Under The Blade

by Serafini, Matt

  “He’s going to die.” She sobbed in his arms as they retreated through the trees. The bunkhouse wall blew open and the night was afire with muzzle flashes. “I thought I was giving him a better life.” She wasn’t telling Sleighton so much as she was justifying her own actions. Maybe mother and son truly had been better off before the Obviate entered their lives.

  Who will prevent the end now?

  She didn’t know if that thought was hers, or the whisper’s continued torment. Either way, it was a valid question. The Elder had allowed things to grow out of control but his message remained. Zohra realized it was something she still believed in.

  I will spread it, she thought. On my terms, I will teach it. The people in town shall listen. Together we can prevent the end.

  The cries of her brothers and sisters were drowned out by automatic gunfire as they made their escape.

  She did not look back.

  NINE

  Melanie spent most of the day in the car. First, it was a four-hour drive from Connecticut to New Hampshire, and now it was the noontime trek back the other way.

  There was so much information to share with Nate and she felt optimistic about things for the first time. Cyrus Hoyt was out there, no matter what anyone tried to say, but now she understood why. When he was just a boy he saw his family killed, and spent the next few years surviving on his own—until he was strong enough to defend his wilderness from invaders.

  Hoyt’s warped perception made a certain kind of sense, but understanding it didn’t make him any less terrifying.

  With any luck, the police would have caught a break in Johnson’s murder investigation, creating an opportunity for her to steal the chief away for some quiet time. There was so much to tell him and the information in her possession was energizing. She could almost feel twenty-five years of uncertainty falling by the wayside. Soon, everyone would know that Hoyt lived, and that she’d been right to be afraid all along.

  The book’s inevitable success tasted sweet. The biggest obstacle would be presenting the material without assigning culpability. What Lawson and his men did disgusted her. If they had handled it correctly, then everything that followed might’ve been avoided. But she wasn’t a justice crusader and had no intention of holding the dying state trooper accountable. The events of 1969 could be chalked up to an anonymous vigilante action and left at that. It was doubtful that anyone would come forward to contest the story.

  Mayor Cobb wouldn’t appreciate the nuclear revelation. Drudging up a long-forgotten massacre would stomp out the town’s last chance at a positive reputation once and for all.

  And as soon things blew over, she would have to figure out where Zohra Sleighton was institutionalized. If there was even a chance of talking to her, it needed to happen.

  Something about that woman’s fate was disturbing. Sleighton offered her a clean break but she had to pedal her gospel to whoever would listen. It was her religious devotion that got her locked up. She deserved worse for unleashing her twisted ideals upon Forest Grove, but Melanie saw it as a kind of warning. Both women dwelled in prisons of their own design—only Zohra’s was literal. A woman defined entirely by the evils that occurred on Lake Forest Grove.

  It sounded familiar.

  The last few days made her realize how tired she was—and never more scared for her life. But there was more to living than simply existing. She realized how stubborn she’d been about things. Maybe it was because Nate stirred some long-dormant feelings in her, but that was only a part of it. Yes, he made her realize that there was a gigantic void in her life, and she wanted to rectify that soon. But more importantly, she’d done what nobody had been able to do in decades—break the grove’s despicable history wide open. That was incredibly liberating.

  Almost empowering, as Trish might say.

  Melanie pulled off an exit somewhere in Massachusetts and checked into a hotel just off the highway. No need for anything extravagant, just a room for the better part of the afternoon. Someplace anonymous where being stabbed to death wasn’t a concern. The car ride was draining and she felt disgusting after having been confined to it for a majority of the day. The idea of soaking beneath a stream of piping hot water grew into an obsession. Hotel showers, with their consistent lack of water pressure, were usually awful, but this would do in a pinch.

  I wish I could just go back to Desiree’s.

  She knew Desiree was probably dead and felt a surge of sadness for the sweet woman. If she hadn’t ventured back to Connecticut, then maybe—no, that was crap. Nothing happening in Forest Grove was her fault. Time to stop lashing herself for things that were well beyond her control.

  Melanie took off her clothes, tossed them onto the bed, and cranked the shower dial. It was the hottest, longest shower she could stand and days of tension unraveled. When she climbed out of the bathroom, she dialed the front desk and asked if they could bring up a toothbrush and a travel-sized toothpaste tube. No sense in getting this clean when her breath stunk of day-old coffee.

  She wrapped a towel around her shivering frame and waited for the toiletry delivery by putting her clothes to the iron one-by-one until the day’s wrinkles were gone.

  The bellhop couldn’t have been more than eighteen and Melanie traded him a three-dollar tip for the toothpaste. The kid’s eyes were anxious, staring at the generous display of bare flesh above and below the towel. Glancing in the full-body mirror beside the door, Melanie realized the towel was much too short, leaving the bottom of her backside bare. When she turned to get money from her bag, she’d inadvertently given the kid a full view of the moon.

  It might’ve mortified her if it wasn’t so funny. Turns out that Riley was right after all. She had it, so why not use what God had given her. At 42, things weren’t going to stay this tight forever.

  She felt refreshed while slipping back into weathered clothes. Not perfect, but it was a start. She checked out and sat in the parking lot for a long while, considering her options. Home was close by, but that lifestyle felt antiquated in the light of everything that has happened. There was no choice now but to see this through.

  It was a little past six when she got back into Forest Grove. Nate’s phone dumped her directly into voicemail. He wanted her at the police station so that he wouldn’t have to worry, but there was daylight for another hour or two, and there remained enough downtown bustle to keep her nerves at bay.

  Melanie paused in front of City Hall, wondering if the mayor ever put in late hours. Would he have any information to contribute to her book? She would have to find a way to mention the Obviate without gloating, because she didn’t want to step on his toes. But it was hard to imagine he didn’t know what had happened out there—at least on some level.

  The building was well kept. Polished wood lined the interior and recently buffed floor tiles reflected her as she walked. Most of the individual offices appeared closed. The cleric’s room was locked up tight. Her iPhone was on its last legs as she fished it out of her pocket to check the time. Almost 6:30. No way was anyone still working this late.

  At the end of the hall, she hopped the steps to the second floor and went to the end of the hall. A woman came out of a door marked “Assessor’s Office” and bid her goodnight. Melanie tried asking where the mayor’s office was, but she was already disappearing down the stairs and taking a phone call.

  The mayor’s office wasn’t hard to find. It sat at the end of the hall. Two over-sized oak doors marked entrance to the secretary’s workplace, leading through to an abandoned antechamber decorated with glass display cases of Native American art. She turned to go, realizing she was probably trespassing, but her eye caught a few blood spatters in the beige carpet.

  Her feet were frozen to the spot as she eyed the doors that would lead to the mayor. A hard swallow went down her throat like a stone as she opened them.

  The mayor’s body was propped against his desk, as if sitting on an invisible stool. His head was missing above the jaw line, leaving his bottom
teeth to stare up at the ceiling. The rest of his skull sat in his lap, loose hands cupped over his ears.

  Something was scribbled across the desk face in browned blood:

  He never bothered to hear.

  Melanie called Forest Grove P.D. on 2% battery life while sprinting for the exit. Dispatch said that Nate had just left, but that she should come to the station and wait for him.

  Melanie reported the murder of Mayor Cobb as her phone died and she stepped into the sun-blown downtown of Forest Grove. She ran across the street when a harsh whistle caught her attention.

  She turned to see a man in a disheveled three-piece suit sitting on the curb. His clothes weren’t just wrinkled—they were covered in blood. It stained his hands so dark it looked like crimson paint. The sidewalk was red on every side of him and if he wanted her, he made no motion to stand up.

  He simply waved.

  The LaCrosse wasn’t far but she couldn’t get away fast enough. The engine started up as someone started screaming. Now people were crossing the street.

  The killer never got up off the sidewalk; he just lay back—even as people encircled him—without a seeming care in the world.

  ***

  Brady sat in the gloom of his office, phone receiver tucked between his ear and shoulder. He’d been trying to reach Sally Dugan for the better part of an hour, but she was, of course, unlisted and almost off the grid.

  He got the number of Alex Johnson’s lawyer off the land deed Xerox they found in the dead cop’s house. A quick explanation of the situation and Johnson’s lawyer passed him off to Dugan’s guy—who proceeded to put him in touch with her.

  Sally Dugan—Pete’s daughter and the former owner of Camp Forest Grove—had never been out here as far as Brady knew, but her involvement was clear. She lived in the Florida Keys, and his phone call to that residence had just disturbed the entire household.

  A barking dog and crying child serenaded him with irritating sounds while the land baron took her sweet time reaching the phone. It was only a little past seven, but maybe he was interrupting taco night or something.

  When she finally got on the line, there was annoyance in her tone. Brady didn’t feel like dealing with it. He introduced himself and cut to the chase.

  “I’m calling about the transfer of land from your possession to Alex Johnson’s in the amount of…”

  “You don’t have to remind me. I’m not in the habit of selling land. By the way, if you’re Forest Grove police, how come you gotta ask me about this? Was one of your kind that I sold it to.”

  “Officer Johnson was killed last night in his home. We’re trying to…”

  “I have all kinds of alibi, man. Don’t try to put that on me. You know how many times I fended off that lunatic?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I wasn’t going to sell that place. My father died putting his heart and soul into it. I always thought I’d get back up there one of these years and do the same. But man, those New England winters…they’re no joke.”

  “When you say ‘fended off,’ what are you referring to?”

  “Five, maybe six years of phone calls. Wasn’t always him…sometimes it was a woman. Or an old man. Did you have any trouble finding my number? There’s a reason for that.”

  “They harassed you?”

  “More than that. I came home one night and found a group of them gathered on my lawn. Told me to think about selling that land because it deserved more respect than I was giving it. Said that if I didn’t change my mind they would return for another chat. Wasn’t a threat…but of course, it was.”

  “Could you identify them?” Brady was getting ahead of himself but he needed to know who in this town had to be watched.

  “Hell no. That’s the reason I gave it up. Well, that and the fair price they offered for those ruins.”

  There was no way Johnson could’ve afforded the seven figure asking price, and that meant that a group of them must’ve taken up a collection. Best case scenario was that Brady would find a paper trail around Johnson’s bank account, but when had he ever been that lucky?

  “Please don’t involve me, chief. I sold off my involvement in Forest Grove when I signed over that land.”

  “This is pertinent to a murder investigation. The person who bought your land, Alex Johnson, could be mixed up in a series of murders. Did he, or anyone, tell you what was so special about that land?”

  “Don’t know.”

  She was scared, and with good reason. This was so far beyond Cyrus Hoyt and Melanie Holden that he was starting to wonder how in the hell it had remained a secret for so long.

  He told Sally to remain available for more questioning. When the time came, she was going to have to identify the group that showed up down there. Other than that, her part in this sounded legitimate.

  Could there really be a conspiracy in Forest Grove? There had to be at least one other person involved, but if Sally Dugan reported revolving voices on the phone, there must’ve been more.

  That notion terrified him.

  His radio buzzed to life and the crackle was startling. “Chief, you’d better get over to Sleighton’s place,” Galeberg sounded panicked. “Sounds like a bloodbath.”

  “Trish?”

  “I-I’m not sure.”

  Brady was on his way to the car in a second. “I’ll be there in five. Talk to me.”

  “Just got a report of shots fired. Donnelley was a few streets over, so he’s going to check it out.”

  Trish hadn’t been answering her phone all day and now this. Shots fired. He wanted to swing home first, but his gut told him that she was with her father—just as he’d asked.

  Brady’s heart was in his throat as he drove—he couldn’t lose her. Their marriage hadn’t been storybook, but he could never love anyone more than her. All he could think about was getting to her, and then to safety.

  He suspected that Ron wasn’t being straight with him last night, and now it was obvious that he knew more than he was letting on. You didn’t lord over a town for as long as he did without hearing a few things.

  Please let Trish be alive, he thought as the cruiser barreled down one street, and then another. The town never felt so big, and he never felt more helpless. Not even in New York City.

  The fact that Galeberg couldn’t tell him if his wife was there—alive—brought worried tears to his eyes.

  It’ll be my fault if she’s hurt.

  Brady clenched his jaw and pushed the pedal further, as if forcing it through the floor would make it go faster.

  ***

  Trish watched her father from across the room—a shotgun in his lap while he rocked in the old creaking chair. He was positioned so he could see outside between the slats of the drawn window shade.

  It was the only source of light coming into the house.

  She was a prisoner. Sitting on the floor, her knees pulled close to her face, Trish was long past the onset of cabin fever. When she got up to use the bathroom, it warranted an explanation and an escort—at least to the door. They ate canned food in pitch black while her suggestion at least to use the gas stove to warm the contents went entirely ignored.

  “Dad,” she tried for the umpteenth time, “I’m not going to stay here if you don’t tell me what’s happening.”

  He didn’t flinch.

  Trish got up to pace the length of the living room. The soles of her feet were cold on the red hardwoods. They had to go barefoot to reduce the noise. When she asked who they were hiding from, he went quiet. The people that had been outside of her house with knives probably had a lot to do with it.

  Her muscles felt tight as she stretched and thought of Nate. This was the first time since moving back that she could actually say she missed him. It was because she was scared, obviously, but she would give anything to be with him now.

  She would’ve called him just to say that if Dad hadn’t smashed her phone to pieces while screaming that they couldn’t trust anyone.
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br />   “I was almost out,” she said mournfully.

  “Sweetie?” He rustled in the chair. “You say something?”

  “I said that you have to talk to me. This is giving me the creeps. You are giving me the creeps.”

  Dad eyed the window slat, studying the sliver of light like a foreign object. Then he rose and crossed the room with arms outstretched.

  Trish met him with reluctant steps and curled her arms beneath his shoulders. First time in a while he felt like her old man.

  “I’m keeping us safe, honey. That’s all.”

  “I know…I just…well, I need to call Nate.”

  “Trust me, Nate is better off on his own now. We can’t help him.”

  She pounded a fist against his chest in frustration, freaked by his ominous words. Anger bubbled up over everything he’d ever done—from punishing her as a kid, to sending Mom away like a dirty secret. She couldn’t stand to see him now, for a myriad of reasons. His hug wasn’t a gesture of love, it was one last attempt to stem her anxiety.

  “Stop that,” he said, “I don’t need you making this much noise.”

  “Why,” she said, every syllable getting louder. If he was going to keep her here like a grounded teenager, she was going to rebel in the only way she had left. “I want to talk to my husband!” She was yelling now.

  “Honey, I’m trying to protect you.”

  “From who?”

  “From them.”

  “Who? Tell me!”

  The cellar door swung out as if on cue, and someone was in the room with them—a woman whose face was obscured by the darkness. She went right for Dad with a butcher’s knife just as every window in the living room exploded. Wiggling hands were inside now, breaking the panes apart, trying to force them open.

  Trish screamed but her father was on top of it. He deflected the woman’s assault and screamed for Trish to close the basement door. She ran to it, slamming it shut as a second silhouette—this one a man—made his way up the steps. She jimmied a chair beneath the knob and hoped it would hold.