Remington's Tower

by Katharine Sadler

  Herc shrugged and stepped back, waving us both inside. “Step into my web, little spiders.”

  I looked at Worthy to see if this was an elaborate prank, but he just shook his head and smiled. “He’s all bark.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t have a lot of other options.

  I walked behind Herc and next to Worthy through the house. The first three rooms we went through were completely empty, the fourth was piled high with broken furniture, most of it covered in a thin layer of dust. Then we passed through a long hall to a room filled with computer screens and dim light. Herc sat in one of the desk chairs, looking like a giant in a human-sized seat, and gave us an expectant look.

  Worthy sighed. “He wants to know everything we know.”

  “Doesn’t talk much?”

  Herc spun in his finger in the universal sign for ‘get on with it already.’

  “Okay,” I said. “My name is Remington Alice McKinney, but I think my real name might be Rachel Vinton.” I’d heard the men in the nightmares call my father, Vinton, and I’d assumed it was his first name. Until he’d called me Rachel and it had felt right. As right, as the name Rachel Vinton felt. “I don’t know what my real middle name might be. As far as I’ve always known, my birthday is November 16, 1994, but I don’t know if that’s real, either. My uncle is Leon Mitchell McKinney, but I suspect that might not be his real name. I believe I lived in Roanoke, Virginia, until I moved in with my uncle. I might have been born there.”

  Herc, who had been staring at me without moving, spun in his chair and started typing madly.

  “That means we’re dismissed,” Worthy said. He pushed me toward the door we’d entered by and out into the hall. “He’ll let us know when he’s got something.”

  I nodded and Worthy led me though several empty rooms, to a state-of-the-art and spotless kitchen that was bigger than the entire first floor of my uncle’s house. “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head, dread and nerves having a rave in my belly.

  “Look, Remy, I know you don’t want to believe this, but I really do care about you. I’ve missed you. You have every reason to be angry at me and to never trust me again, but it feels wrong not to be with you.” He took three steps until he stood right in front of me. “I’ll do—”

  I put my hand flat on his chest, his heart thumping beneath my palm, and pushed. He took one step back. “I’m just starting to believe it’s possible that everything I’ve ever known about myself is a lie. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I can’t think about you and me right now.”

  He took another step back. “Okay,” he said. “But I know you. You’re tough and you aren’t afraid of anything. You work hard and you play hard and you’re smart and funny and stubborn as hell and nothing we might learn about you today could ever change those things about you or change the way I feel about you.”

  I knew what he was saying was perfectly reasonable, but dread had lodged in my racing heart and my roiling gut and I felt certain he was wrong.

  “Are you sure you aren’t hungry?” he asked.

  I nodded and forced myself to look at him. The worry and vulnerability on his face made me want to reassure him, and I wanted to be reassured by him, to lean into him and let him hold me up. But I wasn’t sure I trusted him to be there when I needed him and I wouldn’t lean on him until I was sure he was strong enough to hold me up.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “I’ve got something to show you that I think you’ll like.”

  I considered staying on my kitchen stool where I knew I was safe from falling under his spell again, where I could just pretend he wasn’t there. I felt fragile, like the slightest wind or bad news might shatter me, and I didn’t want Worthy to be nice to me, I didn’t want to remember how much fun I’d had with him, or admit to myself how much I wanted to crawl onto his lap and let him be strong for me. Sitting still had never really been my style, though, so I stood and followed him to what looked like a pantry.

  It turned out to be a door to a small hallway that led around the back of the kitchen to what had probably once been a ballroom, if the house was truly old enough to have been around in the days when people had balls. Instead of glossy wood floors, elegant portraits, and sparkling chandeliers, however, the room hosted smith machines, free weights lining one section of wall, mats, pull-up bars, weight benches, an indoor track, and a few stationary cardio machines, including a row machine. On the back wall, running the entire length of the room and rising up through the ceiling, was a climbing wall. There were mats on the floor and safety harnesses, and my fear of what Herc would find out about me was momentarily forgotten.

  “How do you know about this room?” I asked.

  “Herc lets me come here and use it sometimes,” Worthy said. “When he’s in a good mood.”

  “So he’s your friend?” I asked, finding it hard to imagine Herc hanging out and laughing with Worthy.

  Worthy laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. He tolerates me. Harrison introduced us last year when I was looking for help with some research for a class project.”

  “Right,” I said. “Harrison mentioned he and Herc went to school together.”

  “I’m pretty sure Herc is Harrison’s best friend.”

  I looked around the enormous room and tried to picture Herc and Harrison hanging out in it together, the Greek god and the bad boy. “So, is this just to look at or can we actually climb that wall?”

  He grinned and led me to the wall. “There are different sections. Herc had it built for himself, so the variations of difficulty range from hard to damn near impossible, which is probably the only reason he had the safety lines installed.”

  “A bit of a daredevil?”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t leave the house anymore except for the paintball games every once in a while, but according to Harrison, Herc was pretty wild back in the day. They used to call him the Beast, Harrison still does.” Worthy turned to face me. “So what kind of challenge are you in the mood for? Hard? Or impossible?”

  That was a no-brainer. I wanted something so hard I wouldn’t able to think about anything beyond finding my next handhold. I’d been climbing boulders and mountainsides since I’d moved in with Uncle Leon. “I’ll go with the damn-near impossible, please.”

  Worthy’s eyes widened for a moment, but he recovered quickly and led me to the far right-side of the wall. Strapped into the safety ropes, we climbed in silence, both panting and working hard to find hand and footholds to move us up. The work was exactly the kind of distraction I needed and peace washed over me as I climbed. I wished I could stay on that wall forever, but before I even realized it, we ascended past the ceiling of the gym room and rose toward the ceiling of another, second-story room. I didn’t bother to turn and look to see what that room held, I just kept climbing.

  I reached the ceiling about thirty seconds before Worthy and we grinned at each other when he made it. We were both sweaty, my muscles ached, and I felt more relaxed and peaceful than I had in over three weeks. “We can rappel back down to the gym or we can hang out in this room,” Worthy said.

  I turned and saw a ten-by-twenty room with a full kick-boxing gym. “Wow, Herc really likes to work out.”

  He waited silently for my answer.

  “Sure,” I said. I was definitely in favor of continuing with distractions. “We can stop here. I’ve never tried kickboxing before, though.”

  Worthy He shrugged. “It’s just punching and kicking. I think you can probably pick it up quickly.”

  We rappelled down and leapt over the space between wall and floor. We unhitched ourselves from the safety gear, and Worthy gave me my first lesson in kick-boxing.

  I don’t know how long we spent kicking and punching bags, but I know when Herc walked in, every muscle in my body was sore and my endorphins were rocking. As soon as I saw Herc, though, I just felt exhausted and a bit sick.

  We followed Herc back down to the kitchen where he’d laid out papers on the breakfast b
ar.

  “I found no birth records for a Remington Alice McKinney,” Herc said as soon as we were seated. My heart hit the floor and my breath caught, but Herc didn’t notice. Worthy wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I let him. “Your uncle clearly has connections, because the paperwork the school has on you met their standards. Though their standards are ridiculously low. I did find birth records for a Rachel Blue Vinton, born in Roanoke Virginia on February 8, 1994 to Eunice and Lara Vinton. That was all I could find on her. There’s no record of her ever being enrolled in any of the local schools. I couldn’t even find medical records for her. I found a death record for Lara Vinton, who died of complications from the birth of her daughter on February 15, 1994. I also found arrest records for Eunice Vinton, beginning in 2003. His first arrest was for drug possession. Since the amount found on him was small, he was fined and released after three days in prison. He was arrested again in 2009 for possession with intent to distribute and served a year in prison. Last year, he was arrested for the execution-style murder of an undercover cop. He’s still in prison, serving a sixty-year sentence.”

  I couldn’t breathe. My chest hurt and my breath was stuck there, squeezing tight around my heart. Worthy pushed my head between my knees and rubbed my back. “Breathe,” he said. “Just breathe in and out slowly.”

  I wanted to push him away and tell him I didn’t need his help or his comfort, but I was pretty sure I had to accept his assistance or I’d stop breathing altogether. So I listened to his calm voice and I worked to regulate my breaths, in and out, and to slow my racing heart. When I felt calm, I sat up slowly enough to keep my head from spinning.

  As soon as I was up, Herc pulled out three pictures and laid them flat on the table in front of us. “Herc, I don’t think—”

  But it was too late for whatever Worthy was going to say, because I’d already seen the pictures. One was the bloody man from my nightmares, my father, looking young and happy. One was a woman I’d never seen before, but who looked an awful lot like me. The third picture was of the man from my worst nightmare, the man who’d tried to hurt me. I shot to my feet and took a step back, sweat breaking out on my skin, my heart racing.

  “What is it?” Worthy asked. He took my hand and pulled me in tight against him. “You’re safe here. Everything’s okay.”

  I squeezed against him, letting his warmth and his presence remind me that I wasn’t inside a nightmare, I was just looking at a picture. “Who is he?” I asked, my voice shaking.

  “That’s your father, your mother, and Arle Stanley,” Herc said, pointing each of the pictures in turn. “He was named as an associate of your father’s in a news article.” He pointed last to the man from my nightmare, the man who’d attacked me, Arle Stanley. Suddenly, I was back in that night again, with that man looming over me, his hot, odorous breath in my face, his body heavy on mine, his gun cold against my flesh. I heard someone calling my name, but the sound was distant and I ignored it. I needed to know what happened that night, because it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real and it involved that man.

  I remembered I’d been alone. My father had to work and, even at eight, I knew enough to know he’d done me a favor by not taking me with him. My aunt was supposed to be watching me, but she’d had to work at the last minute. She had a good job as a nurse. I hadn’t had any way to let my dad know I was alone and I didn’t want him to know, so I told her I’d caught him before he left and he was going to stay home with me. I didn’t want him to decide to take me with him to his job. I’d been eating ice cream and watching a movie on TV when I’d heard the scratching at the door and the smelly man had broken in. I hadn’t even had time to run and hide. I only had time to grab the hunting knife Daddy kept in the end table drawer and start to run, before he grabbed my hair and knocked me to the ground. The knife slipped out of my grasp and slid across the slick hard wood floor, clattering to the tune of the cartoon movie I’d been watching.

  He pressed a gun to my chin and started apologizing. He didn’t want to kill me, he said, but my father had ruined his life and he had to pay. Since, my daddy wasn’t there, I was going to pay in his place. My fingers closed around the bone handle of the hunting knife as he told me about his little boy, who was the same age as me. He told me the boy would never respect him, because of what my father had made him do. I stabbed him in the ribs and someone slapped me.

  I blinked and saw Worthy’s face, apology in his eyes. “What happened?” he asked.

  “That man,” I said, needing to get the words out, needing to tell somebody, regardless of the consequences. “I killed him.”

  Worthy shook his head, and smiled. “No, Remy, no. You were only a little girl.”

  I pushed away from him, not wanting him to have to touch me, to have to touch a murderer. He tried to follow me but I shook my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “He attacked me. He had a gun and I…I killed him.”

  Worthy paled. “No, Remy. You must be remembering wrong. You couldn’t have killed a grown man.” He said the words, but doubt made his voice weak. He wanted to believe what he was saying, but he didn’t.

  I pushed away from him and started out of the kitchen. “I need to go.” I headed toward the nearest door and realized I had no idea how to get out of that house. I was trapped and the word murderer kept repeating over and over in my head.

  “Remy, wait,” Worthy said. “I’ll take you back.”

  His words reminded me where I was and I looked at Herc. “What do I owe you for this?”

  “Worthy paid,” Herc said, his attention on the papers he was stacking.

  I looked at Worthy. “I’ll pay you back. How much do I owe you?”

  He shook his head, looking confused and sad. “No. I wanted to do this for you. I won’t take your money.”

  I forgot my worries for a moment. “That’s sweet, but this has nothing to do with you. I’ll pay.”

  He nodded, his smile not reaching his eyes. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I’m taking you back to your dorm.”

  “No,” I said. “No. I need to know why I’ve been living with a stranger all these years. I need to see Byron.”

  Worthy didn’t touch me as we walked back through Herc’s mansion, he didn’t put his hand on my back to guide me. I missed the warmth of his touch, but I was glad he kept his distance. I was a murderer. I deserved no comfort from anyone.

  “What did he do?” Worthy asked when we were back in his car and on the road back to campus. “What did he do in your nightmare that made you think you would have killed him for it?”

  “He had a gun to my chin. He was angry at my father, but my father wasn’t home, so he was going to kill me instead.” I felt certain that he would have killed me if I hadn’t killed him. I understood that anyone would say I’d acted in self-defense, but I could remember the feel of the knife gripped in my hand, the feel of it as it sunk into his body. I’d done that, I’d taken someone’s life.

  “If that’s true,” Worthy said. “Then he deserved to die.”

  I swung around to look at him, shocked. “What do you mean if that’s true? You don’t think he tried to kill me? Why did I recognize that picture if my nightmare isn’t based on a real memory?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Worthy sighed. “I’m sorry. Of course I believe your nightmare is real, but you were just a kid. Things might not have played out the way you remember them.”

  “Maybe,” I said, but his logic annoyed me and felt like another betrayal.

  When he pulled up at the frat house, he twisted in his seat and faced me. “Remy, I want you to know that no matter what you find out, it won’t change how I feel about you. I…care about you and I’ll do anything to help you.”

  I nodded, unshed tears burning my eyes. He might think he would still care about me, but I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. “I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said. I pushed the door open and fled inside and up to my cousin’s room.

  Byron wasn’t there.
I almost screamed in frustration, but I knew that it wouldn’t do me any good. I sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled out my phone to text him. He was probably in class and I knew I should be worrying about my own classes and my econ paper due on Monday, but I couldn’t think past the refrain of murderer, Rachel Blue Vinton, living father in my brain. It was almost more than I could take and my head started to pound. I texted Byron and threw the phone and myself back on the bed to wait for a response.

  “I don’t think he’s going to have any of the answers you want,” Worthy said from the doorway.

  I didn’t sit up or look at him. “Go away.”

  “No,” he said. “I decided something on the way up here. I’m not going to let you go through all this alone.”

  “I don’t want you here.” I didn’t want him there, because I had a feeling I’d only found out a tiny bit of the truth and the rest of it was only going to be worse. If the nightmare about the man trying to kill me was real, then the nightmares about my father being beat up and bloody on more than one occasion were also real. Eunice Vinton may have gotten caught only three times, but I was pretty sure he’d committed a good deal more than three crimes.

  The bed moved and I knew Worthy sat next to me. “No, but you need me here. I’m not leaving.”

  My phone dinged and I picked it up, glad for any excuse not to continue that conversation. I read the message and threw the phone back on the bed with a curse.

  “What’s wrong?” Worthy asked.

  “Byron’s got some big project due next week and he’s working with his team on it tonight and all weekend.”

  “He won’t have the answers you want, anyway.”

  “I know.” I wanted to push Worthy off the bed, wanted to hit him for refusing to go away, for being a witness to my shame.

  “You didn’t want answers from him,” he said, leaning over me. “You wanted him to take you to your uncle.”

  “Uncle Leon owes me an explanation. But if I call him, he’ll just refuse to tell me anything, as usual.”