“Dog smell alert,” he hears Madison mutter.
Nate gets in the front and slowly pulls away from Josh’s street. The condensation from their wet clothes has steamed up the car windows, and Madison’s right, it’s quickly starting to smell in here, so he opens the windows for some air. “Let’s not get hung up on any of that stuff yet—the statements, the potential court dates,” he says. “The question now is, if Josh didn’t take Jenny, then who did? He was our only suspect.”
Madison leans forward and turns on the heating. He doesn’t blame her; his wet hair is starting to chill him.
“I don’t know if I even care anymore. I just want to go home and sort out my own problems.”
He looks across at her and can’t help feeling annoyed. “You asked me if I would hire you, Madison. Are you really going to quit at the first hurdle? Or was this all just a ploy to make sure I took your case? I mean, my God, did you give up this easy when you were a cop?”
She sighs and rubs her hands together. “Okay, okay, enough of the guilt trip. I’m allowed to have off days. Not everyone is as positive as you, you know.”
He almost laughs. “Positive? Are you kidding me? Don’t be fooled by my ability to focus on a job. You don’t know what’s going on in here.” He taps his forehead. “Ever wonder why I choose to work when I don’t have to?”
She looks at him. “Of course.”
“Because it stops me reliving my sentence over and over. I’m just as angry and messed up inside as you, trust me. I’m just better at hiding it. I use all of this as a distraction. You’d benefit from doing the same.”
He feels for Stacey’s rosary beads around his neck, once again relieved that she left them hanging from his car’s rear-view mirror just days before she was murdered. He had placed them around his neck to remind him to return them to her. He was wearing them when he entered the garage that night. Because he was arrested with them still around his neck, they were stored as his belongings until release.
Madison doesn’t say anything. He hears Brody yawn loudly from the back seat.
“I’m not going back to the camp yet.” He looks across at her. “Let’s find some locals to ask their opinion of what’s going on around here. That sound okay to you?”
She nods. “Sure.”
He wonders if she’ll see this case through to the end. He doesn’t know whether he’d prefer her to leave so he can work on his own again.
forty-four
June 2016—Polunsky Unit, Livingston, Texas
Nate opens his eyes and knows within seconds it’s going to be a bad day. There was a time, about nine years ago, when he woke up like this every day for almost a year. He doesn’t know how he got through that period, but he knows that because he did, he can get through the odd month or two of the black cloud pressing heavily down on him.
He turns onto his back. Looking up at the dirty low ceiling doesn’t help his emotional state, but he finds that depression gnaws away at his muscles, making his whole body ache. His back and coccyx the most. He can’t sit or lie in the same position for very long on days like this, making him restless. He used to think the aching was down to the beds they’re made to sleep on: cheap, thin mattresses that don’t disguise the metal ledge underneath. But now he knows better.
He tries to focus on anything other than the panic rising in his chest. It’s trying to convince him he needs to run away from something, so he tries deep breathing. In for the count of five, hold for the count of five, out for the count of five. He repeats it for what seems like forever. He listens to the others waking up. Someone’s crying. That’s not unusual at this time of the morning. They all know about the mind-numbing repetition of every single day. Doing the same thing over and over will drive you insane. Wake up, use the toilet, exercise on the spot, eat whatever they feed you, behave, go to bed. Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Prison time is different to time on the outside. Individual days mean nothing; it’s all about the years. And when every year is exactly the same, it’s impossible to differentiate between them.
As he spirals, he hears Kristen’s voice in his head.
“The professor in charge of our department is convinced we can get a new trial. There have been all kinds of previous internal investigations into Detective Diaz, and one of his convictions has already been overthrown. We’re applying for a retrial. If they won’t agree to that, we still have an application for clemency left.”
He pictures her round, beautiful face looking at him with hope in her eyes. It’s been eight months since she first came to meet with him, and she’s visited him twice a month ever since. Those visits have changed his prison experience, but not for the better. He’s been reminded of what he’s missing. With no TVs allowed on Texas death row—only radios—it’s hard to picture what’s really going on outside this place. Kristen tells him about advances in technology, updates on politics, and what the kids are into these days. But most of all, she reminds him of Stacey. Of how amazing it is to have someone who cares about what happens to you. She holds his hand and fills him with warmth that he bitterly misses the minute she pulls away and has to leave. It’s made him angrier at being inside.
Gus is extra cruel about Kristen because he’s racist. Although he hates Nate, he’s even harder on the black inmates.
Nate lets out a deep breath to the count of five. Kristen doesn’t want him to give up on himself. She claims she’s fallen for him and she wants him to take her on a date when he gets out. Nate doesn’t know whether she’s just saying that to give him hope and to keep him alive as long as possible. Whenever she mentions clemency, he mentally switches off. He has to, because the one thing he hears on death row more than anything else is: “Texas doesn’t do clemency. Especially if you’re innocent.”
He feels something weighing heavy on his mind and his chest. The depression is taking hold now. He knows he won’t get up today. He won’t eat and he’ll barely make it to the toilet that’s right next to his head. He just wants to cry. He wants to give up. He wants to revel in the unfairness of his sentence.
He hears Kristen again: “When you feel like that, you have to distract yourself. Picture our first date. Where are you going to take me, Nate? I’m not a cheap date by any means. I have French blood in me and I need to be impressed.”
He can picture her smile; so positive and full of hope. She has full, kissable lips and her two front teeth slightly overlap. It’s cute. He tries to think about where they’d go, but disruptive thoughts about the death chamber pop up every few minutes. If he ever got out of here, he’d find a way to take her to an expensive restaurant in Paris. That one thought gives him a tiny spark of motivation to do something with his time here. He should learn French in preparation, using books from the prison library. Then he could surprise her by ordering their meals in Paris.
He hears a door rattle. Gus appears. “Time to get up, killer priest. Breakfast is served.” He pushes a bowl of beige food through the lockable hole in the bars and winks at him with a devilish grin as he moves on to the next inmate.
Nate turns to face the wall. He tries not to scream as loudly as his aching muscles.
Forty-Five
Esme is sitting in the back of Grant’s Lexus, clutching Jenny’s school blazer. Grant and Anna are silent in the front seats. Every now and then Grant will switch the radio on to fill the eerie silence, but Anna will turn it off within minutes, claiming she needs to think.
On days like this, Esme feels like she’s spending time with strangers. Jenny’s disappearance has affected them all deeply and she worries they’ll never find themselves again if they don’t find her. She heard Grant and Anna arguing yet again last night, and thought she heard the sound of something smashing against a wall, but everything went silent afterwards so she couldn’t be sure. Grant’s not a violent person, so she doesn’t think it was him. He raises his voice sometimes, but not usually to his family. He has the patience of a saint when it comes to Jenny. Of course, things could have been a li
ttle different when Esme wasn’t there, but she doesn’t want to think like that.
She hugs her arms round her waist and prays they don’t split up. She doesn’t think she could bear to see them any unhappier than they are now. She looks out the car window as they drive through California. They’re hoping to reach Shadow Falls before sundown, but they’re still hours away.
“Anyone hungry yet?” asks Grant.
They’ve been on the road for five hours. Esme could do with stretching her legs and using the restroom.
“No,” says Anna.
“I’d like a break,” says Esme. “I’m sure you could use a coffee.” She places her hand on her son’s shoulder and he touches it.
“Yeah, work’s crazy at the moment, so I’m pretty tired. Maybe we should’ve waited until morning to do this.”
Esme feels a small bolt of panic. She can’t keep waiting any longer; it’s best that they’re on the road. It feels like they’re doing something. “Let’s stop for coffee. It will refresh us all.”
“Sure,” says Grant. “I’ll pull in at the next rest stop.”
Esme sits back in her seat and checks her cell phone for updates from Nate. She has a text.
Nothing to report yet. We’ve eliminated a potential suspect today, so making progress.
She wonders about the suspect. Did they work at the camp? Why were they a suspect? A sharp pain stabs her in the back, stopping her from taking a proper breath in. It passes within seconds and she almost immediately forgets it. She texts Nate back.
Thanks. Keep me updated.
She doesn’t tell him they’re on the way. She doesn’t even know why, but she feels for some reason it would be better if he didn’t know. She sighs. It’s exhausting not knowing who she’s supposed to trust. As she looks out of the window, watching the rugged, beautiful terrain that she’s currently unable to appreciate, the stabbing pain returns. It’s not dissimilar to the indigestion she’s started suffering more of as she’s aged. She searches for the chalky pills in her purse and remembers she finished the packet yesterday.
“Anna? Do you have any indigestion pills on you?”
“Check the glovebox,” says Grant. “There’s all kinds of stuff in the first aid kit.”
Anna rummages through it, taking a while. Eventually she passes two pink pills over her shoulder. “Need some water to wash them down with?”
“I have some, thanks.”
She takes them with water as Grant pulls into a truck stop.
They leave Anna in the car as they head inside the small diner. They both use the restroom and Esme is the first one to the counter. The smiling waitress asks what she can get for her.
“Two white coffees and one black, all to go. Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
Esme reaches out her arm to pay the waitress, but a stabbing pain forces her to pull it back, close to her chest. She lets out a groan but can’t tell where the pain came from. It feels like nerve damage.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?” asks the waitress. She temporarily stops chewing her gum.
Esme is bent over slightly and tries to straighten up. The pain has gone again. She tries to smile but fears it’s more of a grimace. “Oh, just a little indigestion. Nothing a coffee won’t fix.”
The waitress eyes her warily, takes her money and then turns to start pouring the coffees into takeout cups. By the time she turns back with the drinks in her hands, Esme is on the ground.
Forty-Six
Anna is staring out of the car window at the other travelers coming and going, but she’s not really seeing them. She’s wondering what will happen at the start of the new semester at Jennifer’s school in a few weeks. Will they have a special assembly to honor her memory? Will they pick a pointless colored ribbon to wear and plant a tree in memorial? Oh God, will she be invited to watch? She shakes her head and touches her throat at the thought of it. They probably won’t do anything like that. Not if they never find her. Until then, Jennifer is technically alive. And until then, Anna might as well be dead.
Her cell phone rings. When she sees who’s calling, she lets it go unanswered. They try again. She ignores it and clears the missed call notification. She can’t deal with them today.
She sighs heavily, feeling anger swell in her chest. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be at home with her family. She looks around the car for something to throw. Something to punch. Her pillow at home has taken several beatings since all this blew up. It’s the only way she’s been able to safely release her anger. Grant’s constant need for tidiness means there’s nothing in the car she can hurl. Instead she yells, “Shit!” as loudly and aggressively as she can. Then, for the first time in her life, she considers hurting herself. Maybe that will release some of the pain inside her. She tries to think what she could use to cut her arm, but just as she’s reaching for her house keys, an ambulance appears with its lights flashing.
She spins around to see who’s been hurt. There’s no obvious accident scene, so she waits and watches the EMTs jump out of the vehicle. One of them races ahead into the diner, while the other grabs a large equipment bag. Anna’s body tenses.
“Oh God.”
She can’t see anything through the diner’s window because of the sunlight bouncing off it. She checks her phone, but there’s nothing from Grant. Then her stomach dives. Has something happened to him? She tries not to panic as she watches and waits. A woman wearing a short red sundress walks out of the diner with her hand over her mouth. She pulls a cigarette from her purse and starts puffing away hard.
Anna’s body has gone cold from the inside out. Something has happened to Grant. If that’s true, where would that leave her? Childless and husbandless. She doesn’t know if she can see Jennifer’s disappearance through without her husband. She doesn’t want to get out of the car, so she remains seated and tries to ignore whatever’s happening in there. It’s then that the woman looks over at her and starts approaching.
“No,” Anna mutters. “Go away. I don’t want to know.”
When the woman reaches her open window, she puts a hand on the car door and throws the rest of her cigarette on the ground. “Are you Anna?”
She wants to say no. In the end, she can’t even respond.
“Honey, something’s happened. You need to get inside.”
Anna whispers, “Just tell me.”
The woman looks away, toward the diner. “I don’t know their names, but the man told me to come and get you. I’ll go with you if you want.”
He’s still alive. So it’s Esme. Her body responds and she opens the car door. The woman moves out of her way and follows her to the diner’s entrance. When Anna puts her hand on the door, she has to fight the urge to turn around, get in the car and drive away. She could stop whatever has happened by not knowing what it is. She could leave right now and live in ignorance somewhere new. Somewhere she never had a daughter named Jennifer and a husband named Grant. Somewhere tragedy can’t follow her.
Someone opens the diner’s door from the inside; one of the EMTs. He stands to one side and she takes a step forward. Grant is on his knees, holding Esme’s hands. Esme is flat on her back. Her eyes are staring at Anna but they’re fixed, as if she’s looking at something on the other side. The expression on her face is one of horror. Did she see her granddaughter as she passed? Did she see the truth of what happened?
Grant glances up. There are tears running down his cheeks. Anna has seen that look on his face too many times before.
He tries to say something, but she can’t hear him. “What?” she whispers.
He tries again. “I said, you were right. We’re cursed.”
She can only watch as he breaks down and hugs his mother’s lifeless body.
Forty-Seven
Nate thinks about stopping at the local gas station to talk to Jeanie-May again, but is mindful that her husband might not approve. She may be suffering with dementia but she had Josh sized up perfectly, so she’s not completely lo
st yet, although he can understand her husband being protective. Instead, he drives past and on toward the town’s small shopping area. Turns out Main Street consists of just eight stores and a library.
“Wow, this place is almost as small as death row,” he says.
Madison laughs, breaking the tension between them. “It’s even smaller than my home town. I like it here. I like the forest and the remoteness. It’s calm and relaxed and I bet it’s beautiful in winter.”
He looks at her as if she’s out of her mind. “I’ll take bustling Malibu over somewhere like this any day.”
He parks outside the grocery store. “You stay here, Brody.” He looks over his shoulder and realizes the dog is asleep on the back seat, obviously tired from their earlier exploits. He leaves both back windows rolled all the way down, hoping Brody would deter any potential car thieves. There’s enough room for him to jump out if he feels too warm, but thanks to the earlier downpour, the weather has cooled right down.
“You know, he never got his reward for getting me into Josh’s outbuilding,” says Madison. “He tore that door apart for me.”
Nate thinks about it. “You’re right. What kind of reward do K9s get?”
She shrugs. “Probably something that’s round and bounces, or maybe something meaty, but I’m just guessing.”
Nate smiles. “Okay, I’ll take care of it in here.” He nods to the store. “Why don’t you check out the other stores and see what you can find out?”
She nods and gets out of the car. Nate enters the grocery store. It’s completely empty of customers apart from an old guy squeezing a few melons. Nate can’t tell if he’s judging their ripeness or having a good time, but he sure is focused.
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