Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist

by Chris Whitaker

  “Is there something wrong with him?” Luli asked.

  15

  At Home in the Dark

  Jim looked up from his desk as Adam appeared in the doorway.

  “Got a second, boss?”

  “Sure.”

  Adam pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him.

  “I got a complaint from the manager of Pizza Hut—a bit of a strange one. He said a kid called M was trying to shake him down for a few bucks, like protection money or something. He got the plates. I found out the kid’s name is Manny Romero.”

  Jim sighed. “Call the manager back. Tell him we’re on it. Leave the report on my desk, I know the kid’s mother. She’s had a tough time. I’ll handle it.”

  Adam went to stand, and then sat back down again.

  “Anything on Jared Martin?”

  Jim reached for his pen and picked it up. “Not much.”

  “You don’t think he’s our guy?”

  “Not really. It’s strange though.”

  “What?”

  “He shows up in Tall Oaks about five months ago. He gets a job selling cars, doesn’t do it long and then quits.”

  “So he’s left town?”

  “Not yet, working his notice period, wants the reference. Got a couple of weeks left I think. He worked construction before, same deal. Six months maybe.”

  “Maybe he likes to travel.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you seen Jess lately?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “What’s up, Adam?”

  “My uncle lives in Despair. I saw him the other night for the first time in a while, and he said Jess was in that shitty bar, The Squirrel. You know the one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He said Jess was drinking with a guy named Billy Brooks. He owns a sawmill next to the Sierra. So she was drinking and then some of Billy’s friends come over and they’re all buying her shots of vodka and getting her real oiled-up, you know. About a quarter to midnight, the owner, a guy named Guns if you can believe that, says he’s closing up, which is strange since he never closes the place, just waits for the last drinker to pass out cold and then dumps them out front and locks the door. Could be three in the morning before that happens. So he kicks my uncle and a few of the others out, but when he locks the door Jess is still in there, with Billy and his friends. Now, I’m not saying anything bad happened, but my uncle said Billy is a real piece of shit with a nasty temper. So maybe you should tell Jess to steer clear of that place for a while, keep some better company.”

  Jim nodded as Adam stood and left his office.

  He remembered the fresh bruising on her face, the swelling on her lip. He felt the familiar anger start to build. The anger that had been his friend during high school, when he got into scraps with the older kids, but had soon turned out to be his worst enemy when he got into the real world. It saw him follow the stepfather home one night, the stepfather with his shit-eating grin and his team of soulless lawyers—the real reason he’d left Boston and come back home where he was safe from himself. He didn’t regret what he’d done to the guy, some people had it coming to them. He could control it now, but in that instant when his mind ran to Jess—Jess with a bulls-eye on her chest that told drunken assholes like Billy Brooks that she was vulnerable and wouldn’t put up much of a fight—he felt the anger start to warm his blood and pump around his body, gradually getting hotter and hotter until he was walking to his car with one aim in his mind. And then he was driving out of Tall Oaks, and joining the East Ridge Road toward Despair.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I can always call Hen and tell her I can’t make it.”

  Jess hated these conversations, where her mother implored her for reassurance. Reassurance that she’d be okay. She’d done it her whole life: whether it was reassurance that Jess wouldn’t fuck up at school anymore, or reassurance that Harry was eating his vegetables, she’d always needed it. Jess wondered if it would absolve Alison of guilt if she came home one evening and found her slumped over the table with an empty bottle of Vicodin by her head. If she’d say to the doctors, “She told me to go. She said she was okay.”

  Maybe it would. But getting the words to come out of her mouth was a struggle.

  “You go, Alison. Tell Aunt Hen sorry I couldn’t make it.”

  She said it, even managed a smile. She wanted to tell to her to get in the fucking car and leave now, so that she could breathe again, so that she didn’t have to act. Alison watched her—all day, all night. She watched what she ate, when she used the bathroom, how long she stayed in bed for. Always watching, always worrying.

  “Why don’t you come, Jess? I hate leaving you here by yourself.”

  Jess felt the tingle in her fingers. She needed to run, or drink, or meet a guy—needed to do it now. She just needed to see Alison leave first, so that she wouldn’t come back and she wouldn’t worry. She could do that.

  “You go, have a night off. Get out of here. I’m going to go for a run.”

  She knew that Alison liked it when she ran—it was a healthy pastime, like chess or reading. Not like drinking, or fucking strangers.

  “You call me if you need anything.”

  Alison gripped her face in her hands and tried to meet her eye, but Jess was determined to look past her.

  “Doesn’t matter what time, call me and I’ll come home. I won’t be far away.”

  She knew every word that was about to come out of her mother’s mouth. Every single one of them. The practiced routine. She was starting to bounce on her feet now, her heart racing, her body begging for some kind of release. She clenched her teeth, tried to smile again but it nearly broke her.

  Alison got in the car just as the first tear rolled down Jess’s cheek.

  Jim watched the bar from the parking lot. He’d seen Billy Brooks arrive an hour earlier. He drove a pick-up with Brooks Sawmill scrawled across the hood.

  He was exactly as Jim had pictured—hard face, broad shoulders, and barrel chest. The kind of man that had so many scars on his hands he didn’t even notice when he got a new one. He looked tough, but that was okay. Jim wasn’t looking to prove himself against the guy. He just wanted to hurt him.

  He reached into the glove compartment and took out a stack of photos. He flipped through them until he came to the one of Jess and Harry.

  He held it up to the moonlight. She looked so happy, a hand on his shoulder, her smile wide. He wondered what would happen to her if Harry was dead. She wouldn’t smile again, he knew that much.

  Jim glanced up as another pick-up pulled into the lot. He sank low in his seat.

  He watched them get out—a couple of guys who looked a lot like Billy. As they opened the door to the bar he heard music spill from inside. The door closed behind them.

  He turned back to the photograph.

  “He would have been twenty-five today,” Henrietta said.

  “I know.” Alison sipped her wine. “Does Roger ever speak of him?”

  Henrietta shook her head, staring across the yard as the sprinklers rose from the ground and began to hiss. “No. He did, of course, back then. But he’s moved on now . . . it’s been so long.”

  “I went to visit his grave a while back. It’s nice, him being buried beside Dad,” Alison said.

  “Roger wanted him to be buried in England. But I knew we’d come back here. Tall Oaks is home.”

  Alison stood and topped up her drink. She thought of Jess, out running somewhere, coming back to an empty house. A house so vast that it always felt empty.

  “How’s Jess?” Henrietta asked, reading her mind.

  “Same,” Alison replied, noticing that Hen had barely touched her wine. “Am I drinking too quickly?”

  “You need it more than I do.”

  Alison smiled.

  “I wish that Jess would talk to us . . . to you. I wish she’d let us help. Roger asks after her all the time,” Hen said.

 
; “There’s nothing we can do. I feel so guilty coming here, leaving her, talking to you and drinking wine like life is normal. I asked her to come . . . but you know her. She stays out all night sometimes, I don’t know where she goes. I hate to think about it.”

  “Reminds me of when she was younger. You can’t judge her now, with all that she’s going through. My heart breaks for her, but she can be difficult. She’s always been headstrong, like her mother.”

  “I wasn’t that bad, surely?”

  “No. Not that bad. But Dad had his hands full.”

  “Now I wonder why I kicked so hard, when we had so much. I don’t remember anymore—maybe I choose not to.”

  Alison watched a firefly zip across the pool. She followed it until it became a speck in the distance.

  “She settled with Michael, though,” Hen said. “I liked him when I first met him. He was charming, like you said, and maybe a little arrogant. But they always are when they’re that handsome.”

  “He had me fooled too. Then once they were married he began to control her. He didn’t want her to see me, didn’t want me to come over and help with Harry. He wanted her to himself, but he wanted others too. Typical man.”

  “I saw him a month back,” Henrietta said.

  “Michael?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell Jess. She needs to forget him.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “No. He looked awful, not the man you remember. His hair is longer, his eyes were bloodshot. He was staggering down Main Street. He looked drunk. I wanted to grab him, to yell at him.”

  “What would you have said? What’s left to say?”

  “I’d tell him what the whole town is saying behind his back. That he should be there for his wife. That he should take care of her, because she needs him.”

  Billy Brooks left The Squirrel early. He was drunk, far too drunk to drive yet still he found himself wandering toward his truck. It was only two miles to his house, two miles of winding track roads and then he’d be home and dry, no chance of getting pulled over. No one bothered them in Despair. That’s why he loved the place. The name alone kept most away. It was so dark, so hopeless.

  Billy liked the dark. People like him were at home in the dark—people that were capable of doing dark deeds.

  The only people that came to Despair were those that sought out the dark, for whatever reason, like that crazy girl had, the one that had flirted all night—thinking that she was at home in the dark with them. But she was just visiting.

  Just visiting, like the guy that stood in front of Billy now.

  The visitor stood still, blocking his path, his feet shoulder width apart. He looked jacked up, ready. He had something in his hand—it looked like a can.

  Billy started to smile, but checked it when the visitor raised the can and sprayed something into his eyes. The pain was instant, and fierce.

  Despite the burning, he swung, but it was a sloppy swing.

  His momentum carried him forward. He fell, the gravel rough against his face. He felt his boot come off, but that was the least of his problems. Whatever was in his eyes was burning his throat now. He struggled to breathe.

  And then the visitor was on him.

  Through the blows that landed heavy on his face, Billy caught a blurry glimpse into the visitor’s eyes and saw something that scared him.

  Maybe he wasn’t a visitor after all.

  Maybe he was at home in the dark too.

  The movie was bad, though the date wasn’t. Jared seemed more relaxed, and that made Elena feel more relaxed.

  “I love it when Cage tries to do an accent,” Jared whispered, leaning close.

  She laughed, drawing an angry glance from the man sitting in front of her.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to Jared.

  He nodded, and took her hand in his as they walked out. He might have just been helping her because it was dark, but when they found the door and squinted their way into the foyer he didn’t let go. And she didn’t want him to.

  The run had been Jess’s longest yet. Six miles at a frightening pace. But it was only as she panted her way back up Alison’s driveway that she finally felt the tension leave her shoulders, the anxiety leave her mind to be replaced by a heavy, welcome cloud of exhaustion.

  She climbed the stairs and ran the faucet, filling the bathtub. She pulled off her shorts and peeled the T-shirt from her back. She stood naked and looked into the mirror. The bruising on her thigh was the worst; an angry mix of yellow and purple, where Duane or Bobby had clamped his meaty hand on her and forced her legs apart. There was a bite mark on her shoulder, but that was already beginning to fade. She’d hoped that she’d been drunk enough to fog the memory, but found it troublingly clear, though she took some comfort in the fact that it gave her something else to think about when she tried to get to sleep at night.

  She stepped into the bath slowly, her body trying to adjust to the temperature.

  She lay down, her skin red, the water hot and cleansing.

  It was as she closed her eyes that she heard it. A bang.

  A loud bang.

  And it came from downstairs.

  She climbed out of the bath quickly, her heart racing. She beat back the fear by moving fast, pulling on her gown and taking the stairs two at a time.

  She saw him outside.

  Sitting with his back to the door and staring off into the distance.

  She opened the door and he stood, turning to face her, his eyes dark.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  She looked down at his hands, at the swelling, at the blood sprayed up his shirt.

  “I went to Despair.”

  She lunged at him, mashing her lips against his so hard that she could taste blood.

  He kissed her back just as hard, months of longing dissolving under the moonlight, the feeling that replaced it just as hard to deal with.

  16

  An Easy Target

  Jess watched him sleep. He looked beautiful when he slept, like a child: untroubled, at peace. She wondered if she looked that way, but felt certain that she didn’t.

  He hadn’t left afterwards, like she thought he might. After she had kissed him, tasted his blood and wanted more. He had kissed her back, but he didn’t have much of a choice. She drew him into her, consumed him and took away the darkness in his eyes, took it away because in her he saw only light. He saw the good, the innocence that she longed to see in herself again. It was one of the reasons she liked to be around him, to keep him close by.

  She knew that he’d fallen for her. To her it was obvious. And now that he’d crossed the line their relationship was no longer strictly business, though she thought it funny to think of his work as business, a job. It clearly meant much more to him than that. When she’d led him up to the bedroom, she felt it pouring from him. The desire. And not just to fuck her, though that was there too. Despite what was going on around them, he wanted to save her, to bring Harry home and save her. Maybe save himself too; save himself from whatever it was that he was hiding from, the part of him that he hated and thought that she could take away. Or Harry could take away. Make himself worthy again . . . whatever. Except she was the wrong person to do that. Where he saw light, she saw only dark. Where he saw warmth, she saw the bitter cold.

  She wondered if he’d want more now, not that it made a difference. She belonged to somebody else. And even if she didn’t, it could never work between them. They shared something that two people shouldn’t, not two people who wanted to be together. They’d lived the nightmare side by side, like those couples you read about in the newspapers. The couples that had lost a child in some awful way. They never stayed together, because that’s all they would ever see in one another. That pain. They needed someone new, someone that couldn’t see what they had seen. Someone that wouldn’t wonder how they could laugh at a funny movie, or enjoy a summer’s day and escape into a book; wonder how they could do that after what
they had seen, like they didn’t care anymore. Because how could they laugh if they did care? How could they ever smile again if they remembered?

  “You watching me sleep?” he said, his back to her.

  “No.”

  He rolled over and smiled at her.

  She didn’t smile back.

  He sat up, reaching for his pants.

  “I got somewhere I need to be,” he said, checking his watch.

  It wasn’t awkward. She’d long since stopped feeling awkward afterwards.

  “You okay?” he said.

  She nodded.

  She watched him glance at the floor, at the posters of Harry. She saw the guilt bite him then.

  “You going to knock on doors again?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded.

  “The guy in the PhotoMax looks at me funny.”

  “Jerry? He looks at everyone funny.”

  “I knocked on his door, but he wouldn’t answer.”

  “He’s a good guy. Has a tough time with his mother,” Jim said, buttoning his shirt.

  Jess shrugged. “It’s just funny, the way he looks at me.”

  “You seem chirpy today. What’s up?” Elena said.

  “Nothing,” French John replied.

  He crouched by the cake, carefully removing the last of the hand-carved flowers from the bottom tier. Though a painstaking job, he still couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

  “Seriously, what is it? Or rather, who is it?”

  “I wish I had something more exciting to tell you, but alas, I fear I may never meet the man of my dreams. Not in this town anyway.”

  He placed the flower onto a tray, then started on another.

  “So why the smile then?”

  “No reason in particular. Can’t a boy just smile without a reason anymore?”

  “If I didn’t know any better I’d think that you were seeing Richard again.”

  “Richard who built the closet then lived inside of it?”

  Elena laughed. “Yes, manly Richard with the big tool . . . belt.”

  “Why did I finish with him again?”