Hunting Ground

by Meghan Holloway

  She pushed the pile of reports back across the table. Cooper caught the file and began to scan through the pages.

  “You filed thirty-seven complaints against a coworker at the museum in Atlanta,” I said. “Against Chad Kilgore, a security guard at the museum.”

  She shoved her glasses up her forehead and rubbed her eyes. “And not one of them did me any good.”

  “Did Mr. Kilgore ever issue any verbal threats?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever assault you?”

  “No.”

  “Did—”

  “He watched me, all the time. Showing up in the area where I was working and just standing there staring at me. That was in the beginning.” Her words were rushed and heated. “But then it became more. He would show up on the same aisle in the grocery store. In the parking lot at the post office. I would turn around at the movie theater and he would be in the row behind me. I would look out my bedroom window and see him on the sidewalk in front of my house. He didn’t do anything, he didn’t say anything. Just being there, being everywhere was enough.”

  Cooper had flipped through to the final pages of the stack of papers as she spoke. “This last report you filed says he locked you in the basement of the museum overnight and ‘hunted’ you,” he said. “That is the word you used, Miss Hutto.”

  Underneath the table, her knee started bouncing up and down. “I know what word I used.” Her voice was a mere whisper.

  I pushed the last report across the table to her. “And then five years ago, a year after you started filing complaints against him, everything stopped. Chad Kilgore went missing.”

  “I know.”

  “And do you know what JDLR stands for?” I pointed to the scrawled letters at the bottom of the report. Evelyn shook her head. “Just doesn’t look right. That’s what it means. You’re listed as a person of interest in this case, do you know that?”

  “The police spoke with me several times after he went missing,” Evelyn said. She glanced at me again and then met Cooper’s gaze squarely. “I’ll tell you exactly what I told them. Am I sorry he disappeared? No. I’ve never been so relieved in my life.” She sucked in a breath. “But I didn’t have anything to do with him going missing. The police came to the same conclusion.”

  “The police could never charge you,” I corrected. I did not miss the irony of saying that to someone else when I had once been in the same position and, to many in town, still was.

  Her face was blank. “Are you charging me with anything now?”

  Cooper leaned back in his chair. “No. Jeff isn’t pressing any charges. As I told you when we started this interview, you’re not under arrest.”

  “Then I’ve been through this process enough to know I’m free to go.” She pushed back from the table and stood. She swayed for an instant, and I instinctively stood, but she caught the back of her chair. Once she had steadied herself, she turned and walked to the door, standing with a rigid back, gaze straight ahead as Cooper moved to open the door for her.

  “Stay away from Jeff Roosevelt,” he warned, and then led her from the room.

  I leaned back in my chair and steepled my fingers against my chin. I did not know what the hell Jeff was up to, what game he was playing. But I knew that it did not matter if Evelyn was the cat or the mouse. She could help me bring him down either way.

  Twenty-Four

  In the last twenty years, there have been

  approximately 24,000 unidentified

  persons files in the United States

  as listed by the NCIC.

  EVELYN

  Innocent people are indignant, Evelyn. Remember that. My grandfather’s words echoed in my head.

  Once I reached the inn, I headed to my room and went straight to the bathroom. I stripped out of my clothes and left them in a pile on the tiled floor before stepping into the shower. I did not bother giving the water time to heat. I turned on the shower, and an icy blast hit me directly in the face, stinging my skin for several long moments before heat began to temper the chill.

  I had been terrorized for a year. I did not need to feign anger. No one had done anything about Chad Kilgore. Not for a year of being frightened every time I turned around. Not until I had tried to leave work and found myself trapped in the bowels of the museum.

  I stood under the spray with my face tilted up. I could not hear anything through the rush of the water cascading over me. When the tears came, I did not bother to stem them.

  Come out, come out, wherever you are.

  My knees weakened at the remembered terror that had filled me as I hid beneath a desk and listened to his voice and footsteps come ever-closer. I leaned against the cold tile of the shower and slid to the floor, knees caught to my chest, wet hair a curtain around me.

  It had been my grandfather who voiced the truth I had realized hiding in the dark. My grandfather had reached across the kitchen table when I finally made it home, something I had doubted would happen in those hours I had spent cramped and shaking in my hiding place, and clasped my hand in his. He had been the one to call the police and send them to the museum when I failed to return home from work. His hand swallowed mine, blunt fingers rough with callouses. “He is going to kill you, Evelyn.”

  I had covered my eyes with my free hand and sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “He is going to hurt you, and then he is going to kill you.” He caught the hand covering my eyes and pulled it away from my face. His hold on my hands was tight, anchoring. “But not if we take care of him first.”

  I had blinked at him, struggling to process what he had said. Shock had me attempting to pull away, but he kept his grip on my hands. “Papa—”

  “Listen to me,” he whispered. “Listen to me. Men like that won’t be stopped. Not by words, not by a piece of paper, not by a slap on the wrist by the police.”

  “We can’t—”

  “And I will not lose you when I could have prevented it. I will not.” He squeezed my hands. “Do you hear me?”

  I had searched his face, so dear to me, the only father figure I had ever known. He had had a heart attack six months ago, and it had taken a toll on him. Time and illness had carved deep into his face, but his eyes were steady on mine, sharp and calm. He spoke the truth. We both knew it. I wondered when it had become a truth I had accepted like a bitter pill without argument. I swallowed and nodded. “I hear you.”

  “Your grandmother will never know. No one will. A simple plan is the best.”

  And he was right. Simple was best. We had left no evidence. There was no trace of him in our home or in our vehicles. His own car was scrapped and compacted in a junk yard at the opposite end of the state, and his body was in a well-dug grave deep in the mountains northeast of Hiawassee near the state line well away from any trails.

  Tonight, I thought I would die. When I opened my eyes and met Jeff’s gaze, I scrambled to slide deeper into the tight recess of space. But he was fast, and his reach was long. He caught my wrist and dragged me from beneath the bed.

  There was nothing beneath the bed I could latch onto, but I caught the leg of the frame as he yanked me from my hiding place. I clung to it so desperately the bed scraped across the floor with a screeching groan.

  I did not realize I was screaming until Jeff’s knee came down between my shoulder blades and cut off my breath. His weight on my spine crushed me into the floor as he leaned over me and pried my hand from its grip around the leg of the bed.

  “Screaming only excites me, Evelyn,” he breathed before he caught the collar of my coat and pulled me across the floor.

  I did not bother crying out. I swiped at his ankles, and he stumbled before twisting his fist so tightly in my collar it began to cut off my air. I almost blacked out when he wrenched me upright and my collar formed a tight noose around my throat. Then a hard shove sent me careening forward.

  I tripped and fell. My cheek glanced off the curved edge of the
toilet. Pain burst across my face, and as I lay on the cold tiles of the bathroom, I heard the door slam behind me.

  It took a moment for the stars swimming across my vision to fade. My face was hot. My cheek throbbed. I could not catch my breath around the terrified hitch in my chest, but I scrambled to my feet.

  The bathroom door did not lock from the inside, and it was jammed closed. I could hear Jeff’s voice on the other side, but I could not make out his words.

  I flung open the cabinets in his oversized vanity. There had to be something I could use as a weapon.

  When the door opened minutes later, I was armed with a razor blade and a cleaning solvent in a spray bottle. It was not Jeff who greeted me, though, but two police officers with their weapons drawn.

  Now I allowed myself the release of weeping until I was wrung dry. Then I staggered to my feet and let the tumult of emotions swirl down the drain along with the soap. By the time the water was cooling, I felt calmer, steadier.

  Once out of the shower and my nightly ritual complete, I pulled my gown over my head and retreated into my room. I paused as I approached the bed.

  Leaning against my pillow with the coverlet drawn over its legs as if it were tucked in for the night sat a teddy bear. It was ragged and worn, the picture of innocence, and unease sliced through me.

  I dragged on leggings and a thick pair of socks and pulled on a sweater before I grabbed the bear. The inn was dark, but I was familiar with the place now and made my way down the hall and stairs with sure feet. I paused in the den, drawn to the wide swath of windows that looked out over the river.

  The figure standing on the deck startled me with a violence that felt as if my bones were trying to flee the confines of my skin. I placed a hand on the icy glass and leaned against it while my heart thundered and jolted back into place. A snowman smiled benignly back at me, oblivious to the fright it had given me. I shivered. Such a lighthearted thing took on a macabre edge in the moonlight.

  I straightened from where I sagged against the window and crossed through the den and dining room. The sunroom was flooded with moonlight, all pearl blue and swan white. The dishwasher hummed in the kitchen, and at the end of the adjoining hallway, light bled from under the door leading into Faye’s personal wing.

  She opened within moments of my knock. “Evelyn, come on in.”

  I stopped just within the threshold. “I won’t stay. I know it’s late, and I don’t want to bother you.”

  Her eyes widened. “What happened to your face?”

  I ignored her question and held the teddy bear out to her. “Is this Sam’s?”

  Her brow furrowed, and she stared at the stuffed animal, making no move to take it from me. “No. Sam doesn’t have a bear like that. Where did you find it?”

  It was as if a current ran through me, shock and fear as blinding as a bolt of electricity. The bear fell from my fingers. Faye watched it fall and bounce gently on the floor. “It was in my room,” I whispered. Her gaze flew to mine. “It was in my bed.”

  Faye caught my arm, pulled me all the way inside, and closed the door. The lock tumbled into place.

  “Someone’s been here. Inside the inn.” Inside my locked room, tucking something for me to find in my bed. A tremor worked its way through my limbs.

  “They might still be here,” Faye said.

  “We can’t call the police.”

  “We don’t need the police.” Something in her voice cut through my horror. Her face was set, voice brisk as she called for Sam. He appeared in his bedroom doorway and hurried to his mother’s side when she held out her hand.

  I followed her into her bedroom and then into her walk-in closet, stunned when she shoved aside the few articles of clothing and revealed a half door in the wall. It was metal with a key in the lock and a handle shaped like a Y that Faye spun to open. An electric lantern, stack of blankets, and case of bottled water lay within.

  She handed Sam the key to the door. “Just like we’ve practiced, remember?”

  He clung to her hand for a moment and then ducked within the room and turned the lantern on. Faye pushed the door closed after him and spun the handle, and I could hear a series of locks turn inside.

  She moved to kneel in front of a safe tucked into the corner of the closet. It was fingerprint entry. I sucked in a breath when she opened it to reveal a small collection of guns and ammunition.

  I glanced back and forth between the door in the wall and Faye, and it struck me then that this woman and her son’s isolation and quiet were deliberate. Whatever secrets she had were dangerous ones, and she handled the pistol she lifted from the safe with the confidence and ease of an expert. The magazine she slid into the base of the pistol was already loaded. She pulled the slide to chamber a round.

  “Do you know how to handle a gun?”

  My grandfather had insisted on being the one to pull the trigger. He had used a German pistol his uncle brought home from the European front after World War II. I had wiped the gun clean and buried it and the shell casing in a creek bed miles from where we had buried Chad Kilgore’s body. She grabbed two more loaded magazines from the safe and tucked them into the waistband of her yoga pants.

  I waited too long to respond. When she straightened, she offered me the baseball bat that was leaning against the dresser. “I’m sure whoever was here is long gone. But I’m not willing to bet on that.”

  Gone was the quiet, reserved innkeeper. Standing in her place was a hard-eyed stranger who held a handgun as if it were an extension of her arm. I did not know this woman, but I took the bat from her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  We searched the inn systematically, turning on lights as we went until the whole place probably stood out on the curve of the river as a beacon. My heart lurched every time we shoved a curtain aside and dropped to our knees to check the space under a bed. I fully expected to encounter Jeff’s smile and hear him say Boo. My breath quickened with each closet door we threw open and each shadowed corner we explored.

  No windows or doors were ajar. No one hid tucked away in the unused rooms. Nothing lurked in the shadows at the back of the closets or under the beds.

  “Someone has been in my room,” I said quietly when we finished our search and stood in my room. “And this isn’t the first time.”

  Her brows shot up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wasn’t positive at first.” I looked around my room and wondered what else he had touched while he was here. “You’ll probably hear about it in town, and I would rather you hear it from me. I was almost arrested tonight. For breaking into Jeff Roosevelt’s apartment over the hardware store.”

  “Why did you do break into his home?”

  “Because I think he’s a serial killer.” I shivered as I set it aloud. “I’m certain he’s the one who has broken into the inn and into my room.”

  She studied me for a long moment, gaze searching. She did not ask for proof, and she demanded no explanation. Instead, she simply said, “I think you should stay with us tonight. I have a security system in my section of the inn.”

  “Are you sure?” I did not want to impose, but I also had no desire to sleep in this room tonight.

  She nodded. “You can have Sam’s bed. He can sleep with me.”

  I grabbed the items I would need to get ready for work in the morning and locked the door behind me. I followed close at Faye’s heels as she led the way back through the inn. We shut off lights as we went. I had to quell the urge to glance behind me. My scalp prickled, and I kept expecting to be yanked back into the darkness.

  She went to a cabinet in the kitchen and pulled out a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey. She poured a liberal amount and offered it to me. “You look like you need it.”

  I tossed it back in one fiery swallow. The whiskey hit my stomach, and warmth spread through my midsection. I pressed the back of my wrist to my mouth to contain a cough and handed Faye the shot glass. “Thanks,” I whe
ezed when I had breath again.

  She moved to the freezer and offered me a bag of frozen peas. “For your face.”

  When we were safely ensconced in Faye’s apartment and her security system was armed, I noticed the profusion of locks on her door.

  She extended her hand for the baseball bat I still clutched, and I had to pry my fingers loose to relinquish my grip. “Let me put these away.” She searched my face. “I’ll get Sam settled into my bed, and I’ll put fresh sheets on his bed for you.”

  I sank onto her couch before my knees gave way and held the bag of frozen peas against my throbbing cheek. When Faye returned, she did not ask questions. She wordlessly took up a spot on the opposite end of her couch and turned the TV on to a documentary about whale sharks. I did not think I would be able to sleep at all, but the warmth of the whiskey spread throughout my body and the quiet deep blue imagery of the documentary was lulling. Within an hour, I slipped between the fresh superhero sheets Faye had put on her son’s bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  When I arrived at work the next morning, I went straight to the private collection. It was becoming an obsession, I realized, as I laid out the pieces on the work table in the repository. I had jotted down information on slips of paper for each piece that I had discovered a tribal provenance for. I set those aside and studied the remaining pieces.

  The one my attention kept returning to was unique in the collection. It was a carving about eight inches tall, colorful and intricate. The carved figure was full bodied, rendered with human arms, legs, and torso, but the head looked like an animal mask. It stood on a round wooden base, but when I turned the carving over, there was no artist signature to be found.

  I took a photo of it and then ejected the camera’s memory card, collected the carving, and headed back to my office. At my desk, I loaded the photograph on my computer. I placed the carving beside my keyboard and eyed it as I dragged the photo into an internet image search.

  Hopi katsina figures, also known as kachina dolls, immediately came up as the search results. They were carved by the Hopi people, mainly located in Arizona, to instruct young girls and new brides on the immortal beings the Hopi believed controlled the natural world and acted as messengers from the spirit world.