by Jill Orr
She rolled up to the bench and put her chair in park using the hand controls. As she turned her hand over, I saw a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist: “26:7.” The bible verse Granddad had written on a scrap of paper. It had been a clue. Tears stung the back of my eyes. If I had only figured it out sooner.
Her eyes came to rest on Coltrane, who stood up immediately and assumed a protective stance. It was obvious he did not like her.
“He remembers me,” she said.
It had been Megan following me the night I saw Ryan taking out his trash. She’d admitted to me later that had Ryan not been outside, she was planning to “have a little chat” with me right there in the street.
“This is Coltrane. If you’re nice to me, he’ll be nice to you,” I said, tightening my grip on his leash.
She laughed, but because she was unable to smile—and because she was a complete psychopath—it sounded all wrong. “You have something for me?”
I nodded. “But first, I want to know why. You owe me that much.”
She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t be trying to record me, now would you, Riley? Get me to confess to all my sins on tape and then take that to your friends in law enforcement?”
“I already have a tape of you confessing to murdering my grandfather,” I said, the words coming out sharp and bitter. “If I wanted to turn that in to the police, I would have already done it.”
In the end, it had been Jay who figured it out. After Tackett died, he’d gone back to his source inside Greensville to try to squeeze out more details about what Tackett had told him. “He just kept calling it his trump card,” Mike the informant told Jay. “Tackett kept saying, ‘The sheriff was guarding his trump card,’ and then he’d get this weird, smug smile on his face, like he was laughing at some private joke.”
“So what does that mean?” I’d asked Jay over coffee one morning at Mysa about a week ago.
“I’ve spent time in a lot of sheriff’s offices, Riley, and there are two things that are a constant in each and every one of them. One is an American flag, and one is—”
“A picture of the President of the United States,” I’d finished his sentence, almost in disbelief. “His Trump card…capital ‘T.’” That sneaky sonofabitch.
I arranged a meeting with Carl offsite under the guise of wanting to talk to him about his upcoming debate with Skipper Hazelrigg, and Jay walked into the office about ten minutes later. He’d done some consulting work for the Tuttle County Sheriff’s Department a while ago, so everyone knew him and knew he worked for the federal government. When he said he’d been tasked with checking the government-issued photographs as a part of the Presidential Image Task Force, Gail didn’t bat an eye. “Have at it,” she’d said. “Just don’t cite us for excessive dust buildup!”
Jay said it had taken him less than two minutes to find the spot on the back of the frame where the paper had been peeled back, locate the jump drive, and put it all back together. The recording was short, but listening to it had been painful. It was a phone conversation between Megan and Tackett on the night Granddad died. Megan called Tackett, told him she’d witnessed Albert Ellison commit suicide, and offered him 10,000 dollars to get over to the house and close the case as quickly as possible.
“What do you care how I handle the case?” Tackett said without reacting at all to the news that a man was dead.
“Albert had something that belonged to me, some unauthorized research. I’ve taken what’s mine from the scene and don’t want anyone to read anything more into that than what it is, so I think an expedited investigation would be best for all parties concerned,” she’d answered.
“You were there when he offed himself?” Tackett asked, a clear challenge in his voice.
“Let’s just say I bore witness.”
“Mmm,” Tackett had said. “Albert Ellison’s a pretty happy guy as far as I’ve ever known. Seems awful out of character for a guy like that to shoot himself. Oh, and he doesn’t own a gun. See, as the Sheriff I remember that sort of thing about my constituents.” He was threatening her, ever so subtly letting her know he knew she was lying.
“Would 15,000 help you forget, Sheriff?” Megan hadn’t exactly confessed to the murder, but there was enough there to open an investigation.
Megan’s voice brought me back to the moment. She nodded at Coltrane and said, “Just like you have your guard dog here, I have mine. And if you were to somehow get me arrested or have Cujo here eat me alive, he has been instructed to carry out my very specific, well-thought-out, and unpleasant plans for your friends and family.”
“Yeah, you’ve been clear about that,” I said through gritted teeth. I knew Megan had to have had help with some of the things she’d done, but I had no idea who it was. I supposed it didn’t much matter at this point. “I’m here for the money and an explanation. After that, this all goes away.”
Once I had the jump drive in hand, I’d called Megan and offered to sell it to her for 25,000 dollars. At first, she’d responded by making more wild threats against my parents, Holman, Ash, Ridley—basically everyone I knew. But I assured her I didn’t plan to turn it over to law enforcement. “I’ll put it somewhere you’ll never find it, and you’ll have to live with the knowledge that it’s out there—or,” I’d said, “you can pay me a finder’s fee and it becomes yours to do with what you want.”
“And how do I know you haven’t made copies or saved it onto your hard drive?”
“Because I know what will happen if I do,” I’d said, honestly. “I told you, Megan. I won’t lose anyone else to this insanity.”
She’d eventually agreed, and I said I’d come to Greenville and meet her in a public space. I didn’t trust her to not just kill me and make it look like an accident (her specialty, apparently). So here we were, and as much as I wanted my pound of flesh, I was willing to settle for a pile of cash and an explanation.
“I just need to understand why protecting Shannon—or Bethany—Miller’s secret was worth killing for,” I said, reiterating my demand.
Megan looked over toward the main church building. “We are all called to do certain things in this life, Riley, and my calling is to faithfully protect those who are here on Earth doing God’s work, like Pastor Wyatt. He’s a true prophet of the Lord, and he’s saved thousands upon thousands of people, including me. Do you have any idea how broken I was when he found me?”
I said nothing.
“The course of my life had just been changed forever when I was diagnosed with this cruel disease. There is no cure, no treatment, no advice other than to live while you can until your body fails and decomposes around you. I was nineteen years old, completely alone, and facing a bleak future. I came very, very close to ending my life,” she said. “And then Pastor Wyatt found me and healed me, spiritually. He helped me realize that I was given this particular set of challenges because of my inner strength, because I had what it took to handle it. He told me I was special, sanctified.”
I was beginning to lose my patience with this psycho. Most of what she was telling me had been in her book, minus the creepy, reverent tone she used when she talked about Wyatt Claremore. “Yeah, that’s all very interesting,” I said. “But let’s get to the part where you killed my grandfather to protect Wyatt. Did he ask you to do it? Did he tell you that God wanted you to commit murder to protect the image of his ‘perfect wife,’ his ‘perfect family’?”
“Wyatt doesn’t know about any of this,” she said calmly. “He is pure of heart and mind. This is Shannon’s burden. She only confessed it to me because I overheard her talking to her father about it one day back when I was living with them. Albert had started asking questions, and she was distraught at the thought of her secret coming out and destroying the life they’d built. She was going to tell Wyatt everything, but I stopped her. I told her I would take care of it.” Her eyes sharpened. “And I did.”
She held out her wrist for me to see the tattoo: “‘You shall chase your enemies and t
hey will fall by the sword before you. Leviticus 26:7.’ Wyatt needs a clear path and a clean heart in order to do his good work. Shannon’s revelation would have destroyed him, possibly even destroyed his ministry. The way I see it, the lives lost were a small price to pay.”
I felt sick hearing what she’d done and her twisted rationale, but there was a tiny part of me that felt some peace at finally knowing what happened. “So, you killed him…you killed my grandfather.” Hot, angry tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I held her gaze, forcing her to look at the pain she’d caused. Not that she had the capacity to care.
“He was going to expose Shannon and Wyatt,” she said as if that was supposed to justify her actions. “I gave him chance after chance to drop it, but he wouldn’t. So, one night I showed up at his house—your house now—with some photos I’d taken of you at college. I knew where your dorm room was, your class schedule, the restaurants you went to. I told him I was done playing games and this had to end. I could not allow him to destroy the Claremores. The time had come to make a choice: his life or yours. He chose you.”
A sob escaped from somewhere deep inside my chest, and I fought it back. “You’re a monster,” I whispered.
“Do you know how many lives I saved through that one act of violence? Thousands probably!”
“And what about Flick? That was a second act of violence.”
“That was a snap decision.” A crease formed between her eyes. “Shannon and I met with him on Chincoteague and explained to him that he was mistaken. We brought the fake documents and everything—used the same ‘twin’ story that I fed you—but Flick didn’t buy it. Said he was going to talk to Shannon’s father in the morning. I had to do something. Shannon and Wyatt have touched people all over the globe, they—”
“Megan?” A man’s voice curled out from inside the half-built structure behind us.
Megan had to turn her chair to see who it was, and when she did, her face drained of what color it had.
“Tell me this isn’t true…” Wyatt Claremore stepped out of the building. Jay was behind him.
“Wyatt,” Megan said, her voice a shocked whisper.
Jay walked over to stand beside me and Coltrane. He wore street clothes, not his usual suit. He was here today as a concerned citizen, not a government employee.
Wyatt’s face was contorted with pain and shock, and he looked like he might become physically ill. “Just tell me this isn’t true. Tell me you didn’t hurt those people.”
Megan’s eyes went wild. “I did it for you, for Shannon, for the kids,” she said, her voice rising with panic. “They would have exposed what she did—” she broke off. It was clear by the horrified expression on his face that Wyatt would never understand, never absolve her.
He stared at her for another long moment, before turning to me. He spoke in a low voice, laden with sorrow. “I don’t know what to say, except I am so deeply, profoundly sorry, Miss Ellison. I had no idea…about any of this.”
I nodded. What was there to say? I believed that he hadn’t known anything about Shannon or the horrific things Megan had done in his name. But should he have? Had he been willfully ignorant of what was going on around him? That was a question for another day.
“Would you like me to call the authorities?” Jay said to Wyatt.
He turned to Megan, ignoring Jay’s question. “Does Shannon know what you’ve done?”
She simply stared back at him, refusing to answer.
After a moment, he turned away, dropping his head into his hands. I heard the sound of muffled weeping as his shoulders shook with anguish. Jay took a few steps away to make a call, presumably to the local authorities. I dabbed my eyes with a tissue, and when I looked up I saw Megan’s near-silent chair hurtling full speed down the concrete path toward the lake.
It happened in a matter of seconds. She plunged into the water, the chair tipping forward as it became submerged. As soon as I realized what was happening, I started screaming, which started Coltrane barking. Jay reacted immediately. He dove into the lake, grasping and clawing at the chair, trying to grab hold of it as its weight pulled it down into the murky water.
“She’s strapped in,” he yelled.
I turned to Wyatt, who seemed paralyzed, and yelled at him to call 911. Then I dropped Coltrane’s leash and ran into the water to try to help Jay. In the few seconds that it took to get there, the chair had sunk deeper beneath the surface. It was barely visible under the opaque mask of slate blue. Jay dove underwater again and again, as he desperately tried to free Megan, taking great gulps of air in between efforts. When it became clear he was not going to be able to loosen the safety belt, Jay told me to grab hold of the chair. The lake wasn’t deep, but I couldn’t stand and therefore couldn’t get the leverage to pull the chair up.
“Help us!” I called to Wyatt, who stood frozen on the concrete. He didn’t move. Coltrane was barking and pacing frantically along the water’s edge.
“I’m gonna try to pry the harness off,” Jay said as he sucked in another big breath and dove under the water. He was under for longer this time. After what seemed like an eternity, he crashed through the surface, Megan’s limp form slumped over his left shoulder. Jay swam toward the edge of the lake, crawled onto the bank and gently laid Megan out on her back.
Jay was hovering over her performing CPR, but I had no idea if she was alive or dead. I pulled myself out of the lake and went to her side. “Is she…?” I said, panting.
I saw Jay make the barest shake of his head as he continued to compress her disease-ravaged chest. I took her wrist to feel for a pulse, my fingers resting directly on the inked “26:7.” I left them there for several seconds but felt nothing.
“She’s gone,” Wyatt said, his voice suddenly full of authority. He put a hand on Jay’s shoulder, but Jay wouldn’t stop. His training had taken over, and there was no way he was going to give up until he was certain that there was no hope of resuscitation. I rocked back on my heels and sank down in the mud, feeling numb as much from the freezing water as what had just happened. Coltrane orbited around me like a nervous mother, and Wyatt started to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
CHAPTER 43
The story made front-page news, not only in Tuttle but in newspapers across the country. Holman and I shared the byline. It had taken some time to sort everything out, but once Megan had been declared dead at the scene, Shannon Claremore—the woman born as Bethany Miller—started talking. And once she did, she didn’t stop.
As we’d suspected, she had started living under her dead cousin’s name after she’d gotten out of juvenile detention. “By the time I met Wyatt, I’d almost forgotten that I’d ever been anyone else. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t think it would hurt anyone…I had no idea…” she said in the police interview, just before breaking down into tears.
She explained that when Albert first reached out years ago to ask her about the plane crash, he just wanted to know why it had taken so long for the bodies of the Miller family to be claimed. Shannon told him the truth, which was that Charlie had technically claimed the bodies of his family over the phone, but at that time he was an alcoholic who had a hard time holding down a job. They didn’t have the money to pay for the cost of a funeral and burial for six people, so Charlie simply let the three-month time limit run out, and when the state cremated the bodies, he went to pick up their things. Daniel Miller’s small estate was left to Charlie, as his closest living relative, and Shannon said the money helped pull her family up out of hardship—at least until Rebecca died.
It wasn’t until Granddad discovered the unusual coincidence of there being two Shannon Millers the same age in the same family that he came back with more questions. He called back several times asking more and more questions, and Shannon Claremore became convinced that Albert was going to discover the truth. She said she was sick with nerves over the situation and had decided to come clean to Wyatt. That’s when Megan intervened and offered to take care of things.
/> “I had no idea what she was planning,” Shannon said, her red-rimmed eyes raw with guilt and shame. “She just said she’d deal with it, and I never heard another word about it. I didn’t even know that man had died until a few months ago. By that time, it was too late.”
She went on to say that she thought the whole thing had just gone away until Flick reached out to her last fall asking the same questions. He was the one who told her Albert had died under suspicious circumstances. She admitted to having a fleeting thought that perhaps Megan had “done something bad” but had never asked her directly.
“After Mr. Flick called and started asking questions, Megan came up with the idea to say that I had a twin sister. She took care of getting all the documentation we needed to make it look convincing, and then we arranged to meet Flick on Chincoteague Island. I thought if we could just explain it all away, then everything would be fine…”
When pressed by the detective, Shannon admitted that she had a feeling Megan was capable of violence. “Looking back, I remember that she got that tattoo on her wrist the same year Albert called with questions,” Shannon said. “I remember asking her about it at the time. She said it was a signal to everyone that she was a soldier for the ministry. I swear I never made the connection until it was too late.”
I wasn’t sure, legally speaking, what Shannon Claremore would be charged with, but I hoped that whatever it was, it carried a significant punishment. She’d willfully ignored the warning signs of a homicidal zealot because it served her interests. I’ll admit that the thought of her sitting in a cell, thinking about how her cowardice caused two good men to die, gave me a small measure of comfort.