Relic

by Gretchen McNeil

  “Are you okay?” he asks after a pause. “I mean, after what you saw.”

  “I have something to tell you,” I say, taking charge of the conversation. The last thing I want to do is talk feelings with my dad.

  He stabs a meatball with his fork. “Shoot.”

  “I accidentally took something from Weller’s crime scene.”

  “You did what?” Bits of sauce and ground beef splatter across the table and his fork clatters to the plate. He manages to swallow, then repeats his question. “You did what?”

  I can’t even look him in the eye. “I . . . I didn’t realize it at the time. There was this book on the floor in Weller’s living room. Just sitting there. So I picked it up. I was holding it when I found the body, and I just . . .” I let my voice trail off, hoping my dad will fill in the blanks.

  “You were in shock,” he says at last. “Where’s the book now?”

  Without a word, I dash into my bedroom and return with the thin volume, the faux cover carefully placed on top, and hand it to him. “The cover is for a book called Flora and Fauna of Shasta County, but there’s actually a scrapbook underneath it.”

  “Okay.” He lifts the cover and flips through a few pages.

  “It seems to be a record of unexplained deaths around the lake.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “You read it?”

  Dammit. I should have just played dumb about the contents. Too late now. “Yeah.”

  “Jack too?”

  What does Jack have to do with this? “Yeah.”

  “I see.” Then, much to my horror, he closes the book and pushes it away. “I’ll have it checked for fingerprints, though I’m sure you’ve obliterated any if they existed.” He looks up at me, and his face softens as he misinterprets the look of confusion on my face. “You shouldn’t have touched anything in that house, Annie, but I understand how it happened. Thankfully, it’s not evidence.”

  “Not evidence?” I blurt out. “Dad, you have to read what’s in there. Weller has accounts of other mummified bodies found in the area, and each time—”

  “Annie,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “This is a police investigation. It’s none of your concern.”

  “None of my concern? I found the body.”

  “And you’ve told us everything you know about it, which means your role in this case is finished.”

  Why is he being so obstinate? “But, Dad—”

  “I’m serious, Annie. This case is . . . well, there’s something vicious about the murder of Deputy Weller. I don’t want you anywhere near it, understand?”

  I open my mouth to argue, but I’m saved the effort when his cell phone rings.

  “Kramer.” As he listens, I see my dad’s face harden and his brow wrinkle up. It’s the second time today I’ve seen that look on his face. “Leaving now.”

  “Dad, what is it?”

  He shakes his head as he grabs the belt with his service weapon from the kitchen counter and pulls his car keys from the hook near the back door. He looks me right in the eye. “I’ll be back late. Stay in the house. I don’t want you going anywhere.”

  I sit on the bar stool staring at the notebook. My dad dismissed Weller’s collection out of hand without even looking at it, which is totally unlike him. He’s a meticulous detective with a reputation for following every lead, and here’s an important one presented to him on a silver platter and he won’t even consider it? Maybe I can change his mind.

  Maybe.

  I sigh, and retrieve my phone from my room, hoping I’ve missed a text or call from Jack. I don’t like the way things ended when he dropped me off—a tense conversation, a reluctant kiss, a hasty good-bye—and I’m disappointed when I see he hasn’t been in touch.

  But the moment I place the phone on the kitchen counter, it vibrates. Unfortunately, the incoming text is from Sonya.

  Deputy Weller is dead?

  Dammit.

  Annie, are you there? Are you sleeping? Are you still with Jack?

  I can’t avoid this forever. My reply is simple.

  Yeah, he’s dead.

  If she’s illegally logged into the database, she already knows it’s an active murder investigation. Maybe that will deter her from asking more questions.

  No such luck.

  And you and Jack found the body?

  We’re accessories to a murder.

  We have to tell our parents about the trip. It’s important.

  My mom’s going to kill me.

  Your dad’s going to kill us both.

  A man is dead and I’m worried about getting in trouble? I’m as bad as the killer!

  I can practically hear that squeaky little breathing thing she does when she’s getting all worked up. The last thing I need right now is a Sonya meltdown. I hit the phone symbol next to her name and don’t even have to wait a full ring before she picks up.

  “What are we going to do?” Sonya cries, her voice significantly higher-pitched than usual.

  “Calm down,” I say, trying to take my own advice. For some reason, my heart is racing.

  “Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down?”

  I grab Weller’s scrapbook and head into the living room, tossing it onto the coffee table.

  “What was that?” Sonya cries. “Was that a gunshot?”

  Now she’s being ridiculous. “Of course not. I just dropped something.”

  “Oh.” She almost sounds disappointed. “Is it true that you and Jack were at Weller’s house? That you discovered the body?”

  I sigh. “Yes, but—”

  “What were you doing there?”

  I briefly explain Weller’s call. When I’m done, she doesn’t say a word, but I think I can hear her whimpering on the other end. “Son, I doubt Deputy Weller’s death had—”

  “Murder,” she corrected.

  I refuse to feed her paranoia. “I doubt it had anything to do with what happened to us this weekend,” I lie.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  From Rob or Jack or even Frankie, the F-bomb would merely be an emphatic adverb, but from Sonya, who swears so rarely I wasn’t even sure she knew how, it feels like a punch in the gut.

  “He’s expecting you at his house and then he’s found murdered. You really think that has nothing to do with us?”

  “Um . . .” I have Jack, who refuses to see the connection, and Sonya, who refuses not to.

  “I mean, what do you think is going on here, Annie?”

  That’s the second time I’ve been asked that question, and then, as now, I’m not exactly sure how to respond. Thankfully, I’m spared from answering by another call coming through on my phone.

  “It’s Jack on the other line,” I say. “Can you hold for a minute?”

  “That’s weird,” she says, her voice closer to its normal pitch. “Terrence is calling me too.”

  Awesome. Maybe he can calm her down. “I’ll call you right back.” I switch over to Jack. “What’s up?”

  “I’m picking you up in sixty seconds.” I can hear his engine revving in the background. “Be outside.”

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “It’s Greer. She’s been attacked.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I SIT ON THE SOFA IN ROB’S REC ROOM, MESSENGER BAG clasped tightly against my body, waiting for Sonya and Terrence to arrive.

  Beside me, Jack leans forward, elbows resting on his thighs, eyes fixed on a spot on the carpet. Frankie is curled up in an easy chair, knees hugged to her chest, head propped up by an overstuffed cushion. Her face is turned away from us, but I caught a glimpse when we arrived, and it looked as if her eyes were puffy. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’m surprised.

  There’s a clanking of metal from behind the bar followed by the fizz of escaping air as Rob opens a beer. He leans back, nervously gulping every few seconds while he stares absently through the sliding glass door into the darkened backyard. After a few minutes, he lifts the bottle to his mouth and tilts his hea
d back, then, realizing it’s empty, he tosses it into the sink and opens the minifridge for a replacement.

  Jack’s head snaps up at the sound of the refrigerator door. “Grab me one.”

  Without a word, Rob tosses a bottle to Jack who snatches it from the air. He hooks the cap on the edge of the coffee table, and with one fluid motion, he smacks the palm of his hand against it and the cap pops off. Judging by the dozens of grooves in the wooden table, this isn’t the first time it’s been used as a bottle opener.

  Jack takes a heavy swig of the beer, chugging like a parched man who hasn’t seen water in days, then wipes his lips with the back of his hand. His features are drawn, but no longer pinched like they were earlier, when he dropped me off.

  “How’s your headache?” I ask.

  Jack glances at me. “Hmm?”

  “Your headache. The one you had when we drove home.”

  He grimaces. “Gone, thankfully.”

  “Oh, good.”

  I don’t like how forced our conversation feels. There’s a tension between us, one I’ve never felt before, and I’ve gone to that dark place where I assume he’s having second thoughts about us.

  I sigh, appalled by my own callousness. Greer was attacked in her bedroom today, and here I am worrying about my relationship? I’m the worst friend ever.

  Rob filled us in on the details when we arrived and the story was horrifying. Graham had been over here in Rob’s rec room playing the new Assassin’s Creed all afternoon while Greer had been home alone, their parents at work. Around dinnertime, Graham’s mom had called his cell in a panic. She’d found Greer facedown on the floor of her bedroom, her head smashed in from behind. No one knew how long she’d been there, but she was still alive, if barely, and the EMTs had rushed her to the ER.

  Two people we know attacked in the same day. That’s what I should be focused on, not my insecurity about my boyfriend.

  Maybe.

  I’m considering breaking the silence again, just to appease my own nerves, when the doorbell does it for me. Jack rockets off the sofa and sprints upstairs, returning moments later with Sonya and Terrence in tow. The latter carries a black box, which he sets down on the bar.

  I recognize it immediately. “A police scanner?”

  “Yep,” Terrence says.

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I ask, glancing at Sonya. I expect her to be jittery, anxious, biting her nails with an unholy fervor, but she looks cool and together, significantly more so than I am.

  “Only if you use it to assist in the commission of a criminal offense,” Terrence says, sounding very much like he’s quoting a California Penal Code. “Or to avoid or escape arrest.”

  I suddenly realize why Terrence was calling Sonya. “That’s how you found out about the attack.”

  Before he can answer, Frankie pushes herself up in the chair. “Have they arrested anyone?”

  Jack retakes his seat on the sofa. “Yeah, T-Man. Tell us what you know.” His hand finds mine and he laces our fingers together. In an instant, all the tension and strangeness between us evaporates.

  “Not much,” Terrence says. He switches the scanner on and sets the volume to low. In the background, I can hear the pop and sizzle of radio units communicating with the station and one another. “I was just listening to see if there was anything new on the Cooper case, when I heard they’d found another body.”

  Frankie gasps. “She’s dead?”

  “No, no,” Terrence says quickly. “Not Greer.”

  Ah, so that’s how Sonya knew. “Deputy Weller was murdered,” I say. Better to get it all out at once. Like vomit.

  “What?” Rob cries.

  “Yep,” Terrence says, then nods at Jack and me. “And these two found the body.”

  “Details,” Rob demands. “Stat.”

  Frankie holds up her hand. “I want to hear about Greer first.”

  Terrence shrugs. “She’s in the ICU, critical condition.”

  “Will she survive?” I ask, my throat constricting around the last word. It suddenly feels raw and parched. I reach for Jack’s beer and take a heavy sip.

  “I don’t know,” Terrence says gravely. “She was struck on the head repeatedly. And . . .” His voice falters and all the color drains out of his face.

  “And what?” Frankie asks.

  Terrence looks to Sonya, whose lower lip is trembling. “There are, um, marks on her head. Around the wound. And her hair is torn away. They . . . they say it was as if someone was trying to break open her skull.”

  “Holy shit,” Rob says.

  My hand flies to my mouth. I can feel the recently swallowed beer rocket up the back of my throat, my stomach contracting as I realize the full horror of Greer’s attack. The room tilts as an image of her battered skull juxtaposes against Deputy Weller’s mutilated corpse—eyeballs ripped from their sockets, jaw broken, tongue cut away. I push myself unsteadily to my feet and spin around, pinning my lips together so I don’t puke all over the sofa, then I race to the bathroom.

  Jack’s fingers sweep across my neck as he pulls my hair away. His other hand is on my back, rubbing in slow circles as I continue to dry heave, hunched over the toilet. I’m not sure at what point the vomiting turned into uncontrollable sobbing, but eventually I’m able to straighten up and lean against the sink. I wash out my mouth, then splash some water on my face.

  “I’m okay,” I say, preempting Jack’s question. “I just . . .”

  “It’s been a fucked-up day.” He slips his arms around my waist and hugs me from behind. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  I look into the mirror. My eyes are puffy and red, just like Frankie’s, and my pale freckled skin has a greenish pallor to it. “I look like death.” Then I cringe, remembering Greer. “My God, I’m such an asshole.”

  Jack’s chin rests on my shoulder and he closes his eyes as he presses his cheek against mine. “She’s not dead,” he whispers. “I’m sure she’s going to pull through this.”

  “It’s happening again. Just like Deputy Weller predicted.”

  He tenses. “Annie—”

  But I don’t want to hear him try and reason me out of this. “An unexplained mummy, someone who’s been missing for years, followed by not one but two mutilated bodies.”

  “They might not be related.” He’s trying to be calm and soothing, but his stubbornness is pissing me off. I turn to face him.

  “But what if they are? Do we wait until there are more bodies? More deaths? Will those murders be on our heads?” Or worse. “Someone got to Greer already. Will one of us be next?”

  Jack winces. “What are we supposed to do?”

  I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that doing nothing will result in another corpse. “Let’s tell them about the book. See what they think.” Part of me is hoping that Jack is right, and that I’m the only one who sees the pattern. I’d much rather be wrong this time.

  Jack gazes down at me. His eyes droop, and his dimples have all but disappeared. “Okay,” he says softly. “Then we’ll all decide what to do.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I LET JACK TELL THE STORY. HE RUNS QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY through the blow-by-blow of our visit to Deputy Weller’s cabin, including the pertinent details. When he gets to the part where I realized I’d defaced a crime scene, Sonya gasps.

  “You took it?”

  “It was an accident,” I say. “I was in shock.”

  Sonya’s not listening. “You realize you broke the law, right?”

  “Technically, you’re an accessory to murder,” Terrence adds.

  “Yeah, thanks, T-Man,” Jack says curtly. “We know.”

  “I already told my dad about it,” I say, irritated at being lectured on police procedure by a crazy conspiracy theorist. “He hasn’t arrested me.”

  Terrence points at me. “Yet.”

  “What’s in it?” Frankie asks. “What’s so important about the book?”

  “I . . .” Jack stalls.

  Th
is is the part of the story he’s not completely sold on. It’s up to me to explain things. I grab the book from my messenger bag and open it on the coffee table.

  “You still have it?” Sonya squeals.

  I ignore her. “Apparently, Deputy Weller has been researching deaths in and around the area, dating back to before the dam was built.”

  “Why?” Rob asks.

  They’re not going to believe you either. I flip through the book and give them a rough sketch of Deputy Weller’s theories, from the mummies, to the mysterious Malcolm Hockler, to the bizarre pattern of deaths, and even the legend of the Man of Squaw Creek.

  “Told you,” Terrence says, smiling smugly. “He’s totally real.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Frankie says, significantly less impressed with my tale than Terrence is. “You expect us to believe that Greer was attacked by some legendary monster that stalks the lake?”

  Kinda. “No,” I lie. I’m not sure if I’ve already made that leap in my mind, but as a cop’s daughter, I definitely feel the pull toward a logical explanation. “I’m just saying that Deputy Weller’s death and Greer’s attack might be connected to that fisherman we met on the island.”

  “The one who magically turned into a mummy two days later?”

  “Um . . .” You’re not making things better. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you think the cops will look for a less bat-shit-crazy solution?” Frankie says, narrowing her eyes. “Like maybe one of us attacked her?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sonya says, laughing nervously. “Why would they think we’re suspects?”

  I glare at Frankie. “I can’t vouch for you, but I know none of my friends are murderers.”

  Frankie shrugs. “Makes more sense than telling them a monster did it.”

  “She’s right,” Rob says, lacing his fingers behind his neck. I’m pretty sure this is the first time in history he’s agreed with Frankie. “Even if the cops don’t arrest us, they’re going to laugh in our faces if we bring this to them.”

  I purse my lips. “I know all of this sounds crazy. I don’t believe half of it myself.” Don’t you? “But you have to admit—there’s something weird going on.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Frankie rockets to her feet. “Greer almost died. Someone tried to murder her. Not a thing. Not a ghost. A real, live person. So if you’re trying to tell me that her attacker is the same psychopath who killed Deputy Weller, then you’ll need a better story than ‘a monster did it,’” she says, using air quotes, “because that’s just fucking crazy, okay?”