Cold Case Secrets

by Maggie K. Black

  Thunder slammed the sky outside. The trees shook. And for a long moment, he thought she was going to argue.

  “Okay.” She set down her flashlight and picked up her bag. “The window shutters are bolted from the inside. I couldn’t find shutters on the skylights in the bedroom, but I locked them and they’re pretty small. Both the ceiling and wall seem to have done a pretty good job withstanding those bullets. Seemed whoever built the ranger log cabins in the 1930s built them to last.”

  There was a softness and something almost comforting or reassuring about the way she changed the topic. Like a sensitive interviewer. No, like a friend. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of it or why she’d done it, but he was thankful nonetheless.

  He had no idea how long he’d been out there, floundering in the storm, trying to find the man who’d attacked them in the cabin. But it had been useless. He couldn’t see which way the man had gone and could barely see where he was going. He’d just been thrashing around, with only Grace’s shouting to remind him where the cabin had been.

  Then he’d dropped to his knees in the dirt and sobbed as if holding his little sister’s locket in his hands had torn open a cut so deep inside him it would never be able to fully heal. Why? was all he’d been able to pray at first. Why this? Why now? Why here?

  Why did my sister die?

  Then he’d dragged himself to his feet and jogged back, with two thoughts filling his mind. One was that he’d been wrong to leave Grace. The other was that he couldn’t keep what had happened secret from her, not with how he could feel the pain of his sister’s death coursing through him like a fresh and bleeding wound. He could try not to talk about it. He could do his best to be nothing but an impersonal professional and maybe he’d succeed for the first hour or three. But thoughts of Faith and the locket would preoccupy him and block out his ability to concentrate on anything else. It would distract him from doing what needed to be done.

  “Do you think we’re safer staying here than going out in the storm?” she asked.

  “I do.” He nodded, thankful she’d said safer instead of safe. “Neither option is a good one. But at least in here, we’ll be dry and free from getting struck by lightning or anything. It’s not that far from where we fell, so when they send a rescue helicopter this will probably be one of the first areas they search. To my way of thinking, I’d rather defend a fort than get hunted in the woods.”

  He let her help him out of his long-sleeved shirt, until he was sitting there in just a T-shirt. He glanced down at the ugly red bullet wound cutting across his arm and thanked God it wasn’t worse. The gash was longer than he’d expected but seemed fairly shallow. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

  She kneeled beside him and turned the flashlight toward him.

  “I’ve seen worse,” she said.

  “Really?” he asked. “Where?”

  “Crime scenes,” she said. “Natural disasters.” She got antiseptic wipes out of her kit and cleaned her hands thoroughly. “I did both first aid training and lifeguarding in high school and college. You’d be surprised how often, as a reporter, I reach a victim before police and paramedics do. My editor, Olivia Ash, always said that first we stop the bleeding, then we ask the questions. Though usually all someone needs is a hug, or a bottle of water, or help getting to the actual paramedics. Like Olivia said, we’re always a human being first and a reporter second.”

  He’d met Olivia a couple of times, thanks to the fact that her sister, Chloe, was marrying his brother Trent in two days’ time. He didn’t know her well, but knew her enough to know that she had a kind heart and a dedication to reporting the truth. But Olivia wasn’t like most journalists.

  “I’ve seen you at dozens of crime scenes and I’ve heard you shout plenty of questions my direction and I’ve never seen you...” His voice trailed off as he suddenly realized there was no good way to end his sentence.

  “You’ve never seen me what?” she asked. “You’ve never seen me help someone?”

  Maybe not in those words, but close enough that he wasn’t going to add insult to injury by denying it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Well then maybe you just weren’t paying close enough attention,” she said.

  She pulled a wad of cotton from the first aid kit and poured some alcohol on it. The sharp and clean smell filled the small space. Then he felt the stinging coolness of it against his wound. He wondered if he should apologize again. He’d been afraid this would happen. That his mood would be off. If he didn’t open up, thoughts of what had happened to his sister would just eat away inside him.

  Lord, I feel like there’s no good way to start this. Please help me speak clearly. Help Grace listen. Just be here with us right now.

  “When I was fourteen years old, someone murdered my little sister, Faith.”

  Grace sat back as if the words had landed in the room and sent invisible shockwaves rippling into the air and pushing her back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That must’ve been really hard.”

  “It was. Thank you. If I’m honest, that’s where my dislike of the press comes from. It’s like they pulled away at the edges of our pain and made it worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Thank you,” he repeated.

  For a long moment, neither of them said anything. They just sat there, in the cabin, in the storm, with his eyes on her face and her eyes on his in the dim glow of the flashlight. Then she went back to cleaning his wound and he went back to his story.

  “That’s her in the middle of the picture in the locket,” he said. “I’m the tall one on the left with the goofy grin. Then that’s Trent next to me. The baby in my mother’s arms is Max. My youngest brother, Nick, wasn’t born yet. I gave Faith the locket for Christmas, about six months before she died.”

  He paused for a moment. Grace set the cotton down, pulled out a strip of gauze and started bandaging the gash with it.

  “Someone tried to grab her off the road when she was walking home from school,” he said, oddly thankful he was talking to a journalist. At least she’d be familiar with the idea of just focusing on facts. “Judging by the evidence, she was walking home alone, a car stopped, someone got out and tried to kidnap her. She fought back.” He swallowed hard. “He strangled her and then left her there at the side of the road. A motorist found her and called the police. I was the one who opened the door when they came.”

  Grace gently took his other hand in hers and pressed it against the gauze on his arm. “Can you hold this here while I cut some adhesive tape?”

  Their fingers lingered there together for a moment, touching and slightly linked. Then she pulled away and reached for the adhesive tape. He closed his eyes and listened to the rain pounding down around them and the wind shaking the walls. Oddly, the storm that had driven them indoors was now also a shield against any type of coordinated attack or ambush. Anyone who wanted to hurt them would have to fight through the wind and the rain to get to them, and it would make the cabin almost impossible to see in the darkness.

  “A day hadn’t even passed before the journalists showed up,” he said, knowing it wasn’t even close to the most important part of the story, but feeling like it was something he needed her to know. “We had reporters camped out in front of our house and following Trent and me to school. I won’t even pretend that’s not the reason why I don’t like journalists. They’re like carrion birds picking over the lives of others. That’s why I reacted the way I did whenever you approached me, and why I ignored your emails. A big part of why, anyway.”

  He wasn’t about to admit he was attracted to her. And wasn’t quite sure why he’d needed her to know just how much he disliked journalists.

  “It’s not that I didn’t respect you,” he added quickly. “Truth be told, I think you might be one of the most interest
ing women I’ve ever met. You’re smart and brave, and your articles are really well written.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t realize you’d read anything I’d written. You’re pretty interesting and brave yourself.”

  A bang sounded somewhere outside the cabin like a distant tree falling in the forest. Jacob stood up slowly, walked over to the door, opened it and looked out for a long moment. Grace set the tape and gauze slowly back in the first aid kit and closed it. The two plastic clasps clicked shut loudly.

  “All clear?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Jacob turned back. “I think the storm’s taking down a lot of trees. We might be looking at a whole new landscape tomorrow.”

  He closed and locked the door again.

  “What’s said in this cabin doesn’t leave this cabin,” she said. “Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You won’t dig into my business, and I won’t dig into yours. Agreed?”

  “Of course.” He sat back down beside her on the floor. “Unless you’re about to confess to either committing or knowledge of a crime.”

  “My father was arrested when I was fourteen,” she said. She pulled her knees up into her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years when suddenly he wanted to go get donuts. We’re sitting there in Tims when the police were everywhere, shouting at him to get down. He ran out, they chased him.” She shrugged. “But I never thought to hate the cops. When I read about his crimes in the media, I never thought to blame the press. I only blamed him. And God.”

  Finch. Grace Finch. The temptation to go searching through the crime database for her family name niggled at him. But as her eyes met his, he felt the weight of the promise he’d made in her gaze.

  “Can I ask what he was arrested for?” he asked.

  “No, you may not,” she said. “I don’t talk about my birth father or my background. I don’t want my life to be judged by somebody else’s mistakes. I just wanted you to know you weren’t alone. I never had a sibling, let alone lost one. But I know what it’s like to have your life torn apart.”

  Her hand stretched out into the darkness between them, her fingers brushed his arm, and something flickered in her eyes. It was like a desire to be seen, a desire to be known, and suddenly he had the feeling there was way more to her than he’d ever imagined.

  “Maybe when I get to know you better, I might one day be willing to talk about my father,” she said. And something in the timbre of her voice made him wonder if he was the first person she’d ever said that to. “Now, please tell me more about your sister.”

  “They never caught the person who killed her,” he said. He leaned back into his elbow, reached into his pocket and slid her locket inside. “They never even found the car. They found a lot of DNA evidence under her fingernails, but it was never a match to anyone in the system. When I joined the force, I tried to look into it and discovered the remaining DNA sample had been destroyed. Maybe it was a clerical error. Maybe something went wrong. I don’t know.” He thought about the next part of the story and how vague he could keep it. “Please keep this between us, but a contact of mine said he recently uncovered something about misfiled police evidence boxes. There’s a slim possibility he might be able to use that information to figure out what happened to her attacker’s DNA sample. If I wasn’t here with you, I’d be meeting him tonight.”

  “I’m sorry you’re stuck here,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said, and for far more reasons than he’d ever be able to admit to her. “Because we can always reschedule the meeting and I just found this locket—Faith’s locket—in the bedroom suspended from the skylight. Judging by the dust patterns, it hasn’t been there long. Faith was wearing it the day she died. It was never recovered from her body.” He watched as Grace’s hand rose to her lips. “This means either Cutter, Driver or Turner had something to do with the death of my sister.”

  SEVEN

  He watched as Grace leaped to her feet and started to pace.

  “But that’s not possible,” she said. “It’s just not. You’ve got to know that.”

  What was she talking about? What wasn’t possible? He sat up straight. Of all the possible reactions, agitation hadn’t been one he’d been expecting. “Yeah, I get how improbable it sounds. But I’m telling you that this is the locket my little sister was wearing the day she was murdered.”

  Grace stopped, turned and looked at him. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything.

  “But it’s just not possible,” Grace said, but softly and sadly, like she was talking to someone who wasn’t even there. “If she died twenty-four years ago how could anyone possibly plant it here? If her killer took it with him and then he was arrested, how did he manage to smuggle it into prison with him and then smuggle it out again when he escaped today? They’d have taken all of his belongings from him when he was arrested—”

  “I don’t know!” He pushed up off the floor with his good hand so hard he heard his palm smack against the wood. Now he started pacing too, until they were walking around each other in circles like they were both tigers trapped in a crate. “Maybe he hid it somewhere and retrieved it when he got out of prison. Maybe he did in fact smuggle it in and out of jail. Maybe he had an accomplice get it to him recently. Again, I don’t know!” His voice rose, joining with the howl of the wind, crash of the thunder and the steady beat of the rain. “I’ll admit it makes no sense. I’m confused, Grace. I’m beyond confused. I don’t have a clue what’s going on here or how my dead sister’s locket got into a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Finding this locket was the most surreal, upsetting and unbelievable thing that’s ever happened to me. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it for now! I can’t call my brothers and talk it through with them. I can’t get a forensics crew up here to sweep the cabin. I’ve spent my entire life wanting to catch the man who hurt my sister. I’m now the closest I’ve ever been to answers and never felt more helpless.”

  She didn’t answer. If anything, she looked sick with worry. Help me, Lord. I took the risk of trusting her. I’ve never felt this weak before.

  “I apologize for getting loud and I’m sorry to put the weight of all this on you.” He stopped pacing and turned toward her. “But right now, you’re all I’ve got. I’m scared. I’m confused. I’m worried. I’m angry...” He shrugged, feeling the pain sear through his arm as he did so. “More than anything, I just need to know you believe me. Because I’ve never felt so lost.”

  There. That was as honest as he could be. It might even be the most gut-wrenchingly honest he’d ever been with anyone about his emotions, including his brothers. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Defiance filled her form, and her stance made him think of a cornered boxer about to strike. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else to say. Then her lips moved in what he thought was silent prayer and then as he watched the tension dropped from her form like a flower reopening after a storm. She walked over to him, tilted her head and looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “You’re going through something unimaginably horrible right now, and the last thing you need is somebody arguing with or yelling at you.”

  His mouth opened but something tightened in his throat, stealing the air from his lungs even if he had been able to find words.

  “I believe you,” she said. “I do. I know you’re telling the truth about your sister, and the locket, and the facts of the situation. It’s the whole situation we’re stuck in that I’m struggling to make sense of too. You’re not lost. At least, if you are, you’re not alone.”

  He nodded. The tightening in his throat moved into his chest, until he seemed to feel his heart catch with every beat. He didn’t say anything; neither did she. Instead, they just stood there in the darkness, face-to-face and chest to chest, so close that if they each moved their heads, just a littl
e, their lips would touch. And the sudden unexpected and inexplicable realization that something inside him very much wanted that to happen sent an unexpected shiver up his spine.

  “I’m feeling really angry, scared and confused too,” she said. Her arms parted, so did his, and she stepped up to lean into his chest, slowly and tentatively like she was just as unused to hugging someone outside of family as he was. She wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back as tightly as he could with one arm and felt her shiver against his chest. He held her there, feeling the warmth of her filling his core and bracing each other against the cold. Her shivering stopped and after a long moment, she stepped away.

  She walked over to her phone and picked it up.

  “Still no signal,” she said. “And the battery’s down to almost nothing. We should keep it off. Probably should turn the flashlight off too to save battery power.”

  “Agreed,” he said. Did his voice sound as strange to her as it did to him? If anything, the lump in his throat was bigger than it had been before the unexpected hug and now he had to push his words past it. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get a signal once the storm clears. There’s no point trying as long as the rain’s this bad. But this cabin’s at a pretty high altitude, and I know a few other tricks for boosting a signal. Worse case scenario, I’ll go sit on the roof. You can sleep if you want. I’m not going to sleep until we’re safely out of these woods and back in the real world.”

  The real world. Now why had he called it that?

  “Thank you,” Grace said. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. I’d suggest we take turns keeping watch, but I don’t imagine you’ll be able to sleep either.”

  No, neither did he. He did another quick check around the cabin for vulnerabilities, while Grace held the flashlight for him. Then they switched the light off and sat down by the door in the darkness, back to back, and listened to the rain.