Shadow Creek

by Joy Fielding

  Nikki’s eyes flashed anger. “So … what? You were just bullshitting me? This is, like, a joke to you?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just that I’d have to get to a cash machine.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “At the campground,” Val interjected quickly. Brianne had definitely been here, she was sure of that. Just as she was certain this girl knew where she was now. But Nikki was also clearly crazy and Val doubted there was anything to be gained by sticking around. They’d found the real Henry’s uniform. The man who’d stolen it might still be lurking. They had to contact the authorities. “Look, we’ll go to the car, get the money, and come right back. How’s that?” She pushed herself to her feet, felt Melissa struggle to get up beside her. “Are you all right?”

  “Now I’m the one who’s dizzy,” Melissa said.

  “How long do you think you’ll be?” Nikki asked.

  “Shouldn’t be too long,” Val answered, watching James stagger when he tried to stand, his empty mug falling to the floor and bouncing toward the fireplace. Val grabbed his arm before he could fall over.

  “What’s happening?” Jennifer asked.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Nikki said, looking toward the open door.

  A young man stood in the doorway, a smile on his lips, a picture of Keith Richards on his chest, and a bloodstained machete in his hands.

  Val gasped, a sound immediately echoed by Jennifer and Melissa.

  “Oh, God,” moaned James, fighting to stay upright.

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.” The young man kicked the door shut behind him with his booted foot, waving the machete in front of him as he walked into the center of the room. “Enjoy your tea, everyone?”

  “It’s my special blend.” Nikki pulled the gun out of her pocket.

  “Oh, God,” James said again.

  “No need to be so formal. You can just call me Henry.” The young man laughed. “Hello, Jennifer. Nice to see you again. And you must be Brianne’s mother,” he said to Val. “I can definitely see a resemblance.”

  “Where’s my daughter? What have you done with her?”

  “Nothing.” Henry’s smile widened. “Yet.”

  “They have money,” Nikki told him. “That bitch just offered me a thousand dollars for this shit.” She looked from Melissa to the jewelry spread across the coffee table. “They were just going to go to a cash machine.”

  “You really are stupid, you know that?” Henry’s voice resonated disdain. “The only place they’re going is straight to the cops.”

  Nikki’s cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “You gotta learn to read between the lines, sweetheart. They know everything. Don’t you?” he said to Val. “Of course you do,” he said, answering his own question. “They’ve already talked to the park rangers. They know I’m not the real Henry Voight. In fact, I think they probably have a pretty good idea at this point just who I really am.” He pointed the machete at Val’s throat. “If not, I’d say this here’s a pretty good clue.”

  “You killed those people in the Berkshires,” James whispered.

  “Bingo.”

  “And the real Henry Voight?” Jennifer asked.

  “Don’t forget about David Gowan,” Nikki said with obvious pride.

  Val fought back the fresh tears she felt forming behind her eyes. “What have you done with my daughter?” she asked again, her focus starting to blur.

  “Like I said, nothing yet. I’m saving her.” The young man winked. “For later.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Nikki muttered, not quite under her breath.

  He spun toward her. “What are you saying? That I can’t count on you anymore? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, of course not.”

  His gaze shifted to Jennifer. “Should have listened to me when I told you to stay put,” he admonished. “Instead, you come snooping around, filling poor Nikki’s head with nonsense …”

  “It’s not nonsense,” Melissa said, her words bumping up against one another in their rush to escape her mouth. “Vintage costume jewelry can be very valuable. It’s my business. I know. And I can get you the money.”

  “Save it, Mrs. Magoo. Nikki here might be too stupid to see through you, but I’m not.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Nikki said.

  “No, you’re a regular Einstein. Or should I say ‘Eisenberg’?” He laughed.

  So he’d been listening outside the door the whole time, Val realized, patiently waiting for them to finish their tea. What was in it anyway? How much of that damn stuff had she drunk? Where were they hiding Brianne?

  “I guess we should get this show on the road,” he said.

  “You don’t have to do this,” James said, his words barely audible.

  “Don’t have to,” the young man agreed. “But oh, I really, really want to. Ready, babe?”

  A car honked from somewhere down the road.

  “Wait.” Nikki looked toward the window, paling noticeably.

  “What now?”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Please, God, let it be the park rangers, Val thought, straining for the sound of tires on gravel, praying for the cavalry to come riding to their rescue.

  “You’re imagining things,” the young man said, vaulting toward the window and peering through the trees.

  Nikki looked confused, her eyes darting back and forth without focusing on anything in particular.

  “There’s no one there,” he told her, impatiently.

  “Are you sure? I remember …”

  “You remember what?”

  “There was something … something on the computer. Something about … shit, I don’t know … Quakers? Is that possible?”

  “Quakers? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “There was something. Wait. It was a name. Quaker? Was that it? No, no. McQuaker. Yes, that’s it. Fran and Wayne McQuaker dot-com.”

  “Fran and Wayne … what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Fran and Wayne McQuaker. I remember now. They’re coming to visit. Saturday.”

  “Someone’s coming here today? And you didn’t think to tell me about it before?”

  “I was stoned. I just remembered when I heard the car honking.”

  “You just remembered,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Shit. Your grandparents were right about you. You’re just a stupid little girl.”

  The familiar words jolted Val out of her growing lethargy, clearing her head as if she’d been slapped in the face. “Are you going to let him talk to you that way?” she snapped, knowing time was running out, that she had to do something before it was too late. Maybe if she could pit one against the other …

  “Somebody ask for your opinion? For fuck’s sake, just shoot the bitch,” the young man ordered. Then, when Nikki didn’t react fast enough, “Well, what are you waiting for, dummy? Christmas?”

  Nikki steadied the gun in her hand and slowly raised it.

  “You’re not stupid, Nikki. So be smart,” Val urged, holding her breath as she watched Nikki turn around slowly, pointing the gun at the young man’s chest. Pull the trigger, she prayed silently.

  “Come on, babe,” the man said, his voice suddenly soft and conciliatory. “You know I don’t mean any of that shit. You know I love you.”

  “What about that bitch in the trunk? You love her, too?”

  “She means nothing. You know that. You know you’re the only girl for me.”

  “So we’re not gonna take her with us?”

  “We’ll do whatever you want with her.”

  “He’s lying,” Val said, understanding they were talking about Brianne.

  “Shut up,” Nikki said, swiveling toward her, so that the gun was now pointing directly at Val’s head.

  Was that all it took to get women to surrender their power—a few sweet words, even when they knew them to be false? And was she really so surprised?
Hey, you, was all Evan had to say, and she’d been ready to forgive him anything.

  Val understood in that second that Nikki would blindly follow her man, no matter what, that there was no point in trying to talk sense into her. She wouldn’t listen to reason any more than Val had listened when people had tried to talk to her about Evan. She was just wasting whatever time and breath she had left.

  Her eyes shot to Jennifer, who nodded, as if she’d heard Val’s thoughts. There would be no handsome princes riding to their rescue, they both understood. They were on their own.

  They moved quickly and in unison, Jennifer hurling what remained of her tea into Nikki’s face as Val ferociously swung Brianne’s shoe at the girl’s head. The shoe caught Nikki smack between the eyes and she pitched forward, Jennifer knocking the gun from her hands as she fell, sending it skating across the floor toward Val’s feet.

  “You dumb cunts!” the young man yelled, rushing at them, his last words before a succession of bullets ripped through his chest, tearing apart Keith Richards’s sneering face and sending the young man crashing back against the window, the machete in his raised arm arching gracefully back over his head to slice through the glass, sending it shattering in all directions. Jagged shards fell around his head, like icicles dropping from a rooftop.

  Val stared down at the gun in her hands, her index finger pressed firmly against its trigger.

  “Bravo! Bravo, Val!” James was shouting from somewhere beside her, clapping his hands as Melissa sleepily tossed a handful of the beaded necklaces she’d been clutching into the air, like so much celebratory confetti.

  “Are you all right?” Val asked Jennifer, now sitting firmly on top of Nikki, who was moaning but not moving.

  “Never better,” Jennifer said.

  Which was when they heard a car pulling up outside, followed by a door slamming shut, and then another.

  A woman’s chirpy voice cut through the ensuing silence. “Hello, Ellen? Stuart? Yoo-hoo! We’re here. We finally made it!”

  Val looked toward the door as an elderly couple walked cheerily up the front steps, the woman carrying a large potted plant, the man cradling a bottle of champagne.

  “Ellen! Stuart! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” They stopped, staring wide-eyed at the scene in front of them.

  Val stared back. They were all still staring at one another when they heard the sound of police sirens approaching in the distance.

  THIRTY

  THEY LEFT FOR HOME first thing the next morning.

  “You’re sure you’re okay to drive?” Melissa asked. “I’m fine.” Val smiled toward the three occupants of the backseat, then stretched her arm across the front console to where her daughter sat staring out the side window, a steady stream of tears cascading down her pale cheeks. She’d been crying from almost the minute they’d discovered her, more or less unconscious, in the trunk of Matthew Stabler’s car. “How about you, sweetheart? How are you doing?” Even though her daughter had emerged miraculously unharmed and had thankfully witnessed none of the carnage, the news of Tyler’s fate and the knowledge of what would have likely happened to her had her mother not found her had been traumatic enough. She’d slept fitfully, her backside curled into her mother’s stomach in bed, holding tight to her mother’s hand as it draped across her hip. The manager of the lodge had been eager to cooperate with the state police when informed of Val and her friends’ heroics in apprehending the monsters who’d slaughtered so many, and had happily provided them with their original suite for the night.

  Brianne felt a fresh gathering of tears behind her eyes. She didn’t deserve her mother’s concern, she was thinking. If she’d listened to her mother in the first place, none of this would have happened. Tyler would still be alive.

  “It’s not your fault,” Val told her, as if reading her mind. “You didn’t kill Tyler.”

  “I’m the reason he was in that cottage.”

  “Maybe initially,” Val reminded her. “Let’s not forget the things Nikki told the police.” Nikki had made a full confession, providing details of all the grisly murders she and Matthew had committed, as well as a full description of her romp with Tyler just prior to his death. “You made an error in judgment,” Val told her daughter now. “Trust me, sweetheart. We’ve all been guilty of that.”

  “He didn’t deserve to die, Mom.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  A small cry escaped Brianne’s lips. “I ruined your birthday,” she said plaintively, sounding all of ten years old.

  Val smiled sadly and squeezed her daughter’s hand. She’d arrange for Brianne to see a therapist when they got back to the city, deciding it was probably a good idea that she go, too. “Let’s just say you made it one we’ll never forget.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” James said.

  “Are you guys comfortable enough back there?” Val glanced over her shoulder at James, Melissa, and Jennifer. Melissa nodded; James gave her a thumbs-up; Jennifer looked up and smiled, then returned to rereading the message that had arrived last night from Evan. Surely she had it memorized by now, Val thought, feeling Jennifer’s disappointment as keenly as if it were her own. After all, it was a feeling she knew well.

  Val watched as the Lodge at Shadow Creek receded in her rearview mirror. Another turn and it would be merely a memory, one she could only pray would fade with time. Would it? she wondered, reliving yesterday’s events as if they were still happening, disconnected images flashing before her eyes like a strobe light. Flash: they were running through the woods. Flash: she was holding up Brianne’s mud-encrusted shoe. Flash: they were walking toward the cottage. Flash: they were in the bedroom. Flash: a young man was standing in the doorway.

  One second, a blood-caked machete had been pointed at her throat; the next instant, she was emptying a gun into a young man’s chest.

  Matthew Stabler, she thought, silently mouthing his name. The police had identified him from the driver’s license they’d found in the back pocket of his jeans, although according to his young accomplice it was a name he rarely used.

  Val pictured Nikki in her ill-fitting cotton dress, politely handing her a mug of hot tea. Val could still taste the sedative-laced liquid on her lips. She could still feel the sting of shame in Nikki’s eyes when Matthew called her stupid. She could still hear the thwack of Brianne’s shoe as it hit the girl’s forehead. She could still feel the awful vibrations that traveled up and down her arm as she repeatedly pulled the trigger.

  Val pictured Nikki, still dazed and bleeding, as the state police led her away. Her real name was Janet Richardson, they told her later. She was seventeen years old.

  Val knew the police still had questions, that the fallout from their ordeal was far from over, and wondered how long it would be before the story hit the front pages. It wouldn’t be long before reporters and cameras started gathering outside her door. She wondered if Evan had already heard the news.

  As if on cue, her cell phone began ringing in her purse. “Well, what do you know? We finally have reception. Can you get that, sweetheart?” she asked Brianne, who immediately began fumbling inside her mother’s bag. “Is it your father?”

  “Is it Evan?” Jennifer asked simultaneously.

  “It’s Grandma,” Brianne said, unable to disguise the surprise in her voice.

  Val took the phone from her daughter’s hand, raised it to her ear. “Mom?”

  “Happy birthday, darling,” her mother said. “I know I’m a few days late, but you know what they say—better late than never.”

  Val brushed aside the pesky, unvoiced corollary: but better never than too late. “It’s never too late,” she said forcefully.

  “So how does it feel to be forty?”

  Val laughed. “Actually, pretty damn good.”

  “Do you feel any different?”

  Val nodded, tears filling her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. “I do, yes. Very different.”

  “Well, you’ll always be my little girl
.”

  “A girl who really misses her mother,” Val said, her words barely audible.

  It was her mother who’d taught her that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, her mother who’d counseled her to speak up, and assured her that she could do anything she set her mind to do, that she was not a stupid little girl. If she was indeed as fearless as Gary had claimed, it was in large part because of her mother.

  And while Val recognized she might not be able to save her—her mother was ultimately the only person who could do that—she was no longer prepared to simply give up on her without a fight.

  Husbands were notoriously unreliable, she thought, thinking of Evan. Men came and went, she thought, picturing Gary. Mothers were forever.

  Was there anything she could say or do to persuade her mother to get the help she needed? And if she refused to get help, could Val possibly learn to accept her for who she was and love her anyway? It had been so easy to just feel sorry for herself, to simply give up on her mother and look the other way.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too, darling.”

  She decided to contact Al-Anon as soon as she got home.

  It would be her birthday present to herself.

  JENNIFER LOWERED THE e-mail she’d been reading to her lap and closed her eyes, still seeing the neatly handwritten message the receptionist had given her when they’d arrived back at the lodge. “Mr. Rowe e-mailed first thing this morning,” the receptionist had explained. “Said he couldn’t get through to your cell and that you’d probably be checking in with us for messages. He asked me to give this to you.” She’d smiled as she’d slipped the brief message from Evan into Jennifer’s hand.

  So sorry, Jen, the note read. By now I’m sure you realize that I won’t be able to join you, and I apologize for being so completely unavailable. You probably thought I disappeared off the face of the earth, but please be assured you were never far from my thoughts, however derelict I’ve been about returning your messages. I know nothing has worked out the way we’d planned, and I hope it hasn’t been too awful for you, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. This working round the clock is for the birds. The good news is that the deal is almost done. I’m in meetings again all day today, determined to get this thing signed, sealed, and delivered, so you won’t be able to get ahold of me. You might as well relax and enjoy the fresh mountain air, and I’ll see you when you get back to the city later tonight. I love you, Evan.