by Amy Cross
Shoving the piece of paper into my pocket, I put the sheets back over Leanne's body parts before rushing over to the doorway. I grab the phone and step into the office while Doctor Shaw goes back to the examination tables.
“What have you got?” I ask, my heart pounding with shock at the idea that we might have another victim on our hands.
“Hey, boss,” Hinch replies, sounding a little startled. “I think maybe something's wrong with your cellphone. It rang, but then my call seemed to -”
“What have you found?” I ask again, more firmly this time.
“Oh, right. That's why I was trying to get in touch. We've found another body.”
“Where?”
“Um, well actually, body isn't the right word. She's alive. Well, barely, but yeah, she's still just about alive. So I guess it is a body, but at the same time, the word body makes it sound more like -”
“Is she at the hospital?”
“She's on her way now. I'm down at the Palianna River, at the curve near Meadow's Point. Do you know the spot I mean?”
“You found someone down there?”
“She's in an ambulance right now, being taken to the hospital, but -”
“I'll meet you there.”
I put the phone down and head toward the door, but a moment later the phone rings again. Figuring that it'll be Hinch, I answer.
“I'll see you there,” I tell him. “Whatever else you've got, you can tell me at the hospital.”
With that, I reach out to put the phone back down.
“It's Ramsey!” he yells.
I freeze, with the phone's receiver just half an inch from the cradle. For a moment, I can't quite believe that I heard what I thought I heard, but finally I put the receiver back against the side of my face. My heart is pounding, but I'm convinced that I'm wrong. He can't have said that name.
“That's why I was trying to get through to you so frantically,” he continues. “There was a wallet in the girl's pocket and... The name on the cards inside says Ramsey Kopperud. Boss, I think the girl we found down by the river might be your daughter.”
Part Six
Esther
Thirty-Eight
Sheriff James Kopperud
Today
“Where is she?” I yell, pushing the double doors open as I rush along the corridor. “Hinch! Somebody! Where the hell is she?”
Up ahead, two startled-looking nurses are at a desk.
“Ramsey Kopperud,” I stammer as I reach them. “She was brought in by ambulance about twenty minutes ago. Where is she?”
“I don't know,” the first nurse replies, “but I can -”
“Boss! Over here!”
As soon as I see Hinch waving at me from the far end of the corridor, I rush toward him, almost colliding with a cleaning trolley in the process. I'm still not entirely convinced that this is really happening, and in the back of my mind I've already come up with a dozen or more ways that it could all be a huge misunderstanding, but as I reach Hinch I can feel a sense of panic thudding in my chest.
“What the hell's going on?” I ask, pushing past him and heading through the next set of doors. “Where is she?”
“Sir,” a nurse says, leaning out from a nearby room, “please, lower you -”
“Where's my daughter?” I shout.
“She's in surgery right now,” Hinch explains, still hurrying along next to me.
“What are you talking about? Why's she in surgery?”
“She's hurt,” he continues, struggling to keep up with me. “Multiple wounds. Breaks, fractures, impact trauma, plus exposure. The man who spotted her on the rocks thought she was dead already, but when we got there we found a faint pulse. When the medical team arrived, they said she was remarkably stable.”
I push open another set of double doors and find myself facing another long, featureless corridor. I Hesitate for a moment, before turning to Hinch.
“Why did you say it was Ramsey?” I ask. “What the hell's wrong with you? Ramsey is thousands of miles away!”
“Uh, no she's not,” he replies.
“She's in New York!”
“She's not,” he continues. “That's the first thing we checked after we took a look at her wallet. I spoke to your ex-wife personally. She told me that Ramsey left home about three weeks ago and hasn't been in contact since.”
“What?” I stammer, convinced that this has to be some kind of joke. “I spoke to Emma yesterday, she just told me Ramsey couldn't come to the phone.”
“She mentioned that conversation to me,” he replies. “She said she didn't want to get into it with you at the time, and that she thought Ramsey was just staying with friends. She's on her way out here now, after I told her about your daughter's injuries.”
“It's not Ramsey,” I continue, taking a step back. “What the hell would Ramsey be doing in Deal? And if she did come back, why wouldn't she have come to see me? It can't actually be her! It must be someone who stole her wallet. What the hell's wrong with you, Hinch? Why don't you check these things out properly before you raise the alarm?”
“We're sure it's her,” he explains. “Everything matches. I'm sorry, boss, I know this must be a huge shock. It was a surprise to all of us, too, but... It's her. There's really no doubt about it.”
I stare at him for a moment, before shaking my head.
“No,” I say finally. “You're wrong. I don't know how, but you're wrong. Whoever's in that operating theater right now, whoever you found half-dead at the side of the river, it's not my daughter. And do you know how I know that? Because Ramsey Kopperud hated Deal, and she'd never, ever come back here.”
***
It's her.
I see that now, sitting next to her hospital bed, holding her cold hand in mine as machines beep and hiss all around us. She has a tracheal intubation tube to help with her breathing, and there are heavy bandages wrapped around most of her head, but from the few patches that haven't been covered – from her eyes, and her mouth, and her bruised left cheek – I can see that it's really her.
She's older than the last time I saw her, of course. She's even older than the most recent photo I saw, which was from about a year ago now.
But it's definitely her.
“Come on,” I whisper, with tears in my eyes as I watch her intently. “Just wake up, Ramsey. We can figure everything else out later, but first you have to wake up.”
As if in defiant reply, the machines continue to beep in the same calm pattern as before. There are so many wires and tubes coming out of my daughter, it's almost as if the machines have claimed her. And that incessant, regularly beeping sound seems to be taunting me.
“We have her now,” the machines are saying. “She's ours and we're never giving her back.”
I hear footsteps outside the room as a nurse hurries past. I want to go and grab her, to pull her in here and demand that she does something. I want to pull the wires away and take my little girl out of here. I can't just sit here doing nothing.
A moment later, I hear someone entering the room. Glancing over my shoulder, I see a middle-aged man wearing a white coat.
“She hasn't moved,” I tell him. “Why hasn't she moved?”
“We're going to try to bring her out of the induced coma in the morning,” Doctor Peters explains as he stops at the foot of the bed. “As I mentioned earlier, the extent of her injuries means that we can't be entirely sure how she'll react, but by morning we should know a lot more. A great deal depends on how she handles this first night, but for now we've done everything we can and it's just a matter of waiting.”
“But there's a good chance she'll be fine, isn't there?” I ask.
“There's a chance she'll weak up with no neurological damage, in which case it'll just be a matter of dealing with her physical injuries.”
“And then she can walk out of here!”
“Then we can address her needs. But it's important to stress that there might be neurological damage, in which case h
er road to recovery will be considerably longer.”
“But if her head's fine, she can just get up out of the bed and leave?”
“Let's wait until morning, and then we'll know more.”
“She's going to be okay,” I continue, still holding her hand as I watch her eyes and wait for some hint of movement. “She's strong. She's tough. She'll get through this.”
“The surgery went well,” Doctor Peters continues, “all things considered. The real concern now is the extent of any head injuries she might have suffered. We didn't see anything particularly troubling on the scans, but it's always better to wait before making any kind of definite statement. There's a small amount of bruising and she's not out of the woods yet, and I'm also concerned about the possibility of pneumonia, but for now she's reacting more or less within the parameters that I would've hoped for. I know this is hard, but we really have to wait until morning before we know any more.”
“Can she hear us?”
“No, almost certainly not. But you should still feel free to sit with her, if that's what you prefer.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” I reply, turning back to Ramsey and looking at her closed eyes. All I want is for her eyes to open, and for her to say something. Even if she still hates me, even if she tells me to get the hell out of her room and to never come back, I just need to know that she's okay in there.
“I'll let you two have some peace,” the doctor continues, heading over to the doorway. “Don't hesitate to call if you need anything. I can get a nurse to come through and put some bedding on the sofa, so that -”
“I don't need that,” I reply, keeping my eyes fixed on my daughter. “I'm going to stay right here.”
I hear footsteps heading away, but right now the whole rest of the world doesn't matter at all. I only care about Ramsey, and about being right here when she wakes up. After all, she's going to feel like crap when she finally comes around from all of this, and she'll need someone to yell and curse at. I remember our last conversation, when she was telling me how much she hated me. At the time, every word hurt. Right now, I'd give anything to have her back, even if it's the angry Ramsey who despises me and never even wants to look at me again.
“You're gonna be fine,” I whisper, squeezing her hand tight in case the doctor was wrong, in case Ramsey really can tell that I'm here. “You're strong. You're a fighter. I promise, no matter how much it hurts right now, you're going to be absolutely okay.”
I leave a pause, in case she miraculously wakes up and tells me to go to hell, but all I hear is silence. I don't know how much time passes, but I sit waiting, watching her face, imagining all the different ways I can apologize to her when she wakes up. I know she hates me, and I know I deserve that, but deep down I can't help hoping that maybe I can at least make her realize that I love her.
“Is now a bad time?”
Turning, I see Hinch standing in the doorway.
“I can come back later,” he continues, “or...”
His voice trails off. I had no idea that he'd been waiting all this time. I assumed he'd gone back to the station, but apparently he must have been out in the corridor.
“They say they'll know more in the morning,” I tell him. “I'm staying here tonight. I won't be at the office tomorrow, either. I have to make sure I'm here when she wakes up.”
“Totally,” he replies. “We'll cover for you. Just do whatever you need.”
I turn back to Ramsey, but of course she hasn't moved at all.
“We've searched the area where she was found,” Hinch explains. “I'm trying to put together a timeline, like you always say we should. So far, we've found some footprints in the mud that don't seem to be accounted for, so it seems like somebody else was with Ramsey at some point. My first thought was that she fell into the water and then got washed up, but I spoke to a woman from the fisheries office and she said the current is way too strong and too deep for that to happen. So either Ramsey crawled out of the river herself, or someone pulled her out. But if someone helped her, it seems strange that they didn't call for an ambulance.”
“So who found her?” I ask.
“A man checking bait lures. Tommy Edmonton, from town. He goes out there a couple of times a week.”
“Get him to the station,” I reply. “Find out everything he knows.”
“Already on it.” He pauses, and for a moment the only sound is the continued beeping and hissing from the machines that are keeping Ramsey alive. “This can't be a coincidence,” he adds finally, “can it?”
“What kind of coincidence?”
“Well, you told me that Ramsey and Leanne Halperin were friends, right? You said they were really good friends when they were younger. And then we find them both out there, in different parts of the forest, but still it seems unlikely that... I guess what I'm getting at is that there must be a chance they met up at some point, and that maybe something happened while they were together. And then Leanne ended up the way we found her, and Ramsey ended up like this. So maybe when Ramsey wakes up, she can tell us something about what happened to Leanne.”
“Maybe,” I reply, before realizing that he's probably right. “She might well know something. She needs to wake up first, but then we can find out what happened.”
“And they think she might wake up in the morning?”
“She will,” I mutter. “She has to.”
“Did you see the carving on her left hand?”
I turn to him. “What carving?”
He makes his way around the bed and stops at Ramsey's other side, and then he gently lifts her left hand until I can see a circle and several lines cut into the flesh. I instantly recognize them, having already seen the same mark twice before. The first time was on Mikey Cane, ten years ago, and the second time was just a few hours ago on Leanne Halperin's dead body. Now it's on my daughter's hand.
“What the hell is going on out there in the forest?” I whisper, feeling a heavy, dull sense of dread in my chest. “Who's doing this?”
“Have you seen anything like it before?” Hinch asks.
“It's all linked,” I tell him, as my mind races in an attempt to figure out the connection. “There has to be someone out there, someone in the forest who's behind it all. Some kind of maniac who's exploiting all the stories that have been told about that place over the years. Buddy told me once that the forest attracts weirdos, and I'm starting to think that might have been an understatement.” I pause for a moment, before realizing that there's only one option. “Search it. Search the entire forest, every inch. Get as many men as you can find and search every part of that goddamn forest until you find whoever's doing this.”
“I thought the forest had been searched before,” he replies. “Like, lots of times.”
“Not like this,” I continue, feeling a burst of pure anger in my chest. “I don't care how long it takes, but I'm ordering you to arrange a full search. Is that understood?”
“But that'd take forever.”
“I don't care.”
“The manpower effort would be -”
“I don't care!” I say firmly. “Do it!”
He nods, even though he's clearly a little unsure. I know the task of searching the entire forest is basically impossible, but right now I figure we have to smoke out every weirdo and freak who's hiding out there.
“There's one other thing,” he continues. “Like I said, we found her wallet, and that's how we identified her. But there was something else in her pocket too, a piece of paper. At first I wasn't sure whether it was significant, but then I noticed something odd about it.”
He takes a small, torn scrap of paper from his pocket.
“Ramsey had been in the river, right?” he adds. “She'd been wet. Her clothes, her wallet, everything was soaked. But this piece of paper was in her shirt pocket, and it was mostly dry. So it must have been put there after she came out of the water, mustn't it? Or am I missing something?”
“Show me.”
Re
aching out, I take the piece of paper and see that it contains four handwritten words.
“If I die,” I whisper, reading the three words from the top line, before looking at the fourth word beneath them. “Esther.”
“If I die, Esther,” Hinch mutters. “Any idea what that means? Who's Esther?”
“I have no idea,” I reply, before turning back to look at Ramsey's unconscious face. “I never heard that name before in my life.”
Thirty-Nine
Esther
Two days earlier
“Stop!” I shout, limping toward the opening. “You'll -”
Before I can manage another word, I hear a faint cry and I look out just in time to see Ramsey tumbling away from the cliff-face. Horrified, I watch as she crashes into the water far below, and within a matter of seconds she's completely lost to the current. I wait, hoping to see her swim to the shore, but there's no sign of her at all.
“I tried to save you,” I whisper, feeling tears in my eyes. “Why did you lie to me? If you hadn't lied to me, the marker on your hand would've...”
Is this it?
If Ramsey was the whore, and if she'd dead, then it's all over and I can go home.
At the same time, I know it can't be that simple.
“The whore doesn't die like that,” I whisper. “Not so easily. She has to...”
My voice trails off for a moment, until I realize I can hear a very faint shuddering sound behind me. Turning, I see that the witch is more active than usual, almost as if she's trying to get up from her chair. She doesn't have a chance, of course, since the poles are running too deep and too firmly through her body, but maybe something about Ramsey's presence has made her a little agitated. It must be a few weeks, at least, since the last time she was so active. Clearly something is upsetting her.
I step closer, and suddenly I spot a trickle of blood running down her arm. As she continues to move, her flesh is tearing against splinters of wood that have begun to break loose from the impaling poles. Still, I know she can't ever escape, not fully. This prison was designed too well, and it'll hold her forever if that's what's needed. An outside influence might be able to get her out of the trap, but she can never, ever free herself. I suppose it's possible, though, that she sensed the whore nearby, and maybe for a moment she thought she might be released.
