He knows enough. He knows enough.
‘Crystal, get on the ground.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I plead, tears falling as I look at him. He’s come at last. I knew he would come. All this time, and now he’s here. He came. He did. He showed up. It’s done now.
‘I’m sorry. I tried to clean,’ I plead as Sheriff Barkley coughs, walking toward me to grab my arm. I hear vomit roiling in his throat, and anger rises in me. He should show respect. He shouldn’t be standing here, I think as he leans down to me.
‘No, please. Gideon. He needs me. Please,’ I argue, clawing toward the floor, my fingernails scraping the wooden plank now that the rug has lifted up in the struggle. I can’t leave him. He needs me. Who will keep him safe? I need to keep him safe.
‘Crystal, come on. Come on now,’ Sheriff Barkley says, choking and sputtering as he pins me down. My eyes burn as he lifts me up.
‘No. My baby. What will happen to him? Please,’ I argue as Sheriff Barkley slaps cold metal on my wrists. I hear him reading me my rights, but I don’t hear him all the same. My teary face is pressed against the splintered wood, sobs racking my body.
I feel close to him here. He’s so close. Mama loves you, Gideon. Mama will always love you.
At least Richard can’t hurt him now.
‘Please take care of my baby. He needs you to take care of him,’ I argue as Sheriff Barkley lifts me up and leads me out. I turn around to look at the floor, at the gravesite of my sweet, miracle baby. I blink through the tears. And I don’t think it was protocol or sheriff-like. I think it was just a sign that out of all of them, Sheriff Barkley was the only man who was the real deal. Because as he led me out of the house, down the steps, Sheriff Barkley said the words I’d been needing to hear all along. The words that could have changed everything.
‘I’ll take care of him, Crystal. I’ll give him the burial he deserves,’ he promises as he lowers my head and helps me into the back of the car. Looking out the window, I hear him call for backup. I hear him utter radio codes and watch his graying face as he leans on the car, his sweaty palm leaving a print. But when I turn to the right, my blurry vision from crying focuses on something else.
Off in the distance, in the middle of the woods, he is there, proud and tall.
I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head. Just breathe, I tell myself.
When I open them again, he is gone. The goat is gone, and I am still here.
It’s over now, I realize, shaking my head.
God forgive me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Richard
Last Wednesday
It’s strange how the familiar can become unfamiliar in the darkness, how what you thought you knew can be tinged scarlet with a new perspective.
Beams of light radiate through the two windows across the damp, stale basement air. What I wouldn’t give to touch that beam of light, to feel the glow on my ragged, scarred body—or what’s left of it. I wiggle the fingers I have left, trying not to think about all the blood I’ve lost. Trying not to think about how much my life has changed, how much I’m missing. How life will never be the same. Mercifully, I passed out after she sawed through the first one. The bitch didn’t even know how to saw it off properly, the rusty blade gnawing at it over and over and over in ragged strokes.
I look back to the window. I’m starving for the sunlight like I once thirsted for the bottle. But perspectives change. I’m different now because I have to be. Who would I be if I escape from here, away from the clutches of that maniacal bitch? I always knew she was a psychotic bitch. But my biggest mistake was that I underestimated her.
She was the weak one.
I was the strong one.
But dammit, in a moment of weakness, I let her win.
It’s hard to tell how long I’ve been down here. The moments blur together, the setting of the sun basically irrelevant. The only thing that tells me it’s been too long is the fact that the throbbing pain has stopped. My body is weak. I can’t hold on much longer.
I’ve lost so much blood. I’m in and out of consciousness so frequently, I often wake up thinking I’m dead. Will I survive this? Is it worth surviving?
I hear banging upstairs. What is the bitch doing now? What torture does she have in store for me? She can’t keep me here forever.
It’s going to be over. It’s all over.
Who will I be if I survive? A surge of something familiar radiates through my veins. I’ll be who I always was—but stronger. More powerful. And more vengeful. She won’t get away with this. I’ll make her pay like she never had before. So much pain. So much torture. She’d become a madwoman I can’t understand.
My head lolls again, drooping onto my chest as my eyes fall back to the dirty floor and sleepiness starts to take over. My own vomit and blood pools beneath me. I am a wreck, a fading disaster. I am a victim. My face contorts at the stark realization. Dammit, I’m no one’s fucking victim.
I rattle the metal chair against the floor in a futile display of the small amount of strength I have left. It’s pointless. I know she’ll be back any moment, through the door that I walked through so many times. I can picture all those nights I’d threatened to toss her down the stairs that now taunt me.
She better kill me. She better kill me because if I get out of here, there will be no stopping me next time. Things will be different, fingers or not. I can still make a fist. I can still make her suffer.
As the door clinks open, I raise my eyes in defiance to stare at the captor who once wore my ring. Now, in her left hand is a knife . . . my knife. I steady myself for the pain that’s to come as the psychotic woman comes closer, pointing the knife at my eye.
‘This is for all the times you fucking looked at me with your judgmental eyes, all the times you made me look into your eyes before you beat me,’ she announces.
I shudder, powerless in her sick, twisted game. I give her credit. She’s darker than I ever was. More twisted, eviler. The knife pokes toward my eye, and I try not to piss myself. I vow to never show her the weakness she once showed me.
I’ll be strong, stronger than her. I’ll fucking survive her endless torture. She’ll screw up. She’s not that smart. And then, I’ll make her pay. Flop her body right beside that dead baby she was so obsessed with.
She’ll pay alright, I think, even as I scream in pain, my cries muffled by the carefully placed duct tape.
The woman always has to pay.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sheriff Barkley
Sometimes the most defiant, the most fiendish ones are right under your nose the whole time.
From the second that woman walked into the station, I knew something was wrong. Maybe it was the overly sweet smile coming from a woman who had suffered so much. Or maybe it was the fact she was looking for a man no sane woman would ever miss. Regardless, I knew Crystal Connor was up to something from the second I found out Richard was missing. Maybe it was intuition. Maybe it was just obvious. Regardless, it broke my heart.
That woman’s been through enough. I can’t blame her for what she did, even if I should. She’s broken, more than we could’ve ever known. And in truth, maybe it’s my fault.
She tried her best. For a woman with little experience in the criminal world, she did okay. Hiding Richard’s trucks back in the woods. Hiding Cody’s car beside it. Buying the supplies at the hardware store the day after she hid Richard. Asking questions around town and making it seem like she was worried about where he could be. It could’ve worked. She may have gotten away with it.
Except for the hikers who found the vehicles.
Except for the fact she didn’t take the suitcase she had packed and get out before it was too late.
I was going into the house to tell her about the discovery, to weigh in on the good news about the vehicles and how I was closer to answers. I had a search warrant in my pocket as well, ready to do what I should’ve done earlier in the week. I suspected I might find the answers to Rich
ard’s and Cody’s disappearance with Crystal. She knew something, even if she wasn’t letting on about it. And then we came in the door and found her—weeping in the living room.
That by itself wasn’t damning.
It was the smell. The wicked, unmistakable smell of the decaying corpse. It made sense now why she’d always met me on the porch. It made sense why there were so many bleach containers in the garbage. She had tried to clean it up.
What wasn’t as obvious was that the smell was coming from the floorboards. Like some sick, twisted Edgar Allan Poe story, the decaying body was in the house, tucked away under a few splintered boards. And what was more surprising?
It wasn’t Richard’s body or Cody’s there.
It was the baby’s.
I had been shaken by the sight. I had been shaken for Crystal, for the agony she’d gone through. I had so many questions. Was there foul play at work in the baby’s death? Was Richard responsible? And then I’d gotten the call from my deputy who had wandered into the basement.
‘Get down here quick, Sheriff. You’re going to want to see this,’ he bellowed after yelling for 911 to be called.
The sight I saw was something for the books, something I hadn’t conjured up in my worst nightmares.
In the back corner of the basement, hanging onto life by a thread, was the town’s infamous badass, Richard Connor, now looking only bad and not badass. Not looking so strong. Not looking so alive.
Tied to a metal chair in the back corner, way out of sight, his legs and hands were bound. The first thing I noticed as the deputies untied him and removed the duct tape was the blood. Pools and pools of blood, coating the floor. And it clearly wasn’t coming from what appeared to be Cody Connor’s body, which was sitting next to his dilapidated brother. Not a spot of his body was whole, not a piece of him preserved. My eyes took in the sick, twisted painting that was Richard.
The blood was oozing from Richard’s arms, skin apparently missing. His arms were mangled, meaty messes. Most of his fingers were missing, the stubs crudely wrapped in bandages. She’d done just enough medical care, it seemed, to keep him breathing—but not much more.
The removed duct tape revealed missing teeth, and a sliced and branded tongue. I didn’t know how he’d ever speak again, or if he would.
His left eye was gouged and cut, pieces of the eyeball removed.
His toenails were all gone, placed in a nice and neat pile in the middle of the floor.
The man who was once a legendary strong one in the town was now nothing but a heap of bleeding flesh and broken body parts. He looked pitiful, and sorrow actually leaped from my chest for the man I had once wished would disappear.
Looking at what was left of his mangled face, I felt like maybe he wished he could disappear too. He murmured and mumbled, but we couldn’t make out a word. He would have a long road to recovery physically—but his shivering, his moaning told me that he would have emotional trauma too. Who could blame him after all?
I ran a hand through my hair after taking off my hat. To imagine that Crystal Connor, the frail, sweet woman we all knew, could do this. Did she really do this? Was it her? I shook my head.
To think how dark her soul must have been to pull this off. To think about the torture she must have endured to feel that this was warranted.
I couldn’t begin to fathom.
As we continued our nightmarish search of the house, we found other relics from Crystal’s week of retribution.
Pieces of Richard’s eye in the glass upstairs.
The leathery bookmark she’d made of his tattoos perched in the pages of her Bible.
The lock of her dead baby’s hair in the locket around her neck.
A few pieces of finger in a bowl in the fridge. The missing ones were unaccounted for.
I sat down in a chair, thinking about all that had transpired. Thinking about how the most horrific man of the town had been degraded to a pile of deteriorating flesh. Thinking about how the most heinous, disturbed criminal in the town was a woman we’d all overlooked.
Thinking about how it’s all my fault. How it’s all of our faults, really. We let her get to this point. We knew what Richard was like, but we closed our eyes. We closed the windows. We turned our heads. We let her suffer at his hands for years, ignoring the warning signs, the look in her eyes. We let her endure it all on her own.
What did we expect? What did he expect? Everyone has a breaking point, and everyone has a darkness lurking within.
I visited Richard in the hospital the next day. He’s not well. It will be a long road to recovery, and he’ll never, ever be the same. The doctors say he’s suffering from emotional issues as well as physical issues. He cries out often. He cries often. He whimpers and shudders away from everyone’s touch. He may have set out to be a strong man, but even the strongest can be broken.
A tortured man. A tortured soul. How will he ever be the same?
It’s over now, I told him as I stood beside his hospital bed, looking out into the sleepy town of Forkhill.
But I know it’s not. Because for him, it’s all really just begun.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Crystal
I stare at the plain, cement wall, thinking about how it all transpired. Thinking about where it all went wrong—or where it all went right, depending on how you look at it.
My mind floats back, reviewing every detail of the night I stood up to him, of the night I seized the power.
I’ll have plenty of time to think about it, I realize. I’ll have plenty of time to replay every single detail over and over and over.
‘DON’T EVEN FUCKING try that again,’ he shrieked in my face, his nose against my cheek, his eyes lasering into me as I panted, everything aching.
He stood up, staring at Henry. ‘You shut the fuck up, too. You’re next,’ he warned, kicking dirt at the dog before stumbling back to his garage, leaving me on my back.
Tears fell down my cheek as I stared up at the sky, the stars above a wonderous sight in the midst of the chaotic hell that was my life. How much pain can one woman endure? I didn’t know if I was strong enough anymore. I didn’t know if I could carry this burden. I asked God for strength, but he was silent.
Henry quieted, and after a long moment, I sat up, my head aching. I drug my worn-out body toward the dog, who greeted me with a tail wag. I leaned against him and clutched his fur. I cried into him as I thought about what was going to happen to me and wondered where it all went wrong. Then again, I considered as I rocked my body gently in the dirt by the doghouse, I knew exactly where the road to hardship started.
After letting my mind wander to that first night that Richard came into my life, I glanced up once more at the sky. I steadied my gaze, focusing on a single star, wondering if it was fate or chance or choice that brought me to the crossroads I stood before.
I could endure a lot, as I’d proven over and over again. I could handle Richard’s aggressive sexual deviancies or his cutting words. I could stand the cigarette burns on my chest and the bruises and constant fear. I could stand by my man. I could follow my covenant. I could tolerate Richard’s abuse and attitudes—if it were just me.
But I had someone else to think about, to protect. Gideon needed me. I pictured his tiny, frail body, withered and decaying in a heap in the forest. I pictured him, alone and terrified, wondering where I was. It was a sin to disobey your husband—but wasn’t it also a sin to abandon your child? Wasn’t my true purpose in life to protect Gideon, to care for him? And he needed me so much. He deserved the reverence and care I could give him. I needed to do my duty, to live out my purpose.
Richard wouldn’t let me give that to our son. Sometimes, sacrifices are required in order to do what’s right.
Father, forgive me, I silently pleaded as I stared at that star for a final moment, taking a deep breath to strengthen my resolve. And then, I waited for the right moment to strike.
I’m coming Gideon, I said inside. Mama’s coming.
Prisoner #312
Smithfield Correctional Facility
The sunshine is beaming down as I sit cross-legged in the center of the dusty road. There’s a raven in the tree nearby, but it’s quietly perched. It seems to look down at me. I smile at it, it’s beautiful black feathers a stark contrast to the purple flowers budding in the tree. I lean back and sun myself, stretching out my pale legs. It feels good to be in the sun. I always love the sun.
I hear a whimper, and my heart beats fast. But when I shield my eyes and glance down the street, I see a small child walking toward me. He’s wearing overalls and a purple shirt. He’s not wearing shoes. His blond hair billows slightly in the light breeze. I stand and head to him.
When I get to him, he reaches up toward me, his chubby arms outstretched. I look into the blue eyes, see the familiar jawline. I know this boy. My heart swells with recognition.
I languidly pull him into me, closer and closer. Gideon. Sweet Gideon. I kiss his cheek, my lips savoring the moment. I hug him close, the feelings of warmth from the sun now flooding my veins and marinating my heart. I turn to the left when a rustling startles me.
Another familiar face. Henry. The dog looks thicker, happier. His tail wags as he approaches, and I beam at him. I reach down to pat his head, and he nuzzles into me.
They’re okay. They’re both okay.
I set Gideon down. The boy walks off into the forest, following Henry. I try to follow them, but I’m stuck. My feet won’t move, cemented to the road.
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. This can’t be. ‘Gideon, wait. Gideon!’ But the boy and the dog continue on. They don’t pause. They don’t look back. They walk straight on into the forest, as if swallowed by the tree line. Tears fall, and I panic. I need to get to them. I need to get to them. I tug at my legs, lunging forward. It’s no use. I’m trapped. I’m stuck. I can’t get to them. I can barely breathe.
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