Glow (Glimmer and Glow 2) - Page 49

“Alan put up reward money?”

“Yeah. He offered half a million dollars to anyone who provided information that would lead to Addie’s recovery. When Addie was still missing after . . . after ten months, he raised the award money price to one million.”

She stared at him, mute with disbelief and confusion. A million dollars of reward money, and no one stepped forward? And . . .

“Why ten months?” she demanded.

His gaze bounced off her.

“Dylan? What’s the significance of ten months? Why did Alan raise the reward to a million then?” she repeated, thinking he hadn’t understood her query.

“It was ten months after Addie was kidnapped that Jim Stout was arrested and made the drunk confession he later recanted. Before that, the FBI assumed Addie was most likely dead, given simple crime statistics and the amount of time that had passed without a ransom request. After Stout confessed that she was accidentally killed, they were even more certain. Despite the fact that Stout recanted once he was sober, that incident altered the flavor of the investigation. Almost no one held any hope after that point that Addie was still alive.”

“Oh,” Alice whispered, imagining the horrible scene when the Durands received the news that Stout had claimed Addie had been accidentally killed.

“Alan flat-out refused to believe Stout, though. He never stopped believing Addie could be alive, even on his death bed,” Dylan said quietly. She was glad he didn’t comment when she looked away and furtively wiped at a tear. For a moment, they didn’t speak as Alice struggled to calm herself.

“My whole point is,” Dylan continued somberly after a moment, “why should Avery Cunningham go along with the moneyman’s plan to get rid of Addie? Between potential blackmail, ransom, and reward money, she was a precious commodity.”

“But Cunningham never admitted he was hired by someone, did he?”

“No. He denied it, but in the same sly way he used to deny that he had anything to do with the kidnapping for all those years. I started to recognize when he was lying.”

“If it were true that they were hired for the job, why wouldn’t Cunningham just confess? He was dying and admitted to the kidnapping. What would it matter to him at that point?”

“Again, I don’t know exactly. It could be any number of things. It’s possible whoever hired him had some kind of hold on Cunningham or a family member. We’ll never know for sure. I think it was some combination of the fact that Cunningham wanted to see himself as a misunderstood hero—a sort of scoundrel with a heart of gold—and that he actually did feel some twisted sense of liking or loyalty toward Sissy, Addie, or both. He was a convicted murderer. He was going to die in prison, and knew it. Exposing who had hired him for the kidnapping and possibly murder wouldn’t get him anything substantial. Plus, if he confessed that he’d been hired by someone, it might bring into question his motives for keeping Addie alive. Had he kept Addie alive to blackmail whomever hired him? If people questioned his motives, then how could Cunningham continue to tell himself that he’d been a decent man, even a hero, for one brief flashing moment in his life? How could he claim any worth when he met his maker? People lie to others and the world for much less motivation,” he finished grimly.

Alice leaned back on the couch. “You really did get to know Cunningham,” she said, stunned by his concise knowledge of the psychological workings of the criminal’s mind.

He grimaced. “It wasn’t pleasant, listening to that asshole go on about himself. I had to make myself what he needed: an avid listener to his bravado. He was a slimy, dangerous braggart,” Dylan muttered, his mouth pressed into a hard line.

“And yet you went like clockwork to visit him in prison,” Alice said softly. “Thank you.”

He rubbed the side of his head distractedly, brushing off her praise. “I was worried about telling you all this. I know it must come as a shock, that Cunningham knew Sissy.” He exhaled heavily and leaned back next to her, their shoulders touching.

“It does and it doesn’t,” she said hollowly. “Does it surprise me that Sissy would associate with scum like Avery Cunningham or that she would take me in under such . . . sleazy circumstances? No. Not really. She collected people all the time. She liked having all those people addicted to her product, pulling up to her trailer day and night, knocking on her door. Needy people. Desperate. Sissy didn’t do relationships in the classic sense of give and take, but she loved having people seek her out. Dependent on her. She was a born drug dealer. She probably thought she’d hit the jackpot taking in a child, having something so completely at her mercy. Another human being who would be”—her voice cracked, and she took a deep breath—“utterly dependent on her to survive.”

Dylan winced and shut his eyes.

ELEVEN

For a moment, they sat in silence. It took Alice a moment to comprehend what she was feeling. Everything she’d said to Dylan was true, but it didn’t stop the hurt that went through her: a terrible, cringing shame. This had been the reason she hadn’t allowed herself to question how she’d ended up with Sissy. She’d been unconsciously fending off this pain.

If one of Sissy’s whacked-out “friends” had asked her to keep a puppy as a favor, she probably would have. Sissy could be loud, outgoing, and friendly when she wanted to be and when her latest batch of meth was particularly good. She’d have fed that puppy sporadically, bragged about how much the puppy loved her, and kicked it when it got in her way. For days on end, she’d forget the puppy even existed until it suddenly showed up in front of her blurry-eyed stare.

That’s what Alice had been all these years: a puppy dropped on the front door of a drug addict. At least previously, she’d lived under the misperception that she’d come from Sissy’s body, that she shared some kind of primal link with her. But no. She and Sissy were strangers that fate had tossed together into a trailer for fourteen years of Alice’s life. Sissy didn’t belong to her any more than Alice belonged to Sissy.

It was an awful truth . . . a severing one. What Dylan had told her sickened her . . . but it had liberated her, too.

“Why didn’t they turn me in for the reward money? That seems out of character for the Reed clan,” Alice said darkly.

“I’m not sure. Maybe Sissy didn’t have all the details as to your identity at first, but as time went on, she started to put two and two together, given the news reports and what she knew about Cunningham’s character. She certainly knew what she was doing, disguising your hair color all those years. Either way, she had to realize from the beginning you belonged to someone else, and that she was keeping you illegally. Maybe Cunningham threatened to implicate her in the kidnapping and held that over her head.”

“Sissy definitely wouldn’t want the police nosing around our trailer.”

“Even if any of your uncles were like Al, and they came to suspect the truth, they must have realized they could very easily be implicated or even blamed for the crime. From what I understand about the Reed brothers, I doubt the police would have any trouble believing they were either involved, or actually the main perpetrators.”

“I can believe Sissy would do it. But Al. That he never told me the truth for all of those years, that he played along. That . . . sucks.”

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