Nic smiled, nodded. “I’m okay,” she said to her mother. Though she had a knot in her stomach as they drove over the wave of hills, past the neglected cornfields on both sides. But it was different this time. The air was warm. The sun was shining. Green leaves covered the trees as they entered the town.
Mrs. Urbansky met them at the door of the station. She pulled Nic into her arms, then did the same with her mother.
“Oh!” she said. “What a sight for sore eyes!”
Chief Watkins appeared from the back office. He looked at them, her mother mostly, with gratitude. Molly Clarke had saved his life that day.
“Don’t they look wonderful!” Mrs. Urbansky commented.
Nic managed a new smile. She hadn’t thought about how they looked. Not one way or another. Her mother had let her hair go back to its natural chestnut brown. She’d cut it short as well, and changed her wardrobe. She wore skirts and loose tops and pretty much whatever she felt comfortable in. It was the way she’d dressed before Annie died. It was as though she was reclaiming herself, one small piece at a time.
And Nic, she thought she looked just the same. She was still running. Hadn’t changed her hair or her clothing. Those things hadn’t felt important to her. Her father had told her that her face had light. He stopped from saying the word that should havefollowed—again, your face has light again.But Nic knew what he meant.
Watkins led them to his office where they sat down across from his desk. Nic had a new flash now—back to that first day she’d returned to Hastings. His uniform with the short sleeves. The patches on his chest. The blue tie.
But today was not about finding her mother. Today was about resolution.
“You were very kind to come,” he said.
This was not their only stop. Her mother had a second meeting less than hour from now.
“It’s good,” her mother said. “Necessary, I think.”
Watkins tilted his head as though he wasn’t quite sure of any of that. But now that they were here, he seemed willing to do what he could to fill them in on the progress with the case.
“Have you read her statement?” Watkins asked.
Daisy Hollander had pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the murder of Jared Reyes. But that was all. She had a hearing later that month and had submitted a statement to the court as part of her campaign for a lighter sentence.
“Does anyone believe her lies?” Nic asked. “What she said about it being self-defense?”
Daisy’s story had been carefully crafted. Reyes had followed her to Hastings after that summer camp. He’d been obsessed with her, even though she didn’t even remember him.
That’s what she said in her statement—though other girls from the camp, women now, had started to come forward with statements of their own, statements about Daisy and Reyes being together the entire summer. About Daisy sneaking out of their cabin at night to meet him.
Daisy denied all of this.
According to her, Reyes followed her to Hastings and stalked her. She said she told no one because she was scared. She swore she was in love with Roger Booth and that she planned to stay with him and marry him, but Reyes wouldn’t have it. He kidnapped her and kept her a prisoner in that house for ten years. She was finally able to escape and had been in hiding, terrified because Reyes was a cop. She came back that day to try to save Alice.
She killed Reyes in a moment of terror—rage and terror that was produced from years of abuse and captivity. They were comparing it to battered spouse syndrome. It may not have been self-defense in that moment, but justified by the culmination of years as a captive.
Watkins thought carefully before giving an answer to the question. Did anyone believe her story?
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Of all the people who have been coming forward now, saying what Reyes did to them with his cons—not one of them identified Daisy. She was very careful to stay behind the scenes. They found his beat-up truck behind the house—no prints belonging to Daisy. And the things all of you saw in the woods that day—the things you heard her confess about being Reyes’s partner in crime, not his prisoner—she has experts willing to testify that she was saying those things to take back control, or manipulate him. Years of captivity had messed with her mind.”
Nic knew all about the experts and their case studies—women who had been abused and battered and held captive who didn’t do or say the things that would be expected under the circumstances. Daisy had suffered abuse in her home as a child. And then Reyes had imprisoned her. They had come close to pleading diminished capacity—insanity—as a result.
Still, it was more than just the words Daisy had spoken in those woods.
“What about the note?” Nic asked now. “To Booth—and the texts to her sister?”
“She claims Reyes made her write them. Look—it fits. He forged that note he left at the casino, in the room he charged to your mother’s credit card. He proved himself to be pretty adept at planning a kidnapping and covering his tracks.”
Nic was far from satisfied. It was just now that she was feeling the extent of her anger at how things had unfolded in the aftermath of finding her mother.
She started rattling off the loose ends.
“And what about her sister—Veronica? Forensics found Daisy’s prints and hair all over the house… and I saw that jacket at her house the very same day.”
