Can't Find My Way Home

by Carlene Thompson

  ‘You son of a bitch,’ Garrett hissed.

  ‘Actually, our mother was a very nice lady, wasn’t she, Tessa? A little dim-witted even before she got cancer and had to be kept doped up on drugs all the time, but nice. One of those idiots who sees the best in everyone. She had no idea what kind of man she’d married. She had no idea what her children were like because of him. He even convinced her this was our “playhouse.”’ Nathan looked around and shuddered violently, his memory obviously travelling back to his childhood days. He wasn’t focused on anyone. He was seeing a different time, when he was young and terrified and tortured.

  Garrett took advantage of the moment, taking a shot that hit Nathan in the side. Nathan made a high, squealing sound that didn’t sound human and fired toward Garrett. As the bullet slammed into the concrete block wall, Savannah screamed, loud and unbelievably shrill, while Tessa shrieked and slightly loosened her hold on Brynn. The gun was still aimed toward Brynn’s head, though. Brynn ducked and with all her strength, jabbed Tessa in the ribs with her elbow. Tessa shrieked again but this time the gun, unsteady in her hand, went off and caught Nathan in the throat, tearing it half away. He looked at her in utter surprise before he raised his left hand, pressing his gun to his chest and fell to his knees, blood pouring from his neck. Tessa ran to Nathan, sobbing wildly, yelling his name. She grabbed him as he fell forward, pressing his bloody body against hers.

  And then everyone in the building heard the slightly muffled sound of Nathan’s gun going off as it pressed against Tessa’s heart.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘Are you sure you have to leave tomorrow?’ Garrett asked Brynn. Surrounded by the softly warm summer night, they sat close together on folding chairs in Cassie’s backyard, waiting to see the last and largest Holly Park fireworks display of the Festival.

  ‘I need to get back to my book. I’m already behind schedule.’ Brynn paused. ‘And I want to get Mark away from Genessa Point.’

  Brynn thought of her brother emerging from the dim cement block building – thin, pale, his lips parched and slightly bloody, his eyes surrounded with dark circles, his wrists bruised by the steel handcuffs he’d tried to escape, his legs shaky. With Garrett’s help, he’d walked out of the building and taken three steps before collapsing. Afterward, he’d spent two days in the hospital being treated for abrasions, dehydration and the deep cut on his scalp delivered by Tessa, who’d hidden on the floor of his car’s back seat as he’d started off for Cassie’s one night and never arrived.

  ‘Is Mark going back to Baltimore?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I’m putting my foot down and he’s too traumatized to argue with me.’ A firefly blinked its small gold light in front of Brynn’s face as if in agreement and she smiled. ‘He’s coming to Miami to stay with me for as long as he likes. I hope he’ll fall in love with the city, like I have, and make it home. I know he can find a job eventually.’

  ‘In spite of the glowing recommendation he’ll get from that prissy bank manager?’

  Brynn laughed. ‘You mean about Mark’s “lackadaisical manner,” “poor deportment” and “slipshod appearance”?’

  ‘What a memory!’

  ‘Who could forget the insults of a bank manager from the 1800s? Mark had other jobs before that one, and he always performed well. He’ll get some good recommendations.’

  ‘The same can’t be said for Ray,’ Garrett said dourly. ‘He’s never had a steady job and I’m not expecting the next great true crime novel from him. He’s lucky to be alive.’

  At that moment they heard Mark yell, ‘Hooray,’ from inside the house where he was playing a game with Cassie and Savannah.

  ‘I assume he won again,’ Brynn said dryly. ‘He’s always been great at Scrabble.’

  ‘If Mark won, it’s only because Henry opted out of the game.’ Garrett was silent for a moment. ‘If it hadn’t been for that dog, we might not have found you.’

  ‘I don’t know why you even thought of looking at the Cavanaugh place.’

  Garrett took a sip of beer from the bottle. ‘At the carnival, I heard Tessa say you should keep things that are important to you as close as possible. Savannah heard it, too, and she told me Tessa had said the same thing to her at the wishing well. She said it must be Tessa’s mantra. I thought about the changes in Tessa – her dating Ray, the long trip planned with her brother – then her remark about keeping things close. I admit it was a very thin lead pointing toward Tessa – a change of behavior at the same time Mark went missing – but it was all I had. I thought that if the Cavanaughs had somehow taken Mark, it made sense that they’d keep him close enough to keep an eye on him most of the time.

  ‘Still, we might have left if Henry hadn’t found that scrap of Savannah’s blouse and the dog whistle she lost when she managed to fight her way free from Nathan for a minute. We might have walked away from that building before Nathan walked out of it. We couldn’t see in the windows or hear anything. Old Earl Cavanaugh had three acres and he put the building in a spot where no one from the streets or nearest houses could hear much, then he must have spent a fortune on insulation.’

  Brynn recalled Nathan’s shudder when he’d looked around what his father had called ‘the playhouse.’ Even if Nate had lived to be eighty, she thought, he wouldn’t have been able to forget the abuse he’d endured there at the hands of his own father.

  ‘Nathan said Sam Fenney saw Mr Cavanaugh raping Tessa in a downstairs room of the house.’ Brynn could hear her voice hardening. ‘I resented Sam for not standing by my mother after Dad died, but I never dreamed he was so vile! He blackmailed Earl Cavanaugh all those years to keep his mouth shut about the abomination he saw and used the money to build a motel and a restaurant!’

  ‘Sickening,’ Garrett nearly spat. ‘Nathan came back to settle his father’s will so he could later collect the money he thought was waiting for him and Tessa. Or rather, himself. I’m sure he planned to get rid of Tessa as soon as they reached South America. He’d chartered a plane to JFK Airport in New York and then a flight to Caracas, Venezuela. You can be sure Nathan wouldn’t have dragged Tessa around with him. She probably would have been his first adult victim.’

  ‘What about his wives?’

  Garrett looked at her in surprise. ‘I thought I told you. After his death, I checked into his background. He never had any wives. He had Tessa spread the word that he was married and divorced twice. That’s why he never brought one home to meet the family. Whenever he came back, he was between wives.’

  ‘Why keep up the charade of being married?’

  ‘Because he was paranoid that people might think he was gay. You know how he hated homosexuals.’ Garrett shook his head in disgust. ‘He wanted everyone to believe he was a real stud with the women.’

  ‘Instead, he was a serial killer.’

  ‘God knows how many victims he’s racked up over the last eighteen years,’ Garrett said. ‘I’m sure he didn’t stop during his college years. Afterward, the maritime computer company kept him on the move. My research revealed that everywhere he was sent, at the time he was present, there were two or three murders that fit his M.O.’

  After a long moment, Brynn said, ‘My father was suspicious of him when he was just a teenager.’

  ‘Kids were being killed. Your father was cautious about his children’s friends.’

  Brynn watched a firefly blink green twice before she asked, ‘What happened to your friendship with Mark?’

  ‘Oh, long story.’ He paused and Brynn thought he was going to close the subject, but he finally began talking. ‘You said Mark’s friend Greg in Baltimore mentioned Mark looking at a story in the newspaper about a car wreck caused by a mannequin lying on the highway.’ Brynn nodded. ‘Because the mannequin was from Love’s Dress Shoppe where your mother worked, Mark was the most likely suspect, but my father said Mark had told him that I did it. Dad took his belt to me. It was bad. I was furious with Mark, first because he told my dad I did it and second because I thoug
ht Mark did it. We never talked about it.’

  ‘If you had, you would have figured out Nathan was responsible.’

  ‘My father should have suspected Nathan, but he didn’t want to – I was always his target. Not too long after that came the scandal about Nathan and the coach. Nate brushed that off and his father gave him a new Corvette. He was made of Teflon.’

  ‘Speaking of cars, Mark’s car being left out of town behind those trees was a set-up.’

  ‘Yeah. Mark and I put it together. Tessa waited for him at the motel in his back seat and Nathan was in Tessa’s car. When Mark got in, Tessa bashed his head and they put him in the back seat. Scalp wounds bleed like crazy. Mark came to after a few minutes. He was in a lot of pain but conscious enough to semi-know what was happening. They each drove a car and not too far from those trees, they stopped and Nathan unscrewed the cap on the oil pan. There was just enough oil left to get the car to hiding place, put Mark in Tessa’s car and drive him back to their house.’

  Brynn shook her head. ‘What a remarkable amount of planning went into all of this.’

  ‘Nathan and Tessa were a smart pair.’

  ‘Well, excuse me for not admiring them.’ Brynn took a drink of her own beer in a bottle. ‘At least Dwight Carder will be all right. And Edmund Ellis is “in a better place” as the minister said at his funeral. I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, I understand why he kept his mouth shut about Dad, but still …’

  ‘I don’t know how I feel about what he did, either. I’d give my life to protect Savannah, but I don’t think I could stay quiet for so many years while your family suffered, especially Mark. No wonder Ellis left two-thirds of his estate to Mark.’

  ‘I’m not sure Mark will accept the money under the circumstances. He’s in sort of a moral quandary about it.’ She paused. ‘Besides, some of Edmund’s distant cousins are crawling out of the woodwork to raise hell that he didn’t leave them a dime. He didn’t have a fortune, of course, but his giving two-thirds of what he did have to Mark is incomprehensible to them, especially because no one wants to tarnish Edmund’s memory by telling them why he wanted Mark to have it.’

  ‘He didn’t leave anything to you?’

  ‘He knew I didn’t need it because I’m doing very well with the books. Mark has nothing left.’

  Cassie, Mark, Savannah and Henry all poured out of the house at the same time. ‘What’s going on out here?’ Mark demanded. ‘You two are having way too much fun!’

  ‘You’ve got a grudge against fun now?’ Brynn asked archly.

  ‘Not at all.’ Mark came over and kissed her on the forehead. He was still too thin and had hollows around his eyes and a stitch in his lower lip, but he was also still handsome. And for the first time in years, he looked truly happy.

  ‘We played Scrabble old-fashioned style with a cardboard gameboard and little wooden squares with the letters,’ Savannah announced. ‘Mark won. He spelled words I’ve never even heard before!’

  ‘Like doily?’ Brynn asked, grinning.

  Savannah rolled her eyes. ‘Not only can I spell it, I can make one!’

  ‘Then your time with Mrs Persinger wasn’t wasted, although you gave her the scare of her life when you sneaked away, heading for the amphitheater,’ Garrett said.

  ‘I’m sorry I did that, Daddy,’ Savannah said forlornly. ‘Don’t know why I did that.’

  ‘OK, drama queen.’ Garrett didn’t smile. ‘You did it because you were determined to be in the play, even though I told you that you couldn’t. I had a very good reason for wanting you to stay safe at Mrs Persinger’s, not sneak out and then accept a ride with a stranger.’

  ‘Nathan wasn’t a stranger. At least, I didn’t think he was. Wow, was I wrong! I’ll never do anything like that again, Dad. I promise, cross my heart, pinky swear.’

  ‘I guess you learned your lesson,’ Garrett said grudgingly.

  ‘I’ll say,’ Savannah said enthusiastically as she came to sit on the grass beside Brynn with Henry beside her.

  Cassie had brought out chairs for her and Mark. ‘I wish you two weren’t leaving tomorrow, Brynn.’

  ‘The sooner we get back to Miami, the sooner you can come for your vacation.’ Brynn pretended to look alarmed. ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you, Cass?’

  ‘No way. I can’t wait to stretch out on a beach with you and a piña colada.’

  ‘And me,’ Mark put in quickly. ‘My sister says I’m too pale. She prescribes lots of sun along with a beautiful companion – one about five foot two with shoulder-length hair and brown eyes and a heart big enough to still care about an old, beaten-up guy she knew when she was a kid. And I love piña coladas.’

  Brynn glanced at Garrett and whispered, ‘Sparks are flying.’

  ‘I believe you’re right,’ Garrett answered, grinning.

  ‘Didn’t you say something about us coming to see you this summer, too?’ Savannah asked Brynn tentatively.

  ‘I’d be devastated if you didn’t come.’

  ‘Me and Dad and Henry?’

  ‘What would a vacation be without the three of you?’ Brynn frowned. ‘You’ll have to get some flip-flops for Henry. The sand would burn his bare paws but he’ll love the ocean.’

  A loud popping sound preceded the appearance of a huge white and red column shooting into the sky, then splaying out like a hundred spouts from a fountain. Savannah clapped and Henry barked. Garrett reached over and took Brynn’s hand. ‘Are you sure you want us to come and see you?’

  ‘More than you know,’ she said before a boom announced the launch of a huge green and blue blossom of lights. While everyone else clapped and ‘oohed’ and barked, their gazes fastened on the fireworks, Brynn drew Garrett’s hand to her lips, kissed it gently and mouthed again, ‘More than you know.’