As with Clara, Edwin Van Wees did not have his own Facebook page, but she was able to find a homemade-looking website that listed him as partially retired but still available for speaking gigs and drum solos. She clicked on the about tab. Edwin was a Stanford-trained, former ACLU lawyer with a long, successful career of defending artists and anarchists and rabble-rousers and revolutionaries who had happily posted photos of themselves grinning beside the lawyer who’d kept them out of prison. Even some of the ones who’d ended up going to jail still had glowing things to say about him. It made perfect sense that a guy like Edwin would know a crazy bitch like Paula Kunde.
My revolutionary days are over.
Andy believed with all of her heart that Edwin Van Wees still knew how to get in touch with Clara Bellamy. It was the familiar way she was touching his arm in the courthouse photo. It was also the nasty look Edwin was giving the man behind the lens. Maybe Andy was reading too much into it, but if the professor from Andy’s Emotions of Light in Black and White Photography class had tasked her with finding a photo of a fragile woman holding onto her strong protector, this was the picture Andy would’ve chosen.
The toddler started screaming again.
His mother snatched him up and took him to the bathroom again.
Andy closed the laptop and shoved it into her messenger bag. She tossed her trash and got back into Mike’s truck. Stone Temple Pilots’ “Interstate Love Song” was still playing. Andy reached down to turn it off, but she couldn’t. She hated that she loved Mike’s music. All of his mix-CDs were awesome, from Dashboard Confessional to Blink 182 and a surprising amount of J-Lo.
Andy checked the time on the McDonald’s sign as she pulled onto the road. Two twelve in the afternoon. Not the worst time to drop by unannounced. On his website, Edwin Van Wees had listed his office address at a farm about an hour and a half drive from Chicago. She assumed that meant he worked from home, which made it highly likely that he would be there when Andy pulled up. She had mapped out the directions on Google Earth, zooming in and out of the lush farmlands, locating Edwin’s big red barn and matching house with its bright metal roof.
From the McDonald’s, it took her ten minutes to find the farm. She almost missed the driveway because it was hidden in a thick stand of trees. Andy stopped the truck just shy of the turn. The road was deserted. The floorboard vibrated as the engine idled.
She didn’t feel the same nervousness she’d felt when she walked toward Paula’s house. Andy understood now that there was no guarantee that finding a person meant that the person was going to tell you the truth. Or even that the person was not going to shove a shotgun in your chest. Maybe Edwin Van Wees would do the same thing. It kind of made sense that Paula Kunde would send Andy to someone who would not be happy to see her. The drive from Austin had given Paula plenty of time to call ahead and warn Clara Bellamy that Laura Oliver’s kid might be looking for her. If Edwin Van Wees was still close to Clara, then Clara could’ve called Edwin and—
Andy rubbed her face with her hands. She could spend the rest of the day doing this stupid dance or she could go find out for herself. She turned the wheel and drove down the driveway. The trees didn’t clear for what felt like half a mile, but soon she saw the top of the red barn, then a large pasture with cows, then the small farmhouse with a wide porch and sunflowers planted in the front yard.
Andy parked in front of the barn. There were no other cars in sight, which was a bad sign. The front door to the house didn’t open. There was no fluttering of curtains or furtive faces in the windows. Still, she wasn’t too much of an imbecile to leave without knocking on the door.
Andy started to climb out of the truck, but then she remembered the burner phone that Laura was supposed to call her on when the coast was clear. In truth, she had lost hope around Tulsa that it would ever ring. The Belle Isle Review had provided the salient facts: Hoodie’s body remained unidentified. After analyzing the video from the diner, the police had reached the same conclusion as Mike. Laura had tried to stop Jonah Helsinger from killing himself. She would not be charged with his murder. The kid’s family was still making noises, but police royalty or not, public sentiment had turned away from them, and the local prosecutor was a political weathervane of the vilest kind. In short, whatever lurking danger was keeping Andy away from home was either unrelated or simply another part of Laura’s colossal web of lies.
Andy unzipped the make-up bag and checked the phone to make sure the battery was full before slipping it into her back pocket. She saw Laura’s Canada license and health card. Andy studied the photo of her mother, trying to ignore the pang of longing that she did not want to feel. Instead, she looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Maybe it was Andy’s crappy diet or lack of sleep or the fact that she had started wearing her hair down, but as each day passed, she had started to look more and more like her mother. The last three hotel clerks had barely glanced up when Andy had used the license to check in.
She shoved it back into her messenger bag beside a black leather wallet.
Mike’s wallet.
For the last two and a half days, Andy had been studiously avoiding opening the wallet and staring at Mike’s handsome face, especially when she was lying in bed at night and trying not to think about him because he was a psychopath and she was pathetic.
She looked up at the farmhouse, then checked the driveway, then opened the wallet.
“Oh for fucksakes,” she muttered.
He had four different driver’s licenses, each of them pretty damn good forgeries: Michael Knepper from Alabama; Michael Davey from Arkansas; Michael George from Texas; Michael Falcone from Georgia. There was a thick flap of leather dividing the wallet. Andy picked it open.
Holy shit.
He had a fake United States marshal badge. Andy had seen the real thing before, a gold star inside of a circle. It was a good replica, as convincing as all of the fake IDs. Whoever his forger was had done a damn good job.
There was a tap at the window.
“Fuck!” Andy dropped the wallet as her hands flew up.
Then her mouth dropped open, because the person who had knocked on the window looked a hell of a lot like Clara Bellamy.
“You,” the woman said, a bright smile to her lips. “What are you doing sitting out here in this dirty truck?”
Andy wondered if her eyes were playing tricks, or if she had looked at so many YouTube videos that she was seeing Clara Bellamy everywhere. The woman was older, her face lined, her long hair a peppered gray, but undoubtedly Andy was looking at the real-life person.
Clara said, “Come on, silly. It’s chilly out here. Let’s go inside.”
Why was she talking to Andy like she knew her?
Clara pulled open the door. She held out her hand to help Andy down.
“My goodness,” Clara said. “You look tired. Has Andrea been keeping you up again? Did you leave her at the hotel?”