by PJ Fernor
My stomach did a backflip.
I crouched down and studied the tree.
“It happened right here,” I said. “Someone brought her here and just… attacked her…”
I shook my head.
“I know I’m stating the obvious, but this was premeditated,” Ben said.
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “Whoever did this, knew what they were doing. This spot. Bringing her alive. Stabbing her. Leaving her to die.”
“And she tried to save herself,” Ben said.
“She made… a…”
I noticed something else.
Next to the tree, there was a flat rock.
Some leaves had fallen on it, but I noticed the rich, crimson color of blood on the rock.
“Hey, Ben…”
I moved to the rock and gave a few deep breaths to blow the leaves away.
“What did you…”
Ben’s voice trailed off.
There was a message on the rock.
Written in blood.
Written in the young woman’s blood.
Ben and I looked at each other.
Chills moved freely through my body.
I looked down at the rock and read the message in my head again.
WE’RE ALL HIS.
Chapter Fifteen
“We’re all his?” Ben whispered.
“Yeah, I can read,” I said.
“What do you think it means?”
“I think it’s her parting message to the world,” I said. “She left that behind and then tried to save herself.”
“Why not crawl and do that… never mind. What am I saying here? That woman… that girl… she can’t be a day over twenty, Allie. She was beaten, brought up here, stabbed, and…”
“Maybe she didn’t do that herself,” I said.
I looked at Ben.
“Of course you’d say that.”
“Am I wrong?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Ben said. “But of course you’d find a way to twist things up even more than they already are.”
“That’s what I do best,” I said.
I had more to say but kept it to myself.
The more was how I found a way to twist things up in my own mind about my own life. Which was why Ben and I were a little more than friends but far from being in a relationship. In fact, forget that, I wasn’t even sure if we were friends. We spent time together each day because of the job.
I blinked a few times and chased those thoughts away.
We’re all his.
“This isn’t going to be an easy one,” I said.
“They never are,” Ben said. “Just do me a favor this time, and stay close. No wandering off on your own. I don’t need you shot at or tied to a chair or…”
Or, what? Shooting someone myself?
Before we could talk again, I heard a quick whistle.
I looked back and Garrison gave a wave.
“Laura is here,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said.
As I turned my head, something caught my attention.
There was something in the leaves nearby.
I took careful steps like before and I noticed a bracelet on the ground.
“Hey, Ben…”
I stopped and studied the bracelet.
Something about it…
“Allie, let’s go talk to Laura before we do anything else,” Ben said.
“Okay,” I said.
Normally I didn’t like walking away from a scene or evidence, but considering where we were, nothing was going to be touched or compromised.
Ben and I walked a different path back to get to Laura, leaving the trail of blood on its own.
Laura and Garrison were talking.
Rick sat on the same rock, rubbing his ankle, still taking deep breaths, staring off into space.
He certainly bit off more than he could chew for one day.
“What’s going on?” Laura asked me as Garrison was in mid-sentence.
Garrison looked irritated.
That made me happy.
“What did Garrison tell you?” I asked Laura.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “What do you have?”
“Ben got the call and we came up,” I said.
“Allie talked to the hiker,” Ben said. “Rick. He was looking for a thrill.”
“And finding a dead body probably gave him that,” Laura said.
“He’s going to come down to the station,” I said. “So we can talk again. I want to make sure his story is locked solid before we let him go.”
“He’s not supposed to be up here,” Laura said. “But I guess…”
“Right,” I said. “All things considered. As far as the victim goes, she was beaten and brought up here and stabbed. Through the thick over there” - I pointed - “there’s a trail of blood. It looks like she was propped up against a tree and stabbed in the stomach. Not sure how many times.”
“She tried to crawl away,” Ben said. “That’s why she ended up here. Poor girl.”
“Tough woman,” I said. “Not poor. Tough. She fought. She had a mission. And she has a story.”
Laura nodded. “Okay. What’s next?”
“We need to get an ID on her,” I said. “I’m assuming Garrison called everyone he’s supposed to. We have to get everything up here processed. Get her prints and run them. Maybe we can get lucky there. There’s nothing on her though. No ID. No cellphone. No bag or purse, nothing.”
“Tell her about the bloody message,” Ben said.
“What bloody message?” Laura asked.
“Near the tree, I noticed something written on a rock,” I said. “It’s in blood. I would assume her blood. It says we’re all his. I have no idea what that means.”
“We’re all his,” Laura said.
“It’s cryptic,” Ben said.
“I don’t know who did it,” I said. “If it was her, she wanted us to find that. She knew she was going to die. She wasn’t going down without a fight.”
“And if it wasn’t her?” Laura asked.
“Either way, we’ll figure this out,” I said.
Laura took a deep breath. “And this is on the heels of these trashed porches. And we’re so close to Halloween. News about this gets around town, everyone is going to be jumpy.”
“At this point, just say there was a body found,” I said. “Nothing more. If we can ID her, we go from there.”
“And our hiker friend?” Laura asked.
“I want to make sure his story is straight and then I don’t really care,” I said. “If you want us to give him a fine or whatever, that’s up to you. Maybe this’ll be a lesson to stay away… or not. Both Garrison and Ben pointed out that if he hadn’t been up here, she wouldn’t have been found.”
“Okay,” Laura said. “One step at a time. Let me confirm with Garrison…”
I stepped back and held up one finger to Ben.
I’ll be right back I mouthed to him.
I walked back through the bushes and the trees.
My mind gravitated back to the bracelet on the ground.
I needed to see it again.
I looked at the tree with the blood stains on it and my stomach shook a little.
Then there was the rock with the message written in blood on it.
We’re all his.
Beyond that, resting on the leaves, was the bracelet.
I crouched down and studied it.
The truth was… I knew the bracelet.
I just couldn’t figure out where.
I looked around and found a small stick.
Carefully, I hooked the stick under the bracelet and flipped it over.
Why?
Because, again, I knew the bracelet.
When I saw Lo’s name on it, I shut my eyes.
I dropped the stick.
I stood up and looked up.
For a second, the trees felt like they were spinning.
The thing was… it was Lo’s name on the bracelet, but
I knew it wasn’t Lo’s bracelet.
She had one just like it, but it wasn’t her name on it.
Which only meant one thing.
The bracelet in the woods…
It was Trevor’s.
Chapter Sixteen
The Other Place
She’s told to wear the nice dress.
It’s the only dress she has.
Mr. G bought it for her a long time ago.
Her job is to fit into the dress, no matter what.
It used to be long on her leg, but she’s grown since Mr. G first gave it to her.
The black dress is beautiful to look at, but what it represents…
She sucks in a breath and runs out of the room.
She shuts the door and closes her eyes.
It’s either Hailey or Tess this time.
They’ve been around longer than most of the others.
She wonders if by telling Mr. G she considers them friends, he’s doing this on purpose. Everything he says and does comes down to a lesson.
Most of the lessons are painful.
Very painful.
Not just physically either.
She inches her way down the hallway and has to see… she has to see if…
A hand clamps down on her shoulder.
“Now what in this great world are you doing, Lea?”
She blinks fast.
She doesn’t want to cry in front of Mr. G.
He turns her around and touches her face.
“You’re upset,” he says. “You’re mourning. That’s not good. This isn’t a sad time. This is a happy time. This is growth. Would you rather it be you?”
He curls his lip.
She knows what she means to him. He’s the one who’s been keeping her safe all these years.
“No,” she whispers. “It’s just that-”
He moves his hand over her mouth. He pushes her against the wall. Hard.
“Take the emotion out,” he growls. “Stop comparing quality of life, Lea. Do you remember the time I took you to the zoo?”
She nods.
“You saw all the animals. The monkeys. The tigers. The snakes. Remember?”
She nods again.
Mr. G moves his hand from her mouth.
“You have a good heart, Lea. And you asked me if the animals are happy in the cages. Or behind glass. And I told you the truth… there’s always a worse scenario. And there’s always a better one. It’s what we have… we have to appreciate it. Going from a cage to a life. A life, Lea. A life!”
Mr. G yells.
She hates when he yells.
But his point is made.
To him, someone is going from a cage to a life.
But she knows better.
It’s going from a cage to a cage.
Just in a different sense.
“Put that dress on,” Mr. G says. “And be ready to smile big for me.”
She then does as she’s told.
She wrestles her way into the black dress.
She cries as she does so.
This is her chance to cry so she can hold it together later.
When later comes, it’s a blur.
Walking through the house.
Mr. G telling her she looks beautiful.
He kisses her on the top of her head.
They go into the kitchen and out the door to the yard.
The air is so crisp. Cool. It smells and tastes like rain even though there’s not a cloud in the sky.
They stand in silence together for a minute before Mr. G leads the way to his large SUV.
She sits in the front and knows not to look back.
They drive for a little bit and then park behind a large building that is empty yet full of rust.
“Let’s go,” Mr. G says.
They exit the SUV as another SUV approaches.
This one is even bigger than Mr. G’s.
A man steps out of the back.
When she sees the man, she can’t breathe.
She can’t think.
She shivers like it’s snowing and shakes like she’s in a scary movie.
He walks toward Mr. G and they shake hands.
Mr. G is jumpy, cheery, obviously trying to kiss someone’s butt.
She refuses to think about the other man’s name. She refuses to call him what they all do. It helps to make him less scary.
He looks right at her.
He smiles.
Waves.
She waves back.
Oh, no, he’s coming toward me. He’s going to choose me now. If he chooses me, there’s nothing I can do about it. Mr. G can’t stop him. He’s… he’s the… the…
“You are more beautiful each time I see you,” he says.
“Thank you.”
He touched her chin. “Whisper it to me. Right now.”
She looks at Mr. G.
He’s nodding.
She swallows hard.
She smiles.
“Come on,” he says. “I don’t have all day.”
She takes a breath. “We’re… all…” Her teeth chatter. “… his…”
“Say it the right way,” he says.
“We’re all his,” she says.
“Again.”
“We’re all his.”
“Louder!” he says.
“We’re all his!” she yells.
He smiles and walks away.
Tears fill her eyes.
She watches as the back of the SUV is opened and out steps…
“Tess,” she says.
Tess’s hands are tied behind her back. A piece of cloth is tied around her mouth.
Tess looks back and she can feel the fear.
There’s nothing she can do about it.
He walks Tess to the other SUV and she gets into the backseat.
He gets into the SUV.
Then it drives away.
Mr. G returns to his SUV and she gets back into the passenger seat.
They drive back to the house in silence.
It’s not until they’re home does Mr. G talk.
“I’ll replace her for you,” he says. “But you can’t get too close. You know how this goes. I have a plan for us, Lea. You need a family. You need more structure. I realize that. I’ve failed you. I’ll make it right.”
She nods.
They go into the house.
She doesn’t bother changing out of her dress.
Instead, she rushes to the room with the cages.
Hailey is crying.
She doesn’t blame her.
She crawls into the cage where Tess had been.
She pulls Tess’s blanket to her nose and takes a deep breath.
This hurts so much.
But it’s like what Mr. G always says…
It’s just business.
Chapter Seventeen
The scene became very busy, very fast.
There was nothing I could do about the bracelet. I wasn’t going to take it from the scene and compromise a murder investigation, or implicate myself. There was maybe a second or two where I thought about it, but that would only end up hurting Lo worse than the reality that maybe Trevor wasn’t the good guy she swore she saw through her own eyes.
It pained me to walk away from the bracelet, knowing it was going to be nothing short of a bombshell and a million questions thrown my way.
My job now was to go with the evidence and information I had while waiting for more to come through.
As I walked out of the woods, avoiding the trail of blood, Ben saw me and pointed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You know the way my mind works, Ben.”
“Never one thing at a time, is it?”
“No. I’m thinking about Halloween now. And the porches that have been getting trashed. How it’s all swirling around this little town. This place is supposed to be the perfect autumn town. The smell of cider and pumpkin. Kids able to roam freely on the streets on Halloween night.”
“Allie Down,” Ben said. “You may not believe this, but things have changed here. You’ve seen it too. Look what we’ve dealt with since you’ve come back. We have that sweet and small town vibe, but it’s never that easy.”
“I know,” I said. I sighed. “Maybe I’m trying to grab at my own youth again. When life was easier.”
Ben shook his head. “Has life ever been easy though?”
Ben was smooth. Honest, too.
“Okay,” I said. “Let all of this get processed. There’s nothing else we can really do here. The key is to get the girl identified. Without that, this is going to be a tough one. We’ll have to wait and see if any missing person’s report pops up.”
“What can I do?”
“Best bet is to get Rick off this ridge,” I said. “Get him down to the station and get him comfortable. Then I want him questioned one more time just to make sure we don’t miss anything. Maybe he saw something and doesn’t remember. Or maybe he did this. Who knows, right?”
Ben nodded. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me for a second, do you?”
“I believe anything and everything,” Ben said. “But evidence is the best truth.”
“We’ll get it,” I said. “I have to go check on something.”
“Where?”
“It’s… just let me go chase something down quick,” I said. “Something running through my head. I need to prove myself wrong.”
“Allie, wait a second here,” Ben said. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry about it, Ben.”
“I’m going to worry about it. You can’t go jumping into a fire here. At least not alone.”
“You’re going to jump into a fire with me then?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “Yes. I will.”
I felt that odd butterfly feeling for a second.
“Trust me, Ben,” I said. “Right now everyone needs to go in different directions until something gives. We don’t have much to work with here. So use what we have. The best thing is Rick. He found her.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “Just promise me you’re going to be safe.”
“I’ll be safe,” I said.
I carefully walked my way down the ridge so I didn’t end up with a twisted ankle like Rick.
This was a personal thing I had to tend to now.
Trevor’s bracelet was at the scene of a murder.
It wasn’t all that close to the bloody handprints on the tree or the trail of blood or even at the bloody message on the rock - WE’RE ALL HIS.
