The Treehouse

by Andrew J Brandt

  A few rows in front of him, he could see Tyler and his parents. Elijah, his mom and little sister were standing in the back somewhere. Almost as if he could sense Lucas looking at him, Tyler turned around and locked eyes with Lucas. Tyler gave him a slight head nod and Lucas raised his hand to say hello.

  He hadn’t seen Tyler in a couple of days. The day Ariel’s body was found, Stephanie Beaker drove back to Henderson from Houston. His dad still had to work, but carpooled back to town with someone else from their firm the next day. The last seventy-two hours had been a whirlwind and a blur. When the girl’s death was ruled a homicide, and no leads or suspects, most parents feared the worst.

  Couple the paranoia of a possible murderer on the loose with the fact that some madman had tried to run over Lucas over the weekend, and he was on, what felt like to him, house arrest.

  Allison had stayed holed up in her room as well, and Lucas assumed the death of her classmate hit his sister hard emotionally. He couldn’t imagine someone he went to school with being murdered.

  He also felt a tinge of guilt. Sitting here, listening to the eulogy and memorial of the girl’s life, he felt like he could have done something sooner. He wondered if the murderer would have or could have been caught by now had he and his friends spoken up about what they’d seen out in the woods that first night.

  No one, including the police, had quite put together that the man in the black car that had chased him down Dogwood Lane was very possibly the same man that had put Ariana in the trunk of that same car and had buried her in the forest near the now-destroyed treehouse.

  There was some local gossip and speculation about the treehouse as well; Lucas overheard his mom talking with one of her friends about possible drug gangs out in the woods and the treehouse was a remnant of their workings. He had managed to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. As far as he could tell, neither his parents nor anyone else deduced that the treehouse was actually the product of the labor of three eleven-year-old boys who just wanted a place to hang out.

  Pastor Daniel finished his remarks and asked everyone to stand and sing “Amazing Grace” before they were dismissed. Lucas stood with his family and mouthed the words. Finally, the Perez family were ushered out before the rest of the attendees. The high school chorus continued to sing Amazing Grace as everyone filed out the event center and into the parking lot.

  The Beaker family made their way to Bobby’s charcoal Toyota Tacoma, Lucas and Allison sliding into the double cab’s backseat.

  “That was so sad,” Stephanie Beaker said. She looked back at her children. “I pray every day that nothing happens to either of you. I just don’t know what I’d do.”

  “We’re fine, mom,” Lucas said. “Nothing’s going to happen to us.”

  “You don’t know that,” Allison retorted, almost rudely. She caught herself, noticing the tone with which she said that. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe she’s gone.” Allison looked out the window, watching the cars zipper out of the community center parking lot and into Kilgore Drive.

  To lighten the mood, Bobby asked everyone what they’d like for dinner. He offered to cook on the grill and that they’d eat dinner on the patio, given the warm weather. After some consideration, they decided on grilled salmon steaks.

  As they waited for their turn to leave the parking lot, talking about dinner and dessert, they never noticed the black Ford across the street, carefully concealed from the main strip behind a dilapidated 7-11 convenience store. And they certainly didn't see the man behind the car’s driver seat watching the Beaker family leave the event center.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wednesday March 19 | 9:49pm

  AFTER DINNER, ALLISON retreated to her bedroom, turned on Netflix and plopped down on her bed. She pulled her phone out of the waistband of her pants and thumbed out a message to Brandon. I miss you.

  She hadn’t seen him since Sunday, when he came over to warn her about the note left on his windshield. Her parents, being protective and worried, had not let neither her nor Lucas out of their sight since their mom returned early from Houston.

  Three bubbles came up on her phone screen, signifying a response from Brandon, but they disappeared with no message. She typed again What’s wrong? and sent it.

  Her phone buzzed to announce an incoming call. It was Brandon, his face popping up on the screen. She put in her Airpods and answered. “Hello?” she said.

  “Hey babe.” He sounded nervous. “Listen, there’s no easy way to do or say this, but…” he trailed off.

  Allison knew where this was going, and she didn’t like it. “You’re breaking up with me? Over the phone?” She remembered to keep her voice down, but she was heated.

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t do this. With everything happening around us, and with what we saw. I don’t know. We should have never been out that night, and I hate having to sneak around with you.”

  “You said you loved me just a few days ago, Brandon.” Her voice was tense. “You slept with me, just the other night!”

  “I know. I do love you. But we just can’t do this right now. It’s just too much.” He apologized again.

  “I guess I’ll see you back at school next week,” she said. “Bye.” She ended the call.

  Allison felt selfish. She wanted it all. She wanted the boyfriend and she wanted to be able to do what she wanted, without having to do it behind her parents’ back. She wanted to have the life that she felt her friends had. Amilyn was allowed to go to San Antonio with her older sister, but she couldn’t as much as walk down the park without having to announce it to the whole house.

  As she thought about all this, she also understood Brandon’s reasoning. It was too much, and they were both a little freaked out right now. She just didn’t have anyone else to talk to about the entire ordeal. She wanted comfort and she wanted independence, and neither were within reach. She felt trapped in her head and her room.

  There was a knock at her door. “Come in,” she said.

  The door cracked open. It was Lucas. “I was wondering if you had an extra phone charger. I think I left mine at Tyler’s house.”

  “I think so,” she got up off the bed and went to her computer desk. She pulled out the center drawer, rifling around until she found the cord. “Here you go,” she said, holding it out.

  He took it from her outstretched hand. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look sad.”

  “Eh, I’ll be fine. Just a sad day, you know?” She sat down on her computer chair. “What about you? Did you really see them put her body in the ambulance?”

  Lucas sighed, and Allison felt a tinge of remorse in asking him the question. “Yeah, we did. I was with Elijah and Tyler. We were out looking -” he stopped himself.

  “Looking? For what?”

  Lucas sat down at the foot of his sister’s bed, his feet dangling over the edge. He sank into the fullness of her comforter. “Can I tell you something?” His face was serious. It was obvious to her that Lucas was holding something in.

  “You know you can trust me,” she said.

  “Okay, do you remember when me and Lucas and Elijah were going to build that treehouse, out in the woods?”

  “Yes, of course. I drove you to Ace to buy the nails.” She remembered that trip to the hardware store like it was yesterday. After school one day back in January, he had asked her to take him to buy nails and screws for a “project.” When she finally coaxed the information out of him that it was a secret treehouse, she promised to keep it from their parents, as long as he ponied up thirty dollars, which he paid. What he didn’t know was she had put the money back in his bedside table drawer that same evening.

  “Well, we finished it last week, and we had the idea to spend the night in it. So, Friday night, we were out there.” Tears welled up in his eyes. He looked away and wiped them with the sleeve of his navy-blue Henderson Lions t-shirt. He took a deep breath, holding back the tears. “We were out there, and we heard this noise outside, like so
meone walking through the woods. And we saw him. We saw a guy carry that body out there. And we watched him bury her.”

  Allison’s jaw dropped; her eyes wide with disbelief. Lucas was crying now, tears streaming down his face. She held her arms out and he hopped off the bed and embraced her.

  “And now the bad guy is chasing us,” he said in between sobs. “We decided to go after him, to see if we could find him to call the cops and let them know where he was. So we were riding around Monday morning when we heard the sirens. We thought maybe they’d caught him. But instead they’d found the body.”

  “So you think he saw you, up in the treehouse?” she asked. Lucas released her from the hug. She reached up and wiped the tears from his cheek.

  “I don’t know how, but yeah,” he said. “And then the other night, I know that was him chasing me down the road. The police think it was just some kid playing a mean trick, but it was him. I know it.”

  Allison couldn’t bring herself to admit to him that she knew it as well. She couldn’t tell him that she, too, saw that man that same night, tossing Ariel’s body into the trunk of that same black car.

  She did have an idea, however.

  “I believe you,” she said. She stood up from the chair and put her hands on her brother’s shoulders. “Tomorrow, we are going to go look for him ourselves.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Thursday March 20 | 1:20pm

  “MOM, CAN WE go to the movies? Please?” Lucas pleaded to his mother, who was working at her computer in the office.

  The Beaker house was a four bedroom, with the master suite at the end of the hallway. Across from it, the Beakers converted the unused bedroom into an office, where both Stephanie and Bobby had workstations set up on opposite walls. They had ripped out the carpet, installed vinyl planking and painted the walls white. Bobby’s work area, which was a wall-length drafting table, was covered in building plans and schematics. He had a television that he used as a computer monitor mounted on the wall above this. Mrs. Beaker’s work area, on the other hand, was vibrant yet tidy. Beside the iMac on her wooden desk, she had a small round glass vase that held three yellow roses that her husband had harvested from the rose bush beside their front porch and an award for “2018 Realtor of the Year”.

  She looked up from the computer screen. “Who’s we?” she inquired.

  “Me and Allison,” he said.

  Stephanie Beaker took off her reading glasses. “I don’t know if I want you guys going out by yourselves right now,” she said.

  “Oh, come on, mom,” the boy whined. “We both have phones. We’ll be fine. We just want to get out for a little bit. We’ve been cooped up in here for three days! I can’t breathe!” Lucas grabbed at his throat with both hands and dropped to the ground, playfully writhing around while pretending to suffocate.

  “Fine, fine,” she relented. “But y’all come home right after the movie, please.”

  He popped up off the ground and hugged his mom. “Thanks mom. I love you!” He ran out of the room and into Allison’s. Lucas shut the door behind him.

  “She said yes,” he said, beaming. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Today we can just cruise around and see if we see anything suspicious.” Allison pulled out her phone and opened Maps. She pinch-zoomed onto their neighborhood. Lucas leaned in to look at the screen over her shoulder. “So, we live here,” she said, pointing at the lines on the screen. “Ariel lived over here. And over here,” she dragged the map with her finger, “is the area of the woods where they found her. So, I say we drive around some of the neighborhoods off Kilgore and just look around.”

  “What do we do if we see the car?”

  “We can call it in to the cops. You could even call Tyler’s dad and tell him we saw the car that chased you down the other evening. They should at least send an officer over,” Allison said. “They might even find Ariel’s DNA in the trunk.”

  Lucas looked at her puzzled, and Allison realized her slip of the tongue. “How do you know he had her in the trunk?” he asked.

  “Haven’t you ever seen CSI? That’s where they always put the body. Duh.” She rolled her eyes like this was common knowledge but was relieved to brush off the question without any further interrogation.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Lucas said. “Let’s go CSI this guy!”

  ◆◆◆

  Lucas sat in the passenger seat of his sister’s Jeep Liberty, the gray canvas seat cover tearing at the seams underneath his legs. The vehicle was a hand-me-down from their parents, who gave it to Allison when their mom bought her Lexus, and Lucas assumed that it would be his in a few years – given that the engine would hold up for five more years.

  Allison had her phone plugged into the aux cable and the radio up with the rock band The Maine playing over the sound system.

  “Can we stop at 7-11? I want a Slurpee,” Lucas said over the music.

  “Sure,” she said as they pulled out onto Kilgore Drive. The main street in town, Kilgore Drive, bisected the town on the north-south axis. Nearly every business lined both sides of the street. “Keep your eyes peeled. You never know when we may see this guy.”

  Lucas kept his gaze out the passenger’s side window, trying to take into account every vehicle in every parking lot as they drove past. None of them looked like the black Ford they were on the hunt for.

  They pulled into the convenience store. On the front door of the establishment, the memorial service announcement for Ariel still hung, taped to the full glass panel. The girl’s smiling face with the words “In loving memory” were printed on the poster. Allison stopped to stare at it before walking in. As many times as she’d seen Ariel at school and in volleyball practice, she now regretted never taking the time to really get to know her.

  Lucas walked past her and opened the door and went straight to the Slurpee machine, pulling a bright red drink into a clear plastic cup. He shoved a red green straw into the top and took a long sip. “I haven’t had one of these in forever,” he said. Allison grabbed a cup for herself and poured a Dr. Pepper from the fountain.

  Up at the front counter to pay for their drinks, the cashier, a hefty middle-aged Hispanic woman with long wavy black hair said, “She used to work here.” She nodded her head to the memorial poster in the door. “You look to be about her age. Did you know Ariel?”

  “I did. We went to school together, on the volleyball team,” Allison said. “I wish I’d known her better.”

  “She was a sweetheart,” the cashier said. “We’re raising money to cover her funeral costs. Would you care to donate?”

  Allison gave the cashier an extra five dollars with her payment for their soft drinks, and she and Lucas left. Driving back onto Kilgore, she told Lucas, “Pull out your phone and open Maps. Let’s go drive around.”

  He did as she requested, and he gave her directions to the first place he thought they should go. Crossing the main road, they went over to the neighborhood where Ariel lived. Allison glanced at the parking area of the park. Feeling guilty, she looked away.

  “Who would want to take her?” Lucas asked. “Like, what kind of person would kill a teenage girl?”

  “Serial killers,” Allison said. “Or rapists. I don’t know. There’s a lot of bad people out in the world, Lucas.”

  Lucas continued scanning out the window. “I know. But I just want to know, what kind of person would do that. And then come after me like that in their car.” He took a sip from his Slurpee. “I don’t feel like he was trying to kidnap me or anything.”

  “Like he was just trying to scare you?” Allison asked. Given the note that was left on Brandon’s car Saturday night, it made sense to her. Whoever this person was, was simply trying to scare them. But why?

  “Yeah,” he said. He looked at her. “He destroyed the treehouse too.” He dropped his head.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Me and Tyler went back out there to see if we’d left anything because we were going to ca
ll the cops, but we didn’t want anyone knowing the treehouse was ours. When we got out there, it was all broken. Like he’d taken a sledgehammer to it.”

  “So what did y’all do?” She felt so sad for her little brother. Even though he’d kept the treehouse secret from their parents, she knew he was proud of the thing that he and his friends built.

  “We ran away. We knew that he’d seen us somehow or something. And then we were too scared to go to the police.”

  As he was talking, blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror. “Oh no,” Allison said. She pulled over to the side of the road and rolled down her window.

  The officer came up to the driver’s side. “Hey there. I’m Officer Sullivan with the Henderson Police Department.” Allison recognized him from her conversation with him on Saturday morning. “I’ve stopped you because you didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign back there.”

  Allison hadn’t even noticed a stop sign. “I’m sorry, Officer,” she said.

  “Hey, you’re the girl from the park last weekend, right? You had a golden retriever?” He flashed a smile.

  “Yes I am. You remember?” She fished for her license in her purse.

  “Of course I do. Actually, we went to school together. I graduated a couple of years ago. I was a senior when you were a freshman. Ryan Sullivan.”

  “Oh yeah!” Allison said, suddenly remembering him. He’d grown a little stockier since he was in high school, and probably put on another inch or two in height. They ran in different circles, but in a school as small as Henderson High, everyone was at least acquainted with everyone else.

  “You played football, right?” she asked.

  “Yes I did. Got a scholarship to TCU, but decided college wasn’t for me. Went to the academy and here I am. Serving and protecting.”