by Rick Mofina
“Do these developments cancel the reward? Will you request its return?”
“We’ll work with the group behind the reward to determine where this falls into the investigation in terms of charges, or return.”
“Are you looking at other suspects? Does this resurrect your interest in Kalmen Gatt, the inmate who was under suspicion early in the case?”
“In light of what’s happened, we’ll revisit every aspect of the case, follow up on all leads. All right, we’ll wrap this up after one more question.”
“Captain, do you believe we’ll ever know what happened to Maddison Lane?”
Flynn took a moment to absorb the question, glanced at the large photo of Maddison taken before she’d vanished, then answered from his heart.
“I believe that we will find out exactly what happened to this twelve-year-old girl, and I believe it will be soon. Thank you.”
89
I’m running...running...heart slamming against my ribs... I need help. The waterfall is getting louder. Running...falling...so dark...hard to see...sliding down the hilly ridge to the river...water misting on my skin...the banks, rocks are wet...slippery...
“MADDIE!” Someone’s calling...gaining on me...don’t stop...the water roars like the whole world. The rocks are rough. Got to move faster to the slope ahead...the cold spray of the falls on my skin...my shoe wedges, foot slides out...
“MADDIE!”
Oh God...can’t find my shoe...
“MADDIE!” They’re gaining...the water’s so loud...keep running... One foot cold, wet, the rocks biting into my sole...running to the slope...going uphill...grabbing, clawing at the tall grass, pulling up, faster, move, move to the top...the road...the paved highway...
Running...running down the road...running and sobbing in the night...
Panicked, afraid, running, bleeding, aching, scrambling for my phone...call home for help...
No phone! Dalton took it.
Lights. Headlights, an approaching car. Standing in the middle of the road, waving my arms. Oh God, please stop, help me. The car slows, stops. Driver gets out. “Help me, please!” I know the driver! Oh God, I’m saved! Thank God! I’m safe now...
90
Everything was unraveling.
In his study, watching the news conference on his tablet, Cole grappled with the images and fear blazing through his mind.
The impostor’s video, the hunt for her, the search at Willowind for a grave, that damning footage of Ryan burying something—and knowing that right now, Zubik and Asher were questioning Ryan and Karen about it all.
Cole’s phone kept ringing with media calls—CNN, the Associated Press, USA TODAY—but he never answered.
Battling to stay calm, he glanced at his treasured photos of Jill and Dalton, his medals and awards—all he had achieved in his life. The phone rang again. He was under attack just as he was that day in Afghanistan, and just as he did that day, he took action to protect lives.
That’s what he did.
I had to do it. There was so much at stake and there was no way out.
Jill appeared in his study, terror in her eyes. “Cole, what’s happening?”
He looked at her without speaking.
“Dalton’s going out of his mind. He’s crying. I’ve never seen him like this, and I can’t get anything out of him,” she said. “He’s scaring me to death. He said that you knew from the start that the girl from Florida was not Maddie. How could that be?”
Cole didn’t respond. He searched his wife’s eyes, but failed to find the words to begin.
“Cole, please. I’m so afraid! What do you know about Maddie?”
Unable to face her, he lowered his head then glimpsed his gun safe in the corner, noticing a slight shadow at the door’s seam, noticing with rising concern that it was not locked, and he always kept it locked.
Always.
“Jill, did you go into my gun safe for any reason and not close it?”
“What?” Jill followed his attention as he stood, quickly checking the inventory.
“My Glock’s gone.”
“I never touched your gun safe. Who would take your gun?”
They looked at each other for answers as alarm coiled up Cole’s spine.
“Where’s Dalton?” Cole said. “You said he’s upset. Where is he?”
“In his room.” She read the fear in Cole as he shot past her, and she followed him to their son’s room.
They found Dalton.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, contemplating his lap where he was holding his father’s handgun.
His computer was on, with the news coverage of Maddie’s case flashing on the monitor and a reporter’s voice sounding small from the headphones.
“Son.” Cole moved toward him slowly. “I want you to give me the gun.”
Dalton didn’t move.
Jill came in behind Cole. Both hands flew to her mouth.
“Give me the gun,” Cole said.
“No, you stay right there,” Dalton said. “Don’t come any closer!”
“Son, please. Look at me.” Cole inched forward.
Dalton raised his head, a strange look on his tearstained face. “This whole thing is my fault. I’ve been living with it all these years, ever since that night.”
“Listen to me, son. It’s my fault, but we’re all going to get through this.”
“I’ve carried this secret for all these years. It’s been tearing me apart.”
“Please, Dalton, give me the gun and we’ll talk.”
“Ever since I discovered the truth about me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You lied to me,” Dalton said.
“Lied? About what?”
“My real mother tried to flush me down a toilet when I was born. She was a crackhead whore. She didn’t even know who my father was.”
Cole and Jill exchanged looks.
“Who told you this?” Cole said.
“I found out myself four years ago—that you lied, telling me my mother died giving birth when you told me I was I was adopted. I looked in your office. I found some papers about me, my adoption and my mother. Then I searched for her.”
Cole and Jill were silent.
“That time when I supposedly went to Newark with friends for a concert, I found her in Brooklyn. She’s an exotic dancer. She cried then offered me money, then drugs. It made me sick, so angry that I came from that disgusting world, that I was worthless.”
“Oh, Dalton, no, you’re not worthless!” Jill said. “You’re everything to us. We were trying to protect you.”
“I never understood who I was, where I fit in. I was angry. I didn’t give a shit about anything, about anybody. I was drinking getting into trouble. That night with Maddie, I wanted to have fun, impress my older, cooler, so-called friends. It was stupid. You know what happened to her. I told you the truth, everything.”
“Son, please.”
“And I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but now everything’s worse. It’s replaying all over again...it’s like we killed her twice.” Dalton seemed distant, lost.
“Oh my God!” Jill groaned. “What’re you talking about—”
“And it’s my fault!” Dalton screamed. “My fucking fault! I was never meant to be here!”
Dalton thrust the gun to his temple, his finger on the trigger. Cole leaped at him as Jill screamed. Cole shoved Dalton’s hand, pushing as the muzzle flashed, the room exploded—POP! The round missed Dalton by a fraction, smashed into the ceiling and Cole crushed down on his son, twisted the gun from his hand, stood and unloaded it.
Jill took Dalton into her arms and held him as he sobbed.
“It’s over.” Cole gasped for breath, inspecting the gun. “I’m going to put an end
to it all.”
91
Cole Lane stepped from his SUV as a news helicopter thundered over his brother’s house, hovering above Lucifer’s Green where officers were searching the woods.
Police units, media cars and trucks lined the street, forcing Cole to park over a block away, just as he had done that awful day four years ago.
Taking quick stock of Dalton and Jill, he steeled himself and they walked to Ryan’s house.
Before they’d left their home, Cole had told Jill everything—everything that Dalton had done, everything that he had done. Overcome, she’d rushed to the toilet and vomited. She locked the bathroom door and sobbed on the floor for a long time before she managed to find a veneer of composure. Numbed by the revelation, her skin had whitened. Now, depleted and destroyed, Jill was robotic as she stepped toward the coming storm.
Cameras turned when reporters spotted them and fired a rapid line of questions.
“Do you think Maddie’s disappearance was staged to cover a crime?”
They didn’t answer.
“Cole, do you think your brother’s family killed your niece?”
“Did they try to cover up Maddie’s murder?”
“Where’s the real Maddie?”
Cole waved them off without responding as they got to the door and entered amid a final volley of questions and camera flashes.
Inside, Ryan greeted them with traces of alcohol on his breath. Karen, tearful and trembling, hugged them all. Tyler exchanged embraces with his aunt and uncle as they went to the living room.
“This is a horrible, horrible, nightmare,” Karen said.
“Zubik’s saying that one of us killed Maddie because I buried a dead dog in Willowind, and now they’re talking about charges—I just—I just—” Ryan’s voice was breaking.
“Hold on, just hold on.” Cole took his brother’s shoulders and directed him to the sofa. “You all need to sit because it’s time you knew the truth.”
“The truth?” Karen asked. “What’re you talking about?”
“Listen, first I want you to know that Jill, and for most part Dalton, had no knowledge of what I’m going to tell you, and that I’ve already contacted my attorney and we’ll be telling Zubik everything. We’ll be confessing.”
“Confessing?” Ryan said. “I don’t understand.”
“I arranged to have Maddie found in Florida.”
“You what?”
“Half a year ago or so, I got my people who were searching for Maddie across the country to use the age-progressed pictures we’d created to find someone who would look just like her now.”
“I can’t believe this,” Karen said.
“It took time. They eventually found a girl named Maya Starr Gagnon living in a homeless shelter in Los Angeles. She was Canadian. She’d just turned eighteen. She wanted to be an actress. She was smart, independent and had run away from abuse in a broken home.”
“But her birthmark—”
“We had that tattooed on her,” Cole said. “I convinced Maya to assume Maddie’s identity, promising her a good life with a good family. When the time came, we thought it best that she surface as Maddie during the chaos of a natural disaster like the hurricane in Florida, with no memory of what happened. And through friends of friends with access to the right databases, I had them remove her fingerprint records and make it look like an IT issue.”
Ryan was breathing hard, glaring at his brother. “You—How could you—” He rubbed his temples. “Why would you do this when we still had hope of finding Maddie? Why the hell would you do this?”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
Cole turned to Dalton, put his hand on his shoulder, and everyone’s gaze shifted to him.
Dalton began shaking his head, tears filled his eyes.
“I can’t, I just can’t,” he said.
Jill took his arm. “You have to, Dalton. It’s the only way.”
Ryan, Karen and Tyler struggled to comprehend what was happening as Dalton brushed at his tears.
“Maddie had a crush on me and I liked it,” Dalton said. “We texted, then we started sexting a few times using self-destructing messages. I showed her how to keep things secret, and I had a disposable phone I used. She told me she wanted to start dating, that she argued with Aunt Karen.”
Karen covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God! You sexted with her?”
“I liked her. Maddie wanted to have fun, so that night when I was going to go to Jenna Guthrie’s birthday party with some of my older friends, I started texting Maddie about it. She wanted to sneak out and go with us. I told my friends, and they said that it would be fun to get Maddie drunk for the first time.”
“Jesus,” Ryan growled, barely containing himself from launching at Dalton.
“We parked on the other side of the woods so no one would see. I came to the back of the house. I knew the ladder was there. I was the one who got her to come with me—she wanted to come with me. I disabled her phone so no one would know where she was.”
Ryan kept shaking his head, seething.
“We got into the car. The other guys were drinking, doing drugs.” He paused then continued. “We gave Maddie a beer. I don’t think she drank more than a sip. I don’t think she liked it. We drove out to Ranger Falls to get her drunk there, then go back to the party for a while then take her home, but it didn’t happen that way. My friends were pretty drunk, and when we got to this isolated place in the bushes near the falls, one of the guys, he—he—”
“He what?” Ryan shot at Dalton.
“He tried to force Maddie to go down on him, and she screamed and fought back. I tried to fight him, too, tried to stop it, but the other guys were older, bigger and they all had the same idea. I swear I fought them and so did Maddie. That’s how I really got scratched up that night.”
“What happened to Maddie?” Ryan was quaking, on the verge of erupting.
Dalton blinked at the memory as if he had been pulled back into the events. He began breathing harder. “She got away and ran fast into the woods toward the falls. It was so dark out there but I chased her. I wanted to get her, help her and find some way to get her home. I followed her down to the river, just below the falls. You know how it rushes so fast, the rapids, and the noise. I saw her running in the distance, then she was gone. I found her shoe, but I couldn’t find Maddie. We looked until we knew that she must’ve—”
“Must’ve what? Where is she?” Ryan shouted, taking a step closer toward his nephew. “She must’ve what, Dalton?”
“She must’ve fallen into the water and got carried downstream to the hydroelectric complex and got sucked into the big turbines. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” Dalton dropped to his knees, sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”
Karen was crying, gasping, screaming. “Oh God, oh God!”
“You’re sorry?” Ryan exploded. “You and your perverted asshole friends, and my fucking brother, knew our child was dead, keep it secret all these years—”
“Let me explain,” Cole said. “I didn’t know until Dalton told me half a year ago. I was stunned, devastated. I didn’t know what to do. Yes, my first instinct was to turn him in, but that would’ve destroyed both of our families.”
“So you were thinking of yourself, again!” Ryan’s eyes narrowed.
“No, Ryan, listen! I realized you had already suffered so much for four years and that Maddie wasn’t coming back, and we’d likely lose Dalton, too. That’s why I did what I did.”
“All these years,” Ryan said, “all the pain we’ve been through all these years, being accused of killing our own child. Then you bring her back, give us hope, only to take it all away and leave us with nothing but lies!”
“You and Karen were dying day by day from the pain of Maddie’s disappearance. Yes, I knew she was gone, so I did what
I did to protect lives, to pull you all out of the darkness just like you pulled me from mine. I had to do something! So I thought I could give Maddie back to you and hang on to Dalton. I know it was stupid, it was wrong, but I was blinded, too.”
“You bastard!” Ryan stood toe to toe with his brother. “What? Do you think we should thank you? Maybe give you a medal for playing God with our lives to protect your perverted kid who’s responsible for killing ours?”
“I was wrong.”
“You, you—”
Ryan drove his fist into Cole’s face, sending him sprawling to the floor, then straddled his chest, seized his head in his hands, leaned to his ear and hissed so only he could hear.
“And I know you fucked my wife, asshole!”
Adrenaline pumping full bore, Ryan’s hands blurred as he landed punch after punch on Cole’s head. His brother didn’t fight back. He was barely able to cover his face with his arms as the blows rained down with such savage force, it took every bit of strength Karen, Jill, Tyler and Dalton had to pry Ryan away. He stood over Cole, chest heaving, tears and spittle flying as he screamed.
“Get out of my fucking house before I fucking kill you!”
92
Cole’s and Dalton’s confessions resulted in a massive search along the Ranger River for new evidence in the case.
Drones flew along the banks and over the rugged brush and fields surrounding the area where Dalton had found and hidden Maddie’s shoe years ago. Searchers walked side by side along the river, combing the terrain for traces of Maddie. Cadaver dogs trained to find human remains were used, along with ATVs and horses, to scour the undergrowth.
Police divers tethered by ropes probed the dangerous rushing water in an extensive search encompassing the Ranger Dam and the hydroelectric complex. Authorities operating the facility had agreed to shut down its big turbines to allow technicians and police to examine all of the equipment for any evidence of human remains.
Every aspect of the plant’s turbine system was meticulously scrutinized, inspected and swabbed, the propellers, the blades, the gears, teeth and shafts, despite the odds. Given the volume of water, and the velocity at which it would have traveled through the system over four years, it was unlikely anything would be found.