by L V Gaudet
Jim studies him.
“What do you know?” he asks.
Lawrence digs out sheets of notes, eager to share what he learned. He thrusts them in front of Jim, pointing at them.
“I managed to trace some of Jason McAllister’s movements over the last fifteen years. Tracing credit card and bank withdrawals, I was able to pinpoint not only where he lived but also where he travelled. He’s moved around a bit, never staying in one place for more than a few years. He shows up and then vanishes again, on and off the radar up until four years before Jane Doe showed up. All of a sudden he vanished completely.
He doesn’t take them from close to home, that’s too much chance of getting caught. He’s not dumb, but obviously not as smart as his father was. Where he goes women tend to vanish, everywhere he goes except close to where he’s living at the time.”
He stares at Jim expectantly.
“So you think Jason has been kidnapping and killing since he was a boy,” Jim says. “But why take the kids? Usually a man who wants to pass on his legacy also wants his own son to pass it on to. There are enough people out there that he could have easily found some woman to have kids with.”
“I don’t think it was intentional. I think he kidnapped a woman, however he did it, and accidentally took the kids too.
I don’t think he planned on the kids. And, for whatever reason, he couldn’t just get rid of them. He ended up keeping them.”
“That’s pretty farfetched,” Jim frowns.
“But it feels right.”
“How do you expect to find out?”
“I need to find a missing woman and kids from around the right time. But it could be from anywhere. It’s one of his missing blocks of time when he was off the radar, right before he appeared back at the farm.” Lawrence looks eager at the prospect.
“You may never find it.”
“That’s why I think in the meantime we should ask.”
“Ask? Who?”
“William McAllister.”
Jim grunts. “Good luck. He’s probably dead.”
“He’s alive. We just have to find him.”
Jim becomes more alert at this news. “How do you know?”
“He still owns title to the McAllister Farm,” Lawrence says.
Jim shakes his head. “Paperwork that wasn’t updated. It could be impossible to find him, if he’s even alive. How did you manage to trace Jason’s movements?”
Lawrence just smirks.
“I’m starting with the address on the land title,” Lawrence says. “The document was sent care of a post office box. Even if it’s no longer used by McAllister, there has to be some old records, maybe a forwarding address. Somewhere, William McAllister exists and I’ll find him.”
Jim’s phone rings.
“McNelly,” he answers it gruffly. He listens, nodding, and scowls. “Thanks. Keep an eye on him. I’ll get inside and check it out.”
He turns to Lawrence. “I have to go. Jason McAllister is on the move.”
Lawrence nods. “And I have a couple of kids to find.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to find them?” Jim asks, eyeing the mess of scattered reports. “Those are his files, aren’t they?”
Lawrence grins. Even his happy grin looks sinister, wolfish.
“If there is a report on a missing woman or kids from that time, it will be here. He was very thorough, obsessed, about missing person reports.”
A flash of sadness crosses his face and Lawrence quickly pushes it away. The man he inherited these boxes from had been obsessed with something he would not speak of. He would only say it was big, very big. All Lawrence knows is that the files include the most extensive collection of missing person files he has ever seen. They cross both continents and generations.
What were you looking for? He silently asks again. But the dead don’t answer.
“See you later,” Jim says, breaking the thought.
Lawrence nods as Jim leaves and returns to searching the files.
As Jim rides the elevator down, he keeps turning it over in his head. William McAllister is still alive.
“I have to find him,” he says, although he knows it will probably be Hawkworth who finds him. He may be a reporter, but Hawkworth has a knack for finding people and things that mean to not be found.
“I have to find out what William McAllister knows about his son Jason and Michael Underwood’s relationship.”
As soon as the elevator doors open, Jim steps out and dials his phone.
“Beth,” he says, “I need you to find someone. Start with the deed on the McAllister Farm. I need you to find William McAllister. If he’s alive, he may be in a seniors care home.”
He pauses, listening.
“Thanks Beth.” He disconnects the call.
If Lawrence does not find William McAllister, Beth might. Despite his lack of a personable personality, Lawrence Hawkworth is able to dig up almost anything and convince almost anyone to give him information they shouldn’t.
But if a record exists anywhere on a computer linked to the internet, Beth is probably the best chance to find it. Lawrence is a technophobe.
Huffing and out of breath, Jim heads out to find his car.
Part Four
The Next Life
16A New Name and a New Start
“Have you thought about a name you like?” Michael asks. “Make it something you’ll remember easily. We have to decide this now so I can get things in motion. It’s time for us to move on. As soon as we have the documents with our new legal names and our new backgrounds in place, we’ll go. You’ll like the new place better, you’ll see.”
Kathy doesn’t quite see.
We changed our names so many times I don’t even know who I am anymore, she thinks. Every place we stayed in on the way to where we are now has been as depressingly shabby as this one. Our neighbours always argue a lot, the kids are rude and disrespectful and too often living through a childhood of rebellious desperation. Some of the neighbours and neighbourhoods we’ve stayed in are downright scary.
Michael always chooses quick turnover rentals that he pays cash for and uses a false name. He doesn’t even use the alias he’s living under at the time to rent them. They are the sort of places the landlords don’t bother trying to keep up with repairs on and don’t care that they know you are probably giving a fake name as long as you pay cash in advance. They don’t expect the tenants to stay a second month and don’t care because there are enough people living below the level of poverty desperate for even their crappy house with affordable rent that they never stay empty long.
They are the kind of places that a person can get lost in.
“Why do we have to change our names again?” Kathy asks.
“To keep us safe,” Michael says.
“Can’t I keep my first name again?” She looks at him sadly. There are too many reasons to be attached to her own name.
It’s the only thing I have left that my mother gave me. Like all of them, she keeps this thought to herself.
Michael shakes his head. “We are making a clean break this time. We leave nothing to trace us by when we move on.”
He points to the front door for emphasis.
“Starting the moment we walk through that door, Katherine and Michael no longer exist. We are new people.”
He studies her. Kathy has her eyes down, looking at the floor and feeling cornered.
“Elaine Carver?” Kathy asks finally, looking up at him.
“Are you asking me?” Michael says with a playful smile.
Kathy fidgets. “No, I think that’s the name.” She still sounds unsure.
Elaine is my mother’s middle name at least, she thinks.
“It’s a beautiful name, like you,” Michael says, moving closer and taking her in his arms.
Kathy always feels safer in his embrace and gratefully leans into it.
“Have you thought of your name?” she asks.
“I’m still
thinking,” Michael says, bending down and kissing her. “I’ll come up with something by the time I see the guy to get our new identities made.”
“What about David?” Kathy asks. “I’ve always liked that name. It sounds like someone who is nice.”
Michael stiffens and releases her, stepping back.
Kathy tenses, feeling him stiffen. She watches him anxiously.
Is he angry? But why?
Michael paces away, stops, and turns on her on the verge of anger. He pushes down the rage rising inside him like a heat in his suddenly sour stomach. He struggles to control his expression, tries to smile, and fails.
“Where did you get that name?” he asks coldly.
Kathy senses the cold rage in his voice and immediately recognizes the danger.
She learned to be good at recognizing the kind of rage that brings on violence when she was with Ronnie. Michael saved her from Ronnie, taking her away from his drunken abusiveness. He killed Ronnie and she is grateful for that too. She doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder in fear that Ronnie is walking up to her right at that moment. That doesn’t stop her from sometimes being overwhelmed with that fear now and then, even knowing she does not have to be afraid.
Suddenly she feels that same old fear now, only this time afraid of the anger she senses in Michael.
“I don’t know,” Kathy says quietly. “It’s just a name. You don’t like it, that’s okay.”
Michael stares at her.
“Don’t ever call me that,” Michael wants to scream in her face, clenching his jaw to keep the words from coming out.
He pushes the red heat of anger down, forcing himself to be calm.
She doesn’t know about David McAllister, he reminds himself. I killed and buried him a long time ago; when I ran away as a kid and lived on the streets under the dark cloud of that name, always afraid and running, knowing he would find me.
I thought I saw him a few times, Jason McAllister, the man who pretended to be my father. I’d be running again. Finally, I got smart and let go of my past, who I was, my everything. I abandoned the only name I knew myself as when I ran away, the name Jason McAllister gave me years before when he took Cassie and me to live with him, when he killed our mother. After that, it was easy to walk away from my life, my name, and start a new life with a new name whenever I needed to. I never felt the need to look back or hold on to any part of my new past.
You are dead David McAllister. I told myself when I dropped that name for a new one so many years ago. I have killed you. You are dead.
He snaps out of it, pushing his thoughts down with the anger.
Michael doesn’t like thinking about his past. It makes ugly memories well up, vile and dark.
“It’s okay.” He manages a gentler tone, seeing the tension in her body and the fear in her eyes. His voice still holds the undercurrent of the rage he is barely suppressing. He can feel that rage beginning to drain away.
“It’s only a temporary name anyway, until we get married. Then we change our names again. I’ll be Ryan Crowley,” he says.
Kathy stands stiffly looking at him. She wants more than anything to look away, but can’t.
How does he go from happy and loving one moment to dangerously angry the next? It’s like a switch just got flipped. It’s not the first time she asked herself this question.
And the switch is flipped again.
Michael smiles and relaxes, stepping forward and taking her in his embrace again, leaning down to kiss the top of her head tenderly.
Kathy does not resist despite feeling tense and afraid still.
He seems oblivious to the stiffness of her body that gives away her uncertainty about him.
I’m safe with him, she tries to tell herself, safer than anywhere else.
“I’ll go get the paperwork and our new lives started,” Michael says, smiling. “It shouldn’t take long, a few weeks at most. Then we will make the move.”
“This place we are moving to,” Kathy asks, her voice holding a slight tremor, “where is it?”
“You’ll find out when we get there,” Michael says. “It’s rural, lots of open space and no city.”
“How rural?” Kathy asks, her curiosity helping the fear to slip away just a little. She almost asks if it’s a farm and thinks better of it. She hopes not. She is terrified of the complete isolation, of feeling trapped like she did on the McAllister Farm.
Kathy is filled with a sudden icy chill washing through her like a wave, drowning her, making her legs weak. She feels faint and sick.
She wants to scream. Please don’t let it be a farm. Horrid memories of being locked for endless hours in the root cellar of the McAllister Farm press against her, making blackness close in.
The terror and loneliness. The hunger. Thirst so desperate she thought her tongue would swell up until she could no longer breathe. The hopelessness, knowing she would die but not knowing when. Wishing he would just get it over with.
The sick feeling of gratefulness that went against every other emotion tormenting her, grateful to the man, her tormentor, for kidnapping her, for the death he will soon give her, for freeing her from Ronnie. The terror every time she heard his footsteps above, terror that filled her to bursting and tore her apart when he brought another victim home to the farm.
The icy chill continually washing through her in waves becomes a welcome thing. She embraces its relief against the heat of emotions and fear.
“Kathy,” Michael’s voice comes from far away, sounding anxious, afraid, repeating her name over and over.
“Kathy! Kathy! Are you okay? Kathy!”
Kathy is confused, her mind fuzzy. She blinks, unsure where she is.
For a brief moment the chill clinging to her is the cold damp root cellar floor. The hardness pressed against her backside is the hard floor of the living room in the little farmhouse where she had collapsed after being forced to leave the root cellar to clean for him, weak with hunger and thirst after he had mostly forgotten to feed her.
Kathy looks up into the eyes of her kidnapper and terror rushes up through her. His eyes are filled with remorse, pain, and worry, just as they had been that day when he finally saw her for the weakened gaunt creature she had become under his neglect. The terror is pushed out by confusion.
“Kathy, are you okay?” Michael asks again, holding her in his arms as she lay on the floor, staring worriedly down at her.
Kathy blinks her eyes again, trying to focus on her surroundings. She is in a dingy little house, neglected and overused, like she feels.
“Michael?” she whispers weakly. “What happened?”
“You fainted,” he moans into her hair as he pulls her closer and holds her like he is afraid he is about to lose her.
After a long moment passes, Kathy tries to pull away, to get up. She’s weak and her limbs don’t cooperate.
“No, just rest,” Michael says. “Lay still.”
“I-I have to get up,” Kathy says weakly, feeling waves of nausea and weakness flowing through her. She starts shivering.
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
“No.” Kathy pushes against him weakly. She starts to feel panic with the surging nausea. “I’m going to-.”
Before she can finish the words, her fear comes rushing up her throat, washing them both with hot vomit.
“Throw up,” she finishes weakly.
Michael only holds her closer, making soothing sounds. He can feel her shivering like she is cold, but knows it is shock from fainting. So is the vomit they are both now covered in.
He picks her up gently and carries her to the bathroom. He strips them both and lifts her into the tub with him.
Turning the shower on, they are both blasted briefly with ice cold water and he tries to shield her from it, taking the brunt of it with his own back.
Michael gasps with the sudden icy blast.
The water warms in moments and he lets its warmth wash over them both, gently washing
the vomit off Kathy.
By the time he’s finished washing them both Kathy is still weak but able stand on her own, leaning on the shower wall for support. Michael lifts her out of the tub and dries her off as she stands there. He carries her to the bedroom and lays her on the bed, covering her with blankets.
“I threw up on you,” Kathy says, her voice still shaking. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Michael says gently. “It’s not your fault. It’s the stress. We’re going through a big change. Everything will be great, you’ll see. You rest. I’ll go clean it up. Then I’ll go see the guy about getting our new lives started.”
He leaves her alone.
Kathy lies there, huddled under the blankets and wishing she was warmer. The warmth is coming back to her beneath the blankets, but slowly.
She can hear the sounds of him cleaning, scrubbing the floor and rinsing out their clothes.
Michael wrings the clothes out and bundles them up. He finds the bag they use for laundry and comes back into the bedroom, pulling clothes from the hamper and stuffing them into the bag.
“I’ll stop at the laundromat and do a load,” he says. “I don’t want to leave the puke the dry on.”
He stops by the bed, kisses her on the forehead tenderly, and leaves.
Kathy listens to the front door close and lock. A moment later his truck fires up and the pitch of the engine changes, telling her he is driving away.
Still feeling weak and shaky, Kathy gets up and wraps herself in a housecoat. She goes to the living room. Pausing, she looks at the floor where she vomited. Michael did a thorough job of cleaning it up, even sprinkling carpet deodorizer on the floor for the smell.
The white patch of deodorizer stares back at her; a reminder of the memories that flooded through her, causing her to faint.
Kathy turns away, feeling her stomach lurch with nausea again. She goes to the front window and looks out.
Soon Kathy won’t exist anymore, like I’m dead and they just haven’t found the body yet. I’ll have lost the only thing I have left of who I was, the last piece of my mother who is probably grief-stricken with worry not knowing what happened to me.