by Sean Black
Lock followed her into the house. He sat in the living room and petted the two dogs as Patricia made him coffee and got herself a glass of wine. He didn’t condone middle-of-the-day drinking, but he could hardly blame her for needing the prop.
He studied the silver-framed family photographs scattered around the room. Jennifer featured in most of them, either with her mom, her dad or her older sister, or all of them together as a family group. As a collection, there was an eerie quality to them. Jennifer remained in freeze frame at the age she had died, while in later photographs, everyone else had aged, put on weight, and gathered wrinkles. Fashions changed. Time moved on. Only she remained the same.
Patricia emerged from the kitchen with a mug of coffee and a glass of white wine. She handed the mug to Lock.
“Thank you.”
The dogs rearranged themselves at her feet as she sat in a club chair next to the empty fireplace. “Jenny’s father is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Half the time he still thinks she’s alive.” She sighed. “I don’t know whether it’s a blessing or a curse.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He took what happened really hard. He blamed himself. He was the one who thought sending her there would be good for her.”
Lock could imagine how the guilt of that decision would weigh on someone. Not that her father would have imagined any of what followed.
“I tried to tell him he couldn’t have known,” Patricia said. “But what was the point? He’d already convinced himself that it was his fault.”
“And now?”
“He still thinks she’s there.”
“At Broken Ridge?”
She nodded.
Lock sipped his coffee. He had questions, but he was having trouble getting to them. Coming here, sitting in this room with a woman who had lost her daughter and had partly lost her husband, seemed intrusive. “Your other daughter?” he said finally.
“She lives in Phoenix with her husband. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“She was older?”
“By three years. They were close, but very different.”
“Different how?”
“Well, Lacey was very well behaved. Good grades. Never acted out. Never argued with us. Never gave us any cause for worry. Just very level-headed.”
“And Jennifer?”
Patricia took a gulp of wine. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “Excuse me.” She had another sip of wine. “Jennifer was wild. Even when she was little. You know how toddlers can have tantrums? Well, she was like that right through. Don’t get me wrong, she could be a sweetheart. But she acted out. And when she hit fourteen, fifteen, it went to a whole other level. Drinking. Parties. Boyfriends. That was why we decided we had to do something. We just couldn’t cope anymore.”
It was a familiar story to Lock. Some kids were just wild. It wasn’t necessarily their parents’ fault. That was simply how they were. For most it was a phase. But if you were a parent or guardian coping with it, there was no way of knowing that. Not when you were in the middle of the storm.
“It put a strain on our marriage,” continued Patricia, “and it was starting to affect Lacey. Then, about three months before we sent Jennifer to Broken Ridge, three of her friends were killed. They’d been drinking and took someone’s car without permission. It really freaked us out. It could have been Jenny in that car. That was when we felt like if we didn’t do something we’d not be doing our job. We didn’t have the know-how, so we tried to find people who did.”
“I don’t think anyone would blame you for making the decision you did,” said Lock.
“Ironic, huh?” said Patricia. “We sent Jenny away to stop something bad happening to her.”
“Tell me about your experience of Broken Ridge,” Lock asked.
Patricia shrugged. The dogs at her feet stirred a little before settling themselves again. “They said all the right things. All the things that people in our position wanted to hear.”
“Which were?”
“That we’d made the right decision by contacting them. That they’d dealt with far worse situations. That they could turn Jenny around. That they could get her back on track. Everything we wanted, they promised. So, we remortgaged our home and drove her there ourselves.” Patricia put down her glass of wine on a side table. “She cried the whole way. Told us she’d behave. It was the hardest thing I ever did, leaving her there.” She stopped to correct herself. “Second hardest.”
Lock guessed that burying her daughter took the number-one spot. Not that he needed to ask or that she needed to say it out loud.
“That was part of the reason we moved out here. So we could be closer to her after she died. Does that sound crazy?”
He shook his head. “No. It sounds human.”
She was close to tears now. Much more wine and Lock wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to get out of her before she broke down entirely. “Can I ask you what you think happened to your daughter?”
She looked up at him. The tears began to dissolve, evaporating in anger. “I think they killed her.”
“You mean drove her to kill herself?” Lock said.
“No. I think she was murdered, and they tried to make it look like suicide.”
44
Gretchen pushed open the door, and walked into the room. Her hands were already slick with sweat. But she couldn’t be at rest until she had done this. She had to know.
It was too much of a coincidence. Or was it? All she knew was that she couldn’t risk having a spy in their midst. Not right now.
She had made a promise to her father before he died that she would continue his good work. That she wouldn’t allow anything, or anyone, to disrupt what he had started. He had warned her then of dark forces who would try to do just that. He had been right. They would.
Gently, so it didn’t make a noise, she closed the door behind her. She took a deep breath. How would she explain being there if someone walked in? She’d think of something. She could tell them she wanted to make sure everything was as it should be. That their newest member of staff had everything he needed. Yes, that would work.
She crossed quickly to the other side of the room. She bent down, and opened the bag. All the while she listened for footfalls beyond the door.
It was quiet. Everyone was either in class or finishing lunch. That was where he would be. As long as she was quick no one would suspect a thing. And what was wrong with what she was doing anyway? It was in the best interests of everyone to make sure they weren’t harboring a troublemaker.
Her hand slid inside the bag, pushing away the clothes that lay neatly folded on top. She touched something hard. Plastic. A box of some kind.
Her breath caught in her throat as she lifted it out and laid it on the floor. It was locked. But she knew what was inside. She wasn’t stupid.
She placed it back in the bag. She placed the clothes on top. She opened one of the side pockets, and peered inside.
More evidence.
Her instinct had been right.
The question now was how best to handle this. Confront him with what she’d found? Call the sheriff? Terminate his employment?
None of those seemed satisfactory. Someone coming here to spy on them deserved to be punished. To be made an example of so that perhaps in future anyone else would think twice.
She had dealt with troublemakers before. Pushing them out often caused more problems. They went to the press. They agitated. They told lies and made up stories.
No, she would bide her time. She would watch the watcher.
She started at the sound of someone outside in the corridor. Quickly, she closed the side pocket, and stood up.
Whoever was outside walked past. The box she’d found troubled her. It meant that whoever this was meant business. She knew what she had to do. She would take it with her. See if they challenged her when they noticed it was gone.
She went back to the bag. Her hand reached inside, feeling for the car
ry handle.
45
Ty figured he had about twenty minutes of free time between finishing lunch and being back in the dorm classroom to supervise the boys’ study. Enough time to go check out the barn.
He got up from the table where he’d been sitting with the boys from his dorm. Chris saw him, and stood up too. “Hey, how you finding it so far?” he asked Ty.
“Good,” said Ty, trying to close the conversation down. He dumped his tray on one of the metal racks, and headed for the door. Chris followed him. It was like having a shadow.
“You got a minute or two? I wanted to ask you a couple of things about being in the Marine Corps.”
“I’m kind of busy now, Chris. Catch you after dinner?”
“Sure, sure. It’s no biggie.”
Ty strode past him and out of the dining hall. He headed down the corridor, pushed open the door and emerged into the bright sunshine. He hung a left, skirting around the outside of the building, and started toward the barn.
He was taking a risk. If he was seen, it would appear suspicious. Especially as he had already run down to the road to make a call earlier in the day.
If anyone asked him about it, he would blame his natural curiosity. He was pretty sure that Chris would buy that. Chris would probably buy any line that Ty fed him. As long as he was back in time to take care of his duties, he didn’t see why there should be a problem.
About two hundred yards from the dining hall he heard someone calling after him. “Hey! Wait up!”
He turned to see Rachel. She was carrying a couple of canvas shopping bags and heading toward him. He stopped to allow her to catch up. “Where you headed?” she asked him.
He noticed that she was wearing makeup. A smear of lipstick and some eyeliner. He was fairly certain the girls were prohibited from having makeup in their possession, never mind putting it on. “Just stretching my legs,” he said. “You?”
She held up the bags. “Taking Ruth and Mary some lunch. Want to come with me?”
The perfect alibi. Ty smiled. “Sure, I can do that.”
They began walking. “You want me to carry those?” he asked her.
“Thanks.” Rachel beamed. “You’re probably a lot stronger than me.”
There was a vibe off her that made him uncomfortable. It was the way she looked at him. He wouldn’t have minded if she’d been ten years older. But she wasn’t. She was still a kid, whether she realized it or not.
Ty took the bags, and kept moving. She struggled to keep pace with him. That was the idea. It was more difficult to bat your eyelids at someone if you had to run to keep pace with them.
“So, Mr. Cross? You married?”
Oh, boy, thought Ty. This kid is something else. “Nope.”
“Girlfriend?”
Ty stopped and turned toward her. “You think you should be asking me personal questions like this?”
“Just being polite,” said Rachel, the picture of innocence.
“Uh-huh.”
“I dated a black guy back in high school,” she said.
Now Ty was really uncomfortable. “Excuse me?”
Her face flushed crimson. “Just saying. I’m not prejudiced.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“He was older too,” she added.
Ty put the bags on the ground. “Cut it out. For one thing, I’m old enough to be your father. For another, I work here, and you’re a student. Which makes this an entirely inappropriate conversation.”
“Maybe you should tell Chris that.”
“Tell him what?”
“About me being a student and it being inappropriate.”
For a second Ty wasn’t sure how to respond. Had she just told him she was sleeping with Chris?
“Although the way he’s been looking at you since you arrived,” she went on, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, “maybe I have competition. Although I can definitely see the attraction.”
Ty let go of one of the bags. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “Cut this shit out right now. You hear me?”
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
He wasn’t holding her wrist that tightly. It would be uncomfortable, but no more than that. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“Yes,” she said.
He kept hold.
“I understand.”
He let go of her wrist, and picked up the bag again. “I’ll drop these off. Why don’t you get back to class, or whatever it is you have next?”
She dug into her pocket. “You’ll need this.” She handed him a key attached to a small brass fob.
She was staring at the ground. Ty felt bad for her. He didn’t know what had happened to this kid to make her act out like she just had, but something had. Something that wasn’t good. “Go on,” he said. “I’m not going to say anything about this.”
She looked up. She was close to tears. She gave a little nod, all her bravado stripped away. “Thanks.”
She started to walk away. “Hey!” Ty called her back. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her.
He wasn’t sure, because the sun was behind her, but he thought she gave him a smile that looked like the first honest expression that had passed across her face in a long time.
46
Ty couldn’t believe that anyone, least of all a school for teenagers with problems, would think it a good idea to place two teenage girls in a barn with no supervision, then lock the door. What if there was a fire or some other kind of emergency? It went beyond irresponsible. It was downright dangerous. Not to mention what had happened before in this barn, with a girl hanging herself.
He pulled off the padlock, and yanked the barn door open. He called out to the two girls inside. “Hey!”
When there was no immediate response, he walked in.
After the blinding sunshine, it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. The place was a mess. He wouldn’t have locked a dog in there, never mind a couple of kids.
He glanced over as someone moved to his right-hand side. It was Mary. She walked out of the darkness like a ghost. Her skin was pale, her face drained of color, and her expression was blank. Ruth appeared from behind her. She at least looked normal.
Ty held up the bags. “I brought you lunch.”
Mary didn’t even look at them. She walked past him, over to the dirty mattresses that were dumped in a corner, and lay down.
Ruth came up to him, and took the bags. “Thank you. We have some stuff that maybe you could take away. Mary wasn’t hungry, and I don’t want to leave stale food in here.”
“Sure,” said Ty. “Pack it up, and I’ll take it with me.”
Ruth went to the other side of the barn, and began unpacking what he’d brought.
“I’m the new member of staff,” Ty said.
Neither girl said anything to that. Ty read it as fear. He could appear intimidating at the best of times. They didn’t know him. And, on top of all that, they had good reason to be fearful of the staff here. After all, they’d just been locked in a barn for nothing. Ty had learned over the years that if you wanted to establish trust with another person, or an animal for that matter, you did it by actions, not words. Anyone who told another person to trust them tended to come off like a used-car salesman. He walked over to where Ruth was, and began to help her. Mary stayed where she was, mute and withdrawn. After a few minutes, he asked Ruth: “Is she okay?”
Ruth shook her head. “This is the worst I’ve seen her.”
“I’m going to try to speak to someone. See if I can’t persuade them to let you guys out of here.”
Ruth’s expression was one of genuine shock.
Ty didn’t blame her. All she had experienced from adults since she’d been taken from her home was harsh treatment and betrayal. She probably sensed some kind of a trap. “I can’t promise anything,” he continued, “but I’ll do my best.”
Ruth started as the barn door creaked loudly on unoiled hinges. C
hris walked in. “There you are. Rachel told me you were down here.”
This time it was Ty’s decision to remain silent. Inside he was churning with rage. How could anyone think this was a good idea? This was the way you might treat an enemy, not a couple of kids who hadn’t actually, as far as Ty could see, done anything wrong.
Chris headed over to them. He glanced at Mary. “What’s her problem?” he said.
All Ty wanted to do right now was send the two girls out, and have them lock him in the barn with Chris for five minutes. See how much of a tough guy he’d be when faced with a grown adult. That was what he wanted to do. But he knew he couldn’t. He had to keep playing the role he’d been assigned.
* * *
The barn door padlocked shut, Ty walked with Chris back up toward the dorm buildings. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up. When Lock had asked him to go in under cover, he’d anticipated none of this. He’d known the regime at Broken Ridge would be harsh. He hadn’t seen anything wrong with that. What he hadn’t anticipated was the sadism he’d encountered.
“The barn always gets them,” said Chris, with a smile. “They might go in there all defiant but they come out like little lambs.”
Or dead, thought Ty.
47
On the drive back, Lock turned over in his mind what he’d been told. Did he believe Jennifer’s mother? Had her daughter been murdered—presumably, by someone at Broken Ridge? Or had she killed herself? Apart from inside a courtroom, was there even that much of a difference, given the circumstances of what had happened? In juvenile detention centers, in jails, in prisons, there were strict protocols for anyone who was suspected of having a mental-health problem. Even the hint of someone being a suicide risk and they were closely monitored, not locked away in an outbuilding with no supervision.
The outcome had been the same. Jennifer was gone, leaving behind a shattered family.
But if she had been murdered, it had been covered up. And a murder wasn’t an easy event to cover up. It involved a lot of people either helping or, at the very least, turning a blind eye. Either way, with Ruth Price inside Broken Ridge, it was bad news.