by Laurel Dewey
Jane sat in her Mustang, her head spinning and her body exhausted. She glanced down to the thin book on the passenger seat and turned to the inside back cover with Jordan’s handwritten name. She opened the book and found various passages highlighted in yellow. Was it Jake who did that or Jordan? One particular line caught Jane’s eye:
You don’t come from your parents, but rather, through them.
She turned back toward the ER, thinking about the woman Bailey passed through and realized that, now, another ghost would remain tethered to generations not even born. In that same jarring moment, Jane spied the envelope Edward Butterworth had mistakenly dropped and that she rescued. She leaned across the seat and swept it up, figuring she’d gain a few points in heaven and mail it for him.
But when she turned it over and read the name on the front, two words fell from her stunned lips. “Dear God…”
She carefully opened the envelope and withdrew a letter written on gold-embossed parchment letterhead from Butterworth’s legal firm.
I’m sorry to hear about your recent health scare, Butterworth handwrote. I understand that you are doing much better and that you are back in the swing of life. Until next time, Edward Butterworth.
Attached was a personal check for $10,000 made out to the addressee.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Jane whispered.
CHAPTER 33
Jane felt a need to lay low the rest of the day. She returned to The Gardenia Room at the B&B and sat in silence on the bed as the clothesline of clues continued its daily taunt. Weyler called three times to check in, the first time after getting wind of her dramatic confrontation with Louise Van Gorden. “We’re going to be blacklisted from every joint in town if you keep this up,” he warned her. When she told him that she’d followed Bailey to the no-tell motel and what she witnessed, there was a long pause on the other end of the line, followed by “What in the hell are we dealing with here?” Given the day’s events, Weyler felt it was best that Jane stay where she was so she wouldn’t risk running into Bo. She agreed, although, it would be difficult for Jane to strike back at the man, knowing now what she did about him.
She stared back to the clues. The person behind these mystifying messages wasn’t just clever, he was driven by a need that overwhelmed his reason—Control. The word had already come up twice and now it rang like a siren in Jane’s ears as she committed the pages to memory again. It first arose when Jane hypothesized to Bailey and Carol that the M.O. of the kidnapper was about control. “It’s kind of connected to revenge, but it has its own flavor,” she remembered telling Bailey. “Such criminals have lost their ability to feel validated, and so their action, whatever that might be, seeks to control a situation that they feel they are powerless to contain.” Jane recalled how Bailey swallowed hard and turned away—a visual tell that he deeply related to what he heard.
The second time control became an issue was when Bailey, himself, railroaded Aaron into believing Jake was gay. Bailey knew it would destroy his son’s relationship with Mollie and, therefore, he controlled the outcome of their certain demise. If Jane was correct, it seemed that that C word was powering and instigating another C word—Chaos.
Jane closed her eyes momentarily and ran her fingers through her tangled brown hair. In that moment, the nascence of a foreboding sensation wrapped around her being. The same unsettling, yet elusive awareness had imprinted itself on Jane’s psyche in the past. When it did, it was the harbinger of a portentous event that would shake the foundation of her existence. Others might call it “that queasy feeling” or “something ain’t right.” But this was more than just an ominous shadow hovering in the ether; she could taste the fear on her tongue. Jane opened her eyes, hoping to assuage the vague impressions, but it lingered on the edges just enough to make her shift off the bed.
Her gut rumbled, and she realized she hadn’t had a bite to eat all day and it was pushing four o’clock. Downstairs, she hunted for something to eat, but there were no breakfast leftovers and she wasn’t about to raid the Green’s refrigerator. And frankly, the only thing she really wanted was a hot dog.
It took an hour for Jane to work up the courage, but there she was, seated at the bar of the just re-opened Rabbit Hole after their two-day cleaning holiday. The place was pretty busy, and Jane thought she could easily blend in with the crowd if she sat at the end of the bar and ignored the world by escaping into the local town rag. Her plan was to get her dog walkin’ and beat feet back to the B&B. After ten minutes, the barmaid still hadn’t come over to get her order and Jane glanced back to the paper. Then the smell of a hot dog with everything on it wafted toward Jane. A generous basket of cheesy fries followed along with a tall glass of sparkling ice water. She didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. She could feel him standing there. Somehow, he knew exactly what she wanted to eat.
“You want your dog walking or sitting?” Hank asked.
Jane still kept her eyes pinned on the newspaper. “It’s already sitting, so I’ll take it like that.”
“Oh, I can easily make it walk,” he said offhandedly, leaning closer to her. “It wouldn’t be the first thing I made walk today.”
This was fucking brutal. Jane couldn’t understand why in the hell this was so hard for her. She still couldn’t look him in the eye and that wasn’t the way she operated. There was a minute of the most awkward silence imaginable as she took a bite of the dog and chewed it into a mash before swallowing.
“How is it?” Hank asked, never moving from his perch.
“It’s very good,” Jane replied, eyes now focused on the food.
“That’s all? Just ‘very good?’”
“It’s a fucking masterpiece,” Jane said, without looking up.
He slid the basket of fries toward her. “Try the fries. You look like you haven’t eaten since morning.”
Jane put down the dog and shook her head. “Jesus, how do you get inside my head like that?”
“It’s easy. You think you’re so complicated, but to the right person, you’re fairly transparent.”
That got her back up and earned him direct eye contact. “The hell I am!”
“Like I said, to the right person, you are. To everyone else, you’re a bloody enigma.”
“And you think that you’re the right person?”
“No. I don’t think it. I know it.” Hank turned to pour a customer a beer from the tap. He returned to Jane and decided to change the subject. “I heard about Louise Van Gorden. I know a guy who works in the ER and he mentioned your brief but memorable appearance this afternoon.”
Jane motioned for Hank to move several feet down, away from prying ears. “Whoever took Jake, left another clue in the Van Gordens’ mailbox. The wording seemed to connect with Louise on a deep level. I guess I just thought that she might tell me whatever she was hiding.”
“What about Jordan? Where does he fit into this?”
“Every time I think he’s not involved, something happens to change my mind. And every time I think he is involved, something happens to change my mind.”
“What were you hoping to hear from Louise?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe part of it I already know. I uncovered a fairly substantial lapse in judgment by one of the family members.”
Hank shook his head and let a snort of contempt. “And his first name starts with a B? I told you he was no damn good. I don’t need to know what you found out. You can tell me all about it over dinner when this whole thing is over.” Jane had to admire Hank’s clever way of manipulating a conversation. “There’s an old saying, Chopper. The only way three people can keep a secret is if two of them are dead.” Jane considered the statement with grave concern. “Looks like you got one down and at least one to go.” It was obvious that Hank took no pleasure in making that observation.
Jane’s mind wandered and she considered it carefully before she asked Hank for a piece of paper and a pen. He obliged and she wrote down the pertinent information she had before handing him the p
age. “Are you still good at finding people who like to stay lost?”
“For you? Sure.”
Jane finished her hot dog and wolfed down half the fries. She was about to discard the local newspaper when she was reminded of how Jordan said he “felt” into Jake’s vibe by looking at his photo in the local rag as well as the Denver Post. “Do you have old copies of the local paper?”
“Yeah, I probably have some in the back. Why?”
“Do you have the one with Jake’s photo?”
“Jake’s photo?”
“Yeah, the one they published after he was kidnapped.”
He looked at her with a quizzical eye. “They never published his photo.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
She pretty much knew the answer to the next question. “And there was no photo in the Denver Post?”
“No photo.”
And the doubt started once again.
That night, sleep came hard for Jane. The persistent sense that something malevolent was on the horizon continued to crowd into her troubled mind. She’d shared her sentient feelings with Weyler. He listened thoughtfully and filed it away in the “wait and see” department. But each time Jane stirred that night, she awoke with a growing sense of urgency and unrest. The only solace was that she didn’t awaken at 3:11 am and have another nocturnal visit with her mother.
Sunrise broke forth as fingers of light touched The Gardenia Room and illuminated every dark corner. Jane woke and studied the silence. She was now able to smell the fear she had tasted on her tongue the day before. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky but Jane could feel the storm above the town. She got out of bed and crossed to the window, opening it wide. Outside, it looked calm, but the air around her was drenched in a knowing that a deed had been done. With her heart in her throat, she showered and dressed, donning the Groovy T-shirt, jeans and her boots. After strapping her Glock to her shoulder holster, she headed downstairs, dragging the cloud of doom behind her.
She greeted Sara and Aaron with a perfunctory “Good Morning” and served herself breakfast as Weyler joined her at the table.
And she waited.
She waited for the confirmation of what she was feeling. She waited like a death row prisoner waits for the gallows floor to drop and the noose to tighten.
The B&B phone rang out like an alarm bell. Jane jumped slightly and then swallowed hard as Sara answered it in the hallway. She heard Sara’s footsteps walk back into the kitchen.
“Sergeant Weyler?” Sara said, her voice shaking. “It’s Bo. He doesn’t sound good. He said he needs to talk to you immediately.”
Jane exchanged a troubled glance with Weyler. He folded his napkin and walked into the hallway, picking up the phone.
“Oh, Jesus, no,” he whispered, before telling Bo that he and Jane would be right over.
Jane looked up at Sara and Aaron. Tears streamed down Sara’s face as her hand clasped her mouth in shock. She was sobbing in Aaron’s arms by the time Jane and Weyler left.
It was like slow motion as they walked into Town Hall. The few faces present, including Vi and a couple tech guys, looked shell-shocked and grey. When they turned into Bo’s office, he was seated behind his cluttered desk, head bowed. Anguish and defeat strangled him. When Weyler approached the desk, Bo never looked up. He simply slid the large, plain envelope across the desk toward Weyler who opened it and pulled out the gruesome color photo. Jane moved closer and stared at the nude, dead body of a teenage boy lying on a sheet, bloated and blackened by decomposition. The head was turned enough to see the single bullet hole in his forehead. The starkness of the photo was made even worse by the contrast of the blond hair against the blackened, slightly mottled flesh. A piece of paper was taped to the bottom of the photo. In black pen, it read, May the Saints forgive me. Malo, Malo, MALO.
“Leave me,” Bo murmured, never once lifting his head.
Photo in hand, Weyler walked out of Bo’s office with Jane. Minutes passed before anyone could speak and when they did, it was colored by disbelief and the sense that this wasn’t really happening. It was the same incredulity that all victims felt when the stark reality was too harsh to accept.
“He just wanted someone to listen to him,” Jane quietly confided to Weyler.
Weyler looked at her. “Which one are you talking about? Jake or his killer?”
She was about to reply when one of the tech guys called out to them.
“Hey! I think you need to see this!” The techie quickly motioned Jane and Weyler toward his computer. “I was going through some screen captures from the speed camera by the bridge between the first of February and the date your kid went missing.” He brought up images as he spoke. “Before the new computer software, you couldn’t distinguish the darker backgrounds. But now…” He brought up an image with a date stamp of February 2nd. “…you can select the formerly blurred or dark spots, highlight them and bring them forward with pretty incredible results.” The image showed the rear of a passing car in front of the speed camera and a clear shot of the bridge. To the naked eye, there was nothing there. The techie selected a far corner beyond the end of the bridge, moving toward the forested area on Jordan’s property. “I can basically take any section, highlight it and tell you the leaf pattern on a specific tree. Or, I can show you two faces. Like these…” With that, he sharpened the focus and the clear profile of Jake Van Gorden materialized standing on the opposite side of Jordan’s fence while the crystal image of Jordan stood sheltered in the trees.
“Jesus Christ,” Jane whispered.
The techie pulled up three more images he had found and repeated the same process, clarifying the darkened spaces into the defined images of Jake and Jordan locked in what looked like a deep conversation.
Vi quickly went into Bo’s office and urged him to review the images. He stood and watched in staggered silence as the techie positioned the four screen captures on his large screen.
“He stayed one hundred feet away from kids, my ass!” Bo erupted.
Jane thought back to the red metal rod she’d nearly tripped on twice when she was on Jordan’s property. Judging the distance between that rod and the bridge, she was willing to bet it was one hundred and one feet. Hank was right when he said that the “smart ones always figure out a loophole.” But it was also clear to Jane that while Jordan may have used that red marker to guide his first conversations with Jake, in these computer-enhanced photos, he was far closer to Jake than one hundred feet. And he was certainly close enough to throw him a book or two. As to whether Jake got close enough for Jordan to do anything more nefarious, she couldn’t be sure. But the fact was he lied. He lied about seeing Jake’s photo in the newspapers and he lied about not having verbal or physical contact with the boy. Suddenly, the psychic connection Jordan bragged about having with Jake took on a more sinister cast. There were only four photos the tech could find because the camera only tripped when a speeder was photographed. Who knows how many more face-to-face encounters the two shared?
Bo turned to Weyler. “We’re taking him down!”
Within ten minutes, Bo had called in two deputies. The five of them left in three patrol cars, with Bo leading the way down the highway to Jordan’s property. There were no sirens, but the show of force and the righteous anger brimming from Bo would be enough to scare the hell out of anyone. When they entered the property, Bo instructed Jane to scan the perimeter of the property to see if Jordan was hiding in the woods. One deputy was told to secure the back of the cabin, while Weyler, Bo and the remaining deputy stormed the cabin, kicking in the door.
Jane removed her Glock from its holster and headed toward the fence. She crept cautiously, patently aware of Jordan’s penchant for blending into the scenery and staying silent. When she came upon the fire pit, she stopped and observed the cold ashes. Remnants of burned remains that weren’t completely consumed by the flames caught her attention. She spotted what looked like black cloth and grabbed a nearby stick
, lifting the charred item into the air for closer examination. All she could decipher was that it was formerly a black T-shirt and it was possibly far too small to fit Jordan’s monstrous physique.
Jane heard a frenzied pitch of commotion coming from the cabin. She dropped the shirt and raced in that direction. As she sprinted up the front steps, the sound of glass breaking and tables and chairs being overturned rang out. She stood in the front doorway and watched as two of the deputies held Jordan, chest against the wall, with one hand tightly wrapped around his back. Weyler methodically went through the cabin, checking for anything that stood out while Bo threw Jordan’s books across the room, kicked over chairs and verbally assaulted Jordan with every degrading remark he could muster. “You like diddlin’ little boys, you bastard?!” Bo yelled. “We know you talked to him! What else did you do to him, you sick son-of-a-bitch?!”
The whole time, Jordan’s right cheek was pressed against the wall. And he was staring at Jane with eyes a mixture of wildness and terror.
Bo bound up the steps to Jordan’s single bed. With one enraged kick, he flipped the frame onto its side, exposing more stacks of books under the bed. Bo crossed into the kitchen, spotting the sacred blue lily growing in the glass container. “What in the fuck did you do with him, Jordan?!” Bo screamed as he swept his arm across the kitchen sill and sent the glass container crashing onto the floor into a million pieces. The blue flowers dislodged from the tangle of leaves and scattered across the cabin floor. With his anger reaching an apex, Bo proceeded to grind the heel of his boots into the flowers, pulverizing them into a mash. “Where is he, Jordan?!” Bo bellowed, taking another sweep across the kitchen table and scattering the stacks of books everywhere. Looking down, Bo saw the strewn playing cards. He kneeled down and turned one over after another. “I don’t see the Ace of Spades, Jordan! No, I don’t! What are the chances that bloody fingerprint is gonna come back to you?” Bo moved closer to Jordan as the deputies continued to manhandle him, shoving him repeatedly into the wall.