Gone Dark

by C. J. Lyons

  “It’s a crime scene, Cherish,” he told me, his words slow enough for me to finally grasp. “You understand that, right?”

  The smells and the throbbing in my head—from the booze or the rain pounding on the metal roof, I wasn’t sure—the feel of half-dried blood, the chill of my wet clothes, the sight of blood slipping across the concrete floor to the drain, the bright yellow tarp turning Hank’s body into an anonymous alien blob, the men in their firefighting gear all staring at me… I opened my mouth, wanting to scream, wanting to run, to hide, to leave this horror behind.

  I did none of that. Instead, I did what I always did: remained silent and pushed myself deep into the shadows, hoping no one would notice me. Fading into nothing was always my best defense, one I’d learned after my dad left to go to war, when it was just me and Mom and her new “friends.” I clamped my lips tight, throttling my screams, and huddled in the corner, making myself small, my eyes cast down like a wild animal caught in a trap, hoping that if I couldn’t see them, they wouldn’t see me.

  After my dad went to war, when we still lived in the cabin—before it burned down and the police told us all the land was now forever contaminated because of the chemicals and they’d sent me to live with Gran—I’d used the skills Dad taught me when we went hunting to learn how to become invisible. The art of camouflage and silence.

  I’d pushed my bed into the corner beneath the window, leaving only enough space for a skinny girl to slip between the mattress and the wall and vanish the instant the door opened and the light switched on. The area beneath the bed was filled with a carefully constructed obstacle course of toys and books designed to distract someone flying high on crystal while I hid, curled up in Dad’s old sleeping bag, becoming part of the discarded debris of childhood. If it was warm enough, I’d change into tomorrow’s school clothes, slip outside, and sleep in the woods until it was time to run for the bus. The wild animals of the forest felt far less dangerous than the wild men my mother invited into our home.

  Tonight there was no escaping into the forest. I was trapped in a cinderblock cage, held captive by men who’d known me my entire life. The same men who’d been there to rake through the ashes of our cabin, who’d transported my mom and her friends to the burn center in Chattanooga, who’d then looked on me with pity. But there was no pity tonight. Not for me. Tonight their expressions were the same they’d showered on my mom after the fire: disgust and anger, barely hidden behind masks of bland, self-righteous superiority.

  Then the front door banged open, its metal colliding with the cinderblock wall so furiously I swear I saw sparks fly. Two men stepped inside, plastic coating their Smokey Bear hats, rain puddling in the creases. One was wearing a bright yellow slicker, its flap shoved back behind the holster of his gun. The other, the one leading the way, had no protection from the storm, yet his khaki uniform wasn’t wet at all. His fierce expression implied it was because mere raindrops would never dare to defy him.

  “We got it, boys,” he told the firemen.

  They filed out, and my old teacher paused at the threshold to talk with the second deputy for a moment. Then the office was empty except for the two deputies at the door and me in the farthest corner, Hank’s body lying between us. The second deputy closed the door, and a hollow silence thudded between us, a silence that contained my entire life within its steel-knuckled grasp.

  “Jasper, start documenting the scene,” khaki deputy told his rain-slicker partner. “And for God’s sake, don’t contaminate it any more than it already has been.”

  Jasper nodded and pulled out a small disposable camera and began snapping pictures. On TV they would have had a special crime scene photographer with video and lasers and infrared and everything else fancy equipment. Not here. Craven County may be large, geographically, extending out to the Tennessee/North Carolina border and all the way south to Georgia, with the Nantahala National Forest spilling past our eastern boundaries, but tax base-wise, it’s tiny, with barely enough money to keep the schools—two elementary, one middle, and one high school—and other essential services running.

  Jasper reached me and stopped. “What about her?”

  Khaki deputy drew close enough that I could read his brightly polished name tag—Warren. The way he moved, his posture, his gaze that never stopped searching for hidden dangers, reminded me of my dad. Warren had also been a soldier, I’d bet anything. It was in his eyes. Now those eyes came to focus on me. And they did not like what they saw.

  “She’s evidence. Document what you can, then I’ll take her to the station and do the rest.”

  Thunder rumbled, shaking the tin roof. Jasper jumped, his fingers clenching so that he took a picture of his own boot while almost dropping the camera. “You know what they used to use this place for?” he asked. “Maybe we should take her down to the station first, take the pictures there.”

  “Afraid of butchered cow ghosts?” Warren chuckled. “Or is it the rumors of all the revenue men and other carpetbaggers disposed of around here?” He took the camera, ratcheted the small plastic wheel, and clicked the button, the flash blaring in my face, over and over, walking a full circle around me until he was satisfied. “That’ll do for now. We’ll document any injuries and the rest at the station.”

  “She’s a minor. Reeks of alcohol. We should take her to the hospital for a tox screen.”

  Warren pushed his face inches away from mine. I’m not sure how, but I managed to meet his gaze. It was like staring into a mineshaft—dark and empty.

  “Seems sober enough to me. What do you say?” He still didn’t call me by name, as if I didn’t deserve one. “Want to go to the hospital? Get checked out? Pull the doctors trying to save your friend’s life away from him? Meet his family, tell them what went on here, how their other son is lying dead in the dirt?”

  I cringed and shook my head. The thought of seeing Jack and Hank’s parents almost had me retching again.

  “Thought so.” He took my arm, spun me around, and before I could look back to see what he was doing, two metal bracelets snapped around my wrists. The handcuffs were tight; they pinched my skin and rubbed against knobby wrist bones and the scars snaking along my forearms, but the pain was nothing to the crushing realization that this wasn’t a nightmare I’d wake up from or a midnight fear I could hide from.

  As we trudged past Hank’s body, Jasper opened the door for us. The wind fluttered the yellow tarp, raising one corner of the makeshift shroud. Hank stared up at me, and his eyes didn’t seem empty at all. Instead they blazed white-hot hatred. At me.

  Chapter Five

  Lucy’s team had their working space on the mansion’s second floor in a converted bedroom suite. TK O’Connor was already there, telling Wash, their tech analyst, a story from her days as a Marine MP. She told those stories a lot—usually tales of fresh recruits far from home, their good judgment obliterated by alcohol—but Lucy had noticed that although TK made the situations sound funny, the stories were more about universal human foibles than making fun of her fellow Marines.

  She’d also noticed that TK never told stories about her other duties, when she served on a Female Engagement Team, going on front-line missions with special ops squads. TK had won medals and citations for those missions, had been caught in firefights and close quarters combat situations, had saved lives and taken lives and risked her own more than once; but whenever asked, she’d merely shake her blonde curls, making her look like a teenager instead of the mid-twenties woman she was, hiding her eyes along with their haunted expression, and change the subject.

  Lucy knew from first-hand experience that talking helped—of course, it was easy for her since she had Nick to listen to her—and occasionally worried about TK. When she’d first met the former Marine, TK had been living in a barren room that resembled nothing more than a monastery cell. During these past few months TK had emerged from her self-imposed exile, moving into Valencia’s gatehouse, enrolling in college courses, and starting counseling at the VA. S
he’d also met a guy, David Ruiz, and even though they were juggling a long-distance romance and David had issues of his own, Lucy could tell they were good together. Solid.

  TK came to the punch line. “So of course we confiscated the pig and put it in the cell right beside him.”

  “And then what?” Wash asked. “Did the pig get convicted?”

  “Sentenced to death—best barbeque we had all summer.”

  Wash laughed, his wheelchair bouncing. He was the youngest of the team, only in his early twenties, but in many ways they couldn’t function without him. Not only were his cyber-skills and tenacity invaluable, but Wash could also look at a problem differently than the rest of them, seeing all sides, analyzing and probing until he found a way to crack it. After a drive-by shooting when he was twelve had left him paralyzed from the waist down, he’d had way too much experience cracking problems and removing obstacles.

  Megan could learn a lot from both Wash and TK. “Where’s Tommy?” Lucy asked. Tommy Worth was the final member of her team, a former pediatric ER physician and victim’s advocate who’d joined the Beacon Group to provide medical expertise and also so he could have the regular hours he needed to raise his daughter after his wife’s murder. “Megan is joining us today and I’d love for you all to maybe let her know it’s not cool to get drunk at parties in the middle of nowhere with older kids around.”

  They glanced up at her. “Of course it’s cool,” TK said. “It’s just not smart.”

  “Tommy’s on vacation,” Wash put in, answering her original question. “Gone all week.”

  “Right. I forgot.” Lucy took her seat at the antique dining room table that served as their work area. “Valencia is giving Megan a tour, but she thought this case might be a good one to serve as a life lesson.”

  “Lucy, seriously. If she was that drunk, then the hangover and embarrassment are lesson enough.” TK moved to take her own seat across from Lucy. “Trust me. Been there, done that.”

  “You didn’t see the guys there. Most of them Megan’s known for years, but get a little beer in them and they turn into—” Lucy broke off, the image of the boy she’d found with Megan last night haunting her.

  “They turn into guys,” Wash supplied. “Young, stupid, and horny. I’m sure nothing would have happened. And not all guys are like that, like the men you used to chase after when you were in the FBI. There are good guys out there as well.”

  “They seemed in short supply last night. At least when I got there.”

  TK and Wash exchanged a glance. “You crashed the party?”

  “What was I supposed to do? She was out past her curfew, not answering her phone—of course I crashed it. And I called the cops.”

  TK shook her head as if Lucy had done the unimaginable. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. So not cool. I’ll talk with Megan and try to convince her to forgive you.”

  “Wait until you have kids,” Lucy snapped, tired of being treated like the bad guy.

  Wash snorted a laugh at that. Both women turned to stare at him. “What?” Lucy asked.

  “Nothing.” He swept his hand over his mouth, trying to sober up but then chuckled again. “Sorry. Just picturing TK with kids. Pregnant, waddling around, chasing after a bunch of rug rats, shouting orders at them like a drill sergeant.”

  “I’d make a damned fine mother,” TK retorted.

  “Yeah, I’ll put you down for khaki and camo diapers on your baby registry.” He snickered despite TK’s glare.

  A knock at the door interrupted them. “Excuse me, the receptionist said to come up,” said a man in his late twenties to early thirties, in a refined southern drawl that was slightly less pronounced than TK’s West Virginia accent. “I’m JH McCabe, from Justice for Youth.”

  Lucy sprang to her feet. “Mr. McCabe, of course. You’re early. Please, have a seat.”

  McCabe joined them, swinging a black attaché case onto the antique table with such force that Lucy feared its Queen Anne legs would buckle. He was dressed in a conservative navy suit with strictly tailored lines, a crisp white shirt that even the July heat and humidity hadn’t dared to wrinkle, and a bold red tie, the kind advertised as a “power” accessory. The attaché case was polished like new and its lock opened with a satisfying snap of brass on brass.

  “Thank you,” he said, finally sitting down, the open briefcase angled so he could reach its contents at a moment’s notice. He withdrew a shiny silver card case from his breast pocket and dealt each of them one of his business cards, his movements rigid and precise. “As you know, this case has been an extremely frustrating one. Miscarriage after miscarriage of justice multiplied and compounded through the years.” He sounded as if he were giving a jury summation. “With one child paying the price.”

  Wash and TK nodded—of course, they hadn’t been gallivanting about the countryside searching for their wayward daughter last night. Instead, they’d been reading the case materials like Lucy should have been. She leaned forward, her hands clasped together on the table in an earnest fashion. “Please, Mr. McCabe. Tell us about the case. We’d love to hear it all, in your own words.”

  He blinked, startled. “Isn’t that a waste of time? After so much of it has been lost already?”

  “No, not at all,” she countered, ignoring TK’s smirk as the younger woman realized Lucy had been caught unprepared. “Hearing it from you rather than relying on the distilled notes from the case file will help paint the picture—create context.”

  He considered it, frowned, then said, “Context. Yes. Very well. If it will aid in your efforts to locate Cherish Walker.”

  Wash took his cue and clicked a key on his computer to project a school photo of a teenager with front teeth that overlapped the slightest bit, long brown hair, freckles, and eyes that didn’t rise up to meet the camera. McCabe angled his chair away from the image on the screen at the opposite end of the room, choosing to focus on Lucy and her team.

  “Cherish Anne Walker, age fourteen when taken into custody for the death of Henry Simon Kutler and the attempted murder of his twin brother John Michael Kutler, both aged eighteen.”

  Another photo appeared, this one of twin teens dressed in football uniforms, one kneeling in the classic Heisman pose, the other standing, arm cocked back as if throwing a football.

  “The crime took place in October, 2006 at the Kutler family’s farm. Drugs and alcohol, along with the murder weapon, a .45-caliber semiautomatic Taurus pistol, were found at the scene.” McCabe’s tone was distant, as if the facts he was reciting had nothing to do with the fates of three kids. “When police arrived, Henry Kutler was DOA, killed by a close proximity gunshot to the face and head, while John Kutler had suffered a gunshot to his right eye and was barely conscious. He later recovered, although he lost the eye.”

  “Those are the facts,” Lucy interrupted his dry litany. “But what’s the story behind them? Did the kids know each other? Why was Cherish there? Whose weapon was it?”

  “What about the drugs and alcohol? Who did they belong to?” Wash asked. “Were the kids intoxicated?”

  “Two older guys and a girl,” TK said. “Any evidence of sexual assault?”

  McCabe frowned at them. “It doesn’t matter what happened that night—you can twist the evidence any way you want. John Kutler told the police that Cherish Walker shot him, and when his brother tried to wrestle the gun away from her, she shot and killed Henry. Cherish claimed she was the one trying to get the gun away from Henry after Henry shot his brother. The forensic evidence doesn’t prove or disprove either version. Yet we still have one boy maimed for life and another boy dead.”

  “And the girl blamed for all this has been on the run for over a decade,” Lucy said, skimming through the reports she should have read last night. “After being charged as an adult and escaping custody.” She glanced up. “Surely this is a job for the US Marshals?”

  “They’ve gotten nowhere, and now they’re off the case.”

  “Off the case?” She scrolled down
on her laptop’s screen, only to encounter massive blocks of text filled with legal jargon at the very end of the case file.

  “It’s no longer their jurisdiction,” McCabe explained. “Because in the eyes of the law, Cherish Walker is no longer a fugitive. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent rulings and a review of her case, Justice for Youth was able to get the original charges against her dismissed.”

  TK looked puzzled. “Then why are we here?”

  “We’re here because Cherish Walker has no idea that she’s now free.” McCabe’s tone grew strident, as if he were desperate to convince a jury. “She has no clue that she can return to her life any time she wants. Because no one can find her to tell her that her life is hers once more. She’s gone dark, so deep underground that no one has any idea where to even begin looking. And she’ll stay there, living as a hunted, wanted criminal, hiding in the underworld of society’s shadow, unless you find her.”

  Chapter Six

  Megan’s head cleared as she and Valencia strolled along the bluff. If she looked upriver, she could see all the way to Pittsburgh; glancing the other direction, she could follow the Monongahela as it streamed past farmlands until it vanished around the steep bend leading to the waterfalls. The vista was spectacular, like something out of a movie—an illusion heightened by the pair of hawks soaring overhead and the way the light shimmered in the July humidity. She really could imagine settlers here, working alongside the natives, searching for game in the thick forest surrounding the estate or braving the rapids of the river below.

  “I’ve never seen your mother so frightened,” Valencia said.

  Megan shrugged a shoulder. “I have. And she’s not frightened. More like angry and disappointed. Even though I didn’t do anything.”

  “So you weren’t drinking?”