My blood is racing, and my heart is trying to escape my ribcage—there’s no room for doubt anymore. Kevin has Lauren, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how that fucker did it, but he must be the one working with Murray behind bars!
My bike roars to life, and in a blaze of righteous fury, I rip down the highway.
I’m going southwest. They already think I’ve shed blood on California soil.
And brother, I’m about to prove them right.
Lauren
It’s worse. So much worse than I could have ever imagined, even in my wildest, darkest dreams. I should have expected this. I should have known my fate would lead me back to this desolate place. The fate I have been outrunning my whole life has caught up to me, finally strong enough to stare me right in the face. Only, the face is not the one I expected to see. I always thought it would be Daddy who came back to hurt me, to drag me back into the hellhole he built around me as a child. I have done everything I could think of to evade him. I have spent so many long, lonely years on edge, constantly running myself ragged with fear. Looking over my shoulder. Triple-checking the locks. Listening to the silence for any edge of unfamiliar sound. There have been times when I thought he was close.
One day, years ago, when I lay in my bed at night staring up at the whorls and peaks of the popcorn ceiling. Finding shadowy faces in the spackle and thinking up lives for them to lead. Characters in a world I could never touch, out in the free air, making friends and falling in love, moving ahead with their lives and following their dreams. I used to sometimes imagine myself as one of them. Just another normal young woman with a bright future ahead of her. The possibilities were endless when I thought about it that way. I could make believe for a little while that I would not wake up alone forever. That one day I might wake at the soft tendrils of dawn filtering through the window to caress my cheek, to open my eyes and reveal the sleeping angel beside me. Always there. Right nearby to look after and protect me from the shadowy ghosts that have tracked my every step since that fateful day when I found Sandra cowering in the garden shed out back. I could pretend like that was someone else’s life, someone else’s trauma. If I could just shift the burden for a little while and let my body stand tall and free and unobstructed, what monumental things could I carry?
Friendships? Family? Love?
A child?
Maybe someday, I always told myself. Someday I would shrug off the weight. Someday I can live in the real world and be a functional member of society. I can do all the simple things, the easy things like going to the grocery store alone and perusing every aisle for goodies instead of rushing in with my bare-bones list clutched in my trembling hands, my eyes wide open and eternally scanning for the face of the man who haunts me.
My father. He’s been behind bars for years, but I should have known the justice system would not keep him from hurting me, even from a remote location. It’s like he’s got this secret direct line to my triggers, like he can pull any number of cords and manipulate me like a marionette. And even though his hands have not been able to touch me through the void between us, I’m still not free of his power. Because now he has a proxy. A minion to carry out his evil plot against my sanity and safety.
Kevin Cranston. That damn reporter already known for pushing limits and crossing boundaries. I suppose it only makes sense. Of course he would be behind this. He’s reached new levels of psychotic. I always thought he was like a buzzing fly in my face, a constant annoyance but nothing more serious than that. I thought wrong. So wrong. He’s not a buzzing fly, he’s a wasp, ready to sting at any time on the behalf of my father. I don’t know how it happened, how the wires in his head must have gotten crossed. He used to write scathingly of my father even when he defended him. There must have been a time years ago when Cranston still thought of my father as a bad man, albeit wrongfully accused in this particular case. But his contempt for him has mutated into sympathy, then admiration, then obsession. And now he might as well be yet another puppet in my father’s show.
And I am the one who brought Daddy down. That makes me Cranston’s enemy.
Because Cranston is obsessed with Murray Smyth. With me. And he will stop at nothing to finish the job Daddy started if he’s not let out on compassionate release on Monday. That’s why Cranston kidnapped me and brought me here. To hold me for him. I don’t know how long I have been here. It must have been days. Cranston did...something to me. To my mind. It feels so cloudy, like it’s difficult to string together two thoughts. I have been cowering here in the darkness in a complete daze, unable to work out how I ended up here or how the hell to burst free. And every time I think of getting out, all that comes to mind is Bones.
Will I ever see him again? Is this is the end of our barely-bloomed love story? Is that short, glorious time we spent together going to be the completion of my romance? I can’t help but feel cheated. I have given so much time to my father, who menaced me. My mother, who didn’t believe me. Who betrayed and abandoned me. And Sandra’s face, the way she looked at me so desperately when I stumbled across her in the dark shed. The way her eyes reflected back the same hopelessness and dread I have carried ever since that day. The way she looked like a mirror image of me, only broken apart inside. I think now I am broken enough to match her. My father would be pleased: two of us, identically scarred by his evil intentions. Double the fun. Double the torture. It’s a sickening thought that makes my stomach lurch. I always blamed myself. If I had a different face, a different body, if I didn’t linger when I hugged my father or crawl into bed with my parents when a nightmare haunted me too much to lay alone in my childhood bed. Perhaps I taunted him too much every day of my existence. Maybe he had been courting and grooming me since the day I was born.
He wanted to mold me into the perfect victim. And I would have been. I trusted him implicitly, without question. Why wouldn’t I? He’s my father. I grew up believing my parents, even though they weren’t perfect, were on my side. That they could always be counted on to protect me from the darkness in the world.
But the darkest place in the universe was right under my nose all along. The backyard. I remember the way the dead grass crunched under my feet. The smell of pine sap on the air. Clouds moving slowly across the gray sky above. A bird in its nest chittering at me, warning me to stay away. I remember feeling lighthearted, thinking there would be baby birds soon, chirping and fluttering their silly little featherless wings. There was even a smile on my face when I walked into the darkened shed, but it quickly faded when my eyes fell on Sandra. So similar to me and yet different. Older, somehow, even though she was my exact age. Daddy would not have had it any other way. She needed to be a replica of me, of the victim he couldn’t have. But her time in captivity aged her. I wonder if my father saw that, if it disgusted him. After all, he wanted me the way I was—innocent, naive, totally trusting. Sandra lost her innocence the moment he kidnapped her and closed her off in that damn shed.
I might know how she feels now. I spent years in a metaphorical shed of my own device, trying to keep the shadows at bay. But now? Now I really understand. I, too, have been unceremoniously shoved into this dark, small space. It smells so musty and wet, like the years have done a number on it. And through that scent, something else. Something so faint but familiar that it makes my heart skip a beat.
Pine sap. The scent of my childhood as I ran across the brown and green needles on the ground, playing and laughing in the cold air as the wind whipped my hair and made my eyes water. The smell is so inextricably linked to my youth that I feel the years peeling back. Time reverses, shuffling me back through the hallway of memories that led me out of that horrible shed, putting me back in the shoes of the little girl I was when I first found Sandra. And it smells just like this. It feels just like this.
“No,” I murmur, hardly able to breathe.
I walk over to the side of the room and press my hands into the mottled, humidity-worn wood. If I peek through the one tiny crack that lets in a single
skinny finger of light from the outside, I can see it—the great, big pine tree I used to play underneath. The mossy spot in the sun where I used to lie down with a book and get lost. Just yards away from the shed. I was clueless back then. But not now.
I know exactly where I am.
I’m home. In the same shed where Sandra was locked up. The impostor is long since freed, but the original? I’m here now. Right where Cranston wants me, which is right where Daddy wants me.
All of the things that used to fill this place have been removed. Some of it collected and bagged by the police team as evidence in the case against Murray Smyth. Others of them picked out of the wreckage and sold off to pay all the bills my mother owed, the bills she blamed me for incurring, as well. It was always my fault. I was too desirable and yet not useful enough. I was costly. I was difficult. I came with a price tag, and my mother did not want to pay it. She didn’t want to believe the story, even though it wasn’t just mine. It was the story the cops followed, the news promoted, and reporters like Kevin Cranston flocked to it. I guess it was just too difficult to accept that her husband was a bad man. I guess I can’t blame her too hard for that. I can hardly imagine something more heart wrenching than learning that the man you love, the father of your child, is a demented criminal.
Kevin must have bought the house, the shed along with it. I don’t think he had to pay much to get it. My mother sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with it once my father was arrested, so we left. And in our part of the world, this address is seared into local memory. Nobody would want to buy the old Smyth house. Nobody but Cranston.
Suddenly, a burst of fear and adrenaline seizes me. I can’t stay here much longer if I want to keep my sanity. I rush to the door and start to bang my fists on it, crying out.
“Let me go! Help! Please!” I shout desperately. But no help comes.
Nobody comes at all until a few minutes later, once I’ve slumped against the door hopelessly. I quickly jump up and stumble back as the door creaks open and a large male figure slinks inside. I cower against the back wall, my heart pounding. The man moves closer and closer, until that one tiny shaft of light illuminates his face. My stomach turns. It’s him.
“Mr. Cranston,” I whisper.
“That’s right. You remember me,” he says, with a prideful smirk. “Good.”
“Why are you doing this?” I beg.
“I don’t have a choice. There’s only one way. You are the girl who ruined Murray Smyth’s life and reputation. You deserve to be punished. To be finished off,” he relays.
I swallow hard. “How long are you going to keep me here?” I mumble.
“As long as it takes. But don’t be impatient, darling. I have waited a long time to bring you here. Let’s not rush things,” Cranston says, as though he’s talking about a vacation or something instead of kidnapping and, probably, murder.
“I don’t understand. There were so many people at the bonfire. How did… how did you get me?” I ask, dreading the answer.
He scoffs and folds his arms over his chest. “It was easy. Just a few whispers in the right ears and suddenly, you have a whole lot of enemies you don’t even know about,” he jeers. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a long time coming, and a lot of work. So much to set up. My to-do list was so long. But I stayed true to my mission. I set it all up. I pretended to be you, Lauren, on the internet. Turns out, there’s no better bait than a beautiful virgin. I became you. I posted on forums about wanting to fulfill a dark fantasy of getting roofied and assaulted. Some girls are bad like that. I assume you might as well be, too. And the guy fell for it: hook, line, and sinker. Oh, what’s the bastard’s name? Ah! Brandon.”
“What?” I gasp.
Cranston nods proudly. “Yes. I tempted him to that clubhouse. To watch you. To want you. He was going to attack you. And I was going to save you.”
“You mean kidnap me,” I retort through clenched teeth.
He shrugs flippantly. “Eh. Semantics. But my perfect plan was foiled. That stupid man stepped in and took you away before I could,” he sneers.
“Bones. He saved me from the both of you,” I put it together.
“Right. So he became a target, too. I wanted to teach him and his stupid friends a lesson. That’s why I fired all those shots at the beach party. Just to cause a little mayhem. Scare the hell out of them. But then… through the chaos, I saw it: my golden opportunity. You were there, and you were virtually alone,” he says, eyeing me greedily. “I decided there was no better time than the present. I nabbed you. And now you’re mine.”
“You’re insane,” I hiss.
“I’m brilliant,” Cranston shoots back defensively. “Nobody will be looking for you. You see, I planned it all out so perfectly. Everybody suspects it was just a rival biker gang who fired shots on your little crew of misfits at the beach.”
“How do you know that?” I demand tearfully.
“Come on now, Lauren. You don’t think I’m a complete imbecile, right?” he coos. “I did my research. I know that a man called Diesel has a feud with your filthy Heartbreakers. All I had to do was give Diesel the right information and he followed through beautifully. Just as I expected. People are so simple, Lauren, once you boil them down to their greatest desire. He wanted revenge, and conveniently enough, so do I.”
I stare at him with pure horror. I can tell he’s thought this through. He’s been careful and deliberate all along. But I remind myself that I am not a little girl anymore. I can stand up for myself. I can get information out of this guy if I just work it right. I don’t have to just be afraid. I can be smart about this.
So, without changing the terrified tenor of my voice, I ask, “And my father? What about him? How is… his case going?”
Cranston’s eyes brighten as he warms to his favorite subject.
“It’s likely he will finally be released on Monday,” he admits. “And then he’ll come home to finish what he started. Oh, I can hardly wait. It’s been so long, Lauren. You’re not a scrawny child anymore. You’re even better. A beautiful woman with curves. Womanly features. Your father is going to be so pleased when he sees you.”
I fight back the revulsion rising in my chest and ask him, “Will you be taking me to my father’s favorite hunting spot, then?”
“Oh no,” he laughs derisively. “No need, darling. You’re already home.”
Bones
My eyes are narrowed and hawklike as I speed down the dusty desert highway on my motorcycle. The roar and rumble of the engine is the loudest sound for miles and miles in any direction, maybe even the only sound. I turn my head from left to right, taking in the desolate surroundings I have been driving through for hours. It’s strange; this part of the world is sequestered away between several large cities. Vegas, Salt Lake City, Sacramento. None of these big cities are entirely out of reach. They’re only a few hours’ drive away if you travel hard and light. And yet this stretch of desert seems ancient and separate, like a secret city built by hands of a long-lost civilization. Everything is quiet. Everything is flat and barren for as far as the eye can see. The reddish clay earth dries and cracks like chapped skin, only now and again broken up by a pattern of low, prickly shrubs.
There is nothing hospitable about the world out here. This is not a place that fosters great ideas or great minds. I can see why Lauren’s old hometown has been gradually dwindling away to a ghost town all these years. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to live out here, on the bare border between Nevada and California, the red rock formations rising like watchful giants now and then in the distance. It is so quiet and empty, and yet I feel the distinct sensation of being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My hands tighten over the steering bars until my knuckles go pearly white with tension. I have to keep reminding myself to stop clenching my teeth. It feels as though at any moment, I could turn my head and barely catch someone looking over my shoulder. Just a glimpse. A shimmer of mirage that disappears when you look dir
ectly at it. This land feels heavy with ghosts, with dead-end dreams that never even got off the dusty ground. Bad things happen here. I can’t help but wonder morbidly if the reddish dirt is stained that color with years of spilled blood.
And when I start to roll through the outskirts of town, it only gets worse. This place is barely breathing these days. People have realized there is much more to the world than suffering in claustrophobic silence in the town where you were born. Nobody chooses their birthplace. And if they could, they sure as hell would not pick a place like this. Your past, your origins are out of your hands. But your future—that belongs to you. Nobody wants to live out their future here, and I don’t blame them. Every building I ride past is in some degree of dilapidation and abandonment. The old downtown saloons and hair salons and diners sag under the oppressive glare of the desert sun. The windows are either shuttered or smashed, with glittering bits of broken glass shards all over the weedy pavement. There are potholes and disintegrating sidewalks, brick foundations crumbling to dirt with the weight of propping up a town which has been dead for a long time. I cannot imagine there was ever a time when this place was a desirable location. I suppose at some point it must have had something to offer, or people would never have attempted to build a town in a hellscape like this. And if they were so inclined to live here in the first place, despite the isolation, despite the hostile climate, then what could it have been that drove them out in the end?
I have to wonder if it has something to do with the murders.
That seems like a fair enough reason to abandon your home, your memories. Once they’ve been stained with someone else’s blood, what good are the sepia-toned recollections of a youth spent desperately searching for something to pass the time, in a world that has little to offer and everything to take. I pull over to the side of the bumpy, unmaintained road for a moment, the engine idling while I take out the well-worn road map I brought with me. I unfold its fraying pages and my eyes scan the lines of highways and small residential streets until they land on the money spot—the address of Lauren’s old childhood home. There it is, circled in bloody red. I look up and around. This is the downtown area, where businesses once survived (I can’t imagine they flourished, but at least survived for a while). This is the hub of activity. And yet, no matter where I look, I see only degradation and desolation. No stir of car engines. No chattering families downtown for a good afternoon of shopping and dining out. There is nothing left here to suggest life has gone on after whatever death it was that took the town down with it.
Bones: Heartbreaker MC #2 Page 15
