The Neighbor - Lisa Gardner [69]
I didn’t answer right away. Because at that moment, I was picturing my father again, his charming smile, the crinkle lines that appeared at the corners of his bright blue eyes, the way he could make you feel as if you were the center of the universe just by touching your shoulder. And I was so filled with rage, I could barely speak.
I know something you don’t know. I know something you don’t know….
She had been right. She had been so fucking right.
“You said we’re different,” I whispered hoarsely. “You said we know better, that the monsters aren’t all under the bed.”
Jason nodded.
“Promise me, then: If you ever see my father, if he should ever show up at our front door, you’ll kill him first, and ask questions later. He’ll never touch Ree. Promise me that, Jason.”
My husband looked me in the eye. He said, “Consider it done.”
Ree fell asleep in her booster seat before Jason even pulled out of the parking lot. Mr. Smith was curled up in the passenger’s seat now, licking his paw, rubbing his cheek, licking his paw, rubbing his cheek. Jason drove aimlessly toward the interstate, not sure what to do.
He was tired. Exhausted. What he wanted most in the world was to curl up in the sanctuary of his own home, and let the world disappear. He would sleep like the dead, and when he woke up again, Sandra would be standing beside the bed, smiling down at him.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she would say, and he’d take her in his arms, and hold her as he should’ve been holding her the past five years. He would hug his wife, and he and Ree could be happy again. They would be a family.
He couldn’t go home. News vans would be there, staked out across the street. Lights would flash, reporters shouting out questions Ree was too young to understand. They would scare her, and after the morning she’d had, he couldn’t bear for her to be traumatized again.
The police believed he was guilty. He had seen it in their eyes, the minute the interview had concluded. His own daughter had implicated him, but he didn’t blame her. Ree had done what they’d asked of her; she had told the truth the best she understood it to be. He’d spent four years preaching to his daughter not to lie. He couldn’t be angry at her now for following the values he and Sandra had so carefully instilled in her.
He was proud of Ree, and that saddened him, because the more he turned the matter around in his mind, the more he arrived at the same inescapable conclusion: He would be arrested. Any day now, he supposed. The police were putting it all together now, building their case, buttoning it up tight. They’d taken his trash. They’d interrogated his child. Next would come a fresh sweep of his house, followed by a search warrant for his computer.
They would dig deeper into his background, trying to contact associates and friends; that would stall them for a bit. He never socialized with his associates and he never bothered to make friends. Plus, he checked his “firewalls” from time to time; they were holding tight. But nothing was impenetrable, especially once the right expert was brought to bear, and the Boston police had those kinds of resources. It wasn’t like he was dealing with backwoods yokels here.
Of course, they would have to tend to the registered sex offender. That would demand additional time and resources. Maybe the guy would confess, but having met the pervert in question, Jason didn’t see that happening. Aidan had seemed pretty cool, the kind of customer who’d been around. He’d make the police sweat for it.
So the police still had plenty of legwork to do, particularly with two viable suspects. Maybe that bought him more like three days, or five. Except that with every passing hour, the chances of Sandy being discovered alive dramatically decreased. Yesterday, there’d been a chance at a happy ending. Or maybe this morning.
If it became nightfall and Sandy still hadn’t appeared …
The instant they discovered Sandy’s body, that would be that. They’d come