Dead Secret

by Ava McCarthy

  Jodie blundered forward, her head drowsy and clogged. Then she stumbled, and fell on all fours to the ground. She stayed there for a moment. Couldn’t remember what she was doing. Or why she needed to get up. Puzzled, she clambered unsteadily to her feet, her brain cloudy. Then she saw her bag and remembered.

  Step, toss.

  She dragged herself on. The wind stampeded into her, and she floundered sideways, stumbled again. Then stepped out into nothing.

  For an instant, she was weightless. She thrust out her hands, pitched forward. Sailed through the air. Hard vertical ground slammed into her shoulder, bowled her over, sent her tumbling, rolling, plummeting, until finally she slammed to a halt on level ground.

  Jodie lay there, winded. The world see-sawed. Meltwater trickled down her neck and spine. Any body heat she had left was leaching into the ground. She lifted her head. Couldn’t feel her limbs. The strap of her bag was still wound around her arm. She peered through the whiteout. Grey shadows flickered through it this time, looming nearby. Clusters of trees? She sank back, exhausted. Closed her eyes.

  She should probably get up.

  Maybe in a moment.

  Just a short rest first.

  Her brain floated and slid. Cold pain pierced her ears, but the shivering had stopped. Had her body finally abandoned the urge to get warm? She snapped her eyes open.

  Get up!

  She tried to fight the stupor. Raised her head to see the trees.

  You can crawl, it’s not far.

  She fell back against the snow. In a minute. Maybe in a minute.

  She couldn’t remember why she’d come here. Why she felt so cold.

  Think of some place warm!

  Ambergris Caye.

  Hot and fragrant. Hibiscus and frangipani, pink and purple. Beachfront villas, sugary sand, crystal waters lapping at wooden jetties.

  She’d go back there some day.

  Jodie felt herself drifting. Letting go. Then her floating brain faltered. Got snagged on something, brought up short.

  Ambergris Caye.

  Luxurious villas, jade-green sea. The Princess Resort brand. And the matchbook that was still in her bag.

  Adrenaline trickled through the ice in her veins. She could light a fire. If she could just get to the damn trees, she could light a fire!

  She hoisted herself into a sitting position, ignored the screaming pain in her limbs. Then she toppled over onto all fours and dragged herself inch by inch towards the shadows. The wind screeched, and she ducked her head against it. Her arms quivered. Buckled and gave way. She rested her forehead against them for a moment, eyes closed. Saw an image of cold stone. Momma Ruth’s angel statue in the cemetery: perched on a column, balancing a ledger; tallying up sins, accounting for souls. Jodie opened her eyes, straightened up.

  Fuck him and his ledger.

  She braced her muscles, slogged on through the snow, kept going till the shadows resolved and separated. Tall redwoods, Douglas firs, dense enough to block some of the wind-chill out.

  Jodie crawled under the canopy of the nearest tree, a half-fallen conifer laden with snow, and collapsed against the trunk. The sudden shelter was a blessed relief. Pain cramped her stiffening body. She rested, breathless. With the blizzard half-muffled, it felt like she’d gone deaf. A spicy, pine fragrance threaded the cold air and she drank it in, willing her eyes to stay open.

  A low-grade pain twisted in her stomach. Pangs of hunger. She hadn’t eaten or drunk since early that morning. Jodie stared at the snow, considered sucking down a handful. But something told her it would lower her body temperature even more.

  Dehydration versus hypothermia.

  For now, the priority was warmth.

  She fumbled for the bag still wrapped around her arm. Her hands were trembling. She struggled with the zip, upended the bag’s contents onto the ground, scrabbling till she found the matchbook from the Princess Resort. She clutched it to her chest, sent up a quick prayer of thanks. Then she unzipped her jacket and tugged out the canvases. They crackled in her hands. Perfect for tinder. Somewhere there had to be half-dry twigs and foliage she could burn.

  Her eyes skimmed over the familiar paintings, their bleak colours blurring together. All except for one. Jodie frowned. Yellows and blues jumped off the page. Vibrant paint-bursts, as if splashed from a height, trails of colour squirted straight from the tubes.

  Jodie’s vision swam. She blinked, swallowed. Spread out the canvas for a closer look.

  Gemstone colours, speckled and drizzled. Sapphire sky, emerald trees, topaz sun. Globs of paint hand-clapped into familiar spatters.

  ‘Look what I can do, Mommy.’

  Jodie’s hand flew to her mouth. Dear sweet Jesus.

  Her throat closed over, her chest squeezed to near-suffocation. She made herself look at the bottom corner of the page.

  Abby Brown Age 6

  Abby! Abby Brown?

  Joshua Brown.

  Impossible. Impossible!

  Jodie’s head reeled. Think, reason it out! Where had the canvas come from? Not from Lily. She pictured Caruso flinging paintings into the wind.

  Ethan’s jeep. It had come from the trunk of Ethan’s jeep.

  Jodie brushed her fingers along the canvas.

  Abby Brown Age 6

  But her Abby had only been three. Never six, never even four or five.

  Only three, only three, only three.

  Jodie rocked to and fro, smoothing her hand over the canvas.

  Only three, only three, only three.

  Abby Brown.

  Age 6.

  Jodie stopped rocking. Stared at the painting. Saw Abby’s flair, familiar and unmistakable. But with less scribbling. More awareness of space.

  The refinements of an older child.

  Jodie’s breathing stopped. Her head swirled, and her eyes flared wide open.

  Abby Brown.

  Age 6.

  Her little girl was still alive.

  32

  Jodie’s heartbeat raced. She clasped the painting close to her chest. Abby’s painting.

  But how could that be true?

  Something leaden seeped through her; something insidious and bleak. The threat of false hope.

  She clenched her jaw. Stupid to believe it. It was impossible. Impossible! She’d buried her precious little girl three years ago.

  A whisper trickled into her head.

  Her body was never found.

  Jodie went still. Then she shook her head. The current had taken Abby, that had never been in doubt.

  But they searched for days, and they never found her.

  Memories flashed: helicopters thudding over the Contoocook River; frantic searches in the dark.

  Jodie shook her head again, over and over. The current had taken Abby, it had swept her away!

  What if it hadn’t?

  Jodie caught her breath. She snatched the painting away from her chest, pored over it again. Recognizable shapes emerged from the splatters: finger-daubed trees, fat yellow sun-blob, dollops of white for a roly-poly snowman.

  Abby Brown Age 6.

  Jodie squeezed her eyes shut. The wind roared around her. Bullets of ice burned her skin, stung her eyelids. She surrendered to the pain, relished it, even. Anything to drive out the torment of hope.

  It was only a painting. Her daughter was dead.

  The whisper persisted. But Ethan loved Abby. How could he have killed her?

  He was a monster, a family annihilator!

  Novak didn’t think so.

  Jodie snapped her eyes open.

  Novak said Ethan didn’t fit the profile, something was off.

  She recalled Novak’s hesitation, the unnamed doubt he wouldn’t put into words. Was this what he’d meant? Had he believed there was a chance that Abby was alive?

  Jodie held herself rigid, trembling with the cold and with the effort of fighting off hope. She clamped her mouth shut, flatlining her emotions. Ethan had boasted about killing Abby, for God’s sak
e.

  But he wasn’t like other family annihilators. He hadn’t ended his own life to duck the consequences. Would he really have killed Abby, then chosen to live on?

  Jodie’s whole body clenched, a barricade against feeling. The blizzard was ice and fire on her skin, the wind a white noise. She tried to block the voice out, but it whispered on.

  He’d loved Abby. How could he have faced all that pain, all that remorse?

  She yelled into the white emptiness. ‘Because he was a monster! He told me what he did, there was no pain, no remorse!’

  Because Abby wasn’t really dead.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Jodie choked back a sob. ‘Why would he lie about something like that?’

  To punish you. That had always been the reason. To cause you maximum pain. But this way, he could hurt you and still keep Abby for himself.

  Jodie hugged the painting close to her chest. Was it possible? Then she gazed at the picture again, stroked the signature. Allowed herself to believe it, just for a moment.

  Abby Brown.

  Joshua Brown.

  He faked his own death at a moment’s notice. You think he couldn’t have faked Abby’s, too?

  Jodie closed her eyes, and this time, Ethan’s voice filled her head.

  ‘If you try to keep her from me, I’ll take her away.’

  Ethan always lying. Always in control.

  ‘I’ll take her some place where you’ll never see her again.’

  His words sliced into Jodie, back and forth like a switchblade. She hugged her arms tight across her chest, warding off the lacerations. Then the whispering was back.

  What’s more likely? That he killed the little girl he loved so much? Or that he told you he did, just to watch you suffer?

  A memory cut in: Ethan boxing up Abby’s stuff after she died, refusing to say where he’d sent it. Toys, clothes, favourite blankets. Things little Abby wouldn’t sleep without.

  Dear sweet Jesus.

  Sudden hot tears spilled down her cheeks. For an instant, she felt insulated against the cold, oblivious to the snow, to the raging wind. Ready to risk the penalty of hope.

  Joshua Brown.

  Abby Brown.

  Age 6.

  It was true. It had to be true!

  Warm blood rushed through her veins in dizzying, wondrous, breath-taking relief.

  Abby was alive!

  Alive, alive, alive, alive.

  She was six years old and she was alive!

  33

  A gust of wind snatched at the painting.

  Jodie hugged the canvas close, jarred back into an awareness of her surroundings: the one-sided shelter from the half-broken fir; the snow hissing through it, blasting against her like crushed glass in the wind.

  The jolt galvanized her limbs. She shoved all the canvases back inside her jacket, stowed the matches into her bag for safekeeping. Adrenaline had thawed her, but she knew it was temporary. The rush would soon evaporate, hypothermia would creep back in.

  Think!

  Jodie peered out into the flat, diffuse light. The whiteout still clung like an opaque veil, obliterating even the nearest trees. She twisted around where she sat, examined the broken fir. The trunk was splintered in two above her head, jack-knifed down into an inverted V, the low overhang of branches a welcome roof. Shivers juddered along her frame, her adrenaline almost spent. She stared up at the thick umbrella of branches.

  Shelter and fire. Survival priorities.

  She struggled to her feet, stretched up an arm to the nearest branch and pulled. Snow dumped away to the ground, exposing wide conifer fans. She brushed at the sprays, examined the needles. Stiff and crisp. Near-water-resistant, packed with flammable pitch. Better than wet grass or moss. She groped along the stem, searching for a weak spot. Found its attachment to the main branch. Twisted and tugged, wrenched it away, tossed it on the ground near the base of the tree to protect it from the blizzard. Then she reached up and grabbed again.

  Jodie battled on until her arms ached, breaking stems where she could, chafing at thicker branches with her motel key. When she’d collected a high, springy pile, she hunched against the blizzard, left the shelter of the overhang and draped the largest branches either side of the trunk.

  The wind charged into her, whipped at the firs. Somehow she managed to interleave the fans, twisting them together, knotting them with low-hanging canopy stems to fix them in place wherever she could. Then she crawled on all fours into her makeshift shelter, huddled against the trunk, teeth chattering. The crude screens thrashed in the blizzard, flailed back and forth. Held together. Rudimentary breakers. Jodie basked in the blessed respite from the wind and snow.

  She rested for a moment, catching her breath. Then she clambered back to her feet and reached up to the fractured joint of the tree, scrabbling inside the broken trunk for treasure: shredded bits of dry, inner bark; woody splinters protected from the wet. Stashing her tiny haul in her pockets, she hunkered down at the shelter’s entrance, shoved at the snow till she’d cleared a wide circle, and began to build her fire.

  Canvas for tinder; pine needles and dry inner bark for kindling; then a pyramid of stems and woody splinters, with a tepee of thicker branches on top.

  Jodie struck her first match, bending low to shield it from the wind. She touched it to a peeping corner of canvas, hands trembling. The flame snacked on the edge of Lily’s painting, lapped along towards the kindling. Then it fluttered and spread into the heart of the tepee. An orange glow flickered, drying out the damper stems on top, then it blazed up in a crackle and hiss of sap. Jodie crouched in close, bathing in the warmth.

  She gathered up the remaining fir stems and spread some of them beneath her, insulating herself from the icy ground. Then she eyed the dwindling heap of stems. It would last maybe another twenty minutes. After that, she’d brave the blizzard and hunt for more.

  The flames spat and quivered. Her face tingled. She closed her eyes, savoured the warmth, the thaw, the sweet piney scent. The air felt light and clear. Full of magnificent relief. Glorious reprieve.

  Abby was alive. She hadn’t drowned, Ethan hadn’t killed her. None of it had been true.

  Jodie opened her eyes, watched a dark curl of smoke get shredded in the wind. What had Ethan told Abby? Had he told her Jodie was dead? Or just that she’d left, happy to abandon her little girl? Jodie’s heart shrank, feeling every drop of Abby’s hurt.

  So Novak was right. Ethan was no family annihilator. Not that particular brand of monster. But still a monster. Still hurting Abby, still punishing Jodie with a diabolical lie.

  What had he been planning when he’d faked Abby’s death? Had he intended to keep her hidden forever? Or maybe he’d harboured some twisted fantasy that some day they could still be together again as a family. A fantasy that had shattered when Jodie had said she was going ahead with the divorce. That had been the trigger. For his final, vindictive lie.

  Maximum pain.

  But Abby was alive. Another of Ethan’s secrets unravelled. Was this the last one? The last secret?

  Jodie leaned in closer to the flames, relishing the heat, the smoky scent of charred wood. Conifer needles flared and fizzed like tiny firecrackers.

  Jodie watched the sparks, recalling how Ethan had once been: a captivating lover, proud adoring father. At what point had he turned into a monster? All those lies, those twisted secrets. The more he’d indulged them, the more he’d seemed to forget he had a better side.

  Had his dark nature slowly transformed him? Had his shape-shifting so imprisoned him, that in the end he’d been unable to change back?

  Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde.

  She added another conifer stem to the fire, recalling Ethan as she’d seen him in the jeep, real or imagined: his shattered look of suffering and self-loathing. Which part of his dual nature did that belong to?

  The fire spat and snapped. Jodie’s extremities fizzled in the warmth. Then she realized Novak was right about something else, too. She couldn’t kill
Ethan. Not now. He was the only one who knew where Abby was.

  She caught her breath, a sudden cold realization sucking the air from her lungs. What if she’d succeeded that night of the fireworks? What if she’d really managed to kill Ethan? To kill herself? Never knowing that, all the while, Abby was still alive.

  The blood roared in Jodie’s ears. She hugged her knees, felt the crinkle of Abby’s painting against her chest. Her body trembled, shivers of icy, shocked relief. She bowed her head. Sent a heartfelt prayer of thanks for her last-minute salvation. For the grace of deliverance.

  Resin spattered and crackled in the flames. She lifted her head, stared at the fire. Felt a slow burn of exhilaration as the heat repaired her, made her whole. The fire blazed into her bones, every cell in her body tingling with renewal. Fresh beginnings.

  What’s worth living for, what’s worth dying for?

  Her muscles glowed in the reviving heat. Killing Ethan no longer mattered. Revenge and hatred weren’t enduring. But her love for Abby was.

  And Jodie intended to find her.

  34

  The ground blizzard raged long into the night.

  Hour after hour, Jodie nursed her fire, feeding it, coaxing it, stockpiling fuel for it. Darkness seeped in, reversing the whiteout like a photograph negative into a cold, inky fog.

  Her body grew rigor-mortis stiff. At regular intervals, she pushed through the fatigue, pumping her arms, stomping her feet, fighting an irresistible urge to close her eyes.

  Sleep would kill her. Lure her, oblivious, into profound hypothermia. So she kept on the move, tended her fire, until eventually the wind abated, the blackout dissolved, and, drop by drop, the world bled back through.

  Immense trees. Shadowy backcountry.

  To her right, a steep, rising ridge. To her left, a sloping descent. She was on some kind of forested mountain, had fallen down a near-sheer ravine. Without the snow to break her fall, she’d probably be dead.