Virtue Falls

by Christina Dodd

  When the house came into sight, they both stopped.

  “I heard it was haunted,” Joe said. “Now I believe it.”

  She nodded.

  Here her childhood had been destroyed. Here her life had changed forever—and yet to her, now, it looked like an old-fashioned, decrepit, isolated seaside home on a plot of land five miles wide. Here, salt-toughened grasses waved, a few scattered cypresses bowed down to the constant wind, paint peeled off the siding that sagged with weariness. Broken windows showed jagged teeth. The roof was missing shingles. The place was sad. As Joe said, haunted.

  “No vehicle in front,” Joe said. “What time’s he supposed to meet you?”

  She glanced at her watch. It was two fifteen. “Three.”

  “We’ve got some time then. Come on, let’s check it out.”

  “Yes. Let’s check it out.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  Garik had no right to take Charles from the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility. He wasn’t a relative. He had no legal justification.

  But he walked confidently down the corridor toward the front door, escorting Charles, speaking to everyone they met. The facility was still in shock from the discovery of Yvonne’s body, numb with horror and grief. The medical professionals, the other patients … no one paid them more than passing heed.

  Charles walked beside him exuding a special kind of assurance, as if he understood exactly what was at stake, and in fact as they got closer to the nurses’ station, the one that guarded the door, he murmured, “I’ve always wanted to break out of prison, and this is exactly how I imagined I would do it.”

  Garik glanced sharply at him.

  Did he see the care facility as a prison?

  Of course he did. Another prison that confined him and kept him from going out into the world to do his work, visit his daughter … seek revenge.

  The test for this jail break would come at the nurses’ station. Someone had to buzz them out, and Garik had to convince them it was okay. Everyone always saw Garik with Elizabeth, everyone knew Elizabeth was Charles’s daughter, and everyone knew they had been married.

  Maybe this would work.

  This had better work.

  Garik and Charles walked up. Garik leaned against the desk and smiled sympathetically at the two female LPNs who stood with red-rimmed eyes, and at Layla, the new nurse who had taken Yvonne’s place. “How is everyone doing?” he asked.

  They all nodded with varying shades of sorrow.

  “I didn’t know Yvonne well,” said one of the LPNs. “I’ve never worked the same shift. But this goes beyond friendship into—”

  “Horror,” Charles said.

  “Yes,” the LPN agreed.

  “Charles is pretty shook up, too,” Garik told them, “and in need of some sunshine. Is it okay if I take him out into the garden?”

  Layla hesitated.

  “I knew Yvonne so well.” Charles’s voice broke. “She was kind to me and kind to my daughter, and I am so sad.”

  He sounded sincere.

  Garik knew he was sincere. “If you’re in doubt that this is okay, call Sheila,” he said. “She knows me. She’s knows I’m an ex-FBI agent. She knows Charles. She’ll vouch for us walking outside together.” He was pretty sure she would, too.

  “Sheila doesn’t come on until the night shift. I’m not going to bother her while she’s sleeping.” With her hand on her shoulder, Layla rotated her neck as if she had a kink in the muscle. “You can go. No more than fifteen minutes. Aurora, you go with them.”

  The biggest LPN, a massive woman with a Midwestern accent, nodded and came out from behind the desk.

  From behind the desk, Layla unlocked the door.

  Garik spoke in Charles’s ear. “My truck—it’s the white Ford F-250. I’m parked close. Angle that direction. Don’t run until the last minute. I’ll catch up with you.”

  Charles nodded.

  As they exited the building, Garik smiled at Aurora—and gave Charles a push toward the garden. “So,” Garik said as Charles wandered toward the row of roses, “Where are you from?”

  “Minnesota.” Aurora pronounced it with a distinctive lilt. With her gaze on Charles, she asked, “Is it all right for him to go so far on his own?”

  “He’s old. He’s feeble. He’s been in prison for years. And he’s suffering seizures. I think we’re okay.” Garik marked every time Charles swerved, turned to look back at his escorts and smile sweetly, leaned over to smell the roses. Yet always he moved toward the parking lot, toward the truck.

  Old and feeble and a prisoner and suffering seizures, yes. But the man was brilliant, and Garik felt his respect—and his sense of urgency—escalate.

  “Patients will do anything to get away,” Aurora said with assurance.

  “Where could he go?” Garik gestured toward the forest that surrounded the facility. “It’s not like he can find a bar around here and stop for a beer.”

  Aurora stared at Garik as if he was not too bright. “The patients, they can’t think that far ahead. He could get lost in the woods and we wouldn’t find him until he was dead of starvation and exposure.”

  Garik did his best to look abashed. “You’re absolutely right. If he takes off, I promise I’ll run after him.”

  The female viewed Garik with narrow-eyed suspicion.

  Either Garik was losing his touch, or Aurora was one smart cookie.

  And Charles was veering away from the garden.

  Garik put his hand on her arm. “I’ll catch up with him.” He hurried toward Charles.

  Aurora hurried after him.

  Charles picked up speed, heading toward the truck.

  “Hey!” Garik started jogging. “Charles, hold up!” He gave Aurora a big thumbs-up, and surreptitiously used the remote key to unlock the vehicle. “Charlie, really. Come on. You can’t get away.”

  Charles opened the passenger side and climbed in.

  Garik faced Aurora and laughed a little. “Unless he can hotwire my truck, he’s reached the end of the line. Relax. I can get him. I’ll show him the interior. He really is a good guy.”

  Aurora slowed. She stopped.

  At last Garik yielded to his need to hurry. He sprinted to driver’s side. He opened the door, slid inside, started the engine.

  Charles locked the doors.

  Aurora shrieked in fury and roared toward them.

  Garik peeled out of the parking lot, burning rubber all the way. “Hang on, amigo, this is going to be a wild ride,” he shouted to Charles, and floorboarded the gas pedal.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  As soon as the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility vanished in the rearview mirror, Garik called Elizabeth.

  The call went right to voice mail.

  “Oh, come on,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Charles asked.

  “I can’t reach Elizabeth right now.” He tried to sound reassuring.

  A quick glance at Charles proved he hadn’t succeeded.

  What next? “I’m going to make another phone call, check in on another suspect.” Garik dialed Marrero’s number—he’d called it often enough in the past few days—hoping to hell Marrero had showed up at Virtue Falls Canyon and was answering his phone, hoping even more Marrero’s stabbed and lifeless body hadn’t been carried inland by the tsunami, or worse, carried out to sea, never to be seen again.

  Garik jumped when the call clicked through, and without waiting for an answer, he said, “Where are you, you bastard?”

  But a woman’s voice spoke. “Hang on a minute. Andrew’s a little tied up right now. Let me put this to his ear.”

  Startled, Garik asked, “Who is this?”

  But the female was gone, and the next voice was Marrero’s. He shouted, “Call the cops! This madwoman has kidnapped me!”

  In the background, Garik could hear the woman say, “Now, darling, you’re overreacting.”

  Garik tried to get his breath. “Marrero, who kidnapped you?”


  “Rainbow!”

  No wonder Andrew Marrero had been absent for so long. No wonder Rainbow looked so smug, and appeared only when she wanted. No wonder she had a puffy mouth … Garik sought clarity. “You mean Rainbow has taken you prisoner and you can’t escape? You can’t get away from Rainbow?”

  “She waited until I was asleep and tied me to the bed!” Marrero was obviously furious.

  As alibis went, Garik thought that was very impressive. “Okay.”

  “This is the most humiliating, horrifying experience of my life!” Marrero sounded as if he was expecting sympathy.

  Probably he wouldn’t appreciate Garik’s rising amusement.

  Garik could hear Rainbow croon, “Watch how you are talking, lover. I told you—if I want any lip from you, I’ll take it out of my zipper.”

  “Call the cops!” Rainbow must have taken the phone away from Marrero’s ear, for Marrero sounded far away.

  “You’re a very naughty boy, telling him to do that.” Rainbow’s voice got fainter. “You deserve to be punished, and I’ll have to use my paddle on your plump white ass.”

  Garik could not hang up fast enough. He was pretty sure that when he’d had the chance to think about it, he would be emotionally scarred.

  But right now, what mattered was knowing Marrero and Rainbow were eliminated, once and for all, as suspects in Misty’s murder.

  Garik glanced worriedly at Charles. Not that he didn’t agree with Charles—Bradley Hoff was the killer. But accomplices always added a frightening complication to any case.

  Garik called Elizabeth again.

  No answer.

  He called the Oceanview Café.

  Dax answered.

  “This is Garik Jacobsen. Is Bradley Hoff there?”

  “He left about a half hour ago to check up on his wife.” Dax lowered his voice. “Why? Do you think Vivian Hoff is in danger?”

  No. Garik thought Vivian Hoff was dead. “Is Elizabeth there?”

  “No. She left with you. What—?”

  Garik hung up. With a glance at Charles, he said, “Okay, look. The good news is, we’ve narrowed our list of suspects to one, and you’re right. I can’t say for sure it’s Bradley Hoff, but that’s pretty much merely the caution of a grizzled FBI agent. The bad news is, I’m not getting Elizabeth on the phone. All that probably means is that she doesn’t have service. Since the earthquake, that’s been a problem for everyone.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Charles’s voice was calm, but in his lap, his hands gripped each other so tightly his knuckles bulged.

  “We’re going to go to Virtue Falls Canyon and talk to her in person.”

  “Good.” Charles nodded. “Good.”

  Garik headed to the research site, following the road that paralleled the canyon, watching for signs that the team was working below. He sighed with relief when he saw equipment dumped near the canyon rim close to the ocean. “Stay here,” he said. “Let me find her.” He turned off the truck, took the keys, and jogged the path. Standing at the top, he scanned the area until he saw them: two guys, working in the dirt.

  Hey!” he yelled. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

  The guys looked up, looked at each other, then Ben stood and yelled back, “She said she’d heard from you, and she left.”

  Garik’s mouth went dry. “The hell she did. What did I say?”

  “To meet you at her old house.”

  Elizabeth had been duped. Somehow, his brilliant, logical scientist had been fooled.

  Garik raced back to the truck.

  As he opened the door, Ben shouted from the rim of the canyon, “Joe’s with her!”

  They didn’t get it. They thought if they sent one guy to walk with her, one young scholar to protect her, she would be fine.

  In fact, both Elizabeth and Joe were going to die.

  Garik got in the truck, started the engine, and roared down the road toward the old Banner house. “Charles,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know how, but someone conned her, told her I wanted to meet her at the home where you lived with Misty and Elizabeth.” The choice of place sent a chill down his spine.

  Charles stared straight through the windshield, his stare vacant, his jaw tight.

  Garik continued, “We’re going there now. It’ll only take about ten minutes.”

  Charles didn’t respond.

  “Charles?” Garik put his hand on Charles’s shoulder.

  Charles fell sideways.

  Slamming on his brakes, Garik skidded to a halt, graveling flying off the side of the road.

  Charles shuddered violently. His spine arched like a bow. His legs kicked out, once, twice, again.

  Seizure.

  “No. No. No.” Garik opened the console and grabbed a wad of napkins. He folded them into a long, tight stick and forced Charles’s mouth open. He thrust them between Charles’s teeth. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this now, Charles.”

  Charles’s eyes stared at him, open wide, frantic and blind.

  Maybe he knew what was happening. For sure he would want Garik to save his daughter.

  “Right.” Garik had done everything he could for Charles.

  He put the car back into gear and pressed on the gas.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  As Elizabeth and Joe approached the house from the back, Joe abruptly confessed, “That night, when we left you alone and you were attacked—that made us feel like shit.”

  Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. “Well … good.”

  He winced, and looked a little like he was going to kick the grass. “We didn’t realize there was any danger.”

  Elizabeth relented. “I know you didn’t.”

  “Let me go in and make sure it’s safe.”

  Elizabeth found her pocket knife tucked in her bag, brought it out, and held it so the longest blade glinted in the sun. Her voice was cool. “You do that.”

  At work, Joe had seen her use that knife dozens of times before. But now he viewed her as if she was Xena, warrior princess. “You think we’ll need that?”

  “No. If I thought we needed it, I wouldn’t have come. But if this guy who goes around attacking and killing women is in there—then yeah, we need it.”

  Joe obviously hadn’t put it together, that he was doing more than walking with her, that he might have to protect her. His brown eyes got big and scared. “My dad’s good with a knife,” he said.

  “So are you. I’ve seen you.”

  “Cutting brush!”

  She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. This place feels … so abandoned.”

  But Joe was jumpy now, and went in and came out in a few minutes. “You’re right. Nobody’s in there. I thought it would be spooky, but it’s just old and dirty and beat-up.” He seemed almost disappointed.

  She was curious to see it again, and more than that, something called to her: the hope of memories. “I’m going in anyway.” She slid her knife back in her bag and slung the bag over her shoulder.

  He sat down on the steps. “Watch out for wildlife.”

  Startled, she raised her eyebrows.

  “Mice,” he said. “There are droppings in there.”

  Not just droppings, she discovered, but also dust and exposed insulation. The closed-in back porch was filthy, cramped, the wooden floor broken where the washer had shimmied its way through the boards. She recognized the odor—all homes close to the ocean smelled the same, like saltwater doom waiting to happen.

  She walked down the hallway and looked into one bedroom. A moldy, queen-sized mattress leaned against the wall. So this had been her parents’ room.

  She walked to the next door: an old-fashioned bathroom with a pale green sink, a pale green toilet, and a white tub stained with rust.

  The next door … an empty room, a smaller room, with peeling wallpaper and ragged, faded pink curtains.

  A child’s room.

  Her room.

  Sad. She didn’t know how else to describe
it. Just … sad.

  A little girl had once hidden in here. Hidden from what she had seen.

  Elizabeth didn’t remember. Or rather—she remembered only one thing, a drawing that wasn’t in her scrapbook, a watercolor of a little girl sorting seashells at the shore while her mother watched over her.

  She was almost sure it was real.

  Standing in the room, she absorbed the house’s atmosphere. “Mommy,” she whispered. “Tell me where it is.”

  Where would a frightened little girl hide her treasure?

  She opened the closet door and stepped inside.

  A former resident had left winter coats hanging in here, now moth-eaten and mildewed. Chipboard shelves, denuded of paint and empty of toys or clothes, drooped from the humidity. Other than that, the closet was bare. Nothing to see here. Nothing of interest.

  Did Elizabeth really expect the watercolor would be conveniently placed for her discovery?

  Okay. She had. It seemed to her that if her mind had at last given up one small shard of remembrance, it was only fair she should be able to verify it. But no—life didn’t work that way.

  She needed to look closer, get down on her knees and run her hands under the bottom set of shelves, look into the places where a little girl would hide a cherished possession. Yet the closet seemed close and airless, too small and getting smaller by the minute. She had longed to absorb the house’s atmosphere; well, in here, she wanted to brush at her skin, to take away the sense of evil crawling beneath her clothing.

  She flipped the switch beside the door.

  The hanging bulb remained stubbornly off.

  Beside the switch, the electrical fuse door was rusted shut. Taking the metal ring, she jerked hard.

  The ring broke. She staggered backward.

  Gingerly she placed her bag on the filthy floor. Pulling her keys out, she tried to pry the door open.

  The keys were too wide to get into the narrow gap.

  She dropped them back into the bag and located her pocket knife. She opened the longest blade and slid it between the door and the wall. With an audible crack, the door opened a mere inch. Wedging her fingers underneath, she pulled it, the rusty hinges creaking as gradually the interior was revealed: nothing but electrical fuses, their switches leaning the same direction.