Chapter 8 - Denise
We spent four days at my sister Corinne's place, over in Wexford.
Corinne didn't ask a single question. She made up the guest room, set a folding cot in her sewing room for the kids, and carried a cradle down from her attic that her own grandkids had used. She set it up in the corner without being told and said only, "That baby ought to be sleeping flat, not in a car seat."
On the second day, Agent Marsh called Renee. I was in the kitchen shelling peas with Corinne when Renee came in and sat down with a look on her face that told me something had moved.
"Denise testified," she said.
Corinne put down her bowl.
"All of it?" I asked.
"Three hours. She brought eleven years of it. Photographs. Wire transfer records. Copies of documents Pryce was sure he'd shredded." Renee stared at the table. "There were four women before Kayla. Four that Denise knew about herself, by name."
Corinne sat down.
"Two of those four," Renee said, picking her words carefully, "are listed as missing persons. Old cases. Nobody ever tied them to Pryce, because Pryce was never a suspect. Nobody ever even knocked on his door."
The kitchen was dead quiet.
"He's going to be charged for all of it," Renee said. "Not just Kayla. Everything. Marsh says the federal prosecutor has been sitting on this for over a year waiting for exactly one thing — a witness with paper. Denise is the paper."
"Is she safe?" I asked.
"She and her kids are in protective placement. Marsh moved them the same morning he called me." Renee looked up. "She testified by video. Kerr tried to object to the format. Judge shut him down in about four seconds."
"What did Pryce do?" Corinne asked.
"Marsh said he sat still the whole time. No reaction. Didn't take a single note. Just sat there." Renee paused. "After Denise finished, Kerr asked for an emergency recess. When they came back, he stood up and said his client wanted to make a statement."
I looked at her.
"He tried to deal," Renee said. "Offered to give up his claim to Grace, sign her away completely, in exchange for the charges getting knocked down."
"And?"
"The prosecutor said no." Renee's mouth moved toward something that wasn't quite a smile. "She said the charges would be filed in full, and that his sudden helpfulness was noted for the record and would change nothing."
Corinne made a sound that landed somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"So what now?" I asked.
"The custody hold on Grace becomes permanent, pending Kayla's recovery. Kayla's got a legal advocate now. There's an apartment waiting for her the day she's discharged." Renee laced her fingers together on the table. "And Roland Pryce gets arraigned Thursday."
I thought about a seventeen-year-old at a window with a dish towel, hoping a stranger would slow down.
"Does Kayla know?" I asked.
"Marsh told her this morning." Renee was quiet a second. "She said Kayla didn't cry. She just asked if Grace was eating okay."
Corinne reached across and put her hand over Renee's. Nobody talked for a while.
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Out the kitchen window I could hear my grandkids in the backyard. One of them was laughing — that wide-open, easy laugh kids have when they've decided the world is safe again.
I hadn't heard it in eleven days.
