Her Last Day (Jessie Cole Book 1)

by T. R. Ragan

  The box was not a fun place to be, and it might teach Erin Hayes a lesson, just as it had taught him once. His father used to put him in the box a few times a year. The first time he’d thought he would die and nobody would ever find him.

  When he’d turned twelve, not long after Sue Sterling had paid them a visit, things had changed.

  For the worse.

  His father had become creative with his methods of torture. Instead of putting his only son’s splayed hands on a red-hot burner, beating him with a belt, or throwing him in the box, he’d found ways to exploit his fears and phobias. His dad had begun to threaten to cut off his feet or his ears or peel off his fingernails. Psychological torture at its best. Designed to mess with his mind and cause stress. He’d lost sleep thinking about what his father might do. Never mind what he’d already done.

  He’d once found a book his father had been reading about torture from medieval times to modern day. After Sue Sterling’s visit, his father had learned to torture in ways that didn’t leave marks. He used a cane to whip the soles of his feet. The worst pain was when his father had extracted a sore tooth because Mom was not allowed to take him to the dentist. After his dad had attempted to pull the molar, part of the bone that had supported the tooth had shifted and poked through his gum. It took about a year for the exposed bone to erode and for the pain to subside.

  After feeding the chickens and collecting eggs from the coop, he gathered a tin can of oats, a brush, and a shovel before making his way to the pasture, where he clicked his tongue and waited for Misty, an old swayback mare, to see him and come his way. Misty was his best friend. The only living creature in the world he cared about.

  As soon as Misty spotted him, she trotted his way. As she ate the oats he’d brought her, he pulled the brush from his back pocket and used the soft bristles to rub the horse’s neck. “How are you doing, girl? You look good.”

  Misty lifted her head and looked toward the barn, ears perked.

  “It’s okay, girl. He’s not going to hurt you. Never again. Dog is locked up in the basement, remember? He’s living in the cell he built with his own two hands.”

  Misty went back to eating.

  “I know. I should have killed him already, but that would have been much too easy—for him, not me. The man caused Mom and me and you nothing but grief. Not a day went by that he didn’t call me weak and stupid. He needs more time to think about the things he did wrong. He deserves to be punished, maybe for eternity.”

  Even as he spoke the words out loud, he knew they weren’t true. He wasn’t weak and stupid. He was strong. He was a survivor. He didn’t want to hurt people, but he felt as if he had no choice. Sue Sterling could have stopped his father, but she’d chosen to ignore what she’d seen with her own eyes.

  And what about all those other people who’d seen the cigarette burns on his hand and the infected bite marks all over his body? In the end, nobody cared. He wasn’t heartless. They were.

  After Misty finished the oats, he surprised her with a carrot. Then he patted her on the rump, grabbed the shovel, and made his way to the big oak tree in the middle of the pasture.

  As he’d been doing for as long as he could remember, he put his ear against the trunk and listened to the vibration as the tree hummed with life. Seconds passed before he gazed out at the tall grass and weeds, then turned so that he faced west. He then counted his steps until he found a plot of ground that had not been disturbed and began to dig.

  He would need two holes. Or maybe just one this time. He had an idea. It had been a while since he’d purposely staged a corpse for the authorities to find. If his calculations were correct, there were six bodies buried in the pasture. Every once in a while he liked to change things up, though, and leave a corpse or two somewhere shocking, somewhere small kids and their uptight parents would run into the dead body, a sight that would be forever ingrained in their brains.

  It was always risky, but also exciting, making what he did for a living so much more fun.

  At that very moment, he remembered the girls stored away in the extra refrigerator in the garage. He’d been so busy he’d forgotten all about them. How long had they been in there, he wondered. A year? Maybe two?

  One thing for sure, he needed to get Garrett out of the house. The stench of his decaying body had already filled the basement and the room above.

  His mind was made up.

  One hole was all he needed.

  He had no idea how long Erin Hayes would last in the box, especially since he planned to torture her with hope, his favorite kind of torture. He would give her enough water and food to keep her hanging on by a thread. And he would feed her words of encouragement. Tell her everyone was looking for her and that he was even thinking about letting her go.

  All lies.

  “What are you doing?”

  His head snapped up at the sound of a female voice. She stood there, watching him work. He dropped his shovel. How had he not seen her standing there before? “Zee? What are you doing here?”

  “I spent all day in the park waiting for you to come. When you didn’t show up, I decided it was time to go in search of you.”

  Her straight black hair was a tangled mess, and her long dark jacket that flared at the knees was torn and dirty. Her face was smudged with dirt and blood. He leaned closer. Yep. She’d definitely suffered a bloody nose.

  There were many miles between Rainbow Park and his small farm. How could she have possibly found him? It defied reason. He’d known within minutes of their first meeting that she was highly irrational. She had multiple brain disorders, including schizophrenia. He’d studied mental disorders in college. He knew all about her illness, which was why she’d fascinated him the moment he met her. Without medication and therapy, she had to be a walking time bomb. “Have you been taking your medication?”

  “What are you digging a hole for?” she asked, ignoring his question. She looked around, then marched through high grass and stopped at a rectangular-shaped patch of ground that had been disturbed.

  Garrett’s wife was buried there. Grass and weeds had sprouted, but it would take a while before Mother Nature did its thing and the grass grew tall enough to hide the spot from curious eyes.

  “That was my last compost area,” he said happily. “It was time to make a new one. Once I dig the hole, I’ll add newspaper clippings, wood chips, and dry leaves to get it started. After that I can put kitchen waste, food scraps, et cetera, into the pile, and it’ll all make for a wonderful fertilizer for my garden.” He pointed to his right, where even from here he could see juicy red tomatoes growing from a vine. He’d always prized himself on his green thumb.

  She looked semi-impressed. But then, in the blink of an eye, she pointed to the house. “Is that where you live?”

  He raked his dirty fingers through his hair. “Why are you here, Zee?”

  “Why didn’t you come to see me?” she shot back, angry.

  He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth, that he’d come upon a young woman stranded on the side of the road and couldn’t pass up such a golden opportunity. So he asked, “Can I be honest with you?”

  “You know you can.”

  “I was afraid that if I kept coming around, you would grow tired of me,” he lied. “I couldn’t let that happen.” He did his best to appear forlorn, as if he gave one shit about her.

  She wasn’t the touchy-feely sort. He knew that because his hand had accidentally brushed against hers once in the park, and she’d had a conniption. But still, he thought she’d at least try to comfort him with kind words. Instead she started walking across the pasture, following the path toward the house.

  Damn it! He grabbed the shovel and started after her.

  Zee was only a few feet from the box when Erin decided to yell for help. Zee ran that way, stopping right outside the box. “Is someone in there?”

  “Help! Get me out of here!”

  Zee looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide and question
ing.

  He hated to hurt her, but she’d left him with no other choice. “This is your fault,” he told Zee as he raised the shovel and swung hard.

  Bam. Zee fell to the ground.

  “What’s going on?” Erin cried. “Who’s out there?”

  “You should have kept your mouth shut,” he told the stupid girl in the box as he knelt down close to Zee’s crumpled body and watched the thin line of blood trickle down from the top of her head and across her nose. “Look what the bitch made me do.”

  He dropped the shovel, grabbed two fistfuls of Zee’s hair, and dragged her toward the house.

  TWENTY

  After spending the afternoon going door-to-door talking to Arlo’s neighbors, Jessie wasn’t any closer to finding his daughter. Arlo had been right. His neighbors didn’t like him. More than a few of his neighbors had talked about the Gatleys as if they were a disgrace to humanity and deserved to be carted off and locked behind bars. Their reasoning had boiled down to the simple fact that Arlo and Zee looked and acted different than most “normal” people did. Zee wore dark lipstick, dark nail polish, and apparently a long dark coat that one of the neighbors described as “Goth,” and the other called “witchy.” Others had refused to answer the door at all, peeking through their curtains or telling her through the door to go away.

  Back at the office, Jessie sat at her desk, staring at a long list of things to get done. There were subpoenas to serve and a deadbeat dad who needed to be hunted down. It had taken her years to acquire the skills needed to find her niche in the investigative business. She preferred to focus on looking for people, which included missing person cases, skip traces (people who owed a debt), or finding the birth parents of adopted children. Finding a birth parent could be rewarding but also emotionally draining. Sometimes parents were found who didn’t want anything to do with the people looking for them.

  Her business had been growing at a nice rate, but the Parker Koontz incident had thrown her off her game. For the first time since starting her investigative business, she realized she needed help. If she had time to train someone, she might consider hiring an assistant. Although staying out of jail was her number one priority, she still needed to pay the rent and keep food on the table. As she picked up a subpoena and looked at the address, her cell phone buzzed. Distracted, she hit the “Talk” button and said hello.

  “Hello. It’s Ben Morrison. I was wondering if you could head over with me to the Wild West in Auburn later this afternoon?”

  The Wild West was the last place Sophie had been seen. Jessie had been there many times. “I’m neck-deep in work right now. A young woman is missing, and her father is frantic. I—”

  “This could be an important lead. I think you’ll want to be there when I talk to one of the employees. She remembers seeing your sister there that night.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Leanne.”

  Leanne Baxter. Jessie remembered her well. “You’re wasting your time. I’ve talked to her multiple times over the years. She told me she left early the night Sophie was there. I showed her Sophie’s picture, and she was adamant about never having seen her before.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “At least three years ago.”

  “You need to come,” he said. “Leanne told me she’s been haunted by your sister’s story for years and wants to come clean.”

  Jessie thought about Olivia and what her niece had said about needing to know what happened to her mom. Her chest tightened. “Why would Leanne decide to talk now?”

  “Because I offered her a bribe. After talking to her landlord, I discovered he was ready to kick her to the street. I told her I would pay for her next two months of rent.”

  “Jesus,” Jessie said. “So this is how you get people to talk.”

  “Not always,” he said, sounding unrepentant. “But when I’m desperate? Sure.”

  “If you already met with her, why didn’t she tell you what she knew?”

  “We haven’t met face-to-face, and she didn’t want to tell me anything over the phone.”

  She sighed as she looked at the stack of unopened mail. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll pick you up at three forty-five.”

  “No need. I can drive myself.”

  “If we’re going to work together to find your sister, I think it’s best if we get to know each other. And it makes sense, especially with your busy schedule, that we use the driving time to do that.”

  “You want to pick my brain—is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes. One more thing,” he said before she could hang up.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have any of Sophie’s old high school yearbooks lying around?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “I’d like to take a look at the people she went to school with. That sort of thing.”

  “No problem. Anything else?”

  “That’s it for now. See you soon.”

  Jessie was in the kitchen when Olivia returned from taking Higgins for a walk. She was sweaty and red in the face. “Looks like Higgins gave you a workout,” Jessie said.

  “Yeah. He’s getting faster.” Olivia hung the leash on the wall hook. “It’s hard to believe he has a broken leg.”

  Higgins’s cast clicked against the wood floor as he made his way to his water bowl. The dog was starting to feel comfortable in his new home. Even Cecil was getting used to him.

  “Oh,” Olivia said, gesturing toward the stairs, “that crime reporter guy is outside. He said he was early and didn’t mind waiting.” Olivia looked at Jessie with curious eyes. “Where are you guys going? Did he discover something new about Sophie?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Jessie went to the window overlooking the street, where she could see Ben Morrison leaning against the hood of a black Toyota Highlander, both hands stuffed in his pants pockets as he gazed straight ahead.

  As she watched him, she tried to put herself in his shoes and imagine having no memories whatsoever of her childhood. Despite her dysfunctional upbringing, she would never want to part with all the good memories she still held so dear to her heart.

  There was something mysterious about Ben Morrison. It was in his eyes, she decided. The first time they’d met, she’d felt as if he could see right through her. And although she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, she found herself wondering if his amnesia was merely an excuse, and that maybe he knew more about what happened to Sophie than he was letting on.

  “Are you okay?”

  Olivia’s voice pulled Jessie from her thoughts. She looked at her niece, feeling a little guilty about being less than enthusiastic about looking for Sophie. Ten years had passed since her sister’s disappearance, the event that had shaped her and Olivia’s lives. Not a day went by that Jessie didn’t think about her sister and wonder where she was. And yet once Ben had called her, she’d realized somewhere along the way she’d begun to move on with her life.

  “What’s wrong?” Olivia asked again.

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “To the Wild West in Auburn.”

  “Isn’t that where Sophie was seen last?”

  “It is. Basically we’re starting over.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “No. I need you to watch Higgins. You wanted a dog, and now you have one. I’ll help out while you’re in school, but he’s your responsibility. I expect you to do your homework, too. No television until it’s done.”

  “Fine. I have a paper to write anyhow. I had to pick a fictional character to write about, so I picked Sherlock Holmes.”

  Jessie grabbed the backpack she used for a purse and slid the straps over her shoulders. “Interesting choice. What made you pick Sherlock?”

  “I thought it would be a good place to start since I’ve decided after I graduate I want to be a private eye like you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

>   “What do you mean?”

  Jessie raised her arms. “Look around you. You want to live my glamorous life?”

  “I thought you were happy.”

  “I can barely pay the bills, let alone buy dog food for Higgins. You can be anything you desire. You have the freedom to choose any occupation at all.”

  “Are you telling me that you didn’t have a choice?”

  Jessie’s arms fell to her sides. “Never mind. This is way too soon to be talking about this. First you need to go to college.”

  Olivia crossed her arms. “I’m planning on it. I’ve already decided that I want to get a degree in criminal justice.”

  Jessie groaned. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Nice ride,” Jessie said when Ben Morrison opened the door for her, and she slid into the passenger seat.

  “It’s the wife’s car. Mine isn’t so nice. No air-conditioning and an engine that hisses at stoplights.”

  “Sounds a lot like my car,” Jessie said with a laugh.

  He merged into traffic.

  She unzipped her backpack, pulled out the yearbook, and placed it on the back seat.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She looked at his profile. “What’s really going on here?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  She exhaled. “Never mind. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Forget I said anything.”

  “You still have doubts about me—don’t you?”

  “I guess I do.”

  “You sound upset.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I could end up in jail for shooting a man in self-defense. I need to find a missing girl with schizophrenia. I have an injured dog at home that hates me and a niece who just told me she wants to be a private eye when she grows up.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there? Come on,” he said. “Go ahead and get it all out.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. The whole point of driving together was to get to know each other.”