “Why’re you here?”
Fury began to fill Norah. Astonishment too. “I’m here because your friend came to me for help.”
“How’d you—?” He bit off his words, switching the flashlight back on and sweeping it around his shed. Otto noted the boards missing in the back wall. He cursed again.
“Otto, tell me what’s going on!” Norah demanded. She had never doubted him, never questioned his innocence in Naomi’s case. But now? More questions flooded her mind, accusations she wanted to make. Naomi. Had he . . . had it truly been Otto?
Otto waved the flashlight beam as he flexed his wrist. His voice sounded weary when he answered. “Norah, let’s go inside my place, and we’ll talk.”
“No! I’m taking Lyla, and we’re going back to my place. And then I’m calling the cops.”
“Don’t . . .” Otto’s elderly voice was wobbly but firm. “No, we’ve been family for a long time. We can get through this.”
Norah almost believed him because she’d always believed him before. The part of her that craved a logical explanation spilled out into words. “Otto, tell me the truth. What’s going on?”
Lyla shifted against Norah, reminding her of the frightened girl who had terrified her less than an hour ago.
Otto shifted his feet. “I’m old, and I’m tired. We need some coffee, an’ then we’ll figure this thing out.”
“Does Ralph know?” Norah spat.
“Kiddo, you could rob my brother and clean out his house an’ he wouldn’t notice a dad-blamed thing. ’Course he don’t know.” Otto gestured toward Lyla. “Poor kid like that needing some TLC? Ralph ain’t good at that. You know I’m the sensitive one!” He gave a little laugh, one that sounded not a little shocked that Norah would think less of him.
Norah turned to Lyla and asked, “Were you here of your own free will?”
Lyla hesitated. She looked at Otto, whose features remained kind and soft.
“Tell her, girl,” he urged Lyla. “Tell her I ain’t done nothin’ to ya!”
Lyla glanced at the trapdoor in the shed’s floor.
Norah followed her gaze. “Then why don’t you have her in the house?” she challenged as she moved to stand up. “Why not bring her to me so I could help if she’s in need? Why the secrets, Otto? Why?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions. Why this? Why that? You’ve always pestered and not just been willin’ to trust people.”
“I trust people!” Norah argued.
“Do ya now?”
Norah’s mind began spinning as she tried to make sense of the chaos, to see the truth amidst what her heart refused to believe. And then . . . “Did you take Naomi from me?” Her words sent the toolshed into sudden silence. “Did you kill Naomi?”
The room had grown chilly, whether from the temperature or from the threat of Patrick Charlemagne’s presence, Effie didn’t know. She was thankful Patrick had stepped away from her for the time being. She moved her fingers to her neck to rub it, recalling the way the hands had squeezed her throat. A woman’s hands.
“Who was the woman here the other day?” she asked.
Patrick was pacing by the door. He halted and stared at her. “What woman?”
“When I was attacked. It wasn’t you. It was a woman!”
“Hmm.” Patrick rubbed his chin. “Mabel Opperman, probably. She would do anything for Floyd, her half-wit son.”
“Stop it!” Effie snapped.
“Stop what?” Patrick stiffened. “Telling the truth? The man’s as dumb as an ox.”
“He’s suffered!” Effie argued, though she wasn’t quite sure she should be defending Floyd.
“We all have, Miss James. We all have. In one way or another, suffering comes to us all. Most people, though, who get kicked in the head by a cow die. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Maybe the cow didn’t kick him hard enough. But whatever the reason”—he waved his hand haphazardly—“it would have served me greatly had Floyd Opperman died as a lad and stayed out of my way.”
“You’re awful.” It was all Effie could think to say.
Patrick smiled. “No, I’m smart. Unlike Floyd.”
“Are you smart, though?” Effie took a few small steps toward the door. “I’m not sure that you are. It doesn’t appear that any of your plans have worked out.”
Patrick’s expression darkened.
Effie continued, taking another step. “In fact, as it stands, you’re a murderer, your partner Isabelle is dead, you have no child to hold for ransom, and you’re still very much in debt. What will Bethany’s father say when he finds out?”
Patrick scowled at her.
Effie lifted her chin, feeling empowered to speak the truth. Her fear began to ebb, replaced by confidence, courage even. “You, Mr. Charlemagne, are a beast. More so than Floyd Opperman or the cow that kicked him.”
“I will kill you,” Patrick said with an air of certainty.
Effie swallowed a surge of fright. “I’m sure you would. And you’d gain nothing from it. You’d be found out, and evil will have failed once again.”
“Evil!” His shout of laughter startled Effie. “I am not the devil, Miss James.”
“But I am.” The bedroom door was kicked in as the words bellowed through the doorway. Anderson barreled into the room, charging Patrick. The men collided in loud grunts, falling to the floor. Anderson leveled a solid fist into Patrick’s face, but Patrick was quick to weasel from Anderson’s grip and swing back.
Effie ran for the door. The men crashed into the wall, and she heard another grunt, followed by the sound of fists hitting flesh. She catapulted down the stairs and had almost made it to the bottom when her foot caught on the hem of her dress. She flung forward, tumbling down the remaining steps. Effie felt the rush of blood from her nose and the throbbing pain in her shin where it had scraped against the stairs. She grabbed hold of the banister and hauled herself off the floor.
She could still hear the ensuing fight above as she raced for the front door. Flinging it open, Effie hurried into the street. Gus was running toward her as fast as the older man could run.
“We need to get help!” Effie cried. “Go! Get help, Gus!” Gus whirled around back toward the carriage. He made it there before Effie could, her leg giving out beneath her. She waved at him from the walkway. “Go, Gus! Please, go!”
Gus slapped the reins across the horse’s back, and the carriage lurched forward.
Glass shattered from the second story window. Effie saw Anderson and Patrick brawling, Anderson’s arm half through the shattered window.
Effie pushed herself off the ground, ignoring the pain in her body from her tumble. She wiped away the blood that dripped from her nose into her mouth.
Trying to gather her bearings, Effie limped toward the main road. If she remembered right, Mrs. Branson’s house wasn’t far away. Perhaps she would find help there.
The world began to spin, and Effie fought against the feeling of losing control. Anderson needed her. Patrick would kill him if he could.
NORAH
“You did, didn’t you?” Norah choked through tears. Sensing Lyla behind her, Norah held out her arm in a protective gesture.
Otto shuffled over to the wall and flicked a switch. Light flooded the toolshed, and Norah and Lyla blinked rapidly against the sudden change.
“Don’t worry none. I’m not runnin’.” Otto shook his head. His expression was sad—no, it was hurt. Norah had hurt him by asking her question. By her accusation that he would have ever done anything to harm Naomi. Yet she couldn’t discount the young woman behind her. Couldn’t ignore the trapdoor in the shed, the ladder leading down into the earth.
“What’s down there?” Norah pointed.
Otto grimaced and looked away.
Lyla answered, “That’s where I live.”
“Where you live?” Norah’s anger was barely contained. She bit her lip hard and turned her face from Otto. “I can’t even look at you.”
“She’s comfortable!” Otto protested.
Norah swung her head back to glare at him. “Comfortable? In the ground?”
Norah turned to Lyla. It was apparent even now that Lyla was suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome or something. Her begging for help was countered by her weak defense of Otto. Norah leaned closer to her. “You need to go now. Run back to my house. Wake up the man upstairs. Get yourself some help.”
“Lyla, you stay here,” Otto ordered.
Lyla looked between them, torn. Norah faced her and gripped her shoulders. “Listen to me. You’re the one who’s been in my house, aren’t you? You played my music box?”
“I like the bird,” Lyla said.
“Yes, the bird. Okay.” Norah could hardly believe she was having this conversation, let alone with Otto standing yards away, who was not the man she’d always believed him to be. She directed her attention to Lyla. “And you probably brought me Naomi’s library card too, didn’t you?”
Lyla nodded. She pointed at the hole in the floor. “It was down there in the wallet. Got her license in there too, so I knew where it belonged. I returned it.”
“Yes, Lyla, you did.” Norah seethed almost as much as she wanted to collapse into weeping for the betrayal she was unveiling. “Thank you. Now go back, all right? Find my friend Sebastian. Wake him up—don’t bother the girl,” Norah added. “Wake up the man.” She felt as if she were talking to a child. It was becoming obvious that Lyla had been in Otto’s toolshed far longer than a few months. Her loyalty to her abductor played with Lyla’s senses. The healthy side of her mind had known she needed to escape, but the abused portion of herself had created a faithful devotion to the man who held her captive. Which was what had brought her back time and again. Otto’s age had made him sloppy. How many more girls had he—? Norah gagged and swallowed quickly so she didn’t vomit. She coughed, doubling over, and then gave Lyla a push. “Go, Lyla.”
This time Lyla did as she was told.
Norah saw her slip through the opening in the back wall of the shed. She startled when Otto’s hand rested gently on her shoulder. There was a kindness in his aged eyes she couldn’t understand. An affection and a devotion in his expression that tried to convince Norah she was wrong to be appalled by him. He had done nothing abhorrent. All he had ever done was care for Lyla. Love her . . .
“Norah, girl.” Otto squeezed her shoulder and gave her the wounded look of a man who wasn’t sorry, but who was hurt by her actions against him. “I only ever helped them. Naomi? She needed me. Her baby? I only ever helped.”