Shatter the Night

by Emily Littlejohn

  I lifted a foot to step into the forest, then stopped. What if we were wrong? Was this a fool’s errand at best and a dangerous mission at worst?

  No.

  I was right; I knew I was. Finn, Moriarty, Armstrong … they all knew it, too. Griffith had to finish his evil scheme and he had to do it soon. Everything he’d done up to this point was built on feeling, on meaning. The further he got away from his grandfather’s timeline, the further he got away from the symmetry that seemed to fuel him.

  Griffith wouldn’t let that happen.

  Before I crossed into the woods, I turned to the south. A mile away, the sharp turrets and sloped roof of the Montgomery mansion stood in silhouette against the deepening indigo sky. The rear of the house was dark, save for a couple of lights on the second floor. It was impossible to think that all those years ago, I’d run from that house into these woods, run all the way to the ruins, chased by a witch of my own creation.

  I’d moved that night in blind terror, fear driving me instinctively deeper and deeper into the forest.

  It would not be the same tonight.

  Tonight, I was the hunter.

  As I slipped on night-vision goggles and began to walk, I kept the beam from my tiny flashlight dim and low to the ground, praying it would pick up the glint of a steel animal trap should there be one in my path.

  Besides the traps, there were the mud pits; shallow pools of a quicksand-like substance, created from the loose soil and numerous creeks in the area. I’d come across a rabbit caught in a mud pit years ago, in a different forest. I’d tried to reach him with a long stick, tried to save him. But the more he struggled, the quicker he sank. Just before he went under, the terror in his black eyes faded and without a sound, he slipped beneath the surface. The mud settled back into place and I quickly left, chilled by the resignation in the poor animal’s eyes.

  The forest remained quiet; each step of my boots on the ground seemed to echo for miles. Every few feet I stopped, spun around, sure that someone was behind me. Even if Griffith was there, would I know it? Or would the feel of steel at my throat or a gun to my temple be the last sensation I felt in this life?

  He’s a former Navy SEAL.

  He’s trained in stealthy, tactical maneuvers.

  And he’s been one step ahead of you the whole way.

  These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I walked, carefully, slowly, through the darkness. Somewhere to my south was Finn.

  And ahead of me was the old cabin. I stared at the tumbled chimney stack, the still-blackened and collapsed cabin walls. To both my horror and relief, a thin column of gray smoke traveled out of the chimney, quickly swallowed by the clouds above.

  Griffith was inside.

  I took another step and then stopped. A footfall behind me, then a hand over my mouth, an arm around my belly, and a voice in my ear that whispered, “Don’t move a fucking muscle.”

  He continued. “Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”

  I nodded and the arm that held me rigid slowly relaxed, though Finn’s arm stayed around my waist. He spoke directly into my ear, his breath cool and quick. “He’s booby-trapped the cabin. I almost tripped a wire back there. Knowing his skills and affinities, he’s probably got the place, himself included, if necessary, wired to blow. We won’t get in.”

  “Then he’ll have to come out,” I whispered back. “This ends, tonight.”

  Though Finn’s face was impossible to see in the black night, I felt him nod. “You got any ideas?”

  “Let’s draw him out with the flares. He’s not going to risk getting trapped in that cellar in a gunfight. He’ll want to use the forest as cover.”

  “And once he’s out? We may lose him.”

  I sighed. “I don’t see any other options. We’ve got the road and trail covered.”

  “Count of three?”

  “One…” We readied our flare guns, both aiming at the chimney. I took a deep breath. “Two … three.”

  We shot simultaneously, the flares lighting up the night. Almost immediately, from somewhere inside the ruins, came return fire. Finn and I dropped to the ground and covered our heads. Just as quickly there was the sound of someone crashing through the woods. Griffith wasn’t bothering with stealth now, just speed.

  He was on the run.

  “He’s going north, toward the road.” I yanked my radio from my jacket pocket. “Armstrong, he’s headed your direction.”

  Just as quickly, though, the crashing stopped and somewhere to our left, to the west, came an eerie dragging, thumping noise. I put the radio to my lips again. “Moriarty, be on the lookout. Suspect is moving your way.”

  Beside me, Finn swore. “We’re running blind, Monroe. We could be headed into a trap.”

  “Come on, we’re losing him,” I hissed back.

  Ahead of us, the noises stopped. Then came a horrible clacking noise, like giant teeth chattering together, and a terrible scream filled the air. We froze. The scream went on for a long time, then suddenly stopped.

  “He’s stepped in a trap,” I shouted. “We’ve got him.”

  We raced west on the trail, in the direction of the scream. After five minutes, Finn grabbed my arm and I stopped. He said, “We should have found him by now. Where is he?”

  I scanned the forest, letting my night-vision goggles penetrate through the multiple layers of trees and shadows, shadows and trees. “There. On the ground.”

  It was a steel animal trap, only it was no leg that was caught in its jaws but a thick log the size of my forearm. Finn kicked it and spun around, his gun raised. “It’s another trap, Gem. He faked the scream.”

  Anger, frustration, and fear collided in me all at once.

  “Come on! Show yourself, you damn coward!” I shouted into the forest again and again, but the only answer was a steady breeze moving through the trees, rustling the pine boughs.

  * * *

  “We’re screwed.” Moriarty pounded the hood of his car. We’d gathered there in utter and total frustration. “We lost the son of a bitch. Nabbing Griffith was the only thing standing between us and unemployment. It’s been nice knowing you, kids. Me? I’ll be fine, my pension is secure. But you, some of you have families. Nice things, a boat,” Moriarty added meaningfully, looking at Finn. “Responsibilities.”

  “Griffith can’t have gone far. Maybe he circled back to the ruins,” Armstrong muttered. He leaned back and crossed his thick arms. “What I wouldn’t give to have three minutes with that little psycho…”

  Finn started to get in on it, too, when I suddenly said loudly, “Jimmy.”

  The three men looked at me with questioning eyes. I gestured to the car. “Get in. Something’s wrong. Jimmy was supposed to call for backup when he saw the flares. Where’s the sirens? Where are the troops?”

  Finn smacked himself in the forehead, nearly knocking his night-vision goggles off his head. “Damn it. The balcony doesn’t get cell reception, remember? That’s why you climbed down the side of the house and injured your hands.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re right. He just couldn’t get reception.”

  Then I realized something.

  The Montgomery house was the nearest structure to the Old Cabin Woods. Hadn’t I run from the house to the ruins myself, all those years ago? If Milo Griffith was going to double back, he wouldn’t return to the ruins and his nest in the cellar.

  He’d head toward the mansion.

  Toward Edith and Jimmy.

  “We have to get to the Montgomery house. Griffith is there, with Jimmy and Edith.” I grabbed the car keys from a surprised Moriarty. He tried to protest, telling me it was a stick shift, and I waved him off. “Get in the damn car. Don’t you see? Jimmy would have gone inside, found a house phone. He’s a resourceful, scrappy guy. He’d have found a way to summon help … but he didn’t, which means Griffith must have him. Maybe Edith, too.”

  As I rolled onto Fifth Street, I turned off the headlights and let the veh
icle coast to a stop a few houses down from the Montgomery mansion. It stood in all its glory at the end of the cul-de-sac, dwarfing its closest neighbor, still a good half block away. The house was black, every light turned out, including the front porch light, a light I’d never known to be extinguished in all my years of knowing the Montgomerys.

  We exited the car and crept, two by two, down the street. Moving silently, we mounted the front steps and then carefully, gently, I tried the front door.

  It was unlocked, and the door swung inward to reveal a pitch-black interior.

  Finn and Armstrong entered first, with Moriarty and me covering them. Once inside, I gently closed the door and we stood a moment, taking in the hushed air, the ticking of a nearby grandfather clock, the sound of the wind, picking up now.

  The wind.

  I peeked into the living room and watched as the white lace curtains billowed out, and then in, over and over against the sill. I risked a quick look with my flashlight and saw shattered glass at the bottom of the curtains. Muddy footprints tracked away from the glass, moving across the pale carpet and toward the door at the end of the room.

  A single bloodied handprint graced the doorframe.

  From upstairs, a deep series of thumps and then a single, piercing scream followed by a muffled shout.

  “Careful. It could be another trap,” Finn whispered. We took the stairs two at a time while Moriarty and Armstrong moved to secure the first floor. We reached the second-floor landing and paused, listening. The thumps continued above us.

  Third floor, I mouthed and pointed up. Finn nodded.

  I listened another moment, then said, “Attic. They’re in the attic.”

  We found Edith Montgomery slumped outside the attic door, a deep cut on her forehead. She appeared to be concussed; her eyes had trouble focusing, and she couldn’t grasp who I was. I pressed the edge of her bathrobe to the cut and whispered I’d get help as soon as I could.

  Inside the attic, sounds of a struggle could clearly be heard.

  I was frightened for Jimmy. Griffith had already proven himself to be ruthless.

  “On three,” Finn whispered. He counted off the numbers on his fingers, and when he reached three, he opened the attic door with a kick, then stepped back as I trained my gun and flashlight on the space within.

  I gasped.

  On the balcony, Griffith had Jimmy in a choke hold. The killer had him over the edge of the railing. As the clouds parted, I saw in the moonlight that Jimmy’s face was a bright shade of red. He was slowly suffocating from Griffith’s forearm.

  I approached the duo, keeping my gun trained on Griffith’s head. “Don’t do this, Milo. It’s over. You don’t have to hurt anyone else.”

  “It’s not over until I say it’s over. You pricks ruined my plan, you ruined everything. The theater was supposed to be mine. And now this jerk attacks me.” Griffith tightened his grip on Jimmy, leaning farther into the railing. I saw swelling on Griffith’s face and realized that Jimmy must have gotten a punch in before Griffith incapacitated him.

  Good old Jimmy.

  “We can talk about all that in here. Just bring Jimmy back into the room, Milo. Then we’ll talk,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Finn slipped into the room, staying close to the wall, hidden in the shadows. If he thought he could tackle Griffith and save Jimmy, he was sorely mistaken.

  Finn hadn’t been out there; he didn’t know what I knew. The balcony was too small, too rickety. The whole thing would crash down if anyone moved.

  And then someone did move.

  Jimmy reached up with what must have been the last ounce of his strength.

  He went for Griffith’s eyes, viciously jabbing a finger into each socket with horrifying force.

  Griffith let out an animal-like scream and made the dangerous mistake of leaning even farther into the railing, desperately trying to free his face from Jimmy’s hands. With a long and terrible screech, the rail pulled away from the house.

  “No!” Finn and I shouted in unison, both moving desperately toward the balcony.

  But we were too late. To our horror, we watched as Milo Griffith and Jimmy tumbled down over the edge and into the dark, cold night.

  Epilogue

  In the end, the chief had no choice but to keep Moriarty, Armstrong, Finn, and me on staff. Once Jimmy was out of the hospital, the chief hired him, too, as his new personal assistant, though he’d be working one-armed for a while, at least until the cast was off.

  We all signed the thick white plaster, even the chief.

  Jimmy, and Milo Griffith, had been lucky. The slanted eaves of the Montgomery mansion, the same eaves I’d carefully shimmied down in the bright light of day, had slowed their fall. In addition to Jimmy’s broken right arm, he had bruises and scratches all over his face and neck. Griffith had broken both his legs and his collarbone, and nearly lost his vision from Jimmy’s brutal self-defense move.

  We’d let Lucas Armstrong do the honors that night. He’d read Griffith his rights and then arrested him as Griffith lay on the ground, moaning and writhing in pain. Armstrong skipped the handcuffs and instead sat with the killer, softly humming Amazing Grace in an incredibly off-key performance. Griffith’s moans increased in volume until it was too hard to take, and I left, moving inside.

  My team had it under control.

  My team. In a night that had seen incredible highs and lows, the words felt good to say out loud. Armstrong, Moriarty, Finn … even Jimmy. We had each other’s backs. The fact that their belief in me was strong enough to risk discipline, even dismissal, to get our man nearly brought me to my knees.

  Griffith eventually went on to confess to most everything. He’d worn a padded suit the night he stole the dynamite from the Bishop Mine, knowing if there was video surveillance the costume would throw us off track. He did not admit to killing the rabbit at the mine, though it was clear his cruelty knew no bounds. The chase and escape down the alley the night of Caleb’s murder; the subsequent bank robbery and killing of Esposito; the drugging and beating of Maggie Armstrong: Griffith copped to all of it. He even admitted that leaving the Nambu pistol behind at the scene of the Esposito murder was theatrics, pure staging. Both a red herring, and not. A prop, Griffith called it; a prop, and a weapon.

  At the end, as we interviewed him at the hospital, he was proud of his mission, as he called it. I’m convinced he truly did want to get caught; after all, his background in the military had provided him with all of the necessary training and tools to avoid detection.

  But all of that, the confessions, came later.

  That night, I got Edith down from the third floor and into an easy chair in the living room. Her cut had stopped bleeding but her confusion remained. Telling her that Caleb’s killer had been caught would have to wait until a time and place when she could understand that tonight, at least, justice had been served.

  I next saw Edith three weeks after the night at the Montgomery mansion, on the morning of my wedding. In a sweet and sentimental nod to tradition, Brody had spent the night in a bachelor’s suite at the Tate, and so Grace and I were alone at the house when Edith stopped by.

  “You look good,” I whispered in her ear as I hugged her. There was a softness in her eyes, a sense of peace. She smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, without a whiff of cigarette smoke. “Did you quit smoking?”

  “Yes. It’s been eleven days. I think it will stick this time. I want to thank you, Gemma. It means the world to me to know that Caleb’s killer will spend the rest of his years in prison.”

  We moved into the kitchen, where I poured Edith a cup of tea. She continued, “But it also breaks my heart. Milo Griffith, like his grandfather, was the product of circumstances beyond his control. War does terrible things to people.” Edith smiled sadly. “That must sound trite, coming from me. I’ve lived a privileged life.”

  At our feet, Grace tugged the hem of Edith’s pants. Edith bent down, lifted the baby, and kissed her cheek. She went on, �
�Anyway, I’m putting the house up for sale. I can’t possibly live there, not after everything that has happened. I’m selling it all, the house, the land, all the furnishings. Even the art. And I’m using the proceeds to start a new business, here, in Cedar Valley. It will be a center for veterans, a clearinghouse of services. Job help, mental health, that sort of thing. I think I’ll name it after Caleb. ‘Cal’s Place.’”

  “He’d love that.”

  Edith smiled, this time a broad, toothsome grin. “Yes, I think he would.”

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Those strange noises and lights that you saw and heard, in the forest, have they stopped?”

  Edith thought a moment, then nodded slowly. “You know … they have … Isn’t that strange? Was it Mr. Griffith? Did he cause them?”

  “No, he denied any knowledge of them. And it wouldn’t make sense that they would have originated with him; his entire being is about stealth, surprise, not revealing who or where he really is.”

  Edith gave the smallest of shrugs. “It’s a mystery, then. Maybe the Old Cabin Woods truly are haunted.”

  She glanced around the kitchen, at the dozens of programs and short vases, most already filled with white roses, and set Grace down on the floor. “Are you ready?”

  “I think so. Clementine stayed late last night and did a few last-minute things, then picked up and dropped off the flowers this morning. She’ll be back in an hour to help me get it all down to the Tate.”

  Edith leaned forward and sniffed one of the bouquets. “I’ve always loved roses. What I meant was, are you ready?”

  “Oh. Well … yes. Yes, I’m ready. Of course I’m ready.”

  Edith glanced at me, one perfectly groomed eyebrow arched. “Well, I’ll be there about five. Let me know if you need anything. There’s always all sorts of last-minute crises that pop up come ceremony time.”

  “Thanks, but this is one wedding that will go off without a hitch. Brody’s been waiting a long time. He deserves a flawless night.”