Page 38 of Hell to Pay

“Lily and I would ask her about people she’d told us about, trying to get her to talk, and she just… clammed up. Wouldn’t talk about work, wouldn’t talk about the people, got frustrated when we asked until eventually we stopped asking. Now…” Hattie hesitated. “Now I think I should have kept asking.”

“Do you think her disappearance could have something to do with Pink? With someone else who works there or a customer or something?” I asked.

Hattie shook her head. “I just don’t know. I don’t know how much of what I think is real anymore. I miss her. I…” Her eyes brimmed with tears and she cleared her throat. “I want her to come home. The police don’t seem to care. No one does. Maybe I’m seeing clues where there aren’t any.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “Even just coming here to ask about her, it helps.”

“Is there anything else you can think of?” Nolan asked. “Anything unusual about the days and weeks before she went missing?”

She shook her head. “Not that I can think of. She was a young woman. She had her own life, and I tried not to pry just because she still lived under my roof. Everyone is entitled to privacy.”

I thought of my own mom: the way she had to know everything Matt and I did, everything we talked about, everything we listened to, everything we watched. It would have been one thing if it had been out of curiosity, if she’d just wanted to know us, but it had never been about that.

It had been about judgement. About fear. About control.

“You’re a good mom,” I said. “I’m sure Rain loves you and appreciates you.”

She inhaled deeply, like she was trying to stifle a sob. “Thank you.”

I stood and Nolan followed suit. “Thank you so much for talking to us. I’ll let you know if we find out anything else, and you have my number, so please let me know if you think of anything that might be helpful.”

She walked us to the door and let us out. We were standing on the porch when she looked at me quizzically.

“Aren’t you going to ask?”

I tipped my head. “Ask what?”

“If my daughter was using drugs. If she was a prostitute. The police asked enough times.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t matter.” There was so much more I wanted to say. I wanted to promise Hattie we’d find out what had happened to her daughter. I wanted to promise that the world would change, that it would start to give a shit about girls like Rain. About girls like me. But I wasn’t in the habit of making promises I couldn’t keep, so I just said the only thing I could say, the thing that was true. “I’ll keep in touch. I promise."

27

LILAH

A weeklater I sat outside the Blackwell Falls town hall in the passenger seat of the Rover, Jude at the wheel. I smoothed my skirt and inhaled, trying to calm my nerves.

“You’re going to be great,” he said. “You’ve got this.”

I didn’t need him there but I was glad he was anyway. He and Nolan had taken to driving me around everywhere even though I was perfectly capable of driving myself. They’d made up excuses — they were bored, they wanted to get out of the house, they had a stop to make anyway — but I knew it was because they were keeping an eye on me.

It should have been annoying, but after what had happened in Greece, it was actually kind of comforting, and I rarely pushed back, happy to have their company and protection.

Just in case.

“I’ve never had an office job before,” I said, looking at the brick building at the center of town that served as the offices for the mayor and miscellaneous town functions.

The police station was right next door, and I thought of Brandon Miller, sitting behind the wall of glass, pretending he was a nice normal guy.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Jude said.

“That’s true.”

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