What We Found

by Kris Bock

We stared at each other, neither of us moving or speaking. I wasn’t even breathing. I wanted to flee back down the path, but my legs felt numb. I should have acted surprised to see her, but it quickly became too late for that. And my brain couldn’t come up with any excuse.

  Lia lifted her chin. I saw the muscles work in her throat. “Is this where she was?”

  “What?”

  “Was she here?” Her voice trembled. “Bethany?” She looked very young despite—or maybe because of—the heavy makeup and revealing clothes. At eighteen she was legally an adult, but I remembered how young I’d been at eighteen.

  I didn’t know what she was doing there, what she really wanted, but I played along. “Not quite.” I gestured into the woods. “Over there.”

  She pressed her lips together. Her chin rose another notch. “Show me.”

  I stared at her. I couldn’t imagine why she wanted to see the spot where Bethany’s body had been dumped. But I believed that she didn’t already know. She hadn’t been there. And for all her attempt at tough pride, she looked like she was about to cry. Something was bothering her greatly. If she knew something about the murder, or suspected something, she was ready to break.

  I looked back down the path. Still no sign of Kyle or anyone else. And no sign of anyone else in the clearing or beyond, anyone that Lia might have been meeting.

  I looked back at her and nodded. “Down that little path. You go first.” Seeing her up close, I doubted she even had room for a pocketknife in her clothes, but I didn’t want her behind me where she could pick up a branch or something and hit me before I knew she had it. While she had her back to me, I slipped my phone out of my bag and turned on the recording app. I stuck the phone in the breast pocket of my shirt. If Lia said anything important, I’d have it recorded.

  When she came out into the smaller clearing with the fallen log, she stopped and looked around. “Here?”

  I didn’t look in the direction I pointed. “Over there. In that ditch.”

  She turned with a wary look, as if she was afraid something was going to jump out of the bushes at her. She hunched her shoulders, ducked her head, and stomped over.

  I lowered myself to the log, trembling. The clearing seemed to blur and dance in my vision. I concentrated on my breathing. I had to pull myself together if I was going to stay alert. I wished I had a mint or hard candy, something strong enough to overpower all the other smells and distract my senses.

  Lia turned back. I glanced at her and caught a flutter of yellow behind the trees, police tape marking the crime scene. I looked away and tried not to see a memory.

  After a moment Lia crossed the clearing and sat on the other end of the log. When she finally spoke, her voice was a whisper. “You found her.”

  I nodded.

  “What was it like?”

  I looked at her. “Horrible.”

  She made an impatient gesture with her hands. “What was she like.” When I didn’t answer right away, she said in a low, broken voice, “I have to know!”

  I turned so I was focused on Lia, not the woods. “I smelled her first. Like rotting garbage left in the sun too long, like spoiled meat.”

  She flinched. But she’d wanted to know. It was important for some reason I didn’t quite understand.

  “She didn’t look human. There were clothes and hair. Her hand curled on her chest, but wrong somehow. Her skin was green.” I swallowed and told myself I would not throw up. “Something … something wrong with her face,” I whispered. I touched my chin. “The lower part of it missing.”

  Tears ran down Lia’s face, smearing her eyeliner. “He did it,” she choked out.

  My body went numb, hot and then cold. “Who?”

  She took a shuddering breath. “My father!”

  The world tilted and spun. So it had been him all along. The obvious suspect. “You knew?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t know! But I knew he lied about the night she disappeared. I wasn’t with him. He said I had to say I was, or everyone would suspect him, because he dated her, and hit her a couple of times. He said it wasn’t fair….” She broke off, her chest heaving, her voice ragged.

  It wasn’t proof. But the pieces seemed to be slipping into place. Bain might have taken his daughter to the memorial so people could see him pretending to grieve, but she’d stayed to learn more about the dead woman. The woman she suspected her father had murdered.

  I remembered the first time I’d seen her, at the summer festival—angry, defiant, blaming me for causing trouble. A daughter who didn’t want to believe the worst of her father.

  She was wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands, smearing her makeup further. I hated to think what I would have done in her place. Would I have lied to protect someone I loved, even when I suspected he was a killer?

  I hardened myself against sympathy. We needed answers, and this was the time to get them. “So how does Jay fit into all of this?”

  “I don’t know. He called me and asked me to meet him at the festival. He said he had some information that would help my father. I was worried that he was going to try to blackmail us or something, but he just wanted to talk about you. He was angry.” She paused to sniff. “He’s kind of a jerk.”

  I gave a choked half-laugh. “Yeah.” I dug into my tote bag for a pack of tissues. I took one for myself and handed the rest to her.

  She wiped at her face and whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”

  I said, as gently as I could, “You have to tell the truth.”

  “But what if it wasn’t him! What if I put him in jail, and it wasn’t him after all?”

  “But you think it was.”

  She nodded miserably

  “Are there other reasons besides that he asked you to lie about that one night?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was seeing her again. And he’s been acting weird for a month. At first, right after she disappeared, kind of high strung. I thought it was the drugs.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “After we knew she was dead…. He wasn’t grieving over her, like he should, even if they hadn’t been dating lately. More like … I don’t know, like he’s proud of himself. My mom would say cocky, like he got away with something. And then Monday he made me help him sneak away, because he said the cops were watching him, and he took my car. He said he was going to spy on Bethany’s brother, but I was so scared he’d do something terrible. He kept hinting that Kyle must’ve killed Bethany, and he got mad when no one took him seriously.”

  Monday. When my brake lines had been cut. Bain must have been spying on Kyle’s house and taken the opportunity to cause me some trouble. Maybe he hoped Kyle would be blamed.

  “Was that the only time he snuck away from the police?”

  “Yeah, so far as I know, but he had me follow you some. I told him you went driving around the college and then called the cops. I didn’t know why you did, but he got angry about it. Then I heard her car had been found there. That’s suspicious, right?”

  “Right.” It was looking bad for Thomas Bain. At least if Lia could be convinced to testify in court. She obviously felt guilty, but would that be enough to make her betray her father? What if she denied all of this once we were out of here?

  At least I would have the recording. I had to get as much evidence as possible, in case she refused to talk to the police. I had to keep things friendly, though, so it wouldn’t feel like an interrogation. “It must be awful to think your father could have done something like that.” It was hard for me to imagine, since I only had a shadowy ideal where the image of Father should be. Would I be strong enough to turn mine in for murder? Or would I defend my family at all cost? Which form of honor was right?

  Of course, Thomas Bain was a horrible person, but did Lia think that?

  She hadn’t answered, so I tried again. “You knew Bethany.”

  She nodded. “She was all right. She didn’t mind if I came by when she was there. We’d hang out s
ometimes.” Her breathing and voice sounded more normal, though she still sniffled and dabbed at her eyes.

  This was really hard. I didn’t know what to say to her, for her sake, or to get her to confess on the recording.

  I heard a murmur and rustle in the trees from the path behind me. A wave of relief washed over me. Maybe Lia wouldn’t be so talkative around Kyle and Ricky, but at least I didn’t have to handle this alone. I hurried to get in one last question, one that would let Kyle and Ricky know everything was under control. “So will you tell the police the truth? Bethany deserves it.”

  Lia sighed and looked up at me. “I guess I have to….” Her gaze went past me and her eyes widened.

  I turned with a smile, ready to offer Kyle the gift of this witness, ready to see the pride in Ricky’s eyes.

  Ricky stumbled into the clearing. But the man who had a hold of his shirt, who held a gun in his other hand, wasn’t Kyle.

  It was Thomas Bain.

  Chapter 39

  Lia jumped up. My own legs were too weak to move me. The scene blurred and then focused again. I stared into Ricky’s eyes but couldn’t offer any hope. I’d brought him into this.

  Lia stood with her hands fisted at her sides. “Daddy, what are you doing?”

  “Finding out my daughter is betraying me. Just like a woman. I never should’ve trusted you.”

  She looked toward the gun. “It doesn’t look like you did.” Her voice trembled but her chin went up. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Get rid of these two.” He looked at me. “It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  I couldn’t have spoken even if I had an answer.

  “Daddy, you can’t,” Lia said.

  “I can’t help it,” Bain said. “I didn’t mean to kill Bethany.”

  “It was an accident?” Lia asked.

  His face twitched. “I didn’t plan it. She drove me to it. She made me so mad. I was getting away with it, but her damn brother kept making noise, and then this bitch interfered.”

  I wanted to tell him finding Bethany’s body hadn’t been my choice. I struggled to get words out. “You won’t get away with this either. How can you?”

  “You’ll have a little accident during this hunting thing.” He looked at Lia. “And you’ll help me.”

  “I won’t!” she cried. “You can’t do this! It’s crazy.”

  She was right. He had to be insane. He’d never be able to stage an accident to take out both Ricky and me and get away with it. He’d be caught for sure. But that wouldn’t help us.

  How did one fight madness? He came closer, pushing Ricky before him. Bain was sweating, and his hand holding the gun twitched. His eyes looked glassy, the pupils tiny black points in washed-out blue. Maybe not crazy. Maybe on drugs that made him stupid and overconfident. But that didn’t make him less dangerous.

  Time seemed to slow and the scene receded, like a dream where I was watching from far away, a hawk soaring on lazy wings. This couldn’t be happening to me, to us. I’d wake up soon.

  I met Ricky’s gaze and snapped back to reality. I wasn’t the hawk, I was the rabbit. I’d darted into the open when I should have stayed hidden. Bain meant to kill us.

  Was my phone capturing all of this? Would someone find it and know what happened? Or would Bain find the phone and destroy it, and hide our bodies, to decay like Bethany’s had? Would someone stumble across us weeks or months from now, and have nightmares?

  Lia stepped closer to her father, hands out in a pleading gesture. “Please, Daddy, stop it.”

  “You’ll help,” he growled, “and with your fingerprints on the gun, you’ll keep quiet. No one will believe you weren’t part of it all along.” He added almost gently, “It’s better that way, so I don’t have to kill you, too.”

  Bain shoved Ricky forward, and he fell into me. I clutched at him as I sprawled back on the log. As Ricky scrambled for balance, my bag shifted and spilled onto the ground.

  Ricky pulled back, out of my hold. Bain grabbed Lia and dragged her in front of his chest. The gun jerked around the clearing, pointing at the trees, then swinging back to us.

  I had to get up. I had to protect Ricky.

  I had to fight.

  I twisted and rolled off the log, landing on my hands and knees. The contents of my bag lay scattered before me. I seized the closest thing to a weapon.

  I scrambled to my feet and turned. Lia was wrestling with her father. She pushed his arm to the side, while he tried to force her hand onto the gun. Ricky jumped forward and grabbed Bain’s arm.

  Lia screamed, “Run!”

  The gun went off. The explosion rocked the clearing and an acrid scent joined the smell of fear.

  I popped the top off my canister of bug spray. My legs wobbled as I took two steps forward, reached past Ricky and Lia, and sprayed it into Bain’s eyes.

  He shrieked and jerked back. The gun went off again. Ricky and Lia crumpled in a heap.

  Bain staggered back, no longer holding the gun, scrubbing at his eyes. I stumbled forward, reached out a hand, and pushed.

  Bain fell against a tree. The leaves shuddered and he tangled in the lower branches.

  I swung toward Ricky and Lia, tears blurring my vision.

  Ricky was already scrambling to his feet. No blood. My legs almost gave out in my relief.

  Lia sat up and shook her head, tossing the hair out of her eyes. She glanced toward her father and then snatched the gun from the ground beside her.

  I reached out a hand for Ricky. “Come on, let’s go!”

  He came to me but glanced back at Lia. She stood, holding the gun, and said, “Get help. I’ll stay here.”

  I hesitated. Would she keep her father under guard until the police came—or help him escape? Despite everything he’d done, he was her father.

  I didn’t care; I wanted us out of there. I grabbed Ricky’s arm and turned toward the path, already running.

  I smacked into a broad chest. I jerked back and stared at a man I’d never seen before. Ricky stumbled into me from behind and I swayed.

  The man stepped back and raised a gun.

  I still had the bug spray in my hand. I lifted it with a sob.

  “Police, nobody move!” he said.

  My vision blurred again, and when it cleared I was trembling, but this time it was relief as I focused on the badge he held up. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt open over a T-shirt, so he must have been either undercover or off duty. I took a deep breath and tried to think of something to say.

  The man sidestepped, looking past Ricky and me. I glanced back. Lia still held the gun, but down at her side. She looked at the man, squinted at his badge, and then bent to place the gun on the ground. She hesitated as she stood back up and then raised her hands, palms out, to shoulder level.

  I wondered if we were supposed to do the same. I settled for putting my arm around my brother’s shoulders and drawing him off to the side as the police officer retrieved Bain’s gun.

  “How did you find us?” Ricky asked.

  The man tucked his gun in a shoulder holster hidden by his long-sleeved shirt and slid the second gun into his waistband at the back. Bain was still whimpering and rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. I wondered if he’d even realized what had happened yet. “We’ve been keeping an eye on Bain for over a week. When I saw him grab the boy—”

  My voice went shrill. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

  He had the grace to look guilty as he flipped Bain onto his stomach and cuffed him. “I was waiting for backup. And hoping Bain would say something to hang himself—which he did. And then I didn’t want to make things worse when he had the gun on all of you. But I was about to interfere when all hell broke loose. Nice work with the bug spray, by the way. You can probably take your finger off the trigger now.”

  He nodded toward my arm, and I realized I was still holding the bug spray. Before I could put it down, I heard voices in the woods. I jerked and sprayed i
nsect repellent down my leg.

  “That should be backup,” the cop said. He raised his voice to call out, “Over here. Situation under control.”

  A uniformed officer came down the path with his gun drawn, but he relaxed and put it away when he saw Bain on the ground. This guy I recognized; he’d responded to our call about finding Bethany’s car. “Everyone all right?” he asked.

  We looked at each other and nodded. Wherever the bullets had gone, they hadn’t hit any of us. I tightened my grip on Ricky, and if it was partly to hold myself upright, no one had to know.

  The uniformed officer looked at me. “Your mother and her friends are back there, and it was all I could do to make them wait while I checked out the situation. You’d better go let them know you’re okay while we secure the scene.”

  Kyle was already sneaking down the path. I grinned and pulled Ricky with me. When we reached Kyle, I let my brother go, and he headed for the larger clearing. Before I could speak, Kyle pulled me into his arms. I clung to him, shaking all over again. He rubbed his cheek against mine and kissed my neck. I burrowed close, letting his scent fill my senses and wipe out the smells of the woods and the gun smoke and fear.

  “You’re all right?” he whispered.

  I nodded against his neck, refusing to back up an inch.

  “When I heard the shots—I’ve never been more frightened in my life.”

  “Me either.”

  “We’d better go let your mom know you’re okay.” We moved down the path still snugly arm in arm.

  “Why are you here?” I asked. “How did you know?”

  “I got your text, so I was keeping an eye out for Ricky. When your mom and Gran got back, I was going to go look for him. You didn’t explain what was wrong, but it made me nervous. Then I saw the cop hurrying through the crowd and had a feeling there was trouble, so I took off after him.” We stepped out into the larger clearing. Kyle gestured at the group in front of us. “And everyone else followed.”

  Mom was squeezing Ricky, who looked half embarrassed and half pleased. She saw me, gave a little cry, and reached one arm out without letting go of my brother. I slipped away from Kyle to join them in a hug. Over Mom’s head, I saw Nancy, with the falcon still on her gloved arm, and Daniel. I grinned at them and they beamed back.