Shadow Falls

by Wendy Dranfield

  She hears his muffled voice under the cover. “Thought you googled me.”

  “I did, but I want to hear it from you. Who was Kristen?”

  “For fuck’s sake.” He slides out of the bed and storms into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

  She gives him a few minutes but listens to make sure he’s just using the toilet or washing his face. Suddenly she hears him rifling through the drawers in there. He’s looking for something.

  She jumps off the bed and pushes the door open without knocking. He’s got four lines of white powder lined up and is about to use a twenty-dollar bill to snort it. She pulls him away by his arm, but he pushes her into the bath. Her fall is softened by the shower curtain taking some of her weight, but she’s still shocked. She scrambles out of the tub and slaps him hard across the face.

  “Is this how you want to live?” she screams. “As a junkie? Is this what you waited all those years for: to waste what’s left of your life?”

  He doesn’t react. His eyes don’t even acknowledge that she’s standing in front of him. He turns around and rolls up the twenty, so she squeezes between him and the coke and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Nate, you don’t understand. I’m relying on you. You’re literally all I have right now, and if you turn to drugs and end up OD’ing, I’m fucked.”

  He seems to hear her this time. With a patience that’s clearly hard for him to manage, he takes her hands off him and leans in close. “Madison, it’s you who doesn’t understand. Coke helps me when I’m like this. Nothing else works. It brings me out of it. I can’t explain it and I know how insane it sounds, but it’s true. I need this to function. And you need to get out of my way.”

  His eyes are imploring her and she realizes he knows what he’s doing. This isn’t a random coke binge to numb his pain. He’s obviously been using for a while now. She can’t help but feel disappointed for him. When she first met him, she thought he was so put-together, so strong for dealing with life on death row. Now that she knows he needs a crutch, she doesn’t respect him less; she just feels sorry for him. He’ll never get off coke. Not while he’s using it to repress his emotions.

  She walks out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  Fifty-Three

  Madison pulls her sweaty clothes off and slips into the bathtub. The hot water is instantly soothing but the tears still fall, from frustration more than anything else.

  “How the fuck did I get here?” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes.

  She expected to be back in Colorado by now, so it’s difficult playing second fiddle to Nate when she has more pressing issues to attend to. She inhales the last of her cigarette before dropping the butt into the toilet next to the bath. Wetting a hand towel from the bundle in her room, she spreads it across her face, hoping the steam will fix the breakouts she’s been prone to lately.

  She thinks about Stephanie. She hopes she took her advice and spoke to Mike for reassurance. Madison is confident that Mike would agree to check in on Steph. He was one of the good guys in her police department. A sharp feeling of guilt washes over her for the situation her ex is in. She thinks she knows who’s behind the heavies. And they’re going to get the surprise of their life when she turns up in Lost Creek after all these years.

  Nate’s banging around in the adjacent bathroom and she wonders what he’s up to. Working with him is hard because he wants to do everything his own way. She’s used to having a uniformed partner to work with, someone on the same level as her, but it’s clear Nate’s controlling this investigation. It was good of him to take her on, but what’s the point if she gets no say in anything? He should be using her police experience to help him find Jennifer Lucas.

  Her thoughts turn to the girl’s family. Something is bothering her. It’s unusual for the family of a missing child to hire a PI. Especially for a grandparent to take the lead. Grant seemed in control of the household and didn’t want to even consider the fact that his daughter might be dead. And Esme had gone ahead and hired investigators against his wishes, so there’s a disconnect there. Anna seemed a little downtrodden and aloof. Perhaps Grant is domineering in that relationship. She was pretty quiet for a woman with a daughter missing. There were no emotional outbursts and no condemnation of the police investigation. She almost looked resigned to the fact that they’d never see Jenny again.

  Removing the towel, Madison sighs. “Why do I even care?”

  But she does care. Police work keeps her distracted from thinking about her son. About what kind of life he must have had without her.

  She sits up. With damp hands she pulls another cigarette from its packet as she listens to Nate snorting coke on the other side of the wall.

  Fifty-Four

  The long night passes achingly slowly for Nate. He’s had time to dwell on a whole range of different regrets.

  He knows he was out of line pushing Madison and he doesn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if she’d bashed her head on the tiles going down. Rubbing his temples, he tries to stop thinking about it, because the shame is burning his face. He doesn’t expect her to stick around now she knows he’s not as perfect as she seemed to think. It’s probably just as well, as he’s not always easy to be with.

  He spends most of the night thinking about Kristen, which just makes things worse. He’s had to consume another four lines of coke to stop her face appearing every five minutes. Now he’s on the inevitable come-down, which he’s not ready for as it could mean the end of him when he’s in this state. He’s only just hung on overnight. As soon as the morning finally comes, he snorts one more line to help regulate his mood, then lies on the bed and lets it take effect. It makes him crave more, but he’s learned to wait that feeling out until it passes. His body is buzzing with fake energy, but he ignores that too.

  After thirty minutes, there’s a knock at his door. He crosses the room and opens it. Madison looks nervous.

  “Come on in.” He moves to one side and searches for a clean T-shirt from his holdall.

  “How are you this morning?” She doesn’t step far into his room.

  “Madison, I owe you an apology, and even that’s not enough. I’m an asshole. I guess it’s best you find that out sooner rather than later, but I’m still sorry for last night. If you want to part ways now, I’ll understand. You have your own problems and I’ll probably just make things worse.”

  She leans in and hugs him, which takes him by surprise. His face is sore from where she slapped him last night, and he was expecting the same thing again. Her hair smells of fruity shampoo and she’s warm, but he’s not good with hugs. He went so long without them that they feel strange, too intimate. He tries to pull away, but she keeps hold of him. It makes him feel panicked, but he contains it. He can smell cigarettes on her and realizes she’s probably been smoking because of his behavior last night.

  Finally she lets go. “Apology accepted.” She smiles. “I don’t warm to many people anymore, Nate, but I like you. I’m starting to care about you. But if you ever push me again, I’ll shoot you.”

  He thinks she’s joking, but she flashes her weapon. He hadn’t realized she was armed.

  “I won’t.” He pulls his T-shirt on. “But to make sure, don’t get too close to me when I’m in that mood. It’s like someone else takes over and all I can do is stand aside and watch the asshole ruin everything. He’s not a good part of me and I haven’t learnt how to contain him yet.”

  She nods as if she understands. Maybe she does. “Breakfast is being served. Come on.”

  Nate’s stomach flips with the mention of food, making him slightly nauseous, but he follows her downstairs to a small room set out with tables and chairs. It reminds him of his grandmother’s house, with dolls and paintings everywhere. There’s a Jack Russell perched in the window, growling softly at each passing car.

  Madison looks up at the petite woman who approaches them. So far, they’re the only people in the room, and Nate wonders how many guests this place
gets.

  As the woman fills their cups with coffee, she asks, “Is this your husband?”

  Madison quickly nods and Nate wonders what she’s told her. “Yes, this is Nate. Nate, this is Mary.”

  “Nice place you have here,” he says.

  “I heard a bit of a commotion last night. Is everything okay?”

  “Oh yeah, sorry.” He smiles at her apologetically. “I’m such a klutz; I fell over in the bathroom. Nothing to worry about.”

  Mary looks horrified, like she’s assessing whether they’ll sue her.

  “I didn’t even bruise myself, so don’t worry about it.”

  She looks relieved. “Two breakfasts coming right up.”

  They both pull out their cell phones and sit in silence. Nate sends Esme a quick update by text and says he’ll call her later. He has the unenviable task of telling her they’ve been kicked off the camp because of the way he approached Donna’s situation. She won’t be happy and he doesn’t blame her. Their leads have dried up and even he’s not sure which direction to look in next.

  He spots an email from Rex, which he reads whilst drinking his coffee.

  The Lucas family are financially stable, with just the usual home loan and credit cards. But get this: I checked in with my contact in child services, and the girl—Jennifer—was adopted. Don’t know if that changes anything, but thought I should let you know in case they haven’t mentioned it. My contact couldn’t get access to her full CPS record, so I don’t know what her background is; who the biological parents were and why they gave her up. You’d have to ask the parents about that. Neither of them has any convictions.

  He looks up. “Jenny’s adopted.”

  Madison puts her phone down. She looks surprised. “Really? They never said.”

  “Is it relevant?”

  She appears to think about it. “I guess not. It could mean they’re infertile and they adopted because they wanted a child so badly. That can only be a good thing.”

  Nate thinks about the alternative. “What if her biological parents didn’t want to give her up? What if she was taken off them by child services against their will? Maybe they were drug addicts, or the mother was really young. It could be that the parents wanted their daughter back.”

  She realizes what he’s saying and starts nodding her head. “Maybe they’ve been looking for her, and when they finally found her, they took their opportunity.”

  “Summer camp would certainly be a good opportunity,” says Nate. “No one there really knows what’s going on. I mean, it’s not exactly professional.”

  Mary places their cooked breakfasts in front of them and Nate can tell just by looking at his plate that all he’ll be able to manage is the charred bacon, and only because it’s just like the bacon they served in prison. He smiles up at her. “Thanks.”

  Madison eats fast and he wishes he had her appetite. He feels drained from the drugs and the depression, but he’s glad it was a short episode this time. Sometimes they last weeks, so he knows he got off lightly. Maybe having Madison around helped. He forces himself to eat both rashers of bacon and is surprised when his appetite picks up. He eats the eggs next.

  Just as he is about to speak, a woman walks into the room. He recognizes her, but because he wasn’t expecting to see her here, it takes him a second to place her. Madison turns to see what he’s looking at. The woman spots them and lowers her eyes.

  “Mrs. Lucas?” says Nate, standing. “What are you doing up here?”

  Anna reluctantly walks toward him. She tries to smile, but it looks pained. “Hi. We decided we needed to be here. It was too painful waiting at home for news.” She breaks off and starts sobbing.

  Nate leads her to their table and she takes a seat. They wait patiently while she composes herself.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Esme passed away on the drive up here.” She looks at Nate. “The stress of it all killed her.”

  He and Madison share a look.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Madison gets out of her chair and rubs Anna’s back as she cries.

  Nate is stunned, but he’s also wondering where this leaves him. It was Esme who hired him, and against the parents’ wishes. Is this where his involvement ends? Kristen’s face flashes before him again. He wonders if his subconscious is telling him it’s time to stop looking for other people’s missing loved ones and start looking for his own.

  fifty-five

  January 2017—Polunsky Unit, Livingston, Texas

  It’s New Year. Nate’s last year alive. His execution date is set for December 6, 2017. He’ll be thirty-eight years old when he dies. Now that January has come, he can think of nothing else other than the death chamber at the Huntsville Unit. He’s seen seven men go before him and he was deeply affected by all but one of their deaths. It’s been difficult to defend his religion. The Bible says an eye for an eye, but Nate knows that even after what they’ve been convicted of, that way of thinking is too simplistic. He can’t reconcile it with these men’s lives.

  He finds himself thinking about all the things he’ll never do again: celebrate another Christmas, speak to a family member, spend time in the presence of children, laugh uncontrollably at something hilarious… The list is endless and overwhelming.

  If he listened to Kristen, it would be easy to believe he would do all those things again. Some days he resents her for giving him false hope. Today is one of those days. As Gus leads him to the small interview room and shackles his hands to the table, he doesn’t want to look at her. He’s about to blow a fuse with all the anger inside him.

  She reaches across the table and takes his hands. He tries to pull away, but he can’t because of the cuffs.

  She lets go and sits back. “Nate, what’s the matter? Is it a bad day?”

  He looks up at her enquiring face and shakes his head. “How many cases have you got right now?”

  She looks confused. “What do you mean?”

  “How many men are you trying to get out of prison? Because I know it’s not just me.”

  He’s taking a gamble, but Jordie, one of his death row neighbors, who has exhausted all his appeals and is set to be executed the week before Nate, told him she’s probably visiting and falsely reassuring other prisoners, not just him. It made him feel catastrophically stupid. He’d naïvely assumed it was just him. It’s hard to see the truth in here sometimes, because you become less sharp and more introspective.

  She looks wary. “I visit four other men. They’re in general population but still convicted of murder. They’re all serving life without parole.”

  Nate shakes his head. He feels sick. “Do you feed them the same lines as me? Do you tell all of them that you want them to get out so they can take you to Paris?”

  Tears well in her eyes but she ignores them defiantly. “No, Nate. My job involves teaching analytical skills to student lawyers. They choose cases where they think someone has been unlawfully convicted and I help them untangle the webs. My students visit the other guys more than I do. I always choose to visit you. I thought you knew what you mean to me. I can’t fake that. I wouldn’t. I’m not stupid; I know how dangerous it is to give anyone in here false hope.”

  He doesn’t know whether to believe her. “I read a study in a law text that examined why women write to and sometimes marry men on death row. Do you know what it concluded?”

  She looks down. “It doesn’t matter what a bunch of academics with no life experience concluded. I only know how I feel.”

  He continues. “It concluded that women are drawn to men in prison, especially men serving long sentences, because it’s a way of having a safe relationship. They get to speak to their man every day if he’s in general pop. They always know where he is, that he can’t cheat on them. And they do it knowing they’ll never have to have sex with him. They have complete control over the relationship, unlike real-life relationships on the outside.” He knows he’s being an asshole, but it’s hard to control it when he feel
s like this.

  She wipes her eyes and opens a file, pulling out some paperwork. “I came to give you good news. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed we can submit the hammer used to kill Stacey for new DNA testing. If they find someone else’s blood on it, as we suspect they will, you could get a new trial.”

  Nate is floored. He wasn’t expecting her to say that. “What?”

  “We know your fingerprints were on the hammer because you were using it to fix up the house for Stacey’s mom, but there’s no reason for anyone else’s blood to be on it apart from Stacey’s. The court records show that the tests carried out by the prosecution at the time couldn’t confirm who the secondary blood belonged to, so the prosecution poisoned the jury’s minds with the thought that it had to be yours. I’ve read the transcripts; I know how they got away with whatever they wanted to during your trial. It’s shocking, but now that DNA testing has advanced, we can hope to rule your blood out. Without that, there’s no forensic evidence to prove you were the killer and therefore no reason to keep you locked up.”

  She pauses. “However, it is a reason to find Father Connor and get him tested to see if the blood matches. This is the first break we’ve had in your case and it’s an important one. I’ve had someone completely exonerated by this judge before. They didn’t even need a retrial.”

  She sits back in her chair and folds her arms. “So do you want me to keep pushing, or have you given up? Because I haven’t, Nate. No matter what tricks your mind is playing on you.”

  Nate doesn’t cry often, it’s a red rag to a bull in here, but he holds his hands open and breaks down when Kristen encloses them with hers. They’re not allowed to kiss or hug but he gains strength from her touch. For the first time in over a decade, he dares to hope that there’s a way out of here that doesn’t involve a coffin.