After Sam’s funeral is over, I put the kids in the care of a female Albany Police Department officer while Detective Miller and I get into his unmarked cruiser. Together, we drive out to the Garfield Road property for one final visit. He’s got a bandage taped to the back of his skull where eight stitches closed the wound caused by the metal bar The Skinner cold cocked him with. He’s suffered a fairly decent concussion, but nothing that will keep him from working. Or so he claims. But then, Miller, from what I can glean, is a total lifer.
He pulls up into the drive, kills the engine, and we get out. Despite the yellow crime scene ribbon that insists we keep out, we head into the house anyway and make our way over the debris that still litters the floor along with the still disturbing blood stains. In the three days since Skinner abducted us, the place has been scoured by several law enforcement agencies including the APD forensics unit. Just what they were looking for is a mystery to me since the identity of the man who caused all this death and destruction is no mystery. But then, you can’t stop standard operating procedure. Or so Miller attests.
We head out the kitchen door and make our way to the art barn. But instead of going inside, we pass it by entirely and move on, instead, to the edge of the cornfield. For a time, we stand there, staring into the corn stalks like The Skinner isn’t really dead.
“This is it,” Miller says after a time. “No more Boogeyman.” But he doesn’t sound like he’s entirely convinced.
The wind blows. Cold and bone-chilling under a gray cloud-filled sky.
I’m looking into the corn, but in my head, I’m seeing my sister Molly and my ex-husband Michael standing on the edge of the field along with us mere mortals. Molly in her cut-off jeans and Michael in his turtleneck sweater.
You did it, Rebecca, he says. You beat the son of a bitch.
You fried him up like an egg, Molly says. If there’s a medal of honor out there for killing assholes, you should win it, Bec.
For a moment, I consider responding to them. But then I think better of it. They’re only figments of my imagination, after all. Just like images of Sam and Robyn, who are now walking out of the corn and taking their place right beside the others whom I have loved so much with all my heart and lost to the two beasts who once occupied this piece of land. The land of my birth.
“You never had any clue that Skinner was the son of the butcher,” Miller says after a time.
Once more, I see the truck with the name Ashe’s Butchers and Meat Cutters on it.
“Not a clue. Not even when he was singing that song. Ashes, ashes.” I snicker. “I guess that should have been the first clue.”
“I guess you never suspected the child psychiatrist either,” he says. “Skinner did a hell of a job disguising himself. But then, from what I’m told, there’s no better material for making a realistic mask than human skin.”
“I’d never met Cuther before,” I say. “So, I guess he didn’t look all that strange.”
“His body was discovered in the basement of his office not long after your ordeal.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “The poor old guy. He never had a chance.”
“Neither did Sam,” I say.
“You pulled the trigger on him, didn’t you?”
I see myself holding the semi-automatic, the barrel aimed at Sam’s mutilated face. I feel myself pressing the trigger.
“It was the right thing to do,” I say.
“It’s our secret,” he says. “Yours, mine, Sam’s, and God’s.”
We stand silently for a time until Miller speaks up once more.
“They grew up not far from one another,” he says. “Whalen and The Skinner. They gravitated towards one another when they were imprisoned, and now their souls rot together in hell.”
“You really believe that, Detective Miller? Heaven for all the good people, and hell for the all the bad ones?”
Rather than answer me with words, he cocks his head, purses his lips, rolls his eyes around in their sockets.
“I thought so,” I say.
“Feels good somehow to say it anyway.”
The wind picks up, blows the corn, the sound of dry, dead stalks colliding with one another.
“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forget this place?” I say. “If such a thing will be possible.”
Miller shoves his hands into his trouser pockets.
“Have you decided where you’ll go?”
“Maybe California. Los Angeles, or Lost Angeles, as Molly and Mike like to call it. Might be nice to have sunshine all the time. Good place to paint and raise the kids. A new place. A place with no memories.” I exhale. “A good place to heal, and God knows I’m going to need a lot of healing.”
“You will always have your memories, Rebecca. Good memories. They can be recuperative.”
“I suppose that’s true. You can never truly rid yourself of the ghosts.”
Then, in my head, I travel eight years back into the past. See myself standing outside a house located in the deep woods. A house of horrors. A house where my twin sister and I nearly died.
“Will you do me a favor, Detective Miller?” I say.
“Name it,” he says.
I tell him.
He leaves me for a few moments while he retrieves what I’ve asked of him in the storage room attached to the back of the art barn. When he returns, he’s carrying two, partially filled, two-gallon cans of gasoline.
“Sure you wanna do this?” he says. “It’s pretty illegal. Especially since this is still technically a crime scene.”
I turn to him, place my hand on my belly, and smile. “I’m sure.”
“It hasn’t rained in ages, and in this wind, the fire will catch on quick.”
“That would be the point, Detective Miller.”
We both take one can a piece, pouring the gas out onto the corn stalks. When the cans are empty, we simply toss the cans out into the field. Miller finds himself patting his trouser and jacket pockets.
“Crap,” he says. “I have no way of lighting it.”
Reaching into my jeans pocket, I pull out Robyn’s Bic lighter.
“Mind if I do the honors?” I say.
“By all means,” he says. “It’s your corn. Your memories.”
Thumbing a tall flame, I set it onto the nearest gas-soaked stalk. It immediately takes, and the fire quickly begins to spread. We take a few steps back to avoid the burning pieces of ash that are now taking flight in the wind.
“The hospital called,” I say as the crackle of the burning stalks provides a late morning soundtrack.
He focuses his gaze from the fast-spreading fire to the tops of his shoes.
“What did they say?”
“The doctors found a growth pressing up against my stomach during the MRI. It’s operable, I’m told. But there’s no way of telling right now how long I’ve had the cancer. No way of telling how much of it has already spread to other organs.”
I see Miller’s face deflate. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that his eyes were filling with tears. Tears that reflect the firelight. Reaching out, I take hold of his hand.
“Oh, it’s okay,” I say. “I watched Molly die of the same disease. And I always knew that one day it would take me too. We’re two halves of the same whole, don’t forget.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Rebecca,” he says, “if there’s anything I can do.”
For a time, I stare into the fire, as it builds, big and hot and red-orange. Its warmth is as soothing as a blanket.
“I’m going to have the operation,” I say. “And I’m going to undertake the chemo. And I’m going to live for as long as I can for the kids. And then, when I finally pass, I will join the others, and I will be happy.” I giggle. “You know, heaven for good people.”
I raise my free hand, cross my fingers. He squeezes my other hand once more.
“Oh you are so in already,” he says. “Because you have led a very good life. You have done good things.”
/> “I survived,” I say. “Sometimes surviving is as good as it gets.”
“Sometimes survival is everything.” He’s staring into the fire, but I wonder if what he’s seeing is the face of his late wife.
My hand slips out of his. Turning, I walk back in the direction of the farmhouse that I’ve called home since I was a baby girl. A house and a piece of land in a beautiful country that I will never again set my eyes upon.
As the ashes weightlessly fall to the earth, I hear the voices in my head. Familiar voices. I hear my twin sister singing at the top of her lungs to a Ramones record spinning on the turntable up in her top floor bedroom. My mother yelling out the kitchen window for us come down for dinner before it gets cold. And Super Duper Trooper Dan shouting from inside the barn that he’ll be right there, already, hold your horses! And I, for the first time in a long time, feel myself smiling.
My memories.
They are sweet, and they are forever. They are not fleeting so much as they are ingrained in my imagination like the bits of rusted iron inside a rock. They are all I have left of the souls I have loved and lost. They live on for me in a way that flesh and blood never had a chance in hell of doing.
The ghosts that haunt me . . .
I will hold on to them for the rest of my days with dear life.
THE END
Have you read the first thriller in the Rebecca Underhill Trilogy, THE REMAINS?
Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 20 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's THE SHROUD KEY as one of the Best Books of 2014. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more, go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Vincent Zandri © copyright 2016
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Bear Media 2016
4 Orchard Grove, Albany, NY 12204
http://www.vincentzandri.com
Cover design by Elder Lemon Art
Edited by Plot2Published Editorial Services
Author Photo by Jessica Painters
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
The Ashes
(Untitled)
Prologue
Book I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Book II
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2) Page 21
