The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel)

by Loreth Anne White

  “What else happened at the bike park?” Jeb says quietly. “There’s more, isn’t there? I saw you going at those women, Rachel. What did you say to them?”

  A brilliant white flash of lightning illuminates the lake and thunder booms. I flinch as the power flickers again. The thunder grumbles away into the peaks.

  “I told them,” I say. “I told them everything we think happened. About Merilee maybe being in the mine, about the Jeep, the ska music.”

  “You told them?”

  I say nothing.

  “What for?”

  “I lost it. I’m sorry, Jeb. I went postal when they called her ‘spawn of the devil.’ It all came out before I could even think it through.”

  “What, exactly, did you say?”

  I push my hair back off my face. “Everything. I told them we knew Luke borrowed Adam’s Jeep, that the girls ran to the guys in the Jeep. I suggested the guys might have driven the girls up to the mine and that maybe Merilee died there. I said they might have tried to take Amy north to deflect attention from the mine. And they might have formed a pact to blame you.” I swallow. “I told them Amy remembered a dragon tattoo.”

  He spins away from me, glares out the black, rain-streaked window. “Fuck,” he says quietly.

  “You wanted to rattle their cages, Jeb. I rattled.”

  “Yeah, but—” He turns back to me. “Jesus, if Beppie tells Clint . . .”

  “You think he’ll come directly after us?”

  “I think he went directly after Amy and Sophia and Peter. And fast. I believe it was him.” He grabs my shoulders suddenly. “Listen, pack your bags. When Quinn is done changing, I’m taking you both out of here.”

  “What about the proof, Jeb?”

  “The proof is buried deep in a mine, Rachel. It hasn’t gone anywhere in nine years, and it’s not going anywhere now, fire or not. My priority is now to keep you and Quinn safe, to get you away from these people, this town. We’ve learned what we can here. We have a lot of information, a lot of possibilities to work with. We can deal with what we have from afar now. We can involve outside agencies. This town is too crooked, too steeped in this to handle it from the inside. It’s now become dangerous for you. For my daughter. I’m getting you both out.”

  “Jeb—”

  “I don’t like these fires and this weather as it is. We’re going. Go upstairs and get your things.”

  When Lily arrived home with the boys, she saw that Adam had been home but was no longer there. His uniform was on the bed and his hiking boots were gone. So was his jacket. With trembling hands, she tried to call his cell, but he was not answering.

  She put frozen pizzas in the oven and told the boys to go bathe quickly and change. She turned on the radio, listening to news of the fires. The Mount Barren fire was burning rapidly down the south flank in the alpine. The downdrafts were strong enough that it could jump the Khyber Creek drainage and move on to Bear Mountain. If it did that, the village itself would be in danger. She’d already packed emergency bags, just in case, before fetching the boys from bike camp.

  She paced up and down, tried to call Adam again. Still no answer. She thought of the Jeep he had owned all those years ago when they were dating. The ska music he loved. The bumper sticker, what had that sticker looked like? There was a photo somewhere.

  Lily went into Adam’s office and rummaged on the shelves for the old photo album she knew was there. She found it, flipped through the pages. She froze when she came to the one she was looking for. Adam with his arm around her. He’d been a cop for three years when that was taken. They were standing behind his Jeep, and there was a Hawaiian sticker on the bumper. Just as Rachel had described. She set the album on his desk and quickly flipped through his stack of CDs. Lots of old Jamaican ska, including Damani Jakeel.

  She thought of that argument with his mother. The bloody hoodie.

  What had Sheila known, or been hiding? Had both she and Adam tried to protect Luke? This would ruin Adam if it came out now. Ruin all of them. Her name would be mud. Her sons would be scorned.

  As Lily moved to replace the CDs, she bumped Adam’s mouse and the computer screen on the desktop crackled to life. A Word document filled the screen. It was a letter. Addressed to Chief Constable Rob Mackin.

  Lily leaned forward, her stomach rising into her throat as she read what her husband had written.

  It is with deep regret that I present to you these facts pertaining to the Jebbediah Cullen case nine years ago . . .

  A ringing began in Lily’s ears.

  It was a confession. A full confession that incriminated both him and his mother. And by default accused the group of four guys—Luke, Clint, Harvey, and Levi—of having gang-raped the girls and killing Merilee.

  Her hand went to her mouth as she read about the GPS system in his Jeep that had tracked the Jeep’s route up to the mine and back down to the Green River rail crossing, then north from the gravel pit that night. About how Adam had found the GPS route erased the next day. How he’d found a gold Saint Christopher medallion in his Jeep after Luke had brought it home, and how his mother had later taken the medallion from his drawer. How Luke had arrived home in a bloodied hoodie. How his mother had added the hoodie to the list of evidence found in Jeb’s car.

  He wrote in his confession that he was including in the envelope Merilee Zukanov’s Saint Christopher medallion, and the GPS route from his Jeep that night, which he’d saved on a flash drive before it had been erased. He said his mother hadn’t known he’d saved it.

  What did he mean, “including in the envelope”?

  Lily scrabbled around in Adam’s desk drawers, finding nothing but an open pack of manila envelopes. And it struck her. Her gaze shot to the printer.

  He’d printed the confession out already; the printer light was still on. He’d put this confession along with the medallion and a flash drive into an envelope. He must have it with him.

  Or worse.

  Hands shaking, she tried again to call her husband. The call went to voice mail.

  She stared out the rain-streaked window. It was getting dark.

  Quickly she called Chief Mackin. They put her through right away.

  “Lily, we’re busy. Getting ready to upgrade to mandatory evac. You and Adam and the boys, you’ll need to get out—”

  “Have you seen Adam?”

  He hesitated. “This morning, yes.”

  “You haven’t seen him since? He hasn’t brought you an envelope?”

  “A what?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Lily, did he tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” Her voice came out shrill.

  “I placed Adam on mandatory leave, until this Cullen affair is sorted out.”

  “When?”

  “Early this morning.”

  She hung up.

  “Mom! Pizza’s burning!”

  She rushed through to the kitchen, tap, tap, tap, tapping her wrist with her fingers as she went, like Dr. Bennett said. To relax herself. She yanked the pizzas out the oven and dumped them smoking onto the stovetop. Tears flooded down her face.

  “What is it, Mom?” Tyler asked.

  This was Rachel’s fault. That spawn’s fault. Jeb’s fault. Evil, they were evil.

  “I . . . I need to drive you both over to Vickie’s place. She will take you and Mikey down to Vancouver with your bags if there’s an evacuation order. I’ll follow. Later. Real soon.”

  “Why? Where are you going, what’s the matter?”

  She wiped her face quickly with the dishcloth. “Nothing. I need to find your father, I need to fix something. Go upstairs, get Mikey, your bags. Go to the car.”

  Lily poured a stiff vodka, swallowed it, then poured another big one. She gulped it down, almost gagging. She wiped her mouth, went back to the office, deleted all
the files and wiped out the computer’s recent history. Then she went to the gun safe in the bedroom. But the spare pistol was gone.

  Heart in her throat, she grabbed her coat and rushed outside.

  She didn’t notice the small white envelope lying on the table, addressed to her.

  Beppie drove home in the pouring rain, a cold sweat over her skin, wipers clacking. Smoke was dense in the canyon, the road slick after months of no rain. She took a bend too fast in her dark-blue truck with the D on the number plate. Tires squealed.

  “Mom? You okay, Mom?”

  She slowed down, heart hammering. “It’s fine, girls, fine. Just worried about Dad and the fire and the storm.”

  And about what Rachel had said. What that female cop had said. Beppie gagged, tried to breathe, tried to calm herself.

  Clint would be back at the fire hall by now with all this going on. She turned on the radio, listening to the news. The possibility of a mandatory evacuation of Snowy Creek was raised. Their ranch was much farther north, a different valley. But it didn’t mean they were safe from this lightning and other fires.

  When she pulled into the driveway and drove up to the house, the trees were swaying, rain coming sideways. She could smell smoke, thick, coming from another fire somewhere north.

  “Go into the house. Get your bags ready,” she told the girls. “I’ll be right up.”

  While her girls went into the house, she ran through the rain down to the shed and took the key from under the rock near the door.

  Beppie creaked the door open, searching with her hand for the light switch on the wall. Branches scratched and squeaked against the tiny window. As the bulb above the workbench flickered on, animal heads leaped to life and leered. Thunder boomed.

  Beppie got down onto her hands and knees and felt under the counter for the metal box. She dragged it out, fetched a crowbar, and stuck it into the padlock. She wrenched hard.

  It took two tries to get the correct angle before the lock cracked open.

  She got back to her knees, opened the lid.

  Her entire world came to a standstill as everything seemed to fade into the distance. It was as if she’d opened the lid to the basement of hell, a place she had known existed, which she’d buried in her own soul. Something she’d never wanted to think about or poke at. The reason she hated coming into the shed.

  With shaking hands, she scrabbled through the rings and earrings in the top compartment of the metal box. There were locks of hair tied with wire. Human teeth. It was all here. Trophies. Things he said he found in the woods, that he liked to collect. She glanced up at the bear head, the stuffed bobcat. Trophies from his hunts. Memories of a kill.

  Beppie gagged again, bile coming up her throat as she lifted the top compartment off the toolbox. Under it were three photos with time-date stamps. Like ones taken with a cell phone, then printed out.

  Time slowed further, and the sounds of the storm and wind completely disappeared as she lifted the first one up. It had been taken nine years ago, according to the stamp. The night the girls had disappeared. It was fading a little, the colors off. It had been taken in a dark place. A picture of a woman’s thighs, lily white. A man inserting his penis into her. His fingers digging hard into her skin as he held her steady. A dragon tattoo across his buttocks. In the other two photos he was forcing the muzzle of a handgun into her vagina. There was blood.

  Beppie lurched up, retched into the sink. She hunched there while the room spun. She ran water until it was ice-cold. She splashed it all over her face. Her whole body was shaking as another wave of violent stomach contractions bent her over. She threw up again, washed and wiped her face, threw the towel into the sink.

  Panting, she grabbed a plastic bag from one of the drawers and stuffed the jewelry and teeth and hair inside. She ran with the bag up to the house.

  “Get your bags and get in the car, girls!” she yelled as she ran through the living room into the study and struggled with shaking fingers to unlock the gun safe. She removed a twelve-gauge shotgun and several boxes of slugs.

  The girls obeyed, quietly. They were scared of what was happening to their mother.

  Once they were all buckled up, Beppie hit the gas and roared down the driveway with the girls and their bags in back. She turned left onto the farm road.

  “Where are we going?” Janis said.

  “I’m taking you to Mrs. Davis. She’s going to watch you guys. I need to do something. If the fires come this way, go with the Davises. Do what they say.”

  “I don’t like Mr. Davis.” Susie started crying in the backseat.

  “That’s because you’re scared of his bee suit,” taunted Janis.

  “Am not!”

  “Are too.”

  “Quiet!” Beppie snapped. The girls jumped.

  Susie sniffled louder. “I want my dad. Where’s Daddy?”

  God will protect us. God will be the final judge . . . God will keep my children from Evil. We must do difficult things for it is God’s way, we cannot always understand his way . . . we must purge the Evil . . .

  Beppie repeated these mantras in her head as she turned into the Davises’ driveway.

  CHAPTER 24

  His phone was ringing somewhere in the room, in the distance of his mind, buried in his pile of clothes on the floor. On one level Adam knew it was his wife. On another he couldn’t seem to absorb it. He lifted up the woman he loved, slammed her back against the wall. She gasped from the impact. Panting, she wrapped her legs around him, hooking her ankles behind his butt. She arched her back, thrusting her pelvis against his, hard, fast, the friction driving them both high, wild.

  He staggered sideways, sending her snowboard and bike crashing to the hardwood floor. She gripped his balls, rotating her hips, milking his erection with her tight vaginal muscles. His skin was wet. He was growing dizzy, hotter, as he met her thrust for thrust, grunting, driving as deep as he could. She fisted her hand so tightly in his hair that his eyes burned. She pulled his head back by his hair and kissed him, biting, thrusting with her tongue until he tasted blood but didn’t care. Suddenly she froze. With a scream, she threw back her head, exposing the long, creamy column of her neck as she shattered hot and wet and hard around him, contractions seizing control of her body. And he came inside her, a sweet, hot, pulsing release of everything.

  Clarity began to sift back into Adam’s brain as they lay side by side on a mattress on the floor under the skylight, watching the rain and listening to the wind. The air was cool against his hot, damp skin. His phone rang again. He let it go to voice mail with only a faint twinge of guilt. He’d left instructions in an envelope on the dining room table for Lily. And now it was time to leave the woman he loved. She was the one who had given him his edge, his reason to get up mornings. To look forward to the day. She had made him feel alive again. Brandy was the reason Adam had coped over these past two years.

  He rolled over onto his side and traced his finger over her smooth alabaster skin, admiring her honed body. She was young. Perfect. Flame-red hair.

  His wife might turn to vodka. He had his Brandy.

  “Something’s worrying you,” she said. “What is it? This Jeb Cullen thing?”

  “I went to see my mother,” he said. “She gave me the pendant that Merilee Zukanov was wearing the night she disappeared.”

  A strange look came over her face. She sat up, cross-legged, facing him, her hair falling in a tumble over her pale shoulders. Her nipples were a dusky pink, pointing at him. His gaze wandered down her flat belly, to the flare of red hair between her open thighs, where she was still wet and glistening and sticky from their sex. He put the tip of his finger in her belly button, trailed it slowly down her abdomen, down to the apex between her thighs, then suddenly he stuck his finger up inside her. She gave a gasp, then a small moan of pleasure as he moved his finger inside her, her lids fluttering
low as he felt for her G-spot. Adam felt himself grow hard again. He could make love to this woman all day, over and over, like a rutting bull, and get it up each time. He’d never been able to do that with Lily.

  Brandy was so at ease with herself, with her own femininity, her strength and sexuality. He slid his finger slowly out of her vagina, watching her face. A slow smile curved over her mouth.

  “Careful, Deputy Chief, I could make you suffer.” But her smile was not quite lighting her honey-gold eyes. She was worried. She could read him like a book, and she knew something was very different. Very wrong. Slowly he pulled his finger out of her, leaned back.

  “Luke borrowed my Jeep that night,” he said. “I had time off from the RCMP in Edmonton and had come home for Thanksgiving. I went to see a movie at Lily’s place, just up the road, and I let my brother take my Jeep to the pit party. I came home early.”

  Brandy reached for her denim shirt, put it on, gave a little a shiver. She didn’t say a word, just waited for him to continue, an odd look in her eyes.

  “Luke came home around three a.m. I woke when I heard a thud, like a body against the front door. It was Luke, passed out against the door. He was wearing a gray hoodie and it was covered with blood. I asked about the blood. He said he must have cut himself at the pit. There were a lot of broken bottles there, glass everywhere. I was pissed, thinking he’d driven my Jeep home in that state, but he said that Clint had brought both him and the Jeep back, then walked over to his own place, which was one street up. Luke said that he, Clint, Levi, and Harvey had been at the pit party but had gone to Harvey’s house sometime after ten p.m., where they’d had more to drink. I asked Luke where my Jeep keys were, and he said he didn’t know, that maybe Clint had them. I helped get him inside, helped him take the hoodie off, but he had no cuts on his body. I left the hoodie in the bathroom, on top of the laundry basket. I never checked the pockets. I fetched my spare keys, went out to check my Jeep.”