“He’s mean like Bad Daddy!” she said, the anxiety building in her expression and her voice. She started to cry. Scrambling up onto her knees, she reached for Anne, and Anne pulled her close.

“Is that what Bad Daddy did to your mommy?” Anne asked, hating the need to do it.

Haley nodded against her shoulder, crying harder, edging back toward the hysteria that had gripped her earlier.

“Bad Daddy knocked my mommy down and hit her and hit her!”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry you had to see that. You must have been so afraid.”

Anne held her tight as the terror of that night came back over Haley like a terrible black wave. She could see the picture in her mind’s eye—the black figure knocking Marissa Fordham to the floor, the arm rising and falling again and again as the killer plunged the knife into her body over and over and over.

“Were you afraid, sweetheart?”

Haley nodded, sobbing. “I-I-I w-w-a-s hi-ding!”

“That was a good thing to do,” Anne said.

“B-but then I-I said no!” Haley cried. “I said, ‘No, no, don’t hurt my mommy!’”

Oh my God, Anne thought. She could easily imagine Haley running from her hiding place, rushing to her mother’s side. The killer couldn’t leave her there alive to tell the story. Thank God he hadn’t turned on her with the knife.

Had she been able to see his face? Had it been too dark? Was he someone she had known and trusted or a stranger she had never seen before?

“Did Bad Daddy say something to you?” she asked.

“Noooo!” Haley wailed. “I want my mommy!”

Now the grief came, howling and tearing out of her like a wild animal. Anne held her tight and rocked her and offered what comfort she could. When a nurse stuck her head into the room to ask if she needed help, she shook her head no. She let Haley release the emotion instead of stopping it short.

It didn’t take long to run out. Her energy store depleted itself quickly, and she gave up and settled against Anne. Anne whispered to her and stroked her hair and told her she was safe, feeling like a liar in the wake of what had happened with Dennis.

A sense of security would be a long time coming for Haley ... and for herself. She felt as if what strides she had made in her own struggle with the aftermath of crime had been taken away from her, and she had been pushed backward down that long tunnel. The sense of despair that came with that was so heavy, all she wanted to do was lie down and escape into sleep, and pray that the nightmares wouldn’t follow her there.

Chapter 85

85

“How long have you and Darren Bordain known each other?” Mendez asked.