He stopped. What he wanted to say wasn't coming out right. He pictured the woman in the bathrobe and she was hot even when upset. Why didn't he want to go to her house now?
Olivia breathed heavily into the phone. Gone were the tantalizing gasps and giggles.
"Listen, Olivia. It's just that I've been pounding my head against this thing all day now." He sighed and stretched his neck. "I'm exhausted. I'm beat. I'm about five seconds away from passing out."
For a minute the woman didn't respond. Maxim wondered if she had passed out herself. But then she spoke, and her voice softened. "I was just trying..." she offered. "This is just how everything's been lately. Everything's rocky. Nothing's easy."
Maxim could sympathize.
"I like it when you ask about Annabelle," she admitted. "I really do. She's my daughter and I want her to be happy. It's just that, she hasn't been herself lately. As the only responsible parent, I have to make the tough choices. It makes things harder on me. It strains our relationship." She paused thoughtfully. Maxim thought she sat down again. "It feels like it's not her anymore, you know?"
He shook his head but said, "I guess."
"Don't humor me, Maxim."
"I don't know what you want me to say. I thought you said the session with Dr. Collins helped."
"No," stressed Olivia, "you're not listening. I feel like the girl sleeping in Annabelle's bed isn't her. Like what came back from the forest isn't really my Annabelle."
Maxim's eyes widened slowly as the statement fully dawned on him. Olivia waited for his reply, and he was afraid to give it. Finally, he decided to be direct. "That's crazy, Olivia. I'm sure Dr. Collins would just say you're rationalizing."
She scoffed. "Rationalizing?"
"It's a coping mechanism. Like the glass of wine in your hand."
An awkward silence followed and Maxim wished he could take his last statement back.
Her voice sobered. "You really know how to make a girl feel special." He chuckled accidentally and quickly cut it short, but Olivia followed suit. In a moment, they both laughed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You must think I'm a wreck. Drunk and booty calling you at three in the morning. How embarrassing."
"No," he said. "Don't worry about it. We're all a little extra stressed out."
She sighed. There was a hint of wistfulness in it, and Maxim wondered what could have been. "You can say that again, Detective."
He smiled, unsure how to follow that.
"Well..." she started.
"Why don't you get some sleep?" he offered.
"Yes. That's what I need."
"That's what we both need. Let's talk tomorrow."
"Okay, Detective. That sounds better. I'll see you."
Maxim felt the moment slipping away. "Rain check?" he asked jokingly, but Olivia had already hung up.
Chapter 44
The last thing Maxim remembered before crashing hard was popping open a single Bass Ale. He woke up on the couch, fully dressed, a half bottle of warm beer on the coffee table.
He had vague recollections of troubled dreams. Now awake, they manifested as an underlying feeling of dread. Sleeping in on his first full day as lead detective didn't help settle his nerves, but what really rattled him were the possibilities of his findings last night. The more he discovered about Lachlan Munro, the more behind he felt. The potential pool of victims was large. He would need to get the sheriff's task force investigating the leads immediately.
Maxim checked his phone and saw the messages had piled up. His routine tasks were cascading over one another—they threatened to occupy him for hours. Instead, Maxim canceled his check-in with the sheriff's office. He wasn't in the mood to deal with it. He didn't have the time. And there was an urgency about the morning. The trepidation of the last four days had caught up with him, somewhere in his dreams. Even now, he couldn't shake it.
Maxim jumped into his car as soon as he could. Like the night before, he would be mobile, work on the laptop and the phone. But one visit needed to be done in person. The detective threw the Audi into drive and headed to Williams once again.
The lead was already cold. He just hoped it wasn't snowed over yet.
On the way, he got an update on Detective Harper's condition. The detective was showing promising signs of recovery. He also got a message from Diego, thanking him for keeping Julia and him up to date. Then Maxim touched base with the lieutenant in charge of Coconino Criminal Investigations. Maxim had emailed his new crime profile in the pre-dawn hours and wanted to make sure the lieutenant knew what he was looking at. He also wanted to request the expanded search parameters that he couldn't kick off from his laptop the night before. He informed the sheriff's office that he was running down the one solid lead he had and would catch up with them later. He also got the expected update that there hadn't been any forensic breakthroughs yet. As was often the case, lab results could be used in court but wouldn't actually come in time to help the victim.
Maxim was in the small city of Williams before he knew it. He drove to a wide-open side of town with nineteen-sixties real estate. The dusty, residential strip must have been full of opportunity long ago. Now, he parked his Audi at the curb of a faded yellow ranch house that was past its prime.
"Louise Radford," he announced, knocking on her door. After a minute with no answer, he called out louder. He heard muffled giggling. Maxim strolled to the side window to peek inside but the curtains were drawn.
The giggle came and went again, and he frowned. He definitely wasn't hearing things, but he was letting his nerves get to him. Maxim stepped off the porch and peeked over the side gate. A small passage led to a cracked concrete patio in the back. The giggling returned, this time louder.
"Louise Radford," repeated the detective, opening the gate and moving in.
The laughter stopped. A woman came around the corner of the house. "Yes?"
Maxim flashed his badge. "I'm Detective Dwyer, from the Sanctuary Marshal's Office. I spoke to your husband an hour ago."
"He's at work," she said. "It's just us now."
"Us?" The detective entered the backyard and saw the girl on the swing set. She was Annabelle's age now, but the pure glee displayed on her face suggested a more innocent mindset. "Ah," said Maxim. "Your daughter, Alice. I was hoping I could speak with both of you."
Louise had a tired face, and it knotted up more at the statement.
"Did your husband mention me?" he asked.
She shook her head. "He was in a hurry. He woke up late."
Maxim smiled. "I know the feeling." He waved at the girl in the distance and shot her a wink.
Louise narrowed her eyes. "You're searching for that missing girl in the woods, right?"
"I'm heading the investigation."
"And how are we involved?"
Maxim patiently went through the same discourse he'd had with the husband. "I've been doing some background on similar cases over the last few years. Your daughter went missing from the east edge of Williams last year and reappeared the next day. Is that right?"
Louise nodded.
"That's over by the train tracks, isn't it?"
"Yes," said the mother. "Alice likes to follow the tracks. We figured she wandered into the woods and got turned around, but eventually found and followed the tracks back."
"You figure?" asked the detective. "You haven't gotten more specific information from your daughter since then?"
Louise exhaled pointedly and led Maxim to her daughter. The concrete backyard was not tiny, but it was dominated by a rectangular sand pit. Like many parks for kids throughout the country, this had some playground equipment: a double swing set, a trampoline, a see-saw. Only it was all for one girl. Alice slowed on her swing as they approached, tennis shoes brushing the sand.
"My daughter is autistic, Detective." He nodded to show he was aware, and she continued. "She doesn't convey stories the way we do. She can't process new experiences well. Her life is about routines. Play time, nap time, lunch time. Unfortunately, she's never been able to tell us where she went that day."
"She didn't say anything telling?" Maxim took a deep breath and considered his misfortune. Just as with Annabelle, the witness was unreliable.
"Some," answered Louise. "She said she visited friends. Why don't you ask her?"
"Uh..." Maxim stammered. He was embarrassed for not doing so. "Hello Alice."
"Hello."
The answer came fast. A canned response more than a true greeting.
Maxim wondered how best to broach the subject. "Do you remember last year, when you were in the forest overnight?"
Louise cut in. "The field trip, Alice. You remember?"
The girl giggled. "Yes."
Maxim lowered himself to his knees. "Do you remember seeing any people there?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember an old man with red hair?"
Alice shook her head with a shy grin. "No. Only boys and girls. Mommy says no talking to men."
Maxim turned to Louise, who shrugged. He could've been offended but supposed he couldn't blame her. It must be difficult to raise an autistic child. A stringent set of rules was likely very necessary.
"How many boys and girls?" he asked.
Alice heaved her shoulders in reply.
"Was it five boys and girls? Ten?"
Alice chewed her lip. "Okay."
Maxim furrowed his brow and Louise cut in.
"You need to be careful about giving her information. If she thinks you're instructing her then she'll go along with whatever you say. I've spoken to her about her friends many times. From what I gathered, it was a handful of them only. All children, some younger than her. Alice doesn't have a lot of friends, and my husband and I figured they were make-believe."
Maxim could feel his face darken. He had a feeling the stories of children were all too real, but none of it made sense. The local children that went missing in recent years could certainly fill the numbers, but how or why would they gather in the forest? Without adults?
"Were any of them hurt, Alice?"
"No."
"What did you do together?"
"Play."
Her mother cut in again.
"What did you play, sweetie?"
Alice smiled and turned to Maxim. "Hopscotch. And skipping. And hide-and-go-seek. And swimming. But swimming's bad. Mommy always says don't play in water. I don't like water. Sand is better." The girl hopped off her swing and landed in the sand. She scooped it with her hands.
Maxim backed away. He now realized the rectangular sandbox built into the concrete was a filled-in swimming pool.
Louise knew what he was thinking. "Alice had an accident when she was very young. We knew she was autistic, and swimming was a good outlet for her energy. She loved it, too. But she had too many accidents. She got caught in the water intake once and my husband had to yank her out. Another time she jumped in while she was tangled in a net. We considered buying a new house but the market was awful and we couldn't afford taking the loss, so we just had it converted to a playground." Louise took careful steps through the grains of sand as if the water were still there. "She likes this better, now. She gets plenty of sun and exercise and it's much safer."
"I like the beach," exclaimed Alice.
Her mother smiled. "I know, sweetie."
"I like the sun. The bad lights don't come out in the sun."
Maxim cocked his head. "The bad lights?"
"Don't let the lights see you," warned the girl, as if her meaning was clear.
Louise shook her head. "I'm sorry, Detective. It's hard to get straight answers out of her sometimes. She likes to play on the train tracks. I let her do it because it makes her happy, but we constantly warn her how dangerous it can be. The bad lights are the train lights. And the cars. I always tell her to watch out for traffic, whether she's on the road or not."
The detective nodded.
"Don't play in the road," parroted Alice. "Don't play in the water."
Maxim stepped out of the sand and shook some from his shoes. The girl's words made him feel uneasy, no matter how innocent they were meant to be. In some ways, Alice Radford and Annabelle Hayes had similar stories, but their upbringing was necessarily different. Maxim wondered if all the hard rules had played a part in sparing Alice from potential trauma.
Louise followed the detective a few steps away from her daughter. She lowered her voice. "Are you close to finding the girl?"
"Huh?" he asked, broken from his thoughts.
"I can see she's on your mind."
"Oh. I don't know how close we are. She wasn't who I was thinking about. There's another girl, the one we did find closer to Sanctuary."
The mother allowed a small smile across her lips. "How's she doing?"
Maxim weighed his response. "It's tough to say. She's emotional. Acting out. But I can't get past that she has nothing to say about her disappearance either. Tell me, has Alice seemed any different to you since she came back?"
Louise raised an eyebrow. "Different? No, Detective. She's a strong girl. She took it in stride."
"That's not what I mean." Maxim scratched his chin, unsure how to phrase his concern. "Her mother, well, she told me her daughter wasn't the same. Like, it wasn't really her."
Louise's face relaxed into something that saddened him. "Sometimes it's easier to think that, Detective. My husband and I were in denial about our daughter for a short period. It was a lot to process. Things would've been easier if she wasn't ours. If we could have started over."
The detective didn't know what to say. It sounded like an awful train of thought, the type that would make any parent feel guilt for the rest of their lives.
Louise turned back to her daughter and beamed proudly. "At the end of the day, you need to accept your child for whoever they are. You need to let all the baggage drift away so it's only you and them, and then you'll see how much they mean to you. Then you'll see how much you love them, and how you could never live without them."
Maxim gave the woman a half smile. He didn't have kids. It was hard for him to empathize. But he knew this mother would do anything in her power to protect her child.
He had to admit, he didn't get the same feeling from Olivia.
His phone buzzed and he checked it. Strange. Olivia Hayes was calling, as if she knew she was the subject of conversation. It might have been providence, but Maxim's uneasy feeling returned. And, somehow, he knew something had gone horribly wrong.