Thea showed her credentials to the guard outside Reggie’s room and then lingered just inside the doorway. Her mother’s head was turned toward the window. She lay so still that Thea assumed she was sleeping.
“Are you going to gawk at me all day or are you coming inside?” she grumbled, still with her head turned toward the window. Thea decided she must have seen her reflection in the glass.
“I thought you were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.” She moved to the foot of the bed, feeling awkward and at a loss. You shouldn’t feel that way at your own mother’s bedside. She couldn’t help it. The discovery in the cavern painfully underscored the reason for their years of estrangement. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. How are you feeling?”
“Everything considered, I can’t complain.” Reggie pushed herself up against the pillows and adjusted her hospital gown. “How are you?”
“Me?” Thea shrugged. “I’m fine. Just a little sore is all.”
Reggie searched her face. “Didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?”
“No. But that’s not unusual.”
She frowned. “You need to take better care of yourself. You won’t be young forever.”
“I’m fine,” Thea insisted as she idly smoothed her hand across the covers. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Reggie said.
Thea nodded absently. “The reason I’m late—”
“Oh, I know why you’re late.” Her mother’s hard gaze tracked her as she came around to the side of the bed.
Thea said carefully, “What do you know?”
“You don’t have to tiptoe around any of it. I know about Derrick Sway and what he did to poor Taryn.” She paused. “I know what was found in that cave.”
Thea released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her heart had started to race despite her efforts to keep her emotions under control. “I’m sorry you had to hear about it from someone else. I should have come as soon as I found out, but I wanted to go to the cave first. I...needed to go to the cave. I needed to be close to her. I know how crazy that sounds—”
“No, it doesn’t. Not to me. I would have done the same.”
“Still, I’m sorry I wasn’t the one to tell you,” Thea said.
Reggie stared at her for a moment then lifted her chin in that stubborn way she had. “Doesn’t matter how I found out. It’s not her.”
Thea stared back at her. “You can’t know that for certain. You should prepare yourself. We both need to.”
“It’s not her.” Reggie’s blue eyes glittered like shattered glass. “Don’t you think I would have known if my baby was that close? I’m telling you it’s not her.”
Thea sat on the edge of the bed. “But what if it is? At least we’ll know. At least we can finally say our goodbyes. Don’t you want closure?”
“Closure? How will that help anything?” Reggie balled her pale hands into fists on top of the covers. “You think we’ll feel better if we can have a service and give her a headstone? All that will do is take away my hope.” She turned her head back to the window. “As long as we don’t know any different, she could still be alive. Someone good could have found her and taken her in. She could be happy with a family of her own by now. Don’t you get it? She could still be alive.”
Yes, now she got it. Thea put her hand over Reggie’s.
Her mother’s face crumpled at the contact. “My poor baby.”
“I know, Mama. I know.”
She clutched Thea’s hand. “Somebody buried her down in that awful place and left her there all these years.” Her eyes spilled over. “I can’t bear it. I don’t care how many years have gone by, I can’t stand to think of her alone and suffering. It’s too much. No mother should ever have these images in her head. No child should ever have to suffer the way Maya did.”
“And yet so many do,” Thea said.
Reggie reached for a tissue. “I don’t know how you do what you do. I truly don’t. You got the short end of the stick when it comes to mothers, but just look at how you’ve turned out.”
“I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“Don’t say anything.” She placed her hand on Thea’s arm. “Just let me get this out. Tomorrow everything will go back to the way it was, but right now I need you to know that no matter what happens or how many years go by, you’ll always be my little girl.”
Thea’s throat tightened painfully. “Sometimes it seemed as if you didn’t want me around anymore.”
“I know. And you don’t know how much I’ve come to regret that. I’ve thought about my behavior a lot over the years,” Reggie said. “Why I withdrew from you the way I did. My only excuse is that I carried a lot of guilt on my shoulders. After what happened to Maya, I didn’t think I deserved to be your mother. My misery was my punishment. That’s why I stayed in Black Creek and put up with all the gossip and accusations even though we would have both been better off somewhere else. No matter what anyone said about me, it was never as bad as what I thought of myself. I just never stopped to consider that by staying here I was punishing you, too.”
“That’s all in the past,” Thea said. “We can’t go back and change things.”
“No, and at least something good came from all that heartache. You help save kids like Maya every single day. She’d be so proud of her Sissy.”
“I hope so.” Self-conscious, Thea glanced away and, after a moment, Reggie released her hand. She sank back into the pillows, looking exhausted and unbearably fragile.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Are you in pain?” Thea asked. “Physical pain, I mean.”
“I’m okay. Doctor says I might be able to go home in a day or two.” She didn’t sound optimistic. Little wonder, Thea thought. Reggie was a trooper, but she’d been through hell in the past few days. A car wreck and surgery coming on the heels of another child’s abduction would take the wind from anyone’s sails.
“You’re too thin.” Thea voiced her worry. “You work too hard.”
“I’m as strong as an ox,” Reggie scoffed. “I can still sling hash with the best of them.”
“I’m sure you can, but it’s backbreaking work.”
“It’s all I know.” She closed her eyes.
“Are you tired? Should I go?”
“You don’t need to be so careful around me, Althea. And no, don’t go. I like having you close.”
“Then rest. I’ll be right here,” Thea said.
She used the ensuing silence to get up and hang her bag on the back of a chair. Glancing out the window, she thought how normal everything seemed three stories below. The sun was still shining. People hustled to and from the parking lot, while deep inside a cave a few miles away, divers searched an underground pool for a little girl’s body.
“What’s the weather like?” her mother asked.
Thea turned away from the window. “Hot and humid. Just as you would expect in Florida this time of year.”
“I don’t mind the heat,” Reggie said. “It’s the end of summer I can’t bear.”
“Why?” Thea walked over to the bed. “Cooler weather should be a welcome respite.”
“Not for me. I don’t like the end of things,” her mother said. “I already dread the end of your visit.”
“I’ll try to be better about staying in touch.”
“Don’t make promises you won’t keep.”
“You could always come see me,” Thea said.
Reggie gave her a half-hearted smile. “Maybe I will. That would surprise you, wouldn’t it? Your old mama showing up on your doorstep.”
“Yes,” Thea replied candidly. “Give me some notice and I’ll make your travel arrangements.”
Reggie sighed. “It’s a nice dream.”
Thea sat on the edge of the bed again. “I hate to bring this up, but there’s something else we need to talk about if you’re up to it.”
Reggie nodded. “You want to ask me about Derrick.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s all over the hospital what he did to Taryn. Lord only knows what would have happened if you hadn’t been there to stop him.”
“I didn’t stop him,” Thea said. “I’m just glad she’s going to be okay despite my incompetence.”
“She won’t be okay until they find Kylie. Even then...” Reggie plucked at the blanket. “Anyway, what do you want to know about Derrick?”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Before he went to prison. He used to come into the diner and sit in my section so I’d have to wait on him. I could have switched tables with one of the other girls, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”
“You haven’t seen him since he got out?”
“No, and up until today, I was grateful he’d kept his distance. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”
“What happened between you? I never really knew,” Thea said.
“I guess the short answer is that I came to my senses.” She couldn’t quite meet Thea’s gaze. “I never should have taken up with him in the first place, but I always did have a thing for the bad boys. Even your daddy had a wild streak despite June’s coddling.” She paused, her brow wrinkling as she thought back. “After Maya went missing, I cut a lot of people out of my life. Not just Derrick, but friends I’d known for years. Some of them didn’t want anything to do with me anyway, what with all the gossip and suspicion.”
“What about your suspicions?” Thea asked. “Did you think Derrick had something to do with Maya’s disappearance?”
Reggie seemed uncharacteristically reluctant to speak her mind.
“Just between you and me,” Thea coaxed.
“Of course, I thought about it, but there was never anything connecting him to her abduction. Not that evidence or motive mattered to some. So many people around here made up their minds about me as soon as they heard the news.” Her eyes burned into Thea’s. “You’ve had your doubts at times. Don’t bother denying it. I’ve seen it on your face.”
Thea started to refute Reggie’s accusation but then decided to come clean. Get everything out in the open. “I’ll admit there’s something I’ve always wondered about. Why didn’t you tell the police you came back into our room that night to open the window?”
Reggie stared at her in confusion. “What?”
“In your official statement, you said the window was open because it was hot inside the house. That was true. But you never mentioned that you made a special trip to our room to open it after you’d put us to bed.”
Reggie looked stumped. “Why does it matter when I opened the window?”
Because it does. “I’m just curious.”
A shadow darkened her mother’s eyes but she didn’t turn away. She gazed at Thea without flinching. “You think I came back to open the window for the kidnapper?”
“No, of course not. I just—”
“Don’t lie. Tell me the truth.” Reggie grabbed her arm so quickly that Thea recoiled before she caught herself. “That’s why you’ve doubted me all these years? Because of that window?”
Thea was the one who flinched. “I doubted you because you pushed me away. Because you acted as if you couldn’t stand the sight of me. Because you would never let me talk about Maya.”
Reggie’s grasp tightened around Thea’s arm. Her eyes flared a split second before the anger drained out of her and she fell back against the pillows. “That my own daughter could think that of me.”
Thea rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry. I was just a kid. I didn’t know what to think.”
“It’s not your fault. I just wish you’d come to me, is all.”
“Would it have made any difference? Would you have talked to me?”
“I don’t know,” Reggie replied honestly. “But I’m going to tell you now what I should have explained back then. I couldn’t look at you at times because you reminded me of Maya. It was just too much. I couldn’t talk about her without reliving all the terrible things that went through my head every night when I closed my eyes. As for the window, I didn’t mention it to the police because I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember because I was drunk that night. Too drunk and too high to protect my little girl. So, no, whatever you thought of me wasn’t your fault. You were right to have doubts. I didn’t hurt my baby, but what happened to her was every bit my fault.”
The raw emotion in her voice tore at Thea’s poise, but she had to hold it together. There was still too much to get through. “I believe you.”
Reggie sighed. “We should have cleared the air years ago.”
“Yes.”
“That’s my fault, too.”
“I could have forced the issue,” Thea said. “It was easier just to build walls.”
“All that time wasted. We’ll never get it back.”
“We can’t worry about that right now,” Thea said. “I know this is hard. It is for me, too. But we need to stay focused. Kylie is still out there somewhere, and I still need to ask you some questions.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Reggie said.
“Then we’ll focus on what you do know. Was Derrick ever violent with you?”
She spoke quietly but fiercely. “He was a violent man, but he never laid a hand on me or you girls. If he’d ever so much as thought about hurting either of you, he wouldn’t have lived to see the inside of a prison cell.”
Thea felt a prickle of apprehension as she studied her mother’s expression. There was still so much about Reggie she didn’t know or understand. A few tender moments didn’t change that. “Is there anyone you can think of who might have had a reason for kidnapping Maya? Someone who held a grudge against you? Or anyone you suspected at the time whether they had motive or not?”
Reggie turned her head away, as if considering the question.
“What is it?” Thea prompted. “I can tell you thought of someone.”
“You have to understand, I was out of my head with worry and grief after it happened. A lot of bad things went through my mind.”
“Like what?”
Reggie frowned, thinking back. “It was something June said to me after your daddy’s funeral. Everyone had gone back to her house after the service. She met me on the front porch and told me I wasn’t welcome. I knew she blamed me for Johnny’s accident. He’d been with me earlier and we’d both been drinking. I never realized until I saw the way she looked at me that day how much she truly despised me. She told me if it took the rest of her life, she’d find a way to make me feel what she felt at that moment.”
“She’s hateful and vindictive,” Thea said. “That’s not news. But you don’t seriously think she had anything to do with Maya’s disappearance, do you? She certainly wouldn’t have any reason for abducting Kylie Buchanan.”
Reggie’s head whipped around. “You think the same person took both girls?”
“They disappeared through the same window. As you noted yesterday, that can’t be a coincidence.” Thea paused. “You said Derrick was never violent toward you, but when I saw him in the woods earlier, he told me flat out he has a score to settle with you. Do you know why?”
Reggie shrugged. “No man likes to be rejected. Especially a guy like Derrick Sway. He always thought he was God’s gift to women.”
Thea didn’t buy her explanation. “You’d been broken up for years when he went to prison, so I don’t think rejection is a motive. Maybe he thinks you’re the one who turned him in to the police. Were you?”
“If I’d turned a guy like Derrick Sway into the police, I’d know enough to keep my mouth shut about it,” Reggie said.
Thea took that as a qualified yes. “Do you have any idea where he might go to hide out? Any friends you know of that he remained close to?”
“Since I don’t associate with any of the old crowd, there’s no way I could know that.”
Thea fell silent, contemplating Reggie’s responses.
“Are we done now? My painkillers are wearing off and my head is starting to hurt.”
“There’s just one more thing I need to ask you.”
Reggie rubbed her temples. “It can’t wait?”
“No. I’m sorry, it can’t. I hate having to bring it up, but I need to ask about the box that was found in the woods after Maya went missing.”
Reggie closed her eyes. “What about it?”
“It had Maya’s DNA inside and yet all this time you still believed she was alive?”
“Of course it had her DNA,” Reggie said. “Someone put her doll and blanket inside so the cops would believe I murdered my own child and buried her in the woods. That box was a prop. A way to point the finger at me.”
“Are we back to June as a suspect?”
“No. As much as she hates me, I don’t think she would have done anything to hurt Johnny’s children.”
“Hates? As in the present?”
“I’ve made my peace with her,” Reggie said. “I can’t say she’s done the same.”
“Do you ever see her?” Thea asked curiously.
“I stop by now and then to see how she’s getting on. She never invites me in. She likes to stand on the porch looking down on me the way she did that day after Johnny’s funeral.”
Thea felt unexpectedly defensive of her mother. “Then why do you bother going over there?”
“Somebody has to,” Reggie said with a shrug. “Her friends are dead. The neighbors have all moved away. You’re the only blood kin she has left. Besides, I’ve come to accept her for who she is. She’s too old to change. I know she must get lonely rattling around in that big house. You should go see her while you’re here.”
Thea bristled at the suggestion. “I’m not here to socialize.”
“She’s your grandmother. She has a right to see her only grandchild.”
Thea could hardly believe her ears. “Are we talking about the same June Chapman who once called me an abomination?”
Reggie muttered under her breath. “I won’t make excuses for her behavior.”
“Good.”
“But I know what it’s like to lose a child. How the grief festers and spreads until you’re all but consumed by the pain.”
“Your circumstances were completely different,” Thea argued.
“Loss is loss. Grief is grief. Go see her, Althea. Make your peace before it’s too late.”
“Why does it matter to you so much?”
Reggie drew a long breath. “Because I hope someday a child of yours will show me the same charity.”