“Your Cora wasn’t the well-behaved C student with the loving grandmother and job flipping burgers. Your Cora was taken from her mother by Child Protective Services when she was nine. The stash house where she was staying was raided in the middle of the night. The mom was nowhere to be found, but several men were arrested.”
“Dear God.” A quick, cutting ache flares under my ribs.
“Your Cora struggled in school. None of her foster placements lasted long, especially as she got older. She started to have run-ins with the police. Shoplifting and trespassing, mostly. She has arrests for public intoxication and destruction of property, too.”
That I believe, but I can’t square the rest with the Cora I know. She was rough around the edges when we met, but she was so quick to please, so eager to learn. She was never a party girl.
A message pops up on my phone—all clear—with a photo of Cora sitting cross legged on the floor. Winnie is cuddled in her lap and Pearl is next to her, slouching against her mother’s side, all three of them listening intently to a woman sitting on an overturned milk crate reading a picture book.
I just can’t believe it.
“How confident are you in this information?”
“One hundred percent. Rosenswag is one of my bestmen, and I’ve gone through the receipts with a fine-tooth comb.” Logan hesitates and then asks, “Do you need a break before we go on?”
“Jesus Christ, there’s more?”
Logan lets out a long breath. “So, when your Cora was fifteen, she was placed with a family in Homewood, which is a very nice part of town. Huge house. Dad is an insurance executive. Mom is on all the committees, belongs to all the clubs. They’re big in their church. Foster care is their thing. When Cara is placed with them, they’re already caring for two younger girls.”
Cora’s wistful voice echoes in my head.Big house in the suburbs. A mom, dad, two little sisters, and a dog.
“They enroll Cora in private school, and by all appearances, things turn around for her. Her attendance is great. The school does some testing for reading issues, and she qualifies for services. The delinquency is in the past.”
My lungs are so tight. I can’t sit anymore. I stalk to the French doors, slide them open, and gulp down the frosty December air.
“And then, when she’s been with the family almost a year, she asks to stay home one Sunday when they go to church. Claims she’s not feeling well. Now, this part, Rosenswag got directly from the patrol officer who was first to arrive on the scene.”
I don’t want to hear this. Whatever it is, I don’t.
“Apparently, the family owned an RV. A big one, class C, thirty-three feet. While they’re at church, Cora takes the keys from the hook by the door. She drives the RV down to the end of the cul-de-sac where they live, flips a u-ey, and floors the gas. Drives it straight across the front lawn into the living room.”
The image of my Scorpion crumbling against concrete and the airbag filling the cab flashes in my head.
“The neighbors call 9-1-1. Police arrive on the scene minutes later. When they enter the house, it’s clear that Cora was busy before her dramatic finale. The patrol officer says she’d basically torn the whole house down to the studs. She’d taken a sledgehammer to everything. Mirrors, dishes, electronics, family heirlooms, pipes, cabinets, walls. He said he’s never seen anything like it, not even in the worst evictions.”
I message Martinez again.Report.
“At first, they can’t find her. She’s not in the RV. Then they hear recorded voices coming from upstairs. They go up, and the second floor is just as bad as the first. The guy says the bedroom doors look like something out ofThe Shining. Everything’s a mess except for the room where they find her. The dad’s office. Nothing’s been touched, and she’s sitting on the floor. The guy’s laptop is open on his desk, playing a video.”
My hands curl into fists.
Blood roars in my ears as Logan clears his throat and says, “It was obviously taken from a spy camera in a vent or something. It’s Cora in the shower. And then the video splices to another feed. It’s the dad on a ladder, messing with a camera, adjusting the angle—in one of the younger girl’s bedrooms.”
My breakfast crawls up my throat. I step outside into the sharp wind, desperately sucking down air. I never understood Lucian before, but I get it now. I am going to kill that motherfucker.
“Where is the guy?” I ask when I’ve got my stomach under control.
“Jail. The wife, too. Eventually, evidence came out that she knew and did nothing. Apparently, Cora had been, uh, putting up with it until she discovered the camera in the younger girl’s room.”
“What happened to Cora then?” The social worker, Mrs. Flowers, swoops in and saves her, right?
“She didn’t go with the police easily. She ended up committed on a seventy-two-hour hold and then spent the better part of two years inpatient—several months on a locked ward at Bellamy Cross, a state psychiatric hospital, and then over a year at Villa Theresa, a residential treatment facility. The foster parents fought the charges, and they had money and connections. It all came out in the end, but for a while, they were able to paint Cora as an unhinged liar. She wasn’t released from Villa Theresa until she turned eighteen.”
I met her three years later.
My phone dings with a message. I glance down. It’s from Martinez.All clear.He sends a photo of Cora on her knees. She’s wearing Winnie in the carrier, and Pearl is standing beside her. Their mouths are wide open, singing, as they do something funny with their fingers. Itsy Bitsy Spider.
“I didn’t know,” I rasp.
