by Leslie Wolfe
“How long?” she’d asked, while tears flooded her eyes. Her little Jacob, in jail. Despite his stature, he wasn’t built for prison; he wouldn’t last long. His kind nature, his shy demeanor would invite abuse from career criminals who knew their way on the inside. If he’d only told her, she would’ve appeared to testify on his behalf, to speak for his character, and maybe the judge would’ve considered a suspended sentence.
“Six months,” he replied after a long moment. “But I could be out—”
“Jeez,” she reacted. “How could you—”
She stopped herself from continuing. It made no sense to pound on him; he was already aware of what he’d done and all the implications, and by the sound of it, he was drowning in guilt.
“You know what that means, sis,” he added. “You have to—”
“When do you report and where?” she cut him off.
“This coming Friday, at nine a.m., at High Desert.”
High Desert State Prison was only a few hours’ drive from home. She’d be able to visit, maybe put in a good word with the warden, as a professional courtesy maybe, if something like that was ever extended to former FBI agents. And she’d want to speak with that judge, and ask why he’d felt compelled to give jail time to a first-time offender for what seemed to have been nothing but a bar brawl.
She’d take it one day at a time, and make the most of each day. The mantra of an existence rife with adversity.
Nevertheless, come that Friday evening, she had no choice but to be back home.
And that meant leaving her career behind, all the hard work she’d put into her role as a profiler for the FBI in the past eight years down the drain, soon to be forgotten.
Meanwhile, she was supposed to go back to living in a place she’d sworn she’d never see again. She was to build a life for herself there, in a town haunted by memories she’d spent years trying to forget.
One stupid, drunken punch, and her career had come to an abrupt stop.
She wiped a rebel tear from the corner of her eye and cursed, her words swallowed by the wind as she drove with her windows down, inviting the chilly mountain air to cool her heated forehead.
Damn it to hell, Jacob. How could you do this to me? To us?
It was almost dark when she drove past the sign that said, MOUNT CHESTER, ESTABLISHED 1910. POPULATION 3,823. She took the first exit, then it took her about thirty minutes to pull up in front of the old ranch, and that included a five-minute stop at the Katse Coffee Shop for a fresh brew and some butter croissants.
It was just as she remembered it.
She hadn’t been back since her mother’s funeral, ten years ago, but she remembered the house clearly.
Approaching it, driving slowly, she pulled onto the driveway and cut the engine, but left the lights on. Seeing it from up close, Kay didn’t recognize it anymore, even if it was shrouded in darkness. The lawn was overcome by weeds and littered with junk, the paint was cracked and chipped, and the porch needed new decking to replace the rotten, weathered one. Several baluster spindles were missing, while others were broken yet still hanging in there.
She cut through the grass and instantly regretted it when she tripped on a rusted truck rim hidden in the weeds, and flailed to regain her balance. Then she braced herself, and climbed up the five squeaky, wooden steps leading to the front door.
It wasn’t locked. Why would it be?
Shivering, she pulled at the long sleeves of her black turtleneck until it reached her fingers, then entered, feeling the wall for the light switch. Doused in the pale, yellowish light coming from a broken ceiling fixture, the house welcomed her with unwanted memories. Some things never changed, choosing to survive the passage of time undisturbed, either as enduring bits of routine or as mementos of a forgotten past. The smell of stale foods and dirty dishes fueled by the pile littering the sink. The stink of mildew that came from the walls, from the bathroom, from everywhere. The stained rug in the middle of the living room, seemingly unvacuumed for a long time. A family photo taken when she was about ten years old and Jacob nine, their parents standing behind them. It hung crookedly above the cracked fireplace, framed and protected with thin, broken glass. The kitchen table littered with empty beer cans, old newspapers, and frozen dinner wrappings.
“Jeez, Jacob, what the hell?” she muttered, while walking slowly through the empty house, the creaking of the floors the only sound she could hear.
What did she expect, leaving that house to be cared for by a man, by Jacob, no less? He’d never been too practical or too good with his hands. Even if he worked construction in the summer or ski-lift maintenance over the winter, up at the resort, Jacob had never been the kind of man she could count on to keep things running smoothly. Jacob was broken, and she knew why. For the most part, it was her fault.
She opened a few screened windows and turned the lights on everywhere, inviting the evening mountain breeze to chase the shadows away. She took the garbage out, putting the bin by the front door, afraid to cross the lawn in the dark to find the can. The floors needed a good scrubbing, and if there was a working vacuum in the house, she needed to put it to work. But not now. Tomorrow.
She cringed, a shiver coursing through her slender body, realizing she needed to sleep in that house, and, for a long moment, she considered sleeping in her Ford Explorer instead. It was clean and smelled of new leather and fresh croissants. But sleeping in the car was a cowardly move; she had to embrace her new reality, the sooner the better.
Wandering from one room to the other, she wondered where she could settle for the night. Jacob’s room was littered with dirty clothing scattered all over the floor, and the bedsheets hadn’t been changed in a while. His bathroom had toiletries and toilet paper, but it wasn’t in a usable state by her standards.
The door to her parents’ bedroom was closed, and she held her breath before opening it, almost expecting her father to scold her for waking him up. The bed was neatly made with the same linens and pillows she’d put on it after her mother’s passing. Jacob hadn’t touched it, and she wasn’t about to. She couldn’t bear to think about her mother; despite the passing of time, the pain was still raw. She closed the door gently, as if to not disturb the memories sheltered in that space.
That left her old room, and she stared at the narrow bed from the doorway, unwilling to enter the space that had witnessed so many of her tears. She closed the door gently, then went back to the kitchen. Maybe a hot cup of tea would change her outlook on life, on living in her old house, with so many old memories, for the foreseeable future.
The fridge held beer, liquor, and frozen TV dinners, the only exception being a small jar of mustard. She shrugged off her hunger and closed the fridge door, then grabbed the coffee maker pot and made herself a cup of tea that smelled of stale coffee grounds. Holding her mother’s old mug between her frozen hands, she stood at the window and stared at the backyard, barely visible in the dim light coming from the house and the haze-filtered moonlight. It was unkempt, just like the front lawn was, with overgrown, knee-high grasses and weeds, and it seemed that Jacob hadn’t set foot out there in a long time. But it was just as she remembered it, a wide grassy area leading to the woods on one side, and the willows by the river on the other.
The weeping willows had grown, their leaves brushing the ground, their crowns touching one another above the massive trunks. Their sprawling silhouettes loomed ominously against the dark sky, their moonlit shadows large, moving with the wind, almost touching the house.
Shivering, she closed the window with a loud thump, then pulled the curtains shut.
“Oh, Jacob, you really had to throw that punch, didn’t you?” she whispered, and only the wind replied, whooshing against pine needles and long, weeping willow branches.
She finished her tea and placed the empty cup on the table, then opened the folded newspaper she found there. It was yesterday’s local paper, and the first thing that caught her eye was a title in big, bold lettering, DETAI
LS EMERGE IN CUWAR LAKE FOREST MURDER. Intrigued, she pulled a chair and sat, not minding the grime staining the seat, not taking her eyes off the small print, barely visible in the dim light, reading every word intently, forgetting where she was.
When she finished reading, she brought the laptop from the SUV and started typing a letter, while biting hungrily into a fresh butter croissant.
Three
Captive
She’d lost track of days, although she tried to keep count, constantly reminding herself how many times the sun had risen since they’d been taken. But the brain is a fragile thing, creating alternate realities when the real one is too painful to endure. Alison’s mind was no exception; after several days spent locked in the basement, with only a crack in the wooden panel that boarded the small window to see if it was light or dark outside, she’d finally accepted she wasn’t going to know which day it was. Not anymore, not with any degree of certainty.
She’d scratched short, vertical lines on the wall to keep track, but when she woke up from her agitated, terror-filled sleep she couldn’t remember if she’d fallen asleep last night or an hour earlier. She knew to listen for him, for the sound of his car’s engine, fearfully anticipating his return, knowing what it would bring.
Every day, right after dusk. Some days, earlier.
She still had time until his arrival, or at least she hoped she did. The sun was still up, because she couldn’t see it setting through the crack in the wooden window board, and that meant she could hope to find a way out before he returned.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to escape before. She had, pushing herself against the massive door, scratching at the boarded window until her fingers bled, pounding on every inch of wall. She’d done all that in the first day she spent in captivity, and then every day after that, some days more than once. She’d done it even when her body ached so badly she could barely stand.
But today was different. She was frantic, desperate out of her mind to get away, more desperate than she’d ever been. Because last night she’d heard Hazel scream.
It had happened while he was still there and had just left her lying on the barren cement floor, bleeding. He locked the door, then she heard his heavy footfalls climb stairs, not one flight, but two. A few minutes of tense silence ensued, during which Alison didn’t dare to breathe. Then she’d heard it, the piercing wail of her daughter, distant yet heart-wrenching, ending in sobs.
She was still there, her baby girl, and she was still alive. At least that much she knew, as of last night. But why did she scream? What did he do to her?
They had to get away. And it had to happen today, before he could get near her again. No matter what it took.
Shaking and sobbing, Alison threw herself against the door, not minding the pain that shot through her side, the memory of how the man had stared at Hazel fueling her agony. How he’d played with her daughter’s hair, how he’d touched her face and tasted her tears.
The echoes of Hazel’s scream reverberated in her mind, over and over.
She took two faltering steps back, then ran and slammed her thin body against the door again, only to fall to the floor in a heap. That door wasn’t going to budge.
Turning her attention to the sliver of light coming from the window, she pounded against the wooden board with both her fists. Out of breath but not giving up, she grabbed the sill with one hand to reach higher, and struck it with the other hand as hard as she could.
Nothing.
She let herself slide to the floor, sobbing hard, hugging her knees with bleeding hands. Weeping until her tears ran dry, she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs, afraid Hazel might hear them just as Alison had heard her little girl’s scream the night before.
Then she jumped to her feet, realizing she’d been pounding on that wooden board all this time, when she should try pulling it toward her instead. Maybe there was a chance that way.
She managed to slip her finger inside the crack enough to get a grip and yanked, and a few wood shards came off, widening the crack. Now she could slip two fingers in there. Minute after minute, the crack widened and her grip grew stronger, pulling the wooden board with the nails that held it in place, slowly, while more light found its way to fill the bleak room.
She could see the rusty nails almost entirely now, and beyond the crack, a section of the window frame, fragile, easy to break. She took a deep breath and pulled again, her fingers raw and bleeding, and the board gave way to another fraction of an inch of rusty nail length.
One more time, and the board came loose so suddenly it hit her forehead, but she didn’t care. Shocked, she stared at the window, now fully exposed, a mere eight-by-ten-inch hole in a concrete wall.
She was never going to fit through there.
A heavy sob swelled her chest and she let it out, covering her mouth with bleeding hands while she dropped to the floor. Suddenly, she heard laughter. She opened her eyes to find the man staring at her, cackling loudly.
“You’ve been busy, I see,” he said, then laughed some more.
“No, no,” she whimpered, pushing herself away from him until she reached the corner of the room.
“No?” he replied, amusement still lingering in his eyes. “What if you could see Hazel tonight? Would that change your mind?”
“Y—you mean it?”
He placed his hand on his chest in a gesture of mockery she chose to ignore, too desperate to believe him. “I swear.” Amusement was gone from his eyes, leaving them as cold and as dark as she’d grown to know them.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She felt pathetically grateful to the man who had kidnapped them and had been torturing her for days. The thought of it made her sick to the stomach, but she didn’t care; she was going to see her daughter soon.
Alison closed her eyes, imagining Hazel running toward her with her arms wide open, laughing, squealing with joy.
As she heard him undo his belt buckle, she didn’t open her eyes. When he grabbed her ankle and dragged her on the floor, she didn’t resist.
She was going to see her precious girl tonight.
Four
Cuwar Lake
Kay knew she should’ve spent the day getting herself organized in her old family home, since she was going to live there until Jacob was released. She owed that to her little brother; they only had each other, and in a world where billions of people lived, they could only rely on each other. Once the word of his incarceration swept the town, it would’ve been a matter of days until everything he owned would’ve been ransacked or stolen. The thought of strangers trampling through the house made her sick to the stomach. Well, not on her watch.
Instead of getting her new life a head start, she found herself obsessing about the body found at Cuwar Lake Forest. Who was she? How did she get there? How was she killed? She’d pored over the newspaper article twice, but knew better than anyone that many critical details about a crime were often left out from police statements to the media, a strategy most investigators used to weed out false testimonies and fake confessions. The only usable detail the article mentioned was that the body had been wrapped in a blanket; the rest was sensationalizing filler.
She’d known about the murder since before she’d left San Francisco, and she’d read everything the media had published about it. More than a week before, the body of a young woman had been found buried at Cuwar Lake Forest, only yards away from the lakeshore. The reports described the woman as a twenty-eight-year-old brunette with long hair and brown eyes who’d been brutally strangled. The article spoke of significant bruising to her body, most likely associated with the equally brutal sexual assault the local reporter was describing in vivid, editorialized detail. Yet since the first mention of the young woman’s body had appeared in print, no official statement from the medical examiner had corroborated the reporter’s take on the crime.
But it was enough for her to start putting the puzzle together.
She’d always kept an eye on
her hometown’s news; she had every reason to want to stay in touch with the goings-on of the small community, especially when it came to crime. Of course, back then she could use her FBI credentials to access information, but now she no longer had access to those systems, and that was a source of annoyance keeping her from her planned activities.
She eagerly waited for dusk, walking around the property and making a mental list of things she needed to get done, then immediately forgetting about it, her mind busy visualizing the details of the unsub’s elaborate ritual. Fragments of the unknown subject’s actions appeared clearly in her mind, shards of a broken image she needed to uncover and paste together, many pieces still missing, still hidden from view. Only a few miles away, at Cuwar Lake Forest, a few such pieces waited for her to uncover them, to cast them into the light, bringing her one step closer to unveiling the unsub’s identity. But she wasn’t a fed anymore; just Jacob’s sister, returned home to house-sit while her brother did his time. All she could do with her findings was write letters and send them to the investigators, hoping they’d be read before landing in the wastepaper basket. Yet she couldn’t let go, she couldn’t resist the urge to hunt for that young woman’s killer, because deep inside she knew he wasn’t done.
He was just starting.
She picked the occasional piece of junk from the front lawn and carried it over to the curb, hoping the service would collect it, happy to postpone the moment she’d have to go inside. But mainly she was out on the lawn watching the sun go down, unhurried, achingly slowly.
The moment it disappeared behind the mountains, she climbed behind the wheel of her Explorer and set out to drive to Cuwar Lake.