“Don’t tell them anything,” Don said. “Don’t make a hard night even harder.”
Don’s words made sense, but when he got into that room and had to look at his son and see Elizabeth staring back at him, he hoped he didn’t break down. He sighed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling. He did this again to relieve the pressure. “Okay,” he said.
“I’ll get a room down the road,” Don said. He opened the passenger side door of the SUV. “You have a pen, paper?”
Gregg patted his shirt and jacket pocket automatically, then reached for the compartment between the seats. He found a blue pen and a scratch pad amid change and compact disks and handed them to Don. Don jotted a number down, tore off the paper and handed it to Gregg. “My cell phone. Give me a call tomorrow morning. We’ll...we’ll talk more then.”
“What are we going to do?” Gregg asked, putting the pen and pad back in the compartment. He put the piece of paper with Don’s cell phone number in his breast pocket. “Especially with the kids. I have to tell them something.”
“Be vague,” Don opened the door and leaned out. “But don’t tell them what happened today. Not now. Later...yes...but not now.”
“Wait!” Gregg called as Don turned to leave. “One more question.”
Don had the door open and his right foot was planted on the ground. The cold night air bit into the interior of the SUV. Gregg licked his lips and shivered. “Did you know that Elizabeth would die?”
Don shook his head. His eyes looked haunted, as if he wished he had gotten here sooner. “No. That’s why I came here. I only found out about its new identity—Diana Marshfield—a week ago. I’ve been in Pennsylvania for two days. I was going to follow you home from your Thanksgiving dinner and tell you about Diana tonight but...I was too late.” His features were sad, everything about his demeanor telling Gregg that everything he spoke was the truth. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I’m really sorry.”
Gregg nodded, feeling a sting the back of his throat. His eyes grew blurry with tears. He looked down at the floor, willing himself not to cry. “It’s okay,” he said, feeling his throat hitch. “I’ll be okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Don nodded, hesitated for a moment, then got out of the Blazer and closed the door.
Gregg didn’t watch him leave. He sat in the Blazer and took deep breaths, trying to control his emotions. He couldn’t collapse now. He didn’t know how he was going to keep up the illusion in front of the kids that nothing was wrong, but he had to try. He had to be strong for them.
Gregg remained in the Blazer long after Don Grant left. He banished all thoughts of what had happened out of his mind. He didn’t want to entertain it because to do so would be facing the concept of a life without Elizabeth. Instead, he told himself that Don was wrong, that he had just assumed that Elizabeth was injured during Ronnie’s rampage. She was okay, she was fine, and the police were trying to contact him now. Elizabeth wasn’t dead; she was hurt, probably in the hospital, but she wasn’t dead. Don was mistaken; after all, he hadn’t actually seen her get killed, he’d merely heard the gunshots. It was only speculation that everybody but Diana and her kids had been slain. Don had only reported what he’d heard and feared, which was a very human trait.
She isn’t dead, she isn’t dead, Gregg repeated to himself. He kept telling himself this as he sat in the Blazer, head bowed and eyes closed. He thought of all the things he and Elizabeth hadn’t done together yet; their plans for retirement, settling into a large single story ranch home they would build in the country; watching Eric grow into manhood; enjoying the grandchildren he might produce. So much left to do.
She isn’t dead!
He kept telling himself this as he finally got out of the Blazer and slowly walked to the room. He felt a little better but he was still troubled, as if somewhere deep down inside he knew that what Don Grant told him was really the truth.
The trick was to not let that truth out this evening. Just let it hide back there, thrown under the rug.
Don’t even entertain the notion.
The kids were asleep on one of the two queen-sized beds in the bedroom. Gregg watched them sleep, keeping the bad thoughts at bay as he noticed and Mary had gotten into their pajamas. They slept side-by-side, deep and untroubled.
Gregg dressed down to his underwear, checked the heater and thermostat, then lay down in the second queen-sized bed. He pulled the covers over his lanky frame, noted the time: almost one a.m. The kids would wake up by seven; he was sure of it.
He spent most of the night gazing at the ceiling, fighting back the tears and sobs that threatened to carry him down a deep well of grief.
TWENTY-ONE
When Don Grant met them at the restaurant the following morning for breakfast, Eric and Mary glanced up as if expecting him to answer all their questions for them. They’d peppered Gregg with questions the minute he’d woken up, and Gregg was vague with his answers. Yes, mom is okay. No, I don’t know what happened at the house. He says his name is Don Grant and that he knew Diana Marshfield a long time ago. No, I don’t know why mom hasn’t called me, but I’m sure she’s okay. He could tell Eric sensed he was lying to him, and normally the boy would have confronted him with it. Mary would have, too. For some reason both children seemed to understand that there was a reason for his vagueness, that they would learn soon what was going on but that now wasn’t the time for Gregg to tell him, so they fell silent. Gregg welcomed it; he’d barely gotten any sleep last night and could barely think straight.
“What’s on the menu today?” Don asked, sliding into a chair.
Gregg nodded at the carafe sitting in the middle of the table. “All the coffee you can drink.”
“Good,” Don said, picking up the carafe and pouring a cup. “I need it.”
Gregg had called Don an hour ago and told him he was taking the kids to breakfast. Don suggested that he check out of the High Suites and head back to Lancaster County with the kids. Gregg admitted he was thinking of doing that very thing. “We’ll talk about it after breakfast,” Don had said before they hung up.
Now in the warm comfort of a country restaurant with the smell of coffee and pancakes and scrambled eggs, the clatter of silverware and dishes amid the background murmur of other patrons conversing and waitresses taking orders, Gregg quickly introduced Don to the kids. He thought Mary would ask Don about Diana, or that Eric would ask him about his mother, but they didn’t. They nodded quietly at Don and went back to looking at the table. A waitress quickly appeared and took Don’s order: scrambled eggs and ham with hotcakes. She jotted it down and Don asked, “How’d you sleep?”
“Okay,” Gregg lied. He took a sip of coffee.
“You guys hungry?” Don asked the kids.
They nodded. Mary looked up at him shyly. Don smiled at her.
They made small talk, skirting the subject of what they’d talked about last night. Gregg could tell Don was trying to put the kids at ease by talking about the places he’d been and people he’d met, like he was trying to portray himself as some worldly traveler. He looked the part in his long hair and neatly trimmed beard. He reminded Gregg of a slightly bookish country-rock singer; a Travis Tritt or a Johnny Van Zant, or the kind of guy who would drive an eighteen-wheeler for a living. All that was lacking was the black cowboy hat.
Thankfully Gregg had ordered for himself and the kids ten minutes before Don arrived. Their waitress emerged bearing their breakfast and they dove in the minute it hit the table, providing a welcome reprieve from awkward silences.
They ate quickly, not talking much. Gregg asked for the check, which he paid, and thirty minutes later he was stowing their luggage in the back of the Blazer. Don was waiting for him at the side of the vehicle. The kids had already been buckled in the backseat. Gregg closed the door and turned to Don. He gestured toward the rear of the Blazer. “Well?” he asked, his voice low.
Don nodded. “I take it they don’t know yet?”
&nbs
p; “No.”
“Good.” Don was speaking in a low tone. He seemed to understand that the kids were straining to listen to what the two men were talking about. “I think the only sensible thing to do now is for you to go back home and...well, face the music. It’s the only thing you can do if you don’t want the cops looking for you.”
Gregg nodded, stony. He was still relying on his defense mechanism that Elizabeth was still alive to keep him from breaking down.
“You okay to drive?” Don asked.
“Yeah,” Gregg said. “I’m tired, but I’m okay.”
“Tell you what. I’ll follow you, just to make sure you make it back okay. I’d drive you back myself but...I have my reasons for not wanting to draw attention to myself. I haven’t talked to a cop in over three years. Haven’t even had a traffic violation and I want to keep it that way. You understand?”
Gregg nodded, sighed. “Yeah.”
“You sure you aren’t drowsy?”
“I’m tired but I’m not drowsy,” Gregg said. “I can make the drive. I’ve got plenty of CDs in the car to keep me awake.”
“Okay. I’ll follow you back to make sure you’re okay. I’ll only follow you as far as your development, then I’m getting a motel room in the area. Hang onto my phone number and call me later when you can.”
“What are we going to do?” Gregg asked. They were still whispering, still keeping their voices low. Gregg could see Eric craning his head around, watching them.
“The cops will want to question you,” Don said. He made a slight gesture toward the SUV. “You might want to do a little prepping with the kids. Do they know anything?”
“Not about last night, but they know that Diana and her kids aren’t normal.”
Don’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Really? You’ll have to tell me about this later. Do they know enough that you can convince them to tell the police a story other than what they’ve experienced?”
“Yeah,” Gregg said, remembering Mary’s reluctance to tell him and Elizabeth what was going on because even at the tender age of seven, she realized an adult wouldn’t believe a story about the creature she’d seen in her father’s bedroom. “They’ll want to know where Diana and her kids are, what happened. I...I can hold them off on the truth for as long as I can, but—”
“For now, tell them to stick to this simple story,” Don said, lowering his voice even further so that Gregg had to step closer to hear him. “It’s close to the truth. Diana was neglecting Mary and her own kids, and she was neglecting Ronnie. There was disagreement between Ronnie and Diana over money, and Ronnie was running himself ragged with all the overtime. There was also friction between your in-laws and Ronnie because of this, and it all came to a head today. You took the kids out of the house because you didn’t want them exposed to what you were thinking was going to be a heated verbal fight. You can also say that your mother-in-law told you to take them somewhere for the weekend. Diana might try to dispute it, but it’ll be her word against yours. Elizabeth was going to meet you later, and you had no idea what happened. That’s why you came down this morning, because you hadn’t heard from Elizabeth all evening.”
“I tried calling,” Gregg said, remembering the calls he’d made. “She must have had her cell phone turned off or something. Won’t they try to trace any calls I might have made?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Don said. “Don’t even mention you made any calls. If they ask...tell them the truth. It’s going to be best that you stick to as close to the truth as possible. All you know is that Elizabeth stayed behind to help her family sort out this mess. Okay?”
Gregg nodded, feeling the lump in his throat. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Yeah. I can do that.”
Don regarded Gregg calmly, then patted his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Let’s take this one step at a time. Get home, get the kids taken care of. Make sure they’re safe. Do what you have to do to take care of your family. Then call me.”
Gregg nodded, then went to the driver’s side of the SUV. He hesitated a moment, then climbed in, hoping the kids didn’t see the troubled look on his face.
“What’s going on?” Mary and Eric asked in unison.
Gregg saw their still-scared faces, eyes wide as saucers. Gregg started the engine, noted that Don had gotten into his rental car. He took a deep breath. “We’re going home,” he said. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Let’s get on the road first.”
“Is mom okay?” Eric asked. He was looking at Gregg, trying to meet his father’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
Gregg refused to look his son in the eye. He couldn’t. “She’s fine, son,” he said, looking straight ahead of him as he put the Blazer in reverse. He glanced behind him to check for oncoming traffic, looking past them at the parking lot. “She’s okay. We’ll talk later when we’re on the road.”
He caught a glimpse of Eric’s face, though. It was a flicker of understanding, of acceptance, that his father was keeping something from him. That he was keeping something from him because he didn’t want him to cry. Eric took a deep breath and looked out the window, not looking toward the front of the SUV as Gregg piloted the vehicle carefully out of the parking lot and onto the main street, heading toward home.
TWENTY-TWO
THEY FACED THE nightmare the minute they returned.
It started when Gregg pulled up in front of their home and saw the police car waiting for them at the curb.
The dread settled in his system as he got out of the Blazer. A police officer got out of the waiting cruiser and approached him as Gregg told the kids to stay in the Blazer. He met the officer at the curb where his nightmare was confirmed.
Somehow he held up long enough to usher the kids into the house. The officer followed him inside after radioing in that Gregg Weaver was home with the kids. Gregg asked the officer if he could have a moment alone with the kids and was granted permission. Gregg ushered them upstairs to the master bedroom, and by the time they got there both children were in tears. It was as if they already knew what Gregg was going to tell them, as if they had been silently expecting this, hoping what they were feeling wasn’t true.
He let them cry and he cried a little bit with them. He quickly gained control of his emotions and whispered to them. “We need to stick to what we talked about on the way home. Okay?”
The kids nodded. On the drive back they had listened raptly as Gregg told them that Don was here to help them get rid of Diana Marshfield and her kids—he made that up on the spot, hoping to give the kids a glimmer of hope to counteract the horror they would face later this afternoon. He’d told them that no matter what happened they weren’t to tell any adult about what they’d talked about the day before, that Diana and her kids were monsters. Mary understood immediately and she nodded. Then he told them that if they were questioned, they could tell whoever was questioning them whatever was asked, so long as they did not reveal what Mary had confided to them yesterday afternoon. Tell them Diana was uncaring, that she didn’t take care of the house or her own kids, that Ronnie were ignoring Mary. Tell them all that, but don’t tell anybody about the monster part. Nobody would believe them.
The kids nodded, sniffling, Eric still crying. The kids understood; they weren’t immune to the fact that adults wouldn’t believe them. Gregg gripped his son’s shoulders, their foreheads touching. “It’s going to be okay, son. We’ll get through this.” The words rang false to his ear. He didn’t know how they would get through this.
Within thirty minutes a team of detectives were at the house, questioning the three of them downstairs in the living room. Gregg sat on the sofa with Mary and Eric on either side of him, his arms around both children. The kids were still crying and the detectives were as gentle in their questioning as possible. Elizabeth’s Aunt Debbie arrived fifteen minutes later, her weathered face showing the strains of the past twenty-four hours. Debbie was Laura’s younger sister, who lived in nearby Berks County. Gregg rose from the sofa and embraced D
ebbie. “I can’t believe this has happened,” Debbie said softly into Gregg’s shoulder. Gregg was still stunned; he looked at the detectives over Debbie’s shoulder and they rose to their feet. One of them, a man about Gregg’s age with thinning blonde hair, said, “We’ll be outside.”
After that the floodgates opened. The house was a constant parade of Elizabeth’s Aunts, Uncles, cousins and their children. They all streamed in slowly as the hours passed, many of them staying into the night as they traded information and grieved together. Through it all, Eric and Mary stayed at his side constantly.
Shortly after Debbie arrived at the house, Elizabeth’s cousin Tracy and her husband Keith arrived. While Tracy kept the kids occupied in the family room, Gregg led Debbie upstairs to the guest bedroom down the hall from the other bedrooms and she told him what had happened.
According to Debbie, the police were still investigating. So far all the testimony was coming from Diana and her kids, who had survived the massacre. There was additional eyewitness testimony from the neighbors, Chuck and Susan Finlay, who heard the shots. It had been Susan who ventured outside to investigate the noise she’d heard. She had discovered the bodies and ran screaming to her house to call 911. Between Diana and the Finlay’s, the police were able to discern the following:
Sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 pm, on Thanksgiving Day, Ronnie Baker had driven over to his parent's house armed with a loaded Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol and an extra clip. He had arrived at the house and started shooting when he walked in. He shot his mother first, in the kitchen. Then he had shot his father, who had risen from his chair in the family room. Diana and the kids had screamed and he’d started shooting them when something made him stop. “Diana said he just froze, like he was hearing something,” Debbie said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “He was in the family room and the front door opened. He...he waited until Elizabeth was in the kitchen before he came out of hiding. She...she saw her mother lying there in the kitchen and...”
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