Page 47 of I Know She Was There

I froze, recalling how odd it had been to see Tim at 21 Pine Hill Road. He would have no business being there if his friend Ray Connolly no longer owned the house. It hit me: He needed to get rid of me. I’d seen too much, was making too many damning connections, like the thought that now popped into my head: what if my husband’s friend on Pine Hill was never Ray? What if his real friend—hisgirlfriend—was Annie Connolly? Maybe he’d been seeing her before Tasha. My brain spun with this new possibility. And if it were true that she had disappeared or had been killed, and Tim was behind the murder, what did that mean for me?

I looked desperately around the deserted area, at the church and administrative facility behind me. Just my luck—nobody entering or leaving either building. I looked ahead of us, at the giant oaks in full leaf and the dense shades of gray and black behind them, realizing too late that he never intended to let me say goodbye to my daughter. He probably had a shallow grave already dug way back in the forest.

“I want to see Emmy!” I dug my heels in and screamed, hoping my frantic tone would distract him or alert anyone within hearing distance to the fact I was in danger. “Please, please, just let me see my baby.”

Tim suddenly halted and grasped my other forearm as well. He stood directly in front of me, very close, holding my arms so tightly I feared bruises. He looked me straight in the eyes, his own cold and dark as coal chips. “It’s time, Caroline.”

“Time for what?” I tried to step away, but he clung tightly to me.

“Time to see the baby.”

I blinked, looking around, not understanding.

“What are you playing at?” I demanded as he pulled me down, knocking us both onto our knees. He turned his head and so did I, following his gaze. We were directly in front of one of the headstones in the small cemetery, a tiny one with an angel poised for flight atop the polished marble. I read the inscription:

Emily “Emmy” Case

Aged six months, six days

Our Angel

I felt a catch in my throat and a sudden pounding in my temples. The words made no sense. Another baby with our child’s name had died. So sad! I read the date of her birth, the same as Emmy’s. How strange. A weight pressed against my chest, overwhelming my ability to draw a breath, as I read the date of the child’s death.

“Why did you bring me here, Tim? Dragging me to this, this... loathsome thing. Theheadstoneof a child who died... just three days ago? Of all the warped, sick...”

But he ignored me, just stared at the grave. I reared back, terrified, desperate to put space between us, but unable to take my gaze off him. He was so still, his stare so intense.

As I watched this stranger whom I’d married, trying to understand what was happening, I thought about his flirty gestures the day we’d met at the food store all those years earlier. I recalled the wonder and joy in his eyes the first time he’d held newborn Emmy. A small corner of my mind registered that this was no joke, no accusation, or even vindication. A deathly cold swept through me. Oh my God. That’s why he didn’t answer my calls. Emmy had died while in his care. I tried to yell but my voice came out as a whisper. “You killed her. You killed our baby.”

He suddenly looked at me, leaned back on his haunches until he was squatting beside me. “I didn’t kill her, Caroline.”

“But she’s...”Emmy, no! No! Please, no!“I just left her with you and now she’s...”

“Emmy’s been gone for three years,” he said, staring as though the force of his gaze could convince me. “You know this.”

I looked back at the headstone, at the date. September 8. But that wasn’t three years ago, it was threedaysago. How could this be? With no funeral? How could they get a headstone carved and placed so soon? It made absolutely no sense.

“This is the wrong person, Tim, don’t you see? There’d be no time...”

He continued to stare. His eyes looked dead. “There is no mistake, Caroline.”

“No, this is wrong, all wrong!” It had to be. My Emmy, my baby was under my loving care. I always, always put her needs first. She was my reason—my only reason—for living. I stood swiftly—and just as rapidly teetered as the world spun around me and crashed, sending my body reeling to the ground, my face smashed into the grass. Emmy gone, impossibly lost...?

I closed my eyes, pleading with God to stop the beating of my own heart. “Take me,” I whispered. “Take me too.”

PARTTWO

CHAPTER26

MONDAY AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 11

Flashing red and blue lights carried me across town. I’d felt them echoing in my body, abusive in their power. Intrusive. God, I wanted them to stop. And they had. Replaced by one giant, round, dispassionately cold fluorescent hovering over me like a UFO. I lay across a flat surface, hoping I was dead, and this was the afterlife. I wanted to get up and explore the new realm and find my daughter. I tried to sit up.

“She’s dehydrated,” called a disembodied voice, bouncing around me.

A woman’s head popped into my line of vision. Eyes peered at me through oversized eyeglass frames and the few sandy strands of her hair that had escaped her ponytail pointed at me like arrows. “Don’t try to move,” she said. “We’re inserting the IV.”

“I don’t want?—”

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