Down the Darkest Road

34

Lauren went immediately to her bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and got in the shower under the hottest water she could stand. She was breathing hard as the emotions built inside her—the guilt, the shame, the anger. She lathered her body from top to toe and scrubbed her skin with a loofah.

The residue of her memories was like a film of grime, like a layer of grease impervious to water and soap. No matter how much she rubbed or scalded, it wouldn’t come off. Her skin was as red as a lobster’s when she finally got out of the shower and pulled a towel down from the towel bar to wrap around herself.

The same scene played over and over in her head. An endless loop of filthy pornography. No matter if her eyes were open or closed, the movie played through her mind as if she had been a witness instead of a participant. No matter how disgusted it made her, she couldn’t look away.

She saw Greg Hewitt naked. She saw herself naked. She had drunk just enough to shave the edge off her distaste. He had drunk just enough to sharpen his appetite.

He closed his hands around her small breasts and kneaded them. He rolled her nipples between his fingertips, pinching so hard she cried out. He caught the sound with his mouth and filled her mouth with his tongue. He trailed his lips down her body, spread her legs wide and devoured her like a starving man at a banquet.

Her body betrayed her, reacting to his actions, growing hot and wet. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been touched. She was disgusted and ashamed and aroused all at once. And when he thrust himself into her, she felt a hot rush.

She could hear him moan, see the look of rapture on his face as he moved in and out of her hard and fast. She could feel the weight of him on top of her. She could feel the muscles of his back flex beneath her hands. She could feel the heat of him, smell his sweat.

He pulled out of her, his erection gleaming wet in the light of the lamp on the motel nightstand. As Lauren watched herself take him into her mouth, she almost gagged, remembering the feeling, remembering the taste, remembering the look on his face.

Determined to put a stop to the memory and the feelings it evoked in her body, she got back in the shower, blasting herself in the face with ice-cold water. She washed herself again, standing under the water until she was shivering uncontrollably, and she could think of nothing but getting dry and pouring a drink.

She kept her mind on each immediate task at hand—drying off, combing her hair and slicking it back; choosing underwear, putting it on; choosing pants and a top, getting dressed; going down the stairs and through the house to get to the kitchen; selecting a glass from the cupboard, ice cubes from the tray; pouring the vodka, adding a splash of tonic.

She drank one, poured another, and went back upstairs to the office.

Desperate people do desperate things.

Those words have become both my mantra and my excuse. They are the words that allow me to do things I would never agree to or condone were I fully sane. A drowning person doesn’t care about the form of their swimming stroke, only getting to shore whatever way they can. In so many ways I am and have been drowning since the day Roland Ballencoa took my daughter away.

When Leslie had first gone missing, what looked to be lifelines were thrown at us from all directions. People came by the hundreds to help in the searches. Every law enforcement agency available joined the task force to solve the crime. Every media outlet flocked to us for interviews.

When our story was picked up by the national news, we were inundated with mail from well-wishers and sympathizers. Complete strangers sent donations of money to put toward the reward, to establish a fund for the family, to hold in reserve for Leslie’s rehabilitation/hospitalization/education/therapy when she was returned to us. The outpouring was incredible and overwhelming.

People brought us food. Friends ran errands for us. Between the police, the press, and the well-meaning, Lance and I rarely had a minute to ourselves to try to process the emotions we were feeling.

Supposed psychics came out of the woodwork to tell us Leslie was alive, Leslie was dead, Leslie was being kept in a dark place with no windows, Leslie was buried in a shallow grave near railroad tracks and water.

But as the hours turned to days, to weeks, to months, to years, the multitude thinned and the lifelines were pulled away. The strangers left first, then the majority of law enforcement people, then the friends, then even relatives tired. Then Lance was gone, and I was alone, screaming and clawing at people to get back their attention.

With every news piece I could get, interest would rise for a day or two or ten. Then it would fall, and my hopes and spirits with it. The last story that had run had been buried in the local section of a free weekly paper. I had expected nothing to come of it. But Greg Hewitt had come of it.

A private investigator without much business looking for some kind of score to turn his career around, he came to me with his story of admiration and pity, neither of which I cared anything about. Sympathy—genuine or otherwise—is cheap and, by that time, was useless to me. I was beyond caring about the caring of others. At best their good intentions didn’t last. All the well-meaning emotions of others had not brought my daughter home.

I didn’t care about Greg Hewitt or his credentials, if he had any. I didn’t care where he had come from or why. I decided he was probably more greedy than good. That was all right with me. Greed is honest. Greed is understandable. Greed I was willing to pay for.

I had no faith in his ability to find Leslie. If all the king’s horses and all the king’s men hadn’t been able to do it with all the investigative and forensic tools at their disposal, how was a down-on-his-luck PI supposed to do it?

He hadn’t, of course. He had come and gone in and out of my life for several months while he interviewed witnesses who had already been interviewed a dozen times, while he tracked down Roland Ballencoa and watched his habits. He had broken into Ballencoa’s house in San Luis Obispo, but found nothing. He had followed Ballencoa for several days, but learned nothing—until he learned that Ballencoa was moving to Oak Knoll.

I never told anyone about Greg Hewitt. I never met him at my home. I never let him meet Leah. I never spoke of him to friends. While he was good-looking and roughly charming, there was something about him that was just slightly off-putting for me. There was something about him that was a little sleazy, a little edgy. Or maybe what I pinned on him was really just a reaction to my own distaste for the depths to which I was willing to go.

I asked him to get me Ballencoa’s new address in Oak Knoll. That would be the last thing I would want from him. He didn’t like the direction my mind was going. I suspected he didn’t like my intention to sever what business relationship we had. He wanted to hang on. It was no secret that Lance and I had money. It was also no secret to me that Greg Hewitt wanted money. I was willing to give it to him. But he had wanted more than money.

In his mind he had some notion that there might be something between us—if not romantically, certainly sexually. He was the kind of man who equated sexual conquest with control. As if his prowess would be such that I would fall under his spell, and we would become like the two-dimensional characters of a 1950s pulp fiction detective novel.

I believed no such thing. I wanted no such thing. Nor did I want him. I hadn’t been with any man other than my husband since my early college days. I hadn’t wanted to be. What I wanted was Roland Ballencoa’s address, and no one else was going to get it for me.

Desperate people do desperate things.

I spent a night with a man I didn’t like, much less desire, and my body had betrayed me utterly, responding against my will, greedy for a kind of release I hadn’t known I needed. I hated him for it. I hated myself more.

Greg Hewitt gave me Roland Ballencoa’s address in Oak Knoll. I fired him the next day.