by N L Hinkens
21
Ray sat still as a statue on the storage bench staring across at Buck’s face which was suddenly swimming in and out of focus against the log walls of the cabin. He tried to speak, but his throat felt like it was on fire. His mind raced through a maze of confusion, as he grasped in vain to make sense of Buck’s words. He must be hallucinating—that was the only explanation. Had he passed out after the strenuous hike up here? Or was he dreaming about the cabin again? Was Buck even real? He scrunched his eyes shut and blinked them open, sucking in a jagged breath at the sight of the living, breathing, bearded man opposite him.
Buck leaned forward in his chair. “You okay?” he asked gruffly.
“No,” Ray choked out. “Of course I’m not okay. Why did you say that … about my brother?”
Buck skewered him with a look that was not to be trifled with. “It’s true, Ray. You slugged him and he fell backward and cracked his head on that very bench you’re sitting on. It happened right as I was walking in the door.” He got to his feet and trudged over to where Ray was seated.
Ray shrank back as Buck’s shadow fell over him, half-afraid the man was about to take a swing at him. Instead, he pointed to a dark stain on the other end of the bench. “That’s his blood you’re looking at right there.”
Ray stared in horror at the rust-colored patch on the wood. No! His heart felt like it was seizing up in his chest as he struggled to breathe. It couldn’t be true. Tom couldn’t be dead. He’d only just found him after all these years. Whatever they had been fighting about, they could have worked it out. Even if Tom had something to do with Katie Lambert’s disappearance, Ray would have been there for him. Got him the best lawyers, cooperated as a witness in his defense, made sure the mitigating circumstances of their abusive childhood were taken into consideration.
He buried his head in his hands, choking back sobs. He wasn’t sure what he was crying for anymore. A tangled ball of emotion that went all the way back to his childhood. His life had started out a mess and now it had come full circle. If what Buck was saying was true, he was a murderer. He had confessed to Sonia the nagging fear that he might have killed his father. Never in a million years had he suspected the deep, darker truth—that he’d killed the brother he loved. He shook his head slowly, trying to clear his thoughts. Something didn’t make sense. If Buck had witnessed the murder, why had he let him walk away a free man? He straightened up and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands, studying Buck’s deadpan expression. “Why didn’t you turn me in?”
”It’s complicated. I handled it.”
Ray furrowed his brow. “All you had to do was go into town and make an anonymous call to the police. They would have picked me up within the hour.”
Buck grunted. “Folks on this mountain have their own way of dealing with things. We don’t like cops sniffing around. Next thing you know they’re asking about gun permits and dog licenses, and every other dumb thing they can harass us with.”
Ray fixed his gaze on the blood stain on the bench, contemplating Buck’s reasoning. He was right. If he’d made an anonymous call, the cabin would instantly have become a crime scene, cadaver dogs combing the mountain, every recluse in a shack questioned as a potential witness. So how exactly had Buck handled it, as he’d put it?
“Where … where’s Tom’s body?” Ray rasped. The words seem to echo around the space, the log walls closing in on him like prison bars. Like it or not, this was his prison now. He’d spilled his brother’s blood here. A part of them both would live on here forever.
Buck blew out a heavy breath. ”It’s been taken care of.”
“What does that mean?” Ray demanded, his voice rising.
“I buried him.”
“Where?” Ray cried out, leaping to his feet. ”Take me there, now! I want to see where you buried my brother.”
“Not gonna happen,” Buck said, with an adamant shake of his head. ”We can’t be wearing a path to his grave and risk someone discovering it. We talked about this. No grave marker, no visits. You agreed to stay away.”
“What are you talking about?” Ray yelled. ”I would never have agreed to anything like that. Tom was my brother. You have no idea what we lived through and what he meant to me.”
Tom told me plenty about what went on.” Buck’s eyes simmered with a hint of molten anger. ”He was pretty screwed up, you know.”
Ray swallowed the prickly knot mushrooming in his throat, all at once aware he was sweating profusely beneath his damp jacket. He fought to keep his composure. “What do you mean?”
A wary distance entered Buck’s eyes. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Ray could feel a wave of panic mounting inside. What was Buck alluding to? “You can’t just throw something like that out there and then leave me hanging,” he said, trying in vain to keep the tremor of desperation out of his voice. “What do you mean, he was screwed up?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead and buried now, and maybe it’s a good thing.”
Before he even realized what he was doing, Ray leaped to his feet and grabbed Buck by the throat. “Don’t you dare talk about Tom like he was a piece of garbage! His life was worth something to me!”
Buck shoved him backward with a single thrust of his brawny arm. “Get your hands off me! You’re just as messed up in the head as your brother!” he growled. “What are you trying to do, kill me too?”
Ray gasped, shrinking back in horror, dizzy and disoriented. He stared down at his hands, half-expecting them to be covered in blood. “I … I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. When you said that about Tom being screwed up, I … I flipped.”
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,” Buck huffed. “You’re the one who found it on him.”
The hairs on the back of Ray’s neck prickled. ”Found what?”
Buck scratched the side of his cheek, his gaze flitting briefly to the door and back. ”Look, Ray, I feel bad about you losing your memory and all, but we swore we’d never talk about it again.”
Ray thought for a moment. He desperately needed a compelling reason to overcome Buck’s reluctance to keep talking. “I don’t remember any of what you’re telling me, but I believe you. The problem is, if I don’t know what I’m not supposed to talk about, I might accidentally say something. My brain’s still a scrambled mess from the accident.” He lowered his voice. ”Buck, please. I’m begging you. I need answers, and you’re the only one who can help me. My brother was as good as dead to me for twenty years—until I found out he was alive. I came here today to patch things up after our fight, and now you’re telling me I killed him. Can you imagine how I feel? I’m gutted. I don’t remember him dying, and I don’t remember you burying him. You’ve got to tell me everything. It’s important. What did I find on him?”
Buck turned and paced across the floor for several minutes before abruptly resuming his seat. He gestured for Ray to sit back down on the bench. “I’m only going to tell you this once and then it’s over and done with—for good this time.”
“Yes, of course,” Ray said, with a vigorous nod.
Buck cleared his throat, his brow trenched. “That day on the mountain when I ran into you, I’d lost my hunting dog, Drake. I’d been out looking for him for hours, whistling for him, backtracking my route. He found his way home later on that day, and I came by to tell Tom—he’d been helping me look for him.” He broke off and rubbed his hands over his knees, as though preparing himself for what he was about to divulge. “When I got to the cabin, I heard hollering and shouting so I hung back for a few minutes—didn’t wanna get in the middle of anything. Anyway, it got worse. Sounded like you guys were smashing the place up. I didn’t know who you were. I thought I’d better show my face and make sure Tom was all right.” His voice trailed off and he stared morosely at the floor.
“Did you … see me punch him?” Ray asked.
Buck gave a reluctant nod. ”Right when I pushed open the
door, he fell backward and hit his head. Your fist was raised. It was pretty obvious what had happened. I ran over to Tom and shook him, yelled his name a bunch of times, but he didn’t respond.”
Ray pressed his clenched fingers to his lips. “Are you sure he was dead?”
“He had no pulse,” Buck mumbled in response. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Did you at least try to save him?” Ray hissed through gritted teeth. “Don’t you know all that CPR stuff, living out here on your own?”
Buck glared at him coldly. “I’m not a doctor. I can set a bone or tend to a wound. I can’t bring a man back from the dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s hard to hear, that’s all.”
“You’re the one insisted on talking about it,” Buck shot back.
“I know. So, what happened once you—we—realized Tom was dead?” Ray asked, only too aware his voice was shaking uncontrollably. He still couldn’t believe it. It was inconceivable that he had killed his own brother and let a stranger bury him. He’d covered up a crime—his own brother’s murder. This wasn’t who he was. Or was it? He frowned, rubbing his temples. He didn’t know who he was anymore.
“I knew we had to bury the body right here in the woods—keep the cops out of it,” Buck answered. “You didn’t want to go along with the idea, at first. You thought someone would report him missing. But no one’s going to miss a mountain man. You live out here, you die out here. Your stuff gets passed around, and someone else takes over your cabin. Cycle of life.” He hesitated before continuing. “I told you to check Tom’s pockets before I put him in the ground.” He gave a self-conscious shrug. “No sense burying a good knife or a pipe. That’s when you found it—the driver’s license.” He trained his eyes on Ray. ”I never saw a grown man turn white so quickly. You were shaking worse than you are now. I asked you what was wrong, and you handed me the license without saying a word. It didn’t mean anything to me. I figured some camper must have lost her pack and Tom found it. Then you told me it was a Booneville girl who’d gone missing years ago.”
“Katie Lambert,” Ray said, his stomach twisting as the hard truth sank in. He should be relieved it wasn’t him behind her disappearance. But all he felt was empty inside. It was equally gut wrenching to think that his own brother had abducted a young girl, murdered her, and buried her in these woods—he figured she had to be dead, or she’d have turned up by now.
Buck gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Lambert, yeah, that’s the one. Once you found her license, you got on board with me getting rid of Tom’s body. You didn’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison for ridding the world of a monster.”
Ray let out a despairing sigh. “So you buried him right away?”
“Before his body was cold,” Buck said. “I agreed to keep my mouth shut, so long as you took the boy with you.”
22
For a short while after Ray left, Sonia sat in the campground parking lot with the car engine running and the heater on. She stared out at the drenched forest, questioning whether she had done the right thing by bringing Ray here. She’d wanted to help him get the answers they both needed. But, after learning that he believed his brother was alive, she realized she might have taken on more than she’d bargained for. What if they got into another fight and Ray got hurt? He wasn’t in great shape after his accident. Or what if he became disoriented on the way up to the cabin? It would be on her head if anything happened to him. His doctor had stressed the importance of someone keeping an eye on him for several days. A strenuous hike in inclement weather was hardly what he had in mind. He hadn’t even cleared Ray to drive, for good reason. He was supposed to be at home resting, allowing his body and mind to heal in a warm, safe environment. And she was supposed to be the levelheaded neighbor tasked with overseeing his recovery.
Sonia nibbled nervously on her nails. Her mother would be livid if she knew what she’d done. She didn’t feel much empathy for Ray—even after his accident. She didn’t trust him. The fact that he’d neglected his mother all these years had sealed her opinion of him before they’d even been introduced. Sonia couldn’t blame her. Evelyn’s suspicions weren’t entirely unfounded. But Sonia had always trusted her instincts about people. When Ray opened up to her about his childhood, she’d heard the pain in his voice, recognized his wounded spirit. She felt sure his intentions toward Henry were good.
Whatever the reason for the distance between him and his son, Ray needed help getting to the bottom of it. Hopefully, this trip to the cabin would be a good place to start. Ray seemed eager to mend the broken bridges in his relationship with his brother. Maybe meeting up with him again would be healing for them both in more ways than one, if they could keep their tempers in check this time.
Sonia glanced at her watch. Time to quit procrastinating and get something done while she was here. Several design deadlines were looming, and she could use the uninterrupted time to knock out a few sketches. She slid across into the passenger seat, so she’d have more room to work, and reached into the back for her portfolio. After unscrewing the flask of hot tea she’d brought along, she poured herself a cup, and then leaned over to turn off the engine. Running the car for four straight hours wasn’t an option. Besides, it wasn’t as cold as she’d expected it to be—between the hot tea and her North Face jacket, she reckoned she’d stay toasty.
Opening up her portfolio, she studied the design schematic she’d prepared for her new clients who had recently moved to the area from New York. It was an exciting project at the higher end of her usual budget allocation, which gave her a lot of room to play around with the ideas they had gathered on Pinterest. Now, it was her turn to translate their motley collection of pins into a perfectly coordinated vision for a functional and stylish house. They favored the industrial loft look which would be an interesting challenge to pull off in their new four-thousand-square-foot single-family home. She would begin by sketching room layouts for the three different options they had requested.
She hummed happily to herself as she worked, enjoying the inspirational backdrop of nature and the gentle tap of the rain on the roof. The creative process was particularly liberating without access to Wi-Fi or Photoshop. She sketched swiftly, the ideas flowing steadily, already envisioning blowing her clients’ minds with her imaginative presentation. It wasn’t just about the design itself—knowing how to present her ideas was half the battle, and Sonia had a knack for helping her clients catch her vision for their space in a way they could relate to.
Reaching into the back seat for her case of colored pencils, she caught sight of something peeking out from underneath the passenger seat. Frowning, she reached around and retrieved it with the tips of her fingers. A driver’s license. Had it fallen out of Ray’s bag when he tossed it into the back? Flipping it over, she frowned at the photo. Was this Ray’s wife? She looked so young. She read the name, repeating it under her breath, disbelieving what she was seeing. Katie Lambert. Of course! She recognized that face now. An icy chill crept slowly up her spine. The air in the car had suddenly turned deathly cold.
She clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes riveted on the headshot of the young woman. What was Ray doing with Katie Lambert’s driver’s license? A strangled scream escaped her lips as the horror of it descended on her. The newspaper article! He’d claimed he didn’t know anything about the story. Was he lying? Had he abducted Katie? Was the whole memory loss thing a sham? And then another sickening thought struck. She had driven him out here. Could she be tried as an accessory to the crime? She shook her head free of the thought. She needed to pull herself together and think rationally.
Shaking, she dropped the license into the cup holder in the console, trying to make sense of it. It must have fallen out of Ray’s backpack—there was no other way it could possibly have ended up in her car. She shoved her stack of drawings haphazardly into her portfolio and tossed it into the back before scrambling across to the driver�
��s seat. She had to get out of here. She needed to go straight to the police. This was no longer about Henry. Ray must have had something to do with Katie Lambert’s disappearance. At the very least, he knew something about it. Maybe that was why he was here. He might be keeping her holed up in a shack on the mountain. His brother could be in on it with him. Sonia let out a despairing groan. Katie might have gone without food and water while Ray was in the hospital. What if she’d died of thirst? No wonder he’d been so insistent on coming up here in the pouring rain.
Fumbling with the key in the ignition, she yanked it to the right, inhaling a sharp breath at the clicking sound that resulted. No! This couldn’t be happening. Desperation mounted inside her. She turned the key again, hoping for a miracle, but to no avail. Her scalp prickled with fear. She must have left it in the accessory position when she’d switched the engine off. A sick feeling surged up her throat as the enormity of her predicament sank in. Ray was due back any time. He’d already been gone over three hours. She had to get out of here before he returned. She darted a fearful glance around at her unfamiliar surroundings, relieved to see no sign of him. After zipping up her coat, she threw up her hood and reached for her purse. As soon as she got a cell signal, she would call 911. They might have to comb every inch of the woods to find Ray, but they would catch him in the end. He had no way off this mountain now that the battery in her car was dead.
Her thoughts tumbled over one another as she clambered out of her car and into the rain. Trembling with a mixture of cold and fear, she locked the door and dropped the keys in her coat pocket. With a final searching look around, she took off down the rough road leading out of the campground parking lot. The forest that had earlier been her source of inspiration and calm had morphed into a potential death trap. At any minute, Ray might appear from behind a tree. One look at her, and he would know she’d discovered his secret. And then what? Would he try to abduct her too, or strangle her on the spot?