Page 118 of The Witch's Orchard
She opens the casebook and flips through the pages until she gets to a newspaper clipping about Jessica—the anniversary of the day she was taken. Within the clipping is a photo of Jessica, standing in a park in a white dress and, beside her, a beautiful young woman.
“That’s Odette,” Mandy says, putting her fingertip beside the young woman’s face. The caption under the photo says that the picture was snapped at an Easter-egg hunt hosted by the newspaper the year before Jessica was taken. I remember that Odette probably died not long after this and my gaze shifts between her and Jessica, a sense of revelation sliding through my nerves.
I’d let myself think that Jessica only looked like Mandy, and the resemblancewasuncanny. But Odette was Tommy’s sister, and now I could see his features in her. In both of them. That sharp bone structure. That sly smile. If you’d told me that Jessica was Odette’s daughter or little sister, I’d have believed you.
“But it was amazing,” Mandy says, still on the topic of the haunted house.
“I was terrified! Honestly, I just about peed my pants and tried to run back out and instead I ran straight into Tommy. Dressed up as the grim reaper. I didn’t even recognize him under all those layers of fabric. I found out later he’d dyed a bunch of old grain sacks black and stapled them together into a cloak. You’d think it would’ve looked terrible but…”
She seems to realize she’s been rambling and looks up at me again, an apologetic smile on her mouth.
She says, “I hate how much I love him.”
I don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to explain to her that I watched my own mother wrestle with the very same feeling. But shedoesn’t need me to help carry this conversation. It’s one she probably has by herself every day.
She says, “I wish I could go back. Tell myself not to go that night, not to agree to a date with him, not to get in the back of his truck that night. But, honestly, I wouldn’t listen to anyone. Everyone tried to tell me. Even Odette, his own sister. But I wouldn’t have any of it. And still… I can’t even say I fully regret it. I have my boys, don’t I? And they’re the best boys a mama could ask for, despite his blood in their veins. And I hope… Ihopethat my girl will come back to me. I heard the FBI is on their way.”
“Yes,” I say. “They should be here today.”
She nods.
“Hopefully they’ll do better this time,” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “Hopefully so.”
“Oh—” Mandy says with a start, and I follow her gaze to the kitchen clock.
“I have to go! I’ll be late for work. Please tell Max I’m sorry about Tommy taking his book.”
I nod and watch her drain the last of her coffee, get her purse, and march toward the door.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she says. “And, thank you for listening.”
She heads out the door, and I go onto the porch and watch as she climbs into Tommy’s truck and eases it around and back down the driveway. I think about Tommy Hoyle. His bad attitude and the bruises he left on Mandy. I think about that photo, hanging in the Hoyle house, of his family before Jessica was taken and I think about the donation money Tommy took to hire a PI that never materialized.
I think about his pitiful pleas for help in the factory and the fact that now he was resting in a hospital bed thanks only to my decent nature. I think about the way he’d brushed right past me the day I visited his house. Muttering about me as if I weren’t even there and spitting gravel behind his truck, almost hitting Honey.
“Well,” I say, grabbing my keys and my bag. “He can’t brush me off now.”
THIRTY-NINE
THE QUARTZ CREEK HOSPITALis a squat, redbrick, single-story building in the middle of a parking lot riddled with cracked asphalt. I stand aside on my way in to let an ambulance pull into the ER unloading zone and then I head through the front doors. I have avoided hospitals most of my life and even now I think I’d rather be out combing the woods with the sheriff’s department than padding down the pale green tile to Tommy Hoyle’s room.
“What are you doing here?” a voice asks, and I turn to find Kathleen Jacobs coming around the desk of the nurses’ station to greet me.
“I could ask you the same question,” I say. “Don’t you work nights?”
“Ordinarily, yes. But lately I feel like all I ever do is come here. Barely know my nights from my days now.”
“I’m here to talk to Tommy Hoyle,” I say.
“Well, we’re not supposed to let anyone in,” she says. “Outside of family. He’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Is he conscious?”
“He should be. He’s heavily medicated and he’s been in and out, but he’s been awake today asking for this and that. But really, I can’t let you in there. Police orders, and not just Cole. The DEA is coming to interview him and investigate the lab.”
“Come on, Kathleen,” I say. “I need to talk to him.”
