Their Last Secret

by Rick Mofina

  “Dad, are you so blinded by your love for her that you aren’t hearing me?” Kayla bit her bottom lip. “Dad I think she’s got...the other day I found—”

  Kayla’s seat belt cut into her as Ben slammed the brakes and tires screeched. A little girl, pink helmet aglow, on a wobbling two-wheeler had sailed from a driveway directly into their path. Ben had stopped the SUV in time as she made it safely across the street, dismounted, sat down and sobbed.

  A frantic woman holding a palm to Ben blurred by them to comfort the girl. Amid the wisps of smoke and acrid burning rubber, Ben got out, checked on and consoled the woman and the girl, with Kayla standing over them, shaken and hugging herself.

  Tragedy averted.

  “Thank heaven, thank heaven!” The mother said over and over as she and her daughter, eyes filled with tears, returned to their home.

  The incident had pierced them with gut-churning memories of their own tragedy years ago.

  Some minutes later Ben and Kayla, rattled by the close call, drove home in silence—their differences unresolved.

  Fifty-Eight

  Cielo Valle, Orange County, California

  Present day

  Night.

  Alone in the dark and they came.

  Paralyzed with terror, Emma was helpless to stop the scenes as the horror unfolded and...

  ...screaming rakes the air. The knife is raised, poised to strike. But a hand grips the wrist, in a wild furious fight to stop the knife. Amid hysterical screaming and cursing, the resisting grip reaches the attacker’s fingers, the knife’s spine is slipping. The knife is winning, the blade flashing, slashing, plunging, blood spurting, the knife rising and descending, tearing and ripping. The Tullocks. Their eyes are screaming as life spills from them, their blood splattering. Their dead open eyes accusing. New screams rising, her screams rising...stop, OH GOD, PLEASE STOP!

  Quaking with fear, Emma thrashed in the night until something seized her; someone called to her as she clawed at the evil. Someone was shouting her name and pulling her from the darkness to consciousness, soft light and calm.

  “Emma?”

  She woke to Ben’s face above hers.

  “Emma, you’re having a bad dream.”

  Blinking, gasping, Emma searched Ben and the room, allowing the assurance of sanity to envelop her.

  “It’s all right, Emma, just a bad dream.”

  Emma sat up, cupped her hands to her face. Then she reached for the glass of water on the stand beside the bed. Her phone displayed 2:20 a.m. Drinking, she saw Kayla in their doorway. Hair mussed, arms folded, her face flush with alarm.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said.

  “She just had a bad dream,” Ben said. “Let’s all get back to sleep.”

  Kayla stared for a long moment before disappearing down the hall, leaving a wake of suspicion and doubt about her stepmother.

  Fifty-Nine

  Cielo Valle and Los Angeles, California

  Present day

  The two days after Emma’s nightmare had moved fast.

  In that time, the Grant household had functioned with as much normalcy as could be expected, under the circumstances and in anticipation of Ben’s departure, now just a few hours away.

  Ben’s outline had been officially accepted.

  “You hit it out of the park,” Roz Rose had said in her email. “Everybody in New York and Toronto loves it. Good luck researching in Canada.”

  Encouraged by the positive reception, Ben finished packing, checking that he had his passport, contact list, files, laptop and chargers. Taking care of other last-minute details, his phone vibrated with a new email. The subject was: “Del Brockway.”

  It was from Cecil May, a now-retired cop Ben had battled at a homicide scene when he was still a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Times. Cecil, an icy, case-hardened prick of a detective, was impressed that Ben had “managed to ask intelligent questions,” compared with other reporters. They became and remained friends. Cecil had kept his strong ties to law enforcement and was always ready to help Ben.

  Now he’d emailed his response to Ben’s request that he look into the plate of the oddball fan Ben and Emma had encountered in the park.

  Working on it, his email read.

  Thanks. Appreciate it, Ben emailed back.

  * * *

  Ben drove their SUV to the airport. In the backseat, Kayla said little, typing away on her phone with Tug beside her, happily watching cars on the freeway. Tug loved road trips.

  Stealing glances at Emma, Ben thought she was subdued. Checking his rearview mirror, he thought Kayla was restrained.

  Undercurrents were raging.

  “Guys?” Ben said a bit loud to ensure Kayla was listening. “I talked with a travel agency and we’re set. When I’m done, you two can join me in Winnipeg. School should be done by that time. Then we’ll take the train west through the Rockies to Vancouver. We can fly home from there.”

  “Sounds nice,” Emma said.

  “Fabulous, Dad,” Kayla said.

  “It’ll be therapeutic for all of us,” Ben said. “Then, when we get back, I’ll knuckle down on writing the first draft.”

  Ben glanced at Emma, then patted her leg. She smiled at him but he felt her thoughts were elsewhere.

  Airport traffic was controlled confusion as he navigated to the upper departures level to find a spot at the curbside, where he got out and unloaded his bags. Taking stock of his family, Ben said: “The time will fly by.”

  “Ha-ha, nice pun.” Kayla hugged Ben. “I’ll miss you, Dad.”

  Emma was touching the corners of her eyes.

  “Everything, okay?” Ben asked.

  “Yes. Good luck in Eternity and have a safe flight.”

  Ben looked at her for a long moment then at Kayla. “You guys are going to be fine. Think of our trip through the Rockies.”

  Tug barked a goodbye. Ben hugged him and Tug licked his face. “You take care of them, Tug.”

  “Folks,” an airport security guy said, “got to move it along.”

  After their final kisses, Ben grabbed his bags, entered the terminal, turning for a last anxious look as Emma, Kayla and Tug got into the SUV and pulled away.

  * * *

  Some two hours later, Ben was buckled in his aisle seat.

  The jetliner’s doors were closed. The doors to the overhead storage bins had been snapped shut. Attendants moved along the plane ensuring all was in order as they prepared to taxi to the runway. Then Ben got a message from Emma.

  I want you to know that whatever happens I love you and Kayla with all my heart.

  Staring at Emma’s words Ben couldn’t understand their intensity.

  He wrote:

  What’s up? You sound ominous.

  Feeling a little shaky right now. I’ll miss you. I love you.

  I love you too, hang in there. All will be fine.

  Before Ben could resume trying to decipher Emma’s cryptic message his phone vibrated with another text—this time from Cecil May.

  The owner of that tag is not Del Brockway. It comes back to Leo Wicks.

  Who’s that? Ben asked.

  Want me to dig a little deeper?

  Ben felt a hand gently on his shoulder.

  “Sir.” The attendant smiled down at him. “The captain has asked that all devices be switched off.”

  Ben nodded. But before shutting down his phone he typed one word to Cecil: Yes.

  Sixty

  Toronto, Ontario

  Present day

  “Tullock AgriCorp has seen another exceptional fiscal year.”

  Colorful graph lines and pie charts filled Torrie Tullock’s laptop as the woman in the video conference continued.

  “Fourth quarter consolidated revenue is up 6.5 percent and annual revenue is up 5.9,” t
he woman said to the camera from headquarters in Edmonton. “Consolidated comparable sales are up 1 percent in the fourth quarter, and 2.5 percent the full year.”

  “The company is in a strong position to continue with plans to open new outlets across the country, and proceed with our global expansion study,” said a man in the Calgary office.

  The meeting moved on to other items. Before concluding, Torrie made one request.

  “Is Kern there?”

  “I’m here, Ms. Tullock.”

  The face of a man in his fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair appeared. Kern Garland, a retired police commander and former justice department security advisor, headed corporate security, encompassing Tullock AgriCorp’s business practices, day-to-day operations, network security, human resources and physical security for the company’s seventy outlets.

  “Kern, could we talk offline later? Call me at nine thirty, my time?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Thank you, and thanks again everyone.”

  * * *

  Torrie sipped tea as night descended.

  Toronto’s sparkling skyline was mirrored on Lake Ontario’s calm.

  From her sixtieth floor condo she had a God’s eye view of the lights of the skyscrapers, the CN Tower, the domed stadium, planes landing and lifting off from Billy Bishop Airport in the heart of the city.

  Setting her cup down, she returned to her study of confidential reports, photos, videos and sensitive information pulled from restricted databases for an unnamed security project that had been in the works for nearly a year now.

  All promising, she thought.

  Her phone rang. The time was 9:31 p.m.

  “Ms. Tullock, this is Kern Garland.”

  “Thank you for calling. What’s the status on the project?”

  “I’m sure you can appreciate, this is extremely sensitive work.”

  “Yes, I’m aware, Kern. Your point?”

  “We’ve had some near compromises, one of them tragic. A subcontractor died in a car accident.”

  “My condolences. Was it related to the project?”

  “We’re not certain. It could’ve stemmed from personal issues.”

  “I see. Where does that leave things?”

  “We’re putting more resources on it.”

  “Good. I don’t care about the cost. I don’t want the project halted. I want you to continue with the reminders, warnings and torment, as instructed.”

  “We are.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the pictures. When we finish with the first target, we’ll move on to the others, one by one.”

  “With respect to the others, we are in fact tracking movement that we believe suggests a potential reunion of sorts related to the anniversary.”

  “How wonderfully opportune. I want to see this through. Whatever the cost. Whatever it takes. Is that understood?”

  “It’s understood.”

  “Keep me posted. Thank you, Kern.”

  Pleased that the time for action was nearing, Torrie sipped tea and returned to a recent anniversary newspaper editorial, one she agreed with. She particularly liked the headline:

  The Eternal Question In Eternity: Was Justice Done?

  Torrie reread the item, absorbing the words:

  Those girls, The Skull Sisters, killed the Tullock family because they felt they could...and for their monstrous and merciless crime of killing four people, two of them children, how did the court respond? With the utmost mercy, for in the scale of the killers’ young lives they paid a pittance for taking those of four innocents. And now, far from a cemetery with four headstones, they’re living anonymously as free adults.

  Yes, Torrie agreed. Justice was not served. Instead they received new lives, far from the graves they left behind in Eternity. Well, twenty years was enough. The bill was past due.

  Torrie’s laptop pinged with an email from her uncle.

  Hi Torrie: Hope all is well. We miss you. We wanted to let you know that an author, Benjamin Grant, is writing a book on the case. We’ve agreed to participate to ensure the family has a voice. He’d like to talk to you. Of course, the decision is yours. Let me know. Lynn sends her love.

  Uncle Paul

  Torrie’s eyebrows rose a little.

  Benjamin Grant, the celebrated true-crime author? My word, how the stars have aligned.

  She glanced at the neat stack of printouts from the project as she considered the request and then typed her response.

  Thank you, Uncle Paul: I have nothing to say to Mr. Grant at this time.

  All my love to you and Aunt Lynn,

  Torrie

  Sixty-One

  Cielo Valle, Orange County, California

  Present day

  Kayla couldn’t stand it.

  Her unease about Emma was growing, and Dad was too deeply in love with her to get it.

  She should’ve told him that she’d found Emma’s journal, but after the close call with the girl on the bike, they got distracted and she lost her nerve.

  Now, as night fell, Kayla was on her bed in her room, her door shut, Tug at her feet, laptop on her lap, searching online.

  Kayla liked Emma but couldn’t shake her growing feeling that her stepmother was hiding something, something big. No matter how she tried, Kayla was unable to find anything about a fatal fire at Tony’s Diner in Beltsville, Maryland. And she still hadn’t heard back from Emma’s college in Indiana.

  I know if I keep pushing this, I’m going to piss Dad off even more. He already wants to send me back to Doctor Hirsch. But maybe if I can get Dad proof that I’m right, he’ll see for himself.

  Kayla’s frustration with herself and her suspicions about Emma intensified as she ticked off the list of Emma’s strangeness.

  How she got all superembarrassed about being on TV. Then there were those words Kayla had memorized from Emma’s hidden journal: “No one knows the truth about me, that I—”

  Then how Emma practically went into shock when Dad said his new book was on a case in Eternity; then her nightmare the other night...

  Wait. Back up. That could be it.

  Kayla stopped, reached back to remember the time in the kitchen when she came upon Emma looking at a news story on her computer about the anniversary of some murders, and how she reacted like she’d been caught at something.

  The only words Kayla saw in the headline were anniversary and killers.

  Hmm. Let’s add some new search terms.

  Kayla began searching with a few new words. A headline came up and her eyes widened as she began reading.

  It was such an awful story. But there was nothing connecting Emma to it. Her name wasn’t mentioned. Besides, it happened in Canada, and she was from Maryland. Maybe it was about a relative...

  I can’t stand this.

  * * *

  With Tug in tow, Kayla went to the kitchen to get a drink from the fridge.

  Emma was at the counter, wearing her glasses, looking at her laptop. Kayla glimpsed something about Manitoba on the screen.

  If that isn’t a sign, Kayla thought.

  “Emma, can we talk?”

  Emma sat up, removed her glasses. “Sure.”

  “You said I could ask you anything, right?”

  Emma’s face tightened a little as if bracing, as she nodded.

  “I was just curious why you got all, I don’t know, like shy and embarrassed about being on TV during the book sale, then again with the story about saving your student?”

  “Guess I’m just not comfortable with the attention.”

  “But you knew my dad was a famous guy when you dated and got married, that media stuff sort of comes with the territory.”

  “That’s true. But I married him because I love him. I knew he guarded his privacy. A lot of famous people keep t
heir family lives private.”

  Kayla pondered the label of the drink she was sipping.

  “Do you have any family or friends in Manitoba?”

  “What? No. Why in the world would you ask me that?”

  Kayla nodded to Emma’s screen. Emma followed her focus.

  “That? Well, it’s because that’s where your Dad is. I was looking it up.”

  “How come you seemed so upset at dinner when Dad first told us he was going to write about a murder in Eternity?”

  Emma’s face flushed.

  “I don’t think it was about—” Kayla used air quotes “—‘swallowing something the wrong way.’ Actually, to me, it seemed like you really didn’t want him to do that story.”

  Emma was silent.

  “And—” Kayla sipped her drink “—you seemed surprised when I glimpsed that headline you were looking at a while back right here in the kitchen, before Dad ever even said he was going to write about that case.”

  Kayla set down the bottle, pulled her phone from her pocket, typed a few commands, then held the screen out to Emma, showing her the headline and op-ed story.

  Anniversary Of Murders Nears; Where Are The Killers Now?

  “This one, about the murders in Eternity, about those skull girls, wasn’t it?”

  Emma was silent for a moment, then Kayla started reading the story out loud, at which point Emma waved her hands. “Kayla, stop, please. Sure, that story’s about Eternity, but it was not the story I was looking at that time in the kitchen. That was something else, for school.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t this story, about the Eternity murders?”

  “No, sweetheart, it wasn’t. You’re confusing things. Yes, the truth is, something about the case in Canada that Ben’s working on reminded me of my own life, and other things, and it saddened me.”

  “Speaking of your past,” Kayla said. “I can’t find anything anywhere about a fatal fire twenty years ago at Tony’s Diner in Beltsville, Maryland, where you said your mom died.”