The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  The squeaks of fancy shoes on the polished tile made their way towards her. Bethany looked up to see a man walking up to Ms. Garcia’s office door. His hair was black and combed back, shining in the fluorescent lights. He wore a business suit, but in place of a tie, he wore a necklace of silver with blue and black stones. Bethany thought it was very pretty. He looked down at Bethany and smiled at her, and Bethany couldn’t help but smile back. He gave Bethany a wink, then he knocked on the office door.

  Daniel was rescued by someone wrapping on the door. Ms. Garcia looked up, gritting her teeth, pissed at the interruption. “Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Burns,” she growled and squeezed her bulk out from behind the desk.

  Daniel watched as Ms. Garcia opened the office door. On the other side was a young man. Hell, he looked like he was a week away from buying his first razor, his cheeks were so smooth. His hair was slicked back, but his smile stretched all the way up to his eyes, which were dark but somehow warm. His skin was brown and Daniel wondered what his ethnicity was. Middle Eastern maybe? That didn’t feel right. He glanced at the necklace he wore in place of a necktie, a gaudy thing of silver and turquoise, the center piece reminding him of a dreamcatcher. Native American? Most likely.

  The door closed behind her. Daniel sat patiently, hearing only mumbles from the other side of the door, but as he settled down to wait for Ms. Garcia to return he was shocked out of his seat when he heard her shouting on the other side.

  “This is highly irregular,” she said.

  Daniel looked over his shoulder, his curiosity peaked, but unlike Ms. Garcia the young man was calm. Daniel couldn’t hear the conversation and, figuring it couldn’t have anything to do with him, turned back around.

  “You can’t be serious!” Ms. Garcia shouted.

  Daniel turned around again. What the hell was going on out there? There was a window in the door, but the glass was frosted so the people on the other side were blurred. Still, Ms. Garcia’s shape was animated while the young man stood calm and still. Given the grilling she was giving Daniel, he wasn’t too sympathetic. He hoped whoever that young man was, he’d get a couple of verbal punches in for him.

  “No!” Ms. Garcia shouted again. “I won’t allow this!”

  Was she scared? Daniel thought he heard her pitch rise as well as her volume. There was more incoherent mumbling, the young man barely audible. Daniel was starting to wonder if he was rooting for the right side. Ms. Garcia wasn’t his favorite person, but she was doing what she thought was best for the children under her care. If that really was fear he heard in her voice, then she was afraid for one of her wards.

  The door opened and Ms. Garcia re-entered the office. Daniel wanted to get another glimpse at the young man but his eyes were pulled to Ms. Garcia’s. She glared at Daniel, and he wondered what he could have done, sitting alone in the office, to anger her even more. Papers were crinkled up in her pudgy fist as she retook her seat. Ms. Garcia sat there, staring at her desk, breathing hard. Daniel could envision cartoon anger lines coming from her. Without looking up, she slammed the papers onto her desk and slid them to Daniel.

  “You’re free to take Bethany whenever you want,” she said. It sounded like every word caused her physical pain. “You’re now her legal guardian.”

  Daniel looked back over his shoulder, wondering again who that young Native American man was. Why would some stranger help Daniel get custody of his daughter? A good Samaritan? He was too much a skeptic to believe that. He looked back to Ms. Garcia. “Just like that?”

  “Apparently so,” she snarled.

  “What happened to all that `will not turn on a dime` stuff?” Daniel asked. When Ms. Garcia didn’t answer, he suspicions grew. His cop instincts told him something wasn’t right. “What’s happened?”

  “You won, Mr. Burns,” she said, defeated. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “What is it I’m not getting here?” he asked.

  Ms. Garcia finally looked up at him, but what Daniel saw in her eyes wasn’t resignation or anger, but what could only be concern for him. “If you don’t know, Mr. Burns, then heaven help you because I sure as shit don’t!”

  3

  After several uncomfortable hours of signing papers in front of a very angry Ms. Garcia, there was nothing left to say but goodbye. She had knelt in front of Bethany and gave her warm words of hope and encouragement, while at the same time making it clear that should Daniel do anything bad for Bethany to call her immediately. Daniel tried to not take it personally, but he couldn’t help but wonder what all Anna had said about him in her diary. He’d have to sit and read it soon if only to know what Bethany might be thinking of him. He looked at the little girl and wondered what fallacies she had been told, and not for the first time feel a flicker of anger toward Anna for it. He tucked the diary into his inner coat pocket.

  Now he was cramming the last of Bethany’s luggage into the back of his car. Bethany stood by in silence, watching the whole thing with dull eyes and no offers to help, her doll clutched to her chest. With the last bag in, Daniel slammed the hatch closed. He looked to Bethany and let out a satisfied sigh, but while Daniel was hoping for any appreciation for a job well done all he received was a blank stare. Eventually, Daniel gave up and opened the back door for her to get in. Bethany did an awkward one-handed climb into the car as she refused to let go of the doll. Daniel reached out to help, but his hands hovered inches from her as if barred by a force field. As much as he wanted to help, he wasn’t sure how welcome his help would be. He was, after all, a stranger to this girl.

  Bethany dropped the doll. Her eyes went wide as it fell and she reached to try to catch it. Daniel dropped to one knee and caught the doll before it hit the ground. He lifted the doll to Bethany who snatched it and pulled it tightly to her chest.

  “You really like that doll, huh?” Daniel said. He hoped to sound warm and comforting, but Bethany squeezed the doll tighter. “What’s her name?”

  “Chrissy,” she said.

  “Chrissy? That’s a nice name,” Daniel said, happy to begin a conversation with her. “You two like best friends?”

  Daniel knew he had already blown it by the way she looked at him, a mixture of pity and surprise over his stupidity. “No. She’s a doll.”

  “Oh,” he replied. “I just thought . . . I mean . . . I don’t know what nine-year-old's are into, I guess.”

  “My mommy gave it to me when I was three,” she said. The memory weighed heavily on her and she sunk into it. She mumbled, “It was for my birthday.”

  “Cool,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, throwing her a lifeline in hopes of pulling her back from her despair. “So . . . When is your birthday?”

  “Shouldn’t you know that?” she said flatly.

  Daniel choked down his reply. He wanted to say yes, he should, but her mother took that from him, but that would just hurt Bethany and he couldn’t let himself vent his anger towards Anna on her. The girl was strong, and Daniel was surprised to realize he was proud of her for that, but she was still only nine.

  “You know, I didn’t know my dad either. He died when I was about your age.” He pulled back his sleeve and exposed a worn wrist watch. “My dad gave me this before he left on a trip. It was like he knew somehow he wasn’t going to come back.” As Bethany looked at the watch, Daniel undid the band and hand it to Bethany. “Why don’t you take it?”

  Bethany took the watch as though if she wasn’t careful enough it would explode. She looked up at Daniel with uncertainty. “Why?”

  “Because you’re my daughter,” he replied.

  Daniel closed the car door. As he walked around the car he saw through the window Bethany staring at the watch in her hand. Daniel smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. It was going to be a long time for him to make up for missing nine years of bonding. He reached for the handle of the driver’s side door when his cell phone rang. A quick glance at the caller ID on his phone told him it was Greg. He brought the phone to his ear.


  “Greg?” he answered. “What do you have for me?”

  “Anna’s father? Charles?” Greg said over the phone, his tone businesslike. That’s how Greg was when it came to matters like this. It helped him to be detached from the reports of death and dying. “Heart attack. Marcus? The brother? Some kind of animal attack?”

  “Animal attack?” Daniel asked. In his mind flashed the drawings in Anna’s diaries, but he brushed them aside. “By what?”

  “Inconclusive,” Greg replied. “Then, um . . . then Anna . . .”

  “Yeah, I got that part of the story,” he said, not wanting to relive learning of Anna’s suicide.

  “Sorry,” Greg said, and his professional detachment dropped for a moment. Greg hadn’t known Anna, but he had known about her. They had worked together for years, and Greg was the closest thing he had to a friend. “So, yeah, looks like a series of coincidences.”

  “Uh huh,” Daniel said. “You know what I think of coincidences.”

  “Even Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” Greg said, and Daniel could hear the smile growing on his face. “You have enough to deal with. No sense making it more than it is. How did the meeting with your daughter go?”

  Daniel looked over his shoulder back at Bethany, sitting in the back seat of his car. She stared out the window away from Daniel. “It went”

  “She’s been through a lot,” Greg said. “Give it time.”

  Daniel didn’t have the patience for a lengthy debate. He hung up the phone, then to himself he said, “Already lost nine years. What’s a few more?”

  Deep in a swirl of emotions, Daniel climbed behind the wheel of the car without noticing that they were being watched. As Daniel backed out of his parking spot, the business suit woman watched from the sidewalk. Unlike Carolyn Lightfoot, leaving Shellington Heights was simple for her. They commanded the forces that ruled the small logging town, granting access at their whim.

  Even as she thought this, a small voice nagged at her. She controlled nothing. Her male companion wielded the book and could speak the long-dead language, though with much effort. Not that she didn’t contribute, but when it came to controlling the other-worldly forces that enveloped Shellington Heights he held all the power. She studied the language as well, but it didn’t talk to her as it did to her companion. For some reason, her companion had an infinity for the spell work that she lacked.

  The business suit woman pulled out her cell phone – another advantage those in power held, allowing cell phone access into the dead zone that was Shellington Heights – and dialed her partner. Into the phone, she said, “It’s me. We have a complication.”

  As Daniel’s car drove by, on the other side of the street stood a familiar looking man. He wore what the west coast yuppies called “business casual”, his skin and eyes the same hue as the late Carolyn Lightfoot. Around his neck was the same kind of necklace that her partner had pulled from Carolyn Lightfoot’s neck. This must be Professor Lightfoot’s other grandchild she surmised, Charlie Lightfoot. He was handsome, she gave him that, but his cocky smirk grated at her. He popped off a sarcastic salute and walked off. Her only consolation was that smirk would be wiped off his face once he found out what happened to his cousin.

  She realized she was grinning over this and immediately felt disgusted with herself. When had she become like this? Sure, she had always been ambitious, had always done what needed to be done to crawl up the corporate hierarchy, but when did that entail being bloodthirsty? Not for the first time she wondered what this task was turning her into.

  Daniel drove back the way he came, following the winding coastal road now with the ocean to his right. The drive seemed less interesting with nothing but forest to his left. He looked over his shoulder at Bethany who sat hunched over in the back cradling her doll. He was happy to see his watch dangling loosely from her wrist, but with that first step taken, he was struggling for the next.

  “Hey, I was thinking,” he called back to her, “you’re going to have a whole new room. Any ideas on how you want to decorate it?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled, not bothering to look at him.

  “Are you, I don’t know, into anything?” Daniel asked, trying to keep the conversation from stalling. “Like kittens or unicorns or anything? Or are you too old for that kind of thing now?”

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  “We can make up your room any way you like,” he went on. “You want to paint it pink? How about we paint the ceiling blue and we can put those glow-in-the-dark stars on it?”

  “Whatever,” she said, sounding even sadder. “I don’t care.”

  “Ah, baby, c’mon . . .”

  Bethany’s face snapped to him, and in the rear-view mirror, he could see Anna in their daughter’s face as she glared at him. “I’m not a baby! I’m 9!”

  Daniel let out a calming sigh, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he tried to keep his temper. “Look, Bethany, cut me some slack, okay? I’m new to this. It’s going to take some time for us to figure this out. I don’t know why your mother didn’t tell me about you . . .”

  At the mention of her mother, Bethany started to cry.

  “Oh, Beth, don’t cry . . . “

  “I miss my mommy!” Bethany wailed.

  “I know, Bethany,” he said, and in spite of having to speak over the roar of the engine, his tone was soft. “I miss her too. I cared a lot for your mother. And your mother loved you very much . . .”

  “No, she didn’t!” she shouted. “That’s why she killed herself! She didn’t want to be with me, and neither do you!”

  “That’s not true,” he said. “Your mother, she was . . . confused. She wasn’t well. And it’s not that I never wanted you, Bethany. I never knew about you. I didn’t have a choice. But I’m here now, and I’m here for you.”

  “Why should I believe you?” she asked, but Daniel thought he heard a faint glimmer of hope in her voice.

  “Bethany, I . . .” he started when something darted out in front of him, something gray and on all fours. It came from nowhere and darted up a small road that T-intersected with the main highway. Daniel barely had time to swerve to miss it. “Shit!”

  The car began to swerve on the narrow road, heading dangerously close to the wood and metal barricade that lined the edge of the cliff. With tires squealing, Daniel spun the wheel hard. The car slid sideways, and Daniel spun the wheel hard the other way, turning into the skid. Everything looked to be in slow motion as Daniel fought to keep them both from going off the cliff, but an odd feeling that everything was going to be okay washed over him. Bethany screamed as she was thrown against the inside of the car door, but the tires caught traction again and the car rolled forward. Luckily, they were at a T-intersection or the car would have careened into the mountainside, but one side went off the road and into the soft dirt. Daniel hit the brakes and the car skidded to a stop.

  “Bethany?” He called, but when he didn’t hear a response Daniel snapped his head over his shoulder to his daughter. “Bethany? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said in a weak voice. Bethany was breathing hard, her eyes wide, but she didn’t seem hurt. “What happened?”

  “A dog or something,” he said, looking for whatever it was. There was no sign of it. “Ran across the road . . .”

  There was no sign of the animal, but what he did see on the other side of the street was a wrecked car, its front end wrapped around a tree, the front door hanging ajar. Daniel studied the scene. The skid marks on the asphalt were fresh but he didn’t see any police tape or any signs the paramedics had been there. There was usually trash left behind by paramedics, wrappings from their sterile-packed bandages and plastic caps from their syringes, but there was none of that. There was also no sign of a driver. Had the driver wandered off? With a head injury, it was possible the driver was disorientated, but also dangerous. The risk of aggravating internal injuries was high.

  “Daniel?” Bethany asked.

 
; Daniel snapped out of his concentration. He looked back to Bethany. “Stay here.”

  “What?” Daniel could hear the fear in her voice. “What is it?”

  “There’s another car,” he explained. “Looks like it crashed into a tree. Someone might be hurt, I’m going to go look”

  Daniel exited the car and closed the door behind him. He took a few tentative steps towards the car when a thought hit him. He no longer carried a gun, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a weapon just in case that dog or whatever came back. He went to the back of the car and opened the rear. He pulled out some of the luggage until he could get to the spare tire hidden inside. He grabbed the L-shaped lug wrench from the emergency roadside kit and closed the back. The long end of the wrench ended in what looked like a huge screwdriver tip for prying off hubcaps and the like, on the off chance he found a car from the 1960’s he supposed. He grabbed the wrench like a club, aiming the bend of the wrench out. As he walked back to the crashed car he saw Bethany’s head sticking out of the window. She saw the lug wrench and recoiled back into the car as if Daniel had threatened her with it.

  “Stay in the car,” Daniel said, pointing at her, “just to be safe.”

  Daniel walked across the street to the crashed car. There was a crunch under his feet, but not from the sound of broken glass as he would have expected. He looked under his foot to see a silver and turquoise necklace on the ground. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t think of where he had seen it before. It added to the sense that something wasn’t right. He looked back to Bethany. A light fog had rolled down from the mountain pass, but he could see Bethany watching from inside his car. Turning back to the wreck, Daniel leaned in to look around.