by Casey Dunn
“I don’t remember this damn hill being so long,” he muttered. One thing was for sure, no matter how good of shape that woman was in, the going was hard for anyone. If she was still out here somewhere, which she must have been since her car was still in the lot, it wasn’t on purpose.
He used the thought to power him the rest of the way to the crest of the first hill. It was the smallest in a series of three peaks, but the wind still howled a different pitch up here, sharp and nervous. The sound of it slid down his back, making him edgy. He shook off the feeling and peered over the other side. In the dark, the foothills rolled ahead of him like an ocean whipped and churning. Everything was soaking wet and reflected the beam of his light. Thousands of eyes could be looking back at him out here and he’d never see them.
What if the woman took the direct trail through to the main lot and called a friend? She’d had a cell phone and every reason to wonder why the hell he was there. He stared back down the way he came, inclined more now than ever to go back to his van and go home. But wouldn’t that friend have dropped her back at her car? Maybe watched her get in and followed her out? Would they be back by now?
He swore under his breath and wiped the rain from his face. “What do I do here, Hazel?” he asked, then felt guilty. He was talking to her like he might a ghost or God; like she was gone.
Keep going, Hazel’s voice shot through him. He jumped at the sound of it. He’d never heard her voice like that. Did it mean she was dead? He refused to continue the thought. He knew these woods better than anyone; probably better than Hazel by now. Whether she was dead or not, he couldn’t think of a better way to honor Hazel than to search for someone else swallowed up by this trail. He trained the light on the descent and began his way deeper into the woods.
AMA Chapter 7 | 5:25 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
AMA CAME TO BY DEGREES. Her head throbbed, and her middle cramped with pressure. Her tongue ached with dryness, and she couldn’t swallow. As her senses returned, a clammy sweat covered her skin. Dizziness set in. Bile climbed her throat, making her gag. Something was in her mouth, sour and slimy with phlegm, but she couldn’t spit it out.
“Are you awake?” a man’s muffled voice asked from somewhere very close.
Her mind burst into full alertness. The hiker… the piano player from Atlanta. Jonathon, he’d said—if that was really his name. He’d hit her with his walking stick. She was moving, being carried. The pain in her stomach was his shoulder digging into her navel. A scratchy nylon material was wrapped around her. She began desperate attempts to kick and slap, but her arms were bound in front of her at the wrists and her ankles and knees were tied together.
“Help!” she tried to scream, but between the wad in her mouth and the cover over her head, the garbled word didn’t travel far.
The tarp slid apart with the stunted gait of his walk, revealing a sliver of the ground before closing again, enough for Ama to know it was dark out and they still looked to be in the woods. She grunted and heaved, trying to twist herself in any way that would allow her to bite Jonathon through his thin shirt, but the angle he held her in made it impossible for her to make contact. He stood still, waiting for her to stop struggling like a parent waiting out a toddler’s temper tantrum. The scratchy fabric was bound so tight around her that she couldn’t swing her legs with any real force. She let out a muffled scream of frustration.
“Save your voice,” Jonathon said, and began moving again. “You’ll need your breath and your strength. We have a lot of work to do.”
The gag pressed down on her tongue, and she could feel the heat of stomach acid clawing at the base of her throat. She turned her head to the side and swiveled her head back and forth, trying to loosen whatever was in her mouth, but it wouldn’t budge. She needed to leave a clue, some trace that she was out here.
Her watch. It was engraved with her initials. She squeezed her wrists together and contorted her fingers to try to reach it. But her arms were bare, save the binding. Either he’d taken it off or it had already fallen. No one would know where she’d been.
She examined a few inches of the material with her fingers. There was an elastic loop above her hands and what felt like a zipper pressing into her left hip. Ama surmised he’d wrapped her in his camping tent.
Ama closed her eyes, steadying her breath. She knew from statistics and history that she should fight arriving at his planned second location at all costs. Whatever he would do to her here, he’d do ten times worse once he got her somewhere he felt safe.
Ama forced herself to relax, focused on the sound of raindrops dripping from leaves, and then pissed down her legs. Jonathon shrugged her off, and she crashed to the ground in a heap. She tried to draw her knees under her so she could push off the ground, but her legs wouldn’t respond, tingling with the sensation of returning blood flow.
Jonathon yanked the tarp away from her face. Ama was right. She was tangled up in his tent. He glared down at her as he peeled his shirt off his body. Even in the gray of a misty twilight, she could see tiny white marks covering his arms and chest. She wondered if they were acne scars. Was this guy some high school outcast all grown up and seeking revenge on women who reminded him of the girl who shot him down way back when? She watched him, hoping he’d be angry enough to throw the shirt aside. Her DNA on his shirt would be slam-dunk evidence. But he balled it up, pulled a Ziploc bag from his pack, and sealed it inside. Ama’s heart sank.
He retrieved a new black shirt from another compartment and pulled it on. Then he bent over, picked up her feet, and began walking backward down a hill, dragging her with him. Panic raced through her. She kicked her feet against his hold, but she barely swayed him.
“You can’t fight Fate, Ama. She brought us this far. She won’t back out on us now,” he said. Her head struck a root, sending a burst of white across her vision. The gag shifted, the knot in the back pulled up by the root, and she forced it over her teeth and to the cleft above her chin. She gulped air, spitting. Then she screamed, a sound so shrill she didn’t recognize at first that it came from her, so filled with panic and instinct, so devoid of any measure of control it barely sounded human. Jonathon froze and gazed down at her, his face round, his eyes wide.
“I wish I’d been ready for that one,” he whispered. “I don’t want to waste anymore. If I tell you a little bit about what we’re going to do together, can you promise me you won’t scream again until I tell you to?” he asked.
His face was within a breath of hers. She held his gaze. Her pulse drummed in her ears.
“I promise,” she said. “As long as we stay right here, I won’t scream unless you tell me to.”
Jonathon frowned, searching their vicinity. “There,” he said, pointing down a steep ravine to a row of downed trees, which made a haphazard awning over a pile of boulders. “We can wait there. Feels like it’s going to rain again soon, and I wouldn’t want you to catch cold. It’ll alter your range, and that just won’t do.”
“My range for what?” Ama demanded. Then it clicked, and her hands traveled together to her throat. He was talking about her voice.
Jonathon smiled. “I’ve imagined this encounter so many times. You’d think I’d know how this was going to turn out. But I don’t. We’ll arrive at perfection together. I have faith in us,” he said.
MARTIN Chapter 8 | 5:31 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
THE TIP LINE CHIRPED AGAIN. On the second ring, Martin glanced up from Hazel Stevens’s case file, which he’d dived into after Stanton filled him in on her disappearance. The room was empty. He hadn’t noticed Stanton leave. Captain Barrow was in his office with the door closed and the shades drawn. Martin pushed his chair across the room with the balls of his feet and picked up the receiver.
“Tarson PD, Detective Locklear speaking,” he said.
A woman’s voice came through the earpiece, shrill and quick. “I need to report a missing person.”
“What is your name?” he started
.
“Lindsey Harold. My boss’s name is Ama Chaplin. She’s missing.”
“Why do you believe she’s missing?” he asked as he gathered a pen and paper.
“I don’t believe she’s missing. She is missing,” she snapped.
“Tell me why you think so,” he replied.
“She told me she’d be done with her run by five, and if she didn’t call by five thirty, something was wrong. Did you guys run the tag I gave you?”
Martin’s attention drifted back to his desk. Notes about Hazel’s father, Eddie Stevens, were the only decisive pieces of information in the entire file. He had been ruled out as a suspect from the outset. He’d kept the search up on his own even after it officially ended. The only trouble he ever got into was when he called the local paper in a rage because they’d called Hazel’s disappearance a vanishing act instead of an abduction.
“Neither the vehicle nor the owner came up in our system as being wanted for any reason,” he answered.
“So you didn’t even go look?” she shrieked.
“There was no credible reason to go check a car legally parked in a parking lot,” Martin answered, losing patience.
“Well, you have one now!”
“Could she be waiting out the rain?” he reasoned.
“If she was going to wait out a damn storm, she would’ve called,” she argued.
Captain’s door opened. The smell of whisky accompanied him into the main room. Once he realized Martin was with a caller, he gave him a questioning look.
Martin covered the receiver and said, “It’s the same caller from earlier.”
Captain frowned and took the phone. “This is Captain Barrow. What seems to be the problem?”
Martin could hear the woman’s voice, fading from irate to pleading, as she told the captain about her boss’s concern and plan to call by 5:30. Captain’s gaze flicked to the hanging wall clock. 5:32.
“Tell you what, I’ll have an officer go check the lot. If we see her, or any reason for concern, I will call you back,” he said.
He paused, listening to her rattle off a few more words. “Yes, ma’am. You’re welcome. Take care.” He hung up the phone and reached for his radio. “Damn city girls. Stick to running on your sidewalks,” he grumbled. He pressed the call button on his radio. “Stanton, swing by the north trailhead parking lot at Tarson Woods and take a look around. I’ll have Bordeaux check the south lot. Seems we might have a city girl lost on those trails. I’d like to get this wrapped up before it gets any darker.”
“On my way, sir,” Stanton answered.
Captain pulled his hat onto his head and moved for the door.
“Do you want me to go check anything out?” Martin asked the captain’s back.
“You’re a detective. You work at crime scenes. If I find one, I’ll let you know,” he said, and walked out.
EDDIE Chapter 9 | 6:00 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
THE RAIN HAD LET UP again, but it was almost worse when it did because the fog rolled in, making it impossible for Eddie to see the terrain ahead. He missed another dip and slid in the mud about a foot before his trick knee gave out under his weight. He threw his hands in front of him and yelped as a jagged, skinny tree stump bit into his palm. He rolled to his back, grimacing, and clutched his hands against his stomach.
He opened his mouth and closed his eyes. Hazel was gone. That lady was gone, too. And he was just a poor old fool lying on his back in the woods. He couldn’t save any of them.
Eddie pulled himself upright. It had taken him an hour to get this far, and with one good leg, it was going to take a lot longer to get back. There was an old stone single-room hutch less than a quarter mile from where he stood, marked a few years back with a plaque honoring those who lost their lives in the Evansbrite factory explosion. The little room was mostly used by local teenagers to drink and take dates or play with Ouija boards. Police had theorized Hazel had met a secret boyfriend there, supported by physical evidence Hazel had recently been inside the little structure. Eddie saw the evidence—Hazel’s silver pinkie ring dropped among the blanket of rotting leaves, a token from her mother—as something different: Hazel leaving bread crumbs.
I was here. Keep looking.
He wouldn’t go back to his car. He’d go to that old building and wait out the fog or the night, whichever let up first. Then he’d keep searching.
Eddie worked his way back to the trail. Between the steep grade, the exposed roots, and the standing water, every step was a balancing act. He tried to focus on his breathing as it marked time, in-in-out, and not the sinking familiarity washing over him, through him. Still, hesitation made a home in his chest, swelling as the distance between him and the little stone structure evaporated.
An ice storm had hit four months after Hazel vanished and taken out hundreds of trees. A group of volunteers had cleared most of them out of the traveled sections and piled them in a more remote part of the park. Eddie had joined in the efforts, certain they’d find some new clue. Or maybe even Hazel. They didn’t find either. With the last tree moved, one of the more sympathetic volunteers had clasped Eddie on the shoulder with his gloved hand. “She’s not out here, Mr. Stevens,” he’d said.
Eddie shook the memory from his mind and trudged on. The lady was still here. He knew that for sure.
He reached the stone hutch. The metal gate stood ajar, and the floor was under water. He was grateful for a break of new rain sliding down his back, but this wouldn’t afford him any kind of rest. His feet were somewhere between numb with cold and stinging from prolonged wet. His back ached with fatigue and tension. He couldn’t sit down, and this room wasn’t tall enough to stand up straight in.
A wink of silver caught Eddie’s attention just before his flashlight burned out. He banged it against the heel of his hand, but it didn’t come back on. He stuck the flashlight in his coat pocket with one hand and fished through the dark with the other. His fingers lit on a metal band along the edge of a puddle. Eddie picked it up and stepped out of the hutch, where the moonlight coming through a thinner patch of clouds washed the woods in deep silver. The band was a watch; a very nice watch, if he had to guess. That woman had glanced at her wrist when she was on the phone. Eddie closed his eyes, recalling the memory. It looked like she’d been checking the time, and in his mind, there was a strip of silver on her wrist, although he couldn’t decide if he’d generated the detail here and now. He couldn’t trust his thoughts anymore, or he’d see coincidences and clues everywhere. He also couldn’t ignore the rhythm of the clock, ticking against his palm like a tiny heartbeat.
He tucked the watch in his other pocket and stepped out of the room. He eyed the next hill, the longest and steepest of the three. His bad leg shook beneath him, threatening to buckle, and mist began to fall. Going straight up the face of the mountain was no longer an option. If he wanted to keep going, and he did, he had no choice but to take the hiking trail. It was quadruple the distance, maybe longer. But at the top was a clearing where most of the trees had gone down last fall. He’d be able to see for a solid mile, even in the rain.
AMA Chapter 10 | 6:25 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
JONATHON TOWED HER UNDER THE cover of trees just as the falling mist became rain again. He retrieved a rope from his pack, looped it around the thin metal cord binding her wrists, and tethered her to a tree trunk, giving her about a foot and a half of slack. She felt like a dog on a chain and almost wished he’d bound her fast. The tiny margin of movement was maddening.
“You get three questions,” Jonathon said. He withdrew a small emergency lantern and clicked it on, washing the little shelter in a bluish glow. Shadows exaggerated the angles of Jonathon’s face. Ama still couldn’t remember what he looked like at the bar in Atlanta, but she had the feeling she’d seen him before somewhere else.
“Who are you?” she blurted, instantly regretting she hadn’t thought out all three questions before asking.
A ghost of
a smile appeared on Jonathon’s lips, and he glanced down at the ground. “I’m striking that question from the record, Counselor. Try harder.” He was enjoying watching her squirm. She needed to shift the focus, try to change the balance somehow.
Ama swallowed, and her temple throbbed with lingering pain and another wave of fear. She needed to remember that this man, whoever he was, was a criminal, first and foremost. She dealt with criminals all the time. She could talk them off ledges, into patience, out of the truth, and away from self-incrimination. She knew she could push this man’s buttons. She just had to find them.
She forced her expression to relax. “This isn’t about me, Jonathon. This is about you. I need to remember that. So why don’t you start from the beginning?” she said, and leaned forward. “Tell me your story.”
MICHAEL Chapter 11 | August 1984 | Tarson, Georgia
MOTHER’S FINGERS ARE TEN HAWK talons in my shoulders, clamped and squeezing, and I am certain that when at last she lets me go, blood will pour from ten holes in my skin.
“Are you even trying? I have five-year-old students who try harder than you. ‘Für Elise’ is a beginner’s song. It is basic. By now it should be burned in your brain, a reflex in your fingers. Why do you stumble and hunt after the refrain? What is wrong with you?” Her voice fills the room. She curls her stature over me in a cobra’s arc, her fangs and tongue an inch from my ear, and yet still she yells.
“When will Father be home?” I mumble.
She releases my shoulders, snatches the neck of my shirt, and within a blink, I am slung off the piano bench and to the carpet. My face finds the floor first, and my wrist twinges underneath me.
“Get out of my sight. Go ahead. Run to your father.” She glowers down at me, lips pulled back, brown eyes cut to slits. Her gaze falls on my cheek, where the rough carpet has rubbed a warm, stinging place. “You better tell him you fell.”
