The Haunting of Rachel Harroway- Book 2

by J. S. Donovan

  Rachel clipped her pistol to her belt. She wore a paint-stained t-shirt and a faded jacket. Age washed out her jeans, and dirt and mud caked the ugly running shoes she hadn’t touched in years. Under his jacket, Peak was dressed in wrinkled clothes and a tie he wouldn’t miss. Together, they stored a duffel stuffed with a fresh change of clothing in the trunk of the drab white Impala. Peak brought dish rags to wipe down any of Jennifer’s fingerprints and put a towel across the backseat. It was just another safety precaution. In the center console, Rachel stored a box of plastic gloves and translucent rain ponchos to account for blood spatter.

  What the hell are you doing? a voice asked her as she stepped out of Hadley House and locked the front door.

  The ride to Jennifer’s mother’s house was tense. The howling wind rushed against the silent car, swaying it to one side. Peak never took his hand off the wheel nor his vision from the road. Rachel attempted to turn off her thoughts and fears. It wasn’t easy. She didn’t know if this action was right or wrong. Peak would argue that society had conditioned her in a way to make her feel guilt. He relied on the law to keep pandemonium at bay, but in the end, the law was only a manmade construct, one that would be continually be broken and remolded.

  Rachel trusted the soul and its leanings to good and evil. With a gift so abstract, how could she not? Tonight, she kept her wayward heart hard as iron. That didn’t stop it from beating against her ribs like an angry gorilla trying to bust free of its cage.

  What would her pastoral father think? He would wholeheartedly disapprove, she knew at once. Her insane mother might not object, but then again, it was through murdering someone that caused her to snap. Rachel put the futile thoughts behind her, knowing that she and Peak would never speak of this night to anyone.

  It was 11:36 p.m. when they arrived at the homely cottage. The house had a friendly design, with a lawn of healthy checkered grass. A small pack of wicker deer props grazed one side of the front yard. Peeking out of the yellow flowers, a ceramic green turtle stood amidst the circular garden of tawny mulch. In the shape of a horseshoe, old oaks and other trimmed flora arced around the quaint and quiet home. Even with the lights off, the cottage had a welcoming appeal.

  Peak reversed into the driveway. He parked the car a few feet away from the closed garage door that connected to the house. Keeping the interior lights off, Rachel popped open the center console and fished out two plastic gloves and a pre-packaged poncho. She shoved them in the pocket of her jacket. Peak mimicked her actions.

  They stepped outside. The nightly breeze brushed Rachel’s raven hair across her face. A cloud misted over the crescent moon, turning into an eerie, shapeless glow of light. Peak followed the red brick pathway to the awning-covered front door. Standing side by side, the detectives knocked.

  “Jennifer Blankenship, this is the police. Open up,” Rachel said over the chirping of nocturnal critters.

  They watched for a light to flicker on. It didn’t happen.

  “Jennifer, open this door or we will come in!” Rachel hammered her fist on the door.

  Peak shook his head. He slipped on his disposable glove and tried the doorknob. With a creeaaak, the door opened. Rachel pulled her gun out of its holster. She wrapped both hands around the icy grip and stepped inside. Her pulse quickened but the Sense was silent. Peak entered first. She could hear the restlessness in his calm breathing. In the dark, Rachel checked the corners before she proceeded. She moved along one wall. Peak moved around the other. Both had their guns trained and safeties off.

  “Jennifer?” Rachel called out.

  Peak toggled the light switch.

  The ceiling fan lights, covered by glass bells, illuminated the simplistic room. A porcelain doll sat on the couch. Her little legs stretched only to the end of the cushion. One of her eyes was missing. The other was wide and blue. There was a small smile on her chalk-white face. Her bleached bangs ran in a line over her brow. Her little hands held a pink envelope against the belly of her checkered dress.

  Cautiously, Rachel and Peak approached. Peak kept an eye on the wall and nearby doors. Rachel holstered her gun and removed the envelope from the doll’s tiny hands. Rachel glanced about the room before opening the flap. She removed the textured paper and studied the words on it.

  In glossy gold print, the cursive writing read, “To Clove Peak.”

  “What does it say?” Peak asked, not having read it.

  With a trembling hand, Rachel presented it to her partner.

  His lips moved as he read it silently. Suddenly, his gaunt face went white and his eyes grew wide.

  Rachel spoke quietly. “We don’t know what--”

  Peak turned from white to red. Beneath his pursed-lipped expression and hollow eyes, fury burned. His voice was unusually relaxed. “She has my daughter.”

  He scared the hell out of Rachel. She touched his arm to calm him. “We need to clear this house. See if she’s here before we do anything hasty. Are you with me?”

  Peak set his jaw. His whole body quaked. Without a word, he started down the hall. Rachel checked the bathroom, kitchen, and closet. She could hardly focus, thinking about that sweet little girl in the hands of a killer. Rage and fear pumped through her veins. She came upon Anastasia’s room and saw the elderly woman asleep on the bed. Even turning on the light didn’t wake her. Rachel checked her face to make sure it wasn’t Jennifer in disguise. It wasn’t. Peak returned to Jennifer’s room. He shook his head.

  House cleared, they exited together. Peak immediately pulled out his cellphone.

  Rachel heard a groggy hello on the other end of the line.

  “Darla,” Peak said so calmly. “Go into Clove’s room.”

  “What?” the woman said with sleep in her voice. “What are you talking about, Jenson? The girl just got out of the hospital. Let her sleep.”

  “Go check on Clove.”

  Something in his voice sent chills up Rachel’s spine.

  Peak stared into the blackness of night. He listened to footsteps on the other end. A door opened.

  “Clove, your father wants to-- Oh my baby!” Darla screamed on the other end of the line.

  Peak’s face was emotionless.

  Another, gruffer voice could be heard. “What’s happened? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know!” the woman screamed. “Jenson, where’s my daughter? What did you do to my daughter? Answer me! Say something!”

  “Describe the room to me,” Peak ordered, not raising his voice.

  “It’s her room! I don’t know how to describe it!”

  “Has anything been moved?”

  “No, I don’t know.” the woman started crying. “Wait! Lance is standing by her closet. It’s open. He found something! A picture. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Text it to me.”

  “Oh, Jenson. What are we going to do?”

  The gruffer voice spoke. “Let’s call the police.”

  “I am the police,” Peak said. “Text me the picture. Now.”

  A moment later, his phone dinged. The screen’s glow illuminated his tight jaw and coal-black eyes. Rachel peered over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of the out of focus waterfall.

  “Jenson. Talk to me. Talk to me, baby. What’s happening to our daughter?”

  Jenson didn’t blink for a long while. He listened to the woman’s cries. He put the phone back to his ear. “You and Lance go back to bed.”

  “But--”

  “Do not fight me on this,” Peak left no room for negotiation. “If Clove isn’t back by sunrise, call the police.”

  “Why can’t we call them now?! Jenson? Jenson, answer me!”

  Detective Peak pressed End.

  Rachel turned to Peak’s face in profile. His copper hair was disheveled from the wind.

  “It’s a trap,” Rachel said.

  “Clearly,” Peak replied.

  Rachel took a breath. Her hand instinctively touched her pistol grip. “There are half a dozen popular waterfal
ls in Highlands and countless more secret ones. We’ll go to every one of them if we have to.”

  Foot on the gas, they skidded out of the driveway. They started with Bridal Veil Falls, which was the nearest. They sped past the sign that said Nantahala National Forest. A hitchhiker with a tire mark down his squashed face watched Rachel from the side of the road.

  Peak swung the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. They stared up at the forty-five-foot waterfall cascading over the asphalt inlet and smashing against mossy boulders. Water snaked through the gaps in the stone and raced down the mountainside. Rachel studied the picture on the phone. “Not this one,” she declared.

  Peak huffed and stomped the accelerator. They arrived at Dry Falls next. Holding onto wooden handrails, they pushed past the wall of water that poured from the woods above. There was no hideaway and no Clove.

  “Peak!” Rachel cried out. She stood from her kneeling position and opened the pink envelope.

  “She’s stringing us along,” Peak said.

  The note displayed coordinates. Rachel pull up the GPS on her phone. She spun around with her cellphone raised high until she acquired a signal. “Two miles north,” she declared.

  The hike was uphill and treacherous. Every step into the mountain woods was another foot away from society. Rachel periodically checked her phone. The signal fluctuated. A half mile out, they crossed over an old wooden bridge. It had no name and connected two sides of a shallow spring runoff. They passed under dark trees and by great boulders. Tension grew greater, and the temperature fell the farther up the mountain they traveled.

  In the distance, their flashlights reflected off a cascade of water. Peak pulled out his phone. The waterfall before them matched the picture. Golden light shined out from the cave behind the waterfall and gave the place a mystical appearance. Guns out, they walked forward. Orphans screamed and cried from deep within the dark trees.

  They reached the waterfall, noticing two wooden planks built against the boulder’s face. Beneath was a ten-foot drop into a body of water that appeared black as ink in the night. Putting on their ponchos, Peak led Rachel over the sketchy planked bridge. It offered a foot and half of width. Rachel scooted her sore back against the moist rock surface as she inched around the bend. The floorboards moaned beneath their feet. The closer they got to the thirty-foot waterfall above, the slicker the planks became. Rachel could feel the Sense’s invisible hands grabbing at her the closer she got to the cave.

  Soon, they were behind the rumbling waterfall. It splattered their ponchos. Snakes of water slithered down their translucent hoods and down Rachel’s nose. The wet plastic covering their body flapped from the wind.

  Peak halted at the cave’s mouth. Rachel nearly knocked into him. Peak’s elbows were folded. His handgun was pointed upward and a few inches from his chin. His cheeks were gaunt and damp. His jaw was locked. Without a word, he turned into the glowing cave and out of Rachel’s sight. The Sense almost pulled Rachel to her knees when she stepped inside. Her eyes watered, her skin crawled, and a sickening pit twisted in her belly.

  Connected by loosely hung zigzagging wires, caged lightbulbs alternated down the descending cave corridor. The rock floor and walls had a glossy shine. The air within was wet and cold. The rumble of the waterfall echoed through the tunnel like the sound of a distant train. Rachel and Peak purposefully staggered themselves a few feet apart as they walked the damp corridor. The dreaded feeling suffocated Rachel. Her finger rested on her Glock’s trigger as goose bumps covered her trembling body.

  The tunnel funneled into a large chamber decorated with uneven caged bulbs. Moonlight seeped through an unseen breach high above. The temperature dropped to below fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and the damp air seemed to hang like the stench of a corpse. Natural pillars of stone bridged the ceiling and glossy floor. Under the light, they cast long shadows randomly across the ground and wall. A circular, floral patterned rug was roughly in the center of the room. Two wooden chairs stood upon it while a couple bookshelves towered on either side. One shelf had animal skulls on nearly every tier. Deer, pig, squirrel, etc. They were bleached, but patches of dry leathery skin still held to their skeletal faces. The other shelf stood twelve inches higher and housed over a dozen porcelain dolls. Some sat on top of the shelf while others were propped up against the bottom base. An old polaroid camera and a number of framed photographs stood in a lower-middle tier shelf.

  Moths danced around the surrounding lights. Occasionally, one would hit the scolding bulb and collapse to the ground. Its wings twitched, and its antennas wiggled a final time before it died.

  Wet from the water and sweat, Rachel and Peak neared the center of the room. Rachel heard her breathing and felt her heart pumping in her chest. Her Gift pinched and pulled at her in every direction, but she kept forward. Next to one of the natural pillars, they spotted the shoeboxes and the soccer jersey from the treehouse.

  Rachel’s feet found the floral rug. She glanced over the dolls and at the framed photos. One she recognized from the Roper’s case. It showed a teenage John Parkman, Albert Jacobson, and Tristan Ball. The next photo was similar, but a teenage Jennifer Blankenship replaced Ball and was kissing Albert on the creek. The rest of the photos either showed Jennifer or Albert. Each time, they were hunched over a dead animal. A shot deer, a gutted boar, a cat and other game. The prey in the next series of pictures displayed Albert Jacobson dressed as the Roper and Jennifer with a blonde wig and a face covered with milky white makeup standing over a strangled corpse. It was like this for every Highland girl of ‘77 and Maxine Gunther.

  “She watched him kill every one of them,” Rachel said aloud. “She was with him the night Albert took us.”

  Peak walked in a semi-circle, keeping his gun aimed. “This is her lair. It’s old. It’s always been her lair.”

  “Daddy!” Clove’s scream echoed through the chamber.

  “I’m here!” Peak took a step forward. A vein bulged in his forehead. “Tell me where you are!”

  “Daddy! Nooooooooo!”

  “Clove!” Peak sprinted after the scream.

  “Peak, wait!” Rachel shouted.

  Peak dashed to the back of the chamber, seeing another tunnel descending into the darkness. He flipped on his flashlight and jogged into the tunnel. Rachel stopped at the threshold, feeling something dreadful. “Don’t go in there!”

  Rachel only saw the blur leap from the darkness. Peak’s gun discharged, revealing a glimpse of the woman as she leapt on him with a knife-wielding hand over her head.

  Peak screamed as the muzzle flash ended.

  Rachel’s flashlight landed on Peak and the woman in black upon him, rising and lowering the knife into his torso. Ribbons of blood followed the knife every time she pulled the blade from his skin.

  The gun shook in Rachel’s hand. She fired off a round. Alarmed, Jennifer scurried deep within the tunnel.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  “Get off him!” Rachel screamed as she pulled the trigger and felt the recoil vibrate up her arms. Unscathed, Jennifer vanished into the abyss.

  Rachel caught her breath. Tears tumbled down her cheeks as she looked at Peak’s body lying motionless at the center of the corridor. She collapsed to her knees beside him. There was a lot of blood. It gathered in the ripples of the poncho and rolled in crimson tears down to the tunnel.

  Rachel touched Peak’s shoulder and rolled him over. Deep slashes peeled the skin on his left bicep and forearm where he had tried to block the blade. He leaked from a stab wound in his belly and another hole on his upper ribs.

  Rachel put her blood-soaked hand on his cheek. “Wake up. Wake up. No no no no! God! Please, don’t do this to me!”

  Peak’s coal-black eyes partially opened. Through he looked Rachel’s way, his vision saw past her.

  “Stay with me, buddy,” Rachel propped his head on her lap. Her red, sticky fingers intertwined with his copper hair.

  A murmur seeped from Peak’s lips. “C
love...”

  “I’ll save her,” Rachel’s voice cracked. “Just stay awake. Can you promise me, Jenson? Can you promise me that you’ll do that?”

  With slow breathing, Peak nodded.

  “Thank you,” Rachel whispered and rested his head against the cave floor.

  She wiped away her tears with her bloodied knuckle, smearing red beneath one eye as she glared into the dark tunnel. Holding the flashlight beneath her Glock, she descended.

  Sweating and fatigued, she felt the numbing effects of the pain medication leave her body. Her breath quickened. Clove’s quiet cries echoed through the cave. They grew louder and louder as Rachel neared the end of the tunnel. Apart from her flashlight, it was absolute darkness. Shivering and with his forehead resting against the wall, Mayor John Parkman stood there. He mumbled, blood dripping from his mouth.

  Rachel ducked into a second chamber that was lower and endlessly sprawling.

  Thirty feet away, six-year-old Clove lay belly down in the center. Her hands and feet were bound by rope. Crying turned her cute face ugly. Her eyes went wide at the sight of Rachel’s flashlight.

  “Don’t come in here,” Clove whimpered, her cast arm being strained. “She’ll hurt you if you come in here.”

  Rachel stepped forward, knowing that the flashlight had already betrayed her location. Dozens of rocky pillars, some looking like champagne flutes and others like dewy trees, spotted the room. Rachel rotated her torso, aiming her gun at dozens of blind spots around her. She knew there was no way to account for every angle at all times, and that terrified her.

  Footsteps in the distance.

  Rachel twisted at the sound of the noise. She breathed rapidly, keeping an eye out for the knife-wielding killer. Her light illuminated damp stone pillars, stalagmites dripping water, and the tunnel of cave that ran endlessly into a black void. Rachel focused back on Clove. The little girl squirmed in her bindings. She rolled to her side and wiggled like a mosquito larva.

  Rachel kept moving toward the girl. Save Clove. Save Peak. Get out. Rachel repeated the mantra in her mind. Stopping the Roper was the least of her worries. Rachel’s faded jacket hung heavy on her shoulders. The creases in her poncho held pockets of Peak’s blood. More of the blood stuck to her palms, fingers, and the grip of her gun.