“Then let’s get you home.” Pops put the car in gear and backed it away from where he’d parked by that damned deformed tree. He did a turnabout and slowly drove through the woods, occasionally swerving to avoid large fallen limbs or holes in the ground. The car jostled and bounced as they drove over rocks and branches, but Mollie’s muscles slowly begin to relax the further they drove.
She couldn’t believe this was really happening, that she was really in her Pops’s car, driving away from that hell hole and the madman who’d held her hostage for hours and hours. She let out a deep sigh of relief and blinked back tears of happiness. It was real. She was going home.
Mollie looked over at her grandfather, who appeared satisfied and maybe even a little smug. A tiny smile played across his lips as he kept his eyes on the bumpy road ahead. She should have felt gratitude and fondness toward him. Instead, the more she stared at him, the more she realized she didn’t know him at all. Not really. Sure, she’d known he was a famous “businessman” who probably bent the rules from time to time to get what he wanted. But Mollie had always assumed that meant he paid off politicians and greased the palms of government officials. She had never had any clue what he was really capable of. He had lied to her for years. Not to mention the fact that she would never have been kidnapped had it not been for his actions all those years ago. Her resentment toward her pops grew exponentially, the more she thought about what the man had told her.
When they finally made it out of the woods and onto a paved road, Mollie caught a glimpse of an old white farmhouse up on the top of the hill to her right. Was that where the man lived? She’d figured he had a house nearby, especially when he’d left her there for a while then returned with a television. Besides being old and maybe a little disheveled, the house seemed normal. Mollie tried to reconcile the idea that this man lived in a normal house with the fact that he was a cold-blooded killer who had kidnapped and murdered at least six other girls just so he could get to her. Though part of her felt guilty, mostly she was angry. And her anger was directed at the man who had caused it all—the man who was now driving her to safety.
He tried to talk to her once they pulled out onto the city road, but Mollie only answered with a shake of her head, a nod, or a shrug. Eventually picking up on the fact that she wasn’t ready for chit-chat, Pops gave up and turned on the radio. Jazz music. The last thing Mollie wanted to hear.
The black Cadillac pulled into the driveway of her home at the end of the cul de sac, and her mother flung herself out the front door and ran barefooted toward the car. Her white terrycloth robe trailed behind her as she came to Mollie’s side with arms wide open.
Mollie’s heart leapt in her chest at the sight of her mother, her best friend. She gulped back a lump that formed in her throat and opened the passenger side door before the car had even come to a complete stop. Within seconds, Mollie was in her mother’s arms, crying into her chest, and falling to the ground in a mixture of happiness and relief.
“Oh, Mollie,” her mother said as she stroked her freshly shorn blonde hair. “You’re home. You’re safe. Oh, my God.”
Kitty gently held her daughter at arms’ length and inspected her daughter, head to toe. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw, she pulled Mollie back into a tight embrace and rocked her side to side, just like she had when she was little. Mollie could smell the subtle fragrance of her Chanel No. 5, mixed with her fruity shampoo, and it smelled like home. She gave in to her feelings and let it all out.
Her pops leaned against the hood of his car with his arms crossed over his chest and a proud smile on his face. Mollie could see him over her mother’s heaving shoulders. She wanted to shout at him. Ask him why he looked so smug. Remind him she wouldn’t have needed saving if it weren’t for what he’d done to the man’s father. There would be a time and a place for that conversation, but it wasn’t here, and it wasn’t now. If she could keep her mother from knowing it was her own father’s fault her daughter had nearly been killed, it would save her further grief.
Once they’d managed to pick themselves up and walk into the house, Mollie’s mother poured them all some fresh chamomile tea. As Mollie sat at the kitchen table, slowly stirring honey into the steaming hot amber liquid, she tried to push away all the unpleasant images of the man that kept popping up in her mind. She’d never learned his name, but it didn’t matter. She was sure she’d hear it soon enough. Eventually, there would be reporters parked on their front lawn and detectives trying to drag information out of her.
Her mom had begged Pops to hold off on calling the police, just for a little longer, to give Mollie some peace and quiet and time to adjust to being home before the maelstrom began. Pops had easily agreed and even made a comment about giving it time first. Time for what, exactly, Mollie was unsure, but she could guess. She knew her pops wasn’t going to hand the man over to the police, because he’d already instructed Bruno to take him to the lounge. Mollie wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She wanted to see the man pay for what he’d done to her. But she also wasn’t sure how she felt about Pops putting their whole family at risk by hiding a known killer from the police. And now that she knew exactly what her grandfather was capable of doing, she also had to decide how she felt about the man’s fate. Would it be better for him to rot away in a prison cell? Or would it be better to let Pops do what he wanted?
“Well,” Pops said, breaking her train of thought. He stood from the table and hiked his pants up by his belt. “I’d better get going. I’ve got a lot to take care of, and it’s getting late.”
Mollie’s mother gave Pops a knowing look. “Please be careful, Daddy.”
Pops nodded once. “Always. Now, wait another hour, then call Detective Jamison. Do you have his number?”
“I still have his card from when he stopped by,” she answered.
“Good.” Pops turned his focus to Mollie, who was picking at a scone and forcing herself to take tiny bites. “Mollie, my dear. I’m so glad you’re home, with your mother, where you belong. Call me if you need me.”
Mollie didn’t respond. She didn’t even meet his gaze. She just placed a piece of scone into her mouth and forced herself to chew. Though her stomach was growling from lack of food, her nerves made eating difficult.
“Give her some time,” her mother said. “She’ll come around.”
“All right.” Pops kissed Kitty on top of the head, turned, and walked out the back door.
“I’m going to my room,” Mollie said a few minutes after Pops had left. She pushed her chair back and slowly stood. Her knees still felt like soggy noodles, but she managed to stay upright.
“Holler if you need me,” her mother said as Mollie brushed past her and walked toward the stairs. “And, Mollie?”
Mollie stopped right at the base of the stairs with her hand on the knob and looked at her mother. Kitty’s eyes were swollen, red, and full of fresh tears.
“Please, if you need anything…anything at all, do not hesitate to ask. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Mollie said. “I love you.” And with that, she turned the knob and headed up the steep steps toward her converted attic space.
She sat on the edge of her bed and looked around. Her room was pretty much as she’d left it, except her mother had apparently made her bed at some point. As she scanned the room, she tried to accept the reality that she was actually home. That she had survived. She never thought she’d see these things again. The pictures of her and her friends, her vanity where she sat and got ready every morning, her favorite stuffed teddy bear. It was strange to see all these things looking exactly like they had the last time. Nothing had changed at all—on the outside, at least.
On the inside, everything had changed. She would never be the same again, and she knew it. Being kidnapped, chained to a wall, and mentally tortured for nearly two days would do that to a person. She wondered when and if she’d ever be able to enjoy her possessions again. Once, they had meant the world to her. Sh
e’d have died if she’d lost even one picture. But now, everything seemed so trivial and inconsequential.
Again, images of The Vault flashed before her eyes, and she tried to push them away with every ounce of strength she had left. Would she ever stop seeing him? Would she ever stop feeling those chains around her ankles? She didn’t think so. The images, the smells, the sounds, were all permanently etched in her brain, the way a farmer branded a cow. Was that what she was now? Just an animal with a scar that would never be human again? Would she ever laugh again? She couldn’t even imagine enjoying the things she once had. They all seemed so petty and pathetic. As if she’d aged ten years in two days. She could barely even remember what her life had been like before.
Then she remembered. Her journal. She had written it all down. Her most memorable life experiences, the good and the bad. All her secrets. She started a new journal at the beginning of every year and had recorded every single memory she never wanted to forget. She could read it now and hopefully recall the good times. Remember what it was like to be Mollie Cartwright again. Maybe if she could remember, she could slowly find her way back.
She leaned over and felt around underneath the bed. Her fingers felt a blanket, a paper plate, and a pen, but no journal. Not yet worried, she scooted off the bed onto the floor, got on her hands and knees, and flipped up the dust ruffle. But there was nothing there. Her journal was gone.
Chapter 18
Kurt
The SWAT team stormed the house first, even though Kurt knew there was no way Collin McAllister was holding Mollie there. As they searched inside from top to bottom, Kurt walked across the back yard to the big red barn he’d seen on the PVA website. He struggled with the doors, but after tugging on the handle several times, he managed to swing them wide open. With his gun held at arm’s length, he swept each stall on the bottom level, but they were all empty. No horses, no cows, no sign of Mollie.
He spotted the ladder to the loft, tucked his gun into its holster, and climbed the rickety wooden rungs until he reached the top. Again, nothing but straw and hay. No sign whatsoever that anyone had been there recently, let alone a kidnapped teenage girl.
Back on the ground, he searched again, this time scanning for any signs of a trap door that might lead down to a cellar. On Kurt’s family’s farm, they’d had a cellar underneath the barn where his parents stored canned vegetables and fruits between harvests. It had been built by previous owners during the Second World War to serve as a bomb shelter, but the Jamisons had found a more practical use for it. Sometimes he and Frankie would play down there and pretend they were at war, hiding from commies, or Indians, whoever the bad guy happened to be that day. Addie usually played a damsel in distress, and Frankie always insisted he’d be the one to rescue her. Looking back now, Kurt realized Frankie had probably always loved Addie.
After a good ten or fifteen minutes of searching every square inch of the barn, he came up empty. So, he’d been wrong. Collin hadn’t kept Mollie in the barn. But then where? With over forty acres of farmland that all looked the same, there was no way of knowing.
Kurt stepped outside in the cold and stood behind the barn with his hands on his hips, surveying the McAllister farm’s land. He tried to stave off more memories of him, Frankie, and Addie as children playing on his own family farm. Now wasn’t the time to reminisce about his childhood. He had to find Mollie before Collin McAllister hurt her any more than he probably already had. And before Franklin Cartwright found him. This was almost as important as saving the girl, in Kurt Jamison’s book.
Think, goddamn it. Think! He had to be somewhere on this property. Where else could McAllister hide girls away from the world and hurt them without anyone around him growing suspicious? And, of course, there was the fact that he’d stopped at the rundown grocery store for some unknown reason, and that store was on the way to the farm. There wasn’t much out past this property. They were nearly on the Madison County border, and if they traveled any further down DeLong, they’d run smack into the Kentucky River.
“Hey, Whiskey,” Lonnie said from behind Kurt, startling him.
Kurt turned around. “Please tell me you found something in there.”
“Didn’t find the girl, obviously. Or any trace of McAllister. But I found something after SWAT cleared the house I think you should probably come see.”
Intrigued and hoping Lonnie had found something that would lead them to Mollie, Kurt marched quickly toward the house in step with his partner.
The inside was conservatively decorated, and the air smelled of citrus and mothballs. What little furniture the room held looked like antiques that might be worth some money at auction. An orange cat meowed, jumped off the large wooden kitchen table, walked up to Kurt, and rubbed up against his leg. Lonnie chuckled, but before he could make a joke, Kurt gently kicked the cat away.
In the living room, a threadbare green couch and matching arm chair sat facing a wooden entertainment center, but the television was missing. Kurt noted this as a bit odd, but continued his visual scan of the room. On the wall above the couch hung a painting of Jesus Christ with several young children sitting at his feet. Given their reason for being there, the picture seemed a bit disturbing. Surely Collin McAllister wasn’t a religious man. Or maybe he was one of those overzealous, right-wing nuts who believed everything they did had been commanded and ordained by God. Kurt shivered at the thought.
“What did you want me to see?” Kurt asked over his shoulder.
“This way.”
Kurt followed his partner down the dimly-lit hallway a few paces until Lonnie stopped at the doorway of a bedroom on the right, which stood wide open. Lonnie pointed to a bureau in the corner. Kurt stepped into the room and looked around. To the right was a twin sized bed with a couple of pillows and a patchwork quilt which was folded back. Someone had been sleeping here recently. A rocking chair sat in one corner and a cherry bureau in the other. There were no decorations, no paintings, and no personal items anywhere.
“Collin’s room?” Lonnie asked.
“Probably,” Kurt responded. “What’s with the bureau?”
“Go check it out,” Lonnie said, seeming a bit too excited for Kurt’s liking.
When he approached the dresser, Kurt noticed a large black photo album lying on top of a white lace doily. It was open to the first page. Kurt looked at Lonnie, who gestured for him to go ahead and look. When he did, Kurt saw the very first picture was of a man in his mid-thirties with his arm around a pretty young woman who had a baby on her right hip. The woman was smiling, but the man had a more serious look on his face. His brows were furrowed, and a cigarette hung from between his lips. Kurt realized instantly he was looking at a picture of Julian and Martha McAllister and their infant son, Collin. But there was no way Lonnie knew about the whole Julian connection, so Kurt wondered what had his partner so excited.
“Keep looking,” Lonnie said when Kurt shot him a curious look.
Kurt reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves, slapped them on, and flipped the page. The next thing he saw was a newspaper clipping from April 2, 1979. The headline read LOCAL GYM OWNER STILL MISSING, COPS SAY. Kurt didn’t read the article because he already knew how that story played out. He kept flipping. It soon became obvious that Collin was obsessed with his father’s disappearance. But toward the end, the articles became more current. One clipping was dated January 15, 2014. It told the sad tale of a twenty-year-old college junior who had gone missing two weeks prior and still had not been found. In the upper right-hand corner of the article was a picture of the missing girl, Elena Patrinko, and around her face, Collin had drawn a red heart.
Kurt fought back the bile that rose in his throat as he flipped through the rest of the book and realized Collin McAllister had kept a scrapbook about all the girls he’d kidnapped—and killed—before Mollie. It was a macabre reminder for Kurt that he had failed at finding those poor young women. He felt dizzy, and his mouth was dry. He would have to
live with that guilt for the rest of his life. The only thing he could possibly do to redeem himself was to find Mollie…alive.
Kurt didn’t read the articles. He’d read them all before, anyway. But right as he was about to close the book, he saw the last page had one picture taped right in the center. Kurt bent down and squinted. He cursed himself for refusing the bifocals, but after a couple of seconds of intense focusing, he was able to discern that the picture was of a tall, gnarly-shaped tree. That was it. Nothing but a tree.
What the hell?
Kurt’s mind raced. Why would Collin have a picture of this tree on the very last page of his scrapbook? It meant something, but what? He wiped the sweat that was beaded up on his brow and steadied himself against the bureau before he passed out.
“Whiskey, you okay over there?” Lonnie asked from the doorway. “I told you you’d want to see it. It’s some pretty messed up shit, isn’t it? Looks like he’s definitely our perp for all the missing girls. And he’s pretty obsessed with his father’s disappearance in ’79. But I can’t make heads or tails of that tree.”
It wasn’t just a picture of a tree. Kurt knew it in his gut. That tree meant something to Collin. Enough so that he put it at the end of his creepy scrapbook. It marked something. Maybe that was where he buried the girls. He looked down at the picture again and studied it as closely as he could. The tree held no further clues, but just as his eyes began to hurt from straining so hard, he saw it. There, on the ground, about two feet away from the base of the tree, was a handle. Like the handle of a door. Why on earth would there be a handle in the middle of the…
It came to Kurt like a bolt of lightning. He pulled the picture out of the album, spun around on his heel, and held it up for Lonnie to see.
“It’s there!”
“What’s where?” Lonnie looked utterly confused.
A Necessary Evil Page 11