All That Remains (Lancaster Falls Book 3)

by RJ Scott

  “Where’s Harry? Where’s my son?”

  Doc moved the beam of light to show me the corner of the room. There was a cot there, and Harry asleep, on his side.

  “What did you do to him?” I asked desperately.

  “Shhhhh,” he warned. “I can’t think.”

  I yanked at whatever was holding me tight to the wall. “Untie me.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “It all started with Kirkland, and now it’s messed up,” he muttered, then scraped a chair over the floor, a perfectly normal kitchen chair, and placed the lamp on a small table. As the light settled, it filled the space. I could see Harry. The walls of this place were rough, damp, smelling of mud, a pile of rubble and charred wood to one side of me.

  I’d seen this movie before, where the deranged bad guy loses his shit, gives a half-assed monologue, and then everyone dies. If only I could shake the fogginess in my head and get over to Harry.

  “What about Kirkland?” I asked.

  “See, the thing is, he knew. Stokes knew. But I knew as well, you see.”

  I was following nothing at all. Knew what? “What did you all know?”

  “We all knew secrets. Every single person had them. Stokes tried to touch Harry, but I like Harry. I didn’t like the other ones. I didn’t even really know them. Aside from Casey? I stopped Stokes from touching Harry, but you remember when I dressed that cut, Harry winced and backed away from me. He’s scared of people now, terrified of the world.”

  “No, he’s—”

  “It was a deep cut, and he was so brave, but Stokes ruined him, just like he ruined Casey and the others. So I stopped him.”

  “‘Stopped’…” My head wasn’t clearing fast enough.

  “Our beloved mayor.”

  “You stopped Stokes? What, by killing him?”

  “I can’t think,” he murmured. “It’s like I don’t have the space in my head.” He buried his head in his hands momentarily. “What I do is supposed to make everything right.”

  “Did you kill them? Stokes, Adam—”

  He frowned, but it cleared quickly, as if the confusion was slipping to one side. “Mayor Stokes was easy. I put him down like a dog, showed your FBI friend his secret.” He leaned forward in the chair. “He was of no use to me after his son died, and he wasn’t using me to get that halfwit his drugs. So he didn’t need my help anymore, started to threaten to expose me. He had to go.” He stared at me thoughtfully. “Anyway, I like young Lewis, and Harry.”

  Back to that creepy focus on kids. I needed to use that, try and get Harry out of here.

  “Let Harry go. He’s just a kid.”

  Doc stared at me. “You know I can’t do that. Don’t you see? He’s scared of the world, of all kinds of men. He won’t be the same again now Stokes has made him scared. He doesn’t even have a real family to look after him, just you. No mama who cares, so it’s best I look after him, keep him here until he dies and finds his god. Then I am innocent.”

  “You want to kill him…” Words were clearer in my head. “No, please, he’s the happiest kid. Let him go, and you can keep me.”

  “Why would I want you?” He was genuinely confused. “You’re just someone I have to dispatch, but… I don’t know how I can…” His words faltered, and he stared into the middle distance. There was the confusion again. “I don’t want Harry to see you die first, but I don’t want you to see Harry die. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but…”

  He drew out a long curved blade and a whetstone, drawing the blade over the stone and acting so differently from how I used to see Doc that it was as if he’d been possessed. “I promise it will be quick for you, just like the rest.”

  I yanked at the ropes, felt something in the wall give, and then the subtle movement stopped just as suddenly. Maybe whatever the ropes were attached to was buried in soil that had loosened with the recent storms? I began to tug a little more gently, trying not to make it obvious, hoping the darkness hid my movement.

  “What do you mean by the rest?” I played for time.

  “Stop talking!” He stood and placed his boot against my right knee, the bad one, the one that he’d checked and assessed on so many occasions, pressing down until the pain became more. I heard something snap, and the agony of what he’d done was excruciating. “Shhhhhh… I can’t think. I said I wouldn’t hurt you. Then you make me…”

  I breathed through the pain, and he went back to sharpening the blade, with an intense expression of concentration, broken by staring into the darkness.

  “What about Joe Dwyer? Why did you kill him?”

  “I said shhhh.”

  “But you need to tell someone.” I had this thought that he’d mentioned god. Maybe he could be encouraged to share his sins?

  He frowned again. “Joe then? He always wanted what he couldn’t have. Iris McGuire was on his wish list, and when her husband, Rowan McGuire, called him on it, he shoved Rowan and made Iris a widow. I paid off… I don’t even remember his name, but Joe owed me after that, paid me so much money, through the church, and I didn’t even need it. His secrets made his wife leave with the kids because she knew what he was doing, going after things he couldn’t have.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. How are Drew and his family going to come to terms with that? Doc has done all this?

  He wrinkled his nose and leaned forward, the knife resting in his lap. “The things I could tell you about Sandoval, though, covering up for Gerald Stokes with his need for young boys, or for Gerald’s son who was abusing his wife. He turned a blind eye to what Joe Dwyer did to Rowan McGuire. But he’d already killed Lily and the boy, and he knew all about the control I had over them all, but in the end, he knew he couldn’t tell anyone, or I’d take my knife, and I’d cut his family to pieces.”

  “Every man told you their secrets?” I asked.

  He reared up at me.

  I pushed back out of his reach, the pain in my knee like a knife, and I yelped. He patted me on the head, then carded his hands through my hair. “Shhhhh, you’re making my head hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” I lied in the most innocent tone I could. “So, you wanted to help the boys, right?” I needed to make a connection, maybe convince Doc that everything was okay.

  “Always helping. I mean, I gave Casey medicine, and it blurred everything the mayor was doing to him, but then he became so sad, so I brought him here because he’d become scared of the world. Did you know he’d gone to Pastor Bill and admitted he was being hurt and saw that the good pastor knew it all?” He looked confused again, the weight of all his thoughts a mess in his expression. “Joe had admitted what he’d done, confessed it, paid off the church when he realized he’d messed up.”

  “So why bring Casey here?”

  “You’re not listening!” Doc shouted. “He needed to be safe.” The frown returned. “But Adam was here, I think, or I didn’t tie the knots good enough. I was looking after him, seeing if I could make him less scared. That makes sense, right?”

  He wanted me to agree to that? “You were looking after Casey,” I lied in a soft voice, and at least this time he didn’t stamp on my knee.

  “But Adam.”

  He paused then as if he expected me to react like a normal audience. Was he looking for praise or questions? How did I act when the person who had me tied up was losing his shit? My one hope was to keep him talking, try to get out of there. Or at least get Harry out. Maybe Lucas was tracking us down. We were clearly underground, like the sinkholes, but there was no light from a hole, just an all-encompassing darkness broken by the now flickering flashlight. What happened when the batteries died and we were in blackness? Was that when he cut our throats?

  “Adam?” he murmured as if he was trying to recall who the hell Adam even was, let alone why I asked him about the man. “Oh, did you know Dwyer and Stokes tried to buy the land when I asked them to? I didn’t want anyone coming to this safe place, and Adam should have left a long time ago, but he wouldn’t give it up. Sawyer told
me Veteran Services would be attending to him, and I knew Adam was losing his mind, and I swear he knew about Casey, maybe even let him go. He used to come up here, patrolling when kids were up at the old Dwyer cabin like he could save them.” Doc shook his head briskly. “He kept his mouth shut, but then the damn fool came up here to lay flowers at the graves, and his freaking dogs scraped through to my space. He was going to say something to Veteran Services, so I fed him to his dogs.” He smiled. The first time I saw real glee and the evidence of his madness. “I didn’t have my knife, though, so I shot him, and it was so inelegant, but when I went back with my knife, his own dogs had already started to eat him. Do you like the irony of that one?”

  Jesus Christ. I tried even harder to escape my restraints and hoped to hell that Lucas was close, that he’d somehow gone back to the hotel and found Grandma Garton. Grief flooded me at the thought of her dead and the scarlet blood that stained my jeans.

  “Did you kill Barbara Garton?” I asked.

  “Her? She got on my nerves. Just like the other women. She didn’t really have to die, but when I went back in, she wasn’t breathing, and I wanted…” He looked into the distance and grinned widely. “… she was a statement is all. Some of the ones I’d done it to I just finished off because they were already bleeding out and screaming so loudly, but one of them wouldn’t lay still, so I stabbed her through the heart first. I didn’t want to hurt the baby, but I managed to cut it out okay. It had a better life with a married couple than it would be with her. All that screaming was too much.”

  What the hell? What is he saying?

  Harry stirred on the pallet, and chains rattled as he moved. He was as locked up as I was but with chains, not rope? He didn’t fully wake up, curling up like he did any normal night.

  Please don’t wake up, sweetheart. Don’t see this. Please stay asleep.

  Someone, help us. Get Harry away.

  Lucas.

  “The women…”

  He leaned really close to me again, pressed his toe to my bad knee, and I bit back the pain. If I woke Harry up… I didn’t want the last thing he heard from me to be a scream. If I was dying here, then I would be as brave as I could be.

  “You ask too many questions,” he said. “And my head hurts because…”

  There was something about the way the light hit his face, and abruptly I knew he was the face I’d seen in the photos from the clinic.

  “Belmont Pines,” I murmured through the haze of pain.

  He sighed. “Ahhh, well… you see, that was inevitable. When Nicky told me she’d heard Sawyer talk about that place. You know, she is a mine of information, I’m surprised she hasn’t worked out that I…” He cleared his throat. “No, back to Belmont Pines. That was such a sad place, so much history, years of women having babies with no husbands, but I gave so many children new lives. Some of the girls agreed to let the babies go. Others I had to… encourage. And I kept an eye on the boys that were born, always the boys, and if they were scared or lost when they got older, I would bring them here. But some of the moms. Then there were the ones who wanted abortions. I did it, you know, but I would cut them so badly inside they would never have children again. Some of them died, and they went into the sinkhole face first, and I watched their bodies crush into the rocks. That’s the way of life.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be saying this. I want people to remember kindly old Doc. Playing Poker, escorting old ladies around town, the town’s leader.”

  What the hell?

  “You played judge and jury—”

  He pressed his foot to my knee again and then leered at me, and this time he was grinning.

  “Only God can play judge and jury.”

  “Your God condones you killing?”

  “My God allowed Pastor Kirkland to absolve me and the others of our sins. God and the pastor knew everything, but the good pastor said it was in god’s hands as long as I paid money to his church. Double standards, don’t you think? All that chaos in those kinds of transactions between heaven and hell.”

  “But what the hell did Casey do—?”

  “Shut your mouth.” He kicked out and yelled at me, and Harry stirred again.

  “Casey was a good person—”

  “He was scared. I tried to help him, praying for him, and I looked after him down on this bed. But Adam Gray?” He said Adam’s name like a curse, “I know he helped him get away from here, I just know it. And Casey ran and paid for it. The car hitting him was retribution for leaving me. ”

  And then he died.

  “That’s enough talking,” Doc muttered under his breath. I gave one last hard yank, the support that the rope was tied to crumbling and releasing me. I jerked forward and caught Doc so hard he tumbled back. I half crawled, half walked to Harry. I grappled with knots, finding chains, but the thump of a fist on my back sent me to my knees, then another. I kicked out with my good leg, tripped him, the knife that was in his hand tumbling into the darkness.

  He cursed and crab-walked away from me, searching for the knife, pleading with his God for help. I didn’t go after him, feeling my way to knots and throwing the rope away, yanking Harry behind me, and facing a madman with faint light glinting from the flashlight onto the sharp steel. He came for me. I shoved him away, and the flashlight fell to the ground, smashing and sending us into total darkness.

  “Dad?” Harry slurred. He’d woken into a nightmare.

  As I stilled and waited to hear where Doc was, a sliver of light became obvious in the dark. I backed that way, with Harry behind me, pushing past every step of agony, slowly, until we were right under the light, and a small stack of blocks made a stairway.

  “Get out. Run. Find help.”

  “Dad! No! I’m not leaving you—”

  “Now, Harry!”

  He was sobbing as he climbed, but the last thing I saw was him scrambling up to the hole and the shadow of him against the bright blue sky.

  “What did you do?” Doc screamed. He was right there on me, insanity driving every punch.

  I was on the wrong foot, falling back, grabbing at the wall, my hand touching cold, hard metal, which I gripped, and it gave me enough balance to stand my ground, but the wall shifted, the metal loosening, a pipe, a support, I didn’t know, but as I tumbled back, the wall came with me, and the metal landed on me, followed by Doc.

  And my head hit the floor.

  “It’s gone right through him! Josh! Fuck…” Voices merged into one, but I couldn’t fail to hear Sawyer and Drew and then right next to me. Lucas.

  “Come on, Josh, open your eyes.”

  “Did it hurt him?” Sawyer called out.

  “DAD! DAD!” Harry shouted.

  That made me open my eyes. I couldn’t breathe with the weight of Doc on my chest. I attempted to wriggle, aware of pain in my shoulder and head but not enough to keep me down.

  “Don’t move,” Lucas said. “You’re impaled on metal and—”

  “It’s not in me.”

  “You could be in shock—”

  “Get him off.” My hands were wet and sticky with blood, and I scrambled to get out, but it was Lucas, with help from Logan, who levered the deadweight off me, a new flashlight catching the rod of rusted rebar pierced straight through Doc’s heart, another sheet of metal cutting deep from his chest to his mouth. So much blood. I was covered in it.

  “Dad!” Harry yelled and clambered down and onto my lap, gripping me hard.

  “I’m okay, Harry. I’m okay.” I didn’t want him near the blood, but I couldn’t let him go.

  “I love you, Dad,” he sobbed into my shirt.

  Then Lucas was there. “Fuck, I thought you were dead when I saw the blood… I love you, Josh. Don’t ever do that again.”

  Lucas tugged me farther upright, pulling me close, and I didn’t even notice the pain in my knee or the blood or the fact that Doc was dead next to me. All I cared about was that Harry was hugging me on one side and Lucas was holding me close.

  And both o
f them said they loved me.

  Epilogue

  Lucas

  I couldn’t leave Lancaster Falls for a while. The main reason was the cleanup, the reports, the mess we’d been handed, the convoluted reasoning behind every death. The agony and suffering of so many families.

  Not least of which was Josh and Harry, who’d taken to curling up on the sofa, hugging and watching reruns of old Tom & Jerry cartoons. Josh was in pain, on meds, his leg propped up, Harry at his side, gripping his dad. Sadie was staying in one of the rooms. She’d come as soon as she’d heard. I liked her, or at least I liked her once I’d met her wife and saw that Josh and she were nothing but friends, with their love for Harry in common.

  I worried about my boys, told Harry I was there for him, sat with him when he was falling asleep, reassuring him that I was there to keep him safe. It was harder with Josh, who was fighting pain and guilt, but when we slept, he gripped me all night and didn’t let go. I’d said I loved him. He’d said it back.

  As far as I was concerned, that meant forever. I just had to get him to agree.

  The three equally spaced stones by the fallen chimney turned out to be grave markers, for Connor, Damien, and Mitchell—the names that Adam had scratched into his shed. We would never know if it was true that he’d helped Casey escape, but I was sure it was his name that Adam had added, and in my heart I know he helped Casey get away. Maybe Casey’s story would have had a happier ending if he hadn’t met a car on an icy dark night.

  I wanted Adam to be remembered as the brave soldier who’d earned medals and loved his wife and child.

  The town buried Adam Gray and Barbara Garton on a Friday, the sun shining after a stormy night, the grass green, and the leaves on the trees beginning to turn for fall. Barbara Garton had been drugged with Rohypnol the same as Josh and Harry, but her heart had given out. She’d been dead before Doc had taken a knife to her throat, and wouldn’t have known what was happening, but there was a very big interfering cake-baking casserole-making Grandma Garton-shaped hole in the town right now, and everyone was subdued.