Bad News

by Amy Cross

  “Please,” I suddenly hear myself stammering finally, as if the words are coming from my mouth without command, “don't... Please...”

  I wait, but he simply stares at me.

  There are tears in my eyes.

  “Please,” I continue, trembling now with fear. “I'll do anything you want, but don't kill me. I'll do anything you want, but I'm begging, please let me live.”

  Again I wait, and again he's staring at me, almost as if's not listening. I can just about make out his features in the darkness, and he looks so terribly sad. His shoulders are slightly hunched, and if I didn't know better I'd say that there's fear in his eyes.

  Suddenly he tilts back and falls, dropping out of view.

  I stand completely still and stare at the spot where he was standing. A moment later I start to look around, convinced that he simply scampered away and that he's now going to rush up behind me.

  All I hear, however, is the sound of the waterfall still rushing.

  I don't know how long I stand like this, but finally I realize that I need to do something. And in order to do something, I need to know whether I'm still being pursued. That's why, even though I'm terrified, I start edging toward the waterfall's edge, struggling to stay upright on the slippery rocks, until I get close enough to look down toward the rocks below.

  And as the water continues to crash down, I see Thomas Roper's dead body, broken and bloodied in the moonlight far below.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The two paramedics lift at each end of the stretcher, finally raising Roper's corpse from the ground and then starting to carry away between the trees.

  “You don't need to see this,” Malone says, standing next to me as I watch. “Come on, Maggie, it's time to get you to the hospital. Someone has to look at your leg.”

  I keep my gaze fixed on Roper, until the paramedics carry him out of sight, heading toward the ambulance that's parked all the way out there at the side of the road.

  “Why did he do it?” I whisper, still struggling to make sense of everything that happened last night. “Why did he jump?”

  “Who knows what went on in that man's head?” Malone replies. “We might not ever know, not unless he left some kind of diary. You never know, sometimes these animals actually feel the need to catalog and justify their actions. For now, just focus on the positives. He's gone, and he's not going to hurt anyone else.”

  I pause for a moment, before turning to him.

  “Now,” he continues, “about your leg. We -”

  “I want to go back to the farm,” I tell him.

  “Why?”

  “I need to understand what happened,” I reply. “I still feel like there's a part of this that we're not seeing.”

  “You can figure that out another day,” he says. “Right now, your leg is more important.” He reaches out and puts a hand on the side of my arm. “Come on, let's get out of here. I need to go to the farmhouse for a moment, and then I'm taking you to the hospital. And this time, I won't take no for an answer.”

  ***

  “Have they found anything yet?” I ask a short while later, as I limp away from Malone's car and see a couple of deputies traipsing into Roper's farmhouse. “You need more people out here. You're going to get more people, right?”

  “There's no rush,” Malone replies. “There's not even a -”

  “How did you miss so much the last time?” I snap, turning to him as I reach the steps that lead up to the porch. “There was a missing drape! There were books that probably belonged to Kimmy Duchette ten years ago! There were probably other clues! I thought you guys tore this place apart when you came up here?”

  He puts his hands on his hips and sighs, but for a moment he seems to have no answers.

  “We screwed up,” he says finally. “There, I admit it. When we came out here, I was angry. I was too emotional. We scoured the whole farm, but maybe we weren't methodical. I broke my own rules, and the result is that Roper remained a free man. He very nearly killed you, Maggie. If that had happened, I'd never...”

  His voice trails off.

  “Last time we spoke,” he continues after a few seconds, “I was angry, I -”

  “It doesn't matter,” I tell him. “What matters is figuring out what happened here.”

  “I said things that I shouldn't have,” he replies. “Maggie, I don't think you're some heartless journalist who only cares about getting a story. I said that to hurt you, and I'm sorry.”

  “You weren't wrong,” I say firmly. “I was writing everything up for a story. I deleted it all, but I didn't come back to Ridge Falls to help. I came to get my career back up and running.” I can't help but sigh. “The good news, I guess, is that I didn't get very far. I don't seem to have that killer instinct. You, on the other hand, have to rip this farm to shreds. You have to check every inch.”

  “We're doing that now.”

  “You can't leave a single stone un-turned.”

  “I promise you, we won't.”

  “You have to stay on the job until -”

  “We won't miss anything,” he says, interrupting me. “Not this time. You have my word.”

  I open my mouth to tell him again, to make him understand, but I'm pretty sure I'd just be shouting into the void. I guess Malone and his team will do a proper job now. They'll go through the entire farm and figure everything out, and they'll be completely competent and professional. But will competent and professional be enough when it comes to getting inside the mind of a lunatic like Thomas Roper? Somehow I can't help worrying that maybe Roper was simply too far gone, too crazy, for anyone to ever figure out exactly what he was thinking.

  Sighing, I turn to walk away. And then, without warning, my right foot catches on something that's poking out of the ground, and I fall before I have a chance to react.

  I let out a pained gasp as I land hard on my butt.

  “Now will you admit that you need to come with me to the hospital?” Malone asks as he takes my hand and helps me sit on the step. “You're no use to anyone like this.”

  “Fine,” I mutter, unable to hide my frustration. “Whatever.”

  He starts to help me up, but then he freezes.

  “Are we moving, or not?” I ask. “Come on, this isn't exactly a fun position.”

  I wait, but he doesn't reply.

  Realizing that something seems to have caught his attention, I look down, and after a moment I spot some kind of thick, coiled pipe that rises up from the ground and then dips back down. The overall shape is like a hook, right next to the bottom step, and I figure that must be what caught my foot.

  “Stupid thing,” I mutter, giving it a pointless kick.

  “That's a power cable,” he replies. “Or some kind of pipe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He kneels down and gives the pipe a gentle tug, and then he starts using his bare hands to scrape dirt away from the base.

  “It's used to run a power line from the main house to somewhere else.”

  “Like the barn?”

  “Like the barn, except those lines are all on the other side of the house.” He digs for a moment longer, uncovering more of the pipe, which seems to run away from the house and out toward the forest. “We didn't notice this when we were here before.”

  “Is it important?” I ask.

  He looks toward the forest, and then he turns to me again.

  “If Thomas Roper was powering something out in the forest,” he says cautiously, “then, yes, I think it might be very important. It looks like he tried to cover it up. Our search last time was so half-assed, I'm not surprised we missed it. This time, we're going to get to the truth.”

  For the next hour or so, we work slowly and patiently, digging at regular intervals in an attempt to figure out the pipe's path. We soon find that it runs well out into the forest, and I start to realize that Roper must have put some serious effort into the job. After a while, we're far enough out to no longer see the farm, and I can'
t help wondering why Roper would go to so much trouble. And then, just as the whole task seems endless, we find the spot where the pipe dips deeper into the ground, seemingly disappearing into the space beneath the forest.

  Malone looks around for a moment, before dropping to his knees and starting to fumble through the foliage.

  I drop down next to him and start helping, but I still don't quite understand what we're doing.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” I ask.

  “We'll know it when we find it,” he replies. “Whatever it is.”

  “That couldn't be any less helpful if you tried,” I point out.

  We work in silence for a few minutes. The pain in my leg is starting to get worse, and I think maybe Malone was right when he said I needed to get to a hospital. Then again, I don't want to admit any of that, so I just keep on going while hoping that eventually he'll get bored. Finally, just as I'm on the verge of having to tell him that I need help, he starts furiously digging at one particular spot, and I crawl over just in time to see that he's uncovering what looks like some kind of hatch.

  “What have you found?” I ask.

  He doesn't reply. Instead, he continues to clear dirt from around the edges of the hatch, and I quickly start helping.

  Finally, we uncover a handle.

  Malone glances at me.

  “What was Roper doing out here?” I ask.

  He looks back down, and then we both grab the handle and start to pull the hatch open. It's hard work, and we struggle for a moment, but finally we manage to pull it all the way aside, and then we look down into the darkness below.

  I take my cellphone from my pocket and activate the flashlight function, and then I aim the beam into the hole.

  “Is that...”

  I pause, barely able to believe my eyes as I see a terrified-looking woman staring back up at us, partially hiding her face with her hands as if she can't stand the light.

  “Is that who I think it is?” I say finally, before turning to Malone. I wait for an answer, and then I look back down at the woman. “Are you... Are you Esmee Waters?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “So he never let you out?” the interviewer, Doctor Sutter, continues as he sits with Esmee and a counselor in a room at the hospital. “In ten years, Roper never let you out of that place? Not even once?”

  Shivering and clearly frightened, Esmee seems unable to reply. Like an animal that has spent most of its life caged, she seems completely uncomfortable out here in the free world, as if she wants to fold herself back into that underground bunker in the forest. Finally, she summons the strength to shake her head, but she still looks as if she's struggling in the light of day.

  “Did you even see daylight?” Doctor Sutter asks.

  She shakes her head again.

  “You had light down there,” the doctor continues, “but no windows. Did you ever ask to be let out?”

  She shakes her head again.

  “Her parents are on the way,” Malone says as I limp over to join him. He glances at me. “How's your leg?”

  “They say I'll live,” I tell him. “How's she doing?”

  “This is just a preliminary interview,” he explains, turning to once again watch Esmee through the one-way mirror. “She needs to be properly assessed. Ten years of isolation must have done a real number on her head. I had a hard time getting permission for anyone to talk to her at all, but I persuaded the doctors that this might still be an active case. Fortunately, Esmee says there are no other girls.”

  “What about Kimmy Duchette?” I ask, watching as Esmee tries to answer another question.

  “She remembers Kimmy being there, briefly,” Malone replies. “She doesn't know what happened to her, or why Roper killed her.”

  “Does she remember being kidnapped?”

  “Parts of it,” he explains. “She remembers Roper talking to her in the street one day, and following her while she was on her way home from the library. Everything else is a little fuzzy, but it seems as if he drugged her and pulled her into his truck, and then when she woke up she was in that specially-constructed hideaway in the forest. Roper must have been planning to make his move for months. Years, even. The man must have been completely insane.”

  “I guess,” I whisper, watching Esmee for a moment longer.

  Is this possible?

  Thomas Roper, for all his weirdness, seemed to me to be a decent, gentle man. I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the facts that are now tumbling out of the resolved case, but I guess some people are just able to keep everything hidden. Some people are very good at being monsters. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Roper was insane. In fact, there seems to have been something very clinical about how he went about abducting and holding Esmee. I'm almost impressed that he pulled it off for so long.

  “I've had someone check the hideaway,” Malone continues after a moment. “Apparently it's not such a bad place. Roper ran power in, so that there was light. He supplied her with books. He made sure she had all the food and drink she wanted. I'll be honest with you, I was looking at some photos and I've seen worse apartments. Sure, there were no windows and Esmee wasn't allowed to leave the place, but she certainly wasn't chained up or anything like that. Roper even gave her a tea-set.”

  “He wanted to look after her,” I suggest.

  “Maybe he wanted to treat her like a daughter.”

  “Was there any violence?” I ask.

  “Not after the initial abduction, apparently,” he replies. “He restrained her a few times when she tried to escape, but it seems that she fairly quickly accepted her fate. She said she was always looking for a way out, but that over time she gave up hope. And there was nothing sexual. He didn't try to force himself on her, or anything like that. She doesn't seem to have any injuries at the moment.”

  “And she was down there the whole time?” I ask, still watching Esmee through the glass. “She's going to need a lot of help adjusting to being back in the real world. That has to be the focus, rather than digging into the past and getting every detail of what Thomas Roper was up to.”

  “Did you ever try to escape?” Doctor Sutter asks Esmee in the next room.

  She nods.

  “How did you try?”

  She tilts her head slightly, and then she shrugs.

  “Did he ever find out about your plans?” he asks.

  She pauses, and then she nods again.

  “And did he punish you, Esmee?”

  She pauses for longer this time, before nodding again.

  “How did he do that?” Doctor Sutter continues. “You don't have to tell me anything that upsets you, but did he hurt you when he found out?”

  She stares at him, as if she's not going to answer. And then, finally, she lowers her head slightly, before nodding yet again.

  “Damn it!” Malone mutters, before turning and storming out of the room.

  I watch Esmee for a moment longer, as tears run down her face, and then I hurry after Malone. I quickly find him, pacing back and forth near a vending machine, and for a few seconds it seems as if he's about to explode with anger.

  “Listen,” I say finally, “I -”

  “You were right!” he snaps.

  “I -”

  “You were right last year,” he says again, turning to me. “That girl spent over a year living in an underground prison, all because I didn't see what was right under my nose. Even when you showed up and started asking about Roper, I wouldn't listen. Don't deny it, because we both know it's true. That girl could have been rescued a lot sooner, and maybe Kimmy would still be alive, if I'd just heard what you were telling me.” He pauses, clearly exasperated. “I'm sorry, Maggie,” he adds finally. “I screwed the whole case up.”

  “No,” I reply, stepping toward him, “you didn't. Absolutely not.”

  “Even when I finally went out there,” he continues, “I was angry. I didn't search the place properly. She was right there, and we didn't find her
.”

  He sighs, and I put a hand on his shoulder to try to reassure him.

  “I came to the same conclusion that you did,” I point out. “Once I met Roper and got to know him, I was convinced he was innocent. I still find it hard to believe that he was capable of something like this. Maybe some of us just can't quite understand the level of madness in the world. Maybe we should take that as a positive.”

  “I'm sorry I didn't listen to you,” he replies.

  “No-one ever listens to me,” I tell him. “If they did, the world would be a much better place.”

  “I need some fresh air,” he says, before taking a step back, letting my hand fall from his shoulder. “I need to figure out what to do next.”

  “I'm going to stay here for a while,” I reply. “Maybe we can meet up later for some dessert, though. Around six, at the motel?”

  He mumbles something, but I don't quite make out any of the words as he walks away. I briefly consider calling after him, but then he slams the door open and disappears from view, and I realize that he most likely needs some time alone. Hopefully then he can at least realize that this wasn't all his fault. Thomas Roper just managed to fool everyone.

  Heading back through into the observation room, I stop at the glass and see that Doctor Sutter is still speaking to Esmee. And now, finally, she's begun to speak. Her voice sounds so small and timid, but strangely calm and eloquent.

  “I thought I'd never see anyone else ever again,” she's saying, as she stares down at the table with tear-filled eyes. “My family, my friends... I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life down there in that place. Sometimes I wondered whether I should end it all, but I told myself that I had to keep going. That I couldn't let him win.” She pauses, and for the first time I see a flicker of anger in her expression. “I think maybe I always had hope, deep down,” she adds finally. “Even if I didn't know it.”

  Pulling up a chair, I take a seat and settle down to watch the rest of the interview. Maybe, just maybe, she'll say something that will help me to understand the madness of Thomas Roper.