Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [52]
“Black,” she answered. “ ‘No,’ you don’t want me to record this? Or ‘no,’ you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind, Ms. Strong. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He sat down across from her, placing a chipped white cup in front of her, filled with coffee so black it looked like tar. The chair creaked beneath his weight and screeched against the floor as he pulled it toward the table.
“Your name sounds familiar,” said Greg.
“Well, I’m a writer.”
“I’m not much of a reader. Is that why you’re here? You’re going to write about Shawna?”
“Not exactly. I also consult with a private-investigation firm.”
“Did somebody hire you to look for Shawna?”
“Not exactly. Let’s just say I’ve taken a personal interest in this case and I have the time and the resources to see what I can do to further the investigation. Shawna is not the only person missing.”
“You mean that other woman who went missing yesterday?”
“Yes, and others, too.” She didn’t want to be the one to tell him that Maria wasn’t missing anymore. He’d read about it in the papers soon enough.
“Why are you interested?”
She considered her answer before speaking. “I lost someone once, too, Greg. A long time ago. And even though I know what happened to her, I still don’t know why. So I guess I’m always looking for answers, in a way.”
He nodded as if he understood that. Lydia wasn’t even sure why she said it that way, having never vocalized the thought to anyone. She’d never revealed anything about herself to a stranger before, especially someone she was interviewing. But the fact that she’d shared something personal with Greg seemed to have put him at ease and he began to speak.
“Most people just assumed Shawna ran away, Ms. Strong. And while she might have run away from her foster parents, she never would have run away from me. We were just waiting for her to turn eighteen so that we could get married and live here. I was going to keep working for my father and someday we wanted to buy a house.”
Greg’s eyes glistened and Lydia felt him searching her face for faith and compassion. He had paused, waiting for her to question his words, offer judgment, but she nodded her head and remained silent.
When he didn’t continue, she encouraged him. “Tell me about the night she disappeared.”
“She called me on the phone about eight on Sunday, August fourteenth. She was real upset and said she was on her way over. I told her to stay put, that I would come and get her. But she said no, she had to leave the house that second. It was a short walk, about a mile, and she needed the time to cool off. She had had another fight with her foster parents. They are good people but they were strict with Shawna and she was headstrong, so they were always going at it.
“I told her to get moving because it was getting dark. I waited about a half an hour and then I set off to find her down the only road she would take. I went all the way to her house and knocked on the door. Harden, her foster father, told me she had left. I didn’t believe him, so I pushed my way into the house and ran up to her room. She was gone but it didn’t look like she had packed anything.
“I was angry. She had promised me she would try to get along with them because we only had four months to go and I didn’t want her to be sent away. I got back in my truck and drove home fast, hoping I would find her there. But the house was empty. I swear to God, as soon as I walked into this kitchen and didn’t see her where you are right now, smoking a cigarette, I just had a feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right. I don’t know how many times I drove up and down that road looking for her.
“She’s gone,” he said, voice trembling, betraying a boyishness that his physical bearing did not. “Something terrible happened to her that night. I can just feel it, you know?”
Lydia was thinking of Maria Lopez’s gutted body rotting in the woods.
He paused and looked away from Lydia. His voice was softer, almost a whisper when he began speaking again, and she noticed his hands were shaking slightly.
“I would have made her stay put if I could have. But no one