The Clearing

by Tom Deady

  His lips pressed together, then he began biting the lower one. “All right. If we find anything, we call him immediately. Got it?”

  Hannah nodded. “Got it.”

  “And Hannah...” he paused, swallowing hard, “please don’t go running off like that again.” He reached a hand across the seat.

  “I won’t, “I’m sorry,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

  She stopped at a small clearing to get her bearings. That spring morning seemed like forever ago, and she began to panic, not seeing anything familiar. What if I can’t find it? Closing her eyes, she tried to think back to that day. She pictured the deer stopping to nibble on some wild blueberry bushes. Opening her eyes and spotting some wild blueberry bushes on the far side of the clearing, she started walking again, confident she was still on the right track.

  Shovels clanked together behind her as Dad adjusted them on his shoulder and followed. Scout bounded out in front, catching the scent of something. Hannah reached the other side of the clearing and pushed her way through some bushes, feeling the pull of the brambles on her clothes and ignoring the scratches they left on her skin. Ahead, she saw a small group of pines. She didn’t have to close her eyes to picture the deer prancing through the pines. They were close.

  Hannah slowed her pace, looking in all directions for a sign. There it was, up ahead. Not a sign but the tree itself. She saw the unique fork of the two trunks. She broke into a run and stopped at the tree.

  ... the sun was rising behind them...

  “Which way is east, Dad?” she practically screamed.

  Dad pointed and Hannah slid to the opposite side of the gnarled Siamese Pine, looking east. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the woods at dawn, the sun rising above the horizon, splitting the twin trunks. The sound of shovels cutting through earth, dirt being tossed aside. The body on the ground, waiting for its unholy burial.

  Hannah turned to her father. He had been quiet the whole time, letting her find her way. Her lip quivered and she turned away.

  ... and I was only about thirty yards away...

  “Dad, go stand over that way, toward those rocks. Count off thirty paces.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his face filled with concern. Then he walked in the direction she’d pointed, turning back often to see if she wanted him to adjust his path. She told him to stop, the image of him with the shovel too close to the picture in her head. She shook it off and ran to him. Then she walked in a slowly expanding circle until she found what she knew would be there. The ground was disturbed, like an animal had been digging.

  Scout began sniffing loudly, his head jerking back and forth to follow the scent. He pawed at the ground where the disturbance was. Dad grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away. Hannah grabbed a shovel and started digging.

  “Hold Scout, let me—” Dad began, but she silenced him with a look. She had to be the one to do it.

  Dad held Scout while she dug. The earth was soft, pliable from decades of fallen leaves and pine needles. After a few minutes, sweating rivers, she stopped when her shovel hit resistance.

  Maybe it’s just a root and this is all just a wild goose chase.

  She knew better. Using the blade of the shovel, she carefully raked the dirt aside. She saw what looked like a swatch of tattered denim and, under it, the glistening white of bone.

  Hannah watched Dad and Officer Benson talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. Benson was becoming a fixture in the house. Scout was lying in the corner, one eye open, watching with doggie curiosity. Something Benson was saying pulled Hannah from her malaise.

  “What did you just say, Officer Benson?”

  Hannah was up off the couch, joining them in the kitchen. Benson looked at Dad, then back at her.

  “I’m being taken off the case. It’s being reassigned to Officer Dietrich. I’m here unofficially. I wanted to tell you in person.”

  Hannah watched him, seeing the unease in his body language—the way he shifted his weight on his feet, the way he wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “It’s just like the blogger said, isn’t it?” Her words came out as a mixture of fear and reverence.

  “Hannah, we don’t know...” Dad trailed off and he just shrugged.

  “Listen, Hannah, Brian. I don’t know why I was pulled but between you and me, it doesn’t smell right. I can’t help you in any official capacity but what I do on my own time is my business. I promise you both I’m still working on this. I have to go. Officer Dietrich should be stopping by shortly.”

  Hannah thanked the man and went to her room while Dad and Benson shook hands and said a few more words. When had Mr. Green become Brian?

  Dad knocked on her door a few minutes later and peeked in. “You okay?” he asked softly, almost cautiously.

  She shrugged. The truth was she was scared—for Ashley, for Jacob, for herself and Dad. How could this be happening? A few days ago, she’d just been a bored teenager in a small town. Now she was mixed up in some cult that sacrificed kids? It was too much to think about.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but we have to work with Officer Dietrich when he shows up. Either this whole thing is just a coincidence and Dietrich is on the level, or...”

  Hannah took a deep, composing breath. “Or he’s part of it and we have to be careful.”

  Dad nodded, wearing a wan smile. “Exactly. I’m going to try calling the Wallaces again before Dietrich gets here.”

  He kissed the top of her head and walked out, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Finding Ashley was the only thing she cared about. She felt guilty thinking that with Jacob missing too, but how much could she deal with?

  Something gnawed at her brain about the search at Mama Bayole’s farm, but she couldn’t bring it to the surface. Trying to force it was giving her a headache. Mom always used to tell her to stop thinking about something if she wanted to remember it. Get busy with something else and whatever it was will just pop into your head, she’d always said. That was before she’d gotten weird. Thinking about Mom made Hannah’s head ache even more, like she was missing something else.

  She left her room and wandered out to the backyard. Scout followed and she began a lethargic game of fetch with him, waiting with dread for Officer Dietrich to show up. Despite Dad’s words, Hannah knew in her gut that Dietrich was involved and that he wasn’t going to help. He had been assigned to keep an eye on them.

  Was he the one on the other end of the phone with the woman in the library?

  Something else that bothered Hannah was the blogger. Why had he been so willing to help if he was part of it? He wasn’t that hard to track down, but he had insisted on meeting in a public place. He was scared.

  An idea began to form, crystalizing into something that shook her. What if the person that met with Ashley wasn’t the blogger? What if someone had found out about the meeting and used it to get to her?

  She heard a car approaching and her stomach tightened. She knew she had to keep up the appearance of cooperation, but she was terrified. What was to stop this Dietrich from just taking her and Dad if he really was part of it? Hannah’s only consoling thought was Officer Benson. They couldn’t do anything to her because Benson knew what she knew.

  “Hannah, come on in. We need to talk.”

  She tried to channel the Hannah that had stood up to the librarian. The tough-girl side of her. The Ashley side of her. With new resolve, she went into the house.

  Dietrich was a short, barrel-chested man whose uniform clung to him like a second skin. He had the look of an athlete that had let himself go at middle age. There was still muscle there but residing under a layer of too many steak dinners and bottles of wine. The man’s head seemed too small for his blocky body and he had dark, beady eyes.

  The eyes are the window to the soul.

  Hannah didn’t trust him.

  “Hannah, this is Officer Dietrich. He is taking over the case for Officer Benton.”

  “It was Benson, sir, with an S.”
/>
  Hannah smiled at Dad’s slyness.

  “Nice to meet you, Officer Dietrich. Do you have any news on Ashley?”

  Dietrich folded his meaty arms in front of his chest, testing the limits of his uniform’s stitching.

  “Right now, we can’t really consider it a missing persons case since it hasn’t been twenty-four hours.”

  Hannah started to protest but Dietrich held up a hand to stop her.

  “But that doesn’t mean we’re not following up, don’t worry. We sent a car to her house to make sure she didn’t go there. Sometimes kids do that when their parents are away. The librarian in West Meadow remembers Ashley and a man being there but didn’t hear or see anything unusual. Unfortunately, there are no security cameras in the library or outside it.”

  “So, you have nothing.”

  She almost whispered it, her heartache making it hard to speak. Dietrich frowned, as if he had just realized that they did, in fact, have nothing.

  “Like I said, we’re just getting started. There’s a team on the way to exhume the remains. We may need you to lead them out there.”

  “What about Jacob?” Dad asked.

  Dietrich turned to Dad, his face tight. He seemed to be getting impatient with all the questions.

  “He still hasn’t shown up at his house and nothing has turned up in the woods around where they found his car. We suspect he called somebody for a ride and is still with that person.”

  “Are you sure the department has the capacity to handle all of this?” Dad’s voice was accusatory, and Dietrich bristled. He pulled his shoulders back and took a step forward. Hannah knew he was trying to intimidate them, and it was making her angrier.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that, Mr. Green, but I suggest you keep those comments to yourself and let me do my job.”

  “It wasn’t a comment—it was a question,” Hannah snapped. “And a reasonable one. When is the last time you had to do anything more than get a stuck cat down from a tree?”

  She couldn’t believe she’d said it and instantly regretted it. Dietrich was fuming, his face nearing a dangerous shade of purple.

  “Hannah, you know it’s the fire department that rescues cats,” Dad said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Hannah burst into tears. “I’m so scared, I’m sorry I said that. Ashley is my best friend...”

  It was the only thing she could think of to do, Dad was going to make it worse—she saw it on his face. He was mad, too. Dad had a very long fuse, but when he reached the end of it, look out.

  Dietrich wasn’t completely placated but at least he didn’t look like his head was going to explode. Dad seemed to realize the dangerous ground they had ventured on. He put an arm around Hannah’s shoulders. She didn’t know if was meant to be comforting or protective.

  “I apologize, Officer, this has all just been so stressful. Forgive us. Can I get you some soda or water? When the crew gets here, we’ll be happy to show them where—”

  Just then more cars arrived, saving them all from the awkward scene.

  “You made quite an impression on Officer Dietrich.” Benson was sitting on the couch with a bottle of soda in his hand, grinning. “He was fit to be tied when he got back to the station.”

  They were gathered in the living room, Dad and Benson drinking root beer while Hannah sipped a Coke. She was exhausted and needed the caffeine to stay awake. It was making her jittery—she was on her third one. The crew had taken the body just before dark, cordoning off the area before they left. They would be back early the next day to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.

  “Sorry about that,” Dad said, not meeting Benson’s eyes. “I guess we were a little hard on him.”

  Benson shrugged and downed his beer. Dressed in street clothes—khaki shorts and a Springsteen T-shirt—he didn’t look like a cop. Even his face was more relaxed, as if the uniform made him harder somehow.

  “Dietrich is a dink, whether he has anything to do with what’s going on or not. Kind of a Napoleon complex, I think.”

  Hannah giggled despite her anxiety and weariness. She was getting punchy and would have to sleep soon. A few things were still nagging her, but she couldn’t quite grasp them, something about the blogger and some other thing about Mama Bayole’s.

  “Dad, I need to go back to the library in the morning and check Ashley’s email.”

  She silently cursed their remoteness, wishing for the millionth time they had Internet access at the house. Benson looked confused, and then his face brightened.

  “I’ve got my laptop in the car. It has satellite Internet—you can check it now.”

  Dad fetched a couple more sodas just as Benson came back in with the laptop. He took a minute to get it connected to the Internet, then handed it to her. She logged in to Ashley’s email and saw there were new messages. More than one was from the blogger.

  Hannah read them quickly, her eyes widening. Her hands trembled, not from the caffeine but from what she was reading. Her heart hammered at a dizzying rate.

  “What is it?” Dad sounded concerned and she wondered how awful her expression must be. Dread settled over her like a heavy cloak.

  “It wasn’t the blogger that Ashley met. He couldn’t make their meeting because his car wouldn’t start. He was afraid someone might have done something to his car as a warning. He had it towed to the service station and the mechanic said somebody messed with the engine. He got scared for Ashley and emailed her.”

  She handed the laptop back to Benson and let him and Dad read the messages.

  Hannah motioned for Benson to let her have the computer again. “I’m going to reply and tell him what happened to Ashley. He still might know something. May I?”

  Officer Benson stood and paced around the room. He stopped abruptly and sat next to her. “I think that’s the right play. Go ahead. I just want to read it before you hit SEND, okay?” Then he said, “Wait. Send it from your own email account in case they somehow hacked Ashley’s. How else could they have known about the meeting?”

  Hannah nodded and Benson looked to Dad for his approval. Dad looked shell-shocked. “Benson, what are we going to do?”

  Benson ignored the question and watched while Hannah typed a reply. She said Ashley had gone to the meeting and had been taken and that he might be in danger as well. She asked him to meet. When she finished typing, she looked over to Benson. He scanned the email and gave her a thumbs-up. Letting out a weary sigh, she hit SEND, and then sat back, waiting. She hoped the guy would be watching his email because he was worried and would respond promptly.

  Dad stood and began pacing while Benson settled in next to Hannah, watching the screen for a response. Scout jumped up and began to growl. A second later, Hannah heard a car coming up the road. It sounded like it was crawling by and she went to the window. Benson jumped up and flipped off the living room lights, joining Hannah at the window. Dad moved toward the front door. A low rumble came from Scout, matching the sound of the car’s engine.

  Hannah looked up and down the road but saw no headlights. Then she spotted the glint of metal reflected in the moonlight and realized the car was driving with the headlights off. She struggled to follow its progress, using her ears as much as her eyes. When the car slowed in front of the house, Benson sprang into action, pushing past Dad out the front door and sprinting down the driveway. Hannah and her dad followed with Scout at their heels, barking wildly.

  Benson got within twenty yards of the vehicle before it sped off, engine roaring and tires screeching. The three stopped at the end of the driveway and watched the car disappear. Hannah’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, but she still couldn’t see more than the occasional wink of metal in the distance. She retreated to the house with Dad and Benson and turned the lights back on.

  “Did either of you get a good look at the car? All I could tell was it was a dark color. Looked like a late model, and the engine sounded like an eight cylinder. That narrows it down to about a million cars in
the state. I couldn’t see the plate at all.”

  Benson sounded defeated. Hannah realized what a mistake she’d made by not getting the license plate number of the car that had followed her the day she’d walked to the library.

  Maybe this would be over already if I had. Then she looked out the window again and dread crept over her. “Officer Benson, your car.”

  Benson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Now they know I’m helping you.”

  “I’m sorry, Rick,” Dad said, “I should have had you pull around back.”

  “I didn’t think they’d be watching you at this hour.” Benson sighed, then his voice tightened. “We need to know who they are.”

  Hannah ran over to the couch and grabbed the laptop. No new messages. She wondered if the blogger had disappeared like Ashley and Jacob.

  Would some dog be running out of the woods with one of his shoes in a few years?

  Her thoughts were blurry, and her eyelids were too heavy, like they had weights on them. The day had taken its toll. The lack of response from the blogger was the icing on the shit cake. Her eyes began to close as she tried to watch the screen, willing a new message to pop up. Then she was out. She vaguely remembered Dad carrying her to bed.

  Hannah woke the next day to the aroma of bacon and eggs, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Glancing at the clock, she was shocked to see it was after nine. The sleep had done nothing to rid her of that bone-tired feeling. She dragged her aching body out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Hannah.”

  She jumped at the voice, blinking in confusion. It was Officer Benson, also still in last night’s clothes, sitting at the kitchen table. Dad was manning the stove but turned around to say good morning.

  “Did something happen?” Hannah was beginning to assume the worst. She couldn’t comprehend why else Benson would still be here.

  “No, honey, Rick offered to spend the night just in case, you know.” Dad turned and pulled a huge frying pan full of scrambled eggs off the stove. “Let’s eat.”