by Laura Greene
When she turns around to return to her seat she accidentally steps on the cat’s tail, sending the cat yelping into the air and scurrying under the couch. Tina, who is already on the alert, is startled by the cat and drops the frame out of her hand. The frame shatters on the floor and sends glass whizzing through the air. The broken frame reveals something shiny, hidden behind the picture which is now on the floor.
“I’m so sorry Janet,” Tina shouts as she kneels on the floor to pick up the frame and shattered pieces. As Janet runs into the room, Tina quickly grabs the shiny object and slips it into her pocket.
Janet turns to the cat and says, “Beetlejuice, you scaredy cat. I told you to be quiet when we have visitors.” She turns to Tina and starts to apologize for her cat, “I’m so...”
“Your picture frame. It was my fault,” Tina interrupts, and holds up the frame, which Janet grabs out of her hand and holds close to her heart. She shows affection and pain as she interacts with the picture.
“It’s you and Charlie, isn’t it?” Tina says softly. She can tell that Janet treasures this picture by the obvious heartache on her face. Janet clings to the picture a while longer, then stands up and sits on the couch facing her small television. Tina follows suit and sits on the opposite couch facing the window, as she thinks of how Charlie, the kind janitor, could be involved in the suicides at the school. “And your husband must be in the back.”
Janet remains silent, but her eyes widen at the mention of her husband. Tina can tell there is tension between them, and she would like to understand further.
“Janet, I know you care about Charlie,” Tina pleads, “please, six girls have already died at his school. What are you not telling me?”
Janet shakes her head. She is fighting within herself to not speak.
Tina tries again, “What if his life is in danger? Please, you have to tell me what happened so I can help him.”
Janet, unable to bear hearing Tina’s pleas any further, grabs the picture more tightly and runs into the kitchen, avoiding the glass on the floor. “I forgot to get you some water.”
While she could run after her, Tina sees that she needs to give Janet time to collect her thoughts. In the meantime, she has another matter to attend to, and she thinks it’s right there in Janet’s home. She reaches into her pocket and locates the shiny key that she found moments ago. The key looks like it is too small for a box seated to the right of the television. Tina walks over to the wooden case near the window and feels around for an opening where she can try out the key. She even tries a drawer at the front of the wooden case, but with no success. Meanwhile, she looks over her shoulder to make sure Janet does not find her. There is no sound of footsteps leaving the kitchen yet.
Then she pulls back the records. She neatly lays them on the couch beside her, then, in the space that she has cleared, Tina feels along the edge of the wall. There is a tiny lever that she can barely reach with her fingertip. She caresses it a couple of times and nothing happens.
Next, she presses on the lever and it pops open a drawer right under the CDs. Tina is certain that drawer was not visible to the eye a moment ago. Without wasting another second, Tina lodges the key in as she turns to look for Janet. The lock fails to turn a few times, then she pushes the drawer in while turning the key, and it slides out. It opens!
Tina has yet to find out what’s in the drawer when she hears footsteps drawing closer to her from the kitchen. She glances down and ruffles through the sea of documents. The footsteps are nearing the entrance to the kitchen. Tina scurries, trying to skim through the papers, and sees one document near the bottom that stands out. She snatches the document out of the drawer and puts it under her jacket. When she turns, she sees the edge of Janet’s foot on the corner of the door, knowing that she is about to get caught. How will Janet trust me now?
The feet turn back to the kitchen and this buys Tina more time.
Tina, who was almost caught red-handed, turns and closes the drawer. Next, she closes the lever that popped open and throws the records back into place. Tina hears a squeaking noise as Janet closes the kitchen door.
“I hope I’m not making you hungry with the smell of my dinner.” Janet appears around the corner to find Tina seated on the couch next to the pictures on the wall. Everything but the glass on the floor and the picture she is clinging to under her armpit is right where Janet left it – everything, that is, except for the document under Tina’s jacket. She serves Tina her water and sits on the couch near the window again. The picture frame also sits next to her on the couch.
“No, I’m not hungry, thanks,” Tina responds. Then she asks, “Can you tell me why you’re no longer in Charlie’s life?”
“I wish you would drop the topic, Detective,” Janet says, with an ounce of annoyance in her voice.
“I’m afraid I can’t. Why would someone send me to talk to you regarding your son?”
“If I told you, I...” Janet’s lip quivers as she says this.
“Would what?” Tina moves from her chair next to Janet, to console her. She picks up the picture and shows it to Janet. “You clearly still love your son and I can tell it hurts you every time I mention him. Why are you not together, Janet?”
“It’s his father.” She unfolds the hidden section of the picture and reveals a man who is the spitting image of Charlie. “He kept him from me.” She pulls the picture out of the frame and with distant eyes, she begins to recall what happened to her family. “Charlie was only a young boy when his father… banished me from the family.”
“Banished you?”
“Everything was going well. Our little family was doing well in Denver when Clark started acting strange.” Janet points at Charlie’s dad as she says this. “He would come home paranoid, claiming all sorts of conspiracies in politics and even accusing me of things I didn’t do.”
“Had anything changed leading up to that?”
“Yes. He’d joined some cult that was shut down years ago. They were bad people, Detective. My husband, who was an honest, working man started to have hallucinations, he became controlling. His loving words turned into spiritual abuse and he made living in this home hell for us. The last straw was when I confronted him, as I became the enemy to him.”
“Enemy?”
“Enemy. The worst part is that cult did this to us.” Anger is forming on Janet’s face. Tina continues to listen to her. “I thought Charlie was safe from it because he would be asleep when his father came home. But I later found out that he would stay up and hear his father accuse me of infidelity and hear his wild claims that I needed to atone for my sins.”
“What did you just say?” Tina is evidently alarmed to hear the same words the girls said at the school now being repeated by Janet. Was it Charlie? she ponders. He just seems so sweet, like someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“Yes, he wanted me to… I wasn’t going to say anything until you told me the girls have died,” Janet trembles. Tina can see that it hurts her to recall the past, but she fights through her pain to continue sharing with Tina. “He wanted me to take my life and he even told me exactly how.”
“What did he say to do?” Tina is sure she’s about to hear something along the lines of wearing a white bed sheet; the similarity of Janet’s story to the girls at Hartford is no coincidence.
“To dress in all white and climb up to the roof. Then, I was to fall to my death.” Tears like a river run from Janet’s eyes profusely. She speaks as though she has been silenced for years and she has finally been given permission to speak. “I… I thought about it. I really did. He almost made me believe I was all those lies he accused me of, but I wasn’t. I was a faithful wife, but that cult made him believe I wasn’t. And when I refused to kill myself, he banished me; he took away our son and brainwashed him with his lies. He told me we were never married, and if I followed them, he would kill me and kill my Charlie. Detective, I miss my son so badly. I had to sit back and watch that man take him away from me, but I couldn
’t afford to put my little boy’s life in danger. I just couldn’t forgive myself if I did.”
Tina may not know the pain of losing a child, but she is seeing how heart-wrenching it is on Janet’s face. The agony she witnesses is more than she is able to put into words. “My world shattered the day I watched Charlie walk out of my life. I have never been the same since then.”
She now understands why Janet moved to Baggs. She did not choose to live in Baggs, but her life experiences took her to the loneliest sanctuary that she could find and that was Baggs. Tina, better understanding Janet and realizing she has made a mistake, pulls out of her jacket the document she took from the drawer. “Is this why you keep your marriage annulment certificate? To remind yourself to not go after Charlie, or his father might kill you both?”
Janet’s eyes open wide again. “How did you find this?” She snatches the document out of Tina’s hand, appalled that she went through her personal belongings. Tina knows that she was wrong for taking the document without permission. It is a sure way to break the trust between her and Janet, but it’s a risk she feels she had to take if it meant saving someone’s life.
“Your key. I saw it in your picture frame.” Tina hands her back her key, “I’m sorry, I really needed to know what happened so I can save my friend, the chaplain, in time.”
“His father is dead,” Janet says under her breath. “He re-married, to a woman who is just as evil as he was, and if I go find Charlie Junior, she will finish what Clark started.” Tina can tell that this is what’s hurting Janet the most. She is finally free from Clark now that he is dead, yet he is still controlling her and deciding whether or not she can see her son. “Please, Detective, help my son Charlie if you think he’s in danger.”
After hearing Janet’s story, Tina is not so sure who Charlie is anymore: if he is in danger or if he is the danger. Speaking of threats, Tina turns and glances out of the window. “Would Charlie… is Charlie capable of following in his father’s footsteps?”
“I don’t even know, but if his father was able to brainwash him, it’s possible.” Tina looks out of the window again, but this time Janet catches her. “What are you looking for, Detective?”
“I’m… just checking the perimeter. I know it’s strange, but I just have this strong sense that someone bad followed me or knows I’m here.” Tina has been watching her back since she was in Boston; she doesn’t think she can ever be too careful with powerful men after her.
Janet laughs, then says, “Detective, there are only two kinds of people that visit here: you and Uncle Sam.”
“The IRS?”
“Yes, that’s why we triple-bolt our doors here.” They both laugh. It’s a relief they have both been needing. Tina sees that Janet is comfortable with her again. And for a time, Tina forgets the imminent danger that plagued her mind a moment ago.
As Janet walks Tina to the door and says her goodbyes, she asks her, “Did you say your chaplain friend was missing?”
“Yes.” Not knowing where Nick is has added stress to Tina. She has no idea where he is and her being in Wyoming just makes her long all the more to get back to Newport to save Nick. More than anything, she is hoping with the new information she learned today, she can find him.
Janet purses her lips and sighs as she says, “I don’t want to scare you, Detective, but if Charlie is anything like his father and he has anything to do with it, you need to hurry and find him. Your friend’s life is in grave danger.”
HUNT THE JUDGE
Chapter 1
The trip home is a scary one for Agent Tina James. Janet’s warning about her friend, Nick, taunts her. And at thirty-three thousand feet in the air, Tina feels powerless as she races against time to reach him. She is not sure if she will arrive in time to find him still alive or wiped from the face of the earth.
Sleep has left her eyes. She had hoped to take a short nap on her flight back to Newport, but she is now settling for Seltzer water to help calm her nerves.
It is early evening and the sky is blood orange. Shades of red and purple overshadow the clouds around her plane like a dark cloud looming over her from Wyoming to Newport. As the night gently closes in with overwhelming darkness, sharp strikes of yellow and orange fight off its silent attack with bright shards of light from the sun, as it bows out for the evening.
Tina wonders if the day disappearing over the horizon is symbolic of Nick, the man she loves, hanging on for dear life. The thought pounds an aching pain straight into Tina’s heart.
Though it has been her policy to not mix business with pleasure, her falling for Nick just… happened. It is new ground that she is now exploring and praying that she will not come out with mud on her face. This is why she has not expressed how she feels to anyone yet. She must first find out if this is safe ground to tread and where Nick lies in this case before she can openly divulge her innermost thoughts. She hopes against hope that she has not been cut short from finding out the truth about her and Nick.
As the nearly empty plane pierces through the air, rushing to deliver her to Newport, the night, now imposes its blanket of darkness over the skies. What Tina does not realize is that her own thoughts have apprehended the opportunity to darken her senses – fear has pervaded. What if the night of Ella’s disappearance was the last time I saw Nick? She ponders.
That night was rushed. It was far too abrupt. She would have much rather lingered in the moment with Nick, celebrated their victory of rescuing Ella from the tower together and embraced their great partnership.
But all that is gone now. Tina is saddened at the thought of losing Nick and leans back in her chair, attempting to calm the racing thoughts in her mind. She recalls what her nanny used to tell her: “A ‘what if’ captured, is the beginning of anxiety and depression, but a what if released into the night is the beginning of freeing your mind.” At first, Tina didn’t understand what she meant. It all sounded cryptic to a ten-year-old girl, but now that she is older, she understands that it meant, you have power over your thoughts. This is a truth that has set her mind at ease many times over the years.
She has since learned that the body does not know the difference between real and speculative danger, it goes through fight or flight and reacts to imagined danger as though it is the same as real danger. Her nanny would finish with, “Choose wisely what thoughts you hold onto.”
Her mind calms, and for the first time since she returned from Martha’s Vineyard, Tina is able to sleep.
She cannot explain the peace over her in any other way except the last time she felt it was when she heard Chaplain Nick speak at Hartford Boarding School.
The long journey is cut short by her nap and when Tina arrives, she does not stop at her home to unpack. There is no time. With her newfound rejuvenation, she heads straight to the school; her first stop is to see Amy.
Once more, she must turn to Amy for help to find the man she loves.
“Where is he?”
The school is quiet and almost lifeless as its students hide in their dorm rooms. Curfew is just minutes away and the students know how strict Principal Amy Roberts is when it comes to curfews. Amy, however, is turning the corner and returning to her office when Tina spots her.
“What are you talking about?” Amy stops in her tracks and watches Tina march towards her with haste.
“Nick.” Tina’s face now closer to Amy’s reveals worry and concern for her dear friend. “Have you heard anything since I left?”
Tina has not been gone for long. She left earlier today. And while not much time has passed, she has learnt that at Hartford, much can happen in a day. Hartford is no anomaly from the rest of Newport’s secretive residents, but at the heart of it. There is no doubt in her mind that she will uncover whatever lies behind the scenes to find Nick.
Amy shakes her head with a look of disappointment on her porcelain, slightly wrinkled face. Since discovering that Nick’s wallet and phone were found on the side of the road, she has heard nothing else about hi
m.
While both women are strong, the news of Nick’s disappearance seems to have shaken both of them up. On this point they find common ground and connect. Tina pats Amy on the shoulder and lets it rest there as a source of comfort to Amy. Then, she reaches for Amy’s arm and guides her to turn around. She gestures they return in the direction Amy came from.
When they arrive at Chaplain Nick’s apartment door, Amy, who was distraught at the current events escalating at the school, remembers that she does not have her master key to open the door.
“No problem, I have something.” Tina takes one look at the door, then she slips her hand into her pocket, “I always carry supplies with me.” She pulls out a paper clip and bends it around to mimic a key. She attempts the lock, jiggles it around in the keyhole a few times, then a couple of minutes later the door clicks and it opens.
“Where did you learn that?” Amy is fascinated by the handy tool that Tina has in her bag of tricks. “Can I see that key?”