Chapter 4: What She Ran From
"Who knows?" Ryan asked.
Diane's eyes moved to the kitchen window.
Ryan got up and pulled the blind down without being asked.
"His name is Marcus Hale," she said.
"We were together for almost two years.
I moved into his house outside of Pittsburgh about eight months before I disappeared."
"The police looked at him," Ryan said.
"They interviewed him.
He had an alibi."
"He had three people willing to lie for him." She said it without bitterness.
Like a fact she'd had years to get used to.
"He has money.
He has people who owe him things.
The detective who handled my case — Diane paused — "Marcus went to school with his brother."
Caroline set a plate of toast on the table.
Diane looked at it like she'd forgotten food came in solid form.
"Eat," Caroline said softly.
"You can talk and eat."
Diane picked up a piece of toast.
Took a small bite.
"I tried to leave him the first time about a month after I moved in," she said.
"He locked me in the bedroom for four days.
Told me if I contacted anyone in my family, he would tell the police I'd stolen from him.
He had documents.
Fake ones, but convincing." She looked at Ryan.
"I believed him.
I was @bused and I believed him, and I am not going to spend the rest of my life being ashamed of that."
"You shouldn't," Ryan said.
"I know." She took another bite.
"The second time I tried to leave, I actually made it out.
I got to a shelter in Allentown.
I was there for eleven days before one of the staff members told him where I was."
Caroline sat down.
"Someone at the shelter told him?"
"He'd paid her.
I don't know how he found the right person or how much it cost him.
I just know I woke up one morning and he was standing in the parking lot." Diane set the toast down.
"I climbed out a bathroom window.
I had twelve dollars and no phone.
I walked for most of a day before I got a ride from a truck driver going east.
I told him to drop me anywhere.
He dropped me two miles from here."
Ryan was quiet for a moment.
"You knew where we lived," he said.
"I've always known where you lived.
I used to drive past sometimes, in the early days, when Marcus thought I was running errands.
Just to see the lights on." She looked at the table.
"It felt safer to know you were there, even if I couldn't come in."
Ryan's jaw tightened.
He didn't trust himself to speak.
"Why not come to the door?" Caroline asked.
"Why hide?"
"Because I was terrified of what he'd do to you if he found out you'd helped me.
To Ryan.
To Ethan." She looked at Ethan's empty chair.
"He's not a man who accepts losing.
He would have come here and he would have made it very bad for all of you."
"He's going to come here anyway," Ryan said.
"You said he knows."
Diane nodded.
"My phone.
The one I used at the shelter — I thought I'd destroyed it, but I must have missed something.
Three days ago I found a note under the back door.
No name.
Just an address." She reached into the pocket of her borrowed sweatshirt and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
Ryan opened it.
It was their address.
Written in clean, careful handwriting.
Below it, two words: *Found you.*
Ryan folded it back up.
Set it down.
"We're calling the police," he said.
"Ryan—"
"Not the same detective.
Not anyone connected to him.
I'm calling the county sheriff's office directly, tonight, and I'm telling them everything.
And tomorrow morning, we're getting you a lawyer."
Diane stared at him.
Her eyes filled for the first time since she'd come through the access panel.
"He has so much money," she said.
"I don't care."
"He will destroy you."
"Let him try." Ryan reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
"You've been alone with this for six years.
That's over now."
Caroline's phone buzzed on the counter.
She glanced at it.
The color left her face.
"Ryan." Her voice had gone very flat.
"There's a car parked across the street.
It wasn't there an hour ago."
Ryan stood up slowly.
He did not go to the window.
"Diane," he said, keeping his voice even.
"Take Ethan upstairs.
Lock the bedroom door.
Do not open it unless you hear my voice."
Diane was already moving.
May you like
Ryan picked up his phone and dialed.
The car across the street did not move.
