Thorns on Wildflower Island

by Michelle Files

  “Shhh. There are neighbors, you know.” Mary whispered again, looking toward the fence that separated the Porters’ backyard from their neighbors’ backyards.

  “They aren’t paying any attention to us.” Piper wasn’t worried at all. “Have you ever heard the saying that if you act like you should be somewhere, that no one will question it? Or something like that anyway. It’s when you look terrified that people get suspicious.” Piper looked over at her sister. “Like you look right now.”

  “Well I am terrified. What if they call the cops on us? We’ve been in enough trouble with the sheriff.” Mary looked around the yard again, expecting to be busted at any moment.

  “So let’s stop yapping about it and get this done so we can get out of here already,” Piper ordered. “There has to be something going on. We have to find out. I was hoping the door would be unlocked so we could look around inside.” Piper was determined, and tried lifting a window she thought went into the kitchen.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?”

  The girls both jumped, not expecting anyone to be in the yard with them. They were immediately relieved when they realized who it was.

  “Sheesh Frankie, you scared the life outta us!” Piper was a bit louder than she meant to be.

  “Piper, be quiet,” Mary warned her.

  “What’s going on? I thought you were just coming over to get your bracelet. I knocked on the front door and no one is even home. Are you supposed to be back here?” Frankie had a lot of questions.

  Before the girls could answer her, the dog started whining, and digging up Eliza’s new rose garden.

  “Sparkles, stop that!” Piper yelled at the dog.

  Mary tried to pull the dog back, but he wouldn’t budge. In fact, he growled and snapped at her when she pulled on him. That was completely out of character for him.

  “Make him stop,” Frankie told her. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

  “I know. I’m trying,” Mary replied.

  She pulled harder on the dog, but he kept digging. Sparkles was a large dog and he outweighed Mary by several pounds.

  That’s when all three of them saw it at the same instant. It was a small hand protruding from the dirt in the rose garden. A very small hand. The dog began whining even more then, and sat down, just staring at the hand. It was as if he sensed that he should leave it alone.

  “Oh my god,” was all that Frankie could say.

  The three of them just stood there staring for nearly a full minute, unable to speak. Even Piper, who was rarely at a loss for words. Mary thought she was going to faint.

  “Whose house is this, Piper?” Frankie finally broke the silence.

  “It’s my house.”

  Startled, all three of the girls spun around toward the voice. Sparkles flew at Marshall, teeth bared. He looked like he was going to tear Marshall to shreds. Mary couldn’t hold the dog back and lost control of the leash, but Frankie sprung into action and grabbed the leash in the nick of time, probably saving Marshall from a nasty bite on the leg…at the very least.

  Once all the chaos receded, Frankie held onto the dog for protection and stood between the twins. She herself was only 16 years old, but she knew they were in serious trouble. She probably couldn’t do much to protect them, but she had to try.

  “What’s all the noise out here, Mar…”

  Eliza never finished her sentence and stopped dead in her tracks as she took in the scene. She looked at the girls and she saw fear in each one of their eyes. She knew the twins, of course, and recognized Frankie from the cafe, but didn’t know her personally. Eliza didn’t understand what was happening and why they were all in her backyard. She did notice the gun Marshall was holding down by his side and looked back up into his face for an explanation.

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you go inside while I talk to the girls here.” It was more of a statement than a question. He never took his eyes off of the three teens when speaking to his wife.

  “I don’t want to. I want to know what’s going on.”

  That’s when Eliza noticed the rose garden, and the hand of her 11 month old son sticking up out of the dirt. The strange thing was that she was standing there holding her son in her arms. All three of the girls looked at her standing there holding Zachary, then turned and looked at the rose garden, and back again at her. They were clearly confused at the situation. Yet none of them had the nerve to ask any questions.

  “Um, we should go,” Frankie blurted out.

  She patted each of the twins on the back in a gesture that said, ‘move it along.’ They understood and started walking toward the side gate. They didn’t get far though, when Marshall stepped in front of them.

  “Where do you think you are going?” he asked them.

  “We’re going home,” Frankie responded.

  The twins were too scared to say anything, and deferred the conversation to Frankie. Frankie tried to walk around him, but he stepped in front of them again.

  “I don’t think so,” Marshall answered. We need to have a little talk first.

  Chapter 19

  “We don’t want any trouble from you. We just want to go home. No one will say anything, I swear.” Frankie tried her best to reason with him. She was the oldest and felt that she had to try to be in charge. The twins were terrified and visibly shaking.

  “Yeah, right. I’m not an idiot. The second you leave here, you’ll call the cops. There’s no way we are going to get the cops to believe it was an accident,” Marshall told her.

  “Who is that buried in your garden?” Mary blurted out.

  All four of them turned to look at her, completely astonished. She was the last person they expected to blurt out that question, even though it was one that Frankie and Piper wanted answered. Eliza was standing there holding Zachary, so who could that be?

  “None of your damn business, that’s who it is!” Marshall yelled.

  Mary backed away and cowered behind Frankie. She was thankful that she thought to bring Sparkles with them. He stood at attention, growling non-stop at Marshall.

  “What are we going to do now?” Eliza finally chimed in.

  Marshall turned to his wife. “I don’t see that we have any other choice than to get rid of them. All of them.” He turned and scowled at the girls.

  It wasn’t in Marshall’s nature to kill anyone. Not on purpose anyway. That’s why he only beat up Nathan and left him in the hills. He thought Nathan might not survive, but he wanted to give him a fighting chance nonetheless. He was not a cold blooded killer. However, the situation at hand with the three girls all finding out that they had a body buried in their backyard posed a huge problem for him. He threatened them, but was he actually capable of killing three innocent young girls? To protect his family, he knew that he might have to.

  “Marshall, no!” Eliza was horrified that he had even suggested it.

  “Shut up and let me think!”

  Marshall paced around the backyard for several minutes, torn with indecision. As he passed the rose garden, he bent over and scooped up enough dirt to gently cover the exposed hand. That made him feel a little bit better. He stood, looking down in quiet reflection, at the spot where the little hand had been sticking out.

  “Go put the baby down, then come back down here,” he ordered his wife.

  Eliza promptly headed inside and up the stairs. The unfolding scene in their backyard was no place for a child. Marshall said nothing to the girls while he waited for Eliza to return. He watched them though, his eyes cold and hard. When she did return, he continued his orders.

  “Please, we promise that we won’t tell anyone. Just let us go,” Mary pleaded.

  “Shut up!” Marshall looked around, half expecting to see the neighbors all peering over the fence. He was relieved that it wasn’t the case.

  Marshall began pacing again. It was something he did when stressed. And this was one of the most stressful situations he had ever found himself in. He looked up at the girls, and ma
de another lap around the yard, not glancing at the rose garden as he passed it. He used the time to try to figure out what to do next.

  Marshall paced around the yard for a half hour trying to figure out what to do. He wasn’t a killer, but what were his choices? There was no way they were not going to tell someone, if he just let them go. He could not spend the rest of his life in prison. He couldn’t let his wife spend the rest of her life in prison either. He was waving the gun around frantically and it scared the girls. All three of them were crying by then. Eliza just stood there silently, waiting for something to happen, her hands clammy.

  “Well, looks like we are just going to have to kill them all,” Marshall proclaimed.

  The announcement of their impending deaths terrified the girls, as expected. They all started crying hysterically. Eliza noticed that Mary was having a hard time breathing because she was crying so hard. She could see that the girl had begun hyperventilating, so Eliza walked over and began rubbing Mary’s back, while talking to her in a soothing voice, hoping it would help to calm her down.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Marshall asked her as he watched his wife rub Mary’s back.

  “She can’t breathe. We can’t just let her suffocate, can we?” Eliza was terrified that if Marshall killed them, she would be next.

  “What difference does it make if we are going to kill them anyway?” Marshall asked her, eyebrows raised.

  “I’m not going to be involved in killing anyone, not on purpose anyway. Let’s just let them go,” she pleaded with Marshall.

  Then to the girls, “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Eliza asked them. “It was an accident, you know.”

  “No, we swear! We just want to go home,” Frankie responded as the twins shook their heads quickly from side to side.

  “Shut up!” Marshall screamed at Frankie, who closed her mouth immediately.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Eliza. They will tell their parents the second they leave this house.”

  Eliza knew he was right. Of course they would tell. She would if she were in their predicament. She just couldn’t bear the thought of hurting three innocent girls that just had the misfortune of getting themselves tangled up with the Porters.

  “Then let’s just take the baby and leave. They can’t arrest us if they can’t find us.” She was still pleading with Marshall.

  “No. That’s a stupid idea. We don’t have any money anyway. I’m tired of talking about it.” Marshall turned his head and focused on Frankie.

  With that, he held up the gun and pointed it at the redhead. “You are the one with the biggest mouth. Therefore, you get to be first.”

  Frankie squeezed her eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable.

  “No!” Piper screamed. “Please don’t!”

  “I said shut up!” Marshall never took his eyes off of Frankie.

  “What the hell is going on back here?!”

  All eyes turned toward Sebastian.

  “I knocked on the front door and no one answered. I could hear voices coming from back here.” He looked over at Marshall holding a gun on Frankie. “Does someone want to answer my question?”

  In the split second that Marshall turned and was focused on Sebastian, Frankie reacted. She jumped on Marshall’s back. Just as she did, the gun went off.

  “Son of a bitch!” Piper yelled as she grabbed the upper part of her left arm with her right hand.

  Neither Marshall nor Frankie noticed. The two of them were in a life and death struggle. After the gun went off, Marshall dropped it as he fought to get the crazy teenage girl off of his back. It skidded across the patio and came to a rest at Eliza’s feet.

  “Piper! You’re bleeding!” Mary yelled.

  “I know. I don’t think it’s bad though, but…”

  That was the last thing Piper said as she landed in a heap in the soft grass of the backyard.

  “Piper!” Mary ran to her sister and knelt down beside her. Then she turned to Eliza. “Go get a towel for this wound.”

  Eliza ran inside, as ordered.

  During everything that was happening, which had been under a minute, Sebastian stood there, staring. The shock of the scene in front of him rendered him motionless.

  Though Frankie was determined, and had rage on her side, she was no match for Marshall. He outweighed her by quite a few pounds. He flung her off of him and she landed with a thunk on the sidewalk.

  “Where’s my gun? I’m going to kill all of you!” Marshall yelled.

  Sebastian could not stand there any longer. He had no idea what all of the commotion was about, but he needed to help. He could clearly see that Marshall had gone off the deep end. Before Marshall got to the gun, Sebastian jumped in. Then the real fight was on. It didn’t last though, as within seconds, Sebastian slammed Marshall’s head into the brick wall surrounding the garden. A fitting end to Marshall’s reign of terror.

  Eliza exited her kitchen with the towel that Mary had requested and handed it to her. That’s when she saw Marshall unconscious in the backyard. She had no idea at that moment if her husband was dead or alive. She wasn’t about to take any chances though. She bent over, picked up the gun that had landed at her feet only a minute prior, and walked over to Marshall. She pointed it at him.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, sweetheart,” Sebastian said calmly as he reached over and put his hand over Eliza’s and pushed it downward.

  She dropped the gun in the grass and began sobbing. Sebastian took her into his arms and let her cry.

  “Someone call an ambulance for Piper!” Mary yelled.

  Piper opened her eyes just in time to hear Mary’s plea for help. “No, no, it’s okay. I’m fine,” Piper told everyone in the backyard. “It’s just a scratch. See.” She lifted the towel from her arm and showed her wound. “It’s not even bleeding anymore. A stitch or two and I’ll be fine.”

  Mary grabbed onto her sister and squeezed her tight, with tears flowing freely down her face.

  Eliza started to calm down and pulled herself out of Sebastian’s embrace. She stood back and looked at him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

  “I’m here about the kid. I want to know if he’s mine. I have a right to know.”

  “Sebastian, we were only together once. Why would you even think he might be yours?”

  “Because I know about the blood tests. I know that the kid’s blood type doesn’t work with Marshall’s. I even had my brother take my blood for comparison.”

  “Your brother? Andy?” she asked him, confused.

  “Yeah, he works in the lab at the hospital. He’s the one that told me that the kid went into the hospital recently, and his blood type was different than when he was born. Someone was covering something up. So, Andy had me take a test. They don’t do DNA tests there, just other stuff. Anyway, he said that my blood type was compatible, and Marshall’s wasn’t. That tells me that Marshall is not his father. So…I’m going to ask you again. Is the kid mine?”

  “Stop calling him that. He has a name, you know,” Eliza told him.

  “Answer my question. Is he mine or not?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sorry.” Eliza wished deep down in her heart that she could give him an answer to his question. He deserved to know. And Marshall also deserved to know. But with that little boy buried in a shallow grave in her rose garden, she didn’t think that was a question that was ever going to get answered.

  “How many men were there?” Sebastian asked without thinking.

  A slap landed on his face so hard that he saw stars dancing around in front of his eyes.

  “Damnit, why did you do that?!” Sebastian yelled as his left hand instinctively went up to cover his burning cheek.

  “I was not sleeping around, you asshole!” she screamed at him.

  Everyone in the backyard turned toward the street as sirens wailed their way toward them.

  Chapter 20

  Everyone in the backyard, save Marshall, who w
as still unconscious, looked around at the others in the group.

  “Who called the cops?” Eliza looked each person in the eyes.

  “Probably one of the neighbors,” Mary explained. “Your husband shot my sister, in case you forgot!”

  The look Mary gave Eliza caused her to look down in shame. Though she felt that Marshall had set all of the events of the past few months into motion, Eliza knew that she was also to blame. She helped with the decision to bury the precious soul among the beautiful roses, and the subsequent lies and cover up. She knew that Marshall was harassing the neighbors because he thought one of them bore witness to the deed, that late, heart breaking night. Yet, Eliza did nothing to stop him. And the final horrible act, beating up an innocent man and leaving him to die miles from any civilization. Sure, they told themselves that he was still alive, and could make it home on his own. But, they both knew that was an unlikely outcome. Nathan was so badly injured, she doubted he ever woke up from his ordeal. Though she never laid a hand on him, she was complacent in his murder. She would have to answer for that.

  “Come on everybody,” Sebastian spoke up. “Looks like there’s a lot of explaining that needs to be done.”

  Sebastian led the way, and everyone followed. He felt pretty safe in the knowledge that he just showed up and helped keep Marshall from killing everyone. Other than that, he really had no clue what had transpired that evening in the backyard of the Porter home.

  As they all walked through the house and out into the front yard, it was a solemn group. Every single one of them had one thing on their mind. That little hand sticking up through the dirt in the rose garden. Only Eliza knew the whole story and she was certain that the entire truth was about to be revealed to the world. She brought up the rear of the group, terrified over what was about to happen, once the sheriff got wind of the rose garden.

  Police cars, as well as an ambulance, sirens blazing, pulled up to the house, screeching brakes and all. Someone had heard the gunshot and called them. Sebastian was the only one that had the presence of mind to remove the gun from near where Marshall laid. He carried it out front with him and threw it on the ground the second he walked out the front door. He had seen enough movies to know that the guy holding the gun wasn’t going to make it off the front porch alive.