Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT I FORGOT
I pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station twelve miles outside town.
Rain had started falling.
Nobody followed us.
At least not yet.
I turned toward Clara.
“Talk.”
Eva sat curled against Lily in the back seat.
My sister had wrapped my jacket around herself.
Clara stared at her hands.
“I was nineteen.”
“So was Lily.”
“I know.”
“You watched them take her?”
Clara shut her eyes.
“I watched your father put her in the van.”
Lily said nothing.
That hurt more.
“You knew this whole time?”
“No. Not all of it.”
“Stop splitting hairs!”
Eva jumped.
I lowered my voice immediately.
“Sorry, baby.”
She nodded, frightened.
Clara wiped her face.
“Your dad told me Lily had become unstable. He said she was using drugs and threatening your mother.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed him?”
“I was nineteen, William. He was your father. Everyone trusted him.”
Lily finally spoke.
“You saw me tied up.”
Clara looked back at her.
“Yes.”
“You heard me screaming William’s name.”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing.”
Clara began crying.
“No.”
Lily laughed bitterly.
“Exactly.”
I wanted to defend my wife.
Instead, I remembered rain.
A porch light.
My father shouting.
A flash of pain behind my ear.
Then nothing.
“What happened to me?”
Clara took a breath.
“You tried to stop him.”
My heart pounded.
“You came outside when Lily screamed. You grabbed the van door.”
A picture flashed in my head.
My hand around cold metal.
Lily’s face behind glass.
Then my father.
Holding something.
“He hit me.”
Clara nodded.
“With a tire iron.”
Eva gasped.
Lily covered her ears.
I touched the scar behind my left ear.
For eighteen years, I had believed I slipped on wet steps.
“The hospital said—”
“The doctor was your father’s friend.”
“Dr. Bell.”
Clara nodded.
“They told you you’d fallen. You had a concussion. They gave you medication.”
My hands started shaking.
“The pills.”
“You were on them for almost six months.”
I remembered sleeping fourteen hours a day.
I remembered struggling to focus.
I remembered my father answering questions for me.
I remembered Clara sitting beside my bed saying, “Don’t push yourself.”
I looked at her.
“You helped them.”
“I thought I was helping you recover.”
“Did you know the truth?”
“Not then.”
“When did you know?”
She hesitated.
That hesitation destroyed what little patience I had left.
“When?”
“Four years later.”
I got out of the car.
Rain hit my face.
I needed air.
Clara followed.
“William.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“I found a letter from Lily.”
I turned.
“She wrote to me from a facility in Missouri.”
“Facility?”
“Private psychiatric hospital.”
Lily opened the back door.
“It wasn’t a hospital.”
Her voice was flat.
“It was a prison with nurses.”
She looked at me.
“They called me Nora Bell. No Social Security number. No family listed. Dad paid cash.”
My stomach twisted.
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
“What?”
She stared through the rain.
“Records.”
“What records?”
“Our father was stealing money.”
That almost seemed too simple.
Then Lily added:
“Not from a company.”
She looked at Eva.
“From people.”
I felt the temperature drop.
“What people?”
May you like
“Families who trusted him.”
Clara whispered, “And Lily wasn’t the only person he made disappear.”
