by Koethi Zan
That version of the girl would have been so extraordinary, so special.
But it was ruined. Now Cora knew better than to believe anything that came out of the mouth of that deceitful, wicked girl. She could never be trusted again no matter how cleverly she wheedled and cajoled and spun her devious lies. That girl wasn’t part of the Revelation after all.
How had it taken Cora so long to learn that everyone would betray her? Everyone she’d ever known had used her for their own purposes, manipulated her to do their bidding. Her father and Reed and James, they’d just wanted to control her, each in their own way. They never cared about her, never asked her how she felt or what she wanted. No more though. Her needs would come first.
The girl would be more trouble this way, of course, locked up inside the room for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t be able to do her fair share of the cooking and cleaning, as Cora had once imagined. As usual she’d be left with the heavy lifting.
Maybe James had been right after all, and, once the child was born, she should drop the girl off at some distant location and relieve herself of the burden. But would she ever rest easy again if she did that? The girl knew what she looked like, had seen too much. She could just picture the police sketch they’d come up with. It was a risk she could not take. It was unfortunate, but it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t create this situation. She was merely doing her best with what she’d been handed.
Cora sighed as she opened the prescription bottle she’d found in the hall bathroom, poured three Vicodin pills into her palm, and crumbled them into a glass of water that she held to the girl’s lips, watching to make sure it went down. That would help settle her sleep, lessen the pain a bit.
She put her hands on the girl’s stomach and waited. Yes, her baby was still kicking, still alive. Cora closed her eyes with relief, reassured.
After tucking the covers around the girl and switching off the light, she closed the door gently behind her and locked and double-checked it with great care. No more chances with this one.
In the morning she’d give the wound a thorough cleaning to avoid infection. Eventually the girl would wake, and she’d put her through a series of exercises to keep the muscles from stiffening up. It would help her heal. Cora knew best.
As her foot hit the first stair though, she stopped, steadying herself with one hand on the rail. She’d heard a sound from outside. She was sure of it.
Well, it had happened at last. She’d been expecting something like this ever since Ellie and that feeble-looking husband of hers had come over. She’d probably been checking in on Cora daily since that fateful visit, had maybe even heard the gunshots the other night. What if they’d been crouching in the shadows, spying on her all this time, waiting for that perfect moment to storm the house and apprehend her?
After flicking off the hall lights, she crept down the stairs in darkness, prowling silently through each of the unlit rooms, peering through the windows looking for movement. If she kept quiet, maybe they’d think everyone had gone to sleep. Sick old ladies like Mrs. Johnson need their rest after all. They’d get bored waiting it out. They’d go home. Maybe start minding their own damn business.
Her ears perked up at a scraping sound by the landing off the back door. At least they wouldn’t see anything over there, for she’d boarded up the broken panes with two pieces of plywood from the basement, intending to leave it that way until spring when she could replace the window.
There, she’d heard it for sure that time, the tinkling of broken glass that lay outside the door. She hadn’t cleaned it up and now she was grateful it was there to warn her of impending danger.
The shotgun leaned against the cabinets in the butler’s pantry. She reached on top of the refrigerator where she kept the cartridge case and prepared to reload and defend her home.
Her chest tightened as she remembered James’s body under the snow behind the gazebo, stiff and frozen, a macabre mannequin posed for the grave. It wasn’t visible, but a meddling snoop could happen upon it easily enough. She’d meant to deal with it earlier, but then so much had happened. And now someone was traipsing around back there, looking for trouble.
It had to be Ellie. No one else had any inkling that things were amiss at the old Johnson place. She was sure of it.
Unless it was the FBI. Maybe Ellie had called the hotline or they’d been able to trace the girl’s computer when Cora had gone online. What if they’d been working with Ellie all this time? Maybe she’d worn a wire when she’d brought the chicken soup. She’d been inside the house after all. She could have drawn them a floor plan so they could work up an elaborate rescue scheme. They could be surrounding the house right now.
Cora slunk into the living room and stealthily crossed over to the window on the northeast corner, positioning herself with her back to the wall and the shotgun ready. The back porch light shone dimly but it was enough for her to see the extra set of footprints in the snow.
Her heart went to her throat. It wasn’t her imagination. Someone was definitely out there.
She gripped the gun tighter, placed her finger squarely on the trigger, not breathing, just listening. A gust of wind blew hard for a moment, stirring the fallen snow, whipping it up like smoke before it drifted back down to settle in place again.
Someone was out there who wanted to take everything away from her. If it was just Ellie and her husband, she could handle them. She’d lived with James long enough to know people can disappear. One by one, she could dispose of anyone who dared to disturb her family. But if they sent in the troops, if they overwhelmed her, then it was all over.
If only she hadn’t printed out that picture.
Everything was silent now. Cora strained to hear, but only her heart beat in her ears.
Had they gone, satisfied they could learn nothing more that night? Or were they in position, waiting for her to make one false move? Perhaps they’d only been scoping the place out and would return later, armed and ready to raid.
She took a hand off the gun long enough to wipe the sweat beading on her brow. Her legs were growing stiff, so she slid down the wall to the floor, steadying the shotgun between her bent knees. She’d sit there all night – every night – if she had to, waiting for the sound of breaking glass and the leather-gloved hand of the intruder reaching through the open pane, the scream when Ellie came across James’s body in the snow, the quiet knock at the door when they would claim they were ‘just stopping by to say hi’. She’d die fighting them off, protecting what she had here. This farm was her only reason to live, without it she was nothing.
Why couldn’t they leave her alone? James was gone. There’d be no more trouble if they let her live in peace. She’d finish out her days simply, with a steady routine, without bothering anyone.
She glanced out the window again. She could see the stars from that vantage point: Ursa Major. Cassiopeia. Cepheus. They comforted her.
Everything would work out just fine. It had to.
She only wanted a home after all. That’s all she’d ever wanted, she thought as she drifted off to sleep clutching the shotgun. That was the only thing that mattered.
A home for her and her precious child.
CHAPTER 53
Adam stood on the front porch of the house the next morning, screwing up his courage to knock. It looked empty but there was a truck in the driveway. Someone must be here. If her husband were home, he’d say he had the wrong house. But if he found Laura there alone, he’d talk his way in. He’d get her attention with her picture and then explain what he knew about her past. Once she realized he’d destroyed the evidence from Stillwater, she would see that she didn’t need this hidden life with James. No one could hold anything over her head anymore. She could be free. He’d save her.
The snow had finally stopped falling but the farm was blanketed with it. He pulled his coat tighter against the frigid air, then took off a glove and knocked. No one answered. He put his ear up to the glass but heard nothing. Quiet as th
e grave.
Peering through the window, he could see a fire burning in the hearth. They couldn’t have gone for long.
Putting his glove back on and stuffing his hands in his coat pockets for good measure, he walked around to the back of the house, thinking there might be someone out at the barn. Stomping through the deep snow, he followed the tracks he’d made last night, realizing with dismay that his boots had left distinctive marks. He wondered if anyone had noticed, but in the end it wouldn’t matter, because today was the day he would act.
He circled the barn and the chicken coop, but all was silent and still except the squawk of the birds.
He looked around, trying to decide his next move. He remembered the poorly repaired back door and decided to see if there was a way in. As he approached, however, he thought he caught a glimpse of something moving in a window upstairs. Was it his imagination or was someone there after all? If so, why didn’t they come to the door? He thought of the old woman then, a detail he hadn’t reckoned with. Perhaps she’d been left there alone and couldn’t make it downstairs.
Adam hoped she hadn’t spied him. What if the sight of a strange man lurking about the property put her into cardiac arrest? Or what if at that very moment she was on the phone with the police, ruining his plan?
He ran to the gazebo to hide while he sussed out the situation. He needed a minute to think.
As he squatted behind the wide post of the gazebo’s frame, he noticed that his knee didn’t sink as far into the snow as he’d expected. The snow formed a mound tucked up against the edge of the boards. There was something under there.
He kicked at the spot to figure out what he’d landed on.
As the snow scattered, he hit upon something hard, like a prong with blunt edges. As he brushed away the last bits of snow, four fingers stuck out at him, curled up, rigid and blue.
Jesus Christ.
With a sharp cry, he pulled back, then quickly glanced up at the house to make sure he hadn’t been heard. Nothing stirred.
He looked over at the stiff hand, marshaled his courage, and burrowed further into the area above the fingers. Finally he uncovered the brass buttons of a work coat and the stiff collar of a flannel shirt. He knew exactly where the head would be now, but he paused, reluctant to reveal the empty face of death he’d seen so many times before.
He sat down and closed his eyes, picturing the newspaper copy describing his bravery and the medal they would pin to his chest.
He took a deep breath and kept going.
And then the snow gave up its secret. There it was, the blue face, morgue-ready and perfectly preserved by the cold, its eyes staring straight ahead and its frozen hair clinging to it like tentacles. The neck had been slit and black ice clung around the edges of the parted flesh.
Adam, stunned, turned away with a jerk.
‘Shit,’ he said quietly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. This wasn’t what he’d expected. His fingers itched for his gun, but they’d taken it when he’d left the force.
A whirl of wind disturbed the even snow between him and the house, then everything went still again. He peered carefully into the dark windows, but they were empty. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and glanced down at it. No signal.
He knew what the rational decision was. He should leave immediately and come back with the local cops. That was the smart move.
He started back toward his car, but something stopped him. That body wasn’t going anywhere and the farm was quiet now. Whatever had happened here seemed to be over. It wasn’t an emergency.
He’d worked on this case for three long years of his life. He wasn’t ready to share the glory until he’d gotten to the bottom of this.
No, he had to go in there. Laura Martin was his to save.
Turning away from the corpse, he trudged to the back door. He tentatively pulled at the plywood nailed up over it and found that it came off in his hands, leaving a gaping hole in front of him with sharp glass and wood framing the opening. Did the dead man make that hole? Was he an intruder and Laura Martin had been forced to defend herself? But no, the glass and wood splinters pointed in the other direction. Someone had broken out of that house.
Adam crawled through the hole and stepped into a small room that led to the kitchen, where he’d seen the fire burning. Everything was neat as a pin. The violence couldn’t have been that recent.
He grabbed a butcher knife from the block and continued on down the hall, peering into a small well-organized pantry filled with canned goods and jars of pickled vegetables. Next came a bathroom at the end that was being used for storage, boxes piled nearly to the ceiling.
He opened another door, which led to the living room. No one was in there either. It was a room out of time, with its yellow velveteen-covered loveseat, the curved mirror over the fireplace, and a rug spattered with sprays of flowers and entwined vines. He opened a drawer of the Chippendale-reproduction sideboard to find it filled with framed family photos. He lifted out one of a stern-looking bespectacled woman with an enormous bouffant, taken, he would guess, in the 1950s. Possibly Mrs. Johnson. His eyes went to the ceiling. Was she up there? Was she hurt? He was certain he’d heard another groan just above him.
He replaced the photo and carefully closed the drawer. His next stop was the dining room, where all seemed in order except for a broken chair tossed into a corner. He lifted it up, running his finger along the edge of the damaged leg. The bottom half of it lay on the floor a few feet away. A break that clean would have required serious force.
Something very strange was going on in this house.
Adam returned to the kitchen and took a deep breath. His heart thumped in his chest. This was his moment.
As he mounted the stairs, the photographs along the walls grew progressively more ancient. The history of a family now reduced to one lonely soul who was caught up in a story she was likely too decrepit to understand.
At the top, there were four doors along the hall, two closed and two open. The farthest one on the left had a row of deadbolt locks on the outside and a small slit had been cut into it.
His heart pounded harder. Did Laura Martin’s husband keep her locked in the bedroom when he was out? If so, things were worse than he’d thought.
He hurried to the door, slid the window open, and peered into the room.
What he saw made him sick inside.
The room was unlike the rest of the house. It was not a room at all, but a cell, stripped down so that it was now nothing more than four bare walls and a boarded-up window, furnished sparsely with a bed, a sink, and a toilet of some kind. On the bed lay a pregnant woman in a white dress with long brown hair streaming out beside her. She was far too young to be either Laura Martin or Mrs. Johnson.
‘Hey,’ he called out.
She didn’t move.
‘Hey, you there.’ He said it louder, looking back over his shoulder to make sure no one below had heard him.
After another long pause, she finally swung her head around. Adam was horrified. Gaunt and pale, with her face screwed up in pain, she looked like a skeleton, like the walking dead. She shifted toward him with what appeared to be an extraordinary effort. Her right shoulder was wrapped in a bandage and a spot of blood the size of a fist had leaked through.
What had been done to this poor girl?
Adam’s heart raced. It was something out of a horror movie.
The girl struggled to sit up. She seemed dazed and her head wobbled up and down. Slowly, but with a look of determination on her face, she swung her feet around to the floor and gripped the side of the bed to steady herself. Her thin dress appeared to be some kind of old-fashioned evening gown. None of this made any sense. How did it connect with the dead body outside or the broken window and chair?
‘Who – who are you?’ She was obviously trying to concentrate through excruciating pain.
‘I’m the police. I’ve come to get you out of here.’ The words came out by instinct.
; Her lips trembled.
‘Am I dreaming you? Are you another one of those hallucinations?’
‘I’m real. I’m here to help you.’ He couldn’t believe it. He could save two of them. In fact, maybe there were other women hidden elsewhere in this house. He had to check behind the closed doors, the basement, the attic. What had he stumbled upon?
The girl began to breathe heavily, possibly hyperventilating. He was afraid she might faint.
‘It’s okay. Just stay calm. I’m going to get you out.’
She stood up shakily and stumbled to the door, pressing her hand up to the slit of the window.
‘Please hurry. Before she comes back.’
‘She?’
‘That horrible bitch. She tried to kill me. Look at me, damn it.’
Adam attempted to pry open the locks with the butcher knife, with no luck. The girl’s forehead pressed up against it, her panicked eyes staring up at him.
‘What the fuck are you doing? Shoot the fucking locks.’ Adam needed to talk her down but the truth was, he was freaking out now too. They didn’t run workshops to cover this particular circumstance.
‘Okay, well, I—’ he began, flustered.
‘Well, you what? Just shoot.’ She was screaming now.
‘I can’t, I can’t,’ he yelled back, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t have a gun.’
‘What?’ she screeched. ‘You people finally find me, and they send in a cop who doesn’t have a gun? Are you kidding me?’
‘I wasn’t exactly expecting this.’
She looked puzzled. ‘Weren’t you looking for me?’
There was no time to explain.
‘The keys. Do you know where they keep the keys?’
‘How the fuck am I supposed to know where they keep the keys?’ The girl was out of her mind. Maybe he should just leave her there and come back with reinforcements.
‘Listen, I’m going to get some help.’
