Their Last Secret

by Rick Mofina

  She said nothing and he took her hand. “Emma. I’m your husband.”

  “Why...” Emma began, stopped and resumed. “Why not do a book based in Sweden or Germany, or even here in the US.?”

  “Like I said, there were legal issues with those cases that my publisher wanted to avoid.” He was puzzled. “Why’re you anxious about the Canadian case?”

  “It just seems—I don’t know—it’s disturbing.”

  “It’s no more disturbing than the Swedish abductions or the cannibalistic butcher in Germany.”

  “I guess that with the young girls, girls not much younger than Kayla, than the kids I counsel, it’s just so distressing, you know? Ben, I’d be happier, relieved even, if you found another case to write about.”

  Ben thought for a moment. “Emma, I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? There are so many other cases.”

  “You’ve read my books. All of them have disturbing elements. I want you to read my outline, then you’ll have a better understanding of this case.”

  A long moment passed before Emma nodded, and for the rest of their walk she grappled with apprehension and dread.

  Ben’s going to Eternity. I can’t stop him. He’s going to find out about me. But if I tell him it could ruin him, Kayla, everything we have. She battled the overwhelming urge to trust in love and confess her past, to tell Ben everything, now.

  No, my identity is sealed. He’ll never find out. He’ll never know.

  Emma searched the forests, unable to push away her trepidation.

  But someone has already found out. And I can’t be sure Ben won’t find out because he’s good at what he does.

  With waves of desperation rolling over her, they came to the trail’s end at the parking lot. Tug barked and Emma was stopped in her tracks by what she saw in the distance.

  A man in a red shirt and khaki shorts had exited the trail they had been on, taking a shortcut through the trees directly to the cars. It looked like he’d been following them and was trying to get ahead of them to leave, unseen.

  He looked like the man Emma had seen a while ago at the beach.

  She told herself she was being silly, then saw that Ben’s eyes had narrowed as he zeroed in on the man.

  “I don’t know what’s up with that guy,” Ben said. “But I’m going to find out.”

  The man could be a reporter who’d somehow found her; her fears flared and swirled.

  What if he tells Ben everything here and now?

  Emma grabbed Ben’s arm.

  “Ben, no. Let’s just wait till he leaves, then go home.”

  The leash tightened. Tug threw a bark in the man’s direction as Ben started toward him.

  “I’m just going to talk to him, Emma.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  The man was at his sedan. He’d opened the driver’s door when they approached him.

  “Excuse me,” Ben said.

  The man turned to Ben and Emma. He was wearing dark glasses, looked to be in his early fifties with a trim, medium build.

  “Forgive me, but were you following us?”

  The stranger looked at Ben, then glanced at Emma.

  “No, gosh, no. Uhm, but you’re Benjamin Grant, the author?”

  “Yes.”

  “Del Brockway.” The man released a little laugh. “This is embarrassing, but I’m a huge fan and I missed you at the charity book sale. I’d read somewhere that you lived around here—that’s how I found you—and I wanted you to sign a couple of your books for me.”

  “So you tracked me down and followed me here?”

  “Weird dumb luck, I know, it’s embarrassing, and I’m sorry. I’m a collector and, well, I got thinking I should’ve just emailed you or got books signed in a store, rather than follow you to the park like this.”

  “So you did follow us?” Ben said.

  “I’m truly sorry. I got carried away, Mr. Grant. That’s why I changed my mind and was leaving, hoping you wouldn’t see me.”

  Ben looked into the car, noticed four of his hardcovers on the front seat.

  “Those the books?”

  “They are.”

  “How about I sign them for you, Del, and we’ll call it a day.”

  “Oh, would you? That would be great. I’m so sorry.”

  “Signed to Del, D-E-L?”

  “Yes, that would be fantastic,” the man said, reaching into his car for the books and a ballpoint pen for Ben, who handed Tug’s leash to Emma.

  Ben took the books and started signing them on the trunk of the car. At one point Ben dropped the pen and when he bent down to retrieve it the man turned to Emma.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Being married to him, you must see all kinds of people?”

  Emma saw herself reflected in his dark glasses when she smiled and nodded.

  “That’s a nice dog you’ve got. What’s his name?”

  “Tug.”

  Tug barked.

  “Good name,” the man said. “I’m really sorry to intrude like this.”

  “All done, Del,” Ben said.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Grant.”

  Brockway shook Ben’s hand, then collected the books, got into his car and drove away, leaving Ben, Emma and Tug in the lot.

  “That was strange,” Emma said.

  “It was. I meet all kinds. I don’t always like it but it comes with the turf.”

  Ben secretly glanced at his left palm, where he’d written down the man’s plate number. Then he took Tug’s leash from Emma.

  “Let’s go.”

  But Emma didn’t move.

  Ben stared at her.

  All the color was gone from her face.

  Fifty-Two

  Across the USA

  One week ago

  Lucy Lavenza looked out at the cities and towns floating by her window of the Greyhound bus.

  Since boarding at New York’s bus terminal, she’d been riding with ghosts. She’d also been riding with students, weirdos, drifters and assorted misfits, whom life had discarded. Traveling more than a day now, she’d lost count of the states she’d crossed—New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

  Were they in Georgia, coming up on Atlanta?

  At times Lucy’s journey felt like Dante’s descent into the eternal home of the damned, dragging her back to her life in Eternity, tormenting her with thoughts of her mother. The woman was a failure cursed with problems and sins she’d passed to Lucy. It’s the reason Lucy had turned to her friends for sanctuary.

  She’d bonded with her sisters.

  And they’d sealed their bond forever with their prayer and blood pact.

  As the bus wheels hummed on the asphalt, images from that night on Old Pioneer Road burned through her and suddenly...

  I’m awash with blood, so much blood, warm blood, hot blood and the screaming...

  But no one was supposed to tell.

  We were protected by the pact, with undying loyalty.

  But I was betrayed.

  The truth of what happened that night was rising. Ghosts were coming for her, forcing Lucy to clench her eyes.

  The time has come for me to set things right.

  Between sleeping and the rest stops, she devoured the material Devin had obtained for her, enough for what she’d needed. She’d read through it so many times, she’d almost committed it to memory. And what she read deepened her anger. The information fed her plan, and her plan had options, depending on how reality unfolded when she confronted it.

  Lucy was ready, ready to end the pain that was her life and collect what she was rightfully owed.

  With each mile her rage grew.

  * * *

  Again and again, Lucy changed buses—in At
lanta, New Orleans and finally in Shreveport.

  Her westbound bus left Louisiana to cut through the swamps, creek beds and deep pine-woods of East Texas before she got off in Lufkin.

  She went to The Splendid Rest Motor Inn, which charged thirty-five dollars a night.

  “We also offer hourly rates, if you like.” The clerk winked. “The pool’s just been repaired. We got a Long John Silver’s, Popeyes and McDonald’s down the street.”

  Lucy hefted her canvas bag over her shoulder, stepped from the office, passed the ice and vending machines, made her way to room 12. It smelled of disinfectant, had a fridge, TV, microwave and a crack in one wall from the floor to the ceiling. She dropped her bag on the bed, pulled out a few items, walked to McDonald’s, ate a Big Mac, then called for a cab.

  The cab took her to the edge of town. Lucy paid the driver. He grunted at the meager tip.

  She turned to the sign that greeted her, its letters weakened by weather, time and neglect.

  Welcome

  The Irma Mae Anson Mobile Home Community

  Walking along the potholed dirt road she surveyed the trailers, run-down with peeling paint and loose siding that flapped in the breeze. Some had older cars, or eviscerated pickup trucks resting on cinder blocks out front.

  She turned her head at the yip of dogs, three of them battling over trash strewn across the roadway, gnawing on bones. One of them stopped to assess Lucy, stiffening, preparing for battle if she was deemed a threat. She found a broken broom handle with a spear-like tip, ready to draw blood if she had to, until she passed unchallenged.

  Moving deeper into the park, noticing the occasional satellite dish, she checked numbers affixed to the trailers until she found #36.

  No vehicle was visible. It looked old, was a dirty shade of white with steel vertical siding and a metal roof. The front offered a small patch of grass, where flies circled fresh coils of excrement at the dirt edge.

  Coming around to the side, Lucy heard a ceramic clink, then noticed the woman tending the flower box on the rickety wooden porch landing.

  The woman looked from her work to Lucy.

  She was the same age, heavyset, cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth, lines carved into her face.

  She stared at Lucy, her eyes narrowed, her memory traveling through time, passing disbelief, before arriving at an agonizing truth, then alarm.

  The cigarette fell from her mouth.

  Lucy said, “Hello, Skull Sister.”

  Fifty-Three

  Cielo Valle, Orange County, California

  Present day

  Kayla was in the kitchen texting her friend Haley when her dad and Emma left to walk Tug in Sky Park.

  Got the house to myself. It’s now or never.

  After the door closed, she said goodbye to Haley and hurried upstairs to their bedroom. She checked her phone. It was fully charged. Good.

  I’ll go through Emma’s journal, photograph every page. I’ll read through them all, then decide what to do.

  Kayla reached the top of the stairs, that one phrase of Emma’s journal echoing in her head.

  “No one knows the truth about me, that I—”

  Kayla strode into the walk-in closet, went to Emma’s trunk, reached down, grasped the area rug and slid the whole deal aside. She pressed her heel down on the loose board, crouched and maneuvered her fingers along and then under its edge and then she removed the panel.

  She switched on the flashlight of her phone.

  Sweeping the dark, deep gap, Kayla gasped.

  There was nothing there.

  She got down on her stomach so she could lower the phone deeper into the gap, combed the darkness again and again—and found nothing.

  Her breathing stirred the dust, it whirled in the light.

  Oh my God, Emma must know. When the rubber band broke, she must’ve suspected something and moved it.

  Beads of sweat pooled on Kayla’s forehead.

  Stay calm. Be cool. Think.

  Fifty-Four

  Lufkin, Texas

  One week ago

  Slowly crushing out her cigarette under her sneaker, the woman in the trailer park continued staring at Lucy.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Not important, Rita. That’s your name now, right? Rita Ruth Purvis?”

  The woman’s expression told Lucy she was correct.

  Rita Purvis looked at her for a long time, then said: “Turn around and go back to where you came from.”

  “We need to talk.”

  Rita walked down from the porch and stood within inches of Lucy. Her voice barely above a whisper, she said: “You’re breaking the law coming here like this. I don’t want to go back to prison.”

  Lucy released a little laugh. “Look around. Who’s going to know?”

  Staring into Lucy’s eyes sent Rita back through time, over an ocean of sorrow before returning her to the here and now. “Why did you come? What do you want?”

  Lucy raised her hand and opened her palm to reveal a skull ring. “Take it.”

  Rita leaned back and shook her head.

  “Come on, it’s for you. Take it and we’ll talk.”

  The sudden savage yapping of dogs carried across the park raising a prickling at the back of Rita’s neck.

  “Take it, Rita, and I promise, together we’ll make everything right.”

  * * *

  The trailer was a twenty-five-year-old single-wide that smelled of cigarettes, beer and gloom.

  It was clean. Barren and tidy with linoleum flooring and outdated paneled walls. They went to the living room with its coffee table and two small faux leather sofas. Rita set the ring on the table next to an ashtray, then sat on one sofa while Lucy sat on the other. A couple of canvas landscapes of the twenty-buck variety from Walmart were on the walls. No photos of people anywhere.

  The place exuded an aching emptiness.

  As the air conditioner rattled in one of the side windows, the two murderers took inventory of each other and what time had done.

  “I’m sure you changed your name, too,” Rita said.

  “That’s what people in our situation do.”

  “What is it?”

  “Lucy.”

  “Lucy.” Rita reached over the sofa to the end table for a pack of Marlboros, took one out, lit it and turned the pack to Lucy, who accepted one and the book of matches. Fanning out the match and tossing it in the ashtray, Lucy’s gaze went to the pale scars on Rita’s inner wrists and lower forearms.

  “Has life been kind to you, Rita?”

  Rita blew out a stream of smoke. “What do you think?”

  “How many times did you try?” Lucy nodded at the scars.

  Tears stinging, Rita shook her head and searched the ceiling.

  “Once after I got out. Then I was a flag woman working with a highway crew near Kicking Horse in British Columbia. Went out to a bar with the guys, and two of them raped me in the alley. Quit that job, lived on the street, got into drugs and tried once again in a shelter.”

  She flicked ash in the tray.

  “Then I drifted, crap job to crap job, met a trucker from Tulsa. Percy. He was nice. At first. Married him and moved to Oklahoma, even got citizenship. Then one night Percy beat me more than usual. I was in the process of leaving him when he was killed.”

  She dragged and winced in a smoke cloud.

  “Car hit him when he was checking his tires near Memphis. That was bittersweet. Percy left me with debts. They took what he had, the truck, the house and whatever savings, left me with this place. Never knew he had it. Used to be his mom’s before she died. I live here on food stamps and part-time work cleaning motel rooms.”

  “And you live without hope.”

  Rita’s eyes narrowed. “Screw you. Who the hell’re you to judge
me?”

  “I’m your sister, Rita. Remember? No kids?”

  Rita dragged hard on her smoke. “Daughter. Tara.”

  “A daughter?” Lucy looked around as if Tara would appear.

  Rita shook her head. “She drowned in the tub when she was ten months old. Percy was watching her and was drinking, got careless. I was at bingo. He said it was my fault and beat me.” Rita stubbed out her cigarette, then looked at Lucy. “What about you? I’m thinking you ain’t won no lotteries.”

  For the next ten minutes Lucy recounted her pain-filled life since completing her sentence for the murders.

  “So it’s been no bed of roses for you, either.” Rita shook her head. “And how’re you going to ‘make things right’?”

  “I found our other sister.”

  “You found her?”

  “Just like I found you. But I’ve come to you first.”

  Lucy reached into her bag for one of her burner phones, the good one, and began showing Rita a sampling of photos.

  “Do you know who she’s married to?” Lucy swiped to a photo. “Him.”

  “Who is he?” Rita said.

  “Some famous author.”

  “Really? But how did she—” Rita stared at Lucy, a new question dawning, then answered. “He doesn’t know about her.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, well, well. That’s just—wow, I don’t know what that is.”

  Lucy put her phone away.

  “I’ll tell you what it is, Rita. It’s wrong. She betrayed me. Now, you didn’t betray me, did you?”

  Rita didn’t answer, finding something icy, something decided, something dead, behind Lucy’s eyes. Rita swallowed.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But our sister in California betrayed us. And for twenty years, while we’ve been burning in hell, look how she’s been living. She never gave a damn about us, never tried to find us, to help us, living like she’s better than us. It makes her just like the Tullocks in Eternity.”

  “The Tullocks,” Rita repeated before looking away. “All these years, I think if only Connie Tullock hadn’t said what she said to us that night, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But she just had to prove how goddamned superior she was and then it was like a bomb going off for us.” Covering her mouth with her hand, she blinked several times. “I see them all the time you know.”