Page 85 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Otto shuffled over to the wall and flicked a switch. Light flooded the toolshed, and Norah and Lyla blinked rapidly against the sudden change.
“Don’t worry none. I’m not runnin’.” Otto shook his head. His expression was sad—no, it was hurt. Norah had hurt him by asking her question. By her accusation that he would have ever done anything to harm Naomi. Yet she couldn’t discount the young woman behind her. Couldn’t ignore the trapdoor in the shed, the ladder leading down into the earth.
“What’s down there?” Norah pointed.
Otto grimaced and looked away.
Lyla answered, “That’s where I live.”
“Where youlive?” Norah’s anger was barely contained. She bit her lip hard and turned her face from Otto. “I can’t even look at you.”
“She’s comfortable!” Otto protested.
Norah swung her head back to glare at him. “Comfortable? In theground?”
Norah turned to Lyla. It was apparent even now that Lyla was suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome or something. Her begging for help was countered by her weak defense of Otto. Norah leaned closer to her. “You need to go now. Run back to my house. Wake up the man upstairs. Get yourself some help.”
“Lyla, you stay here,” Otto ordered.
Lyla looked between them, torn. Norah faced her and gripped her shoulders. “Listen to me. You’re the one who’s been in my house, aren’t you? You played my music box?”
“I like the bird,” Lyla said.
“Yes, the bird. Okay.” Norah could hardly believe she was having this conversation, let alone with Otto standing yards away, who was not the man she’d always believed him to be. She directed her attention to Lyla. “And you probably brought me Naomi’s library card too, didn’t you?”
Lyla nodded. She pointed at the hole in the floor. “It was down there in the wallet. Got her license in there too, so I knew where it belonged. I returned it.”
“Yes, Lyla, you did.” Norah seethed almost as much as she wanted to collapse into weeping for the betrayal she was unveiling. “Thank you. Now go back, all right? Find my friend Sebastian. Wake him up—don’t bother the girl,” Norah added. “Wake up the man.” She felt as if she were talking to a child. It was becoming obvious that Lyla had been in Otto’s toolshed far longer than a few months. Her loyalty to her abductor played with Lyla’s senses. The healthy side of her mind had known sheneeded to escape, but the abused portion of herself had created a faithful devotion to the man who held her captive. Which was what had brought her back time and again. Otto’s age had made him sloppy. How many more girls had he—? Norah gagged and swallowed quickly so she didn’t vomit. She coughed, doubling over, and then gave Lyla a push. “Go, Lyla.”
This time Lyla did as she was told.
Norah saw her slip through the opening in the back wall of the shed. She startled when Otto’s hand rested gently on her shoulder. There was a kindness in his aged eyes she couldn’t understand. An affection and a devotion in his expression that tried to convince Norah she was wrong to be appalled by him. He had done nothing abhorrent. All he had ever done was care for Lyla. Love her...
“Norah, girl.” Otto squeezed her shoulder and gave her the wounded look of a man who wasn’t sorry, but who was hurt by her actions against him. “I only ever helped them. Naomi? She needed me. Her baby? I only ever helped.”
31
EFFIE
May 1901
Shepherd, Iowa
SHEHADNEVERBEENso grateful to see her father in all her life. She’d been limping as fast as she could toward help. Carlton James leaped from his carriage as it rumbled to a halt beside her. Two more carriages, including Gus’s, raced by. She thought she caught a glimpse of Constable Talbot in one next to Gerald Ambrose’s.
As it was, she collapsed into her father’s arms. The heel of her shoe had been broken. Her hair stuck to her cheek where blood had dried from her nosebleed. Her legs were quivering.
“Euphemia!” Her father hoisted her up, guiding her to the carriage. “I’m taking you home right away.”
“No! Anderson! He’s in trouble. It’s Patrick, Father—Patrick Charlemagne!”
“Charlemagne?” Carlton drew back in shock. “I don’t understand.”
“Please, Papa.” Effie reverted to her childhood endearment out of instinct, but it must have moved something in him.
“Yes. Yes!” Carlton helped her into the carriage and vaulted up beside her. With a slap of the reins, they barreled toward 322 Predicament Avenue.
Effie had never been so thankful as the moment they pulled to a lurching halt in front of the dilapidated house. Anderson sat on the front porch steps. His face was swollen, his eye already turning shades of purple. His shirt was half ripped off his shoulder, revealing part of his lean chest.
