by A J Rivers
“You can't do that to yourself, Dean,” I say.
“Why not?” he rounds on me angrily, then takes a moment to calm down. “It's the truth. I saw that guy in the woods. He was following me. I was the one he was after. I went down a bad spiral after that. Because I was a minor, the police wouldn't release my name or let me talk to anybody who was involved. I couldn't talk to Violet’s parents or tell my story on the news, anything that might have triggered somebody's memory. And it didn't take long for me to realize that there were two groups of police, and neither one of them was on my side. One group thought I was lying about everything. And one group thought that I had something to do with it.”
“Oh, Dean,” I sigh, wrapping him in a hug. He’s stiff, but after a few beats, he finally accepts it. We break the hug, and I pat him on the shoulder. He gives me a soft smile.
“You said there's a lot of it that you don't remember,” I break the silence. “Has it always been that way?”
Dean nods.
“Ever since I was pretty small, I've had memory lapses. It's not something I like to talk about with people. It makes me look irresponsible. As though I can't be trusted. I know that's how I felt about myself. The lapses weren't all that frequent before that day at the campground. Or at least, I didn't notice them as much. But there are whole pieces of that day missing, and those missing pieces mean I can't help Violet. I can't describe what the man looked like. I can't pinpoint exactly where we were when it happened. I don't know how much I fought or how I was hurt.”
“The case file says it looked as if your shirt was snagged on a tree and that your injuries were consistent with falling down the rocks,” I say.
He gives a short, mirthless laugh and shakes his head. “Of course it does. And you know what? For all I know, that might be true. Because I don't remember. It's just these little flashes. But I know he was right there. He came for me. For years after that, I just kept going down a really bad path. Then my mother was murdered. Murdock did his best to watch over me and take care of me, but he couldn't be there all the time. And I know I did a lot of things I shouldn't have. I tried to drown the memories and separate from that whole time.
“But then those four guys went missing, and they started talking about Violet again. Rumors about this unnamed witness floated around, and I couldn't escape it anymore. I had two choices. I could let it destroy me, or I could use it. I decided to use it."
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small black book. "I have this with me all the time. I write things down so I don't forget, or so if I don't remember, I can look back. It's not minute by minute, but it's enough. I started keeping a journal when I was first in the military. I never told you why I decided to join the Army, did I?”
“It was your only option. Your mother was gone, and you needed the structure,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I guess in a way that's right. The truth is that I did it for Violet. After going off the rails for years because of what happened, I realized it wasn't doing either of us any good. She was still gone, and nobody knew why or who did it. There were others. I knew I needed to do something. I lived that day, and Violet didn't. And there I was, just throwing away every day I got that she didn't. It disrespected her and her memory.
“So I changed. I decided that even if I couldn't see in myself something that was worth fighting for, I would fight for her. Every day I would strive to be worthy of taking her place in this world. From joining the military to getting into special forces, to becoming a private investigator, she has been in the back of my mind through all of it. Going into the Army was to save myself and have a chance at life, but I always knew it was shewho saved me.
“Even when I committed myself to finding you and seeking out justice for my mother, it was because of her. It was Violet sitting on my shoulder, telling me not just that I had to do it, but that I could. Since then, I have dedicated myself to paying for her life with every day of mine. And it's even more important now that I know who I am and where I come from.”
I wrap Dean in another hug. He protests, but I don’t care.
“No one should have to bear that alone, Dean.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Creagan, I understand the Bureau's investigation of what happened at Arrow Lake in Sherando Ridge National Park didn't turn up anything, and it's been put aside. But no one was ever caught. And now a woman is missing. Her disappearance follows the pattern of the other cases exactly. It happened at the same campground on the same date. No trace of her, no evidence, nobody knows what happened. Don't you think that justifies looking at it again?”
“Griffin, there are other cases that need attention right now,” Creagan says. “I don't have the time or energy to take this on. And even if I did, I don't have the manpower. They're all on the domestic terrorists and that cyber-crime ring.”
“This happened in a national park. That makes it our business. Not to mention the fact that it's gone unsolved this long and is still active. You can't just ignore it. And you do have the manpower. You have me. And I have all the backup I need. At least to get started.”
“You're talking about your ragtag group of crime-fighting avengers?” he grumbles.
“That ragtag group of crime-fighting avengers is why you know what happened to Lakyn Monroe. Why the mastermind of Leviathan is in prison, along with his disturbing legacy. Why there isn't a serial killer still in Feathered Nest stuffing people like animals and using them as props in his own museum of temporary derangement. Should I keep going?” I ask.
“You give them a lot of credit, Griffin,” he says. “You know you're the one who's solved all of those. Maybe with some help from Eric and Bellamy, both of whom are off duty on family leave now.”
“Then let me be the one who does this,” I say.
Now isn't the time for me to fight him to recognize Sam, Dean, and Xavier. I need him to authorize reactivating the Bureau investigation into Arrow Lake.
“You're supposed to be involved in the investigation of the assassination attempt,” he says.
“And I am,” I say. “I have met every deadline you've asked, and I have given you every bit of information I have been able to find. I can continue to work on that while I do this. You can't just ignore it. If you do, more people are going to die.”
“Even if I say no, you're going to do it anyway, aren't you?” he sighs.
“It would make it much easier if I could have access to the files and authorization to go to the closed areas of the park,” I say.
“Can’t you just let this one go?” he asks, letting out another heavy sigh. He could have at least had the decency to pretend.
“No,” I snap. “I can’t. This is important. Barely six months ago, I was in a different part of that park looking for a woman who was taken. She spent thirteen years of her life imprisoned because nobody would look for her. Children are dead. More are missing. Adults are missing. Now there's another. Don't let it happen again.”
“I swear to Hades, Griffin, you are going to be the death of me one of these days,” he mutters.
“Thank you, Creagan.”
“I really appreciate your doing this,” I say. “I know you guys are already on leave and the last thing you want to talk about is work.”
“Don't worry about it,” Eric says. “I can't believe somebody else went missing up at that campground. I want to know what happened, too.”
“I'm going to do my best to figure it out,” I say.
“If there's anybody who can, it's you,” he says. “I got all the files from when the Bureau was involved in the case thirteen years ago. If there's anything else you need and think I can get for you, just let me know.”
“I don't want to take up too much of your time,” I say. “Do you need to be with B right now?”
“Don't worry about it,” Bellamy calls over, waddling her way into the room with a plate of sliced tomatoes with fresh mozzarella cheese and a bottle of Italian dressing. “At this point I'm spend
ing the vast majority of my time getting the nursery ready, eating, and sleeping. He would probably like the break from it.”
"That's all you should be doing," I say. I go over to her and give her a hug, then kiss her belly. "All right, I should probably get going. It was so good seeing you guys. I miss you so much."
"We miss you, too," Eric says, hugging me.
"You're still coming up to stay at your Dad's house for a little while after the baby comes, right?" Bellamy asks.
"Absolutely. And Sam is working on his schedule so he can sneak a couple of weekends in, too."
Eric helps me carry the case files out to the car. They fill the trunk and back seat, and a couple end up on the passenger seat beside me. I'm glad Sam decided to stay home in Sherwood while I came up here today. I wouldn’t have been able to fit everything in the car if he’d come along.
As soon as Creagan agreed to let me pick up the investigation of the Arrow Lake Campground disappearances and murders, I jumped on it before he could change his mind or decide there was another case he wanted me to work. That meant getting Eric to gather up every bit of information he could for me while Sam works extra hours so he can take more time off later, o be able to help.
Hopefully, he'll be home by the time I get there, and we can dive into the cartons of papers now weighing down my car.
A couple of hours after leaving Eric’s and Bellamy's house, I'm happy to see Sam's car in the driveway at home. But I'm a little confused about the car sitting beside it. I pull in, making sure I park behind Sam rather than the white Jeep Wrangler beside it. I call Sam on the phone as I climb out.
"Hey, babe, can you come out here and help with these cartons?" I ask.
"Yep. Be right there."
He opens my trunk a few seconds later and gives me a kiss before taking the stack of cartons out of my arms and holding them in place so I can add another couple on top.
“Dean's here?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “He and Xavier showed up about half an hour ago.”
“How is he?” I ask.
“Quiet. But seems really eager to get into the case.”
“Really?”
Sam nods and heads for the door while I pick up another couple of boxes and bring them into the house. As soon as Dean and Xavier see us with the containers, they follow us out to the car and help us bring in the rest in one trip. My office is too small to accommodate all of us and the sheer volume of paperwork within those cases, so we take them to the dining room instead.
This is the room where I can remember weeknight dinners with my grandparents, and my mother's angel biscuits for Christmas. Dinners were always perfectly served, and the family ate them gathered around the table. The same went for breakfasts and lunches most of the time, too.
As much as I would like to keep up the tradition and make my grandmother proud, I have to admit my dining room doesn't see very many formal meals anymore. If we eat at the table, more often than not, it's in the kitchen. When we aren't in there, we're eating in the living room or out on the patio.
But the dining room does serve very well as a makeshift war room when I'm at home and need more space to spread out than my office allows.
While Sam and Xavier start to organize the cartons so we can dig through the cases according to the timeline, I pull Dean aside.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I ask. "You don't have to."
"Yes, I do."
"Dean, I know…"
"Emma, you threw yourself back thirteen years to find out what happened to Julia Meyer. Because you never let go of it. I've never let go of this. Our lives overlapped in this park. Three years after Violet disappeared, Julia did. The police wouldn't listen to either of us. You got your ending. I haven't gotten mine. I need to do this."
I nod. "All right. Then let's do it."
Chapter Twenty-Two
"I know the anniversary is a central thread among all of these, but why? Violet's death was the first, but was that for a reason?"
“You mean was she killed on that date for a specific reason, and everybody else was killed around that date because of her?” Sam asks.
“Exactly,” I nod. “It’s what you always say: no coincidences. We need to figure out why this date. And what about other threads that they share? There have to be other similarities. I can't imagine this was just a random thing. Some killer who goes up to the campground and knocks people off just because he sees them. So, look at the victims. The circumstances of the deaths and disappearances. How are they related?”
“They're not,” Dean says. “That's the problem. Violet was a four-year-old girl. The next year the two kids who went missing were, what, fourteen? Then the two years after that, the victims were teenagers, too. Except for the twenty-year-old. It was mostly male victims, but there were also two females.”
“That's true,” I say. “And none of them has any family links except for the cousins in the last group. They didn't know each other or go to the same schools or have any friends in common with the other groups. The last four victims were known to have visited Cabin 13, where Violet was staying with her parents.”
Saying the words “Cabin 13” out loud sends a silent chill down my spine, but I push it away. The exact same number as the cabin I stayed in in Feathered Nest all those years ago, the same one that became the central hub of so many unraveling mysteries in my life. That has to be just a coincidence. Right?
“Weren't the ones from the second year staying nearby, too?” Sam asks.
“Yes,” I say. “You're right. Cabin 12, the next one over. But not any of the other groups. They were staying on the other side of the lake. So even that isn't a complete link.”
“Neither is the cause of death,” Dean says.
I look over the papers spread out across the dining room table. I shrug.
“Well, you can't really say that. The cause of death was identified in two of the four victims confirmed deceased. They were both asphyxiated. Most likely by manual strangulation. Animals had gotten to another of the bodies and scattered the bones. Some of those who disappeared were never recovered, so there was no way to conclusively determine death. And Violet was too badly decomposed to clearly determine death,” I say.
"But it was unlikely to have beenmanual strangulation," Xavier points out. "There's no mention of a broken hyoid bone."
"That's true," I nod. “Which means there are inconsistencies in the causes of death. But that isn't completely unheard of in serial killers. Some choose different methods of killing depending on the victim. There are similarities in how the bodies were found. Violet was in the cave, sitting up and resting back against the wall as if she was just relaxing, or as if she was playing hide-and-seek. Logan Boyer was in a sleeping bag, looking as though he was asleep. Terrence Walker, one of the victims from the third year, was found sitting up against a tree at the swimming hole.”
“What’s your point?” Dean asks.
“They were staged. The bodies found were staged to look as if they were doing something in life. There’s obviously no way to know for sure, but if I had to make a guess, I would say the body that was found scattered around had also been staged in some sort of position out in the open, where the animals were able to find it. That tells me this is the same person. This isn't some sort of copycat thrill killer, where people come back to the campground year after year and kill random people. This is the same person coming back to his hunting ground,” I say.
“But why the pattern?” Xavier asks.
“What pattern?” I ask.
“Violet was just one person. The next year two disappeared. The next year, three. And then the final year, four.”
“I noticed that, too. But I don't know if there's a significance. The pattern doesn't repeat with the bodies found. Both the first and second year, one body was found. The third year, two bodies were found. But then the fourth year, none. It's a pattern, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has significance. It's something to keep in
mind, but I don't want to get too wrapped up in it."
I move some of the papers aside so I can spread out a large map of the area. “Let's pinpoint where each of the victims was seen last, and where each the body was found.”
We spend the next few minutes going through all the case files and using every bit of information we can find to identify where the victims were last seen alive, then where their bodies were found. I'm hoping to find some sort of pattern, some sort of easily recognizable cluster that will indicate… something.
Only, there isn't anything. The only similarity the death scenes have is that they are in the general vicinity of the Arrow Lake Campground.
Dean tilts his head and examines the map for a few seconds. He points to the one marked Cabin 13.
“This is Violet’s cabin?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“This is the basic area where my friends and I had our tents set up,” he says, indicating a portion of the woods. “Which means I saw her somewhere around here.” He points out another location. “There wasn't much time between when I saw her and heard her scream, and when the people found me. At least, I don't think there was. So, how was somebody able to get her and get her all the way over here without anybody noticing?”
He indicates the location of the cavern where her body was found. It's a good distance from both the cabin area and where Dean saw her in the woods.
“He must be really familiar with the park and be able to move through the back areas,” Sam says.
I look at the location Dean pointed out again.
“Wait,” I say. “I've seen that spot. It's in her file. Hold on.” I sift through the papers and find what I'm looking for. Putting it down onto the map, I show them the picture of the shoe they found on the log in the woods and a sketch of where it was located in relation to the cabin. “Doesn't this look like the same area?”
