Gone Dark

by C. J. Lyons

  He leaned over me as I studied the form. “We can’t move forward until we get this sorted. You do want to tell us your side of things, don’t you, Cherish? Make everything right? For everyone?”

  What I wanted was for Hank to be alive and Jack to be fine and my gran and mom to be home safe and sound and for my stomach to stop swishing and swirling and for this night to have never happened. My silence lengthened as I tapped the felt tip pen against one line of the form.

  “You want an attorney?” Warren asked, a whiff of disappointment coloring his tone. “You sure? The county only has two juvenile defenders, so it will take time to get one here—probably not until tomorrow at the earliest. Do you think it’s fair for Mr. and Mrs. Kutler to wait that long to know what happened to their boys? Oh, and the juvenile court judge charges kids for county defenders. Thinks it’s part of their learning to be responsible.”

  I jerked my head up at that. With Gran in the hospital and not working, I’d scrounged all our cash to pay this month’s rent on the trailer. “It says an attorney will be provided free of charge.” They were my first words since we’d arrived, and my voice sounded strange—watery and weak, like the storm had washed most of it away.

  “That’s for adults.” He shrugged. “Juvenile court is a whole different ballgame—the judge has the power to decide whatever he wants.”

  Acid etched my throat as I swallowed, trying to clear my brain enough to do the math. “How much?”

  “For a lawyer? I dunno, probably three-fifty, four hundred.” He sensed my distress and twisted the knife. “Per hour. That’s if you don’t go to trial, of course. And if you’re not charged as an adult. But once you agree to talk to us, we might be able to get this all sorted out without getting the judge or lawyers involved. You know, if it was an accident or something.”

  I wasn’t stupid. I knew he was trying to wear me down, acting like he was on my side, like he thought I was innocent. Even if I was, it was still all my fault—where did that fit into the black and white of the law?

  “So…do you want an attorney? Or do you want to talk? Tell me what happened?”

  It seemed like what I wanted had no place here. It felt so wrong, so very wrong. He stared at me, waiting, his expression urging me to follow his lead like a good little girl. To not give him any trouble, make waves, create complications. My stomach churned, and the iron blood scent made my head reel. My secret weapon had always been my ability to hide in silence. But that obviously wouldn’t work, not here in the glare of the harsh lights reflecting from my white jumpsuit and the metal table. I felt naked and exposed. And out of options.

  I hauled in a breath; it burned and scraped its way down my throat. I knew what I had to do…but could I do it? I signed the form and gave him back the pen. “I want to talk.”

  Chapter Nine

  If TK had to listen to McCabe pontificate on the juvenile justice system for another minute she thought she might just scream. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with the man—she did—but somehow he made every battle fought for the rights of kids sound as dry and dull as dog kibble.

  “Hate to rain on your parade,” TK put in, when he finally paused for breath. “But after all these years, are we even sure she’s still alive?”

  McCabe’s jaw dropped and then clamped shut with an audible clack as he turned to glare at her. “I’m sure. She’s out there. Somewhere.”

  TK exchanged a glance with Lucy. McCabe’s certainty wasn’t exactly inspiring—was he wasting their time?

  Wash, as always, was two steps ahead of everyone else. “I’ve been running Cherish’s vital statistics through NamUs and the Doe Network; also NCMEC and the other missing persons databases. Nothing. If she’s dead, no one has found her remains and entered her into the system.”

  At least enduring McCabe wasn’t for nothing, then. “So,” TK said, before McCabe could continue his legal diatribe, “since juvenile records are sealed, how do we find anyone who might have been at the detention center with Cherish Walker eleven years ago?”

  “You said Craven County was rural; sparsely populated. Did they have more than one juvenile detention center?” Lucy asked McCabe.

  He shook his head. “Just the one. Why?”

  “How about schools? Can you give us the names of the high schools in the county?”

  “There’s only one of those as well. Craven High.”

  Lucy smiled and nodded to Wash. “Yearbooks,” he said, fingers already typing. “Let’s see—yes, they’re online. Searching for anyone with a prolonged absence or who repeated a grade…” He glanced up. “Boys or girls?”

  “Both,” McCabe answered. “They would have been housed at the same facility.”

  TK knew what was coming next—she’d rather deal with the yearbooks than the tedium of personnel records. “Send the links to me and I’ll do it,” she volunteered.

  “Okay. While TK finds us possible fellow detainees, along with classmates and teachers, Wash can start a search for any adults who might have had contact with Cherish while she was in custody—their names should be in her case files.” Lucy glanced at McCabe. “I’m afraid this is where things get pretty boring, Mr. McCabe. Once we gather a list of potential witnesses to talk to, we’ll schedule a trip to Tennessee—”

  “Can’t you just call them? Hurry things along a bit?”

  “We do our initial interviews over the phone, but I’ve found in-person follow-ups are almost always more productive. Besides, it would be good to see where Cherish grew up—it would have informed her choices after she escaped.”

  “We should talk to the survivor, Jack Kutler,” TK put in, as she scanned through smiling faces from the yearbooks. Had she ever been that young? She’d joined the Marines right after high school—had to, as they’d needed the money to pay her mom’s hospital bills, and by then Mom had already been sick for years, leaving a mountain of debt that was crushing her father. No, she was pretty sure her yearbook photos didn’t look as carefree as any of these kids.

  “Why do you need to speak to Jack?” McCabe asked. “Surely that would be inappropriate. Not to mention insensitive and highly intrusive.”

  “We should at least see the crime scene,” TK persisted, mostly just to see what new alliteration he came up with if she continued to irritate him. “Even if our job isn’t to find evidence of Cherish’s innocence, figuring out exactly what happened that night might help us find her.”

  “I don’t see how,” he said firmly. “Besides, all that ground has already been covered. You’d be wasting your time.” By which he meant his time.

  “Is Jack Kutler still living in Craven County?” Lucy asked.

  “No. His parents divorced a year after his brother was killed, and Jack and his mother moved to Nashville.”

  “Maybe it will be enough to speak with his father, and see the crime scene.”

  “I’m really not sure all this is necessary,” McCabe bristled. “It’s not as if Cherish Walker would have ever gone anywhere near Craven County after her escape.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s a starting point.” Lucy scraped her chair back. “I’ll see you out.”

  McCabe looked like he wasn’t going to take the hint. But after a moment’s hesitation he snapped his briefcase shut, spun it to face him, grabbed the handle, and stood. “Very well. I’ll leave things in your hands. But I expect frequent progress reports. If you locate Cherish Walker, you need to contact me immediately. I must be there to explain the legal intricacies of her situation. Do not approach her without me.”

  TK glanced up at the sudden edge in his tone. Lucy did not like outsiders interfering in her cases or trying to give her orders—even if they were the client. But Lucy hid her rancor and simply nodded, saying, “I understand.”

  TK liked the way Lucy had agreed without actually agreeing or promising anything—and without making the situation worse by arguing, which would have been TK’s initial impulse.

  After Lucy and McCabe left, TK kept scanning th
e photos. Wash continued his typing and said, “You know I could import those into a database and make it go a lot faster.”

  “No, thanks. I like doing it the old-fashioned way.” It actually wasn’t that difficult since the website had a search function that allowed her to easily collate the student names by class. “Better than ferreting out work histories.”

  “Bet I’ll finish before you.”

  TK had been on the losing end of Wash’s sucker bets before. “No bet. Besides, what’s the rush?”

  “You didn’t read McCabe’s cover letter?”

  “Tried to, but fell asleep it was so boring. Supreme Court this, Justice Department that, yada yada. I jumped right to the case files.” Justice for Youth had documented not only Cherish’s court battles but also their previous efforts to search for her after law enforcement had failed.

  “He gave us a week—”

  “Only a week? Why the deadline? They’ve been working on her case for years.”

  “Exactly. They’re a nonprofit; they don’t have the funding to keep searching for one client when they could be using that money to fight court cases that could impact hundreds or thousands of kids. They’re trying to change the entire juvenile justice system.”

  He tapped his keyboard, and the projection screen at the end of the room lit up with the Justice for Youth’s website. “Look at the cases they’re working on: abolishing solitary confinement for juveniles, ensuring adequate mental health and addiction treatment, mandating educational standards. And they’ve already helped to abolish life without parole—thanks to that Supreme Court ruling in 2012. Did you know that Pennsylvania had more kids locked up with life sentences than any other state in the country? And before that Supreme Court ruling, that the US was the only country in the entire world that sentenced kids to life without parole? The whole world!”

  “Look who drank the Kool Aid.”

  He bounced the front wheels of his wheelchair against the hardwood floor. “Black kid growing up in Homewood, how many of my friends you think I’ve seen go to jail, do hard time, without anyone giving a shit about their rights, much less if they were actually guilty or not? Maybe they’re not all saints, but I don’t think making one mistake when your brain isn’t even finished maturing should ruin your entire life.”

  “Cherish killed Hank Kutler,” she argued. “And almost killed his brother. That definitely ruined Jack Kutler’s life. Not to mention the rest of his family. Why shouldn’t she have to pay for that?”

  “I’m not saying she shouldn’t. I’m just saying kids deserve a chance at a level playing field. McCabe is right about how the court system grinds kids down. It’s an assembly line, destroying kids’ lives. They can waive their rights without understanding them, they can get a lawyer who might not bother to meet them or even learn their name before their court date, they can get labeled and shuttled into a system that’s all about saving money when it should be about saving lives. Like that judge who actually partnered with a few lawyers to buy a juvenile detection center and then they filled it with kids—many of them innocent—who came through his courtroom. Lining their pockets with kids’ futures. Or what about when the juvenile courts are so overwhelmed they become a revolving door, with kids receiving no services until they really screw up and commit a felony—or are accused of one—and get sent to adult court and real prison? So what good does that do anyone? Entire generations lost to a system that’s meant to serve and protect them.”

  She raised an eyebrow. She’d never seen Wash so passionate about a subject—or so longwinded. “You don’t think we should find her.”

  “No. I mean, yes, but—”

  “You don’t want her to get arrested and retried? Have her day in court?”

  “Look where it got her the first time. Why should things be better now?”

  Her screen filled with an image of Cherish’s final school photo from the start of her freshman year. TK couldn’t help but stare at the hope that brightened the girl’s eyes despite her shy smile. So very different from the haunted desperation of her police booking photo taken only a few weeks later. “I know we’re not getting paid to look into Cherish’s case, but maybe we should? Just to verify things. I mean, who knows, maybe it will give us a lead to where she is now.”

  “McCabe won’t like it.”

  “McCabe can suck an egg.”

  They both laughed, ducked their heads as Lucy returned with her daughter and Valencia, and got to work.

  Chapter Ten

  Vomit dried my hair sticky, and I still stank of blood and death when we arrived at the Craven county juvenile detention center. Being pulled from the biggest crime scene the county had ever seen to ferry me through a raging storm had put Deputy Warren in a foul mood. After the detectives arrived and I repeated my story to them, he hadn’t said a word—not even to ask me if I wanted to clean up or had to use the toilet or maybe needed water to rinse the foul taste from my mouth.

  Now we were sitting in the parking lot of the detention center, a single-story cement and brick building that reminded me of my old middle school. The storm had gotten worse; enough so Warren deigned to put on his rain slicker before we left the sheriff’s station. The rain and wind pummeled the police cruiser, and the flashing lights reflected back to us through the windshield in a washed-out kaleidoscope blur of color. Finally the door to the detention center opened, and an outside light flicked on.

  Warren hopped out, his yellow rain slicker billowing in the gusting wind, and opened my door. He yanked me out, one hand protecting the top of my head since my hands were cuffed behind me, and pulled me down the cracked pavement leading to the door. They’d kept all my clothes at the police station, so I was still wearing the white overalls that were so big I had to hitch them up with my cuffed hands to keep from tripping. Blue elastic booties covered my feet, but they were worse than being barefoot, giving me no traction against the rain-slicked pavement.

  By the time we reached the entrance where a bearded guy in his twenties was waiting, holding the door shut until the very last moment so he wouldn’t risk getting wet, I didn’t need that shower any more. The rain and wind had pretty much scoured me clean.

  We entered a small office with fluorescent lights reflecting off white walls and a dented metal desk. Warren removed my handcuffs and told me to sit on the plastic chair against the wall and wait. The men sat at the desk and talked, at first business stuff, filling out forms and occasionally asking me questions like my gran’s middle name and how much money she made a year and if my mom had ever bothered to sign over legal guardianship to Gran, along with anything else the police didn’t already know.

  Which wasn’t much. Hartfield is a small town, surrounded by farmland on one side and the wilderness that is the Nantahala National Forest on the other. Even though I’d never been in trouble before, Warren was able to tell the detention worker who I was, where I lived, and my family history going back several generations, including the fact that my dad had died in Iraq and my mom had taken off soon after, running away with a meth-dealing biker. He acted like she was already dead.

  Rainwater puddled at my feet. I was cold and scared and still half-drunk. I splashed the puddle with my toe, tracing silly cupid hearts. Hank and Cherish forever…he’d said he liked me, said he wanted to be my boyfriend…guess that wasn’t ever going to happen now. I’d liked him—what girl wouldn’t? But not Jack—he’d scared me, the way he watched without saying a word, his eyes roaming over my body like I belonged to him. As flattered as I was by Hank’s attentions and words, it was Jack’s silence that had made my stomach flutter—and not in a good way.

  Back at the slaughterhouse, when Hank stopped talking long enough to refill my cup—he promised he wasn’t spiking it, but if he hadn’t, then Jack had—Jack sidled up and wrapped his arms around me, sliding one hand inside the back of my jeans, his palm sticky against my skin. He’d whispered things to me that were so horrid I didn’t even hear the words, all I saw were terrible ima
ges filling every crevice of my brain. I’d gotten scared and shoved him, and he tripped over the coffee table, landing on his butt.

  Hank had laughed so hard he sounded like a bull bellowing. I was trembling, trying to figure out how to get home with the storm and no bike, but Hank hugged me, his entire chest pressed so warm against mine, his hands gently teasing my goose-bumped skin, easing up both sides of my throat, tilting my chin until our lips touched… It was my first kiss ever, and I never wanted it to stop. I felt like a fairy-tale princess, and for one brief moment wasn’t sure if my feet were even touching the ground.

  Then Hank let me go. While I was trying to remember how to breathe, my fingers touching my lips, searching for the warmth he’d left behind, he raised a glass to toast Jack’s clumsiness, insisting I drink the whole thing, holding the cup to my lips, his other arm wrapped around me as if we were forever connected, two halves of one body. He made me feel like there was no saying no to him because he had all the right answers, knew everything important in this world, including what was best for me.

  “C’mon, Cherrygirl. You know you’ll love it,” he’d whispered, as he tugged my hair to tilt my head back until the entire red cup was drained. That’s when everything got fuzzy.

  Now in the too-bright intake office, I stopped my toe tapping and tried to concentrate. I didn’t want to remember what came next. But I needed to remember, to understand exactly what had happened. I’d done the best I could with Warren and the detectives, but my story was so scattershot with holes that I could tell they didn’t believe half of what I said. And I needed them to believe.

  “Is Jack okay?” I asked Warren as he stood and shook his rain slicker, ready to leave me here. “Is there a way I can call him?”