Ellie didn’t answer him. Instead, he heard the latch on the bathroom door click, and it opened. She slipped out, shutting the door behind her. Her face looked carved in stone. It was a look David had never seen before on her: unwavering strength. It was a face that could lead an army into battle. In a way, it comforted him. This was her show now; she was taking control of the situation.
“I think you need to go downstairs and call the sheriff’s department. Tell Sheriff Gaines he needs to come out here. And make sure he brings Deputy Carlisle with him,” she said, talking softly but concisely.
“Deputy Carlisle” was Deputy Catherine Carlisle, and of the fifteen members of law enforcement in Heartsridge County—which was made up of West Elm, Piermont, and Heartsridge—she was the only female.
“Why? What did…” he tried to say, but his words fell away. Kara’s face: the bruises, the cuts, the ghost. He knew exactly what had happened to his daughter, only he refused to vocalize or fully accept it. “Is she all right?”
“No, she’s not all right. She was raped, David.” Ellie closed her eyes and paused for a moment. She sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. Don’t apologize.” David’s tone was flat. He was off somewhere in his mind, processing what his wife had just thrown at him.
Raped. There it was. That word: raped. He tried to focus as his wife spoke, but his mind spun. He wanted to keel over and cry. Why hadn’t he been there to protect her? She was his little girl, and he’d promised her he’d always be there. He couldn’t understand how someone could do this to her. He felt as though he were drowning, trying to stay afloat while sifting through his mind for an explanation. But there were no explanations, and all he cared about right then was finding the man who’d done this to Kara and making him pay. David could picture himself beating some faceless perpetrator for what he’d done. He would beg for forgiveness but get none. He would cry that he was sick and couldn’t help himself, but David would not listen. He would go on beating him until there was no more life to take. But… Oh, God, I should’ve protected my daughter. What have I done?
“Are you sure? How do you know?” he asked.
“That’s what she told me.” Ellie cast the hair from her forehead, folding her arms across her chest and cupping her elbows with her hands. “She needs to see a doctor tonight, so call Dr. Hornsby too, and tell him to make sure he has one of his nurses there. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” David said, rubbing the side of his face and swallowing hard. “Jesus, how the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know. I can’t even imagine. Who would do such a thing? I mean, she’s only fifteen, for Christ sakes.”
“Can you tell me what she said? Did she say who did it?” he said impatiently. The emotion was misplaced, and he knew it. He didn’t know who or what to be mad at, so right now he was pissed at everything.
“No, she isn’t saying. Not yet, at least, but she’s still in shock, I think. When I ask her, she starts to get hysterical again and just shakes her head.” Ellie brushed away a tear.
David leaned up against the wall, trying to calm himself. He placed a hand gently on his wife’s shoulder. Ellie took his hand and squeezed it. “Did she say where she was attacked, at least?”
“No.” Ellie shook her head. “She hasn’t really said anything. But her feet and hands and knees are all covered in dirt. Honestly, I have no idea what happened…” Ellie trailed off. “David, raped? Really? Our little girl? How could this happen?” Ellie looked as if she might break into sobs, but she straightened, the strength returning, emotion swept beneath her face like crumbs under a rug.
“All right, go be with her. I’ll call the sheriff.” David took his hand off Ellie’s shoulder.
“Okay.” She hugged him. It was a long, lingering hug that was more like a pact to make it through this together. She turned around and slipped back inside the bathroom.
For the brief moment that the door was open, David could see his daughter sitting there on the side of the bathtub, staring straight ahead out the window, as if searching for something miles away on some distant horizon.
When the door was shut, he turned and made his way downstairs to call the sheriff’s department.
“David, sorry Carol put you on hold, what can I do for you?” Sheriff Gaines’s voice came through tinny and thin on the phone’s receiver.
David paused for a moment, sitting on the stool in the phone nook by the kitchen. The alcove was recessed into the wall about a foot, a dim yellow lightbulb hanging overhead. The space was filled with old phonebooks sitting at odd angles in thoughtless stacks. There was a wicker basket overfull of mail, phone messages, and coupons, pens and pencils tossed lazily among paper clutter. Phone numbers were scrawled on wrinkled scraps. Some were his handwriting, and some were Ellie’s. And then some were the sloppy and hasty writing that could only belong to a teenager—Kara’s writing. He took a deep, slow breath.
He imagined his daughter where he sat now, talking, laughing into the phone. She would be leaned over, twirling the cord in her fingers as she talked about who said what to whom at school and what boys were soooo cute! There was an innocence there, an innocence that David feared might not return to his little girl. The idea tightened his stomach. He felt the back of his throat fatten as the urge to cry washed over him. It was all too real. How could this happen? He wanted to weep for her but beat back the feeling. He needed to be strong here. He shut his eyes hard, wiping his mind clear and reminding himself of what he was doing.
“Hello?” Gaines repeated through the receiver.
“Hi, Calvin,” David said, opening his eyes and leaning forward to rest on his forearm.
“Was starting to think the line was dead,” Gaines said.
“Sorry, I was just thinking how to say this, is all.” In that moment, David had an immediate appreciation for how hard it must have been for his daughter to admit what had happened to her. He could barely bring the words to his own lips, and it hadn’t even happened to him. Once he said it, it was final; it had happened. Truth absolute. This finality, this setting of the facts, brought sickness to his mind.
“I see. Well, if it’s that type of thing, you might want to just come right out with it. Sooner you tell me, the sooner I can help. Carol said you’d mentioned something about your daughter? Is everything okay with her?”
David let out a long sigh. “Wish I could say everything was okay. I never thought in a million years I’d have to make a call like this.”
There was a rustling on the other end of the line, and David could tell that Gaines had sat up in his seat. “What’s happened?” Gaines asked with concern in his voice.
“My daughter was attacked, Calvin,” David said, bowing his head as if dealt a hard blow. “Ellie and I don’t know a lot yet. Kara just came home after work with her face pretty well banged up. She hasn’t said much. Ellie’s been trying to talk to her, but Kara’s in shock I think.”
“Attacked? Like somebody beat her up?” Gaines said.
“Well, yes… and no, not like that.” David rubbed the side his face anxiously, holding back emotion. His leg shook, resting on the bottom rung of the stool. He didn’t know what to say.
“Okay. Well…” A long breath came through the receiver from the sheriff’s end. “How do you mean, then?”
“Ellie says Kara told her she’d been, well, you know, assaulted… sexually.” He hung his head down all the way, his chin almost resting against his chest. “Raped,” he said, almost whispered.
“Raped?”
“Yes,” David confirmed.
“Jesus, what happened?”
“Well, like I said, she hasn’t told us much. My wife’s talking to her now, dressing a cut on her lip, but we had to give her a few of Ellie’s prescription pills just to calm her down. She either doesn’t know or won’t say who did it to her.”
There was a brief moment of silence. Then Gaines said, “Okay. Give me twenty minutes.�
�
“Calvin,” David added, “Ellie thinks it would be a good idea to call Catherine in on this one, maybe let her… I’m not telling you how to do—”
“Say no more. I understand. I’ll call her now and be right over.”
They both hung up.
David picked up the address book sitting next to the wicker basket, flipped through it, and found the number for Dr. Hornsby. He picked up the phone once more, and for the second time that evening made a phone call no father should ever have to make.
CHAPTER 5
The killer walked to the back of his truck and pulled an old rusty carjack from beneath a stained tarpaulin. A small collection of beer bottles rolled off into the bed of his truck as he lifted the canvas. The sound of it made him pause a moment. His father, when he was still alive, used to drink. Remember those days, pal? Remember when the bin in the corner of the kitchen would start overflowing with Pabst bottles, and you’d have to lug that bag down to Marcaurelle’s bottle return and then buy the old man a pack of smokes with the money? The bag was so damn heavy, but the old bastard didn’t care you were only twelve. And remember the time you dragged it on the sidewalk because you just couldn’t hold it up any longer, and the weak plastic split open, and the bottles went spilling out into Mrs. Darby’s front lawn? She came out to help, looking so sad to see you. Yeah, you remember that look; it’s haunted you since. She pitied you. “Let me help you,” Mrs. Darby had said, running inside to get another bag. Then she threw it in her station wagon and drove you downtown so you didn’t have to lug it any farther. Remember that? Remember when she said she’d known your mother before she…
“Oh man, I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here,” the kid said.
The killer broke loose from his thoughts. He hadn’t realized that he’d been staring down at the beer bottles in the back of his truck for almost a minute, lost in his reverie as the rain soaked the back of his neck. “What’s that?” he said, looking up to see the kid standing beside him.
“I was just saying that I’m grateful someone was here.” He nodded as if reaffirming his statement. Thin streams of water ran down his face, dripping from his nose and chin. He was a handsome kid with sharp features: thin nose, high cheekbones, a square jaw. Probably popular with the girls in school. Probably played sports and got good grades, too. “Isn’t really the kind of place I’d want to spend the night waiting for a tow, you know?”
“No, no it isn’t, pal.” The killer lifted the jack out of his truck. “Here, let’s see if this thing works,” he said, pushing it into the kid’s hands.
The kid smiled. “You mean you aren’t gonna change it for me, too?” He laughed. “I’m only kidding,” he said, turning and walking toward his car.
The killer didn’t find anything funny about the kid’s comment. Arrogant little prick. Probably does want me to change his tire. Probably joked his whole damn way through life. People like him only grow up two ways: to be assholes or bastards. This kid was surely both. He knew it. He could sense it. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t think so. I bring the swine, you kill it.”
“That’s a new one, never heard that expression before,” the kid said. He dropped to one knee at the flat tire, slid the jack underneath the edge of the car frame, and started to turn the jackscrew. “This shouldn’t take long. You might just want to wait in your truck so you don’t get soaked out here. You’ve already done more than enough to save my ass, no sense in getting pneumonia too.”
“It’s no bother, seems like it’s letting up.” The killer pulled his pack of smokes from his pocket, fingered one out, put it between his lips, and lit it. The brim of his hat spared it from the rain, so he let it hang in his mouth instead of pinching it between his fingers. “I got a long drive ahead of me—need to stretch my legs, anyhow.”
“Where you headed?” the kid asked, keeping his eyes straight ahead and his back turned as he pried at the tire iron.
“West,” the killer said. That might have been a lie, or it might not have. The truth was he didn’t really know. He took a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke twist in the low light and drift away into the night.
The kid removed the first nut, dropping it to the ground. “West, huh? All the way, or just a little way?” he asked, never turning around.
The killer tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the toe of his boot. Running his palm down the side of his jacket, he slipped his hand into his pocket. The gun was cool and hard. It was a mean piece of metal. He was staring hard at the kid, studying him, analyzing his every movement. He wondered if the kid could feel his eyes watching him. He wondered if the kid could feel what he felt: that closeness of death. Maybe the kid felt it, only he didn’t know what it was. Like something hiding in the corner of a dark room, lurking, unidentified. “Haven’t decided yet,” he said, squeezing down on the gun and situating his grip.
The kid started on another bolt, twisted it around a dozen or so times, and it dropped to the ground. “That’s cool. No plans. Just go where the road takes you kind of thing. I can dig it.”
The killer placed his finger on the trigger, readying himself to pull it out. “Yeah, something like that.” His adrenaline was surging now, bringing hyperawareness of everything around him. His stomach twisted and burned. He felt the urge to void his bowels. His heart beat like the drum of a war god. He loved and hated the feeling all at once. It was a sick brand of excitement.
A gust of wind howled, and the kid tucked his head down into his shoulder. “What a goddamn night for this,” he yelled.
The killer lowered his shoulder into the gale, too. “Not your lucky night,” he said, pulling the gun from his pocket and letting it hang by his side.
The kid dropped another bolt and moved on to the next one. “Tell me about it,” he said.
“You mind if I ask you something?” The killer moved a few feet closer.
The kid leaned forward on the wrench, bobbing up and down with his weight to break the bolt loose. “Go for it,” he said, his back still turned to the man now holding a pistol.
The killer took another step forward. He was only two feet behind the kid. “What were you doing up in Hanover? Girlfriend? School?”
The kid kept working the stuck bolt. “Yeah, got a girl, she’s going to school up…” He trailed off, pausing for a moment. Then he continued, his voice devoid of all enthusiasm, replaced with a nervous hesitation. “…Up there.” His movements slowed, like a wind-up toy run out of spring. “How’d you know where I was?” He craned his head around.
The killer had the gun raised, pointed at the kid’s face. “Yeah, there you go. You see me now, don’t you?”
“Jesus, man, what are you doing?”
“Get up.”
The kid took his hand off the tire iron. The wrench stayed snugly on the last bolt. He rose to his feet, his hands up in front of his face. “I don’t have any money, if that’s what you’re after.”
The killer laughed. “You think that’s what I want? Your money? You really don’t know what this is, do you? None of you ever know until it’s too late. I don’t get it. How come you can’t see?” He squeezed down hard on the gun, feeling the ridges of the metal dig into his palms—mean, powerful metal.
The kid kept his hands raised in front of his face, as if they would even slow a bullet. “What do you want?” he asked with a quiver in his voice.
“Turn around and start walking.” The killer took a step forward. “Keep going ’til I tell you to stop.”
The kid’s face crumpled into fear and panic. He bowed his head down and away from the pistol. “Please, can’t we just talk about—”
Before the kid could finish, the killer lunged forward and cracked him with the butt of the gun across the bridge of his nose, opening a deep gash. The kid stumbled backwards, grabbing his face. Blood poured out beneath his hands, between his fingers. The killer knew he’d broken his nose, had smashed it good. He’d f
elt it cave when he came down on it. The kid was leaning up against his car now, doubled over. Thin cords of red spittle stretched down from his face and were lost on the wet asphalt.
“Please, stop. What do you want? ” he said, his voice muffled by his cupped hands.
“I want you to listen to me,” the killer said. “Get up, turn around, and head that way.” He pointed the gun to an opening in the woods behind the information booth.
The killer kept the pistol trained on the kid as he slowly straightened himself back up. Then, like a crack of thunder, a voice that sounded all too much like his father interrupted: You’re the only fool out here. You should have shot him when his back was turned. You’re going to fuck this up. You’re going to make another mistake. The killer squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to shake the voice. “No,” he whispered.
When the killer opened his eyes, the kid was still standing there, leaning up against the car, his hands at his sides, silently watching him with a confused, terrified look in his eyes. From his nose down, the kid’s face was covered in bright, fresh blood. The killer regarded him for a moment, taking it all in. There was something very animalistic about the way the kid looked—something raw about the whole scene. There was an artistic element to it all, something that begged to be understood and appreciated. Captured and savored. He could feel it, some other level beneath the surface. If only he could capture moments like these, hold onto them; then he could revisit them with perfect clarity whenever he wanted to, without having to rely on a memory often clouded by anxiety and doubt. Then it hit him, and he almost laughed that it had been sitting right in front of him the whole time and he’d failed to see it. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner? He needed a camera. That was the answer to his problems. It would be the perfect way to document his outings and capture these perfect moments for later study.
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