Ashley, still a mess, listened intently as she sat next to Keith. The children were in the living room; they’d been allowed to stay home from school that day. They were all traumatized over the disappearance of their baby brother.
“Well, I’ll head to your house now, and we’ll take a statement. Get some information about your boy, and in the meantime, I’ll have my junior detective contact our search and rescue team.”
The Marshall’s were frustrated that the detective acted so nonchalant. It was as though they weren’t being taken seriously. With no other options, he let the detective go so he could start working the case and deploy the search and rescue team. The timber was thick in the woods that sat on their acreage and there were a lot of ravines; it wouldn’t be hard for nature to claim his son.
About 20 minutes later, Keith observed a charcoal-colored sedan pulling up to the house. He walked out on the front porch to greet the detective.
“Hello. Are you Detective Roderick?” he asked.
“Yes, and I assume you’re Keith?”
“I am. Come in, please,” he invited the senior detective inside.
The children were spread out across the living room watching cartoons. Ashley dismissed them to their rooms so they could speak privately with the detective.
“Would you like some coffee?” she offered.
“Please.”
“Look, detective, I don’t mean any disrespect, but it seems as though you guys are taking your time. What’s going on?” Keith asked.
“I assure you, we’re already on it. As I was gathering your case information to leave the office, my junior detective, Shayna Johnson, was already coordinating with the search and rescue team. They should be here within the hour.”
Keith studied the detective as he spoke. He appeared to be in his mid-50s; his once brown hair now had long, gray streaks randomly woven into various patches of his head. Mainly above his sideburns, but the gray splashes appeared throughout his hair. He was overweight by almost 100 pounds as the buttons on his shirt looked as though they’d pop at the seams. Wearing his pants below his belly, his legs seemed short in comparison to his torso, even though they were roughly the same height.
“Where do we start?” Ashley asked as she placed the coffee in front of the detective.
“Tell me about him. Does he have any special needs? Any medications? Any disabilities? What does he like to do? Things like that,” he said as he got his pen and paper handy.
Ashley sat in the chair opposite of the detective. “No, he’s not on any medications, nor does he have any disabilities or special needs. Why does this matter?” she asked, frustrated.
“We need to know if he might be at risk out in the woods by himself. Now, tell me, what does your son like to do? Walk me through a typical day with him?”
“He’s just your typical two-year-old, he likes to play with cars, trucks and color,” Keith spoke up.
“I noticed you have cows and chickens. Does he ever feed them or go out to look at them?”
“Yes, he does,” Ashley started. “He sometimes spreads the chicken feed out on the ground, but he usually doesn’t go around the cows.”
“I see. I’m going to step outside to call Detective Johnson to see how the progress is coming with the search team. How many acres do you own?”
“Forty-five,” Keith told him.
“What’s on them?”
“I honestly don’t know. We’ve never really explored it. To my knowledge, it’s just wooded acreage that came with the house. I do know there are a couple of ponds, and some creeks that run through the woods,” he explained.
“Okay, I’ll give her a call and see what we come up with,” he said, shutting the folder as he stood up.
The search and rescue effort turned up nothing on the first day; 24 hours since Bryce had gone missing. As the days passed with no sight of the boy, police began to doubt Ashley’s account of what actually happened. It seemed impossible to them that the toddler could’ve gotten that far away if she were only on the other side of the kitchen for such a short amount of time. Was she telling them the truth? The detective wondered.
Chapter 6
The family was heartbroken and scared over Bryce’s disappearance. Ashley had nightmares nearly every night about her son drowning in one of the creeks that ran through their property. Sometimes they were different. He was running through the woods and fell into a deep ravine and was buried alive as he tried to climb his way back up the hillside. Other times, he was eaten by coyotes as he slept on the cold April ground. She knew one thing, though, she was going to keep a tight rein on the rest of her children. They weren’t allowed to go outside alone and Ashley began limiting when the girls could go to sleepovers with their friends. The children hated it; it felt as though they were permanently grounded. But they also understood. They were fearful as well; they didn’t want to go missing like their little brother did.
Keith was beginning to feel guilty about not telling Ashley about the gruesome occurrences he’d experienced with the raccoon and the dog. His mind plagued him as he started to feel as though he might have been able to prevent Bryce’s disappearance if he’d told her about those things. It was unbearable to watch his wife cry herself to sleep every night—on the nights when she actually did sleep. He noticed that she’d started to develop insomnia shortly after the baby went missing. She walked around with swollen, puffy eyelids every day; her face flushed. As much as it broke his heart that his child was missing, it was harder to watch her deal with it. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about it to her and let her know his feelings or thoughts on the matter.
While at work one afternoon in May, he decided that he should share his story about the raccoon and dog with her. He needed to get it off his chest and clear his mind. Maybe, together, they could piece everything together. The opened door on the van, the open living room window, the dead raccoon, the massacred rabbits and the gutted dog. He thought it was possible that those things might have been related to Bryce’s disappearance; though, it was a shot in the dark. A long shot. What would animals have to do with anything? Still, he had to tell her. At least to make himself feel better.
When he came home that night, Ashley was still awake. It didn’t surprise him to find her staring out the kitchen window. She did that regularly now. He wasn’t sure if she was doing it because it was the last place she saw the baby or if she hoped he’d come back. There was no way he would ask her which it was. As he walked into the kitchen and sat his briefcase on the table, she didn’t even turn to see who it was. She’d been in a zombie-like state. It was as though all the lights were on, but no one was home.
“Ashley?” he attempted to get her attention.
“Hm?” she answered, not turning away from the window.
“Ashley? Can you at least look at me? I wanted to talk to you,” he said.
She turned to look at him. Her eyes were watery, as though she was on the verge of tears.
“Honey, come sit down. This is important,” he pulled out a chair for her.
She walked over to the table and sat down waiting to hear what he had to say.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she lied. She was far from fine. Her baby was gone and the search and rescue efforts had been called off the week before.
“Baby, you’re not fine, but I need to tell you something,” he rubbed the back of his neck.
Her eyes darted at him; the look on his face wasn’t pleasant.
He began to unbutton the top two buttons of his white dress shirt as he removed his tie and kicked his shoes off under the table.
“What?” she swallowed, mortified that he had news about Bryce that she might not want to hear.
“There were some things that happened that I never told you about. I’m not even sure if I should bring them up now, but I feel like I need to. You ever get that gut feeling that you need to say something?”
She nodded, waiting for him to
continue.
“Okay,” he took a deep breath and exhaled. “Do you remember when the living room window was open?”
Her eyes bulged as she shook her head, “Yes.”
“Not too long after that, something else happened…and I hid it from you,” he looked away. He loathed confessing that he’d hid something from his wife.
“What?” she desperately asked.
“One night when I came home from work, I was on my way into the house and was looking down at my key ring. I was trying to find the house key. When I walked past the oak tree in the front yard, there was a bloody raccoon hanging from one of the branches. He was strung up with a rope, and I walked right into him.”
“Oh my, God. What did you do?” she asked, listening carefully to every word that came out of his mouth. He told her the gory details about what the raccoon looked like.
“I got a knife and cut him down. Then I tossed it into a bag, along with my shirt and threw it all away.”
“Why did you hide it from me?” she gasped as she heard the details.
“Because I didn’t want you to be more worried than you already were,” he looked at her. “But there’s more.”
“There’s more? Please tell me you started with the worst story first.”
He shook his head. “No, actually, I didn’t. And I’m going in order. Do you remember the rabbit ordeal?”
She nodded, “Yes, did you see who or what did it?”
“No, but I never thought it was a fox. I mean, it is a possibility, but I doubted it because of the raccoon. With it being around Halloween time, I thought maybe it was sick, teenage pranksters. Or devil worshippers. Hell, I don’t know,” he said, getting up to make himself a cup of coffee.
“What else?” she asked.
“Well, that was why I suggested that we get a dog. I thought getting Peanut would put an end to it all. You know?”
She shook her head, “But it didn’t. Maybe if that dumb dog hadn’t run off, Bryce would’ve stayed in the yard.”
“That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you,” he confided in her. Lowering his voice, he began to recount what happened the night he found Peanut’s carcass on the front porch.
“Are you serious? He was gutted and his intestine were spilling out onto the porch?” her mouth hung open in awe. “I don’t get it, though. Why are you just now telling me these things? Why not say when it happened? Or why not keep it to yourself?”
“I don’t know. Something told me that I should tell you these things. I’m sorry I didn’t do it before. Do you think they have any relation to each other or Bryce’s disappearance?”
“I’m not sure if I see a coincidence in any of them, but I can’t imagine who would do any of these things. Now, if you would’ve asked me that question before, I would’ve told you it was probably my dad. But my mom’s been dead for years and her obituary said Tim preceded her in death.”
“I know. He instantly came to my mind as well, but with him being dead, that’s impossible. I mean, there’s no such thing as ghosts—right?” Keith sipped his coffee.
“Yeah,” she meekly offered, wondering how everything added up.
§
The children were bored all summer, cooped up in the house. They begged their parents to play outside, but Keith and Ashley wouldn’t hear of it. Keith’s mother lived over an hour away, and the only time they were free from their parents were the few trips they were able to make to their grandma’s house. Once, Chloe got to spend a weekend with their local church at a summer camp get-together; but other than that, the children stayed inside. Ashley and Keith could see how bored the kids were so they tried to keep them busy with video games, puzzles, and books. At first the kids liked their new gaming system, but they quickly grew tired of it.
At the beginning of the next school year, Chase was going into first grade and had a severe case of cabin fever. The family was beginning to adjust to the loss of their baby and were struggling to move past their fear and grief. Though, they were still cautious in regards to the children’s whereabouts. September was the last month in Missouri that the children could possibly play outside before the cold weather began to set in. The kids were very well aware of this. Chase begged his mom to ride his bike around the property. He was probably the most bored among the children, and she knew it.
“But please, mom, can’t I just ride my bike on some of the trails on the property? For a little while?”
“No, Chase. I don’t want anything happening to you,” she reasoned with him. It had been her excuse all summer.
“I’m not a baby like Bryce. I’m seven years old! And I’ll be eight soon!” he protested.
The Bryce comment struck a chord with her. She knew he had a point, and she couldn’t keep them locked up like prisoners all the time.
“Let me talk to your dad, okay?” she cooed, trying to put him at ease.
“Mom, I want to ride my bike,” he pouted on the couch.
“I know. Let me go talk to your dad,” she repeated as she made her way into the den.
Keith was working on paperwork from the bank when she entered the room. He hardly noticed her.
“Babe?” she asked.
“What?” he answered. He continued focusing on the papers in front of him as he scribbled down numbers on another sheet of paper.
“Chase wants to ride his bike along some of the trails on the property. We can’t keep them inside forever. I was wondering if you could take him. Go with him to make sure nothing happens,” she added.
“Huh?” he looked up at her.
“Will you take Chase on a bike ride? He’s so bored, and I’m trying to start dinner,” she looked at him sympathetically.
He sighed as he looked at the mounted paperwork on his desk. “All right, I’ll take him out for a bit. But when I come back, I’ve got to get these files finished.”
“Thank you!” she said, kissing him. “Chase is on the couch pouting right now. He’ll be so excited when you tell him,” she smiled as she headed back to the kitchen.
Keith took him biking as he’d promised. The two rode all the trails around the property, looping around from one trail to another. They had a great time. Chase’s favorite discovery that day was when he found “the big hill” at the rear of the woods before the final trail cut off. It was nothing spectacular, just a huge dirt hill. When you reached the top, you could overlook most of the land. Farmers probably used it back in the day when they clearing out some of the land for cattle and herds; pushing large mounds of dirt to the back of the property. They found it not long before heading home; it was about six acres out from the house. Chase couldn’t wait to tell his mom about it.
“Mom!” Chase yelled as his dirty shoes tracked footprints across the white kitchen floor.
“Chase! Take those shoes off! You’re scattering clumps of dirt and mud everywhere,” she sighed.
He walked back over to the kitchen door and kicked off his shoes, “We found the coolest trails today! Dad and I rode our bikes through all the trails, and most of them make big loops. You could never get lost out there!”
She thought of Bryce and how he got lost out there, but he was only a toddler. “Oh yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah, and one of the loopty-loop trails ends on top of a huge dirt hill. And if you pedal fast enough, you go flying down it!”
She looked at Keith; he knew she’d disapprove of her son flying down big dirt hills on his bike. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Why don’t you boys go wash up? Dinner’s almost ready…and your dad and I have some talking to do,” she looked at him sternly.
For the next few weeks, Keith and Chase began to form a strong bond as they rode their bikes all over the property. Keith couldn’t help but scan the woods for Bryce as they rode along; though, Chase never knew his dad did that. Soon, Keith was back to working long hours at the bank and was unable to take Chase anymore. Ashley refused to leave the house with the girls being left alone. Her so
n begged and pleaded with her to go bike riding.
“See, mom, it’s safe,” he tried bargaining with her. “When Dad took me, nothing ever happened. I never got hurt.”
“I know you never did,” she said as she did a crossword puzzle at the kitchen table.
“Mom!” he slammed his hand down on the kitchen table to make her look at him. “Can I go, please?” His eyes were pleading with her.
She knew she had to put her fears aside for the sake of her children. There had to be some point where she could start to trust again.
“Okay,” she said. “But! I want you to take my cell phone and keep it on you at all times. You call me if you get lost, get hurt or if you get too tired to come back. Anything. You call me. Do you understand? I’ll come and get you.”
The Silencer: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 21
