My Sister's Grave

by Robert Dugoni

He slid out the door into the storm.

  Dan sat stunned. What the hell had he done?

  He picked up Tracy’s note from where Calloway had crumpled and tossed it onto a seat and unfolded it.

  Truck that shot out window registered to Parker House.

  No one checked alibi.

  Going to get answers.

  Bring Calloway.

  She thought it was Parker. She thought Parker had killed Sarah.

  Dan pulled on his hat and gloves, stepped out into knee-deep snow, and immediately felt the biting-cold wind. He plowed his way to the back of the Suburban. Calloway was sliding the strap of a hunting rifle onto his shoulder and shoving bullets into his jacket pocket.

  “How do you know?” Dan had to shout above a gust of howling wind.

  Calloway pulled two flashlights from a rear-wheel well, testing one and handing it to Dan. He handed him two extra batteries.

  “Roy, how the hell do you know it was Edmund and not Parker?”

  “How? I told you how. I told everyone how. House told me he did it.”

  Calloway slammed the tailgate shut and stepped to the trail of footprints, which were already filling with fresh snow.

  Dan pursued. “Why would he admit he did it?”

  Calloway stopped to shout over the howling wind. “Why? Because he’s a fucking psychopath, that’s why.”

  He moved to the tree across the road and walked to where its stump was buried in snow. He dropped to a knee, and cleared the snow. Dan could see from the straight cut that someone had felled the tree with a chainsaw.

  Calloway stood, squinting into the blinding snow as he looked up the hill. “He knows we’re coming.”

  He started along the trail of boot prints, Dan behind him, carrying the shotgun. After a short distance, he was struggling to catch his breath. After a hundred yards, they both had to stop, breathing heavily.

  “If he buried her body, why didn’t you find it?” Dan said, struggling to get out the words.

  A road map of red-and-purple veins traversed Calloway’s exposed cheeks and nose. “Because that was a lie. House didn’t kill her right away. He was playing us, playing me. And now he’s played you.”

  “But you said you searched the property. If Sarah wasn’t there and House didn’t bury her, where was she?”

  Calloway nodded in the direction of the mountains. “Up there. She was right up there the whole time.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Sarah used her hand to block the glare of the headlights but could not see the face of the driver who had opened the truck’s cab door and leaned out.

  A man spoke over the rush of the rain. “That your truck back there along the side of the road?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah said.

  “You need a ride?”

  “I’m all right,” she said. “I actually don’t have far to go.”

  The man stepped down from the cab and hurried around the hood to where Sarah could see him. She assessed him in one word. Gorgeous. In fact, he looked like the Boss in a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and worn work boots. His biceps stretched the fabric of his shirt, which was getting wet and sticking to his chest. “What happened?”

  “I think I ran out of gas,” she said.

  “I’ll bet that made your night, huh?” He pulled his hair back off his face and folded it behind his ears. His smile made his eyes light up. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’ve done the same thing. I try to see how far I can stretch a tank, you know.” He pointed a thumb at his truck. “I got a gas can in the back. Unfortunately, it’s empty. But I think there’s a gas station in Cedar Grove.”

  Sarah said, “Not sure if Harley is still open. He usually closes around nine on Saturday.”

  “You live there?” he said.

  That had been the point of using Harley’s name. She was a local. She knew people. And people knew her. “Just outside town a bit.”

  He started for the cab. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”

  But she didn’t move. “Where are you coming from?”

  He turned back, speaking across the hood. “I was in Seattle visiting my folks. Nice night to be driving, huh? Should have stayed, but I needed to get back. I live over in Silver Spurs. If the gas station’s not open, I don’t mind dropping you at your home.”

  “It’s not far,” she said, trying to sound casual. “I can walk.”

  “Come on, that’s got to be, what, another five miles?”

  “It’s not that far.”

  “Yeah, but tonight you might drown.” He smiled. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll drive ahead and see if the station’s open. If it is, I’ll get the gas and come back and we can fill up your tank. If it’s not, I’ll drive to your house and let someone know you’re stuck.”

  Sarah knew Harley was closed and no one was home. Tracy was out with Ben and her parents were in Hawaii. She’d be sending him on a wild goose chase. “You don’t need to do all that.”

  “No trouble.” He approached and held out his hand. “I’m Edmund.”

  “Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Crosswhite.”

  “Crosswhite? We got a Ms. Crosswhite over at the high school in Cedar Grove. Teaches science, I think.”

  “You work at the high school?”

  “I’m one of the night janitors.”

  “I’ve never seen you.”

  “That’s because I work at night. Only vampires see me. Nah, I just got the job.”

  She smiled. Gorgeous and funny.

  “She’s blonde, isn’t she? Looks a lot like you.”

  “We get that a lot.”

  He nodded. “She’s your sister. I can see it in the face.”

  “She’s four years older. She teaches chemistry.”

  “I’ll bet that’s an easy A, huh?”

  “Oh, no. I graduated. I’m going to the U-Dub in the fall.”

  “So you’re one of those brainiac types?”

  “Hardly.” She felt herself blushing. “Tracy’s the brains in the family.”

  “Yeah, I got a brother like that, a real junior Einstein.”

  The rain fell harder, another gush of water. His hair hung nearly to his shoulders. His T-shirt, now saturated, showed every ripple of his chest and stomach. He rubbed his arms.

  “Well,” he said, “why don’t you wait under the trees by that mile marker over there, so I know where to find you, and I’ll go see about getting you some gas.” He started for the cab.

  “It’s okay.”

  He turned. “What’s that?”

  “I’ll just go with you.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine. I don’t want to make you drive all the way there and back.”

  “All right then.” He hurried around the hood, climbed into the cab, and reached across, pushing open the passenger-side door and smiling down at her. “Let me help you with that.”

  Sarah handed him her backpack and used the door to swing up into the cab. She took off the Stetson and shook out her hair, craving the heat blasting from the vents. “I guess I’m lucky you came along.”

  “Instead of some freak job,” he said, putting the car in gear. “Guy like that picks you up out here and you could disappear forever.”

  CHAPTER 62

  Dan knew Calloway was pointing in the direction of the peaks of the hills above Cedar Grove, but he couldn’t see beyond twenty feet with the darkness and swirling snow.

  “He kept her alive in a room in the Cedar Grove mine. He waited until the dam was about to go online and buried her where he knew it was going to flood.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Logical, given where we found Sarah’s remains.”

  “No, how do you know he kept her in the mine?”

  “We got to keep moving.” Calloway trudged on, Dan at his side and straining to hear. “Parker found it,” Calloway said. “Edmund used to leave the house on the ATV and go off into the mountains. After he was convicted, Parker thought of the mine and wondered about w
hether maybe Edmund had been going there on the ATV. He came and told me about it and we went up with bolt cutters and cut the lock from the gate at the entrance. At first we didn’t find anything, but then I noticed the wall in the office seemed crudely built for a large mining company. When I looked closer I found a seam for a door. House had built a false wall and kept Sarah chained in a room behind it. We found a gray frock on the floor, manacles and chains bolted to the wall.” Calloway shook his head. “Made me sick to my stomach thinking of Sarah in a place like that, what he must have done to her. We left everything as is, locked the entrance, and never went back.”

  Dan grabbed Calloway’s shoulder, abruptly stopping him. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell anyone, Roy?”

  Calloway knocked Dan’s hand away. “Tell them what, Dan? Tell them we all lied, that we manufactured evidence, but now we were sorry and want to do it right? House would have walked free and killed someone else’s daughter. What was done was done. There was no going back. House had a life sentence and Sarah was dead.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell Tracy?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why the hell not, Roy? Jesus, why the hell wouldn’t you?”

  “Because I swore I wouldn’t.”

  “You let her suffer for twenty years not knowing?”

  The fur lining of Calloway’s hat had completely iced over and ice crystals clung to his eyebrows. “It wasn’t my decision, Dan. It was James’s.”

  Dan squinted in disbelief. “Dear God, why would he do that to his own daughter?”

  “Because he loved her, that’s why.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “James didn’t want Tracy living the rest of her life with the guilt. He knew it would have killed her to know.”

  “She’s lived with the guilt the last twenty years.”

  “No,” Calloway said. “Not this kind of guilt.”

  Edmund House sat on the generator box. The light over his head crackled and emitted a low hum. “It’s sort of ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Tracy asked.

  “All this time has passed and here we are, finally.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you and me, here.” He spread his arms, grinning. “I built this for you.”

  She hesitated, looking about the room. “What?”

  “Well, the Cedar Grove Mining Company did most of the work, but I put in the little home touches like the carpet and the bed and the bookshelves. I knew you liked to read. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but things go to hell when you don’t keep up with the spring cleaning for twenty years.” He smiled. “Honestly, I’m surprised it’s still here, just as I left it. They never found it.”

  “I didn’t even know you, House.”

  “But I knew you. I’d been studying everything about you from the moment I arrived in Cedar Grove and saw you at the high school. I used to go and watch the kiddies get out of school, and then one day out you walked surrounded by all these students. At first I thought you were one of them but then I could tell by the way you carried yourself that you were more mature.

  “I knew from that moment that you were the one. I’d never had a teacher before, though I’d fantasized about a few. And I’d never had a blonde. After I saw you, I made a point of driving by in the afternoon when school got out. I needed to find out what kind of car you drove. But you can’t park around a school too often without some nosy neighbor cluing in. Once I figured out you drove the Ford truck, I’d just look for it in the faculty parking lot, and if it wasn’t there I’d drive into town. You used to go into that coffee shop and correct tests. I was there once, drinking a cup of coffee. If you weren’t at the coffee shop I’d drive out of town past your house and see if the truck was parked in the driveway.

  “I found a spot up the road where I had a better view of your bedroom window. Some nights I’d watch for hours. I liked the way you used to get out of the shower and look out your bedroom window with your hair wrapped in a towel like a turban. I knew what we had was special, even though you started dating that guy. Never did see what you saw in him, or why you’d move from that big old mansion to that shitty house. He complicated things, always being around. I couldn’t just walk up to your front door or wait inside the house for you. I realized I was going to have to create my own opportunity. That’s when I got the idea of messing with your truck so it’d break down.”

  The thought that House had been watching her made Tracy’s skin crawl, but House’s mention of the truck raised another, more sickening possibility. Sarah had been driving Tracy’s truck that night. She looked to the black Stetson on the shelf.

  “Threw me for a loop first time I saw your sister,” House said. “She came into the coffee shop one time while you were working, snuck up behind you, and covered your eyes. I thought I was seeing double.”

  “You thought she was me that night.”

  House stood, pacing. “How could I not? Shit, it was like that Doublemint gum commercial with the twins. You guys even dressed alike. ”

  Though the cave was bone cold, Tracy had broken out in a sweat.

  “When I saw the truck on the side of the road and then saw her walking in the rain, alone, wearing that black hat, I thought for sure it was you. Imagine my surprise when I got out of the truck and realized it wasn’t. I was disappointed at first. I even contemplated just driving her home. But then I thought, hell, I’d gone to all that effort. And who was to say I couldn’t have you both.”

  Tracy slumped against the wall, her legs weak.

  “And now I have.”

  “You didn’t bury her. That’s why we couldn’t find her.”

  “Not right away. That would have been a waste. But I couldn’t have her escaping like Annabelle Bovine.” House’s jaw clenched and his face went dark. “That bitch cost me six years of my life.” He pointed to his temple. “A smart man learns from his mistakes, and I had six years to contemplate how to do a better job the next time. We had some good times here, your sister and me.”

  Sarah disappeared August 21, 1993. The Cedar Falls Dam had gone online in mid-October. An acidic burn inched up the back of Tracy’s throat. Her stomach lurched and cramped and she bent over, retching.

  “But that asshole Calloway kept pressing me. When he told me about the witness, about Hagen, I knew it was just a matter of time. A man like that has no integrity. It’s disappointing isn’t it? I imagine you must have felt the same disappointment in your father.”

  She spit bile from her mouth and looked up at him. “Fuck you, House.”

  His smile broadened. “I’ll bet your father never imagined that someday I’d use the jewelry and pieces of hair he used to frame me to get out of that hellhole, or that you’d be the one to help me do it.”

  “I didn’t do it to help you.”

  “Don’t be that way, Tracy. At least I never lied to you.”

  “What are you talking about? This whole thing was a lie.”

  “I told you they framed me. I told you they manufactured the evidence. I never once said I was innocent.”

  “You’re fucking delusional. You murdered her.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No. I loved her. They murdered her—Calloway and your father, with all their lying. They didn’t leave me a choice. With the dam going online, they forced me to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but big-shot Calloway wouldn’t let it go.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Sarah lifted her head when she heard the squeak of the gate echo down the mine. He’d come back sooner than she’d expected. Usually the light died completely before he returned, but the bulb was still emitting a dull-yellow glow.

  She hurried to finish what she was doing, picking up bits of the concrete and sweeping the dust into the hole she’d made. The light from the single bulb continued to grow weaker and she could not see well enough to be certain she’d found each piece, but she also didn’t have time to keep looking. She put t
he stake in the hole and refilled it with dirt, tamping it flat.

  The door in the wall pushed open as she shifted the carpet back in place, moved to sit with her back to the wall, and picked up the paperback he’d brought for her. Edmund House stepped in, set a plastic bag on a folding table, and cranked the generator handle. The filament brightened, making her squint.

  House turned. He seemed to take longer than usual to consider her. His eyes shifted to the piece of carpet on the ground, and in the light she could see that she had not replaced it squarely in the same location it had been.

  “What have you been doing?” he asked.

  She shrugged and held up a paperback. “What can I do? I’ve read every book twice. Kind of spoils the story when you already know the ending anyway.”

  “You complaining?”

  “No, just saying, you know. Maybe it would be nice to get a couple new ones.”

  By her calculations, it had been seven weeks since he’d brought her here. It was difficult to keep track of the days without any windows, but she used him as her clock. She put a scratch in the wall each time he came back, which she figured to be a new day. He’d taken her on Saturday, August 21. If she’d calculated correctly, it was now Monday, October 11.

  A month into her captivity, she’d found a metal spike partially buried at the base of a vertical beam. She figured they used it to put in the tracks for the mining carts to haul the silver out of the mine. Ten inches long, it had a flat end that must have been used to hammer it into the ground. She’d been using it to chip at the concrete around the metal plate he’d bolted to the wall. The plate’s bolts had some play in them that allowed her to dig behind the plate so he wouldn’t notice. If she could loosen the plate enough, she might be able to yank it free of the wall.

  “Did you get the supplies?” she asked.

  He shook his head. He looked distracted, sad. Like a little boy.

  “Why not?”

  He leaned against the table, the muscles in his arms prominent. “Chief Calloway came back again.”