“Did you find the girls?” I ask.
His smile falters.
“Not yet, but we’re getting closer. We found out where that sick fuck has been staying. I got approval to bring you guys out. You’re going to want to see this. Come on.”
Twenty minutes later Shane pulls up to a dilapidated building that looks like it should have been condemned a long time ago. It’s a narrow two-story house that has rotting siding falling off of every side. The roof is caving in and the screen door is falling off the hinges. The brush in the lawn is so high, it’s grown over the top of the chain-link fence surrounding the tiny yard. There’s yellow crime scene tape sectioning off the property and three police cruisers are parked on the street, while an officer waits for us at the gate.
Before we get out of truck Dex and I both share a look, hope blossoming in our hearts for the first time since this whole shit show started.
“What in the seven hells is this place?” Dex asks beside me.
“This is a house registered to a woman named Martha Melvin.” Shane tells us
“Is that supposed to mean something to us?” I ask him.
“Martha is Rob’s mother. Melvin is her maiden name. This house was purchased two months ago in her name. Martha has been dead for the last eight years you guys.”
With that, Shane exits the truck and makes his way to the officer at the gate, both of them talking animatedly, but Dex and I can’t hear because we haven’t moved yet.
“Whatever you see, memorize. I’m not liking the fact that it’s taken them this long to find something like this that’s just twenty minutes away from our fucking house. Something seems off to me.” I tell Dex.
“I think we need to start our own little investigation. Rob was still in prison two months ago so the fact that he was able to do this shit while he was still locked up lets me know there’s more at play here. I don’t like it.”
“Don’t say anything to Shane just yet. I need to find a way to bring this up to him in a way that ensures he’s willing to help us without getting him in trouble okay?”
Dex nods his response and then tips his head to indicate it’s time to get out and see what the hell this shit hole has to offer.
We make our way up to the gate and meet the officer that’s going to take us through the show and tell of what’s awaiting us inside. He hands us each a bag and motions for us to open it as he starts talking.
“Alright, boys I’m Officer Jones. We don’t normally do this, so you should thank your lucky stars that Shane has some good connections. Inside the bag, you’ll see shoe covers, a shower cap, and a pair of gloves. You guys get to go inside and look around, maybe you’ll see something that makes more sense to you at the moment than it does to us. We need all the help we can get trying to catch this bastard. Nothing leaves the property. Everything has to stay here, understood?”
Dex and I agree to his terms, thankful that we’re getting to go inside. We put on all the required protection, feeling like Grey’s Anatomy rejects, and quickly follow Shane and Officer Jones inside.
As soon as we walk through the door we’re met with a rotten odor so strong that it burns my eyes. This is a scent I will forever associate with Rob. It fits him perfectly. Grotesque and abhorrent.
“Through here, guys.” Officer Jones calls.
We wade through the trash and debris cluttering every available inch of floor in the makeshift entryway. We walk into the equally disgusting living room and I’m frozen in place as I take in the scene in front of me.
The room is covered in trash, empty pizza boxes, beer cans, liquor bottles, and empty cigarette packs. There’s a tattered old recliner with a TV tray next to it. The TV tray has scattered needles, syringes, a lighter, a bent spoon, and a rubber tube laying haphazardly on top. It was bad enough that we were looking for a psycho ex with a vendetta, but add a junkie on top of that…
Fuuuuckk!
But the most concerning thing is the living room wall that’s covered from floor to ceiling in photos of Max. There are photos of her at Henry’s, coming in and out of work, on her porch swing, getting in my truck, out with all her friends… Everything.
He’s got her entire life since he’s gotten out of prison documented on this wall. I take a step closer and see the one where she’s crying in my arms. We’re standing in the parking lot of the restaurant I took her to for our little weekend getaway. This is a photo of when she told me she loved me.
“Abel.” Dex whispers next to me.
I turn to him and follow his line of sight to see a photo of Max and I walking hand and hand out of Dr. Jenkin’s office. You can’t see much of the background in the photo, but I can see her smiling at the ultrasound photo in her hands. That’s a day I’ll never forget as long as I live. It’s ingrained in my memory, being one of the happiest days of my life.
“Motherfucker!” I shout. “He knows.”
“He knows what, Abel?” Shane asks.
“He knows Max is pregnant.”
“In all the things we found here, none of it points to him knowing she’s pregnant, why do you think that?” Officer Jones asks coming to stand next to Shane.
“No fucking wonder you guys don’t have a single goddamn lead. Are you guys even trying to find them? Look at the fucking picture you idiot.” I say shoving my finger at the one Dex and I just saw. “That’s me and Max walking out of her OBGYN’s office after getting our first ultrasound of the twins. Even a junkie can put two and two together, but somehow you guys didn’t.”
“Mr. Cooper…” Officer Jones starts.
“I’m going to have to ask that you don’t speak to me. I’m trying so fucking hard to be calm when I’ve been here for less than five minutes and managed to pick up more information out of these photos than you have the entire time you’ve known about them. I’ll follow your rules while I’m here but I need you to follow mine. Stand in the back and monitor us so you know we aren’t taking anything, but don’t say a single fucking word to us unless we ask you a direct question okay?” I scream out. My entire body is thrumming with anger.
Officer Jones just sighs but does as I’ve requested. He quietly goes to lean against the far side of the wall in the living room, not speaking a word to anyone else.
He knows I’ve done nothing to warrant getting thrown out of here, but he also doesn’t want to push me. My voice left zero room for argument and I’m growing closer and closer to my breaking point with each day that passes. If they can’t do their fucking job, then I’ll have to find a way to do it for them.
Dex and I take the time to go through every photo, noting where they were taken and what was happening in each. We look at the newspaper clippings he has on the wall of DRAB, and all the random things he has tacked on the walls. A Starbucks cup, a used cupcake wrapper, all kinds of random shit that we’ve deduced were used and discarded by Max before he went through the trash to get them. He’s built an entire fucking shrine to Max, but there’s nothing here that details any of his plans.
Next, Dex and I go in search of information in the rest of the house. We both refuse to believe that this is all there is to see here. This was where he holed himself up for the last month, there’s got to be more. I don’t fucking care how many times Officer Dumbass downstairs claims there’s nothing else here, I can’t seem to believe that. If they could miss something as simple as a photo right in front of their faces, there’s no telling what else they’ve missed.
Dex and I stick together, wordlessly deciding it’s best to rub our heads together rather than splitting up. We go through two empty rooms, the bedroom that Rob stayed in that had furniture but no clues. Next, we clear a bathroom, the hall cabinets, and the kitchen. We find nothing. I’m starting to get discouraged, but there’s a voice in the back of my head that whispers ‘Keep going.’
There’s something else here.
I can feel it.
I just don’t know where.
But I refu
se to leave here until I find it.
“Take a break, Abel. Go outside and get some fresh air. I think the funk in here might be getting to your head. Just go catch your breath or something while I talk to Officer Jones, okay?” Shane suggests.
He’s right, I need to get out of this house for a minute and get some perspective. I’m ready to tear down the fucking walls in here until I find some answers.
Dex and I make our way out the back door through the kitchen so that we can get away from Officer Dumbass. He’s hovering by the front door and I know that if I walk by him right now, I might throat punch him. Logically I know that I’m no use to the girls if I’m in jail for assaulting an officer, no matter how much I want to do it. Emotionally… I’d say it may be worth the risk.
Dex and I are leaning against the deteriorating back wall of the house, staring off into space. It’s the end of May and the heat is starting to pick up, making room for a warm summer on the coast. Max was so glad she’d get to go through the beginning of her pregnancy in the summer instead of the end when she got big.
I sigh at the memory.
“Is it weird that the layout of the house reminds me of the house you and Bree grew up in?” Dex asks.
“Not at all, I was thinking the same thing actually. The rooms are laid out the same way too. I’m wondering if the same person built it.” I say, allowing myself to engage in this meaningless conversation to appease Dex.
I know this is hurting him too. Maybe not on the same level as me, but his hurt is still very much real. It’s still valid.
“I remember Bree roping all of us in to playing hide and go seek. Damn, it was hard as hell to find her because she could fold herself in all those small cabinets in the hallway. We never knew which one she’d be in so we had to open them all up.” Dex says, a small smile playing on his lips.
“She’d crawl up to the very top one and lay against the back panel so we couldn’t see her even with the doors open. Scared the hell out of me a few times.” I voice, shaking my head at my sister’s crazy antics.
“Gosh the time she found out about the cellar I thought you were going to explode. You couldn’t find her for over an hour.” Dex laughs.
“What did you just say?” I ask, my heart picking up speed.
“The time she hid in the cellar and no one could find her…” Dex locks eyes with me, confused by my sudden outburst.
I can tell the moment realization dawns on him. He pushes off the wall at the same time as I do. We run off the porch, into the yard, and together we start searching through the tall grass and mountains of trash. We’re frantic as we try and find the storm cellar doors that we’re hoping to find somewhere in the yard.
“Dude, I can’t see shit through this grass!” Dex yells.
“Start ripping it up for all I care. We have to find those doors!” I yell back.
“What are you idiots out here screaming about?” Shane hollers from the back porch.
“Shane, do you have a weed whacker or some shears or something in your truck?” I ask.
“Uh yeah, I have the weed whacker in the back. Why? What are you doing, Abel?” He asks with an alarmed expression.
I walk him through the details of my childhood home and how uncanny the layout is. I tell him how Dex and I came to the theory that there’s a cellar door out here somewhere and that the tall grass and junk is just a distraction to keep us from finding it.
He tells us we’re fucking crazy, mumbling about the smell inside damaging our brain cells but goes to get the weed whacker out his truck nonetheless. If he didn’t have one I would have made him take me to go buy one. I wouldn’t leave this house of horrors for good until I knew for sure, one way or another if there’s a cellar hiding in the yard.
A few minutes later Shane returns with the weed whacker and I take the opportunity to let out all my frustrations on the grass. With each section that falls to the ground, I feel a little better, a little lighter, a little more hopeful.
There hasn’t been much of anything I’ve been able to do since this whole fucking thing started and I refuse to let this be another thing to add to that list. As I make progress on tearing down the grass, Dex and Shane scramble to gather all the junk in the year and throw it in garbage bags so we can see the ground and determine where the cellar may be.
It’s not a quick process, weed whackers weren’t made for jobs of this magnitude, but we’ll take what we can get.
About 30 minutes later, I scream out.
“Over here! Over here! I found it!” I lay the weed whacker on the ground as everyone, Officer Dumbass included, make their way over to me where I’ve uncovered the cellar doors. There was more trash than grass on it, showing that the trash had been placed there and that grass hadn’t grown over it.
I’m smiling like crazy. I know down in my core that there’s something in here.
“Do you want to do the honors, Mr. Cooper?” Officer Dumbass asks me as he hands me a flashlight.
“Yeah, I do. Dex, Shane, get your phones ready, take a video while we go down there.” I tell them all.
I want Shane to have a video for evidence for the DHPD, I want Dex to have a video for us. There’s no way in hell I’m trusting these assholes to continue this investigation on their own. I need answers and after what’s happened since we arrived… I’d be willing to bet that I find them faster than they do. They wouldn’t have even found this storm cellar without me.
I pull open the thick door and make my way down the steps, holding my breath the whole time.
Please let me be right, please let there be something down here.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Shane says when we all get to the bottom.
Sure enough, we found Rob’s crazy fucking lair.
On one wall, in the very center, there’s a picture of him and Max from when they were together. She’s got the remanence of a black eye, a handprint on her throat, and a cast on her left arm. She looks sick to her stomach and in pain while Rob’s smiling like a playboy on Spring Break. He has an arm snaked around her shoulders, and if you look closely, you can see his fingertips digging into her skin as he holds her against him. It makes me physically ill to see my girl like this. She’s told me stories about what he did to her. But seeing this… It makes my blood run cold.
Surrounding the picture of them together are pictures of all of us with our names written on them. My face has a dart sunk in the center of it, and Kat has horns drawn on her head. Bree’s has a red X drawn on it. If I had to guess, he hasn’t been here since he took Max.
He has everyone’s personal information, phone numbers, job locations, and home addresses on post-it notes next to their photos. I’m stunned silent by the amount of information this guy has on everyone. How the hell did he do all of this? Where did he get it all?
“Abel, look.” Dex says, pulling on my arm.
I turn to him and he motions to the wall opposite the one I was staring at. It’s made up in the same style as the first wall. There’s photos of all kinds of people I don’t know and all kinds of personal information about them, including issues they’re having in their lives.
“Who are all these people?” I ask.
“This first row is the parole committee Rob met with before he was released.” Shane says.
“The second row is officers of the DHPD.” Officer Dumbass says through gritted teeth.
“And what about the third row?” I ask.
They all shake their heads at me indicating that they don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing, we’re damn sure going to find out.
***
It’s been three hours since we left Rob’s hideout and we have the whole group gathered at the house, helping us dig into everything we’ve found.
The den is covered in all kinds of chaos and the walls looking like ‘A Beautiful Mind’ come to life. We’ve got pizza, drinks, and music playing in the background, and we asked everyone to bring their own laptop
s to help maximize how much research we can do at one time. Shane even joined us, determined to figure this out since we clearly can’t rely on the fucking cops in this town to do their damn job.
‘Wake Up Call’ by Theory of a Deadman is filtering in through the speakers and I smile to myself. Max loves this band.
She once told me that me touching her scar was the best thing that ever happened to her. It was her wake-up to call to finally move on with her life and trust in me, to let me in.
Now I stand in a home we share, without her, knowing that it’s not my home… She is. And I won’t be able to move forward with my life until I have her here with me.
Damn, I love that woman.
“Yes, Ryan. I know this. What I’m saying is that one of us need to be looking at places that overlap in their movements.” Kat says spryly.
“And how do you suppose we do that?” Ryan asks exasperatedly.
Kat smiles like a Cheshire, and points to her boyfriend Jake to take over the conversation. I’m intrigued to see where she’s going with this so I take a seat, grab a piece of pizza, and listen intently.
It’s amazing how hungry I am all of a sudden. Now that I have something productive I can be doing to help in this whole mess, it’s like my body woke up and was protesting, begging for food. As I bring the slice to my lips, everyone stops what they’re doing and turns to me, a mixture of shock and smiles playing across their faces.
“What?” I ask, a little embarrassed.
“It’s just nice to see you eating something.” Sonya says shyly.
“Welcome back, Abel. We’ve missed you.” Karen says, wiping the corners of her eyes.
I look to Ryan and Brody who both stare back at me with pride. They’ve been killing themselves trying to keep all of our lives together while I’ve been slowly dying on the inside, completely lost at how the hell to function without Max and Bree. I didn’t realize everyone was so worried about me, and I kind of feel like an ass for giving them one more thing to worry about. They should have been able to lean on me as a pillar of strength during this time.
Revival Page 9
