by Matt Witten
“Midnight? Good thing I brought chocolate,” Kyra said, and took out a Snickers bar. She tore it in two and offered half to Susan.
Susan still felt guilty about getting the girl involved. “Won’t your mom wonder where you are?”
Kyra made a sound that was part snort, part laugh. “Like she even cares. She still blames me for her asshole boyfriend leaving.” She looked into Emily’s bedroom and frowned, upset. “Shit.”
They watched as Danny kissed Emily good night.
On the lips.
Susan got an emptiness in her chest. “How could I not notice?” Her voice came out in a whisper.
“’Cause he’s a sneaky fuckhead. Acts all sweet, like my mom’s boyfriend did.”
Danny stepped away from Emily and walked to the window. As he did, Susan saw his face straight on. A shiver of pure, unadulterated hate rolled through her. Then Danny shut the curtains, turned off the light, and left Emily’s bedroom.
At least Susan thought he did.
Her adrenalin was pumping and she wanted to rush in there right now. But she forced herself to stick to her rule about midnight. By then, she and Kyra were both freezing, their teeth chattering. Clouds covered the half-moon and the sky was darker now. All the lights inside the house were off.
“You ready?” Susan asked.
“Let’s go.”
They moved through the yard toward Emily’s bedroom. Hopefully they’d get lucky and be able to lift one of her two windows. If they were both locked, they’d try the windows in the front part of the house. And if that didn’t work—
It better work.
Kyra stepped on a branch, and it snapped with a loud crack. “Careful!” Susan whispered hoarsely.
They made it to the bedroom. Susan watched as Kyra reached out and pushed upward on one of the windows.
It didn’t move.
Kyra pushed harder, and still nothing happened.
Susan stepped to the other window and pushed as hard as she could, her muscles tightening. Nothing happened, then all at once she felt something give and the window slid up two feet!
But it made a loud, raspy grinding sound. Susan stood stock still, waiting to see if the noise woke up Emily, or if she could hear anything else inside the house.
There was only silence. So she pushed upward again. But the window was stuck now. She pushed again, shutting her eyes and giving it everything she had. No go. It would be impossible to fit her body through that small opening.
Then Kyra came toward her. Kyra put her hands on the window, gave Susan a nod, and they pushed up together. Suddenly the window came unstuck and rose two more feet. But this time it made an even worse grinding sound. Susan stopped, alarmed.
She and Kyra waited. But the house was still silent. Nobody came into Emily’s room and she stayed asleep.
Susan felt along the bottom part of the screen, found the two tabs, and pulled the screen out of the window opening. She lay it quietly on the ground. Then she placed her hands on the window ledge and started to climb up onto it.
But her foot couldn’t quite make it onto the window ledge on her first or second try, and she got a sharp pain in her problem leg. She was about to try again, but Kyra stopped her.
“I’ll do it,” Kyra said.
“No—”
But Kyra was already climbing up. Susan made a stepping-stone out of her hands, and Kyra used it to boost herself higher. She made it onto the ledge, keeping her head down so she wouldn’t bang it on the windowsill above her, and dropped down onto the bedroom floor.
She landed hard.
And Emily woke up.
Looking through the open window, in the darkness, Susan saw the girl lift up her head and look at Kyra. Then, in another room, the dog barked. Oh shit.
Emily asked Kyra, “Who are you?”
Kyra moved toward the bedside table and said softly, “It’s okay, go back to sleep.”
The dog began barking more urgently. Standing at the window, Susan felt helpless. She wanted to scream at Kyra to hurry, but she knew the girl was going as fast as she could.
She watched as Kyra opened the top drawer of the bedside table and rummaged around. But her hands came out empty. What the hell?
“Are you looking for something?” Emily asked.
Then Kyra opened the bottom drawer of the table—and immediately her hand came out with the necklace.
Outside, Susan started to heave a sigh of relief but cut it short out of fear Emily would hear her and get even more freaked out.
“That’s my necklace,” Emily said.
Kyra put it in her coat pocket and headed for the window, whispering, “I’m just borrowing it.”
But then Emily screamed.
From the other room, Danny shouted, “Emily?!”
“Hurry!” Susan whispered to Kyra, as she got onto the ledge.
Danny entered the room—and Susan saw he was holding a small gun.
Terrified, she held out her hand to Kyra. The girl jumped out the window and managed to land on her feet.
“Hey!” Danny yelled. He ran toward the window.
Susan and Kyra were already running away through the darkness. There were hedges on either side of them and in front of them, blocking their way to other backyards.
Behind them they heard Danny yell, “Stop!” Then they heard a crashing sound—probably he had just tumbled through the window and outside. They ran blindly toward a back hedge.
Emily yelled, “Daddy!”
Danny yelled, “Stop right there!”
And then there was a gunshot.
Holy shit!
Had Danny recognized her? Was he shooting at Susan on purpose?
They kept running, crashing through the hedge.
They heard Danny yell, “Fuck!” It sounded like he’d tripped and fallen—maybe on the same branch that Kyra snapped.
But even if he got slowed down for a second, Susan knew he was still coming after them. If they kept running straight, they’d hit a street that was lit up with streetlights. She was petrified he’d catch up and see them, maybe shoot them.
Was that legal? As furious as Danny was, he might not care.
“This way!” Kyra whispered. Susan got her plan: they’d head left and slip behind the side hedge and hide there ’til he went past.
They did that, moving as quickly and quietly as they could while Danny kept yelling. He fired another shot and Susan flinched, half expecting it to hit her.
Then there was silence. Susan and Kyra were hidden behind the hedge now.
“Hey!” Danny called.
Susan moved her head slightly to the left and looked out through a thin part of the hedge. Oh God, he was so close! Maybe fifteen feet away. He was looking all around him, searching, listening.
“I see you! Come out of there before I shoot!”
He was bluffing. He didn’t see them.
But then he eyed their hedge and advanced carefully toward it, gun high. Somehow he had heard or sensed they were there! Susan and Kyra held their breath, but he kept coming, closing in.
Susan was frantic. She could only think of one thing to do.
Trying not to make noise, she pulled the spray bottle her mom had given her out of her coat pocket. She opened the nozzle all the way, so the pepper spray would come out in a hard stream instead of a mist. Then she raised the bottle and put it into the thin part of the hedge.
Danny came right towards her from the other side. Maybe he’d heard her messing with the bottle. He raised his gun.
Susan aimed at his face and squeezed the lever.
Danny turned toward the sound. The stream of red pepper spray poured out of the nozzle and hit him straight in the eyes.
He screamed with pain. Clawing at his eyes, he fired wildly in the air. Then he dropped his gun so he could deal with his burning eyes.
Susan and Kyra ran like hell out of there, as Danny yelled, “You fuckheads!”
A minute later, and two blocks away, Susan and Kyra
were still running when a cop car raced toward them, siren blaring. Susan froze, panicking.
Kyra said, “Just act normal, like you’re my mom.”
They started walking again. The cop car roared past them.
“Oh my God,” Susan whispered.
“Don’t worry, we’re okay now. Hey, nice job with that pepper spray!”
They made it onto an intersecting street before the next cop car came, and headed back to Main. Susan felt safe—for now.
“Do you think he saw me?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But what’s he gonna do if he did?”
Good question. How would he play this? They made it to the all-night diner and Susan opened the door. The counterman looked up and took them both in, with their cheeks flushed from cold and excitement. “Who’s your young friend?” he asked Susan.
“You never saw her,” Susan said, hardly believing the easy bantering she was getting into with this man she barely knew. Her mom would be impressed.
The counterman grinned. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. We were never here.”
He chuckled. “You got it.”
Susan got her suitcase from the corner where the counterman had put it. Then they ordered coffee and glazed doughnuts, which Kyra paid for, and sat down in a booth. Susan took the necklace from Kyra, held it gingerly, and stared at it.
It’s the same necklace, alright.
She couldn’t believe she was holding Amy’s necklace again after all these years. Love, sadness, and rage warred inside her chest.
This was the necklace her daughter was wearing when she was strangled to death.
Is there any other way Danny could still have it, besides—
“You okay?” Kyra asked.
Susan nodded, unable to speak. She took her purse out of the suitcase and withdrew the small plastic baggie her mom had given her. She put the necklace inside the baggie; somehow it felt safer that way.
Then she put the necklace on the table, and she and Kyra looked at it.
Finally Susan’s mouth started working again. “Amy and I bought these beads together,” she said. “At a little craft store in Glens Falls.”
Kyra brought her head down close to the necklace and studied it. “So we’re rooting for dried blood stuck in under a bead or something.”
“Don’t worry, those CSI people are like magicians.” Susan had been an obsessive viewer of real-life forensics shows ever since Amy got killed. She picked up her coffee. “They’ll find something.”
“But still, it’s been a long time.”
She stopped drinking in mid-sip and put her coffee back down. “Amy hit her forehead on a rock that night. She bled really badly. When the killer strangled her, her necklace was still on.”
Amy’s body lying on that drawer in the morgue. Her bruised, bloody neck. The imprints in her blood made by this very necklace. You can see where the pink duck dug into her bloody neck when she was strangled.
“There were imprints of her necklace in the blood. If this necklace is the same one … If my husband killed my daughter …”
She touched the necklace through the plastic baggie.
“Her DNA will be here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, PRESENT DAY
THE COUNTERMAN WAS indeed a biker, as Susan and Kyra learned when he sat down with them a while later. His name was Mike, and he entertained them with tales of the several years he’d spent in various New York State prisons.
What would Lenora think of Susan hanging out with a biker ex-con and a teenage girl who “cut” her mom’s boyfriend? No doubt she’d be amazed by all the adventures Susan was having—and also appalled. Lenora had called again tonight, but Susan just said, “I’m good, Mom, sorry, bad connection,” and got off the phone fast.
Sitting there in the coffee shop, she finally told Mike the whole story of what she was up to here in Tamarack, except she didn’t reveal Danny’s name even after Mike asked for it more than once.
“I’ll kill the sick bastard myself,” he said.
“Works for me,” Kyra said.
Susan wasn’t totally sure Mike was kidding. She thanked him and said no—though she had to admit, it sounded awfully appealing.
But on the other hand, killing Danny wouldn’t help Curt Jansen any. The date and time of his execution—just three days from now, Saturday, 5:30 p.m.—was never far from her mind.
She did take Mike up on his offer to let her sleep in the back room. There was an old sofa there, much like Molly’s, and she was able to grab five hours, though they were interrupted twice by dreams about Danny that she couldn’t quite remember, but they terrified her.
When she finally woke up for good, she thought again about what Danny would do. By now Emily would have told him about somebody “borrowing” the necklace. He’d know Susan was behind it, and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna tell the cops his ex-wife thought he was a murderer. That was the last thing he needed.
But would he find some other way to get back at her? She sat up on the sofa and felt inside her coat pocket for the baggie containing the necklace. She would protect this necklace with her life, until she gave it to Agent Pappas.
She still could hardly believe what she and Kyra had pulled off last night. But will it work? Will it be enough?
It better be.
Meanwhile, Kyra slept at home, then came back in the morning to buy Susan breakfast for the road. Mike scrambled them some eggs with extra bacon.
As Susan wolfed down her food, she looked up at the clock and saw it was already after eight. She asked Kyra, “Won’t you get in trouble for skipping school?”
“I might. But then again, if I ever apply for college this whole thing will make one hell of a personal essay.”
They had another cup of coffee, then got up. It was time to go.
Susan said to Mike, “Your coffee saved my life the last two nights.”
“Yeah, you owe me about fifty bucks,” he said, and shook her hand. He wasn’t the hugging type, but then again neither was she. Not with men, anyway.
Mike held the door open for them and they headed outside into the cold morning air. Kyra rolled Susan’s suitcase for her down Main Street.
After their wild night, the gentle pace of small-town life was jarring. A middle-aged man was walking his white poodle. An elderly couple took a leisurely winter stroll.
Susan thought about Danny, living quietly in this little town. At night, does he dream about hurting Emily?
She had always wondered if the Monster intended to kill Amy from the moment he abducted her. Now she wondered, If Danny really did kill Amy … did he mean to, or was he trying to do something different with her and …
Susan’s head started pounding and she couldn’t think any further. Kyra must have been thinking along the same lines, though, because she said, “Do you think he’s planning to kill Emily?”
The hairs rose on the back of Susan’s neck. “If he’s a psycho, maybe that’s part of the thrill. Seeing if he can get away with it twice.”
Ahead of them, three women tourists in expensive wool coats looked into the window of “Grandpa’s House Antiques.” Susan glanced in and saw a couple of big antique hunting rifles.
Kyra went on about what a disgusting creep Danny was, but Susan wasn’t listening anymore. She stopped short and eyed the rifles, frowning. Something about them was tugging at her mind.
All of a sudden, she realized what it was. Her eyes opened wide as the memory came back to her:
Danny in his green and brown camo jacket, getting ready for his annual hunting trip. He kisses Susan goodbye and puts his old rifle in the trunk of his car—
Holy fucking God.
Susan choked out, “Or maybe it’s more than twice.”
Kyra looked at her, confused. “What?”
“Maybe it’s more than twice,” Susan repeated. “He went deer hunting every winter. Most years he didn’t get anything.” She felt t
he eggs and bacon rising in her throat. “Maybe he was hunting something else.”
She gasped, leaned over, and threw up.
Kyra put her hand on Susan’s back. After she seemed done, Kyra asked, “You okay?”
Susan nodded.
“We’ll get you some water.”
Susan straightened back up. The three women tourists and a couple of other people were staring at her. She looked away from them—
—and saw Danny.
He was across the street half a block away, with Emily. They were holding hands and she was skipping and laughing. They walked into a bakery, the Bread Basket. They looked so …
Again Kyra said out loud what Susan was thinking. “God, they look so normal,” she said wonderingly.
Susan stared at them through the bakery window. Why wasn’t Emily in school? Maybe last night had been so scary, her parents let her sleep in and pick out a morning treat. Through the window, she saw Emily pointing at the cupcake she wanted, and Danny getting it for her.
Susan’s stomach clenched. “What if they are normal? What if I’m wrong about all this?”
“You’re not wrong,” Kyra said.
“My mom thinks I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t slept well for months, thinking about this execution.” She pointed at Danny and Emily, happy together. “I mean, look at them.”
“Don’t let him fool you again. Trust yourself.”
Susan felt light-headed, her thoughts and her recent nausea making her woozy. That necklace in her pocket—what did it really prove? Maybe Danny searched the internet and found beads that were just like Amy’s.
All these years Danny mourns for Amy. He keeps his sorrow buried inside, like men do. But to help him deal with the pain, he makes Emily a new necklace that looks just like the one Amy used to have—
“Let’s go,” Kyra said. “We don’t want that prick to see us.”
True, what if he tried to take the necklace back from her? Susan steadied herself and walked off down the street, away from Danny.
Five minutes later, they made it to the bus station on Main. Susan kept a wary eye out for Danny ’til the westbound bus pulled up. As soon as it came, she realized how eager she was to get the hell out of this town.
The driver stepped out—the same bored, skinny guy who had left her off here two days ago. He was wearing the same Hawaiian shirt and her nose told her he hadn’t washed it since then. Not that she was a model of cleanliness herself at this point. But she’d changed her clothes and washed up in the diner bathroom again, and she’d brushed her teeth just now in the bus station, so she was feeling pretty spiffy for somebody who hadn’t showered since Sunday morning.