Mother swiftly ended her call and answered.
A baritone voice echoed through the trailer. “You ready?”
“For you, Marcus, always,” Mother replied with a sultry voice.
She turned to Cory and mouthed, “See you tomorrow. Do the dishes.”
Faking laughter, Mother left with another one of her suitors. She’d had so many men since Dad died, Cory had lost count. His sister was more of a mother to him than she was, but Angela had moved out a few years back.
Cory parted the window blinds with his fingers and watched his mother ride away in the stranger’s car. When the vehicle vanished from view, he glanced at the wall clock, swiveled out of bed, and hastily slipped on his dirty Converses. He swiped the binder full of artwork off of his cluttered desk and shoved it into his backpack as he moved down the hall. He stole his mother’s car keys from the hook in the kitchen and started out the door.
The wind ruffled Cory’s parted brown hair as he moved to the car. He brushed aside some of his bangs, revealing his silver eye. His other eye was a mossy green. Eyes of a freak, some local kid called him once.
It was twilight hour when he drove down the rural Pennsylvanian road that paralleled Amish country. His pulse thumped as he thought about tonight. There were only a handful of times in his sheltered existence that Cory had been invited to hang out with his peers. Even better, they were artists like himself, but were quite odd in how they approached him. Andy, their leader of sorts, told Cory not to tell anyone about their meeting at the old Willoughby tree. Why? He did not say. Cory didn’t push the issue; it was just nice to be noticed by someone. Nonetheless, he felt cautiously optimistic. The last time someone invited him out, Cory waited in the restaurant alone for three hours. Tonight, he honored Andy’s wishes and told no one. Well, almost no one. He left a voicemail to his sister, Angela, about the people he would be meeting. After wasting his high school in solitude, it felt worthy to boast about the prospect of friends.
When Cory was about ten minutes away from the double trailer, the wall-mounted phone inside rang. With no one home to answer, it went to voicemail. Angela, his sister, spoke. “Cory, listen to me. Do not go there tonight. I swear that if you don’t call me back in two minutes, I will drive over there and stop you myself. Do you understand me?”
It was hard to miss the old oak. It stood taller than the other trees, had a branch span double the size, and was possibly the oldest tree in Lancaster. Cory parked his car at the lip of the road. Taking a breath, he grabbed his book bag from the backseat and stepped out. It didn’t take long to reach the oak from the roadside. The crowd had already gathered. There were five of them: three guys and two girls that were roughly Cory’s age. Two of the guys, Michael Dillinger, an amateur welder with dark circles around his eyes, and Kenny Parkland, a woodworker with a front lineman's physique, hoisted lanterns onto the lower branches of the oak. Nearby, the women--hard-faced Kimberly Jannis with a knack for pottery, and her rich attractive friend, Pamela Cornish, the daughter of an art collector--popped open the plastic cooler and added ice to the beer cans. It was Andrew Maneau that noticed Cory first. Andy had dyed pink hair, a blemish-free face, and sharp cheekbones. He greeted Cory with a smile.
“Glad could you make it,” Andrew said.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cory replied.
Andrew brushed that off. He put his arm around Cory’s shoulder and led him farther into the clearing. “Come on, let me introduce you.”
The crowd stopped their activities and turned their attention to Cory. Andrew pointed them out. “Kim, Pam, Ken, and Mike.”
Cory awkwardly waved to them. He knew he was too old to be shy, but that didn’t change the fact that he was. Not tonight, he promised himself.
The people said “hi” back to him warmly. Ken even got down from his stool to shake Cory’s hand. “Andrew’s told us a lot about you.”
“Same,” Cory replied. “I mean, he’s filled me in about your guys’ art club.”
Pam gave Andrew the evil eye. “Oh, did he now?”
Andy shrugged. He directed Cory to the beer cooler. “Want anything?”
“Uh, sure.”
Andrew and Cory sat down on the nice flat part of the earth and watched the others prep.
Cory pulled out his binder and handed it to Andrew. “It’s all here like you said. Some of them aren’t very good.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Andrew replied as he leafed through the binder’s sketches. Cory told the stories behind a few of his favorites. Andrew listened, browsing through the artwork. He never lingered long on a single piece. It was almost like he was in rush. About midway through, he shut the binder and set it to the side opposite of Cory. “Did you know I dated your sister?”
Cory almost spit up his beer. He wanted to ask “when,” but mumbled and wiped a beer tear trickling down his chin.
“A few years ago.” Andrew rested his palms on the ground behind him and leaned back. He smiled to himself as he looked up at the sky. “She broke up with me.”
“Oh,” Cory replied awkwardly.
Andrew answered Cory’s unspoken question. “She said I was a whack job.” Andrew chuckled at himself, shook his head, and took a swig of his drink.
Cory looked down the eye of his bottle. He didn’t know how to respond to that.
Andy’s soft skin masked his true age. Angela was twenty-one now, so Andrew couldn’t be far behind. Why was he hanging out at the high school?
The others finished their tasks and joined the circle. Pamela traded a look with Andrew and then turned her blue eyes on Cory. “Tell us about yourself, Cory.”
Cory looked at the others. All eyes were on him. “Uh, I’m an artist. I draw things. Fantasy, mostly.”
“Nice,” Kenny added. “Show us what you got.”
Andrew picked up the binder and passed it around the circle without asking for Cory’s permission. As they drank, the sun fell away and they asked Cory more questions about his art and life. It felt awkward at first, talking about himself, but Cory got used to it and to the drinks Pamela handed him religiously. He didn’t know if that was her way of hitting on him, but he went along with it. She was beautiful, if not a little intimidating. As Cory talked, they’d occasionally look to Andrew as if seeking guidance. He’d keep his mouth shut and shake his head ever so slightly.
It was dark not long after. Cory smiled to himself like an idiot. His head was swimming and his body felt light. There were a dozen empty beer cans around him. The conversation at this point had fizzled out apart from the girls’ light chatter. Cory looked up at the tree. Moths fluttered around the electric lanterns hanging from the lower branches. One flew in and was charred in an instant.
Andrew, far less tipsy than the rest, grunted as he stood up. The quiet chatter died away as all eyes turned to him. Cory could sense their anticipation, excitement, and hints of fear, but didn’t know what caused it. He took another sip, excited for what was next.
“Cory,” Andrew said with a gesture.
Mouth full of booze, Cory replied. “Hmm?”
Andrew balled a fist, twisted back, and punched Cory across the jaw.
Cory spit up his booze and hit the dirt. The whole side of his face throbbed. What the hell just happened? Andrew shook out his hand. The others just watched. Before Cory could get up, Andrew set his boot in his gut.
“We’re wanting to talk about art. This is raw,” Andrew said. “This is art.”
Cory tried to get up.
Andrew hit him again and looked back at the crowd.
“Well?” he said expectantly. “This is what we came for, isn’t it?”
Smiling sinisterly, Pamela rose up and slammed her toe into Cory’s nose. She turned to Andrew and spoke with a high-pitched excitement. “I can’t believe we’re actually going through with it.”
Kimberly joined her in kicking Cory. Kenny followed. Michael was the only one who hesitated. Andrew glared at him.
“You’re either with u
s or you’re with him.”
Michael gulped, picked up a branch nearby, and joined the beating.
To Cory, the night became a blur. One moment, he was drinking and the next, his whole body cried out in pain. He only saw boots, fists, and makeshift clubs. Parts of his body popped and bent in weird ways. He tried to call out but couldn’t. Before his eyes were blackened, he caught a glimpse of his psychotic assailants. It was like they were taking every ounce of hurt and disappointment in their lives and hurling it at him. The violence escalated when Michael pulled out a knife.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Andrew said. “No knives.”
Michael replied. “Only shallow cuts.”
That was how it started, then they cut off his clothes and took turns slicing his pale skin. Cory curled up into the fetal position. Numbness replaced the pain. He couldn’t see anything. Reality faded in and out. It was a living nightmare that he couldn’t escape. His body went limp. He heard voices.
“... It was supposed to be one punch each, just for the rush…”
“... You knew what you were getting into…”
“...He’s not breathing…”
“...We need to hide it…”
“... Yeah, no one can know…”
Rapid footfalls approached. “What the hell did you do?!”
Angela! Cory screamed in his mind. What was she doing here? She needed to run.
Her hands shook his bare, bruised shoulder. She was a beautiful twenty-one-year-old and had Dad’s baseball bat with her. “Cory, Cory, wake up. We need to go.”
Cory forced his swollen eyes open in time to watch Kimberly stick Angela with the knife. Angela cried out, glanced at the knife hilt jutting from her back, and then toppled beside Cory. Cory told his body to reach out for her, but he couldn’t move. He blinked to let her know he was still alive.
Michael fished through Cory’s pant pocket from the pile of his clothes nearby. He pulled out the car keys and dropped the clothes back into the pile. “I’ll get rid of his car. Someone follow me over in the other girl’s.”
Kimberly volunteered. The two of them hustled into the woods.
Andrew approached Angela’s body and stared down at it in shock. Kenny put his hand on his shoulder. “We need to move them.”
Andrew nodded.
Blackness.
Cory saw trees. His body swayed, but he didn’t know how he got here. Suddenly, he was dropped in the dirt.
Pamela chewed her nail nearby. “Will the hole be enough?”
“It has to be,” Andrew replied. “We just need Mike to get back with the shovels.”
The next time Cory awoke, he was under a foot of dirt. He burst forth, but the agony sent him back down. He turned his head, seeing another lump in the dirt. Using what little strength he had, he brushed the dirt from Angela’s cold face. They didn’t even have the decency to close her eyes.
Though he couldn’t speak, he made a vow to her. One that he would hold on to the rest of his days.
2
BLOOD TIES
Ellie sat on her knees before the mural made of blood. It was her creation, painted on basement floor of some unknown pub. Under the ceiling light, the crimson shimmered darkly. The blood hadn’t dried yet. It was still fresh. Still dripping from Troy’s torso in long streams.
Ellie’s eyes were closed. Her stained hands were resting limply on the floor with her sticky fingers turned to the ceiling. As quick as a flash of lightning, her eyes shot open. They were sapphire blue and bloodshot. Tears wetted her cheeks. Her right cheek was swollen with the patch-like bandage covering a stitched knife wound. Her vision returned. First, the basement was blurry and the mural was muddled. When she blinked, the dozens of hoodie-wearing mannequins, some standing and other broken across the concrete, took shape on both sides of the basement. Detective Adrian Peaches was on the floor. He was a handsome man with a soft, trusting smile, the perfect five o'clock shadow, and a burgundy-stained bandage wrapped around his injured head. He was lying on his back. His stomach rose and fell softly, proving that the boot to his already-injured head didn’t kill him. Next to him was the mural.
It stretched five feet wide and six feet long. Brushed in blood were the bodies of four individuals. Three were seated in a row with bullet holes at the center of each of their foreheads. The final subject was slumped before them with an undefined injury. Droplets of blood trickled from her lips. An old man, older woman, and younger man were the seated subjects. The old man’s neck was tilted to one side. His face was gaunt and his lips tight. Crow’s feet branched out of the sides of his closed eyes. More lines creased beneath his eyes and across his forehead. He wore a T-shirt with the graphic of the Strasburg train. The brushes of blood made the shapes of these things, but not the details. The woman seated in the middle had shoulder-length hair that was parted down the middle with the bullet hole at the center of her forehead. Her head was propped against the old man’s. The final seated victim had his head tilted back and his mouth parted. His eyes were open slightly and were looking upward to the bullet wound which had a snake of red racing down the left side of his nose and cheek. Ellie was familiar with all three of them. They were her father, mother, and twenty-seven-year-old little brother, Paul.
Ellie was even more familiar with the woman slumped before them, because the woman was her. Similar to how she was seated now, “mural” Ellie was on her knees with her bottom resting on the backs of her heels. Her shoulders were slumped and her arms were limp. Her face was downcast. The bandage that was on her cheek was gone, displaying the deep scar just below her right eye. The bandage around her neck was also missing, revealing the bullet graze that was healing slowly. She wore a long-sleeve shirt with a blood smear down the front, whether it was her own or someone else, the mural was not clear. Her bob cut was slightly frizzled, and her eyes were rolled to the back of her head.
Dread crushed Ellie as she looked at the one beyond the mural. Like a slab of meat on a butcher’s hook, the man hung from his rope-bound wrists. He was slightly suspended above the ground. The tops of his curled toes touched the floor. Bare-chested, Troy wore loose pants without a belt. His blond tapered hair was glued together and dripping with sweat. His bearded cheeks were sunken. His busted lip was crusty. The brown eyes that Ellie had fallen in love with were shut to the light of dimly-lit basement. A knife had slashed down from the bottom of his ribs to his belly button. It was only a few centimeters wide, but had blood and Ellie’s fingerprints smeared inches out from it.
Ellie’s bloodstained finger twitched. The mural glistened under the ceiling light. She didn’t remember painting it, but the blood was on her hands. At least she wasn’t the one that slashed open Troy’s torso. That was the hooded man, murderer of Kimberly Jannis, Pamela Cornish, Michael Dillinger, and Kenny Parkland.
Ellie parted her lips that stuck together like her husband’s blood between her fingers. Her teeth chattered. She whispered the word. “Troy?”
Troy didn’t reply, and unlike Detective Peaches, Ellie could not see his chest rise and fall.
Ellie’s mouth dried out. Her heart sank to her stomach, leaving a hollowness in her chest. She said his name again.
Slam!
The door burst open at the top of the steps.
“Go, go, go!” a masculine voice commanded, followed by the sound rapid, heavy footfall.
The stampede of boots rushed at Ellie. She made no effort to move or to look back. She couldn’t pull her gaze off of her husband.
SWAT team members rushed by her on the left and right side and branched out around the mural, still hasty but mindful not to step on any part of it.
“Fan out!” One of the SWAT team members replied.
“Right corner, clear!”
“Upper left, secure!”
More men in Kevlar vests surrounded Ellie and took aim with their tactical shotguns. Their flashlights blinded her from the sight of her husband she’d been married to for three weeks.
“Who are you?”
one of the men asked.
Ellie thought she should know the answer, but didn’t. The man must’ve noticed because he had two of his squad mates lift her up from under the armpits. Her numb legs dragged behind her. The emergency medical personnel hurried down the steps and went directly toward Detective Peaches and Troy. Ellie looked over her shoulder, following the EMTs’ path to the detective and to her mortally-wounded husband. One stopped in front of the decaying body of Michael Dillinger that the hooded man had left in the basement before he brought Troy in. Ellie was used to the stench of death at this point.
By the time she was escorted through the condemned dive bar, she could feel her legs but didn’t have any incentive to walk. If she had it her way, she’d rush to her husband’s aid. It wouldn’t do much, but at least she’d be able to hold him. Feel his warmth again. Possibly for the final time. They took her outside and sat her in the ambulance. The EMTs looked her over, quickly learning that the blood on her hands and person was not her own. They closed the door and lifted Ellie’s shirt. She had a few bruises, but nothing that would have any long-lasting consequences. Physical ones, anyway. They asked Ellie a series of questions. How did you get here tonight? Did you paint the mural? And a million other things Ellie didn’t remember hearing. Though her eyes were wide open, she kept seeing the basement and the deaths of those she held dear.
The EMTs flashed a small light in her eyes. When she blinked, she didn’t recognize her surroundings. She was in the back of a moving police car. Behind her, flashing red-and-blue lights bounced up the walls of the New England-style buildings that filled the city of Northampton. They’d put a towel over Ellie’s shoulders. Her hands had been washed clean. The side of Ellie’s forehead rested against the inner window of the police cruiser. She knew that the EMTs had asked her a lot of things, but she remembered none of her responses. Were they condemning, convicting, informative, or nonsensical? Perhaps she said nothing at all.
The drive through the city was quiet. It seemed like she was the only person on the road.
Stolen Secrets: A Collection Of Riveting Mysteries Page 23
