by Helena Maeve
“I noticed.” I held out my hand for the packet. “But he let you take Mom’s diary. That’s something.”
My grandparents shared another cryptic look, fifty years of marriage translating into an odd telepathy I found at once enviable and extremely frustrating.
“We’ve come to wonder if he truly meant for us to take this into our possession. Look at the last page,” Grandmother suggested. She held herself very straight, like a ballerina about to engage in a challenging routine.
I did as I’d been told. Ashley took my glass to help free my hands. The diary was only about three-quarters full. I spied dates on a number of entries—1989, 1991, 1993—but the final pages were blank, absent my mother’s spidery handwriting. All save the last one. I traced my finger down the list of names and dates with a sinking heart, stopping when I hit one I recognized.
May 3, 1993. Donna Barnes
“What is this?” I glanced up, a phantom’s fist around my throat. “What does this mean?”
It was my grandfather who answered, albeit haltingly, “We don’t know. Until recently, we thought it was merely a list of appointments, or friends of your mother’s—some kind of code, perhaps.”
“But now you don’t.”
Ashley folded a hand around my knee. I knew he was on the same page. He was thinking the same thing I was. I resisted the urge to tear free of his grasp.
“We thought you should know,” Grandmother said. “Now, shall we move into the dining room? I’m sure Therese—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I stood on wobbly legs, the gin and tonic doing me no favors.
Grandmother stood before me as immovable as the sea. She was radiant, her wrinkles worn with pride, her white hair combed into a handsome chignon at the base of her neck. She arched an eyebrow and thrust out her chin in a regal gesture that nevertheless did nothing to endear her to me. Then again, she’d never placed much stock on my feelings. Why start now?
“All this time, I thought you were protecting me, you know? Now I get it… You were afraid I’d find out the truth.”
I grabbed the envelopes and diary off the couch and marched out of the living room, then out of the house altogether, trusting Ashley to follow me.
He caught up with me halfway down the street, jogging to catch up.
“Laure! Wait up!”
I slowed my steps, but I didn’t stop. I was worried that if I stopped walking I’d crumble.
Ashley was breathing hard when he drew level. “What’s the rush? I don’t understand—”
“I think I might. But I need to see Kane first.”
Ashley stopped me with a hand on my arm. “You need to see him?” he repeated, incredulous. “We just got back from America. There’s a virtual witch-hunt going on… And you want to go back?”
Our fight in the car was nothing compared to the quarrel I could feel brewing in the sticky, humid evening air. I held up the notebook. “Did you see the names in here?”
“Yes.”
“Look again,” I challenged. “Other than Donna Barnes… My mother kept a tally of six other names, all between ’91 and ’93. Five of those have been identified as Kane’s victims. How much do you want to bet details of where the others are buried are hidden somewhere in this journal?”
Ashley’s features slackened. “Assuming you’re right—and I’m not saying you are—why do you need to talk to Kane?”
“Because if they’re not, then this is still leverage. I want the whole story.” I was going to finish what Barnes had started, whatever the cost. I took a deep breath. “Look, I understand if you’ve had enough. You’ve been amazing—you’ve done more for me than frankly I deserve.” I looked down at my shoes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, you idiot. “I appreciate—”
“Do you need to do this by yourself?”
A braver woman than me would have said yes. It was, after all, my mess. My family psychodrama. I bit my tongue.
“Right,” Ashley drawled. “In that case, we’d best pack our bags.”
I hated myself for the way my shoulders sagged with relief, much less the eagerness with which I fell into his arms.
* * * *
To my surprise, my name had not been put on any list and airport security let me pass through MCI like a knife through butter. No one looked at me twice, no one did a double take when they ran my passport through the scanner. The lack of interest from the uniformed police that pockmarked the customs area was as disappointing as it was bizarre.
“I would’ve thought Valenzuela would want to talk to me,” I muttered as Ashley and I made our way through baggage claim. We’d packed lighter this time—one bag for two people. We were counting on a short visit. I tried not to dwell on how well that had turned out last time.
“Maybe the Bureau took your threat to heart?”
For some reason I doubted that my posturing about involving the embassy had made much of a dent in their approach. My story of repressed memories was suspicious enough on its own.
Still, I was glad when we emerged into the arrivals area unmolested.
I scanned the crowd with a wary eye. All around us, couples were reunited, kids leaped into their parents’ arms. I felt a quiver of discomfort at their unabashed, unencumbered glee—and I heard someone calling my name.
Lawrence tore through the waiting bystanders with a shit-eating grin. I barely had time to suck in a breath before he swept me up into a hug. I caught a brief glimpse of Ashley’s smile as Lawrence spun me around. I suppose it wasn’t as absurd to witness for someone who did the whole public displays of affection thing on the regular.
For my part, I was still glad that Lawrence put me down fairly swiftly.
“Oh, man, I was so glad when I got your email. I thought you’d left for good,” Lawrence gushed. “After what happened—”
“Yeah, well.” I waved a hand, faux-nonchalant. “I’m all about earning miles now. Oh, this is Ashley, by the way… He’s my, um, boyfriend.” My cheeks burned all the hotter as I struggled to figure out how to introduce him. It was one thing to refer to him as my partner when he wasn’t in the room, another to label what we had when he was present and able to contradict me.
Ashley held out a hand and they shook on it like men—stiff and a little hostile. Lawrence frowned. Although we were practically strangers, I felt a flash of tenderness at the thought of my little brother disapproving of my boyfriend. Then the moment passed and I came back to my senses.
“Does your dad know you’re picking us up? Not that I’m not grateful, but…” Judging by our last encounter, he wouldn’t be too thrilled to know I was in touch with Lawrence.
My brother scoffed. “Nah. But he’s not that bad. He was just worried for me. It was my fault,” he added, the way abuse victims do when they claim they’ve walked into doors.
I didn’t press him.
We made our way to Lawrence’s car and Ashley slid our suitcase into the back. I took the front seat. Lawrence drove a Jeep and I had to hop up to get in. I spared a thought for the Land Cruiser I’d driven briefly the last time I was in the States. It was a good car. Maybe someday, if I ever worked up the nerve to leave Paris, I’d buy one of my own.
“So what brings you to Kansas this week?” Lawrence quipped as he climbed behind the steering wheel.
“The usual. Need to talk to Kane.”
“Ah…” He keyed the engine and we eased slowly out of the parking lot, the chilly evening wind creeping through the windows. Lawrence either didn’t believe in AC or he was saving gas. Either way, the roar of the engine rumbled around us as we gained the highway.
The digital clock on the dash read 10:22. It was late, the endless expanse of rolling fields and cloudy skies like a black shroud on either side of the road. Evening traffic was deceptively thin. Other than a handful of trucks, which Lawrence quickly overtook, we were just about alone in the wilderness.
“Is this about what they’ve been saying on TV? The Barnes girl?”
I glanced at Lawr
ence’s profile, but his expression betrayed nothing. He was staring very intently at the road.
“Partly, yes.”
“You don’t believe it, do you?”
Ashley came to my rescue before I could stammer a lie. “I don’t think we know what to believe anymore. That’s why we have to see Kane.” We, he said, like he wasn’t here simply because I’d dragged him into my own personal telenovela.
“I thought you said you didn’t trust him,” Lawrence said after a few moments’ ruminating. He was addressing me.
“Kane is a manipulative son of a bitch… And he’ll definitely try to play me. But I may have figured out a way to play him right back.” I didn’t relish the thought of going head-to-head against a sociopath—especially one I was related to—but I saw no other way around it. “My grandparents gave me a diary. Turns out it belonged to Mom… I’ve started reading it, but deciphering her handwriting is a little challenging.” I chose my words with care. This was perilous ground to tread. “One thing I have been able to puzzle out, though? She wrote down the names of Kane’s victims.”
“What?” The Jeep swerved as Lawrence glanced at me sharply. “Fuck, sorry. What are you saying?”
“Easy, there…”
“Sorry,” he said again, knuckles white around the steering wheel.
My heart in my throat, I decided I didn’t blame him for getting a tad distracted. I’d barely made it out of my grandparents’ town house on my own two feet—and even then, it had just been to snub Grandmother.
“I’m saying that, at the very least, Mom knew what Kane was doing.” At the worst, she was his accomplice. I had trouble swallowing that down, never mind saying it out loud.
Lawrence swore under his breath.
“It’s pure speculation at this point, but I have to wonder.”
“Why?” my brother gritted out. “Why do you have to wonder at all? Can’t you just leave it be?”
His vehemence incensed me. “I could… But there are two more bodies out there. Two more families who never got to bury their daughters. Or their sisters…” I turned my head against the backrest to shoot Lawrence a sidelong glance. “Wouldn’t you want to know, if I was one of those girls?”
He said nothing, but that was more of a rhetorical question anyway.
I caught Ashley’s eye in the side mirror and he winked at me in an attempt to, I think, reassure. I was glad he’d come with me after all. I needed his strength.
We drove in silence for a good twenty minutes, until a loud pop echoed from the front of the car. Lawrence gripped the steering wheel hard. “Shit. I think that was the tire.”
“Was it?” Ashley sounded dubious. “I think we just rolled over a plastic bottle or something…”
“No, it was the tire. Let me pull over and check.” Lawrence’s expression was set, lips pressed into a taut line. I felt guilty for ruining his evening, so I didn’t protest when he drove us off onto the shoulder. We hobbled along a dirt path until we were a good hundred feet from the road.
At least the moon had come out from behind the clouds, or I don’t know how Lawrence could have seen the tire.
He slid the keys out of the ignition and hopped out while I muffled a yawn behind my hand. It was so quiet out here. I’d gotten no sleep on our connecting flight from Newark. I closed my eyes—just to rest them—as Lawrence stomped around to the back of the Jeep.
“Everything okay?” Ashley called out.
“Yeah, I just need a flashlight…”
Ashley clasped my shoulder with a gentle hand. “I’m going to see if he needs a hand.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, too sleepy to be of any use. To hell with the cliché—the men would have to figure out the tinkering on their own.
I heard the back door slam shut, the Jeep rattling around me. Ashley’s stomping footfalls receded into the compact silence of the night.
A quiet thud echoed from the open trunk.
I blinked my eyes open. “Ashley?” I glanced into the rear-view, but I couldn’t make anything out over the back seat. The distant ribbon of the unlit interstate gleamed with the fast-moving beam of headlights, more disorienting than anything else. “Lawrence? You guys okay?”
When no answer came, I shoved my door open and climbed out. Somewhere at the back of my head a voice urged me to run, but I shut it off, because if I gave in to paranoia I’d spend every day of my life fleeing from some manufactured anxiety or another.
My therapists had always urged me to look for factual evidence before I lent credence to my thoughts. According to them, the physical world doesn’t lie.
I had no reason to be afraid of the dark. I could see my feet just fine and the dirt road was even enough that I wasn’t afraid of tripping and falling into a ditch. Until I saw Ashley’s body prone in the dust, I wasn’t afraid at all.
“Oh my God!” A twig snapped behind me. I whirled around, staggering against the side of the car, and felt something stab into my flank.
At first I thought it was a knife, but the pain that arced through my body was all-encompassing, more crippling than any knife wound. I couldn’t even scream. My knees gave out, bending like pool noodles.
The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Lawrence standing above me, Taser in hand and tears knotting beneath his stubbled chin.
Chapter Sixteen
“I said I’m sorry! Fuck.” The voice was muffled. Not so the thump of a hand smacking the dashboard.
The clamor jerked me from the smog of sleep and into the waking, juddering world. I blinked hair out of my eyes. Wind buffeted my cheeks, but I couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of me. I made out stars on an inky backdrop and below that, rope and tackle, a toolbox sealed shut with plastic clasps.
I recognized Harry Pruitt’s pick-up but the scatter of debris in the truck bed didn’t help me make better sense of my surroundings. I rolled over, shifting as quietly as I could so as not to alert the voices in the front. I glanced down at my bound hands—tape, fortunately, not handcuffs—and tentatively parted my knees. There was no resistance.
Lawrence must have forgotten to bind my ankles.
I replayed the moments before I blacked out in my mind’s eye. They flashed past in vivid Technicolor. My brother had Tased me. He’d struck Ashley over the head and Tased me.
Oh, God. Ashley.
I craned my neck, twisting to peer into the other side of the truck. Sure enough, there he was. Unmoving. His eyes were closed, features relaxed as though in sleep. I had to muffle a whimper, bite my tongue to stop myself from shouting his name. Judging by the blood at his temple, he wouldn’t wake at the summons.
My hands shaking, I reached up to check his pulse. A faint throb answered my touch, but I couldn’t be sure. It might have been wishful thinking. Lawrence might have killed him and I was simply suffering a bad case of denial.
If he isn’t dead yet, he soon will be. Think.
I had to get help.
I gulped down a breath. Then another. The tape around my wrists was no great impediment. I could run like that. Then what? I glanced around for my handbag, but there was no sign of it. We weren’t in Lawrence’s Jeep anymore. I had no phone, no passport. And I didn’t know where I was.
Think, you little fool. What are your options?
Ashley didn’t stir when I groped through his pockets in search of his cell. I told myself that was a good thing. He was hurt. He wouldn’t get far. I had a better shot on my own.
As my hands locked around his slim phone, I promised myself that I wasn’t leaving him to save my own skin.
The truck rolled over a divot in the dirt road and I nearly dropped the cellphone. My heart leaped into my throat, then promptly sank back into my shoes. We were going too fast. If I jumped out, I might break something—possibly my neck. I shuffled closer to the edge, keeping my head down in case Pruitt or Lawrence glanced back. I couldn’t seem to draw enough air into my lungs. I pushed through the fear that threatened to subdue me. There wa
s no time for panic attacks.
I gripped the steel rail of the truck with bound hands and dragged myself farther and farther away from the cab. Once I pushed it open, I would have no choice.
It’s okay. We’ll be okay.
I clutched Ashley’s phone tightly in my fist and struck out with my ballet flats. The tailgate swung out with a too-loud clatter. I felt the ricochet in my calves, but I couldn’t let it serve as a deterrent. Now. Jump now.
I tucked my head, rolling into a ball as I spilled out of the truck. I wasn’t trying to protect my elbows and knees as much as the phone. Even if I got away, I’d still be at a loss as to where to go. I hit the dirt hard, impact spiraling through me like another thousand volts. Grit scraped my cheek, but the taste of blood in my mouth was little more than a nuisance.
Somehow, I got my feet under me without twisting an ankle. Elation briefly kindled in my breast. A spike of danger followed when I registered the squeal of tires up the road. Pruitt or Lawrence must’ve heard.
They were coming.
A surge of adrenaline saw me push up from the road and bolt into the undergrowth. I stumbled in the dark, distantly aware of nettles stabbing at my soles and burs clinging to my jeans. Weirdly, I didn’t feel any pain. My body was a machine powered by desperation and shock. I didn’t let myself dwell on what had happened.
I wondered, suddenly, if this was what Donna Barnes had gone through before my father had killed her.
Through the haze of blood-pumping stress, I realized we’d made it quite a ways from the interstate. Not even the intermittent glow of headlights was visible from the wood. The deeper I went and the harder it was to make out my surroundings. But I could still hear. My senses perked up to the crackle of weeds underfoot.
“Fuck,” Lawrence swore, loud and frantic. The car door slammed.
If his father answered, it was too soft for me to make out the words.
Every second was another five feet between us, every foot was a minute won. I knew I had to call for help, but I was too afraid to take my eye off the treacherous ground for fear of taking a fall. The dogwood was a labyrinth of snaking tree roots and broken branches. I winced every time my footsteps snapped a twig, but I couldn’t stop. My only comfort was that the covert would be as much of a challenge to my kidnappers.