“Breaking news: Wayne and Loretta Goudy, residents of rural Catoosa County, Georgia, have been arrested for the murder of their foster daughter, known only as Alana.”
I drop my cereal bowl in the sink—I think it cracks and breaks—and glue my eyes to the television, while I try to swallow a mouthful of cornflakes, mushy and sticky in my throat. Tears well in my eyes.
She’s dead. Just like I told Toad at the Temple Tattoo.
I conjured her at the beach that first night, and I erased her from existence just as easily—with just a spoken thought.
I think I’m going to throw up.
“The remains of the child, Baby A—”
“What?” I breathe through the nausea. And although I’m confused, I know one thing for certain: “It’s not Chatham. Not Chatham.”
“—were buried at the confluence of the Vernon and Moon Rivers, in Chatham County, some three hundred fifty miles south of the Goudy tract. Originally thought to be those of missing Rachel Bachton, the remains were discovered in late summer. It is estimated the murder occurred nine to twelve years ago.”
“Police sought Wayne Goudy for questioning for months before tracking him down in relation to the Bachton kidnapping, which police say is closely linked to Alana’s murder. No details yet as to how these cases are linked, but the timeline proves it’s possible. Rachel Bachton disappeared—”
“You can get the girls to school today?” Rosie breezes into the kitchen and dumps a few items into her bag for lunch: an orange, an apple, a few stalks of celery.
“Yeah.” I sniff over my emotions. “Yeah, I got it.”
I look up at the television again to see a picture of Wayne Goudy today alongside a composite sketch of Rachel’s kidnapper. There’s no resemblance. “. . . leaving the media puzzled as to what the connection may be.”
“Josh.” My mother touches me on the arm and looks at me. Really looks at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. There was a bulletin about a murder, and I thought it was Chatham.”
“But it wasn’t.”
I shake my head. “I broke a bowl.”
“That’s okay.”
For a second, we stand there in silence.
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch the news for a while.”
“I can handle it.” I think not knowing would be worse than knowing too much.
“We’ll talk later? After school?”
“Sure.”
I drop the girls at Peppermint Swirl Pre-K, and I’m on track to hit Sugar Creek High fifteen minutes before breakfast club starts, but instead, I wheel down Washington and head to Northgate Beach.
It’s only fitting. It’s the first place I saw her, the first place I went when I realized I needed to see her again. And that night, I imagined she was here, and then she materialized. If only I could do that again.
I pinch my eyes shut and imagine her casually strolling down the shore.
Hey, cute boy. She’d kiss me, instantly warming me, and maybe she’d laugh at the idiocy of it all—how, despite withstanding the attacks of our perpetrators, losing track of someone who makes you feel whole can rip your heart out and leave you hollow.
By now, everyone on the team must know what happened with Chatham, and they’ll have to forgive me for being a bit late to the weight deck. I text Coach Baldecki for the fiftieth time since everything went down, tell him I’m going for a run on the beach this morning. Clear my head. Get ready for Friday night. All the stuff he wants to hear, sure, but it’s also the truth.
There’s a nip in the air, but I’m layered in a T-shirt, a waffle-knit, and a hoodie. I park at the gate and climb over the rails to the boardwalk. I lean against the railing and watch the waves, silvery and already smelling of impending winter, roll up on the shore. Winter always comes to the lake first. We won’t see snow for a month or two, but here on the beach, everything is gray, as if the great artist upstairs is readying this canvas before all others.
My gaze draws from the horizon, near the lighthouse, down the shore to the patch of sand where I first saw Chatham Claiborne create.
A line of footprints mars the smooth, wet sand high at the shoreline, where the early morning waves break against the bluffs.
I picture her at the end of that line of footprints, lifting her chin confidently, hands on hips. It’s been days. What took you so long?
I hurdle the boardwalk railing and land in the sand below, and beeline toward the footprints in the sand.
With every footfall, I acclimate to the terrain and become more focused.
I know I won’t find her, trailing these prints, but not finding her is not an option. I just have to go about it another way, stick to it until I figure it all out. Here are the facts:
Damien had Rachel’s necklace.
On it was a charm—two red, teardrop-shaped stones pieced together to look like a heart.
He broke the stones out of the charm and used one of them in a ring he had made for my mother.
The other stone is likely still at his place, and maybe the police have even found it by now. But it’s not information they’re sharing with the public.
When Damien realized Chatham was special to me, and when Rosie failed to wear the ring he threw at her, he thought I’d stolen it and given it to Chatham. That’s why he tossed her room at the Churchill. It was imperative that ring not fall into the hands of those who could connect it to Rachel Bachton.
Twelve years ago, he did, in fact, bear resemblance to the longhaired man who snatched Rachel, as long as you forgive a few inches in height discrepancy.
If that were all there was to it, okay. He’d be a suspect in Rachel’s kidnapping. Why would he have taken her? What would he have done with her? The police would form theories, bring the dogs in, maybe dig up the land around his creek-side shack, and maybe demolish the shack itself, in search of bones.
But there’s more to it than that. The case is complicated . . . because of Chatham Claiborne.
If I’m right, Chatham Claiborne followed her sister’s trail here after the discovery of bones at the confluence, when Wayne was already gone.
Savannah came here because she remembered witnessing the kidnapping of Rachel Bachton. Maybe she, like the media, assumed the bones at the confluence were Rachel’s remains, given the rumors about the girl in the floor of the stables. She’d wanted Chatham to come along. Maybe she knew Chatham would come eventually, which could be the reason she’d left her journal under Chatham’s pillow. They’d be here, then, far away from the Goudy tract, when the police identified Baby A, and she’d be able to tell the police what she knew. She’d be able to incriminate her abusive parents before they realized she knew too much to let her live.
Chatham, remembering nothing, came in pursuit of her sister, following clues Savannah purposely left behind in a journal, when Chatham realized her life might be in jeopardy, too.
So who did the clothes beneath the floorboards belong to? Were they Rachel’s? Were they the clothes Alana was wearing when she died?
The Bachtons had denied the photograph Savannah found there was Rachel.
My guess is those clothes were Alana’s.
And given the scar on Chatham’s hip, the house she continued to sculpt and draw, and the images of Damien’s swing she’d included in her works of art, my guess is that Rachel Bachton is alive and well.
My guess is the child beneath the floorboards was the Goudys’ foster daughter, Alana. She died, maybe before they put her under the stables, or maybe because they put her there. Wayne buried her at the rivers. And if she’d been dead twelve years, and Rachel’s been missing twelve years . . .
What if Damien took Rachel to give to the Goudys? He would keep the necklace and the charm as a memento of what he did, of course.
But what’s the connection between Damien and the Goudys?
“He scouted her,” I say aloud. “Goudy sent a picture. The child had to pass for Alana, the child they’d killed. When he’d found the perfect target, the Goudys came to town. Went to the farmers’ market that day, used Savannah to lure Rachel, and Damien snatched Rachel and handed her over later at Damien’s house.”
It would explain how the same picture of Alana ended up in two places with a stretch of America between them. The Goudys had taken the picture, and sent a copy to Damien.
It would explain why the Goudys had to remove Rachel’s birthmark—Alana didn’t have one.
But what’s the motivation to replace a child who’s died or who you’ve killed?
Maybe they just thought the state wouldn’t know the difference between two blonde preschoolers. And they took Rachel to get away with murder.
Maybe that’s why the Goudys never adopted her. Adoption would call attention to the child.
But the question remains . . .
If all of this is true, or even if it isn’t, where is Chatham Claiborne now?
I’m nearing the lighthouse.
I should turn back.
But there’s something up the shore . . .
I keep running.
As I approach, I see a sand castle, worn by wind and water, but its remains are no less elaborate than the one Chatham sculpted weeks ago on this very same beach, complete with the criss-cross windows that delighted my sisters.
After the rave, Chatham said she’d keep building castles so Savannah would know she’d been there, so Savannah would know she’s still looking for her.
I catch my breath for a few seconds, then pull my phone from my pocket.
I take a picture of the sand sculpture and send it in a snap to Chatham.
Then I call Detective Guidry: “It’s Josh Michaels. This might be out there, but I’ve been mulling over some things Chatham told me over the past month or so, and I’ve got a theory.”
I tell him what I’ve been thinking about during my run.
He doesn’t give my theory affirmation, but he doesn’t tell me I’m nuts, either.
“So no word from her,” he says at the end of it all.
“No, sir.”
“You’ll let me know if you hear from her.”
“Yes, sir.”
I look at the sand castle one last time before I start my run back down the shore.
There’s no way to know for sure, but I prefer to believe:
She was here.