Shadow Falls

by Wendy Dranfield

  Madison’s grateful he doesn’t make a big deal out of her trying to save money. She’s only known him for twenty-four hours, but she already feels comfortable. Which makes her feel bad for misleading him about what happened with her own case.

  Fourteen

  Nate decides to take route 101 all the way to San Jose. By the time they get there, it’s seven o’clock and the sun is starting to ease behind the sparse white clouds, but the day’s humidity is going nowhere. Even though the A/C in his car is second to none, he’s ready for a break. When they encounter delays leaving San Jose, he decides to stop for something to eat.

  “Let me treat you to dinner,” he says, pulling into the parking lot of a large steakhouse. He can feel his stomach rumbling as he leads them into the restaurant, where a young waitress greets them with a tired smile.

  “Hi, how are you? Table for two?”

  “Please.”

  “Follow me.” The waitress hunts for a spare table. She seats them near the window and takes their drinks order. “Be right back.”

  “I used to serve food to pay my way through college, but I was terrible at it,” says Nate after she leaves. “I once spilt a whole plate of spaghetti down a man’s back. Turned out he was in a criminal motorcycle gang, so I sure knew how to find trouble.”

  Madison laughs. She has a nice laugh but he’d bet she doesn’t do it very often anymore.

  “Yeah, waitressing is my new life,” she says. “I’ve been surprised by how variable the tips can be. If I show a little cleavage to the right customer, I can afford to buy the good cheese instead of the processed crap.”

  He smiles sadly. That must feel like quite a comedown for a detective, but he admires her determination to do what she needs to in order to survive.

  Once they’ve ordered their food, Nate glances at the TV above them. He recognizes a photo of Jennifer Lucas on the screen. “Look.”

  Madison follows his gaze.

  The shot turns to an outside broadcast. The reporter is standing in front of a sign for Camp Fearless. “Jennifer Lucas, the young girl who vanished from this summer camp two weeks ago, is still missing, and locals fear time is running out for the twelve-year-old from Santa Barbara.”

  They run video of a middle-aged woman standing in her front doorway. “I’m too scared to let my kids play out on the front lawn in case whoever took that poor girl comes back for more. They should have found her by now. It’s scary.”

  A second, older local appears. Nate assumes he’s a neighbor of the woman, keen to offer his ten cents. “I think she was grabbed by a sex offender. I’d bet she’s dead in a ditch by now. If the cops ever find out who took her, they should string him up by his—”

  The footage cuts back to the reporter, carefully edited. “The Trinity Creek Police Department have asked anyone who may have information about the whereabouts of Jennifer Lucas to contact them as soon as possible. Jennifer’s parents have put up a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for any information that leads to the safe return of their daughter.”

  The piece ends with another photo of Jennifer, one Nate hasn’t seen. She’s sitting on a pony and patiently smiling at the camera.

  Madison turns back to face him. “I hope her parents didn’t watch that. They don’t need to know the locals are writing their daughter off as dead.”

  Nate nods. “They didn’t mention the reward to us.”

  “Probably because it’s not produced results so far. Although I’d bet the local PD have taken some bogus calls from people trying to claim it.”

  The waitress returns with their food, and as Nate digs in, he decides it’s time to start delving deeper into Madison’s story. “I googled you before I decided whether to take your case.”

  She doesn’t look surprised. “That was the logical thing to do. I obviously did my research on you too. I’m surprised it didn’t put you off helping me, though.”

  He chews his steak. It’s not great, but the lattice fries are deliciously salty, with a coating of paprika. “So you’re from a small town in south Colorado. Is that where you served your sentence?”

  “Yeah. They tried to get me out of the state so they could forget about what they did to me, but I ended up in La Vista Correctional Facility, north of the state.”

  That sounds about right to him. The police like to cover up their corruption. “How was prison life for you?”

  She puts her knife and fork down and takes a sip of her beer. “It was probably a hell of a lot better than your experience on death row. Some of the women were decent, but most of them were nasty. There were a lot of messed-up relationships going on, and if one of them thought you’d looked at their bitch the wrong way, you’d know about it. I have a bone in my arm that will never sit straight again.”

  She pulls her shirt sleeve up and he winces at the deformed angle. “What was their reaction to you being a former cop?”

  She looks out the window. “The decent women I mentioned stuck to me like glue, because they were convinced I could help them get their sentences overturned when I got out. They actually thought I’d be straight back on the police force and able to reopen their cases. Can you believe that? As if my manslaughter conviction would be overlooked. It was soul-destroying that after everything they’d gone through, they still believed the judicial system would come right for them in the end.” She shrugs. “As for the guilty inmates, well, they were obviously inside because they were caught by cops, so they took every opportunity to show me how angry they were at that.” She pauses. “I spent a lot of time in the prison infirmary during my first year. Until I realized the only way I’d get out alive was to fight back.”

  Nate is confused. “How did you get released four years early if you were fighting back?”

  She picks up a French fry and dips it in some sweet chili sauce. “Most of the correctional officers were easily bought. Nothing went on my record inside. I made promises I had no intention of ever keeping, plus I paid them with what little I had. But then…”

  He lets her trail off, because he knows not to expect everything from her in one go. It’s hard to put the prison experience into words. He’s surprised when she continues.

  “Halfway through my sentence, a new guard started: Troy Dunn. He was a mean son of a bitch. He liked to work out, but his legs looked like they belonged to someone else because he was so top-heavy. Once he found out I was a cop, he targeted me because he knew he could gain respect from the other inmates if he got to me for them.” She drops the fry back onto her plate and looks Nate in the eye. “He raped me eight times in all. But that’s only a third of the times he came for me, so I can’t complain. Plus, he had a small dick, so it’s not like he did much damage.”

  Nate takes a deep breath and pushes his plate away. “Jesus, Madison.” He notices an older couple sitting in the booth next to them. They’re staring at her with their mouths open. He knows how they feel.

  She looked detached as she spoke, a coping mechanism no doubt. He doesn’t ask if she reported the assaults. He wouldn’t have if that had ever happened to him—and if he’d been in general population, it would have. One of the only perks of being on death row is the rapists can’t get to you. Not unless your sentence is commuted to life in prison, in which case you’re thrown in with the sharks. Nate witnessed inmates kill themselves after being told they were leaving death row to go into general population. He was prepared to do the same thing. Some people aren’t cut out for prison life and he has no shame in admitting he’s one of them. In a fucked-up way, he felt lucky to be on death row instead.

  “Is the guard on your list?” he asks.

  She looks surprised. Then she smiles. “You have a list too?”

  “Of course. All wronged people do, don’t they?”

  She looks down at her hands. “Yeah. Have you managed to get anyone from your list yet?”

  He nods. “Did you notice the woman you passed at the hotel in Malibu this morning?”

  She smiles. “You mean
the stunning redhead with the model’s body? It would be hard not to, she was gorgeous.”

  “She’s the wife of Blake Diaz.”

  Madison looks confused. “So, what, you’re having an affair?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Detective Blake Diaz was a friend of Stacey’s uncle, and he helped the son of a bitch get away with framing me. The way I figure it: he screwed me over, so I screwed his wife. Many times.”

  She laughs, clearly delighted. “You went to Malibu just to get back at Diaz?”

  He nods. “He moved there from Austin while I was on death row. Once I was released, I knew I needed to do something to the asshole, but I’m not a violent person, so when I spotted how hot his wife was, I ‘accidentally’ bumped into her in the grocery store. We got talking and I found out she hated him almost as much as I did. He slaps her around so she’s on the verge of divorcing him, but she wanted to do something to really piss him off before she disappears. I told her who I was and why I was mad at him, and she practically dragged me into bed.”

  “Oh, I bet you put up a fight.”

  He can tell she’s teasing him. “As you saw for yourself, she’s hard to resist. But I was completely upfront with my motives and she was enjoying it as much as me. So now I feel like I got the asshole back, because when he finds out she slept with me of all people, he’ll know I won. It’s juvenile, but when you spend seventeen years on death row, you take whatever satisfaction you can against the people who put you there.”

  She nods. “I know exactly what you mean. One day I’ll get Troy Dunn for what he did to me, but he’s second on a long list.”

  Nate chews a lattice fry. “Who’s first?”

  She downs the rest of her beer before standing up, signaling it’s time to get back on the road. “That’s what you need to find out.”

  Fifteen

  It’s dark when they finally reach the Wildwood National Forest. Nate looks at the clock: it’s just after two in the morning and Madison is asleep in the passenger seat next to him. When he approaches a motel, he swings the Jeep into a dark parking spot, away from the road. If it were just him, he’d get a room, but he understands Madison’s financial constraints. He’s not sure what their situation is yet, and doesn’t know whether to treat her as an employee, a client or a new friend. The long journey up here has resulted in him overthinking things and he’s ready for a break. As he’s not tired yet, he decides to take a walk around the outside of the motel to stretch his legs.

  Since being incarcerated, he’s been an insomniac. Before, as a busy young man with lots going on, he’d slept eight hours straight every night without fail. Now, he’s lucky if he gets three hours a night. It’s probably aged him, but he’s getting used to it.

  As he walks past the reception, he looks in. There’s a small lamp giving the room an orange glow, but the check-in desk is empty. The night clerk is probably asleep or watching TV in the office behind. That’s good, because it means he and Madison can probably get away with parking here for a while. He grabs a couple of sodas and chocolate bars from the vending machine outside and then heads to a picnic table near the motel’s drained swimming pool. He picks a spot where he can still see the car. It’s not that he thinks Madison would steal it—after all, she needs his help—but motels don’t have a bad reputation for nothing, and someone else could.

  Satisfied he’s in a good spot, he pulls out a bag of coke from the hidden lining in his sneakers and cuts it up, making sure no one’s watching from one of the few windows overlooking where he’s sitting. All the drapes are closed.

  Father Connor has been playing on his mind all day, threatening to overwhelm him. Maybe because Madison’s experience of being framed is bringing up old resentments. Whatever it is, he needs to be able to focus on the here and now. Knowing what helps when he feels this way, he takes a twenty from his wallet and uses it to snort what he needs. The effect is immediate: a fast buzz that makes him feel better. More confident, even. His doubts about taking Madison on as an employee vanish. He feels sure he can find Jennifer Lucas, too. He wipes his nose and puts everything away, rubbing a small amount of white powder off the table.

  He looks up at the sky and watches the lights of a plane. It’s a clear night and the stars are out. After fifteen minutes of enjoying the buzz, he can already feel it receding. He’s managed to reduce his coke intake a lot in the last few months so that he feels in control. Despite his body craving another line, he ignores it. He knows it’ll pass soon enough.

  When he pulls out his cell phone, he finds an email from Esme Lucas giving him the details of the local cop assigned to the case: Detective Ted Morgan from Trinity Creek Police Department. They passed Trinity Creek about twenty miles back, so the department must have jurisdiction over more than one town. Nate has no intention of contacting Detective Morgan before he’s done some investigating of his own. In fact, the longer the police are ignorant of his presence, the better for him and probably for the missing girl.

  Just then, he hears someone approach, and it’s not Madison. It’s a slim woman wearing nothing but a bra and jeans. One of the doors behind her is open, with a weak light spilling out.

  “Hey, you.” She takes a seat next to him. “Do you have a light?” She balances a spliff between her full painted lips.

  “I don’t smoke, sorry.”

  She leans in and puts her hand on his knee. “I can keep you company if you like?”

  Nate’s not naïve; he knows this woman charges by the hour for her company. As someone who never got to sleep with his fiancée and was then incarcerated for so long, he can’t pretend he’s never been tempted by a prostitute. Once he was released, he thought a lot about using one to experience sex for the first time, just to get it over with. But most sex workers are controlled by pimps, and the thought of helping a sleazy guy like that profit from a woman put him off. Instead he let nature take its course, and it wasn’t long before he attracted the attention of a hotel receptionist. She taught him a lot.

  He smiles at the stranger and shakes his head. “Thanks, but not tonight.” He opens his wallet and slips her a fifty-dollar bill. “Have a meal on me, though.”

  Her smile slips and he gets a glimpse of the woman behind the facade. “Thanks, man. My baby needs diapers.”

  She gets up and walks away, and he finds himself hoping she uses it for those diapers and not for drugs.

  “I’m in room twelve if you change your mind.” She doesn’t look back as she says it.

  Nate glances at his cell phone again and sees he has another email. This one makes him tense before he even opens it. It’s from Stacey’s uncle. No one else would know that, as he’s not stupid enough to use his real name, but Nate recognizes the fake email address. This isn’t the first time Father Connor has been in touch using a pseudonym, and Nate has no idea how he obtained his email address, which is less than two years old. Clearly the asshole has done some digging of his own. He checks the Jeep is still okay and then opens the email.

  Every day you live you are closer to your seat in hell. My beautiful niece died because of you and God will never let you near her again. I pray every night that you will meet the devil, and soon. Do the world a favor and go to your grave. Stop chasing me. You will never find me, Nathaniel. I have God on my side.

  Nate shakes his head, puts his cell phone on the picnic table and closes his eyes. He rubs his temples instead of throwing his phone against a wall. That man is deluded. He knows the hatred the priest has for him is misdirected self-loathing, so it means nothing. What angers him is the fact that he won’t accept responsibility for Stacey’s murder. Nate is certain they’d be happily married right now with a couple of teenage kids if it weren’t for Father Connor. He gives in to his craving and prepares another line of coke.

  Sixteen

  “What are you doing?”

  Nate jumps as Madison approaches him. She thought she saw him lean down to the table on her way over here, but there’s nothing there when she reaches
him. She’s been around a lot of drug addicts in her time and she doesn’t think Nate is one.

  He looks over at her. “Just checking emails. I thought I’d let you sleep.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  He turns his phone over so she can’t see the screen. “No. Here, I got us some snacks.”

  She sits next to him at the picnic table and together they watch the sun slowly rise.

  “I would’ve killed for this experience a few years ago, when it felt like I’d never see the sun again,” says Nate.

  “Just think,” she says. “One day that sun will rise on a morning when it’s all over for both of us.”

  He looks at her, his face bathed in an orange glow. “What do you mean?”

  She pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. After taking a long, satisfying drag, she looks at him. “Well, one day I’ll have my answers and I’ll be able to pick up my life from where it was halted seven years ago. And one day you’ll find that priest and see him behind bars. It will be over. We just have to get through these tough years in between. We’ve both been through worse, so I know we can do it.”

  He looks away and appears to watch the sparse traffic pass on the highway; just delivery trucks, mainly. “How did you know I was looking for him?”

  She leans in. “Because we’re both being driven by revenge. Despite what the Bible says, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what got me through my incarceration.”

  Is that relief she sees in his face? It’s probably not often he gets to talk about what’s been keeping him alive.

  “He killed his own niece, Madison. What kind of man can do that and not take responsibility?”

  She shakes her head and opens a can of soda with her free hand. “From what I’ve read of your case, it sounds to me like he was a control freak and he used the Bible to suit his own ends. Once he realized he couldn’t keep Stacey at home with him and his subservient sister, he saw how little control he actually had, for which he blamed you.”