Terri hesitated, then gave him a curt nod. She looked down the hallway as if to make sure no one was there. Lena knew she was looking for Dale. Even though he was handcuffed in the squad car, she was still terrified he could get to her.
She opened the back door, giving another furtive glance, this time to make sure Lena and Jeffrey were following. She told Jeffrey, “Leave it open a crack in case Tim needs me,” meaning the door. He caught the screen so it wouldn’t slam, playing along with her paranoia.
Together, the three of them walked into the backyard. The dogs were all mutts, probably rescued from the pound. They whined quietly, jumping up at Terri, trying to get her attention. She absently stroked their heads as she passed, edging around the garage. She stopped at the corner and Lena could see an outbuilding behind it. If Dale was looking this way, he would be able to see them go to the building.
Jeffrey realized this about the same time Lena did. He was offering, “I can-” when Terri took a deep breath and walked out into the open yard.
Lena followed her, not looking at the squad car, feeling the heat of Dale’s stare anyway.
“He’s not looking,” Jeffrey said, but both Lena and Terri were too frightened to look.
Terri took a key out of her pocket and slid it into the locked shed door. She turned on the lights as she went into the cramped room. A sewing machine was in the center, bolts of dark leather stacked against the walls, harsh light overhead. This must be where Terri sewed upholstery for the cars Dale rebuilt. The room was dank, musty. It was little more than a sweatshop and must have felt like hell itself in the dead of winter.
Terri turned around, finally looking out the window. Lena followed her gaze and saw the dark silhouette of Dale Stanley sitting in the back of the squad car. Terri said, “He’s gonna kill me when he finds out about this.” She told Lena, “What’s one more thing, huh?”
Lena said, “We can protect you, Terri. We can take him to jail right now and he’ll never see the light of day again.”
“He’ll get out,” she said.
“No,” Lena told her, because she knew there were ways to make sure prisoners didn’t get out. If you put them in the right cell with the right person, you could fuck up their lives forever. She said, “We can make sure,” and from the look Terri gave her, Lena knew the other woman understood.
Jeffrey had been listening to all of this as he walked around the small room. Suddenly, he pulled a couple of bolts of material away from the wall. There was a noise from behind them, almost like a scurrying mouse. He pulled away another bolt, holding out his hand to the girl crouched against the wall.
He had found Rebecca Bennett.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jeffrey watched Lena with Rebecca Bennett, thinking that even after all these years, if someone asked him to explain what made Lena tick, he would be at a loss for words. Five minutes ago, she had sat in this same kitchen as he talked with Terri Stanley, barely speaking, acting as if she was a scared chil d. Yet, with the Bennett girl, she was in charge, being the cop she could be instead of the abused woman she was.
“Tell me what happened, Rebecca,” she said, her voice strong even as she took the girl’s hands in hers, balancing authority with empathy. Lena had done this a million times before, but still the transformation was hard to believe.
Rebecca hesitated, still a frightened child. She was obviously exhausted, the time spent hiding from her uncle wearing away at her like the constant flow of water over a river rock. Her shoulders were turned in, her head bowed as if all she wanted in the world was to disappear.
“After you guys left,” Rebecca began, “I went to my room.”
“This was Monday?”
Rebecca nodded. “Mama told me to lie down.”
“What happened?”
“I got cold, and I pulled back my sheets and found some papers there.”
“What papers did you find?” Lena asked.
Rebecca looked at Terri, and the older woman gave a small nod, indicating it was okay. Rebecca paused, her eyes on her cousin. Then she tucked her hand into the front pocket of her dress and pulled out a neatly folded stack of papers. Lena glanced at them, then handed them to Jeffrey. He saw that they were originals of the insurance policies Frank had already pulled.
Lena sat back in her chair, studying the girl. “Why didn’t you find them Sunday?”
Rebecca glanced at Terri again. “I stayed at my aunt Rachel’s Sunday night. Mama didn’t want me out looking for Abby.”
Jeffrey remembered Esther had said much the same thing at the diner. He looked up from the documents just in time to catch an exchanged glance between the two cousins.
Lena had obviously seen this, too. She placed her hand palm down on the table. “What else, Becca? What else did you find?”
Terri started chewing her lip again while Rebecca stared at Lena ’s hand on the table.
“Abby trusted you to do the right thing with what she left,” Lena said, keeping her tone even. “Don’t betray that trust.”
Rebecca kept staring at Lena ’s hand so long Jeffrey wondered if the girl was in a trance. Finally, she looked up at Terri and nodded. Without speaking, Terri walked over to the refrigerator and pulled the magnets holding some of the kids’ drawings. There were several layers before she got to the metal surface.
She said, “Dale never looks here,” sliding out a folded sheet of ledger paper from behind a child’s stick rendering of the crucifixion. Instead of handing it to Jeffrey or Lena, she gave the page to Rebecca. Slowly, the girl unfolded the paper, then slid it across the table to Lena.
“You found this in your bed, too?” Lena asked, reading the page. Jeffrey leaned over her shoulder, seeing a list of names, recognizing some of them as workers on the farm. The columns were broken out into dollar amounts and dates, some already past, some in the future. Jeffrey mentally compared the dates to the policies. With a jolt, he realized that this was some kind of income projection, a tally of who had what policy and when they could be expected to cash out.
“Abby left it for me,” Rebecca said. “She wanted me to have it for some reason.”
“Why didn’t you show it to anybody?” Lena asked. “Why did you run away?”
Terri answered for her cousin, speaking quietly as if she was afraid she would get into trouble for doing so. “Paul,” she said. “That’s his handwriting.”
Rebecca had tears in her eyes. She nodded to Lena ’s silent question, and Jeffrey felt the tension ratchet up at the revelation, the exact opposite of what he had been expecting when they finally told the truth. The girls were obviously terrified of what they held in their hands, yet giving it to the police did not bring them any relief.
Lena asked, “Are you afraid of Paul?”
Rebecca nodded, as did Terri.
Lena studied the paper again, though Jeffrey was sure she understood every word on the page. “So, you found this on Monday, and you knew that this was Paul’s handwriting.”
Rebecca did not respond, but Terri provided, “She came here that night sick with worry. Dale was passed out on the couch. I hid her in the shed until we could figure out what to do.” She shook her head. “Not that there’s ever anything we can do.”
“You sent that warning to Sara,” Jeffrey reminded her.
Terri shrugged with one shoulder, as if acknowledging that the letter had been a cowardly way of revealing the truth.
Lena was gentle when she asked Terri, “Why didn’t you tell your family about this? Why not show them the documents?”
“Paul’s their golden boy. They don’t see him for what he really is.”
“What is he?”
“A monster,” Terri answered. Her eyes filled with tears. “He acts like you can trust him, like he’s your best friend, and then he turns around and stabs you in the back.”
“He’s bad,” Rebecca mumbled in agreement.