“I don’t want anything left,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to see the photos.”
So Vorst did keep incriminating items here. Photos, at least.
“If he brought you here, he probably brought a lot of kids here. Is that what you saw in the photos?”
Ruth watched Caleb, whose eyes were squeezed shut like he was waiting for a punishment he’d forgotten he’d have to endure.
“I don’t want anyone else to see the stuff he has. Not of me, not of any of the other kids. I just want it all gone.”
“No one will have to see it except the police and maybe a judge and lawyers.”
Ruth had her phone out to dial 911. She’d had weak service a moment ago, but now there were no bars. No way to call in or out, to text Scott or Reece. She paused, watching Caleb step out of the car and go directly to the side of the cabin. He paused next to a grill, bent down and picked up a rectangular white container.
“No, Caleb!”
He was already heading toward the cabin’s front door with the lighter fluid tipped and dribbling when she caught up and pushed him from behind. They both sprawled.
He rolled away from her, looking up, incredulous.
Ruth grabbed for the container. Still on her knees, she righted it. There was still fuel inside.
Caleb yelled, “Why’d you do that?”
He covered his face with his hands, trying to hold in breathless sobs. “I thought you were going to help.”
“I am helping.”
She sat back on her haunches, waiting for him to get control of himself. “I don’t want you to get into even more trouble. Caleb, you need to get out of here. Get home or go anywhere else you feel safe.”
“You just needed me to drive you here!”
“I promise you, I’ll take care of this.”
He glared at her, but his red eyes held more exhaustion than hate.
The sky was already deepening to a cobalt that was still a few shades away from navy, pricked with stars. It would be a clear, cold night. In the far distance, on the highway visible across stubbly fields, the winking headlights of passing cars could be seen.
“You see all those cars? We start a fire while there’s still light, and there’ll be cop cars turning up here in a couple minutes. They’ll find us. They’ll find you.”
“There’s always a reason not to do something. You’re just stalling. That’s your game.”
“It’s not. Listen, Caleb. They’ll probably put the damn thing out right away. It’s not so easy to start a fire. You said it yourself. All those photos you don’t want anyone to see. They’re still going to be here.”
He mumbled something unintelligible.
“But if I wait an hour,” Ruth said, “it’ll be pitch-black out here, and no one will see the smoke start to rise. Rush hour will be over. The neighbors are far away. The trick is a small, slow burn in the dark, so that it’s too big to stop before anyone notices.”
Caleb’s chin dropped to his chest. He hiccupped like a child, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “He comes here every Friday night, so you can’t wait too long.”
“I’ll time it right. Trust me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Promise me,” she said, “that you’ll drive straight home and stay safe.” She didn’t mean to lie. But she wouldn’t be doing things according to Caleb’s plan. And still, the biggest problem was that she couldn’t make sure Caleb wouldn’t run back to school or make trouble elsewhere.
She looked at her phone. One bar. She started typing a text to Reece. When she was done, she looked at Caleb again.
“Reece knows everything. Go to his house. He’ll hide you. That’s the most important thing. If the cops find you, you’ll be out of options. If you can stay hidden and regroup, with help, you can figure out the rest.”
She saw a new flicker in his eyes. Caleb trusted Reece.
52
Ruth
Vorst had just fit his key into the knob when Ruth, standing ten feet behind him, grunted. “Hey.”
He looked over his shoulder, then cocked his head, registering her shape and the object in her hands.
Given the racket of her chattering teeth, she was amazed he hadn’t heard her sooner. She pointed the revolver at him with both hands, trembling from the cold and adrenaline.
She’d been rehearsing this moment in her mind since Caleb had driven away ninety or more minutes ago. Watching more stars appear and the distant traffic increase to its peak, then slowly begin to thin out again, hearing the faint breeze stir the last remaining leaves on the creaky limbs of the oak tree. She’d never had any interest in arson. Too easy.
“Hey,” she said again. “Stay where you are.”
“Do I know you?”
“Yes,” she said, forcing a deep breath into her lungs. She’d had a whole speech planned. Several speeches. But first, she had to suppress her shivering, which was making the heavy gun at the end of her outstretched arms wiggle and dance.
“You’re my neighbor,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice, as if this were a normal scene: a woman ready to shoot a man as he was entering his weekend getaway. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m Kennidy’s sister,” she said.
He nodded.
And now she could say it. The words she had planned for the last hour, and for years.
“Open the cabin door.”
They sat around his kitchen table, forearms resting on sticky placemats opposite each other, bowl of walnuts between them. She kept the gun in her hand, barrel pointed at his face, stock resting on the table’s surface.
“Bologna sandwich?” he asked.
“I’m not here to eat.”
He’d been offering her things since they’d walked inside: hot tea, cocoa, a beer, potato chips. Bathroom? A heavier jacket? Washcloth for the blood on her cheek and neck?
She did allow him to turn on the space heater. Only that.
Once seated, she had started the trial for which she would be judge, jury and executioner: “You abused my sister. She trusted you as a coach. You molested her. Raped her. And in her misery after all that, she killed herself.”
“You left out the part about me helping your mother, by selling her the house at a bargain-basement price,” he said, still tranquil, after she’d talked until her words ran dry. “Which helped her tremendously. It was always her dream to own a house. Did you know that?”
When Vorst started to reach forward, she held the gun an inch higher. He slowed his movement but didn’t stop, fingers continuing to move toward the nut bowl, sliding the nutcracker out of a slot on the bowl’s side.
“Oh, wait,” he added. “But that’s the only part that’s true. Because everything you said before, about Kennidy, is garbage. You have a dirty mind, darlin’.”
Just calling her darlin’ almost felt like enough reason to shoot. But she maintained her composure. “I know my mother made a deal with you. To not report the rape in exchange for you cutting the sale price.”
He reached for the bowl, extracted a nut and placed it between the jaws of the nutcracker. Ruth would have been more jittery at the DMV than he was now. “You’re mistaken. And you’re too nice a girl—woman—to be pointing a gun at somebody. Gwen always said so. She said you were the good one, the smart one. Kennidy was the slut.”
Ruth flinched. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“But we can’t. Your mother fully expected your sister to be a single mom someday, poor and with some kid on her hands, unable to support herself, just like Gwen was with you. With both of you, come to think of it. She was pretty disappointed with herself by the end. Which is why,” he stopped to pop a piece of walnut into his mouth, “she was actually relieved I’d taken an interest in Ken.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘an interest,’ And
don’t call her Ken.”
“I thought your sister might do well in college. Your mom said she couldn’t afford to help her get there once Ken wrecked her sports scholarship chances in her junior year. I asked Gwen, ‘But what if you had mortgage payments lower than your rent? Then couldn’t you make it work? This was before the cancer, of course.”
“If this was some kind of act of kindness, why were you arguing with my mother by email before you agreed on the house price?”
“I was being nice for Ken’s sake, not Gwen’s. I got irritated with Gwen on occasion. She was weak.” A faraway look was in his eyes. “She’d let Ken take off and go to parties, skip her homework. None of that was going to get her into college. Truth was, Gwen also wanted to keep Ken around, not let her develop. Admittedly,” he smiled patiently, “it wasn’t my job to tell someone how to parent.”
None of this was going the way Ruth had planned. She wasn’t naïve enough to expect him to admit every detail of his crimes, but she had hoped for some kind of meltdown. She’d expected him to beg for either life or death. She wasn’t sure if she would give him what he wanted, but she would let him beg. Let him break.
Only he wasn’t breaking. He didn’t even look rattled.
Ruth gripped the gun tighter, wondering how she would know the right time to pull the trigger. It was like standing at the edge of a diving board, negotiating with yourself, trying to decide when to jump. Maybe they shouldn’t have had this conversation. Maybe she should have just shot him in the back as they were entering the cabin. Her desire to fully know, to ask questions and get answers, had gotten in the way of her primary objective: to erase him from the face of the earth.
“You’ve done this to lots of kids,” she said. “I know about Caleb.”
“Caleb?” Vorst’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes, I helped him make the transition from soccer to cross-country running—the same transition Ken made, after she got kicked off the team. I took him out for training when his parents wouldn’t let him attend the normal after-school sessions.”
“That’s why he’d love to punch you in the face. And worse.”
“I’d drive to a trailhead on the weekend, challenge him to get out there in the fresh air, forget about teammates and anyone else’s expectations. To just do his own personal best. He’d shake off the bad week. He’d start running.”
An idling car, a young runner heading into the forest—Ruth could see it. She imagined the thin legs moving into ever-deeper woods, legs that could be Kennidy’s, or Caleb’s or anyone’s. She saw feet bounding over logs, the nervous motion of a head checking over a shoulder. She felt the breath of the pursuer, closing on the pursued.
“I’d meet him at the opposite trailhead,” Vorst said, “ready with a warm car, Gatorade, and when he’d beaten his previous best time, a hug.”
Sometimes we run toward those who hurt us, not away from them. Ruth had understood this, but not fully, because she hadn’t wanted to. She couldn’t bear to imagine Kennidy, Caleb or anyone else trying to earn this man’s warped affections.
“Was that the problem?” Vorst said, looking concerned for the first time since they’d sat down. “The hug? Something he wasn’t used to getting at home?”
“A hug,” she scoffed.
“I massaged his hamstring once when it was injured. And yes, he may have gotten—sorry—an erection. Which isn’t uncommon. I used to do more massages and manipulations on student athletes, but in this climate of mistrust—best to avoid the whole mess, I’d counsel the next generation.”
Vorst misinterpreted the look of disgust on Ruth’s face.
“That’s right. These days, you can’t even touch a student athlete—not even to treat an injury—without risking your reputation. When Caleb got excited, I didn’t say anything. It would have made him feel even worse. And he didn’t say anything, of course. But if it led him to feel ashamed, to imagine scenarios that might provide a cover for that shame, then I can understand his present confusion. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Ruth shook her head. She thought of Annie confronting the Wolf. He had been so debased, so miserable. He had wept. He had wanted an end to his misery. He had begged Annie to shoot him.
“You’re dying of leukemia,” Ruth said.
“True.”
“You could be dead soon.”
“There was a one in four chance I’d make it to five years, and I’ve done that, but how much longer? The odds aren’t great. But I still have good days.”
“Why don’t you just admit it, then.”
Vorst stared at her: lids heavy, eyes dry.
Ruth said, “Admit that you’ve molested children.”
“I have helped hundreds—no, thousands—of children. I have dated a few young women who probably shouldn’t have been hanging around with someone as old as me—it’s true. I’ve molested no one.”
Ruth remembered the night driving, the music and the smokes and the whiskey, the sight of Kennidy in front of the headlights, swinging the golf club.
“I came to this cabin with my sister, back when you and she . . .”
He was focusing now, squinting, nodding almost imperceptibly—and that felt good to Ruth, because he seemed to be listening and trying to remember. He couldn’t deny something she had been part of. He couldn’t weave a whole new fable around something she had experienced.
“She broke your garden gnome,” Ruth continued. “Because she was pissed off at something you’d done.”
Vorst’s face relaxed. “Oh, yes.”
“And?”
“Your sister had a big heart—easily moved to romantic notions and easily broken. Not because of something I’d done, but because of something I wouldn’t do. Are you getting my drift?” A whisper of a grin crossed his face. “Your sister had a crush on me. You spend a lot of time with students as a coach or a mentor. You fill an empty space. Young people get the wrong idea. It happens.”
“But somehow an unrequited ‘crush’ led to a visit to a hospital emergency room just weeks later?”
“Poor girl.” Vorst shook his head yet again. “Nothing to do with me.”
“She came back here because you had something of hers. My sister was no pushover. She probably put up more resistance than some of your other victims.”
“She came back,” he said, “because she needed a real adult to help her. You know what we used to talk about? College. Scholarships. If none of that panned out, maybe finding work up north.”
“But only if she’d do the other things you wanted.”
“You’ve got no reason to be assuming that, and neither will anyone else.”
“Let me make this clearer,” Ruth said, feeling her jaw stiffen. “I am going to shoot you in the head, whether you admit it or not. So this is your chance to come clean.”
He stared at her again. Slowly, apologetically, he began to shake his head. “You’ve got the wrong idea, darlin’.”
The pressure sat on her chest. Nothing was going the way she’d pictured it. “I want you to imagine yourself dying.”
“That’s why I’m not afraid of you. That’s why I’m not going to lie to you. Because I’m going to my grave with a clean conscience. Because I never did anything wrong to a single boy or girl, and in fact, I have a record so clean that the moment I tell police about this night, you are going to be looking at some real problems. You have a made a very big mistake coming here, Miss McClintock.”
It was late. She’d let him get up once, to make them coffee and bring out a bag of Oreos. Then they’d sat back down at the table. After a while, he’d gestured to a folded newspaper on a sideboard, and she’d let him take it and spread it out on the table to read to buy more time as she continued to sit, watching him eat as he read, the cookie crumbs falling into the grout between the table’s white tiles. The gun was still in her hand.
Ruth wasn�
��t sure how to extract herself from this situation. Vorst had a story and a way of telling it that might persuade any judge or jury. If she let him go, he wouldn’t run, he’d stand tall. People would believe him.
She thought she heard the wind picking up outside, but it was hard to tell with her messed-up ear and the rising and falling static that sizzled even in the good one. Looking out the window, she thought she saw a faint glimmer. She covered her good eye: no glimmer. She covered her bad one: a spark or flash, a bright white light, then blackness again.
Caleb wasn’t one to talk. He’d be a terrible witness, if it came to that. Kennidy’s rape kit had been destroyed long ago. Ruth felt increasingly certain that Van Vorst would never pay for anything he’d done.
And now, after two cups of coffee, she desperately had to piss.
“I really need to go.” Somehow, he knew she didn’t mean leave.
“As do I,” Vorst said, folding the newspaper.
“You first,” she said.
She stood and followed him to the bathroom, waiting outside the closed door, just to send him the message that he still wasn’t off the hook.
He stayed in there long enough to make her anxious. She wandered a few steps away toward his bookcases, wondering what kind of books a man like Van Vorst read. Think and Grow Rich. Build a Better Birdfeeder. On the next shelf: The Next Person You Meet in Heaven.
She ran a finger across the clamshell cases of old videotapes, mostly from the 1990s and early 2000s: Disney, Americana, football movies, Christmas classics. The Patriot, Remember the Titans; Elf, The Santa Clause.
She thought of Caleb and his mention of photos. She looked for a scrapbook or box of some kind, but saw only more old movies, more books about investing or church. She idly pulled one of the videos out of its slot, opening one clamshell case, and then another.
Below the cassettes was a drawer. She pulled it open: empty. No one had an empty drawer unless he was reorganizing.
She opened the deeper drawer beneath it. On the top was a shallow tray, full of flash drives: maybe a hundred. She flicked one aside with her fingers and saw through the bottom of the mesh tray what looked like an outline of a human figure, like a young model posing for an old-fashioned Sears catalog.
Annie and the Wolves Page 34