The Nowhere Child: The bestselling debut psychological thriller you need to read in 2019. Christian White
‘I’ve been watching your men all going door-to-door. Ours was the only place they didn’t visit.’
‘I need to ask you about Sammy Went. Jack and Molly Went’s daughter from down the street – you know ’em?’
By way of an answer she tossed her cigarette into the yard and lit another one.
‘Sammy is missing, Mrs Eckles. Did you see or hear anything unusual this afternoon?’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Only interesting thing I ever see ’round here is on the TV, Sheriff.’
‘Did you notice any unusual cars or people you didn’t recognise?’
She sucked on her cigarette and shook her head.
‘And you were home all day?’
‘Do I look like the sort of woman who has any place to be?’
‘What about your boy, Travis?’
‘What about Travis?’
‘Did he see or hear anything strange this afternoon?’
‘You’d have to ask him.’
‘I’d like to,’ Ellis said. ‘Is he home?’
‘He’s working.’
‘Is he still at Clinical Cleaning?’
‘It’s honest work.’
‘Won’t get no argument from me.’
Ava took a step toward him. She was a foot shorter than Ellis but possessed an unpredictable wildness that put him on edge. ‘You sure have a hard-on for this family, don’t you, Sheriff?’
‘I—’
‘Little girl goes missing and you assume an Eckles has something to do with it. It’s not enough you locked up one of my sons, now you’re looking to lock up the other.’
‘We’re asking everyone in the street if they’ve—’
‘I think it’s time you called it a night, Sheriff. If you stick ’round I’m likely to say something better left unsaid in polite society.’
‘What might that be, Mrs Eckles?’
She smiled then. Her teeth were small and yellow. ‘Well, as a for instance, I might say I don’t know what disturbs me more: opening my door to find a cop on my front porch, or opening my door to find a nigger.’
Ellis exhaled sharply. He hadn’t been expecting that. Anger and shame rose within like a geyser, but he supressed it. ‘One more question, Mrs Eckles. That work van your son drives ’round in. Does he keep a ladder in there?’
There was a space in Dean’s driveway behind his Jeep and Amy’s Jazz, but I parked in the street in case I’d need a speedy getaway. He still lived in the same roomy three-bedroom house he had shared with my mother. It was painted in heavy browns and reds, but today a misty rain shrouded everything in grey.
My plan for our regular Sunday-night dinner – and the only way I could see to move forward – was to get everything out on the table. Chances were Dean had no idea about Sammy Went, and the news might shatter the way he remembered my mother. But on the drive over I’d decided that wasn’t my problem; this was happening to me, not because of me.
Dean greeted me at the front door with a big hug. As usual, he held the hug for three seconds too long. ‘God, Kimmy. You’re so skinny. Are you eating enough? Come in out of the cold.’
He was tall and lean and dressed like a sitcom dad from the nineties: white short-sleeved shirt tucked into blue jeans, white sneakers and a brown blazer. The blazer even had patches on the elbows. He ushered me through the front door and into the house. Scout, Dean’s thirteen-year-old cat and closest companion, skulked out to greet me. Or to judge me; it was hard to tell.
Amy, her fiancé, Wayne, and my niece, Lisa, were lounging in the living room around a crackling fire. Amy nearly jumped off the sofa when she saw me. She came over with a sad smile and grabbed both my shoulders. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ I said.
‘No news on the thing?’
I flinched. ‘No.’
‘What’s the thing?’ Dean asked, arriving with two glasses of red wine and handing one to me.
‘Nothing.’ I drank half the glass with one gulp. ‘Hi, Wayne.’
‘Hello, Kimberly.’ Amy’s fiancé was the only person in the world who called me by my full name. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy – he might even have been handsome if he had any sort of personality. But he talked so rarely and so softly that it was easy to think he was just part of the house, an ornament found at the Sunday market that Dean hadn’t yet found a place for.
Dean sat down on the sofa, sipped his wine, smoothed the legs of his jeans and stood up again to tend the fire. He never stayed in one place too long.
‘Do you eat walnuts, Kimmy?’ he asked. ‘They have molecules that block the growth of cancer cells. I want you eating a kilo of walnuts a day. I’m not even kidding.’
‘A kilo?’
He disappeared again, returning moments later with an enormous sack of walnuts. He handed them to me, winked and said, ‘Farmers’ market.’
Everyone is afraid of cancer, but Dean’s fear bordered on irrational. Ever since it took his wife he’d been convinced it was waiting to take us all. He wasn’t so scared of getting it himself – he drank a little too much, and while he’d never admit it, his clothes occasionally smelled of cigarettes – but he was terrified it might come back to take another of his girls.
He pulled the grate aside from the fireplace and jabbed a burning log with an iron poker. Half the log collapsed into glowing red ash. ‘Hey, Wayne, would you mind fetching another log for the fire? They’re in the little crate thing on the back deck.’
Wayne stood up, gave a formal nod and left the room.
‘So, Kimmy, how’s life?’ Dean asked.
‘Same old,’ I lied.
Amy threw me a glance bursting with worry. Luckily, Dean was too engrossed in the fire to notice. ‘You know, I was at the shopping centre yesterday and someone was doing pet portraits, and I thought of you. She was making a killing. I was going to bring Scout in until I saw her price list. Forty dollars for three prints, and they’re not even framed. Can you believe that?’
‘She’s not going to take photos of pets,’ Amy said. ‘She’s got way too much talent for that.’
‘I’m not saying she should just take photos of pets. It would be a good way to make some extra cash with her photography, that’s all. She’s got that five-thousand-dollar camera just sitting on a shelf gathering dust. You know, sweetheart, I really wish you wouldn’t let Lisa drink so much cola. Do you have any idea what aspartame does to a developing body?’
Lisa was standing by the coffee table dunking her hands into Wayne’s Diet Coke and licking her fingers. She looked over at the adults with wide eyes.
Wayne came back into the living room cradling a long chunk of wood in his arms. ‘Where do you want this, Dean?’
‘Take a wild guess, Wayne.’
Dean had prepared a tuna pasta bake that smelled and tasted of nostalgia. He poured more