Unbroken

by A. J. Matthews

  “No,” Kiera whispered, trembling and unable to move as Jon and his burden disappeared from sight down the slope. She knew now was the time to get up and run, while Jon was out of sight, but she was positive he would hear her and come after her. She didn’t want to end up in the river like Billy and Ariel.

  Cold emptiness filled Kiera when she realized that Ariel really was dead. The woman’s existence—even when she had been standing right beside her—had always seemed so tenuous, so ephemeral it was like she hadn’t really existed. Kiera could easily convince herself that she had fabricated her, but when she heard a faint splash from down by the river, she knew Jon had pitched the woman’s body into the water. A frightening sense of déjà vu overcame her as memories of that night almost thirty years ago when he had thrown Billy into the river blended with what was happening now.

  Her fear spiked when, moments later, Jon came back up the slope and walked over to their parked cars. His headlights still illuminated the parking lot, making his eyes shine with an insane light. He was still wearing the red-haired wig, but when he got to his car, he yanked it off, opened the door, and tossed it onto the front seat.

  Kiera was praying he would get into the car and drive away, but he folded his arms across his chest and, turning, surveyed the area. She trembled with fear as she hunkered down on the forest floor and watched him carefully. She was waiting for some indication that he knew she was there. She was paranoid that Jon was toying with her, pretending he didn’t know where she was hiding before coming after her.

  Moving slowly, he walked over to Kiera’s car and stood there for a while, staring at it as though considering what to do next. It was obvious he was unfazed that he had thrown what he thought was her body into the river, but if he really wanted to make it look like suicide, he should have put her behind the steering wheel and rolled the car down the bank and into the water.

  After a moment, Jon walked over to a clump of brush close to where Kiera was hiding and broke a leafy branch off a sapling. For the next five minutes or so he walked back and forth, sweeping the branch across the ground, obliterating most of the footprints he had left. Then he got into his car, started it up, and backed it out onto the paved road. With the headlights shining on the parking area, he came back and wiped away his tire tracks.

  Kiera was crying as she watched all of this. He was obviously setting this up so, when someone eventually found her car, the cops would conclude she had come out here and drowned herself.

  Once this was done, Jon walked went back to his car, got in, and drove away. Kiera’s body throbbed with tension as tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t help but feel a huge hole in her heart and soul . . . a hole that ached for the loss of someone she still wasn’t even convinced had really existed.

  Exhaustion and grief finally won out, though, and as uncomfortable as the ground was, she fell asleep. When the first faint streaks of dawn lit the sky, and the woods filled with the songs of birds, she awoke, sat up, and looked around. In the pale predawn light, the horrors she had witnessed seemed like a terrible dream. As the day brightened, the parking area looked remarkably mundane. It was impossible to believe what she had seen and gone through had been real.

  She moaned softly as she stood up, shivering as she stretched. She brushed the dirt and mulch from her face and clothes, feeling bone-deep aches in every part of her body. Every joint and muscle felt like they were on fire.

  Kiera felt shattered, emotionally and physically, and had no idea what she should do now. She jumped when she looked at the spot where—as impossible as it seemed now—Ariel had crouched next to her last night. There was something on the ground. Her hand was shaking out of control as she reached down and touched it. After a few heavy heartbeats, she realized she was looking at a purse.

  It wasn’t hers. Hers was still in her car. This must belong to Ariel.

  “Maybe you were real,” Kiera whispered, her eyes wide as she looked around, still afraid that Jon would suddenly appear and attack her.

  For a long time, she was afraid to bend down and pick up the purse. She considered leaving it there for the police to find when they investigated. Still feeling as though she was trapped in a nightmare, she stared at the purse, wondering what to do. When she exhaled, the chilly morning air turned her breath into a white mist. Her teeth were chattering loudly, but after taking a few deep breaths, she found the courage to pick it up.

  Tears spilled from her eyes, but she wiped them away as she looked down the slope toward the river. It was impossible to imagine that Jon really had carried Ariel’s body down there and thrown her into the river. Shreds of mist rose into the steadily brightening sky, and it was all too easy to imagine they were the ghosts of people who had drowned in the river.

  Clutching Ariel’s purse to her chest, she walked over to her car and opened the door. For a long while she stood there, unable to bring herself to get in.

  Where would I go? . . . What would I do?

  Her jacket was on the front seat. She was chilled, so she grabbed it and put it on. She was hungry, too. When she looked toward the river, all she could think was that Ariel’s body must be far downstream by now.

  “Oh, Lord . . . Oh, sweet Lord,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand as more tears filled her eyes. She whispered a silent prayer, but she cried out when a terrifying image flashed in her mind.

  She saw Billy Carroll . . . or what was left of him after nearly thirty years. He was lying in the black ooze on the bottom of the river, staring up at the sky that shimmered above him like quicksilver. Kiera knew what he was looking at, and she watched with him as a dark figure silhouetted against the glowing surface floated by above him. As the figure resolved, she saw Ariel—or was it herself?—drifting slowly down . . . down . . . until she joined Billy in the dark, murky depths. A smile spread across Billy’s skeletal face as he reached up to embrace her with arms that were black with rot and river muck.

  “Dear Lord in heaven, she’s gone . . . gone forever,” Kiera whispered. The sound of her voice startled her, and she had the distinct impression that someone else—maybe Ariel—was standing close beside her, whispering to her. When she looked around, she saw that she was alone, and that only made the feeling worse.

  She’s really gone . . .

  The sadness that filled her was coupled with the horror of what she had witnessed here last night and nearly thirty years ago. She finally accepted fully that what had happened here so long ago had left a permanent stain on her soul.

  She took a deep breath and looked around as daylight pushed back the darkness, and the woods filled with the songs of birds. She took a deep breath and smelled the warm scent of damp earth and pine. A gentle wind that stirred the leaves was warm and soothing on her face, and she felt a surge of new life inside her.

  “She’s gone forever,” Kiera whispered to the breeze, “and so am I.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Unbroken

  1

  My God, there’s an awful lot of money here, Kiera thought as she leaned back in the cushioned booth and looked up at the ceiling. It was difficult to control the sudden rush of emotions as she dropped Ariel’s wallet into her lap and squeezed it shut. She had stopped counting when she got over five hundred dollars, most of it in fifties and twenties. Her hands were shaking as she placed them on the table and looked around, fearful that someone had noticed her reaction and was watching her.

  It was late in the afternoon, and she was seated in a small restaurant called Becky’s Diner on Commercial Street in Portland. She hadn’t taken a shower since yesterday morning, and after hiding in the woods by the river until she was absolutely positive she was safe, she needed to freshen up.

  She certainly had enough money to rent a hotel room in Portland for the night, and she needed time to think about what to do next. The money in Ariel’s wallet certainly would buy her that, too.

  “Refill?” the middle-aged waitress said as she came up to Kiera’s table. The name tag abo
ve her blouse pocket read Sally. Her cheeks were pitted with old pockmark scars, but she had a warm, friendly smile and bright eyes. Kiera looked at her, fighting the impulse to tell her about what had happened last night. She needed to confide in someone, but she also knew she needed to be careful . . . especially if she really was going to do what she was thinking about doing.

  “Yeah . . . That’d be great,” she said, leaning back and sliding the purse out of sight beneath the table as Sally filled her cup and dropped two cartons of dairy creamer next to the saucer.

  “Looks like you had a rough day,” Sally said, smiling sympathetically. When Kiera smiled and nodded, the waitress hesitated, then turned and walked away, obviously knowing when someone was going to talk or not.

  Kiera stared blankly ahead, her mind filled with concerns about what she might do next. Moving mechanically, she ripped open two packets of sugar and dumped them into the coffee. Then she opened and stirred in the creamers. The spoon clanked on the sides of the cup, setting her teeth on edge. She cringed at the sound, hoping it didn’t draw anyone’s attention to her.

  Take it easy, she told herself. You didn’t do anything wrong.

  But even as she thought that, it seemed like the voice in her head was Ariel’s, not her own.

  She blew over the top of the cup before taking a sip and, rotating her shoulders, eased back in the booth. She had taken the seat at the back of the diner so she could keep an eye on the door, although she had no idea who or what she was so afraid of. Her biggest fear was that Jon O’Keefe would suddenly walk in, but that didn’t seem very likely.

  Kiera forced herself to relax by sitting back and watching the steady routine of restaurant workers and customers, but the purse in her lap was a heavy weight that seemed to be crushing her legs. Finally, she mustered up the courage to open it again and look through the contents.

  First, she shuffled through Ariel’s wallet. She checked out her driver’s license. It was from Montana and gave her home address as 128 Creek Circle in Bozeman.

  “Montana . . .” Kiera whispered as her gaze shifted out the diner’s front window. She smiled as she looked at the busy street lined with old warehouses and storefronts. When she was young, she used to fantasize about moving out west . . . to Montana or Wyoming.

  It was unnerving to see how much Ariel’s ID photo looked like her. There was no way this wasn’t her. She stared at the picture for a long time as a thought that was forming in the back of her mind became clearer.

  Sighing and shaking her head, she looked through the rest of Ariel’s purse. There were the usual things—makeup, loose change, receipts from stores in and around Bozeman. Kiera’s heart skipped a beat when she found a bankbook in a thin, plastic protective case. She swallowed hard and looked around guiltily again, convinced someone had noticed what she was doing and was calling the cops.

  What am I doing with a dead woman’s purse?

  Her heart was pounding fast in her neck as she slid the savings book out of its protective case and opened it. There were several pages denoting deposits and withdrawals, but on the fifth or sixth page, she saw the bottom line.

  “Oh my God,” she said with a gasp.

  She sagged back in the booth and clamped the savings book shut, marking the place with her forefinger. Sally shot her a questioning look as if to ask, Is something wrong? . . . Find something floating in your coffee?

  Kiera signaled that she was all right, but she could tell her face was sheet-white as she slowly lowered her gaze to her lap and opened the savings book again. The final figure with a date of less than a month ago after another deposit was a little over three hundred thousand dollars.

  The diner walls seemed to close in, and the air got much too stuffy. Kiera had an urge to get up and leave just to be doing something, but she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than was necessary.

  This has to be a mistake, she thought. Maybe the money’s not in the bank now . . . Maybe Ariel closed the account before she came to Maine . . .

  Still, the question remained: how did Ariel get to Maine? Even she had expressed surprise and confusion about how she had gotten here.

  And now she’s dead, Kiera thought with a shudder. She almost screamed when she turned and looked at her pale reflection in the diner’s window. She knew who was really supposed to be dead.

  She was . . . not Ariel.

  Jon had left last night, obviously convinced Kiera was dead. The weird thing was, as she stared at her reflection in the window, she had the distinct impression she was looking at Ariel, who was sitting in Becky’s Diner. Kiera Davis was dead. She had been murdered, and her body had been thrown into the Hancock River.

  The disoriented feeling swept over her, and she was sure she was about to collapse or else dissolve away to nothing if she didn’t keep staring at her reflection in the window. That was the only thing that anchored her to reality.

  Who are you? she wondered, but she didn’t have the answer. Looking at the bankbook again, she realized that she could just as easily be Ariel as Kiera.

  And why not?

  She had lost everything she had ever valued or thought she valued. Her marriage was over . . . her daughter had no love or respect for her . . . and she’d lost her friends and any sense of belonging in Stratford, Maine. How could she trust anyone ever again? Her husband had been cheating on her with a student’s mother. The person she thought was her best friend had killed his wife and two other people, not counting Billy. Everything she had lived for, everything she had believed in and trusted was a sham, and now it was all gone.

  So why not be Ariel McKinnon?

  The thought filled her with a racing thrill.

  The life she had known was over. It had been over for a long time. It no doubt had ended almost thirty years ago, when Billy died. So she should take this opportunity to live another life . . . a better life. In the end, maybe that’s all that was happening here. Maybe through Ariel she had finally discovered the life that should have been hers all along. And even if it wasn’t—even if she didn’t really know what she wanted, at least she now knew what she didn’t want.

  Kiera shivered, wondering if she really could follow through with this. She had a home in Montana to go to. She had plenty of cash in hand and more than enough money in the bank to start a new life. If Nate reported her as missing, and the police found Ariel’s body, they wouldn’t need to examine her body too carefully to identify her. So why not head out to Montana and establish herself as Ariel McKinnon?

  This is your only chance to live the life you should have had all along, said a voice that sounded more like Ariel than herself. So don’t be a fool . . . Take it!

  She caught Sally’s attention and signaled that she was ready to pay her tab. When the waitress came over to the table and handed her the receipt, she hesitated and looked at Kiera with a perplexed expression.

  “You sure you feeling okay?” Sally’s brow furrowed with concern.

  Kiera was afraid what her voice might sound like if she spoke, but she forced a smile, nodded, and said, “Sure. I’m fine.”

  She took a twenty from Ariel’s wallet and gave it to Sally, smiling widely when she said, “Keep the change.”

  “But you only had a cup of coffee,” Sally said, but Kiera was already out of the booth and heading toward the door. At the door, she slipped her jacket on and said, “I’m better than fine.”

  Slinging Ariel’s—no, her purse over her shoulder, she stepped out onto the sidewalk. The September sun was warm on her face as she walked down Commercial Street. She debated whether she would fly out to Montana or take a bus . . . or maybe rent a car and drive there, but there was one more thing she had to take care of.

  She waited until she was in the Greyhound station in Worcester, Massachusetts. Just before the bus left, heading for upstate New York, she found a pay phone and made a call to the Stratford Police. For added insurance, she dialed *70 so the number wouldn’t show up on caller ID. When she got the dis
patcher, she told her that if they wanted to know who had killed Robbie Townsend, they should check the front fender of a blue Volvo, which was probably parked in Jon O’Keefe’s garage. If and when they found the car, they might also find a red wig, which Jon wore to shift suspicion onto Kiera Davis.

  “As for Kiera Davis . . .” Her voice caught when she thought about herself in the third person. “Jon O’Keefe lured her out to the parking lot on River Road. He killed her and threw her body into the river. Check his alibi for the night his wife died, too. He was supposed to be in Boston, but he came back to Maine and killed her in the parking garage. He also may have killed a girl—Katie Burroughs.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?” the dispatcher said, but even before he finished his question, Kiera replaced the phone on the hook and practically ran from the booth. Not more than five seconds after she ended the call, a voice over the PA announced that the bus for upstate New York was now boarding. She was relieved that it hadn’t happened while she was on the phone. It would have made it easier for the cops to trace the call.

  She rushed through the lobby to where the bus was idling and got on, taking a seat almost—but not all the way—at the back. She knew she had to blend in as much as possible.

  What are you so afraid of? Ariel’s voice kept asking her. You didn’t do anything wrong.

  It wasn’t like she had faked her own death to pull off an insurance scam or anything. The truth was, she was trying to take hold of her life in ways she hadn’t since . . . well, since that night nearly thirty years ago. Because of that night, she had lived a life she never should have led. But she was about to change all that.