The car became even more sure-footed the further he ventured into the woods. He drove past the remains of an old wire fence on the right and a small and meandering creek on the left. He continued on even after there was no road left under the tires, following no discernable path, yet one that was firmly entrenched in his mind. He steered around clumps of underbrush and thin saplings; between towering trees and wild grape vines as thick and twisting as giant snakes.
It was when he edged around a small stand of young oaks that he saw, emerging out of the rainy gloom in the car’s headlights, an old and squat building with a slopping roof. It looked like a small barn.
When he first found the place, it had occupied a small clearing with several foot paths leading to and away from it through the woods. There were no paths left and the clearing had long since vanished, nature reclaiming the entire area. He was seventeen and it was the middle of the night when he had stumbled upon the clearing and the old barn. Beginning that first night it had become a sanctuary for him, one he had returned to many times over the years. The time he had spent in prison was the longest stretch he had ever been away from it. He spent almost every day of that time wondering if some fuck was, at that very moment, exploring his private haven. Discovering all of his secrets buried there. Not that he was worried that any of those secrets could ever be traced back to him. That didn’t bother him in the least; what did was the thought that some asshole could be violating his space and place, for he had come to think of it as his. The only fuckers who had any right to be there were those he brought there for his own reasons and purposes.
So, two days after his release when he did the favor for his friend, it astounded and relieved him to find that his place was not only still there but pretty much as he had left it. He had been convinced that, if for no other reason, some fuck would have stumbled onto the place the same way he did. Yet, as far as he could tell, the only visitors that had been inside during his absence were the animals in the woods. It left him all the more convinced that it was his place and that it was sacred.
He eased the Cobalt to one end of the old barn and stopped within a few yards of one of the two doors into the place. He killed the engine and switched off the headlights. He had two small battery powered lights inside the old barn; he could find those easily in the dark. Only when he leaned his head back and closed his eyes did he expel a long and triumphant breath through his clenched teeth.
I fucking made it. Yes, I did. Even Mother Nature, you old bitch, can’t stop me. Now all I’ve got to do is get out of this fucking car and deal with the other bitch.
But he was now in no hurry. For a long time he stayed behind the wheel, letting his pain ease a bit, his unblinking eyes on the darkened shape of the barn in front of him. As his mind began to clear, he began thinking about what he planned to do and weighing his options for getting it done.
He realized that, as he seemed to have so little strength and energy left, his only option was to use the car to get her ass off the ground. But he liked that idea; it seemed like the perfect and fitting touch. He could picture it in his mind: the bitch lying on the ground in one of the barn’s doors, a rope around her neck, the other end looped over one of the crossbeam in the roof and tied to the back of the car parked just outside the other door.
Step on the gas, and so long bitch.
The only thing he could see that might fuck it all up was if the bitch was already dead. But did that really matter? No, not one fucking bit. All that mattered was that he made his point and that he did what he intended to do—and that was to see the meddling bitch hanging from that crossbeam. The very one from which he had watched another bitch hang herself. And, as he had so many years before, he would leave her hanging there all night. Shit, he might just leave her hanging there until her rotting ass fell to the ground. That was the one regret he had about the event he had witnessed here: he had cut that bitch down soon after sunrise and quickly buried her there in the barn.
Still, that experience remained his most cherished memory and still believe he had done both the world and the bitch a favor. Who the hell could possibly give a fuck about somebody like that? Just a dried-up old hag in filthy rags and wearing men’s boots, for fuck’s sake.
Good riddance to stinking garbage.
He thought of the bitch in the trunk; the symbolism made him smile.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When Jeff reached the dirt road where it met County 7, he had to stop. Until then he had made good time, all things considered. He had run more than a few red lights; had rolled through more than one stop sign. Jeff figured it a safe bet that more than one of the driver’s he had pissed off had called 911. That no cop had yet pulled him over was mildly surprising. It was more surprising that at least one of those angry drivers hadn’t sped after him, courting a confrontation on the issue.
“What’s wrong?”
It wasn’t so much the sudden rush of memories, though those memories were very much alive and as raw as a steak on a butcher’s slab. Especially the one in which he threw open the door and found Angela gone from the Mazda. That one was like chips of glass grating against the inside of his skull.
“Damn it,” he groan through gritted teeth. “It’s my arm.” It was badly swollen and getting worse, the skin greenish black and purple from his wrist up past his elbow. From the elbow down he could barely move it and he couldn’t move his fingers at all. They were curled and frozen in place like claws ready to slash. His goddamned brother had smashed it all to hell; Jeff had to wonder if he would ever have full use of it again. At least it was his left arm, and he would still be able to sign his name. At the moment, though, that was damned little comfort.
“I can drive well enough with my right hand,” he said. “It just that the pain is getting so bad it’s making me dizzy-headed.” Turning his truck over wasn’t going to do much to stop Damon, or help Janice…if she wasn’t already beyond help.
“Here, let me see it.”
Jeff looked at the figure of his dead wife in the passenger seat. “What for?”
“Just let me see it. I should’ve thought of this before, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry. Lean over as far as you can.”
Jeff turned slightly behind the wheel and extended his arm across the console as far as he could. He watched as the image of his wife placed both hands on his arm, her fingers spread and her thumbs touching. Jeff realized that the broken section of bone was just about centered in the topless box her fingers made. He couldn’t feel her hands on him at all; for a second there was only the continued throb and pound.
Then, suddenly, a not altogether unpleasant feeling of cold hit and sunk deep into his arm between her fingers and quickly radiated out in both directions. His whole body jumped in surprise, but the feeling of cold was already gone by that time. The hands had already left his arm before he could look up.
“Did that help?”
Jeff quickly realized that he could move the arm a little better at the elbow; that the pain had let up a little. It still hurt like hell, but it wasn’t the sharp, jagged-edged throbbing it had been before. It was like a couple of mild painkillers were just kicking in. He still couldn’t move his fingers, but the arm didn’t seem quite as swollen and the skin wasn’t as dark and putrid- looking as it had been.
And the dizziness was gone, his mind clear. Jeff stared at the image of his wife, bemused and awed. God, she looks so real…even that smile I loved so much.
“What the hell did you do?” he whispered.
“Marie and the others call it The Touch. That was the first time I’ve tried to do it. It’s a way of focusing our energy—kind of like a laser beam—to ease an injury, or even reverse it to a certain point. It doesn’t take an injury completely away—it doesn’t heal, but it does help. This is the second time it’s been done to you.”
Jeff frowned, wondering what the hell she meant.
“Do you remember your doctor saying that he wished he could understand what kept you alive
until the paramedics could get to you that night?”
Jeff blinked. “You did this to me that night? No, wait a minute, you said this was the first time you’ve done it, right?”
“It was Marie and most of the others. I’m afraid I wasn’t in any condition to help. It took all of them together and most of their energy to just slow down what was happening to your heart. Without it, you wouldn’t have made it until help arrived.”
Another of the dark clouds of confusion in Jeff’s mind cleared. “That’s what you meant when you said that none of you could touch her as long as Janice was in the trunk of her car.” It wasn’t a question. He didn’t get a reply, but he didn’t need one. For the moment, he knew all that needed to. He shifted his truck into drive.
“You said you’d show me the way from here.”
“Down this road…I only hope we don’t get stuck. Lord, what a mess.”
“Not to worry,” Jeff assured her, stepping on the gas. “You forget this truck is four-wheel drive? How far are we going?”
“All the way to the end and a little beyond, but it’s only a few miles.”
“Have you still got that feeling, or whatever it is you call it?”
“I’m getting it, but it’s coming from Marie and the others. He’s there—just got there, in fact—but he’s still in the car. So is Janice. Marie and the others are waiting for him to get out, or for us to get there, whichever happens first.”
“Then let’s not keep them waiting,” Jeff said, giving his truck a little more pedal. His own words astounded him, and yet it had to be the least astounding thing that he had heard or that had happened so far.
I’ve got the ghost of my wife in the truck with me; I’m racing with her down a road that stands at least four-inches deep in gumbo-clay mud. We’re rushing to meet other ghosts in what she calls “The Deep Woods,” where she and the others are hoping to confront the man who killed them and at the very place where he killed them. And, on top of all that, she seems even more determined than me to save Janice. And she assures me I haven’t lost my mind.
“I heard that.”
Jeff glanced at the passenger seat. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you can do that now.
“It’s okay. Most of this would be hard for anyone to take, not just you.”
“You know,” Jeff mused, “I knew from an early age that Damon was dangerous and no good. But, my God, I never suspected the kind of man he really is. And to think I once lived under the same roof with him. It makes me shudder.”
“He was always so good at keeping that side hidden. Not just from you, but from everyone. Just look at Janice. Unfortunately for her, she found the right crack in his armor to look through. Imagine how she felt when she saw what she did.”
Jeff glanced at the passenger seat again. “Is that the reason for your sudden change of heart?” he asked quietly and without accusation.
“Jeff, I never hated the woman, and I know now that I was all wrong about her. She’s really a good person. Besides, I would’ve never wished what happened to her on any woman, no matter how I felt about her. You know I was never like that.”
“No,” Jeff agreed solemnly, “you never were. But that brings us, more or less, back to the point you made before.”
“What point?”
“That a lot of this is hard to take. I mean, I found out today that I never really knew my brother at all. Just happens to be the same day that some detective walks into my hospital room and tells me that I never really knew my wife, either.”
For a time there was only the sibilant sound of rain hitting the truck, the splash of mud from the tires and the steady throb of the engine.
“I deserve that…but, Jeff, this isn’t the right time. Right now, we’ve got to—”
“What other time are we likely to get?” he interrupted gently. “You don’t know any more than I do what’s going to happen when we get to where we’re going. You’ve told me about Marie Metcalf and ‘The Touch’ and about Damon and all those he’s raped and killed. You’ve told me how you and Susan Romine were lovers before we met. That she never gave up on you and her, and that she was in hot pursuit right up until the day you died. You’ve told me that she was the one who talked to the detectives and told them everything she knows and suspects. You even confirmed that you went after that offered transfer that you first turned down. As I see it…that leaves only one thing.”
“Do you really want to hear it?”
“I can do without the more explicit details, but I’d like to know why, and I think you owe me that much.”
“You’re right…I do”
“Were you that unhappy with me?” Jeff asked, his one good hand smoothly correcting the truck’s path, stopping a slide.
“No, Jeff, I was never unhappy with you. That had nothing to do with it. Like I said, Susan exaggerated some of the things she said to the police; that was one of them. Another was that I was afraid of you. The only thing about you I ever feared was that you’d find out and walk out on me and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do or say to stop you. I’d have to watch the best thing that ever happened to me walk out of my life…and all because of a weak moment and a stupid mistake. It was only the first of many mistakes I made.”
Jeff, his eyes fixed and staring out the windshield, said nothing, waiting.
“Basically, it happened for the same reason that changed my mind and made me try for that offer of a transfer after I lost my job.”
“You were worried we’d run out of money and lose everything,” Jeff murmured. That had always been Angela’s most compelling reason for doing anything. As a child of five, she lost both parents in a car crash and grew up in the care of her beloved aunt. Her Aunt Gloria did the best she could, but the woman had never enjoyed good health and lived on a fixed income. Even with the help she was able to receive, her much loved niece went to bed many nights with an empty stomach until she was old enough to go to work. Angela, though she never held it against her aunt, never forgot it.
“The thought of me starting my own business scared you that bad?” Jeff asked. “That’s when it happened, right? That’s what I was told.”
“That’s when—but, Jeff, I thought the idea of you starting your own business was great and the perfect thing for you to do. It just seemed like the wrong time of the year for a landscaper to strike out on his own, that’s all. I didn’t say anything, though; I knew how much you wanted to do it and I knew that, in time, you’d make it work. I didn’t doubt that or you for a second. I was just worried sick that we’d made it for the first few months.”
“So when those lawyers decided to hire personal assistants and to let you and the other secretaries working with them to just fall back into the rest of the office staff, you saw an opportunity for a better and higher-paid position.”
“Joel Bledsoe was the last to hire a PA; it seemed like it was taking forever for him to make up his mind. I was qualified for the position, but he wasn’t even looking at me. So, I decided to go to him and make the best pitch for the job I could. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t at all like Susan claimed it was to the police.”
“In what way?”
“It didn’t go on for weeks. It was just one time, there in his office after everyone else had left for the day. I told Susan that, but she refused to believe that part of it.”
“Why would she not believe it?”
“Because it was another five weeks before Joel announced his decision, and she was convinced he was doing me the whole time and shafted me in the end when I didn’t get the position. That’s just the way her mind works and there was no changing it. The truth is, after that one time with him, I was so disgusted with myself that I told him it wasn’t going to happen again and that I didn’t want the position. He told me he understood and respected my decision and there was no problem. Only there was a problem; I just didn’t know it at the time. Chalk it up as another mistake on my part. By the time he finally made his decision there was no doubt that I h
ad a problem. I didn’t know which way to turn.”
“So what happened when finally you told him?” Jeff had to hear it all.
“He came unhinged. He told me I was not only a scheming bitch but a stupid one if I thought I was going to get away with something like that. So he made the arrangements for the problem I was giving him to go away. The trouble was that I had complications with the procedure. I started bleeding and I spent most of three days in the hospital. My God…I was never so scared in my life.”
Jeff groaned. “Why the hell didn’t you say something to me? Instead of letting me think you were in Texas with your Aunt Glory?”
“What could I have said to you?”
“That you needed me would’ve been a good place to start. I would’ve been there.”
“And then what? ‘Oh, by the way, darling, I let my boss screw me to get a better job and, instead, he knocked me up? Not only that, but it’s also possible that I’ll never be able to get pregnant again and could you please hold my hand?’”
“Okay, okay, I get it. So, when you finally get back to work, I take it he’s already long gone?”
“Him and his damned new PA both. The only good thing to come out of it was that he paid all the bills.”
Jeff was silent for a time, digesting everything she had said. Finally, “There’s only one more thing I’d like for you to tell me.”
“What?”
“How did Damon ever get his hands on you in the first place? That detective made a point of telling me there was no blood or signs of a struggle in your car.”
“I wasn’t in the car at the time; I had to get out because I had to pee. I was doing that behind the car when I heard something coming toward me on this very road. At first, I didn’t know what it was; there were no lights or anything. It finally hit me that it was car and it was real close and moving slow. So, I hurry up and get my clothes fixed and all of a sudden there it is, headlights blinding me. I barely had time to squint before he was all over me. He hit me a couple of times—I was so dazed I just barely remember him throwing me in the passenger seat. But there is one thing I do remember once I was in the car and he was backing up to leave.”
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