CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jeffrey watched Lena with Rebecca Bennett, thinking that even after all these years, if someone asked him to explain what made Lena tick, he would be at a loss for words. Five minutes ago, she had sat in this same kitchen as he talked with Terri Stanley, barely speaking, acting as if she was a scared chil d. Yet, with the Bennett girl, she was in charge, being the cop she could be instead of the abused woman she was.

“Tell me what happened, Rebecca,” she said, her voice strong even as she took the girl’s hands in hers, balancing authority with empathy. Lena had done this a million times before, but still the transformation was hard to believe.

Rebecca hesitated, still a frightened child. She was obviously exhausted, the time spent hiding from her uncle wearing away at her like the constant flow of water over a river rock. Her shoulders were turned in, her head bowed as if all she wanted in the world was to disappear.

“After you guys left,” Rebecca began, “I went to my room.”

“This was Monday?”

Rebecca nodded. “Mama told me to lie down.”

“What happened?”

“I got cold, and I pulled back my sheets and found some papers there.”

“What papers did you find?” Lena asked.

Rebecca looked at Terri, and the older woman gave a small nod, indicating it was okay. Rebecca paused, her eyes on her cousin. Then she tucked her hand into the front pocket of her dress and pulled out a neatly folded stack of papers. Lena glanced at them, then handed them to Jeffrey. He saw that they were originals of the insurance policies Frank had already pulled.

Lena sat back in her chair, studying the girl. “Why didn’t you find them Sunday?”

Rebecca glanced at Terri again. “I stayed at my aunt Rachel’s Sunday night. Mama didn’t want me out looking for Abby.”

Jeffrey remembered Esther had said much the same thing at the diner. He looked up from the documents just in time to catch an exchanged glance between the two cousins.

Lena had obviously seen this, too. She placed her hand palm down on the table. “What else, Becca? What else did you find?”

Terri started chewing her lip again while Rebecca stared at Lena ’s hand on the table.

“Abby trusted you to do the right thing with what she left,” Lena said, keeping her tone even. “Don’t betray that trust.”

Rebecca kept staring at Lena ’s hand so long Jeffrey wondered if the girl was in a trance. Finally, she looked up at Terri and nodded. Without speaking, Terri walked over to the refrigerator and pulled the magnets holding some of the kids’ drawings. There were several layers before she got to the metal surface.

She said, “Dale never looks here,” sliding out a folded sheet of ledger paper from behind a child’s stick rendering of the crucifixion. Instead of handing it to Jeffrey or Lena, she gave the page to Rebecca. Slowly, the girl unfolded the paper, then slid it across the table to Lena.

“You found this in your bed, too?” Lena asked, reading the page. Jeffrey leaned over her shoulder, seeing a list of names, recognizing some of them as workers on the farm. The columns were broken out into dollar amounts and dates, some already past, some in the future. Jeffrey mentally compared the dates to the policies. With a jolt, he realized that this was some kind of income projection, a tally of who had what policy and when they could be expected to cash out.

“Abby left it for me,” Rebecca said. “She wanted me to have it for some reason.”

“Why didn’t you show it to anybody?” Lena asked. “Why did you run away?”

Terri answered for her cousin, speaking quietly as if she was afraid she would get into trouble for doing so. “Paul,” she said. “That’s his handwriting.”

Rebecca had tears in her eyes. She nodded to Lena ’s silent question, and Jeffrey felt the tension ratchet up at the revelation, the exact opposite of what he had been expecting when they finally told the truth. The girls were obviously terrified of what they held in their hands, yet giving it to the police did not bring them any relief.

Lena asked, “Are you afraid of Paul?”

Rebecca nodded, as did Terri.

Lena studied the paper again, though Jeffrey was sure she understood every word on the page. “So, you found this on Monday, and you knew that this was Paul’s handwriting.”

Rebecca did not respond, but Terri provided, “She came here that night sick with worry. Dale was passed out on the couch. I hid her in the shed until we could figure out what to do.” She shook her head. “Not that there’s ever anything we can do.”

“You sent that warning to Sara,” Jeffrey reminded her.

Terri shrugged with one shoulder, as if acknowledging that the letter had been a cowardly way of revealing the truth.

Lena was gentle when she asked Terri, “Why didn’t you tell your family about this? Why not show them the documents?”

“Paul’s their golden boy. They don’t see him for what he really is.”

“What is he?”

“A monster,” Terri answered. Her eyes filled with tears. “He acts like you can trust him, like he’s your best friend, and then he turns around and stabs you in the back.”

“He’s bad,” Rebecca mumbled in agreement.

Terri’s tone was stronger as she continued, but there were still tears in her eyes. “He acts all cool, like he’s on your side. You wanna know where my first hit came from?” She pressed her lips together, looking at Rebecca, probably wondering if she should say this in front of the girl. “Him,” she said. “Paul gave me my first line of coke. We were in his office and he said it was okay. I didn’t even know what it was-could’ve been aspirin.” She was angry now. “He got me hooked.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he could,” Terri said. “That’s what he really gets off on, corrupting us. Controlling everybody while he sits back and watches our lives crumble.”

“Corrupting you how?” Lena asked, and Jeffrey knew where she was going.

“Not like that,” Terri said. “Jesus, it’d be easier if he screwed us.” Rebecca stiffened at her language, and Terri moderated her words. “He likes to bring us down,” she said. “He can’t stand girls- hates all of us, thinks we’re stupid.” Her tears started to fall, and Jeffrey could see that her anger came from a burning sense of betrayal. “Mama and them think he walks on water. I told her about Cole and she went to Paul, and Paul said I was making it up, so she believed him.” She gave a snort of disgust. “He’s such a bastard. He acts all friendly, like you can trust him, and then you do and he punishes you for it.”

“Not him,” Rebecca said, though quietly. Jeffrey could see that the girl was having a hard time admitting that her uncle was capable of such evil. Still, she continued, “He gets Cole to do it. And then he acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Terri wiped her eyes, her hands shaking as she acknowledged the pattern.

Lena waited a few seconds before asking, “Rebecca- did he ever bury you?”

She shook her head slowly. Then she said, “Abby told me he did it to her.”

“How many times?”

“Twice.” She added, “And then this last time…”

“Oh, God,” Terri breathed. “I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve said something-”

“There was nothing you could do,” Lena told her, though Jeffrey didn’t know if this was true.

“That box…” Terri began, squeezing her eyes shut at the memory. “He comes back every day, praying. You can hear him through the pipe. Sometimes he yells so loud, and you cringe, but you’re just so happy to know someone is out there, that you’re not completely alone.” She used her fist to wipe her eyes, a mixture of sadness and anger in her words. “The first time he did it to me, I went to Paul, and Paul promised he’d talk to him. I was so stupid. It took me so long to figure out it was Paul telling him to do it. There’s no way Cole could’ve known all that stuff about me, what I was doing, who I was with. It all came from Paul.”