Fear the Dark

‘We’re here,’ he said.

Heart still tripping with fear from the dream, Darby sat up and swallowed back the scream. She touched her throat to make sure the collar wasn’t there and then took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes, head pounding with exhaustion and the dream still vivid in her mind, screwing into her head like a drill bit.

Whitlow, the agent with the thick, curly hair who had picked them up at the airport, was driving across a long gravel driveway, rocks pinging underneath the car and the air-conditioning on full blast. She glanced out the back window and saw that the pair of Chevy Impalas hadn’t followed, Coop already having told them to hang back at the main road to watch for reporters.

Coming into view through the front window was the Canterbury Retirement Community, a series of co

Darby was relieved to see everything business-as-usual quiet. For the past forty-eight hours she had lived in fear that someone at Brewster General would recognize Nicky Hubbard and call a reporter or tabloid. Darby didn’t want the news to get out before she’d had a chance to speak with Nicky’s mother.

Darby was also relieved that the FBI had allowed her to be the one to approach Joan Hubbard.

The car pulled up to the front and parked. As Darby got out of the back, she heard Coop ask Whitlow for his cell phone. She shut the door and was unable to hear what was said as they walked back and forth until Whitlow handed over his cell.

She followed Coop into the assisted living centre, with seascape watercolours hanging on the walls and Lysol hanging in the air-conditioned air, trying to disguise the atmosphere of death and decay. At the reception desk, he had a quiet conversation with a blonde-haired woman with an overbite. The woman got up and opened the door behind her. Several minutes passed, and then Coop was invited into the room.

When Coop emerged a few minutes later, he went over to Darby and said, ‘She’s out back, in the garden.’

An orderly escorted them through a maze of rooms fragrant with coffee and the cellophane-baked smell of reheated eggs and potatoes, and everywhere Darby looked she saw elderly people hunched at tables playing cards or doing puzzles; gnarled limbs planted in wheelchairs and dull eyes staring blankly at TVs playing Good Morning America.

Then she was standing outside, breathing in fresh air and feeling the morning sun warm against her face. Darby put on her sunglasses as the orderly left.

Coop turned to her and said, ‘She’s straight ahead.’

A path was carved through the overflowing gardens. Darby was making her way across it when she noticed that Coop wasn’t beside her. She stopped, turned and saw him standing near the door leading back to the activity room.

‘You coming?’ she asked.

‘I want you to do it.’

‘She’s going to have questions about her daughter and –’

‘I’ll be right here.’ He smiled. ‘You’ve earned it. Go.’

Darby carried on across the path, slowing when she saw a small, fair-ski

Aside from the cacti, Darby didn’t recognize any of the flowers. Gardening had been her mother’s thing, Darby never having had any interest in it, unable to understand the point of all that hard work when winter and animals would come along and destroy everything you had spent so much time and money on. And yet her mother kept doing it year after year, right up until the day she died.

Just as I keep doing what I do, Darby thought. And, in her own way, wasn’t she a gardener too? A gardener for lost souls?

The whole flight here, Darby had rehearsed what she would say to Nicky’s mother. When Joan Hubbard looked up from her work, smiling warmly, Darby was struck by how frail the woman was, and the words died in her throat.

But there was nothing frail about the woman’s voice. It was strong, like a fist: ‘Can I help you?’

‘My name is Darby McCormick.’

Joan Hubbard’s gaze narrowed, alarmed at the bruising and cuts on Darby’s face.

Darby licked her lips nervously. ‘I’d like to speak to you about your daughter.’

Joan Hubbard held up a hand and said, ‘Stop right there.’

‘I’m not a reporter. I’m working with –’

‘Stop. Please, just stop.’ Nicky’s mother got to her feet. She dropped her trowel and looked at Darby, a hard-scrabble, no-nonsense woman who knew how to fight with her fists and her mouth. ‘I don’t care who you are, and I don’t know how you got in here. But I want you to leave, now.’

‘Nicky’s alive. I –’

‘Whatever service you’re trying to sell me, I’m not interested. I’ve had the top private investigators and even a few retired policemen who believed they could find my daughter. They couldn’t, and neither can you. My daughter is dead, God rest her soul. Now, please, leave me in peace.’

‘I found her,’ Darby said. ‘She’s alive.’

Joan Hubbard made her hands into fists by her sides. Her mouth worked but no sound came out. Birds chirped from a nearby tree.

‘I’m working with the FBI,’ Darby said. ‘They’re here. Nicky is waiting for you in Colorado. She’s –’

‘How dare you sneak in here and say such a thing to me, you sick –’

‘Nicky is alive,’ Darby said again. ‘Your daughter is alive, and I’m here to take you to her.’

Joan Hubbard looked over her shoulder, at the hard Texas sun beating down on her and on the flat, sprawling land, the heat already so strong it could melt bones. She looked up at the trees and then at the flowers, as though they were going to confirm what she had hoped for, prayed for and dreamed about every night for decades.

‘My daughter is dead. She’s been missing for more than thirty years. There must be some mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake,’ Darby said gently. ‘We found her.’

Joan Hubbard glared at her, wanting more. Darby wondered where to start, how much to tell her. Your daughter wasn’t harmed, at least not physically. The teenager spotted with your daughter that day in the store? His name was Ray Williams. He was a teenager when he abducted your daughter because his mother had always wanted a girl. They cared for her in their own way, and he loved her in his own way. He abducted women from other states for many, many years. Your daughter is doing her best to provide us with their names and, hopefully, the places where he buried them – but she’s mourning his death. I know it sounds odd, almost incomprehensible, but victims in these sorts of situations are often bound up with their abusers. It’s going to take a long, long time for your daughter to heal – and she may never heal psychologically. But the important thing right now is that Nicky is alive and she’s safe. Your daughter is alive and safe and you two will have time together. You have time.

‘You’re lying,’ Joan Hubbard said, her voice catching on her tears.

‘There’s an FBI agent here with me. His name is Jackson Cooper. He has a phone with him. You can call and talk to her.’

The woman stared at the ground as if she’d dropped something precious.

‘After you speak to Nicky,’ Darby said, ‘we’ll take you to see her. The Bureau has a private plane, they’ve already made preparations –’