The Unremembered Girl: A Novel

by Eliza Maxwell

  Gus leaned back in his chair, real fear evident on his face. “You . . . you can’t do that,” he stuttered. “You’re gonna get me killed, man. You’re gonna get me killed!”

  Del simply walked out the door, leaving it swinging wide behind him as he called over his shoulder.

  “You’re free to go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  The feelings inside of Eve were strange and unfamiliar. Even with months to get used to the idea that another life was growing inside of her, she tried not to think about the future. A baby.

  She’d never had a future to think of before and didn’t know how to wrap her mind around it.

  Henry’s face changed whenever he put his hands on her belly. He looked at her with such light in his eyes, and she craved that, even as she worried it couldn’t last. No one had ever looked at her that way.

  More than that, she couldn’t help feeling there’d been no her to look at before Henry had seen her. Eve had been formed from nothing beneath his gaze.

  And now everything was changing.

  Her stomach had been tightening uncomfortably throughout the day. Her lower back was aching more than usual, and twice she’d had to sit down and squeeze her eyes shut against spasms of pain that rocked her body.

  But she kept her silence. It was her only weapon against the changes coming, and she clung to it tightly.

  Weeks and weeks had passed since she’d hit the old man, and stopped him from hurting Henry. She could see the tension in Henry sometimes, as he stared across the field toward the woods and the shack. She knew he worried about what might come for them through those woods one day. Knew he struggled with what she’d done and what he’d been forced to do because of it.

  But she couldn’t find remorse for the death of the angry little man. He was a bad man. Eve would no longer be hurt by bad men. She’d sooner die.

  And hurting Henry was the same as hurting her.

  So she couldn’t regret what she’d done, and she didn’t dwell on it. Instead, she continued to learn to read, the books made for children opening up sweet make-believe worlds about childhoods she didn’t understand, where puppies and butterflies mattered more than hunger or pain. Their silly simplicity made her smile.

  She continued to become if not whole, then new, under Henry’s care.

  When the sound of car doors slamming interrupted her concentration on the picture book in front of her, she rose and went to the door.

  It was Alice and Del.

  “Eve, honey,” Alice said. “I hope you don’t mind. Del’s got it in his head that he wants to take his brother out for a beer, and I thought I’d stay with you while they go out. I know Henry doesn’t like leaving you alone out here, and I have to say, I agree with him, considering.” She nodded toward Eve’s stomach, which protruded in front of her.

  “Is Henry around?” Del asked gruffly from behind his wife. The differences between the man he’d become in the last few months and the easy, open man he’d been before were hard not to see. Del’s edges were sharper now, his face gaunter and his movements jerky. He was a man fighting off demons.

  Eve knew the signs.

  “He’s out at the still,” Eve said in a low voice. She’d never been completely comfortable around Henry’s brother.

  Del nodded and walked off in the direction of the shed.

  “I swear, that man,” Alice said, watching him go with a shake of her head. “Something’s changed in him, since his dad . . . Well, you don’t want to hear about that.”

  Alice shook off her musings and dropped her bag on the floor beside the door. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said, glancing around.

  “I was just reading. Or trying to,” Eve answered. She’d become more used to Alice over the last few months. She hadn’t been sure what to think of her at first, but she’d come to understand. Alice was good. In the way Caroline had been. In the way Henry was.

  “Good,” Alice said, echoing Eve’s thoughts. “That’s good. I want to see you resting as much as you can. Keeping your feet up. Has the swelling still been bothering you?”

  “No,” Eve said. “I feel fine.” She didn’t want an examination right now. She worried that Alice would be able to tell that things were happening, changing, in spite of everything Eve was doing to stop it.

  “Okay,” Alice said, blowing out a breath and looking around. “What about food? Are you hungry?”

  She wasn’t, but Eve thought it might give Alice something to concentrate on other than her. She could feel her stomach tightening even as she spoke.

  “I am kind of hungry,” she said apologetically. “I have the things to make a stew, but I haven’t done it yet.”

  Alice’s face brightened.

  “Oh, good. I can do that. You sit, enjoy your book. I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

  Eve breathed a sigh of relief.

  Alice’s words floated out of the kitchen. She was still chatting with Eve from the other room. Eve forced her voice to maintain what she hoped was a normal rhythm in reply, even as she bent over with her eyes shut tight, clutching at her belly.

  The pains were getting stronger now. Eve felt her safe, pretty world with Henry slipping from her fingers. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready for anything to change.

  The pain loosened its grip, and Eve gasped, pulling in deep breaths and wiping her brow. She’d barely had time to compose her face before the front door opened.

  “Eve, Del’s insisting I go into town with him,” Henry said. He looked irritated and distracted, and Eve was glad. “Will you be okay if I’m gone for a little while? Alice is going to stay, but if you need me for anything, all you have to do is call, and I’ll come right back home.”

  “Henry, she’s going to be fine,” Del said from behind him. “You’re fine, aren’t you?” he shot at Eve.

  She wasn’t fine, but the last thing she wanted was to say that in front of Henry or his brother.

  “Of course,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Go. It’s no problem.”

  Henry must have noticed something off in her voice, because he looked at her more closely than she was comfortable with.

  “You heard her, come on, man,” Del said, placing a hand on Henry’s arm.

  “Okay, okay,” Henry said, glancing back at his brother. “Calm down, Del. Alice, we’re heading into town. Call me if you need me, okay?”

  “You got it, Henry,” Alice said, stepping up to the doorway that led to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag. “She’s in good hands. Don’t worry, okay?”

  “Thanks, Alice,” he said, and leaned down to give Eve a kiss on the cheek.

  She smiled her best everything’s fine smile at him. It must have worked, because he and Del left. She let out a pent-up breath.

  “This will take a little while to get ready, Eve. Do you want me to make you a sandwich or something until then? It’s no trouble,” Alice said.

  “No, thank you,” Eve replied. “I think I’ll go take a bath and maybe lie down for a while. I’m pretty tired.”

  “Sure,” Alice said. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll just make myself at home.”

  Eve forced one more fake smile onto her face. She was getting good at the fake smiles. “Okay, then.”

  She rose and made her way down the hallway. She almost made it into the bathroom before another wave of pain gripped her middle and stole her breath and all her fake smiles with it.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Henry was thinking about Eve as Del’s SUV bumped along the back roads that led away from Henry’s house. There was no way to know exactly when her due date was without the advice of an obstetrician, but Alice thought it must be close—within a few weeks—and Henry had a nagging feeling he should have stayed home.

  Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t immediately notice when Del turned the vehicle in a direction that didn’t lead to town.

  “Wait, I thought we were going to King’s,” Henry said, when Del pulled the SUV to a st
op.

  They had come to the marsh that led to the Watson house, but Henry didn’t see Jonah’s boat. Just the murky green water that was Livingston’s final resting place. Henry would never be able to see this part of the swamp again without wondering about his stepfather. Had Brutal really taken care of all the evidence, or were there pieces of Livingston still hiding, waiting to be found?

  He’d never be sure.

  “It’s time,” Del said, glancing over at his brother. His face was dark, set in granite. Not the face of a man with plans to blow off a little steam at the local bar.

  “Time for what?” Henry asked cautiously.

  “Time to face the music.”

  He knows, Henry thought in a blinding flash of panic, laced with the smallest thread of relief. It’s over now. He knows.

  Del nodded toward the glove compartment of the SUV, indicating Henry should open it.

  Henry slowly reached his hand out to the latch, sure, for the briefest moment, that when he did, his stepfather’s severed foot would come tumbling out into his lap, all the evidence Del needed to cement his fate.

  The image was so powerful that Henry was momentarily confused when he opened the latch and saw nothing but old yellowed papers and a small black case.

  “What am I looking for?” Henry asked hesitantly.

  “In the case,” Del said.

  Henry picked it up slowly, feeling its heft. Whatever was in there, it wasn’t Livingston’s foot.

  But his relief was short-lived. When he unzipped the case, the light caught on the barrel of a small black pistol, snuggled into the foam that lined the case.

  “What the hell is this?” Henry asked.

  “It’s untraceable. I bought it from a dealer in Cordelia. The serial number’s been filed,” Del said, staring out the window in front of him.

  “For what?” Henry asked. It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with guns, but the back-alley dealing that Del had gone through to get this one stank of plans Henry didn’t want to be involved in.

  “They’re back,” Del said simply. “Six weeks and no sign, but my snitch on the other side of town says they’re back tonight. It’s time to get justice for Dad. I owe him that. We owe him that.”

  Henry stared at Del’s determined profile, then down at the gun in his lap. He stayed silent for a moment, absorbing the surreal path that had brought them both to this point.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Henry asked slowly. “Why the hell don’t you just call in the state police and go arrest them?”

  “And then what? They go to jail for murder and human trafficking?”

  Henry’s eyes widened. “Yeah,” he said. What the hell else was Del hoping for? Considering the gun sitting in his lap like a snake about to strike, Henry had a sinking suspicion that he knew the answer to that.

  “That’s not good enough, Henry,” Del spit at him. “That old man was a son of a bitch, and a crazy one at that. But he was my father!”

  Del threw open the door to the truck and stepped out. Henry had no choice but to do the same. Henry watched, speechless, as his brother dragged a small aluminum boat from the brush along the side of the road.

  “Del, what in the . . . This is crazy! You can’t just go over there with guns blazing and expect to . . . to . . . What exactly do you expect? Some sort of revenge?”

  “Yes, Henry, I do. I want to know what happened to my father, and I don’t intend to let the state police get in my way. They’ll just make a deal, a trade-off to shut down the trafficking, and that’s not good enough. I need to know what happened to Dad. Now, either you’re with me or you’re not, but I’m going.”

  Del pushed the boat into the water and stepped in.

  “Damn it, Del. Wait,” Henry said. “I said wait! You’re not going over there by yourself.”

  Del used an oar to hold the boat, and Henry stepped in with him.

  “This is insane. You’re going to get yourself killed,” Henry said in a harsh whisper. They were a mile or more from the shack still, but he couldn’t help the urge to keep his voice low.

  Del didn’t reply, just sank the oar into the water and pushed them one step closer to his goal.

  Henry realized he was still holding the opened case with the gun in his hands, and he didn’t even think before he tossed it deep into the swamp with a splash.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Del demanded.

  “You’re a cop, for God’s sake,” Henry said, leaning into Del’s face. “I never thought you were a very good one, to be honest, and taking money from those guys didn’t exactly prove me wrong, but right now I need you to remember that you’re a police officer! Whatever you’re planning to do, you need to do the right way.”

  Del stared at Henry, who could see the fire burning behind his brother’s eyes. His words were clearly falling on deaf ears. When had Del become so unhinged? Was it the moment he’d walked into the shack? Was Henry ultimately to blame for this?

  “Where’s Brady?” Henry demanded. “You didn’t tell him, did you? Damn it, Del!”

  Henry fished his phone out of his pocket, scrolling to find Brady’s number, but he never had a chance to make the call. Del snatched the phone from his hand and tossed it into the marsh, to sink in the same way the gun had.

  “What the hell?” Henry demanded.

  “No. We do this my way,” he snarled.

  “Your way? What are you, Dirty Harry?”

  “Henry, if I’d have known you were going to be such a whiny little girl about this, I’d have left you at home. Now, you can follow me and do what I say, or you can stay in the damn boat. I don’t really give a shit.”

  Del was whispering now. Henry should have known they were pulling close to the shore by the way Del was keeping his voice low and hard, but he was facing his brother, trying to find the words to tell him that he shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t put his life at risk, because those men, whatever they were guilty of, and Henry was sure it was plenty, hadn’t killed Livingston.

  He had to tell him. This had never been the plan. Del was supposed to have Brady with him, a team of state police, and take down the men who’d been trading on the weakest members of the human race. The people who most needed help.

  He wasn’t supposed to put his life on the line to try and get revenge single-handedly, like some sort of action hero in a low-budget movie.

  Henry stared at Del, considering and hastily rejecting strings of words that would give the truth to his brother and still manage to protect Eve. The only way to do that was to put himself in the line of fire, and although he was willing, Henry wasn’t entirely convinced that Del would believe him. Del had often accused him of being soft, a mama’s boy. Henry had accepted the ribbing silently, never denying the claim, which would have somehow felt like a betrayal of his mother.

  Instead, he’d recognized, even as a child, that Caroline Martell Doucet was the strongest person he’d ever known or ever would.

  Mama, help me, he thought. Help me do the right thing for everybody. What do I do?

  But Mama was gone.

  And Henry had stumbled so far down this darkened path that he didn’t know if even his mother’s light could lead him out.

  Henry had opened his mouth to speak, although he still didn’t know what he was going to say, when he felt the boat bump into the shore behind him. The jolt nearly knocked him into the water, it came so unexpectedly.

  Then Del was pulling them to the edge, stepping out onto the shore.

  “Del!” Henry whispered.

  His brother made a violent motion across his throat in Henry’s direction, clearly telling him to shut the hell up. He pointed in the direction of the shack, from which, even at this distance, Henry could hear the faint murmur of footsteps crossing the old floorboards. A dim light shone through the barred windows.

  Del crouched and disappeared through the trees. Henry was left with no choice but to follow.

  It’s all slipping out of my hands, Henry thought in
horror.

  He scrambled after Del, needing to catch him before he did anything rash. Maybe, just maybe, his presence could keep Del inside the shaky paper walls of sanity, but there was no guarantee.

  He could make out his brother in the distance, a dark figure moving through the same trees they’d haunted as children, when their biggest concern had been making it home in time for dinner. Henry wondered how things had gotten to this point.

  Suddenly, Del stopped, turning back to Henry and holding a finger up to his lips for silence, then crouching down in the darkened brush.

  Henry heard whistling coming through the trees. A man was coming toward them, no realization at all what he was walking into.

  The man stopped, just feet from where Del stayed still and silent, waiting in the woods.

  It was so quiet that Henry could hear the zip as the man unfastened his trousers, and the telltale little jump a man makes before he takes a leak.

  Jesus, Henry thought.

  The sound of a stream of piss hitting the ground at the man’s feet mingled with his out-of-tune whistle.

  Henry realized what Del was going to do just moments before he did it. Henry stood to speak, to warn the man, to stop it all before it got any worse, but Del was closer. His brother rose from his hiding spot and clutched the man from behind, pulling his large forearm tight across his neck in a choke hold.

  “Del, stop,” Henry whispered. “What are you doing?”

  But Del ignored him.

  “Hey there, Gus. Fancy seeing you here. Quite the coincidence, wouldn’t you say?” Del asked with a vicious yank on the man’s neck that pulled his feet temporarily off the ground.

  Gus didn’t reply, couldn’t reply. He could do nothing but grab at the hand across his neck, gasping for air.

  “Del, let him breathe!” Henry whispered again.

  “I’m going to loosen my hold, and you, Gus, are going to answer my questions. Aren’t you?”