Shadow Falls

by Wendy Dranfield

  Madison frowns, confused. “Why?”

  “It’s difficult to discuss without bringing up the feelings from that awful time.” Sian sniffs back tears. “Jenny told Jake something so horrific that it still gives him nightmares. He refused to return to school and he started suffering with panic attacks. It was just awful to watch him deteriorate so fast.”

  Madison looks at Nate.

  “Do you know what Jenny told him?” he asks.

  “Yes, but I don’t want to repeat it. I can’t. If it’s true, it will give me nightmares. I’ve tried hard to forget it, but I can’t. Jake’s only just starting to trust other kids again.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Please don’t make me repeat it.”

  Madison thinks of the worst thing Jenny could’ve told her friend, but she doesn’t want to believe that a child of eleven would be capable of what she’s thinking. “Does it have something to do with how the younger siblings got in the pool?”

  Sian starts sobbing. “Yes.”

  Madison shakes her head and looks up at the car’s ceiling. She’s guessed, but she has to hear Sian say it in case she’s wrong. “Sian, I’m thinking some pretty bad thoughts right now and I need you to tell me whether I’m right or not.” She pauses. “Did Jenny claim she pushed her siblings into the pool?”

  Sian sobs harder and they have to wait for her to stop. “Not only did she push them,” she says. “She told Jake she held their heads underwater until they stopped kicking.”

  Goosebumps cover Madison’s arms. That’s fucked up. Nate is shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Could this just have been Jenny’s way of frightening your son, or do you think that’s something she’s actually capable of?” Madison presses. She knows kids make up all sorts of stories to scare each other. And it sounds like Jenny was messing with the younger girls at the camp too, telling them stories of monsters in the woods.

  It takes Sian a while to compose herself. After several deep breaths she says, “The way that girl can look at you sometimes tells me there’s something seriously wrong with her. She reminds me of those psychopaths you see on the true-crime documentaries. The ones who are analyzed by psychiatrists and found to be born evil. I think that’s why Jake has been so affected by what she said: because he knows it could easily be true.”

  Madison leans back against the headrest and rubs her left temple. “Did you tell Anna what she’d said?”

  “Of course not. How could I?”

  Madison lets the woman go. She looks at Nate. “This changes everything.”

  Seventy-Seven

  Anna is having a fitful sleep. The nurses keep waking her to check on the dog bite and take her blood pressure, and when she does manage to sleep, she dreams of her children. Her real children. She sits up and takes a sip of water. A quick glance at her phone tells her she has no missed calls or texts.

  As she lies back on the bed, an image of the pool flashes in front of her eyes. Her therapist told her this happens because she’s suffering with PTSD after being the one to find Susie and Thomas in the water.

  She thinks of the first sign of trouble with Jennifer and remembers the time she claimed to feel ill one day so she didn’t have to go to school. Anna took the day off work to be with her. She went into Jennifer’s bedroom to take her something to eat around mid morning, but found her fully dressed and sitting drawing at her desk.

  “How come you’re up? You should be in bed.” She reached for Jennifer’s brow, but the girl pulled away.

  “Get off me, bitch.”

  Anna was stunned. “What did you just say?”

  “I said thanks for the food, Mommy.” Jennifer smiled up at her.

  It was the first time she had experienced one of Jennifer’s mind games and it left her feeling like she was imagining things. Even now she can’t believe how cunning and manipulative the girl was for someone of her age. She can’t understand where she learned to be that way.

  Over the following months, things slowly escalated: Jennifer would pull her hair while she was making dinner, hide things she needed for work, and then eventually hit her whenever they were alone. Anna told Grant, but he just wouldn’t believe it. Jennifer was an absolute angel whenever he was around. She’d offer to help him with garden chores, tidy her things away as soon as he asked, and would even eat her vegetables when Grant was home for dinner, even though Anna knew she hated them. Inevitably she and Jennifer pulled him in opposite directions, leading to the breakdown of their marriage.

  Grant refused to tell Esme what Anna had told him, so his mother didn’t know what her granddaughter was capable of. It didn’t matter; Esme wouldn’t have believed her anyway. She was blinded by the love she had for her only remaining grandchild.

  When she had nowhere left to turn, Anna told her therapist, Dr. Jarvis, but she was useless. She explained that Anna was afraid of losing another child, so she was subconsciously destroying their relationship in order to distance herself from the girl should the worst ever happen again. She even suggested she should temporarily take down photos of the other children in order for Jennifer to feel special, to help them bond. Anna resented her for that, but Grant thought it was a good idea. He confided in her that he was struggling to get over what had happened with constant reminders of them around. Because of that, she let him put all the photos of them into a special box. She knew Jennifer would love that. She finally had her father’s full attention.

  If her own husband and therapist wouldn’t believe her, she knew no one would. No one would believe what Jennifer was capable of, and it was infuriating. She realized then that she was destined to live with this monster until she turned eighteen. Unless Jennifer killed her before then.

  It was when Jennifer laughed about the children’s accident that Anna began to violently hate her. She shivers under the thin hospital blanket as visions of their backyard float before her eyes. The children died on a sunny day in June while Anna was preparing for a BBQ at their house. She had invited all the kids’ friends and their parents. Her three were playing on the grass near the swimming pool before everyone arrived, but the pool itself was fenced off and was always locked for their safety. She hadn’t planned to unlock it until enough parents arrived to help her with lifeguard duties.

  She had gone into the house to put a tray of food in the oven, having run out of space on the BBQ. Afterwards, she calculated it had taken her around ten minutes, as she needed a quick bathroom break on the way. By the time she got back out to the yard, she realized she couldn’t hear the kids anymore. Susie had been singing when she left. She immediately turned to the pool and her worst nightmare was realized. The gate was wide open and both her beloved children were floating face down. She didn’t hesitate; she jumped in after them fully clothed. She was screaming as she was faced with the agonizing decision of who to try to save.

  She reached Thomas first. He was so small in her arms. She carried him to the pool’s tiled surround and then went back for Susie, her thigh muscles unable to work fast enough against the weight of the water.

  When she’d got them both out of the pool, she screamed for Jennifer to call 911, but that was when she realized the girl was nowhere to be seen. She looked back at the gate to see how it could have been opened and noticed the padlock was missing. The key to the padlock was discarded on the floor beneath the gate.

  She tried CPR on Thomas first, but he wasn’t responding so she had to leave him to attend to Susie. Susie’s lips were already blue, but Anna tried breathing life into her anyway.

  Grant had arranged to come home from work early to help her entertain everyone, but when he arrived there was a crowd outside on the driveway. He told her later that he’d let them all in behind him and then called her name as he walked through the house.

  He found her lying between their children, holding their cold, lifeless hands.

  She registered some screams from the other parents but blacked out soon after.

  She shifts uncomfortably in the hospital b
ed as the tears fall. The heart monitor is beeping slowly and rhythmically.

  Anna blames herself for not checking the padlock on the swimming pool gate before she went into the house. She blames herself for her children getting into the pool. That’s a level of guilt that can destroy a person.

  Her thoughts return to Jennifer. Just a couple of months ago, almost eleven months after the accident, she found the girl floating face down in the pool. Her heart stopped in her chest and she wanted to scream. But then Jennifer looked up at her. “I’m Thomas!” she said, giggling. When Anna didn’t laugh at the cruel joke, Jennifer smiled and said, “Oh, wait. He was kicking when I held him down.”

  Anna ran from the house, not trusting herself. After a couple of hours, Grant eventually came looking for her and found her standing in the sea, the tide rising higher up her body with every passing minute.

  “For God’s sake, Anna! What are you doing?” He pulled her backwards, onto the sand. “Why did you leave Jenny alone? She could’ve hurt herself. She’s just a kid!”

  It was after that incident that she started researching Jennifer’s personality traits, and finally came across a forum about children with RAD. The behaviors people were describing sounded just like her adopted daughter.

  She was so relieved that she reached out to other women suffering the same things at home. Retrieving her cell phone now, she scrolls through the messages, deleting each one after reading it. She can’t risk these being found. One woman suggested she set up some secret cameras in the house to capture what was happening, so she could show her husband and CPS. She couldn’t fit cameras without Jennifer’s knowledge—somehow she always knew Anna’s every move—so she just had to use her cell phone. She set it up on so many occasions without Jennifer kicking off that she assumed she knew what she was up to. That was until one day when the girl went full psycho on her and hit her over the head with a vase as she was reading the newspaper at the dining table.

  She touches the bump on her head. It never returned to normal. The vase didn’t cause lasting damage, luckily, but it meant she had something to show Grant. He was devastated. He set up his own cameras, and each evening he’d watch what Jennifer was doing to her during the time between school letting out and him arriving home from work. That brought them back to each other. They shared the grief of knowing another child was lost to them.

  Suddenly, she jumps. There’s an unexpected knock on her door and Madison appears. Anna sits up, trying to focus on the here and now. Nate Monroe follows her into the room.

  “Anna?” says Madison, taking her hand. “We need to ask you about something.”

  Seventy-Eight

  Nate wonders how much more Anna Lucas can take. Losing two children in that way is unimaginable. She looks unsettled as they walk into her room, but eventually she smiles at Madison, who sits next to the bed. Nate chooses a seat near the door, not wanting to overcrowd her.

  On the car ride over here, they discussed what involvement the parents could have had in Jenny’s disappearance. Madison was adamant that if anyone killed her child, she’d want to kill them.

  “Even if it was another child?” he asked.

  “Anyone. I didn’t say I would kill them, just that I’d want to. What if Grant found out what Jenny had told Jake? It would be easy to lash out in anger at that. Anyone is capable of killing someone when they’re angry enough. I wouldn’t put it past either of them.”

  “But what if it was your child who killed someone else’s? What then?”

  She hadn’t even considered it. “He wouldn’t do that. Owen was always a good child who knew right from wrong.”

  Nate held his tongue, but he wanted to say that all killers were someone’s child once. He rubs his two-day-old stubble and wonders how this is going to go. He and Madison will never know what happened to Jenny if Anna or Grant don’t tell them, because only two people, or possibly three if Detective Morgan is involved, know what happened. All he and Madison can do now is ask the person in front of them. Anna looks so frail and meek, he doesn’t agree with Madison that she could be capable of murder. He could believe it of Grant, though.

  Anna clearly knows why they’re here. She takes a sip of water and looks directly at Nate. “My husband’s gone AWOL. I’m afraid he may have harmed himself.”

  Nate wonders if Grant has left her to take the fall for this. “Hopefully he’s just caught up in traffic,” he says. “Mrs. Lucas, we’ve spoken to Jake’s mom.”

  Panic flashes across her eyes. She looks at Madison, who says, “She told us about Susie and Thomas. I’m so sorry.” Madison’s voice breaks, and it’s Anna who comforts her, rubbing her hand.

  “Thank you. I appreciate that. They were beautiful children, full of fun and energy. We were lucky to have the time we got with them.” She looks at Madison. “You have children, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” says Madison, wiping her eyes. “A son. But he doesn’t live with me. I haven’t seen him for years, and although it’s nothing like what you’ve gone through, the pain of not seeing him is unbearable some days.”

  Anna squeezes her hand. “Unfortunately, I know that pain. I don’t know how any parent lives through this kind of thing, but I do think it’s worse for mothers. When you grow a child inside you, you’re bound to feel a deeper sense of emptiness and loss than anyone else in the family when that child is taken away from you. I hope you’re reunited with him one day. I mean that.”

  Nate looks at Madison. Just because he doesn’t have children doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the loss the two women are feeling. Thoughts of Stacey threaten to cloud what he’s here for, so he pushes them away. “Mrs. Lucas,” he says. “Do you think Jenny killed your younger children?”

  She looks at him with a blank expression. He can’t see any shock there.

  She nods slowly. “We believe so. You see, she hated me with a passion and she knew the best way to hurt me was to hurt my children. She was alone with them when it happened.” She pauses. “And two months ago, Grant found the padlock to the pool’s safety gate in Jenny’s closet.”

  Madison looks up at him. He knows that sounds pretty damning, but they should have told the authorities. There would’ve been an investigation. He’s guessing they didn’t do that.

  “What did he do about it?” he asks.

  Just then, Detective Morgan appears.

  Seventy-Nine

  “Anna? What’s going on?”

  Morgan looks at them all, and Madison can tell he’s worried that Anna’s confessing to something. Why would he be worried? Surely he should be as desperate for answers as she and Nate are?

  On the ride over here, Nate convinced himself that Grant harmed Jenny, but her money is on Anna. The way she talks about Jenny isn’t normal. There’s no warmth in her voice, and Jake’s mom confirmed there was tension between the pair. But Esme’s description of Jenny is so different from what they’ve heard from other people. It’s impossible to know the real Jennifer Lucas.

  “It’s okay, Ted,” says Anna. “I’m just filling in a few gaps for them.”

  Madison watches him closely. His face is flushed and he’s sweating. He walks to her bedside, the opposite side to where Madison is sitting. Anna takes his hand and smiles up at him. She looks exhausted. Almost like she’s giving up. Holding the hand of the detective investigating your missing child isn’t normal. That confirms it for Madison. They’re having an affair. They must be.

  Morgan turns to Nate. “I need you both to leave. You shouldn’t be in here right now; you’re not even related. Mrs. Lucas needs bed rest.”

  Nate shakes his head. “What’s the matter, Ted? Are you worried she’ll lose your baby?”

  He stares back, open-mouthed. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Well, you’re holding the hand of a crime victim you supposedly don’t know in a personal capacity. There’s obviously something going on between you that you haven’t told us about. I’m just wondering whether Grant has gon
e missing because he wasn’t happy about your affair. Did he not feel like bringing up another man’s baby? Or did you have to silence him?”

  Morgan clenches his fists as Anna lets go of his hand.

  “No, Mr. Monroe.” She shakes her head. “You have it all wrong. Ted’s an old friend of mine. We’re not having an affair.”

  Madison asks, “Is the baby Grant’s?”

  “Of course she is! Grant and I love each other.”

  Morgan leans in to her ear, but they can all hear what he says. “Anna, I have to advise you not to say anything. If you want to speak, at least consult a lawyer first. Hell, at least speak to me first, in private.”

  She looks up at him and smiles. “It’s okay, Ted. Really.”

  He grabs her wrist and tries to warn her with his eyes. “I’m not messing with you, Anna. You do not want to tell them anything.”

  “Let her go, Detective,” says Madison, standing now.

  “What are you trying to hide?” asks Nate.

  Neither of them speaks. Anna looks unsure of herself now. She’s deathly pale.

  “At least tell us how you know each other,” says Madison.

  Morgan looks at her. “I don’t know why you left law enforcement to team up with an ex-convict, but this is none of your goddam business, so stop interfering.” He wipes sweat off his forehead. “You need to leave before I arrest you both.”

  Anna tries to calm him down. “Ted, it’s not a secret.” She turns to Madison. “We met at college. We shared a couple of the same classes and we did date for about a year, but only until I met Grant.”

  Her words clearly sting Morgan, because he looks bitter.