“And that’s when I found her,” Officer Martino said, pulling her a little closer. She smiled up into his dark eyes and he brushed her hair behind her ear.

“That’s when he found me.”

“Where did you go?” Mom asked. I had almost forgotten she was in the room.

“Phil took me to his place. He lives alone about twenty miles out of town, never has friends over since his place is so far and everyone else lives close to the station. It was easy enough to hide me, though we had a few close calls.

“He fed me, got me back to health, and I confided in him. He knew about Dale and though I had a hunch, he confirmed that I wasn’t the first girl this had happened to.”

A small cry escaped Mom’s lips.

I turned to her again, a sick realization settling in. “Did you know about this?” I asked, my face twisted in disgust. “Is this his addiction, Mom?”

“I knew he was addicted to sex,” she said with a cough. “He cheated on me, that much I knew. But I never knew… I didn’t realize it was with… that he… that they didn’t… Oh God.” She shook her head, covering her mouth with both hands as she squeezed her eyes tight.

“It’s okay,” Lana soothed her. “Trust me, Dale was good at covering his tracks. His cop and doctor friends were practically the only ones who knew. And he paid them very, very well to keep it that way.”

“I just… I feel responsible. I’m his wife, I should have known.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re not him, Mrs. Poxton.” Mom squeezed her eyes tighter and shook her head at her own last name. It was no longer a name of privilege. It was tainted, disgraced.

“So you just stayed holed up in his house for three years?” Rhodes asked, snapping us back to the story.

“Phil and his partner were sick of Dale’s shit, but anyone who stood up to him was quickly fired and left without any other possible job prospects. Dale wasn’t afraid to exude his power. So, they kept the peace at work, did what they had to do to fly under the radar, but secretly, they helped me find other girls who had been through what I had. We started with old police reports, tracked down the girls, found other girls through them — it was a chain of discovery. A painful one, but one that we slowly unraveled until we had a solid case.”

“We didn’t want to even try to go after him with anything less than ten credible victims,” Officer Martino explained. “And we were stuck at seven for two years.”

“Until about a month ago, when seven other girls showed up at Phil’s house saying they heard it was a safe haven. They had all been living by Dale’s rules, but word slowly spread about what we were doing.” She looked to Mom. “I think that’s why Dale started acting crazy. He was losing it, he knew we were up to something, he just didn’t know what.”

Mom squeezed her eyes tight and I thought back through the summer of hell she’d endured. Suddenly, it all made sense. Maybe she didn’t tell me what was going on with Dale because she truly didn’t know herself.

Lana shrugged. “Once they came to us, we knew we had enough, and that’s when we started planning our move.”

“Why didn’t you call me? Leave a note? Let me know you were alive?”

Lana swallowed, her eyes glossing over. “I wanted to, William. I hated leaving you behind, watching you suffer, watching you worry. But Dale was watching you, too. The private detective you were paying was one of his crooked cops. He was keeping tabs on you, making you believe I was being looked for when I wasn’t. He was exerting control over the situation by stunting you and at the same time warning me. It’s as if he was letting me know how easy it would be for him to end you.” She shook her head. “Dale was acting crazy the more girls disappeared. I listened to girl after girl tell me the horror stories about their families or boyfriends killed in ‘freak accidents.’ I didn’t want you to be next.”

“He killed people?” Mom and I asked at the same time. The horror on her face matched what I felt deep in my gut, but I wasn’t sure if I was showing any emotion.

Lana swallowed, her brows bending in sympathy for our ignorance. “He didn’t, no… but he had them taken care of… by others.”

Mom sobbed and I covered my mouth with my hand, my stomach sinking even lower as chills broke out on my arms.

“But she still looked after you, and made sure I did, too,” Officer Martino said, bringing our attention back to the story. “I know it feels like she abandoned you, but I had to fight her every night to get her to stay away. You’re the only thing that matters to her, William. She wanted you safe.”

“But I’m supposed to be the one who protects her,” he said, his voice shaky. I gripped his hand tighter.

“This was something I had to do on my own, William. It was messy, and involving you would have only made the situation worse.”

“But you did leave him a note,” I pointed out. Shifting uncomfortably on my bar stool, I dropped my head. “The one about me.”

Officer Martino’s face hardened and Lana cringed. “I’m so sorry, Natalie. You weren’t the only one I hurt with that note. I seriously put myself and our entire investigation at risk, but I couldn’t help it.” She sighed. “I always checked in on William, and when I found out he was your trainer, I was already wary. But one night, you left his house late, and I watched him run out after you had already peeled away. He was standing there with his hands on his head and this look on his face… I knew right then that he was falling for you, and all these red flags flew up in my head. You were Dale’s daughter. Dale wanted to kill William. I felt like I had to warn him.”

“Even though I made her swear to me that she wouldn’t,” Officer Marino muttered through clenched teeth.

“He did. And I begged him to let me reach out to you but he refused. We were so close, we just needed a little more time. But I couldn’t take it. I snuck out of his house and went back to the boat yard with a bottle of whiskey I stole from under his sink.” She eyed where my mom’s hands were gripped around her coffee mug. “I don’t know. I was just so unstable, so afraid of what would happen. For a while, I just sat there, wondering if everything I did up until that point was right. I was drinking, I was emotional, and by the end of the night I decided I couldn’t just sit back anymore. So I wrote that note. I thought I tore the bottom off completely, I figured there was no way he would figure out where it came from.”