Walking up to the house, digging my keys out from my pocket, I didn’t look back at them. I let the front screen door close in its normal stages, the hinge closing-closing-closing then finally shutting all the way.
Upstairs, Aster snored from the guest bedroom. The noise penetrated the closed door and came all the way down. She was sawing logs, as Sherman would say. I wondered what he’d say if I laid it out for him. This is who kidnapped me. This is who took my sister. He’d get his patented confused Sherman look like when I showed him how to solve a Precalculus problem.
I wondered how it would all fall out, once everyone knew, from Carla to Kitty to Sherman’s little brothers. I tried to snap back, focus on what was important. How could I be caring about people saying shit behind my back or to my face when Maddy was still missing?
The last time I’d interrupted my parents in the middle of the night I was probably about 4. Either a nightmare or a stomachache forced the intrusion.
I could see his back turned to me as I reached to the lamp on the side table and tugged the pull chain.
The light flicked on, I had to say his name several times before he turned and looked towards me. He wore a white tank top and boxer shorts, all the blankets shoved into a mountain range at the foot of the bed. One of the windows was nudged open, just a bit, letting in cool air.
He squinted at me. Senate McCall looked old. He looked about 20 years older than he actually was. The Senate McCall his grandchildren would know.
“Luce…” The sleep still heavily upon him. He struggled to sit up.
“Where’s Maddy?”
He shook his head. Looked at me and asked, “What?”
I swallowed and this time projected my voice.
He shook his head. Looked at the bed and I could see he was trying to summon something to ease me back from this precipice I’d wandered upon.
“I was at Bob’s. I saw the Jeep. I saw Pat Corley’s Jeep. Uncle Bob’s here with us. We know. And you didn’t see Carla tonight. She was still coming back from Pendleton. I know. We know. Dad. What did you do? What did you do to her?”
He kept his eyes down. His hand tensed and tugged back on the bed sheet like a claw tightening.
“Dad?”
“Lucy. I don’t know what you-“
“WHERE IS SHE?”
In the quiet right after I yelled, yelled louder than I’d ever yelled my entire life, just under the rush of blood in my ears I could hear floorboards creak outside. Jack and Dina, on the porch. They were trusting me to get Dad awake, but they thought I might need some back up.
His eyes were wide open. If he wasn’t awake before, he was now. I imagined Aster thrown from sleep after my outburst.
“It’s over,” I said. “Whatever you think you were doing. Whatever…It’s over.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is she?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I thought…I thought…”
“She’s pregnant.”
The way he looked at me. He didn’t know.
“She was waiting to tell you. She was waiting for the right time to tell you. Would it have made any difference?”
He put his hands to his face, covering his eyes. I could see his mouth pinch up and tremor in those sad, spastic, all too human movements native to the shedding of tears.
“It wasn’t supposed to. They weren’t. That picture. Of you. It wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t supposed to.”
He shook. He shook like Mom had just died again, right under the touch of his hand.
I walked up to the bed, and quietly, doing my best to do it quietly, asked him once more.
I ran outside. Ran past Dina and Jack and onto the lawn.
“The Winks place,” I said. “I can show you where it is.”
Outside Uncle Bob had gotten out of the SUV. We ran past him like he was a stranger.
Dina turned over the engine, backed up, then shifted into drive. Moving away from the house the SUV taillights lit up Uncle Bob standing in the driveway. Mojo running around near him. Tail wagging.
The light in the living room remained on.
We turned left onto East Jennings and Dina hit the gas. We slid into a thick river of gravel and just as quick slid free. If anything, she was driving faster now, and calling someone on her phone.
I looked over my shoulder at the lights on in the living room. I looked at them until I couldn’t see them anymore.
Chapter 44
The Winks place was nestled right past the point on a map that looked like a narrow waist, where drivers could look and see a vehicle on either side of the East and West Jennings country spanning loop. Not quite close enough to make out someone waving from a car, but close enough to see the shape of a car.
On the way back towards Eaton, West Jennings made a sharp jog west, running parallel with a slope above a narrows filled by scrub brush. Our science teachers explained that a glacier had formed that deep trench millions of years ago. What nature wrought was now a gouge in earth peppered by cartons for beer bottles and a smorgasbord of fast food bags and wrappers.
The trench ran several hundred yards and at its eastern zenith, it bent south suddenly, leaving a semi-steep hillside face near the edge of the property Dad had bought for cheap, the place still called the Winks place although the Winks in question had long since departed eastern Washington for parts unknown.
What the geography meant was that the Winks place was fairly isolated, and you could only approach it - easily at least - by West Jennings.
Dina had pulled to the shoulder and parked. Headed towards us from town, its headlights extinguished, another SUV showed up minutes after we’d parked. The SUV parked on the opposite shoulder and the driver got out of the rig and walked towards us. Just one person. The driver walked passed what was the turn off down a steep driveway to the Winks place, and slowed, looking down into the darkness.
Dina made a noise, a sigh of sorts, as though just the look the figure had made would spook the horse, jinx the entire operation. Nimbly, light as a feather on the gravel, the driver headed for us, grouped behind the SUV.
It wasn’t Trent, but one of the other security personnel. The guy from Friday night. The one walking a route past the pool right before everything changed. Dimples.
He had some sort of goggles tipped up on the top of his head. He handed Dina a pair of the same sort of goggles. She shrugged out of her jacket and set it through the rolled down driver’s side window into the rig.
Slipping the goggles onto the top of her head she said, “Rocco, you know Ms. McCall. Lucy, this is Rocco.”
We nodded.
“I want this to go to smooth.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Rocco. He followed her lead. Speaking barely above a whisper.
“Lucy,” she finished messing with the goggles. It totally looked like some headgear Luke Skywalker would’ve sported on Tatooine helping his uncle farm. “Rocco is an expert shot. He’s the best I know. That’s why he’s here.”
“Ok.”
“Mr. Ford here already knows that. He already knows how much I value Rocco. I don’t have to butter Rocco up for him.”
Rocco smiled. He had dimples and a chin cleft that was just about perfect where it was positioned. Up close he seemed about my age. He was handsome. The kind of guy Sherman naturally hated.
“We’re going into a live situation. You remember what that means, Lucy?”
I did. She’d told me on our way over.
Dad had given me his phone and his code word. The code that would instantly bring the operation to an end. The people holding Maddy would only answer a phone call coming from Dad’s phone. If they answered a call and heard the word, the operation would be brought to an immediate end.
The code word: Dorothy. Mom’s name.
Driving to the Winks place I’d called the number Dad
had on his phone.
No one had picked up. It wasn’t a service issue. That was cause for concern.
Watching Rocco walk from his vehicle to ours I’d called the number one last time and received the same non-answer.
Dina touched my arm. I wondered if she could feel my bones vibrate with the violent pounding of my chest. She knew I had questions.
She said, “Once we get down there, if it moves it’s a target. Maddy is the only exception. Ok?”
“Ok.”
“You do know what Madeline McCall looks like, don’t you, Rocco?” asked Dina.
“Ma’am.”
She nodded.
Dina slid the goggles over her eyes. Rocco did the same. Dina took her sidearm out of the shoulder holster. Looked at the weapon. Checked the clip. Slid it back in. She nodded.
He fell in behind her. Walked behind her and it was almost like their limbs were connected by invisible ropes, arms and legs moving in seamless concert.
We watched them walk across the road and down towards the head of the steep driveway. They vanished.
Jack sighed. He looked at me when I sniffled.
“Lucy.”
“Yes.”
“Could you do me a favor?”
“Uh huh.”
“Could you hold my hand please? I’m so scared right now.”
I produced a slight laugh noise. Jack. Mr. Action Movie Star. Scared. I finished wiping the tears off my face and then onto my leg and then took up his hand in my own.
We held hands.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For not saying everything’s going to be all right.”
“I was waiting for you to say it.”
I laughed then put my hand over my mouth, remembering I needed to be quiet.
I listened to the quiet roll back in around us. Then I whispered, “When my mom was sick I remember being told, or, I guess, being comforted by a nurse. She told me it was going to be all right. It’d be all right. And I was so tired at that point, tired and scared, and I didn’t call her on it. On her bullshit. How could she know? How could she guess how things were going to turn out and just tell me something she didn’t know, but something she could say to ease her mind? Just tick it off her checklist for the day and get on with her…It made me mad. It made me so mad. I hated that woman. I swore if I ever saw her again I’d…”
A wolf called. It sounded very far away. So far away I couldn’t tell if the tenor of its call was informational or emotional. Maybe both.
Jack said, “At least we know we aren’t the only ones awake at this hour.”
“Yeah.”
It was Monday morning.
Jack and Maddy were supposed to have flown home a day and a half ago. Life was supposed to be returning to normal. I should be asleep. Getting plenty of rest in preparation for cartoons on my locker and jibes from behind me on the bus and who knew what epic altercation with Nick that might end with blood from his nose spattered onto my knuckles.
“I should’ve guessed earlier,” I said. “I’m so dumb. I didn’t…I put some of it together, but I didn’t put it together all the way. I bet this is where they held me. I bet you anything. I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry I didn’t think clearer.”
He shook his head and his thumb flicked against my palm, right back and forth. It made me think of Mojo. Snuffling and licking my hand to make me feel better.
I wondered what Dad and Uncle Bob were doing. If Dad had realized his brother was outside the house. What they had to say to one another if anything.
Jack’s phone rang. We looked at each other. He let go of my hand and drew the phone out of his interior jacket pocket.
He answered. Motioned with his finger for me to lean in. He put the phone between us and we leaned our heads in to listen.
“Mr. Ford,” said Dina.
“Yes.”
“We’re clear down here. It’s safe,” she said. “You both better come down here.”
Chapter 45
Jack and I sprinted down the driveway. Nearing the house it curved and flattened. Gravel flew from out our heels the entire way.
A car was parked outside the house, backed up to the garage, nose facing the exit out.
Hedges hid a good portion of the front windows and the front door. Light glowed behind the windows and from the partially opened front door.
I’d been out here only a couple times. It was one of Sherman’s go to make out spots once we’d gotten serious. He’d insisted he’d brought no one else out to the spot. It surprised me to see the lights on for once.
Inside Dina stood at the rear of the front entryway. Her night goggles were shoved back on top of her skull.
As we approached she put a hand up. Not a stark, stiff motion, but an indication we should pause.
“She’s not here,” said Dina.
Neither Jack nor I spoke. In the quiet we could hear one another’s breath start to wind down after the mad sprint from Jennings down to the house.
“We don’t know what happened,” she continued. “There are bodies. The bodies have been dead for a while. Maybe a few hours. Someone else was here. Clearly.”
She waited for the information to circle our skulls and then roll down the drain. Sink in. “Do you think you can handle that?”
“Yes,” said Jack. He brushed past Dina and I and turned into the living room. When I made the same turn moments later I saw Jack looking down at the body of Pat Corley.
The living room was waiting for furniture. Occupied only by a dead body and a spray of blood coloring the carpet. The ceiling fan whirled. I assumed Dina had turned it on to try and mitigate the scent of death.
Pat Corley had been shot in the throat and the forehead. His left eye partially closed, the right open and dull, all the moisture seeming to have run back into his skull.
“That’s Pat,” I said, for Jack’s benefit. “That’s Pat Corley.”
He gave no indication of hearing or caring.
Footsteps echoed off linoleum and Rocco appeared in the doorway at the other end of the room. His goggles pushed back up on his head, too. His gun holstered.
“The other one is downstairs,” Dina said. “Rocco?”
He nodded and turned like we ought to follow him, go see more death.
Entrance to the basement was through the kitchen. The kitchen lights were off. Living room light seeped into the kitchen. There were pizza boxes and Gatorade bottles on the countertops. Light from the basement spread towards the top of the stairs.
Jack and I followed Rocco down.
There were two rooms in the basement, a main room like an entertainment room, and then a small bedroom.
There were chairs in the center of the main room. One standing, one knocked over. Severed coils of rope hung off the back of the standing chair.
On the floor next to the wall lay a mangled pair of glasses. Stepped on.
Significant amounts of blood had dried down here. On the walls. On the carpet. All of it seeming to have sourced from the face of the man dead on the floor.
He wore a short sleeve green shirt. A small spiral bound notebook slipped part of the way out of a breast pocket. He wore brown corduroy pants and loafers. The smell coming off of him was like walking into a Honey Bucket on a warm summer day.
Rocco walked up behind us and then around us. He pointed to the black as red could get mar soaked into the carpet.
“He was face down when we got down here. We rolled him back.”
The man’s left shoulder was frozen, hitched up towards his head and his head tilted towards the shoulder, and what of his face you could make out for the bruising and erupted crimson seemed to tell that he was in significant pain in his final moments. The angle of his head seemed unnatural to his neck like the grooves at the base of the skul
l didn’t conform to the grooves at the top of the neck. Unable to screw one onto the other properly, someone had just jammed the two pieces together.
“There’s no other wounding. Not that we can tell without stripping him down. They beat his…They beat him. Far as we can tell. They just beat him to death.”
Jack walked over to the standing chair. Knelt down and looked at the rope.
Still looking at the rope he asked, “Was she in this chair?”
Rocco shrugged.
“Could be. DNA tests would probably tell you that. Off the top of my head, sure. I’d say she probably was.”
A handrail ran the length of the stairs. I walked back towards it. Blood spatters had dribbled onto the end of the handrail, and on the bottom steps of the stairs, too.
Jack and Rocco went into the second room, the small bedroom. Rocco came out with a blanket in hand, but remained standing part of the way in, part of the way out, looking back at me, and the man’s body. Probably wanting me to feel like I wasn’t alone with a corpse. Taking a deep breath, I walked past the body, over to the bedroom. Rocco backed out of the way so I could get in.
The bed had sheets and blankets. There were also wrist restraints and restraints down at the base of the bed, all four mounted on the metal bed frame.
I couldn’t remember if this was where I’d been held. I snorted a little laugh. Maybe if my uncle’s faded, elderly red truck was parked near the house, motor running, then I’d be able to tell.
Jack stared at the bed. He looked like if he concentrated, somehow, he might summon Maddy from wherever she was. I started to leave the room, then paused and turned back.
Jack remained silent as I looked under the pillows. My finger nearly touched the wrist restraints, but couldn’t quite bridge the last little gap.
I hunched down and looked under the bed.
The head of the bed was shoved into a corner of the room. If I were lying on my back on the bed, head on the pillow, my right arm would be at the bed’s edge.
If I could find the bracelet it’d be a minor amount of control I’d regained. I really wanted a minor amount of control over the universe. But it just wasn’t going to happen, not right then.
Out in the main basement room, Rocco had draped the head of the body in a blanket.