“I’d like to speak with Channing.”
“I’m sorry, Detective. It’s early, still. She’s resting.”
“She asked me to call.”
“Yet, this appears to be a visit.”
Elizabeth peered past him. The house was full of dark rugs and heavy furniture. “She very much wanted to see me, Mr. Shore. I think it’s important we speak.”
“Look, Detective.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “Let’s forget what’s in the news, okay. Let’s forget that you’re under investigation and that the state police are giving my lawyers hell trying to get to Channing, who for some reason doesn’t care to talk to them. Let’s put all that aside and cut to the chase. We appreciate what you did for our little girl, but your part in this is over. My daughter is safe at home. We’re taking care of her. Her mother and me. Her family. Surely, you understand that.”
“Of course. That’s beyond question.”
“She needs to forget the terrible things that happened. She can’t do that with you sitting next to her.”
“Forgetting is not the same as coping.”
“Listen.” For a moment, his face softened. “I’ve learned enough about you to know that you’re a fine person and a good cop. That comes from judges, other police officers, people who know your family. I don’t doubt your intentions, but there’s nothing good you can do for Channing.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
He retreated inside, but Elizabeth caught the door’s edge before it could close. “She needs more than strong walls, Mr. Shore. She needs people who understand. You’re six feet and change, a wealthy man with the world at his feet. Channing is none of those things. Do you have any idea what she’s feeling right now? Do you think you ever could?”
“No one knows Channing better than I.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Do you have children, Detective?” He towered above her, waiting.
“No. I don’t have children.”
“Let’s revisit this conversation when you do.”
He pushed the door shut and left Elizabeth on the wrong side of it. His feelings were understandable, but Channing needed a guide through the bitter landscape of after, and Elizabeth knew those trails better than most.
Looking up at high windows, she sighed deeply, then threaded between box bushes that rose like walls around her. The path twisted around giant oaks, and when it spit her out on the driveway, she found Channing seated on the hood of her car. Loose jeans and a sweatshirt swallowed the girl’s small body. A hood kept her eyes in shadow, but light touched the line of her jaw as she spoke. “I saw you pull up.”
“Channing, hi.” The girl slid off the car and pushed hands into her pockets. “How’d you get out of the house?”
“The window.” She shrugged. “I do it all the time.”
“Your parents…”
“My parents treat me like a child.”
“Sweetheart…”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
“No,” Elizabeth said sadly. “No, you’re not.”
“They say everything’s okay, that I’m safe.” Channing clenched her jaw: ninety pounds of china. “I’m not okay.”
“You can be.”
“Are you okay?”
Channing let sunlight find her face, and Elizabeth saw bones that pressed too tightly against the skin, circles beneath the girl’s eyes that were as dark as her own. “No, sweetheart. I’m not. I barely sleep, and when I do, I have nightmares. I don’t eat or exercise or talk to people unless I need to. I’ve lost twelve pounds in under a week. It’s not fair, what happened in that house. I’m angry. I want to hurt people.”
Channing pulled her hands free from her pockets. “My father can barely look at me.”
“I doubt that.”
“He thinks I should have run faster, fought harder. He says I shouldn’t have been outside in the first place.”
“What does your mother say?”
“She brings me hot chocolate and cries when she thinks I can’t hear.”
Elizabeth studied the house, which spoke of denial and quiet perfection. “You want to get out of here?”
“You and me?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
Channing got in the car, and Elizabeth drove them out of the historic district, past the mall, the car dealers, and day-care centers. She drove into the country, then to the gravel road that ran deep into the woods before turning up the face of the mountain that rose alone from the hills around the city. Air whistled through the car as they climbed, but neither spoke until they neared the top and the road flattened into a parking lot.
“This is the abandoned quarry.” Channing broke the silence, but with little real curiosity.
Elizabeth pointed at a gash in the woods. “Just up that trail. A quarter mile.”
“Why are we here?”
Elizabeth killed the engine and set the brake. She needed to do something, and it was going to hurt. “Let’s take a walk.”
She led Channing into the shade, then up a winding trail that was beaten flat by all the people who’d walked it over the years. It grew steep in places. They passed bits of litter and gray-skinned trees with initials carved into the bark. At the top of the mountain, the trail emptied onto an overlook that offered views of the city on one side and of the quarry on the other. In places, trees grew from shallow soil; in others there was only rock. It was a stark and beautiful place, but the drop into the quarry was two hundred feet straight down.
“Why are we here?”
Elizabeth stepped to the edge and peered down at the vast expanse of cold, black water. “My father’s a preacher. You probably didn’t know that.” Channing shook her head, and Elizabeth’s hair lifted in a breeze that rose up sheer walls like an exhalation from the water. “I grew up in the church, in a small house behind it, actually. The parsonage. Do you know that word?”
Channing shook her head again, and Elizabeth understood that, too. Most kids could never understand church as a life, the prayer and dutifulness and submission.
“The church kids would come here on Sundays after church. Sometimes there were a few of us, and sometimes a lot. A couple of parents would drive us up the mountain, then read the paper in the cars while we hiked up here to play. It was good, you know. Picnics and kites, long dresses and lace-up boots. There’s a trail that leads to a narrow ledge above the water. You could swim or skim stones. Sometimes we’d have campfires.” Elizabeth nodded; saw yellowed memories of a day like this, and of an unsuspecting, narrow-hipped girl. “I was raped under those trees when I was seventeen.”
Channing shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.”
But Elizabeth did. “We were the only two left, this boy and me. It was late. My father was in the car, down the hill. It happened so fast…” Elizabeth picked up a rock, tossed it, and watched it fall into the quarry. “He was chasing me. I thought it was a game. It probably started out that way. I’m not really sure. I was laughing for a while, and then suddenly was not.” She pointed at the trees. “He caught me by that little pine and shoved needles in my mouth to keep me from screaming. It was fast and awful, and I barely understood what was happening, just the weight of him and the way it hurt. On the walk down, he begged me not to tell. He swore he didn’t mean to do it, that we were friends and he was weak and it would never happen again.”
“Elizabeth…”
“We walked a quarter mile through those woods, then rode home in my father’s car, both of us in the backseat.” Elizabeth didn’t mention the feel of the boy’s leg pressed against her own. She didn’t describe the heat of it, or how he reached out once and put a single finger on the back of her hand. “I never told my father.”
“Why not?”
“I thought it was my fault, somehow.” Elizabeth lobbed another rock and watched it drop. “Two months later, I almost killed myself. Right here.”