by A J Rivers
Her stomach felt empty. She reached in the pocket of her jacket and felt the jellybeans on her fingertips. Cherry and chocolate pudding. Coconut and pineapple. Root beer and vanilla for a float.
Emma wanted her daddy to call out when they stepped inside. If he did, she would know where they were. Even if she didn’t recognize it, a name would give her something to hold onto. But he didn’t. He was quiet when he shut the door behind them and took a breath of air that smelled like lemon cleaner and cold. For a brief moment, Emma’s heart fluttered.
What if this was another secret? Her daddy said Mama was here. That she was going to be at the memorial service. Maybe she was here, and this was just another time that they had to be apart for a short time, but now they would be back together. She would explain to Emma what happened and tell her why she had to go away that night. Mama would say she was sorry, and they’d go home. Or maybe they would spend some time here. Meet some of Mama’s friends and finally celebrate Easter.
But she wasn’t there. They walked into a room with three couches turned toward a table sitting by a big marble fireplace. The couches were empty, but the table had a vase sitting on it. It was a strange vase with no flowers. There couldn’t be because it had a top.
“Where is she?” Emma asked. “You said Mama would be here.”
“Emma, she is,” he sighed, his voice soft.
He held her hand and brought her up to the table. Emma held onto the jellybeans, letting them roll through her fingers. Coconut against chocolate pudding now. Cherry and pineapple. Then vanilla and coconut. Root beer with cherry.
It wasn’t a vase. She recognized it now. It was like the ones sitting on the mantle, the ones Mama used to talk to when she was vacuuming the living room. Emma laughed when she saw that once. Not just because Mama was wearing a bandana around her head and Dad’s sweatpants, rolled over and over to keep them from falling down. She laughed because Mama was having a conversation with the vases on the mantle. She was telling them about Emma and Ian, about their trip to the caverns, and the kitten they just adopted.
Emma was little then. So little, she didn’t know what the vases were. Mama said she’d told her before, but she didn’t remember. So, she sat her down and took the vases with her. Mama called them urns. She let Emma touch them, and she ran her fingers over the names engraved on metal pieces in the fronts. Pieces like the one on the table. Her grandparents were in those urns. They were put in there in Russia and brought all the way here to be with them. That’s why Mama talked to them. They were her Mama and Papa.
People started coming in behind them, but Emma wouldn’t leave the side of the table. She should be home, wherever that was, sharing jellybeans with her mother. But the metal on the front of the urn on the table had Mama’s name on it.
“That’s where she is,” Dad told her. “We’ll have her now. Always.”
“I didn’t see her,” she said when she sat down on one of the couches beside him. “Maybe it isn’t her.”
“It’s her, Emma.”
“But I never saw her face.”
“I did. I saw her.”
“Why did you let them do that to her?”
He hesitated like the words got stuck in his throat somewhere, and he had to convince them to come out.
“Emma…”
“Why would you let them put her in there? I want to see her! Why didn’t you let me see her?”
“It’s what she wanted. This is what she wanted. She told me a long time ago.”
Emma gripped the jellybeans until they crushed and melted into her skin.
“But she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Chapter Four
Now
“Can you see me?”
“Yep,” Sam nods.
“How do I look?”
“Lovely, as always.”
“Thank you, honey. But I mean, how do I look compared to Martin. Around the same size? Same position?”
“Yes.”
“Kay. Now, I’m going to walk down to the cars,” I tell them. “Let me know if it looks right.”
I make my way across the parking lot, replicating Martin’s movement. When I get to the cars, I walk past where Dean’s is parked, and then to Eric’s right behind it.
“We can see you,” Sam says.
“Now look at Martin. Watch him go behind the car. He pauses, right?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “Like he’s getting ready to put something in the car. The footage isn’t very clear, and he’s behind the car, so we can’t see exactly what he’s doing.”
“That’s alright. I don’t need to know that. I just want to know where he’s standing. Look at it and look at me. Are we standing in the same place?” I ask.
“It’s really hard to tell. The cars are parked so far from the camera.”
“I know. But just try to compare. Where I’m standing right now. Does it look right?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Sam says. “It’s a little off.”
I shift to the side. “Okay. Now look.”
“That’s closer.”
“Okay, look again.” I shift back to the first position. “Here.” I shift again. “Or here.”
“The second one,” Sam tells me.
“The second one,” Eric’s voice confirms from somewhere behind him.
“Great. Thanks guys. You can come back down here, now,” I tell them.
I hang up and head back to where Bellamy and Dean are standing.
“What was that all about?” Bellamy asks.
“My hunch was right,” I say. We wait for a few minutes for Sam and Eric to get back. I lead them into the parking lot and step behind Eric’s car again, pausing behind the driver’s door. “This is where I was standing the first time. And this is where I was the second.”
I step to the side, positioning myself in front of the passenger door behind the driver’s seat.
“He didn’t get behind the wheel,” Sam says.
I shake my head.
“No. He stopped behind the driver’s door and probably said something to whoever was there, but the camera was too far away, and the footage is too grainy for us to actually see him speaking. Then he got in behind him. Martin isn’t a particularly large man, so it was harder to see him over the two cars, but he got in the back seat. Not the front. That means he wasn’t alone.”
“So, we have to figure out who was driving that car,” Eric notes. “Do you think it was your uncle?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Did you notice what section of the hospital this parking lot is for?”
They all follow my point to look at the large letters above the overhang in front of the doors to the building.
“Women’s Center,” Dean says.
“Yep,” I say. “And what do you think is included in the Women’s Center?”
“The maternity ward,” Sam says.
“Catch Me didn’t need to leave a note to keep me following the trail. Martin was the trail.”
“So, we have to follow him,” Dean says.
“Call the police,” I tell Sam as we rush back toward Greg’s room. “Let them know what happened to me. I’ll make a statement.”
“You want to get them involved?” Eric asks, sounding surprised.
I pause and turn to look at him. A surge of anger, frustration, urgency, and sadness swells in my chest and threatens to crack my ribs as I stare into his face. The muscles of my jaw twitch.
“No,” I admit. “I don’t want them involved. I want him all to myself. But this isn’t some nightmare I’m just going to wake up from. I have a monster in my closet and another one under the bed. I can’t fight them both at once. As much as I want to, I can’t. Technically, I was assaulted in there. Making a police report will put Martin on their radar. They can get people on the ground and handle more on a local level than we can without getting the Bureau involved.”
“Why not involve the Bureau?” Eric asks.
“You seriously want me to ca
ll Creagan and get him tangled up in this? Why don’t you just wrap me in the red tape and toss me out in traffic now? If I call him, it becomes his case, and I’m not doing that. Not again. This is mine, and I’m not letting them get in my way.”
I start walking again, but Eric doesn’t move.
“Am I in your way?”
I stop and turn back to him, taking a step closer.
“Eric, you are one of my closest friends,” I say quietly, forcing the anger out of it. “You know me like no one else does. You know what all this has put me through. But I also know how much your career means to you. What I have to do might compromise that. I can’t promise you everything is going to be by the book. I might not follow the rules. I might not do things the way other people would want me to do it. I’ll do what needs to be done. I won’t tell you your skills and access wouldn’t be helpful, but I will understand if you can’t do this with me.”
I glance over at Bellamy. “You, too, B. You’ve both already done so much. I can’t ask you to put yourselves in danger and risk your careers, your pensions, everything.”
“No, you can’t,” Eric says. I draw in a breath, trying to ignore the sting on the backs of my eyes. “You would never have to.”
“No. Please don’t—”
“Shut up, idiot,” interrupts Bellamy. “We’ve got you. We’ve been with you from the beginning, and we’re not stopping now.”
The breath bursts from my lungs.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course we are,” she smiles. “Like you said, we’ve known you for far too long and seen you go through far too much to just walk away. This is about you, which means it’s about us. We know the risks. They’re worth it for you. You’ve cooperated long enough. If there is anyone in this world who can end this, it’s you. And we’re beside you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, taking both of their hands and squeezing them.
“What’s next?” Dean asks.
We start toward Greg’s room again, and I try to gather the fragments of my thoughts and piece them together.
“Sam is going to contact the police and handle them, so they stay out of it as much as possible. We’ll have them on the lookout for Martin. It’s crucial they don’t make a big deal out of it or get the media involved.”
“Why?” Dean asks.
“Catch Me wants me to keep following him. He’s dangling Martin as my next clue. But I have other things I need to pursue. If he finds out the police are the ones tracing him, he’s going to do something else, something more extreme to get my attention back. They need to track him, but not make it public. It’s not going to work forever, but for right now, Catch Me needs to think I’m still playing by his rules,” I say.
“We need to talk to everybody we can find that knows Martin and find out what we can about him. He was chosen for this game for a reason; we need to find out why. We also need to know his basic details. Where he lives, his family, romantic partners, friends, hobbies, where he brings his cat to be groomed. Anything we can think of that might give us more insight into him. We need to know why Catch Me chose him and what he wants me to do.”
“That’s easy enough, but most of it will probably have to wait until morning. We can ask around the hospital and put in some basic searches, but it’s late. You need to get some rest,” Sam says.
“No,” I tell him. “You know how this works. Time is already ticking. The longer I wait, the more likely it is that someone else gets turned into a clue.”
“Or he decides he’s done playing and ready to go straight to the end,” Dean says.
I nod. Catch Me won’t make me chase him forever. Eventually, he’s going to either tire of the game, or we’ll get to the end of it. Either way, if I don’t figure it out, I lose.
“You need to go home,” Sam says.
“Right before I passed out, I was talking to Dean about what he found in the hospital in Feathered Nest. I need to know.”
“Emma, you need a break,” Dean says.
“Exactly,” Sam agrees.
“Then you’re coming home with me,” I tell him. “I need to know what’s in those files.”
Chapter Five
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sam asks as we pull up in front of my house. “We could go to a hotel for the night.”
“Why would I want to go to a hotel? This is my house,” I point out.
“That you haven’t been to in months. And after everything that’s happened… “
“This is where I want to be,” I insist. “I know all of you are afraid for me and think I should be, too, and I appreciate it. But I can’t live my entire life afraid. That’s what they want. At least Catch Me does.”
“And your uncle?” he asks. “He’s the one who’s been creeping around here and your house in Sherwood. He sent you the necklace and planted the other one for you to find.”
I shake my head, staring at the house. “I know. But that’s the point. He’s been following me around, but as far as we know, he’s never done anything to try to hurt me. If he wanted to, he could have.”
“How about Greg? He sure as hell hurt him.”
I let out a breath.
“I know. There’s something behind that. It wasn’t random, and it didn’t happen quickly. Greg was with him for two years. He took him for a reason, and he tossed him out for a reason. The way he did, it was just as purposeful. Greg was wrapped in plastic with pictures, just like the cold case Eric found.”
“The man Doc Murray,” Sam says.
“With the Murdock label in his clothes. That can’t be a coincidence. It’s too many things linked together. My father’s brother took Greg because of his connection to me. That’s obvious. But why? And why keep him for two years? And why throw him away like a piece of trash? It all means something, and I have to figure out why.”
“But you’re not afraid of him.”
It’s not a question but a statement. An acknowledgement of what I’m feeling. I’m not entirely sure if it’s accurate. I don’t really feel fear. It’s not that I’m afraid of my uncle or what he is capable of. But I also can’t deny the uncomfortable feelings rolling down my spine when I think about him. I’ve gone my entire life not knowing about this man. I don’t understand it. When we were on the train and Sam was questioning me about my father, drawing out of me why I didn’t believe he could be capable of the horrors we were witnessing, I told him the reason I knew he didn’t do any of it was he had never lied to me.
Is that true anymore? One thing I’ve relied on since I was a child was my trust in my father. I’ve always believed in him and known he was honest with me. It didn’t mean he would always give me all the details about where he was going or why we needed to leave, but he told me what he could. For the first time in my life, I feel like he lied to me. And it wasn’t just one lie. It was systematic… continuous. Every day I didn’t know I have an uncle was him lying to me. And it wasn’t just him. It was my mother, my grandparents. They all kept that from me. But why?
“I can’t be afraid of him. My mind can’t take the fear anymore. I want to know why I never knew about him and what it is about me that fascinates him so much. Let him come. If he wants me, let him find me.”
“Could it be your father?” Sam asks.
“What do you mean?”
“This is his brother. Could he be following you to try to get to your dad?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t start showing up until years after my father disappeared. And he would have noticed my father hasn’t been around. If he was after him, all it would have taken was a quick internet search, and he would have known. It’s not exactly a secret that my father is listed as a missing person, and I highly doubt he’s on some sort of righteousness quest to find out what happened to his long-lost brother. There’s a reason I was never told about him, and I need to know that reason,” I tell him.
Blinding headlights slice through the back window as Dean’s car pulls up behind us. I reac
h across the car and squeeze Sam’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He looks at me strangely.
“For what?”
“For everything that’s already happened. And in advance for anything that might.”
He leans to me and kisses me softly, then rests his forehead against mine.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for. All this is more than worth having you back in my life,” he says softly.
I can’t help but let out a mirthless laugh and shake my head.
“No, it’s not. But I really appreciate the sentiment,” I tell him.
We get out of the car as Dean pulls a thick satchel out of his car and comes toward us.
“There are lights on inside,” he says, nodding toward the house.
“Bellamy’s been keeping an eye on it,” I explain.
“I’d still feel better if you let me look around before you go in,” Sam says, reaching for his gun.
I take mine out of the harness at my hip.
“We’ll both look.”
The motion detectors flood the empty lawn and illuminate secure windows. Sam tests the back door and examines the ground around the foundation for footprints. When he’s satisfied, I unlock the door. It feels strange using the key Bellamy gave me rather than the one I carried around for so many years and is still hanging on my keychain.
“The lock looks new,” Dean says as if he’s reading my thoughts.
“It is,” I admit. “Bellamy had it changed after someone, probably my uncle, came in when no one was here.”
“When was the last time you changed the lock before that?” he asks.
I let out a breath and push the door open.
“It wasn’t changed since my father disappeared.” I hold up a hand as I walk into the living room. “I don’t need to hear it.” I turn around to face him. “I’m fully aware leaving the locks the same for that long isn’t safe. It’s not something I’d ever recommend anyone else do. But you don’t understand.”
“My mother went missing for four days when I was thirteen,” he replies without hesitation. “I left the back door unlocked because her keys were on the kitchen table next to a note from her. I wouldn’t have changed them, either.”