Page 81 of The Intruder

Nell’s house key is in my jeans pocket.

As I cross the border into Massachusetts, I think about what I’m going to say to Jolene. She and I need to have a little talk about what she has done to her daughter and what she will do next to protect her, starting with getting rid of Jax. Of course, if she is already dead, the talk will be very brief. Problem solved.

Jolene Kettering lives in a small town. The basement apartment she is renting might cost even less than the cabin where I’m living, though it’s likely a close call. The entire house looks like it is one broken shingle away from being condemned. The first floor of the house is dark. Good. Nobody else is home, which means nobody will hear us.

As I round the side of the house to get to the entrance to the basement, I can’t help but think of my own house growing up, which looked nice on the outside but was horrifying on the inside. As often as I have nightmares about the fire, I have even more nightmares about the inside of that house.

And this is why I don’t have a boyfriend. Who could spend the night with me when I wake up screaming half the time? Certainly nobody I have dated so far.

I park around back, pulling up behind a broken-down Pinto. I climb out of my truck and walk up to the door to the basement apartment, which is down three steps. I start to pull off my leather gloves, which I use when I drive, but then after a moment of hesitation, I leave them on as I knock on the door.

No answer.

I knock a second time and wait a few minutes, but then I dig into my pocket to get the key. I fit it into the lock and push my way in.

The house is cluttered, but nothing out of the ordinary. The stench of cigarettes is in the air, covered by a layer of air freshener, but on the plus side, I don’t smell the rot that comes with the decay of a body.

“Ms. Kettering?” I call out. “Jolene?”

No answer. Not a good sign.

I walk through the living room, stepping over some cardboard boxes stacked up near the kitchen. I get a whiff of something rotting, and for a moment, my heart sinks. Is she dead?

But that smell is familiar to me, even though the stench of a decaying corpse is not. It’s spoiled food rotting in the kitchen—not a human being.

And when I get to the kitchen, sure enough, there she is.

Jolene Kettering is a sturdy woman in her late thirties, with bleached-blond shoulder-length hair and a square jaw. She has dark brown eyes and a small beauty mark below her mouth that I recognize from those horrific drawings in Nell’s notebook. In real life, Jolene and I don’t look much alike, but I can see how the childlike sketches of her might have resembled me. But the most important thing of all about Jolene Kettering is that she is very much alive.

Well, perhaps “very much” is an understatement. But she is alive, and I am glad.

Jolene is in the corner of the kitchen, dark red blood staining the front of her glittery pink tank top, which looks better suited for a girl twenty years younger. Her skin is very pale and clammy, and her breaths are shallow, but she is sitting up. Her eyes are open to slits, and when I enter the room, she looks up at me.

“You the paramedics?” she asks in a hoarse voice.

I don’t know how I look like a paramedic, considering I’m wearing a big puffy coat and hat. But this woman is not in her right mind. She has likely been in and out of consciousness on her kitchen floor since yesterday. If nobody came to check on her, she’d probably be dead in another day or two.

“Yes, I’m the paramedics,” I say.

“It’s about time! I’ve been yelling my head off since yesterday.”

I clear my throat. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

“Do I look okay?” she snaps.

My gaze flicks down to the blood staining her shirt. A lot of it is dry, but there’s also a glisten of fresh blood. She’s still bleeding.

“What happened?” I ask.

She hesitates, probably not eager to incriminate her boyfriend. “None of your business.”

I doubt she’ll ever come clean about what Jax did to her. Nell was scared her mother would tell the police that she was the one who stabbed her, but I doubt she’d do that. Even though my first concern is always for the child, I recognize a lot of their parents are having a rough time. Jolene was clearly struggling to get through life, and nobody has ever been there to help her.

“Do you have any children, ma’am?” I ask, hoping to get her talking about Nell.

She shoots me a look. “That’s none of your business either.”

I feel a flash of anger. Doesn’t she even care that her twelve-year-old daughter is gone? Isn’t she the slightest bit worried?