I took a few steps toward the door, then stopped. “I don’t mean to upset you. I want you to know I’m on your side.”
“And yet you’re asking me to help you find the person who dealt retribution to those who deserved it.” Mrs. Price unfroze from her place in front of the window, whisking toward the door. “You’re asking me to aid you in putting away a man who put down a wild animal because he broke one of your precious laws that also failed to protect my child.” Swinging the door open, she stepped aside, half appearing as though she was willing to throw me out if I didn’t leave of my own volition in the next thirty seconds. “I suppose I’m not the only one who doesn’t sleep at night.”
I paused, unsure of how to proceed. Uncertain of what side of the equation I stood on and whatever side that was, if it was the correct one.
“Sometimes the line between right and wrong isn’t as clear and definitive as we like to believe,” I said, filing down the steps one at a time.
“That’s exactly what they want us to believe,” Mrs. Price replied.
“They?”
“Those in power—the media, the government, the corporations. They rise to and maintain it thanks to the doubt and fear driven into society.” Her eyes locked on a couple of children riding their bikes down the sidewalk, and it was impossible to tell if she wanted to smile or sob. “What’s wrong is obvious. And what’s right is simple. Strip away the layers of the superficial lifestyle you’ve draped yourself in, and the truth will blind you.”
Below the large window, something caught my eye. A circular concrete medallion had been laid into the soil, the handprint of a small child pressed into it. Immediately behind it, a crawling vine bursting with brilliant white flowers flourished along the supports of a trellis.
Mrs. Price must have caught me staring at it. “I remember how mad I was when I walked out to find Joshua had pressed his little hand into the new concrete patio. He was five, old enough to know better but too young to overcome curiosity.” She padded down the porch steps, eyes soft as she smiled at her son’s handprint. “I took away his TV privileges for a week—James and I had been skimping and saving for months in order to get that patio poured, and our son goes and does something like that.”
She leaned down to brush off whatever real or imagined dirt had settled on the concrete circle. “Now this handprint is one of my most cherished memories of him. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? The annoyances, the gripes, the flaws are what you cling to when your loved one is gone. I wish I could go back in time and redo that moment. Take back the shouts and grounding and speeches of being disappointed and frustrated. I wish I could just go back and realize that precious little handprint in the fresh concrete was going to be my favorite reminder of him.” Her finger traced the outline of the impression, her hand fitting over the small handprint after.
“I’m sure you were a wonderful mother,” I whispered through the ball forming in my throat.
“Was,” she breathed. “You stop being a mother when your only child dies. I’m no longer a mother—or a wife. I’m not sure how much of a human being is left of me either.”
“It’s a lovely memorial,” I said, looking away when she discreetly dabbed at her eyes. Being one of them, I recognized another soul who was uncomfortable expressing emotion in front of others.
“It’s a miracle this thing is still alive.” Mrs. Price moved on to preening the flowering vine, plucking away dead leaves and petals. “A few years ago, after receiving it, I planted it and forgot all about the thing until the following spring when I noticed the flowers blooming despite the lack of tending and care. It’s a hardy plant, one that can withstand most climates and doesn’t require much maintenance.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking a few steps closer to examine the white flowers that were fighting the onslaught of fall. “What is it?”
“Clematis. I didn’t have a clue what it was when it showed up on my doorstep, but I looked it up that following spring.” Her head tipped back at me, one eyebrow elevating. “One of your ‘suspects’ had it delivered to my house with a note that read, ‘For Joshua.’”
Bumps rose on the back of my neck. “Was there a name listed from the sender?”
“No,” she replied.
“Do you have any idea who it might have been from?” I pressed, not sure why this detail, of all of the millions, captured my attention, but I’d learned to listen to those gut instincts and goose bumps.
Mrs. Price got back to tending to her son’s memorial. “Someone who cared more about protecting the innocent than sheltering the rights of the guilty.”
A handful of questions begged to be voiced. Yet they’d have to remain unspoken.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Price.”
I was almost to the rental car when she called my name, waiting until I stopped to acknowledge her before continuing. “The Huntsman isn’t only avenging abused children—he’s protecting innocent ones too. He’s striking fear into those who would consider harming them, both an executioner and a deterrent.” She rose from her son’s shrine, looking straight through me. “He’s becoming a symbol—a sign of hope—and if you take that away from us, what does that make you?”
An argument rose from inside, but my gut stalled it, my heart stopping it completely.
Shoulders moving, I replied, “I don’t know.”
Twenty-Four
The last time I’d visited Nebraska was for the funeral of Noah’s dad, five years ago. Noah’s mother still lived in the home the Wolffs had raised their family in, and she refused to downsize despite her being the sole remaining occupant. Noah talked to his mother on birthdays and holidays, and we’d invited her out for Christmas every year since his father’s death, but she’d declined every one, with excuses ranging from not liking to travel in the winter to promising she’d try to carve out time to visit us in the summer.
Sue Wolff had been my mother-in-law for seventeen years, and she was as much a mystery to me now as she had been when I married her son.
My flight from Toledo to Lincoln had been delayed, and my flight back home boarded in a mere ten hours, so I had no time to grab a coffee from the airport kiosks as I’d planned. Last night had been void of sleep at the hotel as I poured over the case file, searching for that one clue, the missing link, that would lead me to the Huntsman’s true identity.
After giving the Wolffs’ address to the cab driver outside of the airport, I decided to use the thirty-minute commute to catch up on my emails and messages. I’d no more than opened my inbox when a new text chimed across my screen from Andee.
Attached to the message was a photo, a selfie of her standing in her room in her school uniform and making a peace sign. Below it read:
I’m going back to Prescott. We can’t let the bastards win.
For a moment, my chest tightened with doubt. My mom brain was dying to type back a string of Are you sures? and Don’t you think you’d be happier in a new school? but I waited for that moment of panic to pass. When it did, something else welled within me. Pride.
No, I suppose we can’t. I’ve got your back.
That was followed up with a fist bump emoji, and another message.
Dad’s driving me to school. He even packed me a lunch.
I felt my eyebrows stretch into my hairline. Is it edible?
Mostly.
Good luck. With the lunch and school day. I’ll be home tonight.
I hesitated before hitting Send, fingers posed to continue typing a message, but I sent it instead of punching in those three words. Andee and I had made progress, but I didn’t want to alienate her by opening the sentimental spill-gates.
As I used the remainder of the drive to reply to emails and a couple of questions Connor had texted me, the car was pulling up to a curb before I acknowledged we’d made it into the outskirts of the city.
After reconfirming with the driver that he’d wait for me, I had my first real look at Noah’s childhood house in years. It
was like I remembered; 1950s country blue rancher with a weathered, sturdy wood fence lining the perimeter of the backyard, and a large swatch of grass running from the front yard into the back. Noah used to talk about dreading mowing the yard as a boy because of how long it took to complete the massive lawn. The old tire swing still swung from the great maple in the front yard, the rope frayed and the tire cracked.
Noah had plenty of memories of the tire swing as well, but those ones he rarely brought up anymore.
Forcing myself up the walkway, I checked the time to make sure I was within the window I’d told Sue I’d be arriving. In all the years Noah and I had been together, this would be the first time I’d asked for or had a private audience with my mother-in-law. Not necessarily because she was frightening, as mother-in-laws had a reputation for being, but because in the early years of Noah’s and my relationship, the Wolffs had been as disapproving as my parents. Questioning our decision to get married, parroting reminders that this wasn’t the 1940s when a pregnancy went hand-in-hand with a marriage, exposing doubts that we’d make it to Andee’s first birthday.
After those initial years of censure, following Natalie’s suicide, the Wolffs became not only distant from their family, but from the whole world. Her curtains might not have been drawn, but I felt the air change as I approached the front door, the skin on the back of my neck rising as though a ghost were breathing across it.
Ringing the doorbell, I waited, checking my watch and calculating how much time I could afford here and still fit in my appointments with a couple of Robert Creeden’s former victims. I could allow half an hour for sure, possibly forty-five minutes if the conversation really stretched. The thought of having nearly an hour chat with Sue by myself was difficult to conceive.
When no one came to the door, I pressed the doorbell again, wondering if she’d forgotten all about my visit. Finally, I detected the sound of muted footsteps approaching from inside. When the door swung open, I found my mother-in-law exactly as I remembered from when I first met her, as though the past two decades had skipped her over entirely. Fair-skinned with the slightest sign of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, pale hair cut short, framing a face that was beautiful in the classic sense of the word.
She was smiling, though it didn’t radiate a sense of warmth.
“Grace, so good to see you,” she greeted, taking my hand to give it a brief squeeze. “Please come in. I was just out gardening, so forgive my appearance.”
“You look amazing as always.” I found myself wiping my feet on the doormat before stepping inside. “Thanks for carving some time out for me with such short notice.”
Sue stopped to adjust a throw pillow before continuing on to the kitchen. The house hadn’t changed since I’d been here for her husband’s funeral. Above the mantel, Noah’s and Natalie’s senior portraits hung. Every piece of furniture in the room angled toward them.
“I’m a retired widow who’s had an empty nest for over a decade. There’s no such thing as carving time out these days, only desperate attempts at filling an empty calendar.” She motioned at the row of barstools lined along the counter as she filled a teakettle with water. “How are Noah and Andee doing?”
“Noah’s busy,” I said, sliding onto the end barstool.
“I’m sorry to say he inherited that trait from me. We come from a long line of busy bodies who are in denial over such concepts as relaxation and stillness.”
“There are worse traits to inherit,” I replied as she set the kettle on the stove to boil.
“You’re kind”—she held out an ornate tea box containing a variety of flavors for me to choose from—“but because I am one, I know why Noah keeps himself so busy.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, plucking a packet of Earl Grey from the box. She went with the chamomile.
“If you never stop moving, your regrets can never catch up,” she answered as plainly as if she were reading the weather forecast. “I take it his line of work hasn’t changed from the last time I spoke with him?” She looked away, but not before I saw her face pinch.
“No, he still counsels pedophiles,” I said while she distracted herself by fussing with the teacups and saucers in the cupboard beside the sink. “His practice actually boasts one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country, so whatever he’s doing is working.”
Sue gave me a sideways glance, seeming to see through my enhanced optimism. “Can you cure a lion of its instinct to hunt? A wolf of its drive to kill?” Her questions settled into the silence. “You can’t cure a being of that kind of perversion.”
“Not to refute your opinions on the matter, but your son’s practice’s statistics indicate otherwise.”
“Just because someone hasn’t reoffended yet doesn’t mean they never will. It’s only a matter of time. An animal diseased with that kind of sickness is only fixed in one way.” Sue read the question on my face as she slid the teacup and saucer across the counter to me. “Death.”
An objection rose from inside, born from my sense of loyalty to my husband and his commitment to his professional purpose. Just as quickly, my personal views erupted with it, aligning with my mother-in-law’s opinion.
I choose to keep both thoughts to myself.
“And what about that precocious granddaughter of mine? Is she still setting the world on fire?” Sue checked the kettle and moved on to wiping down the counter when she determined the water wasn’t boiling.
“With a flamethrower these days,” I replied.
She chuckled. “Atta girl.” She scrubbed the spotless counter as if all she saw were crumbs and oil splatters. “I see you still have all of your hair, so you must not be ripping yours out the way I did having a teenage daughter under the roof.”
“Andee and I have had our share of battles. Plenty of ten-point-ohs on the Richter scale of verbal upheavals, but I think we’re making our way to the other side.” My hands twisted the cup around the saucer. “I brought a lot of baggage into our relationship that I eventually recognized and am trying to set aside.”
Her scrubbing slowed. “What kind of baggage?” When I glanced at her, she lifted a hand. “If I’m edging into nosy territory, don’t be afraid to come right out and say it.”
“No, it’s just embarrassing to admit I let my insecurities and struggles with my own parents creep into the relationship I formed with my daughter.” When Sue’s eyes remained flat, non-judging, I continued, “I was so young when I had her. Technically an adult, but I still felt like a child. And I was so damn unsure how to be a parent to this perfect little baby, and I didn’t have much of an example from my own childhood to emulate. I was terrified of screwing her up the way my parents . . .”
“It’s okay. You’re not admitting anything no other child has ever thought or felt about their mothers and fathers. All of us have been failed by our parents in some way, just as we as parents have failed our children.”
The kettle whistled, steam flooding from the neck. Tearing open my tea packet, I settled it into the delicate cup Sue had selected for me. “There’s a sliding scale of failure, and I’m afraid I’m at one end in both areas.”
“Our troubles make us or break us, our choice. Remember that for both yourself and Andee.” She poured the boiling water into my cup before moving on to hers.
“And if they do break us?” I asked.
She stayed silent, dipping her teabag in and out of her cup.
“How have you been?” I asked after a minute passed. “I know when Noah talked to you last, he said you mentioned taking a vacation to Florida.”
She stared absently out the back window, in a world all her own. “Natalie and I used to get into it like you wouldn’t believe. There were times I was certain we would shatter windows from screaming at each other.” A semblance of a smile pulled at her mouth. “There were a couple of years when it didn’t matter what came out of my mouth, it somehow offended, angered, or annoyed her. I wasn’t sure I’d make it through those teen years, but
the real test were the years that followed. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself praying back those screaming matches. Anything would have been better than the silence that clung to Natalie that last year.”
I adjusted on the barstool, not sure how to navigate these waters. Noah didn’t talk about Natalie’s death, and I’d never discussed it with Sue. Natalie and the manner of her death was a topic folded into a box the family kept tucked in their closet—out of sight, yet just within reach.
“I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for your family.” I burned my tongue when I took a sip of the tea, the water scalding.
“Natalie came into this world a ray of sunshine, no exaggeration. Her first smile came when she was only three days old, and she giggled more than she talked the first five years of her life. She had this gift for making people around her feel better, and if she wasn’t running, she was skipping.”
“Noah used to bring up the skipping. And the singing.”
Sue’s eyes softened at the corners. “They were total opposites. A little sister like Natalie should have driven him mad, but he adored that girl, indulging her in ways no future husband would have ever rivaled.”
“They were close,” I stated, knowing their bond was the main reason Noah rarely, if ever, brought up his sister now.
“Like twins separated by five years.” As if suddenly remembering something, Sue rushed to retrieve the sugar bowl from the cupboard and set it beside my cup. “I don’t think Noah’s ever forgiven himself for what happened to Natalie.”
These Violent Roots Page 22
