by Rick Mofina
“Would you allow us to look around?” Webb asked.
Things were moving too fast and Ben was walking a tightrope. He was at a disadvantage. His stomach was churning with worry, Emma was a convicted murderer, Rita Purvis was murdered near their home, Emma and Kayla were missing, and now detectives were sitting in his kitchen.
I need to investigate this myself. I need to find them.
Ben didn’t know what Garcia and Webb knew but he was aware of his rights.
“No. And look, with all due respect, I know I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Sure, if that’s how you want to play it,” Garcia said.
“It’s not like that. I’m not being uncooperative, it’s just that, here...” Ben reached for his bag and gave Garcia his boarding pass. “I was out of town and got in late last night, early this morning actually. I really don’t know anything. But when I see Emma—”
“Winnipeg?” Garcia said. “What were you doing in Canada?”
“Research for a book.”
“Really?” Garcia said. “What’s the case?”
Ben said nothing.
Garcia pressed him: “How long were you out of the country?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I really have nothing more to say.”
“Do you want to report your wife and daughter as missing persons, Mr. Grant?” Webb asked.
“No, because I’m sure there’s probably an explanation.”
“How’d you get home from LAX?” Garcia asked.
“Uber.”
“You say you got home early this morning,” Garcia said. “Were your wife and daughter home then?”
“No.”
“Ben, do you know Rita Purvis of Lufkin, Texas?” Webb asked, cuing up her phone to show him a screen grab from the parking lot video. Then she played the video.
Staring at it, Ben battled not to let his face betray anything, his heart pounding, a drop of sweat trickling down his back. He shook his head. “No, I don’t know Rita Purvis. I’ve never met her.”
“How does your wife know her?” Garcia asked.
Ben shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just don’t feel comfortable with this because I don’t know anything. Maybe I should be getting a lawyer.”
“Why?” Garcia asked. “You know how that looks?”
“I don’t care. I know how things can be distorted, misinterpreted.”
“Where are you headed with this?” Garcia asked.
“Nowhere. I just got home. And I know my rights.”
Garcia leaned forward, closer to Ben, his face lifting into a small smile, warming a bit. “Look, no one’s under arrest, or under any suspicion,” he said. “Fact is we just received that video around the same time as the press. It was sent anonymously. We verified the time and location with security video from Trader Joe’s. I’m telling you this because that much is public. We have no control on how your colleagues in the media will ‘interpret’ things. You know that better than most people. We’re giving you the opportunity to help us.”
“Mr. Grant, all we want is to talk to Emma about it,” Webb said. “The video shows she was one of the last people to see Rita Purvis. We need to know the relationship between them, if there is one. Why they met there, what they talked about. We need her to help us with a timeline, movements, state of mind. Of all people, you know how this works.”
“I do, and I am cooperating as much as I can.”
“Will you let us look around? Volunteer your family’s electronic devices?” Webb asked.
Ben knew “look around” meant bringing in an evidence team to process the house, everything in it, and he wasn’t ready for that.
“No.”
“If need be, we’ll get warrants,” Garcia said.
“I expect you will. But I’m hopeful we can clear this up before that becomes necessary.”
The detectives looked at Ben for several moments. Then they nodded their thanks, shook his hand and left.
Alone in the house, Ben slammed his back against the wall to keep the room from spinning.
Garcia and Webb couldn’t know who Rita Purvis is. They couldn’t know about Emma’s past. Could they? Their records don’t exist. They were sealed by the court in Canada years ago. They can’t know. At least not yet. But what was Rita doing here in California? How did she find Emma? Or did Emma find her? Where are Emma and Kayla? Are they safe?
Ben’s cell phone vibrated and chimed, indicating a text. He picked up his phone from the kitchen table. Thinking the message was from the press, he swiped to delete it when he glimpsed the first words.
Hi Dad.
Catching his breath, he read.
Hi Dad. It’s us. We had phone trouble and got a temp phone and a new number. We’re fine. Talk soon. Love you. K and E.
He opened the photo, his heart lifting, smiling when he saw Kayla and Emma. He sent a response.
Where are you? Something came up. I flew back home and can’t find you. I want to talk. Please call me now on my cell.
One minute passed. Then another. He called the number without a response.
Where are they? Is Kayla really safe?
While waiting, he took stock of the kitchen, his eyes stopping at the key rack on the wall. Something was different.
The hook for the keys to the cabin was empty.
He never touched them. The cabin keys never moved from their hook unless they were going to the cabin.
Ben seized upon a hope: Emma and Kayla had gone to the cabin.
Was Emma hiding to be safe? Or running from something she’d done?
Nearly twenty minutes had now passed without a response. He could no longer bear the agony. Time was ticking down. He had to do something.
The cabin was his best shot—his only shot.
He grabbed his phone, hurried to his garage and pressed the button for the garage door.
With an electronic hum, the big door lifted, like the rising curtain to a latter-day tragedy. Stopping at his SUV door, he looked to the end of his driveway.
A cluster of reporters and cameras awaited the next chapter in his unfolding story. The realization washed over him like a powerful wave, for he knew how his life—his family’s life—was being interpreted, and probably was live right now with the banner Best-selling True Crime Author’s Wife Sought In Murder.
So be it.
Ben took a breath, got in his car, slowly driving off, not caring if they followed or not.
One way or another he would find his family.
Eighty-Three
San Bernardino County, California
Present day
After their SUV left the freeway and began ascending the highway that twisted into the San Bernardino Mountains, Kayla knew their destination.
“We’re going to our cabin, aren’t we?”
Emma nodded, her face brightening but still tense because she knew she was digging a deep hole for herself by telling Kayla lie after lie. She hated doing it but she had to, because Kayla would freak out if she revealed the truth to her right now. Later, when Emma could get a handle on everything, and talk to Ben, she could repair the damage. But right now, Emma had to do all she could to buy time.
“Yes, we’re going to the cabin.”
Kayla loved it up here in the mountains, drinking in the spectacular views, the trees, the streams and waterfalls as they rolled by little diners, campgrounds and villages. The region was so vast, you could still find remote spots.
Traffic was sparse along the winding two-lane road. They couldn’t go too fast, which gave Kayla time to think. Driving to the cabin was bittersweet for her, especially as they got closer to their destination. Kayla eyed the roadside carefully when they came to a particular sharp curve.
“Slow down.” Kayla leaned forward, searching, spotting it under a tree on the right
. “There! There it is! Pull over.”
Emma checked her mirrors and pulled over. A few cars passed. They got out and stood before a wooden white roadside cross just under three feet tall, rising straight from the ground in the shade of a pine tree. The cross was weatherworn.
“Dad and I made it.”
“Yes, I know.”
Emma read the small, engraved plate in the center. Brooke—Forever In Our Hearts.
Kayla caressed the plate.
“Maybe we can come back later and put fresh flowers on it?” Emma said.
Smiling, Kayla nodded.
* * *
They drove for another four miles before they came to a bend in the highway marked by a car-sized granite outcrop, shaped like a bear’s head.
Emma slowed and signaled for a right turn near the rock formation, at the mouth of a narrow dirt road.
The cabin sat on the site of a long-abandoned prospector’s trail. Shaded and bordered by dense pine forests, the earthen road snaked for some sixty yards to their cabin.
Kayla’s parents had bought it after Ben’s first movie deal. It was a low-standing ranch-style cabin that had belonged to a film actor, who had it custom-built in the 1950s. The front wall was nearly all glass with floor-to-ceiling windows. It was spacious, beautiful and Kayla loved it.
“You stay here.” Emma got out, her keys jingling. “Let me go in and check it out.”
“Why?” Kayla looked around. “We’re totally alone here.”
“Humor me. Then we’ll get our stuff inside.”
Kayla let it go with a long, tired sigh.
Unlocking the door, Emma went in. The air was stale. Dust danced in the columns of light flooding the inside. The front opened to a large living room–dining room area with a cathedral-style ceiling and a stone fireplace on the far wall. The area was bordered by an island that flowed into the kitchen. It led to the hall, the utility room and two bedrooms separated by a full bathroom. Next was the large master with an en suite bathroom and beyond that, a den, where Ben wrote. Every room had enlarged windows with a mountain view.
One by one Emma inspected the rooms. She was satisfied each one was empty until she reached to the last door—the den.
Emma hesitated.
A rustling noise sounded from the inside.
Emma held her breath, listening.
More rustling.
She clasped the door handle, turned it, thrust the door open.
The rustling became loud flapping as a crow flew off from its perch on the exterior windowsill.
Sighing with relief, Emma was now certain the cabin was secure and returned to the front.
“Let’s get those groceries in first and see if anything spoiled overnight,” she called to Kayla in the car. “There’s stuff we need to get into the fridge. Can you bring the bags to the kitchen and I’ll put things away?”
“All right.”
Kayla opened the tailgate, hauled the first two bags to the kitchen counter.
“Once we take care of everything, we’ll try to call your dad, if you like, okay?”
“Okay. I know service is spotty here. They were supposed to install more cell towers.”
Kayla returned to the SUV and was reaching into the back when she heard an engine and turned.
A car pulled up next to the SUV.
Kayla blinked. A woman was alone at the wheel. She didn’t recognize her.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, holding up a folded map, “but I’m lost and my phone’s dead. Can you help me?”
The woman seemed friendly, but for her eyes. Kayla thought they looked a bit off. Her pupils were like big black holes. Maybe she had a condition, or was on medication, and that’s why she was lost.
The woman got out, looked around. “You have a lovely place here.”
“Thanks...”
The woman placed her map on the hood of her car so they could lean over it.
“My first time here,” the woman said. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Yes.” Kayla leaned over the map with the woman next to her. “What’re you looking for?”
“The truth.”
“What?”
The woman slid her arm around Kayla’s neck, locking her in a grip, crushing her windpipe, raising a knife to her face.
Eighty-Four
San Bernardino County, California
Present day
At that moment, Torrie Tullock, the lone survivor of her family’s murder, was four miles from the Grants’ cabin.
Driving alone in her rented Ford sedan, glancing at the car’s erratic navigation system, and her handwritten notes on the console, she realized she’d overshot her destination.
The property she was looking for had a “bear-shaped” rock formation near its entrance along the highway.
Torrie stopped, made a three-point turn and resumed driving in the opposite direction, watching the shoulder for the landmark. Her calm demeanor did not betray what was boiling inside.
For much of her life, her anger over her family’s murder had grown, building with volcanic force until it became a part of her identity. The people who killed her mother, her father, her sister and her brother had not paid enough for what they did. No, instead, they were given a gift, the gift of new lives.
Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day Torrie’s rage gnawed at her, ripping away pieces of her, transforming her into what she now was, the embodiment of vengeance.
She had used her wealth, her resources, to find the so-called Skull Sisters.
Kern Garland, her well-connected security chief, had contracted and subcontracted, and subcontracted again, the best investigative agencies. She’d instructed Garland to use every means possible to hunt the women down, put them under surveillance and secretly, psychologically, torment them about their crimes whenever possible. All the while Garland updated her on every change, every movement and every breath they took.
Torrie was regularly provided their current names, addresses and photos.
I know them well. They are my prey.
When Torrie learned that all three were in Southern California, everything had aligned. She might never get another opportunity like this so she flew to Los Angeles.
And now one of them is already dead. Reap what you sow.
In California the investigative work intensified, Torrie’s people on the ground had alerted her to the possibility that the remaining two would be together—they’d covertly installed tracking devices on their vehicles.
Of course the monsters couldn’t stay away from each other. Of course they’d break the law to get away to the mountains—to plot something evil.
Now was the time to act.
Too many agonizing anniversaries of what they did to my family have come and gone. These inhuman beings have lived long enough.
Torrie adjusted her grip on the wheel.
Her team had taken care of her requirements for what she needed to do—some of them not so legal.
I don’t care what happens to me. I’ve lived in a prison most of my life. One way or another, I’ll avenge my family and I’ll be free.
Torrie glanced to the floor on the passenger side, at the Glock 17 with two magazines each holding 17 rounds.
It won’t be long now.
Eighty-Five
San Bernardino County, California
Present day
Driving as fast as he could, Ben had made good time and was now some four miles from the cabin, guilt and remorse clawing at his heart as he neared the location.
He’d pulled over to visit the roadside cross at the spot where Brooke died and had lowered himself to touch the engraved plate. Up here, inhaling the sweet pine-scented air, it felt as if Brooke was part of the mountains and her spirit was near.
I have no right to ask, but help
me find them. Please.
Pressing his fingers to his lips, he touched them to the plate.
He returned to his car, resumed driving. He hadn’t gone far when his cell phone rang loud and clear.
Eighty-Six
San Bernardino County, California
Present day
Inside the cabin Emma checked her phone, thinking she’d have to request time off from school, when she found Ben’s response to the picture they’d sent him.
She caught her breath.
Why’s he back so soon? What did he discover? Things are moving so fast—I’ve got to tell him the truth.
Emma texted Ben telling him they were at the cabin and to meet them there.
I want to talk, too. There are so many things I need to tell you.
After sending the message, Emma’s tension melted ever so slightly as she put the groceries away.
The cabin could stand a good cleaning, she thought, finding a measure of comfort in the mundane notion because it indicated that with chaos whipping around her, she felt safe here.
Even though Rita Purvis’s murder loomed large and Emma’s world was spinning out of control, she believed with all her heart that after she confessed her life to Ben and Kayla, there’d be hope.
After twenty years, I knew this time would come. I could feel it haunting me. Only now I’ll put it all to rest. I’ll show my journal to Ben and Kayla. I’ll tell them everything. I know he loves me for who I am not what I was. I did everything I could to protect them. I’ll survive this. I’ll rise from the ashes like I did before.
She would trust in love.
Emma took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, puzzling at why Kayla had not come in with more groceries.
Going to the window and looking out, Emma’s jaw dropped at what she saw.
For a millisecond she thought the woman hugging Kayla was a fan of Ben’s from the town or a resort. Determined fans of famous people always find their private property. It had happened to movie and rock stars, and a lot of writers, like J. D. Salinger and Stephen King.
But in the next half second, Emma’s heart stopped.