by T. R. Ragan
Chief Schneider cleared his throat.
“When I brought it up this morning, Uncle Theo said the parties weren’t his idea. He acted as if he’d had no choice in the matter. When I questioned him on that, he started sobbing.”
“Why didn’t you mention all that earlier?”
“Because it isn’t easy to talk about being raped by your uncle and his friends. I wanted to keep it private, sort of like how you don’t want to go around talking about your drinking problem.”
His eyes hardened. “Watch yourself. You know, I always worried about you girls, but I never heard of any party like you’re talking about, and although I do appreciate your candor, I don’t appreciate your insinuation.”
He scratched his jaw as he inhaled, looking around as if to pull himself back together. When he turned back her way, he met her gaze straight on, daring her to look away. “I get the point you’re trying to make, so I’m going to let it go this time.”
She held his gaze, didn’t blink. She was fired up, and yet she knew she needed to calm down. Too much whiskey or not, Chief Schneider was one of the good guys. “Thanks,” she said without much feeling.
“Anything else you’d like to add?” Chief Schneider asked.
“Yes, there is. I’m doing a human-interest story on Isabella Estrada, and I was wondering if it would be possible to see the police report.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t disclose investigatory records.”
“Chief, you know the law, and you know those records need to be made available to me upon request. Otherwise, I’m going to report that you denied me access.”
“What are you trying to prove?” he asked.
“Nothing. And I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m just doing my job like you and attempting to report a crime so people in the community won’t be in the dark about what’s going on. That’s all.”
“I received a call from Mr. Estrada,” the chief said. “He didn’t appreciate you coming by to talk to his son. I gave your mom a call this morning. It would be best, Sawyer, if you left the investigation to me and my team.”
Sawyer came to her feet and dusted herself off. “Answer me this, Chief. Did you ever talk to anyone in this godforsaken town when Peggy Myers and Avery James were murdered? Or did you turn the other way and pretend it never happened, like everyone else in River Rock?”
“Clearly you’re upset about your uncle. We’ll talk another time.” The chief started walking away.
“I want to know when you’re going to bring in Jonathan Lane for questioning. You know, the forty-year-old married man who was fucking his sixteen-year-old math student?”
The chief’s face reddened. “Jonathan Lane is my brother-in-law. My sister told me everything. Sounded to me like you were trespassing, but if you feel the need to fill out a report, I’ll file it away with the others.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She gestured at her throat. “He strangled me.”
“You better watch your tongue.”
Aspen appeared out of nowhere and ushered her away before Sawyer could respond.
Sawyer gritted her teeth. She didn’t like having his hands on her. “Let me go,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing? I’m saving you from being locked in a tiny cell downtown.”
“The chief can’t lock me up for being rude.”
“You’re being naive. People are taken in all the time for mouthing off. They call it disorderly conduct. So what were you thinking back there?”
He brought her to her car and said, “Go home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“You sound like a three-year-old. You can’t go around pointing fingers and accusing people of murder. I’ve never seen anyone cause more trouble in such a short amount of time.”
“Don’t you see it, Aspen?”
“See what?”
“Nobody cares what happens in River Rock. Isabella Estrada was murdered and strung to a tree, and nobody gives a shit!”
“That’s not true.”
“What about Peggy and Avery? Nobody wants to talk about them. Is that what’s going to happen with Isabella?”
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Sawyer. And you’re not being fair to Chief Schneider. There is protocol to be followed. The state police will be called in shortly. Everything doesn’t happen in a day.”
She started to speak, but he cut her off. “You seem to have forgotten that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
She looked at him then. He was serious. She laughed.
“What?”
Being nice and following the rules rarely got results. “You sound like an old man.”
“I gotta get back to work,” he said angrily.
She took a breath. He had no business pulling her away from the chief, but he’d wanted to calm her down, and his little trick had worked. Her heart was no longer beating against her ribs. She climbed in behind the wheel of her car and drove off. She would talk to the chief another time.
Five minutes later, she pulled up the driveway to her parents’ house, parked the car, and got out. The front door was unlocked. She walked in, hoping to sneak down the hall and through the kitchen to the cottage.
“Sawyer, is that you?” came her father’s voice from the room her mother called the salon. Sawyer never went into the salon, because when she did, all she could see were those men’s faces, the ones who had paid Uncle Theo to do as they pleased with her—a small, defenseless child.
She sucked in a breath and headed that way. Until this very moment she hadn’t had a second to think about the implications of Uncle Theo’s death. How would Mom and Dad take the news? She recalled the chief telling her he’d called Mom this morning. Her chest tightened. They knew everything.
She walked into the salon. Her gaze fell on her father. He was sitting in his favorite chair.
Mom was standing in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelf. She carefully slid a book with a leather spine back into place and then took a seat on a cushioned Queen Anne armchair.
They were both quiet . . . both watching her.
The air enveloping them was electric in a hauntingly eerie sense—thick with an energy that sizzled and sparked.
Dad gestured toward the Empire side chair that appeared to have been set in the middle of the room, facing them both, for just this purpose. They were going to have a chat.
Sawyer walked over to the chair, mindful of the squeaky sound her shoes made against the polished hardwood floor. She took a seat, kept her hands folded in her lap, and looked from one parent to the other.
For the first time in her life, she had their full attention.
And she didn’t want it.
Life was funny that way. Giving you what you craved most when you no longer wanted it.
The chief had definitely called Mom about Uncle Theo. Her face looked as if it had been chiseled from stone. “You killed Theodore.”
Dad raised a hand as if to either stop Mom from talking or buffer the blame coming from her statement. Silly man. Dad could light up the room with an impressive display of fireworks, and it wouldn’t do any good. Nothing would stop Mother Dearest from having her say. Mom’s opinions on all things were all that mattered. Mom loved to listen to the sound of her own voice. She was the ruler, the queen of her household, of her husband, and of her sorry little life.
“I asked you to leave it alone and mind your own business,” Mom told Sawyer, talking to her as if she were a child. “But you couldn’t do it.”
“I went to Uncle Theo’s house to talk to him. That’s all.”
“You accused him of murder.”
“Did Uncle Theo call you after I left?” Sawyer asked.
Mom hissed. “Of course he called me. He was extremely upset.”
“Why would he call you and not his brother?” Sawyer asked. “Why ca
ll you at all, considering he was the one badgering me to talk to him and forgive him?”
Nobody had an answer.
“For the record,” Sawyer said, looking from Mom to Dad, “I didn’t kill Uncle Theo. He found a good, strong cord and hung himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom without any help from me.”
Mom looked at Dad. “I warned you about her. I told you that if she came to Sally’s funeral, she would cause trouble, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Dad sighed, his eyes fixating on Sawyer. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I know you don’t like to drive when it’s dark, so you can pack your things tonight and set off at first light. Your mother and I have things to do at the store in the morning, so we’ll have to say our goodbyes now.”
Sawyer felt a strange mix of emotions. Not sad. Not relieved. Nothing she could put her finger on. But she found it strange to think she might never see her parents again. That thought alone emboldened her further. “I went to see Uncle Theo for the second time, because I needed to know the truth.”
“The truth?” Dad asked.
Sawyer nodded. “Uncle Theo implied that someone else was responsible for selling me and Aria to rich old men. He said the rape parties were not his idea.”
“Here we go again,” Mom said in her usual dramatic fashion. “If a young girl tells herself over and over again that she’s been sexually abused, she begins to see it as the truth.” Mom’s face softened. “You were never raped, Sawyer. It was all in your head. Uncle Theo used to give you girls sleeping pills to calm you down. You were all energetic children, too much for one man to handle while we were away. Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of the drug he gave you was hallucinations.”
More lies. “What’s the name of the drug?” Sawyer asked.
Mom’s smirk dripped with disdain. “That’s not important. The only thing that matters is that now you know why you and your sister Aria have been so confused. When you go back to Sacramento, you can tell Aria what you’ve learned, and maybe together you girls can move on to bigger and better things.”
Sawyer stared at her mom as she thought back to those years after her sisters left. Mom had always scolded her for mistakes she’d made. Mistakes Sawyer had acknowledged. Mom never took into account how courageous Sawyer had been to speak the truth. Always criticizing. Never a proud moment.
Sawyer turned toward her dad. “Is she speaking the truth?”
He said nothing.
She didn’t really expect an answer. Her dad had no spine. “What choice do you have but to believe whatever the queen tells you?” Sawyer asked him. “Everyone in this shitty little town has something to hide. River Rock was built on secrets.”
Mom came to her feet. “That’s enough.”
Sawyer also stood. “I guess this is goodbye.” Sawyer kept her gaze fixated on her mom a moment longer. “It’s hard to believe Gramma gave birth to someone like you. She was so caring and sweet, and I was lucky to have her in my life, which makes me wonder, what the hell happened to you?”
Sawyer walked out of the room, made her way through the kitchen, where she grabbed a piece of fruit and headed for the cottage to pack.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Malice opened her eyes and pushed herself to a sitting position. She’d slept on a thin pad she’d taken from one of the cots. She preferred to sleep level with the ground. She didn’t feel well. Her head pounded against her skull—thump, thump, thump.
Psycho’s cot was empty, but Malice only had to look toward the darkest corner of the warehouse to see her silhouette. Other than a quick bathroom break outside every so often, Psycho refused to leave Otto’s side. She’d spent most of her time sitting on the hard ground a few feet away from him, her back against the wall, watching him and saying nothing.
Everyone in The Crew had agreed that they would take turns sleeping in the warehouse, making sure Otto didn’t escape. Psycho stayed every night, regardless of who else was here with her.
Malice wondered if what Psycho was doing, staring at the man day and night, was therapeutic, or if it was merely causing her further turmoil. It was difficult for Malice to wrap her mind around the fact that Otto Radley had repeatedly cut through Psycho’s flesh and then crudely sewn her up using fishing wire.
The man who had used Psycho’s body as his own personal plaything for all those days and nights was sitting right there after all this time, chained and at his victim’s mercy.
What was going through Psycho’s head? The plan had been to scare the man, but after twenty years in prison, this guy wasn’t afraid of anything.
Malice looked around for the gun, panicked when she didn’t see the rifle leaning against the wall.
She pushed herself to her feet.
The weapon had been moved. It now leaned against the wall closer to the door.
Malice took a breath to try to calm herself.
The door was shut and locked in place with a metal bar that slid through two metal hooks. There were enough crevices and cracks in the place for Malice to see that it was still dark outside. She glanced at her watch. Five thirty a.m.
Every joint was stiff and sore as she walked toward their designated cooking area. She needed coffee. One of the women had brought a cooler filled with hard-boiled eggs and cheese and crackers. The sandwiches she’d brought yesterday were long gone.
Using a jug of water, she began the process of making a pot of coffee. She’d never been camping before, but she was a quick learner.
As she went about gathering whatever she needed, she wondered how she would feel if that was her father tied to the metal pipes.
Imp-like glee shot through her.
It always seemed strange that physically her father was miles away, and yet mentally he was right here, right now.
Always.
A day didn’t go by that she didn’t think of him and wish him dead.
Back then, in the light of day, even when he wasn’t sneaking into her room, she would catch him looking at her, his yearning palpable.
Such a secretive man, like a shadow, gloomy and haunting, a dark presence in her life. Nothing had changed. He still troubled her dreams.
Oftentimes she would find herself in another dimension, reliving the horror of feeling her father’s fleshy, hairy body moving, grinding, his breath in her ear, panting and groaning as he fucked his own daughter.
Suffocation—unable to get enough air—Malice had experienced it every day from age six to eighteen. More often than not, his thick body pressed heavily on her, the pressure so much she’d wished he would accidentally smother her.
She never fought him.
Not once.
They had a deal.
A blood-curdling roar tore through the ugly memories and filled the warehouse. Malice dropped the can of coffee. It clanged against the cement floor, rattling along as it rolled out of sight.
Across the room she saw Psycho sitting on the ground, bent over Otto.
“What are you doing?” Malice asked, the words catching in her throat.
“What does it look like, or should I say sound like?” Psycho had to shout to be heard over Otto’s screams and cursing.
“Payback is a bitch,” Psycho shouted. “Isn’t it, Otto?”
Malice walked to the corner of the warehouse where Psycho hovered over Otto. She stopped when she was a foot away.
Her stomach turned.
Psycho’s hands were covered in blood. She had sliced through Otto’s pants and the flesh of his left thigh and was now using a fishhook and wire to sew him up, not bothering to move the denim out of her way as she worked. Sewing the whole thing up, flesh and fabric, just like that.
Had Psycho’s plan always been to torture the man? Sick to her stomach, Malice rushed to the exit, pulled the bar loose, pushed on the creaky metal door, and ran outside. The rage. The blood. The craziness of it all was too much. She got as far as a spindly pine tree before she dropped to her knees and dry heaved. Her stomach was empty, but that di
dn’t stop her from retching.
It was a while before Malice felt good enough to come to her feet. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been outside. But the screams had stopped, and her stomach was no longer roiling, so she decided it was time to make her way back inside. She glanced at her watch as she headed back. Lily would be here in a few hours to relieve her.
Malice stepped through the warehouse door. It was much cooler inside than outside. Thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her, she froze in place, didn’t move a muscle.
Psycho had taken up where Malice had left off and was making a pot of coffee.
And Otto, ever so quietly, was creeping her way.
How could that be? They had chained him to the pipe. The answer was in his hand. He must have broken through the pipe while he was screaming. No wonder he’d been so loud. He’d been covering up his attempt at escaping.
Her heart raced as she reached for the rifle, careful that the butt was up against the crevice of her shoulder and her nonshooting elbow was directly below the barrel. She had to focus. She had no choice. She pushed the bolt forward and down and set her sight on her target.
Both Psycho and Otto must have heard the noise, because they pivoted so that they were looking right at her.
The only difference was that Psycho dropped to the floor.
Malice pulled the trigger. The blow sent her stumbling backward into the wall. Her ears were ringing, her eyes gritty. She looked ahead, wasn’t sure what she was seeing through blurry eyes.
The gun held at her side, she stepped forward, trying to see, her body tense as she worried Otto would attack at any moment.
As her vision cleared and the ringing in her ears lessened, she saw Otto facedown on the ground. Only that wasn’t the ground. Psycho grunted as she pulled and clawed her way out from under the man.
Malice wanted to help her, but she was afraid to set the gun down. She had no idea if the rifle held more than one bullet, since she couldn’t remember what Lily had said about loading the weapon. She waited for Psycho to crawl out from under the man. “Is he dead?” Malice asked.