I’m waiting in my car at Sandra’s and Miss Lucy’s when they get home. They’ve been sitting in a police cruiser, watching as police search the Dotson house. I’ve been waiting here, practically unable to breathe.
But I know the minute they get out of their car that they have bad news. Sandra bursts into tears when she sees me.
I get out and walk toward them. “Didn’t they find her?”
“No.” She looks so forlorn that it breaks my heart.
“Well, did they look in the basement?”
Miss Lucy’s eyes are red and swollen, but she’s holding it together now. “They searched everywhere. There was no baby and no Laura. They questioned his wife, who they said is mentally ill. Maybe it was her you heard.”
“No, she was with him! She was at the bar with her husband. They can confirm that. It wasn’t her I talked to. It was Laura. She told me so!”
“She wasn’t there, Grace.”
Sandra sounds irritated with me, and I don’t blame her. To get her hopes up like that, to think once again that she might have her daughter back, only to be disappointed . . .
But I know what I heard. “He moved her, then. He knew they were going to come. After the police took me . . . before the search warrant . . . Just because she wasn’t there when they searched doesn’t mean she never was.”
She’s looking at me now as if I’m the one who’s mentally ill, and I know she’s questioning what voices I might hear in my head. I feel sick. They’re never going to believe me. Laura’s never going to be rescued.
“Sandra, I’m not making this up.”
“What good does it do if I believe you?” Sandra asks. “It doesn’t make any difference at all!” She runs into her house, but Miss Lucy stays outside.
“Come here,” she says.
I go into her arms. She feels like my mom used to feel, before she fell apart. I weep against her shoulder, and she weeps against mine.
“I’m so sorry,” I say through my sobs. “But I know she was there. I can’t explain why they didn’t find her, but she was there.”
“I believe you, sweetheart,” Miss Lucy says. “I know you meant well.”
The second sentence negates the first. I pull away from her, wipe my face and my nose. I just want to go home. I want to crawl into bed and bury myself under the covers. I want to cry alone.
I want to give this family some peace, if that’s even possible.
I walk away, leaving Miss Lucy in the driveway. “Honey, are you going to be all right?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” I say as I get in my car.
“You won’t do anything dangerous, will you?”
I don’t answer her. I just get in, lock my doors, and drive home. When I get to my apartment, I don’t even bother to turn on the lights. I drop my purse and keys on the floor and climb in bed, clothes and all. I don’t care if I never see daylight again.