Chapter 2
Juliet Kinkaid stepped out of the taxi across from St. Mark’s Church In-The-Bowery on the fringe of Greenwich Village. As she started walking east on Tenth Street, she went over in her head how she would tell the story of her missing sister.
She knew that what she had to say could be perceived as bizarre. It all depended on how open-minded Dalton Hillyer was. She felt that she had to get to the point fast and not beat around the bush, which is what she tended to do when trying to explain things.
At the restaurant where she worked, her fellow chefs kidded her about always giving too much information. She had to work hard to say only what was necessary.
When she came to Dalton’s address, she took two steps down into an area that held trashcans. To their left was a gated door and to the left of it was a simple sign that said Factcheckers. 1-A. As he had instructed, she knocked hard on the door, looked at the intercom and heard Dalton’s voice say, “Give the door a good nudge.” After a loud buzz, Juliet pushed the door and stepped into a landing and was greeted by Dalton.
He stared at the serious-looking hipster blonde standing before him, guessing her to be in her late teens. She wore beat-up cowboy boots and black jeans tucked into them. He tried not to stare at the small cuts and burn marks on her hands. “Come in.”
He gestured toward a sitting area that was actually part of his office, which had been his father’s office. “Have a seat.” As she sat in a comfortable-looking, worn, oxblood leather chair she took in the ambience of the room. Rather than someone’s office, it looked to her like an enormous, well-catalogued library. She guessed there were thousands of books, magazines, pamphlets, videos and DVDs.
She also observed Dalton, surprised that he wasn’t older and heavier instead of being under thirty and razor thin. He struck her as looking more like a struggling rock musician than a fact checker: the hair, the boots, the jeans and the faded blue shirt, which she was certain came from L.L. Bean.
Dalton sat across from her on the couch. “You were going to tell me all the facts.”
“Three days ago my sister was declared legally dead. Because my mother held out hope all these years that Eliza would return, we never touched anything in her bedroom, until now. Mom finally accepted the fact that Eliza wasn’t coming back. Her bedroom looked exactly as it did the last day she was seen alive. As I was going through her things I found this.”
She reached into her handbag and removed a Canson Classic Hardcover Sketchbook 11” x 14” inches. She placed it on her lap.
“When my sister was thirteen she was in an automobile accident that killed our father. From then on she became agoraphobic. She rarely left the house, and when she did she had a safety radius of a few blocks, mainly school and a couple of stores. That radius began to expand about six months before she disappeared when she joined an Agoraphobics support group. Before that, she’d gone to therapists, hypnotists, took medication, but nothing worked until the support group.” Juliet paused and took a deep breath. “Okay, Eliza always wanted to be a painter. Since she was a child she kept a journal, in an artist’s sketchbook. Besides her entries there are drawings. She had over a dozen and they were kept out in the open.”
She picked up the sketchbook. “This one was hidden. I found it yesterday. The entries and drawings are, well, different from the ones in the other sketchbooks.”
“What does this has to do with my father?”
“The last page is dated April sixth.” She opened the sketchbook. “The final entry my sister wrote was ‘Peter Hillyer found the way. God bless Peter Hillyer. We leave tonight.’” She stared at Dalton. “Your father’s name meant nothing to me so I Googled it, then found your Factcheckers website. That final entry has to mean that they had some kind of connection. Don’t you think?”
