Every Last Fear

by Alex Finlay

  “Before we go on the trip,” Maggie said, “I need you to watch something.” She drew her laptop from her bag and placed it on the counter. “And if after you see it, you still think we should go, I won’t say another word.”

  Evan was intrigued. “Of course, sweetie. What is it?”

  Maggie tapped on her laptop. A video came up. She clicked play and Evan’s heart was in his throat at the image on the screen.

  Charlotte. Alive. Standing in front of a cluster of computer monitors. Her outfit was familiar. Then it hit him. She was wearing the same sweatshirt as Maggie.

  Then Charlotte spoke: “Dad, it’s me. I know it looks like Charlotte, but it’s me. And if I can do this in Toby’s garage, whoever called you could too.”

  Excerpt from

  A Violent Nature

  Season 1/Episode 9

  “The Smasher”

  INSERT – LOCAL NEWS FOOTAGE

  A reporter stands in front of razor-wire fencing surrounding a prison.

  REPORTER

  Bobby Ray Hayes pled guilty to killing seven women, a deal prosecutors took to give the families closure. But questions remain about whether the Smasher had more victims. The prison wouldn’t allow me to meet with Hayes in person, but they permitted us to talk by phone. Viewers are warned that what you’re about to hear is highly disturbing and not suitable for younger viewers.

  CUT TO the reporter sitting in an office in front of a speakerphone.

  HAYES (O.S.)

  You want to know what I did to them?

  REPORTER

  No, I wanted to talk about whether there are other victims.

  HAYES

  When I was ten, my mom’s boyfriend would take me up to the old warehouse by the train tracks in Plainsville. Mom was real happy ’bout it, like I finally had a father, you know?

  REPORTER

  Was this Travis Fegin?

  HAYES

  Travis would bring some pot and beer and a bag full of melons. I was like, what in the hell he doin’ with the melons? But then we’d go up five stories, and drop the melons and bottles from the roof. Travis got the idea from some old late-night talk show. We’d have a good ol’ time laughing and watching stuff splatter on the cement. But then Travis would want to play another game.…

  REPORTER

  Travis Fegin disappeared when you were twelve.

  Hayes snickers through the phone.

  HAYES

  Did he now?

  REPORTER

  Did you—

  HAYES

  So the first girl, the one ridin’ her bike home from school. I took her up there. You wanna know what I did to her before I chucked her off the roof?

  REPORTER

  I’m here to talk about whether there were any other victims. To give you a chance to—

  HAYES

  She was so young, so smooth, she didn’t understand.…

  A GUARD’s voice bellows in the background.

  GUARD (O.S.)

  Get your [bleep] pants on!

  There’s more yelling and then the sound of a dial tone.

  CHAPTER 38

  MATT PINE

  The bed at the Adair Motel was as hard as he’d expected. Matt wrestled with the sheets, his thoughts jumping from his call with Keller, to the scuffle at the bar, to Jessica Wheeler. He shifted his eyes to the plastic alarm clock: 2:34 A.M.

  Maybe he should go for a run. No, he should try to go back to sleep, but he was too wired. Possible foul play, Agent Keller had said. It was hard to get his head around that. Who’d want to kill his family? They wouldn’t have brought much money to Mexico. And who would kill a little boy? Maybe Keller would have some answers. They’d agreed to meet at the diner in the morning.

  From there, he’d go visit his grandpa. Spend some time with his aunt.

  Matt startled at a tap on the door. He sat up. Had he really heard that, or was it just his imagination? He clicked on the lamp, listened.

  He padded in bare feet to the door and put an eye to the peephole, but no one was there. He stepped over to the heavy curtains and opened them a crack. The parking lot was dimly lit, but he didn’t see anyone. Maybe it was Ganesh or Kala or one of his other friends.

  That was when he noticed something on the floor. Someone had slipped a folded sheet of paper under the door. A note wrapped in red string.

  He scooped it up, pulled at the string, and felt a flutter of excitement in his chest:

  MEET ME AT THE KNOLL AT 3 A.M. TONIGHT?

  YES OR NO

  CIRCLE ONE

  Matt remembered circling yes on an identical note seven years ago in science class. He checked the time again: 2:39 A.M. He could borrow the Escalade from Ganesh, but he’d been drinking. He could wake up Curtis to drive him. Or, if he went on foot, he could probably make it. He examined the note again. Then he threw on his shirt and jeans and reached for his sneakers.

  * * *

  Matt made it to the Knoll with five minutes to spare. He was sweaty, worried that he smelled from the run, but he was cooling off in the breeze. It was warmer tonight, but otherwise a lot like that night when he was in ninth grade: the leaves rustling overhead, the only light from the moon, which was intermittently covered by clouds. The same pounding in his chest. He wasn’t an innocent boy anymore, of course. He’d kissed his share of girls since then. But none had sent fire through him like Jessica Wheeler. He was glamorizing it all, he was sure. Why was it, he wondered, that we do that? Rosy up memories and make them idealized versions of what really happened.

  He stood at the center of the opening in the trees, imagining Jessica all those years ago appearing from the forest, holding a flashlight, wearing pajama bottoms and a tight sleep shirt. He reminded himself that he knew nothing of this girl—this woman—now. They were likely very different people. He’d spent his formative years in Chicago, college in New York. She’d stayed in Adair, apparently working at Pipe Layers. It had been only seven years, but that was a full third of their lives. But something about the way she’d pushed through the crowd at the bar, fearlessly taken charge and broken up the altercation, gave him the same rush he’d had in ninth grade.

  Matt scanned the area and didn’t see her. Maybe she’d thought better of it. Or it was a prank. Or worse, someone luring him up there to get some payback for the documentary’s hit job on the town. But he’d never told anyone of that night, and only Jessica knew about the note.

  A light appeared from the woods.

  Jessica ambled over to him. “You came.”

  She clicked the flashlight off and they stood there. In the silver haze he saw the girl from science class. The delicate heart-shaped face. She was older, her hair longer, more stylish. She was still about an inch shorter than Matt. They’d grown at the same pace. And those lips … Matt needed to snap out of it.

  The words were caught in his throat for some reason, so he just nodded.

  “Sorry for the sneaking around,” Jessica said. “You’re not the most popular guy in the world after that TV show. And I have a business to run.…”

  That explained it. She didn’t want to be seen with him. Wonderful. “You run the bar? I thought you just—”

  “… worked there as a dumb cocktail waitress?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m just playing with you,” she said. “After my brother’s accident, I had to put college on hold. Ricky couldn’t take over the place when my uncle got sick. Stanford let me defer for a while, but I think that ship has sailed. The bar does pretty well, though. There’s not much to do in Adair. But, as you can see, the hours suck.”

  “Stanford, wow.”

  “I wanted to get as far away as possible. See how that worked out?”

  “For both of us.”

  “Come on,” she said, “you can walk me home.”

  Matt followed her down the hill and to the worn path until they reached the large circular patch of grass and dirt everyone called the Hub. From there they took a dirt road th
at led to her childhood home. He was going to ask if she could still possibly live in the same house, but he thought better of it. He knew the answer and did not want to make her say it. They walked shoulder to shoulder along the narrow road.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Jessica said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, you haven’t exactly received a warm reception.”

  Matt released a noise of agreement.

  “I’m sorry about my brother,” she said. “He hasn’t been the same since the accident. He gets confused. And he doesn’t have many friends, so he shows off for those assholes who only hang out with him for the free drinks he sneaks them when I’m not looking.”

  Matt nodded. “What happened to him?”

  “Car wreck. Mangled more than his body. Traumatic brain injury. You wouldn’t notice the TBI at first, but if you talk to him for a while…”

  Matt gave her a sympathetic look. As a girl she’d been sweet, empathetic. It was what had attracted him. And by the sound of it, putting her life on hold to care for her brother, taking over the family business, she hadn’t changed.

  “So why’d you call me out here?” Matt asked, examining her profile in the pale light.

  This time it was Jessica who blushed. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “To say I’m sorry, I guess.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “I wasn’t exactly a good friend after what happened with your brother.”

  Matt thought about this. For the first time, he remembered that Jessica had ghosted him after Danny’s arrest. Avoided him at school. Not returned his calls. How was it possible he’d forgotten? He had such vivid memories of that night. The itchiness of the grass on his back as they lay watching the stars. The feel of her hand holding his as they walked this very path. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear in the prelude to the kiss.

  After Danny’s arrest it was a montage of misery, with lots of gaps in the timeline: his parents fighting. The sound of his father sobbing behind the closed bathroom door. The reporters outside the house. The receiver of the landline phone in the kitchen dangling off the hook. The whispers and stares whenever they went into town. The moving van. Maybe forgetting was a defense mechanism. Blocking out the unpleasantness.

  Matt had a troubling thought: maybe that was why Danny couldn’t remember anything about the night Charlotte was killed. Blocking out what he did.

  Jessica looked down at the grass. “If I could go back in time, I’d tell my mom I could be friends with whoever I wanted. I’d be stronger, a better friend. I saw the pain you were in, and I should’ve—”

  “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “But I do.”

  “Okay, you just did.” He smiled. “And I can honestly say I’ve never given it another thought.”

  They continued down the road, the sound of their footfalls filling the silence. “I’m so sorry about your family,” Jessica finally said.

  Matt nodded, still not sure how to respond to the condolences. As if acknowledging the tragedy made it real.

  “How long are you in town?” she asked, trying to evade the awkward moment.

  “I’m not sure. The funeral is Sunday. I’ll probably leave soon after that, depending on whether my aunt needs anything.”

  “Cindy is a character. I was surprised you weren’t staying with her.”

  “I’m deathly allergic to cats. All my friends from New York are staying at the Adair Motel, so it made sense.” The truth was that his aunt was best taken in small doses, so the cats were a convenient excuse.

  Jessica nodded as if she remembered his severe cat allergy, but he suspected she didn’t. Matt flashed to a memory of himself as a young boy, visiting a family friend, gasping for air, wheezing, his mother running the shower, rubbing his back, telling him to breathe in the steam.

  “A bunch of reporters were at the bar last night, complaining about the motel. I heard them talking, saying even more are on the way. The national newspeople.”

  “Not surprising. They love the Danny Pine show.” The never-ending fascination was an ongoing curiosity to Matt.

  “You aren’t kidding. They asked me a bunch of questions, but I said I didn’t know anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know, stuff about all the conspiracy theories.”

  Matt looked at her, gave a small shake of the head. He was probably the only person in the country who hadn’t kept up with the case. The vast conspiracies from the talking heads and internet detectives, grown men and women with too much time on their hands.

  “They asked if I’d ever seen any of the Hayes family in town, if I thought they’d have a reason to hurt your family.” The Smasher’s family. Matt had watched the documentary—just once, which was enough—but he’d never forget that sinister brood.

  Jessica went on, “One of the reporters had super-weird questions. Asked if I’d heard rumors that Charlotte was still alive, that she faked her death to get away from her dad. Or was taken by sex traffickers.”

  Matt snorted. “The tabloids…”

  “He said he was with the Chicago Tribune.”

  Matt shook his head in disgust.

  “They wanted to talk with Ricky, but I wouldn’t let them.”

  “Why would they want to talk to your brother?”

  “Didn’t you watch the documentary? Ricky was the one who identified the Unknown Partygoer.”

  Matt had no recollection of that. More memory gaps. “If he identified the U.P., which helps my brother’s case, then why did he say those things tonight about—”

  “I told you, he gets confused.”

  When he saw the yellow glow of her house’s porchlight in the distance, Matt experienced a moment of déjà vu.

  Jessica must’ve felt it too. “You remember that night we met here?” she asked.

  “A little,” Matt said. Just the softness of your lips, the volcano erupting inside me, the feeling I’ve been chasing since I was fourteen years old, before loneliness settled into my bones.

  “You?” Matt asked.

  “A little,” Jessica said in a playful tone that acknowledged they both were lying.

  Without thinking it through, Matt asked, “Did you see anything that night? Anything unusual?”

  She considered him. “Like, what do you mean?”

  He made no reply.

  “All I remember is you and me, right here.” She seemed to blush, since they were standing near the spot of the famous kiss. “And then later hearing Ricky’s truck pull up. He was drunk and had no business driving. He and his date were fighting.”

  She looked up at him now, as she had that night. Matt had the urge to pull her close, to kiss her. She had a similar look in her eyes.

  “It was great to see you, Jessica,” Matt said, breaking the spell. He held out his hand for a shake.

  The corner of her mouth turned upward. “It was good to see you too, Matthew. Let’s not make it another seven years.” She turned and vanished into the darkness, just like she’d done that night.

  Matt ambled back along the road to the Hub. He stopped in the grass at the center, the moon peeking out from the clouds, providing a sliver of light. He half expected to see the back of his brother’s letterman jacket—PINE in yellow letters above the shoulder blades—pushing a wheelbarrow toward the creek. All at once, he had another memory that had eluded him: the figure stopping in shadows, head pivoting toward Matt. The darkness concealed his face. Yet there was no question: he was staring directly at Matt.

  CHAPTER 39

  OLIVIA PINE

  BEFORE

  Liv tipped the bottle so the rest of the pinot noir dripped into her glass. She’d already dispatched a text to Noah, apologizing that she couldn’t make it to dinner. After the encounter with Detective Ron Sampson’s former partner and widow, she’d had her fill of the past. Of this town. She’d have time to lobby Noah to grant the pardon after he was appointed
governor. So she’d resorted to every parent’s secret weapon to get out of an engagement: Tommy’s not feeling well.

  The truth was that Cindy took Tommy out to dinner. Liv didn’t know if it was because her sister really wanted auntie time with Tommy before they left tomorrow, like she’d said, or if she’d sensed that Liv needed some alone time. Cindy had left not one but two bottles of pinot on the counter, so Liv thought it was the latter. Liv was twisting the corkscrew into the second bottle when her cell phone chimed.

  She was going to ignore it, but ever since that morning with Danny when she’d let her calls go to voicemail on her race home from the hotel, she never ignored calls.

  Certain things made her superstitious, irrationally so. She’d been taking a nap in the middle of the day when her mom died, and she never napped during the day again. It brought bad things. It had been a lazy winter afternoon when she’d snuggled up with the family dog and gone to sleep, then awoken to Cindy shaking her shoulders, bawling, the last time she’d seen her big sister cry. So no matter how tired she was, she never napped. Even in college, and even when the kids were babies and she was dead on her feet, she never, ever took a midday snooze. Similarly, after she missed Maggie’s call saying the police had taken Danny—correction, after she’d ignored Maggie’s call—she never let a phone go unanswered.

  “Hello,” she said expecting a telemarketer or robocall.

  “Mrs. Pine, this is Alvita from Twilight Meadows,” the woman said in a Jamaican accent. “I’m afraid your father is missing.”

  * * *

  It was bad enough she had to deal with her father sneaking out of the home on her last night in town, but even worse was having to ask Noah for help. She’d had too much wine to drive. And she didn’t want to ruin Cindy’s evening with Tommy or put her son through the ordeal. She had little choice but to call him. Besides, she told herself, Noah would be better with the nursing home staff. And he liked playing the white knight; he always had.

  “He’s gonna be fine,” Noah said, his hand on the steering wheel. He was one of those people who never lost their cool. She couldn’t recall a single instance when Noah Brawn had lost his shit. When she’d broken it off in college, he was as cool as a cucumber. It wasn’t that he lacked passion. His speeches on false confessions were the stuff of a brimstone preacher. Even his stump speech for mayor back in the day had some fire in it. It was just that his steady-as-they-go demeanor also revealed an emotional distance.