Page 49 of The Witch's Orchard
She leans in and whispers, “Mandy’s daughter, Jessica. Makes you wonder if he’s going to kill her the same way. Leave her right in Mandy’s backyard just like he left Molly out behind the Andrews place. Poor Max. I always liked him. You know my cousin asked him to prom? He said no. Didn’t even go.”
Trying to get her back on track, I ask, “Has Mandy ever said anything to you about Jessica?”
“No,” the girl says. “But I had homeroom with Tam, Mandy’s oldest kid. He never wanted to talk about it. But once I remember he said they were probably killed a long time ago. Some serial killer, he thought. But I don’t know what he thinks now. I graduated in May.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’m going to the community college over in Mason.”
“Congratulations,” I say again.
“Whatever. I want to be an X-ray tech. They make good money.”
“What does Tam want to do?”
She snorts.
“Dumbass wants to be a cop,” she says. “You believe that?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”
I get up and say thanks, leave behind a tip and pay at the register before heading back out into the cool night. I let out a sigh and then get behind the wheel, pull around to the back of the shopping center, and park. I get out and lean against the fender to wait. I check my phone. Five minutes.
Soon enough, Mandy Hoyle comes out the rear door with a black trash bag. She throws it in the dumpster and comes over to me. She doesn’t have a sweater or jacket so she stands there shivering, her white arms crossed in front of her, her hands brushing up and down her skinny biceps.
“Shit,” I breathe. I reach into my car and pull out the nearest fabric thing I can find, an old hoodie. I hold it toward her and she takes it but doesn’t put it on, just drapes it around her shoulders.
“You found Molly,” she says.
“Yeah.”
I feel like this is going to be an exact repeat of our earlier conversation and I know Mandy probably has only a five-minute break so I short-circuit the whole process and say, “Mandy, the day Jessica was taken, did you fall asleep in your car?”
She gives me a wide-eyed, terrified stare. And then she bursts into tears.
They’re hard, racking, ugly sobs. She holds her thin fingers up in front of her face, mashing them into her skin like that can make the tears or the pain or the needing stop.
“It’s okay,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“No,” I say. “It’s understandable. It just… it helps me know how things happened. You didn’t look away and she vanished.”
“No,” Mandy says. It comes out jittery and thick.
“You were exhausted and pregnant. You had a toddler asleep in the backseat.”
“She wasright there,” Mandy heaves. “She was right in front of me. She was a smart girl. She knew not to run off.”
“I know,” she says.
She sniffs, wipes her nose on the back of her arm.
“I was so confused. I fell asleep. I wasn’t asleep long. I swear. I’d been listening to the radio, really low, and… I know I was still awake when Dottie did the weather at ten after. I remember her saying the time. Then, I opened my eyes and Jessica was gone. I remember I looked at the clock and it was almost twenty after and she… she was gone. My baby. My baby girl.”
The last word draws out in a long sob.
“I lost her,” she moans. “It’s my fault.”
