by S. E. Green
Adam senses my presence and his head jerks up. His eyes widen. “Wh-what are you doing here?” He goes to move, rolling to his feet, and I hold my hands up. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Adam takes a few seconds, weighing my words and the situation. “I-I didn’t mean to. Or maybe I did. I don’t know. I really just wanted to see who he was and the next thing I knew I had a knife in my hand, and I stabbed him.”
Adam takes a step away, and still with my hands up I carefully say, “Adam, it’s okay. I’m not going to tell anyone. Okay? But you can’t move. You can’t track evidence around the cabin.”
With a deep breath, Adam nods, looking back down at Teddy. “He killed my brother and got away with it. That’s not fair.” Adam glances up at me. “You know?”
“I do know.” Slowly, I lower my hands and just as slowly I slide the rest of the way into the living room. “I’m going to help you, okay? I promise.”
“He choked the life out of that girl. He stabbed my brother.”
No, I stabbed your brother, and I officially owe you for that.
“Should we call my mom?”
I shake my head. “No, Adam, you can’t do that.”
“B-but it was self-defense.”
“Was it?”
Adam doesn’t immediately answer, and I know in my gut that it most certainly was not self-defense. “I can help, Adam, if you let me.”
“I’m pretty good at worming around cyberspace. I stumbled across this cabin that belonged to an Uncle. It was a long shot coming here. I didn’t think…”
He mentioned having his “ways” and he certainly delivered. But if Adam stumbled across this property, it won’t be long before the D.A. and her team does, too.
“I was just going to see, you know? Then I was going to tell Mom. She’d be so proud of me for finding Scott’s killer. You know? I didn’t expect he’d really be here. I mean, I hoped, but… He surprised me. He jumped me. I didn’t know what to do. I fought back. The knife ended up in him. I wasn’t sure I could do it.”
Adam’s rambling, justifying, talking himself in and out of this. Whether he’s ready to admit it or not, he came here with intent, and he obviously has mom issues. Don’t we all? “I know,” I keep assuring him. “It’s okay. But we can’t call your mom. She would not be happy with this or you.”
That seemingly gets his attention, and he finally looks away from Teddy and up to me. He makes an awful face like disgust and confusion are competing for space. “What are we going to do?”
I like that he used “we”, and though he hasn’t asked me the specifics of how I came to be here, he will eventually, and I’ll have to come up with a plausible story. But for now, I tell him, “I’m going to help you get rid of the evidence.”
12
TOGETHER WE ROLL Teddy up in the striped rug, leaving the knife right where it is. “How did you get here?” I ask Adam.
“My car. I parked it behind one of the cabins.” He casts a nervous glance around the dark living room. “I was careful.”
Still, with the calm voice, I continue, “Okay, take your bloody gloves off and put them inside the rug. Grab a towel from the kitchen and use that on the doorknob. Careful of fingerprints. Go get your car and come back. Leave your headlights off.” I glance around the room. “We need plastic.”
“I brought a roll,” he hurries to say.
Yes, this boy came here with intent. “Good. Bring the roll in.”
“Okay. Okay.” Quickly he strips his gloves, tosses them on top of a rolled-up Teddy, and disappears out the back door. While he’s gone I look under Teddy and see a dark smudge where the blood seeped into the wood floor.
Careful not to touch anything, I look around the small cabin and find only one old bottle of Pine Sol. We’ll clean it the best we can with that, take the rug from the small bedroom, and lay it over the spot. A coffee table on top and that’s the best we’ve got.
Outside, Adam’s tires crunch over the gravel as he pulls in. A few seconds later he comes back through the door, a roll of black plastic under his arm and a fresh pair of gloves on. Together we work at folding Teddy and his rug in the plastic and carrying him out to Adam’s trunk.
Then we go about cleaning the floor, moving the rug from the bedroom, and putting the small coffee table on top.
Standing, we survey the area. My gaze carefully touches on every inch. From the couch to the rug. From one corner to the next. Up and down the walls. I even study the ceiling. I think briefly about just burning the place down.
“What do you think?” Adam asks.
“Well, seeing as how I’ve never cleaned a place of evidence, I honestly don’t know.”
“I read somewhere that if you take a blower to a crime scene, it’ll scatter the evidence and confuse things.”
I shift to look at him. “Let me guess, you’ve got a blower, too?”
He gives a sheepish shrug. “In my car.”
“Well, go get it.”
He’s back within seconds, we plug the blower in and proceed to scatter dust and particles and whatever else through the cabin. Then we’re out the door, I climb in my Jeep, Adam in his old Chevy, and we pull away from Uncle Chuck’s cabin.
Adam follows me all the way to Patch and Paw, closed now for the evening. I punch my personal code into the keypad on the back door. I do a quick sweep of the facility, making sure it is indeed empty, and then we haul Teddy to the cremation room and slide him in.
The flames ignite, incinerating all the evidence. Last year I stood in this exact spot doing a visual estimation of the opening, realizing it was big enough for a body. Now I know for sure it is.
Silently we leave. He gets in his car. I get in mine. And without looking at each other, we drive off in different directions. Whether I wanted to be or not, Adam and I are now inexorably linked.
13
THE NEXT MORNING I’m the first in the door at Patch and Paw, and I go straight to the cremation room and dispose of the ashes and bone fragments. I do keep a small amount back, just in case. One never knows when evidence might be needed. Then I check the list of borders, and I smile when I see Corn Chip’s name.
For as long as I’ve worked here, Corn Chip has been coming. The first time I met him, he walked right up to me, lifted his leg, and peed on my shoe.
At that moment I knew we would get along famously, and indeed we do.
It’s been weeks since his mom boarded him, and I’ve missed the little guy. I open the door to the room that houses the midsized kennels and am greeted with exuberant yapping.
I press the button that releases their hatches and they all scramble into the hall and straight down to the door that leads to the outside play area. Except for Corn Chip, he bee-lines it directly to me.
Leaning down, I give his gray scraggly head a good rub and a kiss. “Missed you, Little Guy.”
But I know him, and I know he’ll lose his bladder if I don’t get him outside.
I’m not in my own little slice of heaven for more than five minutes when the new doctor steps into my peaceful domain. “Good morning, Lane!”
As a response, I nod. I swear to God if she asks me to express an anal gland today, I’m going to make sure it squirts right in her face.
Smiling at the yapping and playing dogs, Dr. O’Neal inhales a deep breath and lets out a loud and dramatic aaah. “Feel those lungs opening up. Try it, Lane.”
I cut her a look.
She grins. “Try it.”
One of my eyelids twitches. This is absolutely the most annoying person in my life.
Her grin gets even bigger if that’s possible. “Try it.”
I give a sharp inhale, then blow it right back out. There I tried it.
“See?” Dr. O’Neal laughs, going into a lunge and lifting her hands to the sky in what I’m sure is some sort of warrior pose. “Now really open up and take in the earth’s energy.”
I could probably Taser, zip tie, and toss her in a corner before she realized what
happened. Maybe then she and her warrior energy will leave me alone.
Another deep breath in. “Be one with the sunlight. Send all your negative vibes into the ground.”
I’ll keep my negative vibes, thank you very much.
Another aaah from the annoying Dr. Issa replacement, then she comes out of her warrior pose to move uncomfortably close to me. So close I can smell the shampoo on her hair. “I noticed you alphabetized the borders’ names. Good thinking.”
I take a step away. I don’t need to smell her shampoo. “Yes,” I simply reply. I alphabetize everything. It only makes sense.
“I made a fresh batch of coffee. How do you take yours, sugar?”
“No.”
“Cream?”
“No.”
Another grin. “You’re not much of a conversationalist, are you?”
No, and Dr. Issa got that about me. For that matter, so does everyone else around here. Pointless conversation is an art I do not excel in.
Through the side gate, I see a familiar car pull in. Crap, what is Adam doing here? “Excuse me,” I say to Dr. O’Neal and make my way back through the clinic and outside.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not even bothering to make niceties.
Adam casts a nervous glance around the parking lot that has only my Jeep and Dr. O’Neal’s SUV. Then he brings his light brown eyes to mine. “What were you doing there at the cabin last night?”
Ah, I knew it would circle around to this, and I’m ready with my response. “I lost my mom to a violent death. You lost your brother. I felt like that somehow made us connected, and I wanted to help find Teddy. I wanted to help right a wrong. You’re not the only one skilled with the ability to worm around the Internet.”
Some truth, some lie, but it all must appease him because he closes his bloodshot eyes and nods. I’d lay a bet he didn’t sleep the whole night. “How you holding up?” I ask.
He gives a weary nod. “I miss Scott.”
“It gets easier.”
“Does it really?”
“Yes, at least for me it is.”
His eyes open back up. “We need to figure out a way to get my mom to stop the investigation. If there’s one thing I can say about her, she’s good at her job, and she won’t give up until Ted Lowman is found.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, maybe if we would have planted the body somewhere, then she would have found it, and then she could have closed the case.” He glances across the parking lot at Patch and Paw.
“It’s too late,” I assure him. “The ashes are gone. You need to let things die down on their own.”
He scrubs his fingers through his messy dark hair. “She’ll never let this die down. She’ll go to her grave trying to find Scott’s killer.”
Okay, yeah, I can see where this might be a problem.
“I heard her on the phone this morning. They found another strangled girl. They think Teddy did it. Time of death just a few hours ago.” Adam leans back against his car, crossing one ankle over the other. “You and I both know that can’t be.”
Yes, which also now means the other two may not be Teddy’s either, which would mean he’s innocent. Yet somehow I don’t buy it. Something was definitely up with Teddy.
Stranglers typically stay with a type, and the first two had been young with dark hair. I’ll have to see what the third one looks like.
“Also, I heard Mom say something about a scarf.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Adam nods. “Whoever strangled her did it with a scarf.”
Huh, the first two girls had been strangled with hands. Or at least I think…
“Then I heard her say something about being linked, and that was also the moment she realized I was listening and walked off, so I couldn’t hear anymore.”
Linked. As in connected to another case. Or rather cases. I need to find out if the first two strangled girls were done with a scarf as well. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from snooping through Mom’s FBI files, the authorities always keep something back. They keep a detail to themselves. This scarf thing might be that detail.
Adam gives his car keys a twirl and cocking his head, he studies me. “You seem fine with all of this.”
Oh, you have no idea. I come from one twisted family. A little disposing of a body and talk of strangulation really is nothing. But that’s not what he’s looking for. He’s looking for a sign I’m normal, so I take in a breath and blow it out, then rub my eyes. “To be honest, I didn’t sleep so well. I guess I’m just in a major fog.”
With a nod, Adam pushes off his car. “Well, thanks for being a friend.”
Is that what we are? Yes, I guess so.
A car pulls into the parking lot, a burgundy Kia, and we both give it a glance. It’s the receptionist, which means the rest of the staff will be arriving soon. She gives us both a cursory glance as she parks and climbs out before heading inside.
“My dad drove a car like that,” Adam murmurs. “Son of a drunk bitch used to pile me and Scott in the back to go on liquor runs or to bars. We used to sit in the back with the windows open and listen to him brag about his accomplishments, and the more he drank, the bigger of a man he became.” Adam huffs an unamused laugh. “Ran right off the road one night and straight into the Potomac. Scott’s the one who pulled me from the car and swam me to safety.”
I want to ask where their mom was during all of this, but I don’t.
“Scott used to make me promise that we would never be him.”
“So far it looks like you’ve succeeded,” I tell Adam, but I don’t say a word about Scott, because I’m still not sure of his involvement with Teddy.
“The last time I saw my dad he called me a loser.” Adam huffs another unamused laugh. “I don’t ever seem to live up to my mom’s expectations either.”
The more I get to know Adam, the more I’m realizing Scott really was the only positive thing in his life. And I took it from him. I owe Adam more than helping him dispose of Ted Lowman’s body. I owe him whatever he needs. My actions have caused this boy to be alone in the world.
“I didn’t live up to my mom’s expectations either,” I tell him. “She died thinking I was a disappointment.”
Adam snaps surprised eyes to mine. “Then your mom was an idiot because I think you’re pretty great.”
Despite the odd direction this conversation has turned and the peculiar connection we seem to be developing, I still smile. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone before.”
“It’s what happens when you grow up with a powerful parent. They mold you, you try your best to make them proud, and nothing is ever good enough. My dad wasn’t powerful, not like Mom, but he was mean. Scott tried to take it all so I wouldn’t get it—”
And then I went and accidentally killed him.
“—Like I’m sure you do with your younger sister and brother. You try to protect them.”
Yes, Adam is perceptive. I will give him that much.
Another car pulls into the parking lot and Adam finally rounds the back of his old Chevy, heading to the driver’s side. “Anyway, I guess I just wanted to make sure you know we’re in this together. Whatever happens.”
14
AFTER MY SHIFT at Patch and Paw, I pull up outside the Youth Center where Justin attends summer camp. I park in an available spot, pull the emergency brake, and right as I climb out, I catch sight of a man sitting over to the left at a picnic table tucked up under the trees.
Looking like a “dad” in jeans, t-shirt, flip-flops, and a baseball cap, he sits alone on one side of the table, his feet planted on the ground and his arms propped on top with a phone held in his hands. To any onlooker he’s seemingly looking at his phone, possibly scrolling Facebook, Instagram, or the like.
To any onlooker, but I’m not just any onlooker and my senses prick to instant alert.
I follow his line of sight and the direction his phone points all the way across the gra
ss and over to the playground attached to the Youth Center. The playground where the kindergarten and first-grade students currently play.
Son of a bitch.
Without another thought, I jump from the Jeep, slam my door shut, and stroll straight toward him. His focus stays solely on the phone and when I slide into the bench opposite him, blocking his phone from the playground, he jumps a little and glances up.
“Which kid is yours?” I ask.
A tentative smile dances across his lips. “Um, none actually.”
The idiot doesn’t even have the wherewithal to lie. My gaze travels over his green baseball hat, his oily nose, and down across his thin upper body before coming back to meet his dark eyes. “Then you need to move,” I tell him.
His tentative smile turns into one big, fake, and bright one. “Why? It’s a free world and all that.”
Reaching forward I pluck the phone right from his fingers and turn it around. He reaches for it. “Hey!”
I want to jab the heel of my hand straight into the tip of his oily nose, but I refrain and instead level him with a dark gaze. Apparently, he realizes I’m not messing around and actually holds his hands up, glancing hesitantly at the phone.
I bring it up in front of my face, keeping partial focus on him, and begin scrolling through the pictures he just took of the playground and the kids. I don’t bother finishing because this man is so done.
“D-do I know you?” he cautiously asks.
My dark gaze moves from the phone back to his wormy eyes. “No, and you don’t want to know me.” I lean closer, and he has the smarts to tilt back. “I am here every day, and if I ever see you again, I will not be this nice.”
A terrible fake laugh comes out of him. “Y-you’ve got the wrong idea.”
Lightning quick I jab the heel of my running shoe into the top of his right flip-flopped foot and cram my thumb into the ulnar nerve on his forearm. He gives a satisfactory cringe. “Listen, asshole, I know who you are.” I apply more pressure to both points, and he hisses in a breath, trying to pull away.