Darkness Falls

by Melissa R. L. Simonin

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed. “I’ll have you arrested if you lay a finger on me! I’ll have you—I’ll sue you for everything!”

  “That’s not the truth. You fired that gun in our direction multiple times. You’ve got gunpowder residue on your hands. Your fingerprints are all over Cheryl’s phone which is by your foot. A record of the texts you sent me, including a photo of her terrified with her hands bound, are on her phone and mine. Ryan Mead’s body is buried in that crevasse over there. There’s enough evidence here to convict you of murder, and attempted murder. You have nothing on any of us.”

  As long as Xander didn’t start swinging.

  “Not yet he doesn’t,” said Xander, lifting the stick of wood swiftly over his shoulder, as if it was a baseball bat and Westin was a piñata.

  Westin’s eyes dilated, and his face contorted.

  “Stop! You’ll never find her on your own!”

  “That’s not the truth,” I said.

  Westin glared at me, confusion mixing with all of the other emotions that chased each other across his face. Maybe all of the truths I just spouted off were finally sinking in.

  “Where is she?” asked Miles again. “Tell us, and I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “Miles!” Xander glared.

  Miles held out his hand, motioning for Xander to stop.

  “Tell us where she is. If she’s unharmed, then I won’t let him hurt you. Xander, start the countdown.”

  “One,” said Xander, then swung the stick back hard. “Zero!”

  Westin screamed, then shouted, “She’s over there! I swear I didn’t touch her!”

  “That’s not the truth,” I said. “She didn’t tie herself up, or drag herself out of her house, or shove herself in the trunk, or—”

  “Thanks, honey,” said Miles, and I kept the rest of the truth to myself.

  “You better take us to her, and you better not have hurt her!” said Xander.

  “Bring your club just in case,” said Miles, and Xander smacked it against the palm of his hand again. “Move it, Westin.”

  He was too focused on that stick in Xander’s hand to even realize Miles had called him by his real name, I guess. He didn’t react to it anyway. He did start to move, Miles must have loosened his hold on him.

  Westin walked down the overgrown trail in the direction of the crevasse, and we followed. I listened for any sound that could possibly belong to Cheryl, but all I heard was the breeze whispering through the pines that grew thick on each side of the path, and the intermittent chirping of birds.

  “Xander, slow down,” said Miles, holding out his arm to block him from moving ahead.

  “He’s getting too far in front of us!” said Xander.

  “No, he’s not. I’m not controlling him right now, because I don’t know where Cheryl is. This gives me the best view of every move he makes so that I can intervene if he tries anything.”

  I recognized the distant mountains in front of us. With each step we took, the split in the earth became more discernible. There was the slight rise to the right of the path, and somewhere on the other side of it was where Westin lowered himself down the rope into the crevasse to bury Ryan. If the tree he tied the rope to was still there, it was a lot bigger than it was nineteen years ago. All of the trees were.

  “Where is she, Westin?” asked Miles.

  “She’s over there,” Westin said, motioning vaguely to the right.

  “Is she inside the crevasse, or out?” asked Miles.

  Xander smacked the stick against his palm.

  “Out, she’s out!” said Westin quickly, as he reached the edge of the crevasse. “She’s perfectly fine, she’s behind the tree!”

  We heard struggling and what sounded like muffled cries for help, and Xander moved forward quickly.

  “Xander!” Miles said.

  Miles couldn’t see, Xander was in his way, but I could. In that brief instant before Xander either moved or was moved, Westin dove behind the trees.

  We ran. Westin was crazy enough to throw Cheryl into that crevasse out of spite, and that thought was foremost in our minds.

  With good reason. We heard a scream as we rounded the group of pines that obscured Westin from view. I caught a glimpse of Cheryl’s terrified eyes as she fell backwards into the crevasse.

  A thud echoed from inside the split in the earth.

  It wasn’t Cheryl.

  Instead of continuing her backward fall, she spun and fell forward a safe distance away from the edge.

  “Cheryl, are you okay?” Xander asked frantically, as he reached her. He half-carried and half-dragged her further from the edge, then set to work removing the duct tape that bound her hands and ankles. She was crying, the sounds muffled. I thought she was the one that screamed, but not with that tape on her mouth. It miraculously loosened, and the tape that bound her tore away with minimal effort. It looked as though duct tape was a whole lot easier to remove than people thought. It looked that way, anyway.

  Cheryl threw herself into Xander’s arms and hugged him for dear life, and they both cried with relief. They were probably still stuck in that moment when she was almost lost from view, as she fell into the crevasse. I’d had moments like that. I understood.

  Miles and I walked to the edge of the crevasse and looked down at Rob Westin’s twisted form.

  “He’s lying on top of the grave he dug for Ryan,” I said softly.

  Miles gave a low whistle.

  “That’s… poetic justice for you, I guess.”

  “Isn’t that the truth. Actually yes, that is the truth,” I said.

  “I really wanted this guy to stand trial. I mean we’ve got so much on him… but I guess this is less messy, anyway.”

  “That’s not the truth,” I said.

  Miles looked at me, puzzled.

  “Yes, you wanted Westin to stand trial. Yes, we’ve got so much on him. But you want to stand there and tell me this isn’t, well… you do see what I see, right?”

  Miles made a face and pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked at me.

  “Sorry. Not trying to make you laugh,” I said.

  “I don’t have the ability you do, so I’ll just have to trust that you’re telling the truth,” Miles smiled, and this time I was the one that managed not to laugh.

  “Should we probably call the police?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Miles. “We probably should. I have no idea what we’re going to tell them.”

  “The truth,” I said promptly. Miles looked at me, a puzzled frown on his face. I quickly added, “That doesn’t mean we give them all of the truth. So while Xander and Cheryl recover, let’s figure this out fast, then call.”

  “Okay,” said Miles. “So… this guy was giving you unwanted attention. We looked into his background because of our past dealings with psychopaths. We talked to Cecilia, she told us about the cabin, the general location, and that she believed he wanted to take her there and kill her. We tell them about what happened in your two classes, and what happened this morning. We tell them about Cheryl, and that when she was taken we knew it was to pay you back, so we headed in this direction and… how did we know where the cabin was?”

  Miles frowned in concentration.

  “Did Jackson call you back?” I asked. “Miles, check your phone!”

  Miles quickly did.

  “Yes! I’ve got a text with the address. It came in before Westin went over the edge, that’s good. So our PI got us the address, we tell them about the texts you got, and then everything else we tell them exactly what happened, omitting the whole superpower part of it.”

  “Okay,” I said, as Miles dialed the Glen Haven police department to inform them that Cheryl had been found, and her abductor had fallen to his death.

  While Miles was on the phone, Cheryl and Xander joined me. I gave her a long hug.

  “You’re okay now,” I said. “It’s over, and he can’t hurt you ever again.”

  She no
dded, and I patted her back and let her go.

  “You were right,” she said, her voice trembling. “It isn’t cool to almost be killed.”

  “That’s the truth,” I said. “This isn’t the kind of excitement you want to be having.”

  She shook her head. I wondered how long it would take for her to get her bounce back, even her hair was less bouncy than usual.

  “You were smart though, Cheryl. You were in your house. You had the alarm on. You punched in the code to alert your security company that someone was in the house and you were in danger. So from now on, leave investigating to the professionals, stay smart, and you’ll do okay. And get pepper spray.”

  “Okay,” she nodded and kind of laughed.

  “I mean it about the pepper spray,” I said, and she nodded again. “Xander, are you okay?”

  Xander nodded. Poor guy… it was too bad Jenny wasn’t here, but he’d see her soon. I guess. I wondered how long the police would want us here, or if they’d take our statements later.

  “They’re on their way,” said Miles, returning his phone to his pocket. “Cheryl, call your parents. They’ve got to be absolutely terrified right now, they don’t know you’ve been found. Xander, you might want to call and get the word out to your parents too, and then have them call the rest of your family.”

  “I don’t have my phone,” Cheryl said.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “And that’s going to be considered evidence, I’m quite sure. Here, use mine.”

  Xander and Cheryl began to make their calls. Hopefully Cheryl’s parents were able to understand her through the tears.

  Miles and I moved closer to the cabin, so we could meet the police whenever they arrived. Or the Sheriff. This cabin wasn’t in the Glen Haven city limits, but that’s where she’d been kidnapped… oh well, they’d figure it out.

  Miles and I hugged each other.

  “I couldn’t save him, Anika. I couldn’t see him.”

  “Seriously, Miles? You think I’m concerned about that? I know you would have saved him if you had the chance. I know you wanted him to stand trial. But look, even if you let the natural consequences of his actions play out, I wouldn’t feel any differently toward you.”

  “Okay,” said Miles. “I’d feel differently about myself though, I think. I believe in the use of deadly force in matters of self-defense and in defense of others, obviously.”

  I knew what he meant, he was talking about the day he and his brother were fighting for their lives in the clearing, the day that they were ambushed.

  “I know,” I said. “Me too. Obviously. I wasn’t firing a warning shot at Bea Cochran three months ago.”

  “I’ll never be in that situation again though and neither will you, because I can protect us both. So I’ll never use deadly force, and I’ll try to prevent even the bad guy from ending up like Westin did.”

  “I think that’s why you’ve got these abilities. You can be trusted with them. There’s nothing dark about you.”

  “When you say there’s nothing dark about someone, it means something entirely different than if someone else said it,” Miles smiled.

  “When I look at you, I actually see bright light,” I said. “Almost blinding.”

  “What?” Miles exclaimed.

  “Of course the sun is right behind your head, so…”

  Miles laughed and hugged me harder, then kissed me.

  “Anika, just please do me one favor… don’t make me laugh when the officers get here. I don’t think that would seem appropriate considering the situation.”

  I laughed and rested my cheek against his chest.

  “Okay. Nothing funny, then.”

  Xander and Cheryl joined us just as two Sheriff SUV’s, their lights flashing, pulled into the driveway.

  I reluctantly let Miles go and prepared to answer their many questions.

  Chapter 20

  The sun had set by the time we walked down the hall and let ourselves into our apartment.

  “We already ordered,” I said to our friends, who all followed along behind us. “So it won’t be too long.”

  “Good, because I think I can eat now,” said Xander, and Jenny gave him a one-armed hug and a look of sympathy. “I’m starting to really feel the absence of lunch.”

  I was too, my stomach was growling and complaining, and I actually felt a little weak. It had been an exhausting day, to say the least.

  “Anika told them to rush it, there are three people here who are near starvation,” said Miles, as he and I wearily dropped onto the couch. “She placed a larger order than usual, too.”

  “That’s what happens when I’m this hungry and I do the ordering,” I said. “Actually I think this is the only time I’ve been this hungry and done the ordering. That doesn’t make it less true.”

  Jenny and Xander took one loveseat, and John and Annette the other.

  “This was our first missing person case,” I suddenly realized, looking up at Miles.

  “That’s right, it was,” said Miles. “I like how it feels to prevent a tragedy.”

  “Same here,” I said. “This is how I want to focus my abilities.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Annette.

  “Anika and I talked over the weekend,” responded Miles. “We plan to set up a program under the Bannerman Foundation to assist in cases of missing persons.”

  “That’ll put you right in the middle of police investigations though,” said John.

  “The Bannerman Foundation is the perfect cover,” I said. “It gives us a reason to be present and to talk to family and friends, and to cover multiple cases. We won’t be random citizens showing up again and again, we’re acting on behalf of the Foundation.”

  “The Bannerman Foundation will provide financial and other support to families of missing persons,” said Miles, and he turned to me suddenly, excitement in his eyes. “We’ll provide a PI, too.”

  “Awesome!” I said, my exhaustion chased away by enthusiasm. “That’s so, so, so perfect! That’s how we can justify some of what we learn. See, you’re totally the brawn and the brains of this operation.”

  Miles smiled. He pulled me a little closer and kissed my forehead, then continued.

  “One criteria that must be met in order to receive help from the Bannerman Foundation will be to answer a few simple questions.”

  “Oh!” our friends all said at the same time as they realized what that meant, then laughed.

  “All I need to ask is, do you have any idea who’s responsible for this person’s disappearance? Then if they say no, and they’re guilty or know anything at all about it or even have a suspicion, then that simple ‘no’ will give me that information and clue me in on what questions to ask next.”

  “Oh, wow,” said Annette. “How perfect that is!”

  “Isn’t it?” I smiled. “I’d much rather do this, than to find evidence of guilt because someone was murdered. Of course I’ll do whatever’s placed in front of me, but… this is where my heart is. Prevention.”

  “Mine too,” said Miles.

  “If it wasn’t for you guys,” said Xander, looking a little pale again, “He would have killed her.”

  Jenny rubbed his back, and he took a deep breath.

  John and Annette knew very little of what happened, and even Jenny, who’d come to support Xander and Cheryl, didn’t know much. There’s a lot that couldn’t be said in front of anyone but our close friends, and there were a lot of people at that cabin. Sheriff deputies and police officers, a coroner, and forensic people I think.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Jenny. I’m sure she was wanting to know what happened, but it also helps sometimes to verbalize. It can diminish a memory’s ability to make us feel as though we’re back in that moment again.

  “I’d rather do it now than later,” said Xander, sitting back and putting his arm around her. “Please, you guys… you tell it.”

  Miles and I took turns, starting with Westin’s att
empt to assault us as we sat in front of the Student Center. As we talked, we discovered things that happened so fast, we weren’t all aware of them. Like the texts.

  “I couldn’t let him think I knew it was him. It would have accelerated the plan he intended to carry out.” I looked at Xander, his eyes closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. I bit my lip, then looked at Miles.

  “Go ahead,” Xander said. “I already know this.”

  “You tell them,” I said, nudging Miles with my shoulder. I couldn’t. I wasn’t the strong, calm, in control one. I might cry, realizing all over again.

  “Okay,” Miles said, squeezing my shoulder softly and pulling me a little closer. “Westin wanted to make Anika suffer, and Anika knew that. She hoped it meant that he hadn’t murdered Cheryl yet, and that he was wanting to flaunt in Anika’s face that she was still alive, but there was nothing she could do to save Cheryl. That’s exactly what he was planning to do. We know that now, after hearing what Cheryl had to say. His intention was to taunt Anika and then when he’d gotten all of the fun he wanted out of that, he intended to use Cheryl’s phone to take a video of her falling to her death and send that to Anika.”

  “Is it—horrible of me to be glad this guy will never walk the face of this earth again?” asked John, looking sick and angry at the same time.

  “If it is, then we’re all horrible,” I said. “But answer your own question.”

  He looked at me funny, then realized.

  “It’s not horrible to be glad this guy will never walk the face of the earth again.”

  “You’re telling the truth,” I said.

  “Man, that’s—so cool how you can do that,” said Xander. “You guys—you’re like the coolest friends ever. No offense, John and Annette.”

  We all laughed at that.

  “None taken Xander, we feel the same way,” John smiled, and we laughed even more. We needed that, after the afternoon we’d had.

  “Go on now, please Miles,” said Annette. “So what happened then?”

  “Anika pretended she thought it was a friend playing a joke. That took all of Westin’s focus. She had to know it was him, or he’d be robbed of the satisfaction he was anticipating.”

  “He’d lose,” I said. “He couldn’t stand that. But he also wouldn’t come out and say his name. Maybe in some confused part of his mind he thought there would be nothing to tie him to her kidnapping and her murder, I don’t know. So when he said he wasn’t who I thought he was, I pretended he was some other person. He said he was my worst nightmare, and I didn’t react to that, I just kept going like it was a joke, and a lame one. I had to keep him off balance and distracted from his goal, so the last text I sent, I pretended he was some guy I had a restraining order against and that I was going to call the police.”