by Tessa Wegert
“That was a hell of a bruise,” Doug said with a scowl. “You told me what happened the next day, at the movies.”
“The St. Albans drive-in,” I said, perking up.
“We all went on Saturday night. God, that place was the best.”
It was and it wasn’t. Doug was the only one of us with a license that summer, and he preferred to fill my parents’ car with friends. Crissy had friends of her own with access to cars, so Abe and I had to get creative. Once we got there, it was up to us to find a vehicle to watch from or we’d be stuck sitting cross-legged in the Coke-sticky, ant-ridden grass.
“It was The X-Files,” said Doug, and for once I wasn’t quite as awed by his memory. I’d been obsessed with the series and dying to see the movie. I’d been talking about it for months.
I squeezed an eye closed, willing the memories to trickle in. “But I didn’t get to watch it,” I said. “Because of Abe.”
We’d come to the end of the block. When Doug started heading back toward the house, I slowed my pace a little. I didn’t want our conversation to end.
“You spent the whole night looking for Brett’s car,” Doug said.
“That’s right. We couldn’t find him on Friday, and Abe wanted another shot at convincing him to come home.”
The image was clearer now. I saw a field crammed with cars and pickup trucks at dusk, the snack bar throbbing with parents and kids as the smell of burger grease and popcorn, gasoline and fresh-mowed grass filled the summer air. With a flare of sound the previews started up, and the colossal screen stuttered to life. I saw myself weaving between parked cars still hot to the touch with my head bowed low, circumventing sightlines, but the vehicles were in the hundreds, and many more patrons had set up camp in folding beach chairs, blocking my path. I searched as though my life depended on it while the movie I’d waited years to see played on. I did it for Abe.
“The place was packed,” I said. “It felt like everyone in the county came out for that movie. Suze was there. I think she helped us search.” She’d tried to, anyway, but Abe didn’t want her help. He’d never trusted Suze.
“Dina Ledoux was there, too,” said Doug.
“Redhead?”
“Goddess.”
I laughed. “Was this the girl you were crushing on since your freshman year? The one you always wore that stinky bomber jacket for because she once said she liked it?”
“The very same. I was dying to talk to her, but Abe kept getting in my face.”
“Getting in your face how?”
Again he shrugged. The high winter sun turned the gray hairs behind his ears into tinsel. “He wanted me to look for Brett, too. Kept saying it was his last chance or his dad would be gone forever.”
“He was right. The receptionist at the plant told us Brett planned on moving that Sunday. If I can reconstruct the timeline of that weekend,” I said, “we might be able to figure out who killed him.”
“Well, you know he was at the movies.”
“Brett was? You saw him there?”
“Sure. You didn’t?”
“We couldn’t find him.” I paused. Was that true? I knew that by the end of the night Abe was pretty upset. Wasn’t that because we struck out? Fucking Bram. I couldn’t tell which memories he’d contaminated. Would I have any fond ones of him at all if he hadn’t drilled them into my head? “If you saw Brett there,” I said, “he was still alive Saturday night.”
That got a headshake. “He was alive a lot longer than that. He moved to Philly, remember? Abe went to live with him.”
“See, I’m not so sure.” It was certainly the story we’d been told by our parents: Abe ran away and ended up in Philadelphia with Brett. Severed ties with his mother and sister, choosing instead to live with his dad. But apart from the letter Felicia received, nobody had heard from Brett for years.
I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets and said, “What if Abe never actually reconnected with Brett after leaving Swanton? He was sixteen, a minor. Felicia would have had to report him as a runaway, but then she got a letter from Brett saying Abe had arrived. She could breathe easy knowing he was safe.” And Abe could dissolve into the ether.
“Abe could have forged the letter,” I said, spitballing. “He had lots of birthday cards from Brett to work with.” It would explain the decades-old skeletal remains, and why Brett was never heard from again after his supposed move. “I don’t think Brett left Swanton at all. I think June 20th, 1998—the day we went to the movies—could have been the day he died.”
We stood cheek by jowl in front of my parents’ house, both of us freezing, neither making a move for the door. “Let’s say the killer knew about Brett’s plan to take off,” I said. “It’s kind of genius, really. Nobody considered Brett missing because they knew he was going to be leaving the state.”
Doug had grown quiet and seemed a little distant, but I didn’t want to lose my train of thought, so I barreled on. “If I’m right about the timeline, I’d say we can rule out the possibility of the killer being a stranger. A murder like his isn’t likely to be random. Too many major events converging. A man doesn’t quit his job, leave his family, and immediately become the victim of an indiscriminate psychopath.”
“Crissy,” said Doug.
Had he been this pale five minutes ago? His freckles were strangely bright against his skin. “What about her?” I asked.
“You said major events around the time of Brett’s disappearance. Brett quit the plant and planned to leave town, but that’s also when Crissy disappeared.”
“I thought she went missing when she was fif—”
A week to the day before Crissy’s sixteenth birthday. That’s when Felicia said Brett left.
“Mom was going to throw her a Sweet Sixteen party,” Doug told me, “but she had to cancel because Crissy was still recovering.”
“Holy shit.” I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. “Does that mean she went missing the same weekend Brett did?”
“Yeah,” Doug said. “I think it does.”
It was like I’d suddenly discovered an unfamiliar mole on the back of my own hand. How did I miss it? It defied explanation. So much of what Doug was saying felt like moments in a story I’d been told, rather than memories pulled from my own life. Why had Bram talked so much about our past? What was it that he wanted me to see?
“Did you ever ask Crissy what happened to her?” I said. Doug had spent a lot more time with Crissy than I did. They’d even had some friends in common.
“Tried to. She didn’t remember much. The blood tests showed meth in her system. Honestly, that was the most shocking thing about her disappearance for me. I didn’t think she went in for hard drugs. Anyway,” he said, “apparently she got in a big fight with Felicia and ran off, and somehow ended up unconscious in the woods with a nasty gash on her head and a mild concussion.”
I didn’t like the picture that put in my mind, or the visions of other women lying limp in the woods that flickered flipbook-style behind my eyes. “You don’t think some guy—”
“No evidence of that.”
“Where exactly was she found? I remember hearing about a creek.”
“Charcoal Creek,” said Doug.
“How far is that from the fishing access?”
“Fuck.”
“How far, Doug?”
He’d dropped his head into his hands. When he looked back up, his eyes were ringed in red. “I don’t know exactly where Crissy was found. Hook Road and that creek are close, though. A mile apart. Maybe less.”
Father and daughter, both missing the same weekend, both in the area of the wildlife refuge, and only one found alive. What did it mean?
I pictured Crissy crying in her small house on the bay, still as furious with Felicia as she’d been two decades before. I saw the bruise Felicia left on Abe when she channeled
her rage over Brett into that blow. I didn’t know what to make of it all, but one thing was for sure. If Mom didn’t like me casting doubt on Felicia, she sure as hell wasn’t going to like this.
TWENTY-TWO
I declined to join my family for lunch. My mind was reeling, and I was racked with guilt over my suspicions about Felicia. I didn’t think I could be in the same room as my mother without upsetting her again, so while my brother ate a late meal of grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup with Mom and Dad, I sent myself to my room.
As soon as I’d closed the door behind me, I took out my phone and dashed off an e-mail to Harmison. I didn’t know if he’d be willing to do me a favor, but given we were both working toward the same goal, it couldn’t hurt to ask. When I heard the telltale swish of the message sending, I looked up from my phone. An envelope lay in the middle of the bed, with a sticky note on top in my mom’s handwriting. Found this in the mailbox, it read.
My name was on the front, but there was no postmark or return address. I thought of Suze, all those letters we’d passed to each other in class. Was this from her? There was no bulk to the envelope, although I could feel something inside. A bead from an old necklace, maybe? It had that shape. I slid a finger under the flap, tore it open, and shook. A human tooth fell onto the blanket.
I stared at it. It was a pretty tooth, not at all like Abe’s had been. It was small, but it wasn’t a baby tooth. The root, long and bloodied, was still intact. This was a child’s molar, removed by extraction.
I bent over and braced my hands against my knees.
I’d promised Tim he could trust my instincts, that the kid would be okay. I felt sure I knew how this would go. Follow the clues and come out a winner, just like when we were kids.
Deep breaths. Keep it together. I channeled every technique Carson taught me and willed my pulse to slow as I lowered myself to the bed and reached for the envelope once more. There was a note inside, three lines this time.
Who killed Brett?
Stop wasting time.
The truth is out there.
* * *
* * *
We met at the entrance to the concession stand, where the poster for the featured movie shone glossy behind the glass. I was vibrating with excitement. The X-Files, at last. We’d watched every episode together, Abe and I, and the series tagline had become our maxim.
The truth is out there.
It was all about that night. But I was missing something, a key component of Brett’s life that would explain his movements after he left the drive-in.
In my childhood bedroom, I wrapped the tooth in a tissue and thought about our decades-old evening at the movies until my head hurt. Hours passed that way, me sitting by the window watching the daylight fade, dusk plunging me into chilly darkness as I agonized over the newest message and scoured the street below for Bram.
Eventually, I called Mac. There was a piece of Trey in Swanton, part of the child’s body inside my parents’ house, and the fear of what that meant had me so tightly coiled my own teeth throbbed. When she didn’t answer, I called Tim, but he wasn’t picking up either. After our last conversation I didn’t blame him, but I tried again two more times. Three. Who killed Brett? Not Abe, not if his note was to be believed. But he was a killer all the same.
You hear stories of cases messing with detectives’ heads. Searches for serials can last for years as investigators work themselves to death looking for something, anything that will bring them closer to their man. Those cases can start to get personal. A suspect can become a detective’s white whale. That was nothing compared to what was going on between me and Bram. Pulling Trey’s tooth was psychotic behavior, a sadistic act meant to curdle my blood, but Bram’s intent was also to leave me feeling sick with guilt.
Nobody knocked or called my name until almost six o’clock, and only then did I realize some of the pain I’d been feeling was due to hunger. When I heard Doug’s voice, my whole body relaxed. What I needed was a psychological escape. Obsessing over Bram wasn’t good for me. I’d learned that the hard way on Tern Island. What’s more, hiding from my mother in my room was childish. Everything would look brighter after dinner with my family, a good meal and some of my brother’s stories to send us into fits of laughter and reboot my relationship with Mom. All of that would imbue me with the comfort and strength I needed to buck up and revisit my family’s dark side.
When I got to the kitchen, I found my parents and Doug sitting at the table.
The chair that had been mine since childhood was occupied by Felicia.
“Hello, poppet,” Dad said when he saw me, and reflexively, I cringed. I’d looked it up, that word, when I was younger, and found it described an object used in witchcraft, the British equivalent of a voodoo doll. It had bothered me ever since, but I couldn’t find it in me to tell my father. I was a grown woman in my thirties, an accomplished criminal investigator, yet standing before my family with nowhere to sit and a pet name I hated, I felt like a child on the verge of tears. When Doug offered me his seat, I declined and crossed the room to pour a glass of wine. A big one.
“Fee stopped by,” Mom said pointlessly as my aunt, picking up on my discontent, lowered her gaze to her glass of juice. Felicia was wearing lipstick and blush in warm shades that made her look like she’d spent the day sunning herself at a posh resort. My mother was a mess by comparison, hollow-eyed with her gray-blond hair hastily thrown into a ponytail. I found the contrast disquieting. It had always been Felicia who needed a hairbrush or to be talked off a ledge. When had that changed?
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dad nudge Doug with his toe. “We’ll leave you ladies to it,” he said. Once the men had replenished their beers and vacated the room, I finally took a seat and turned an inquisitive gaze on my aunt.
I still couldn’t get over how different Felicia was now, nothing at all like the woman who’d terrorized Crissy and Abe. Her husband was a pile of bones, her daughter wouldn’t speak to her, and her son was a violent runaway. How could she sip juice in my parents’ kitchen as though she lived an untroubled life? Was it all an act? If she killed her husband all those years ago, reinventing herself might have seemed like a good defense. Anyone who came around asking questions would have a hard time imagining Felicia as anything but the level-headed woman she now was.
Anyone but me.
I expected Mom to be the first to speak, but it was Felicia who leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking about our talk. There are some things I want to make sure you understand.”
“Okay,” I said and waited.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her yellow irises went a full shade darker. “I have an anxiety disorder,” Felicia said.
I’d known this for so long the statement shouldn’t have had an effect on me, but it was the first time I’d ever heard my aunt admit it.
“God,” she said, “there were so many days when I thought your mother was going to ship me off to the psych ward. Maybe she should have. The first time she stopped by to see baby Abe, the day after Brett brought me home from the hospital, she found me cowering with the kids in the hallway like we were bracing for a hurricane. Crissy was petrified and Abe was wailing from hunger, but I’d convinced myself a stranger was prowling the neighborhood. The hall was the only part of the house without windows. The only place that felt safe.”
This story was new to me, but not surprising. Many times I’d overheard Mom try to soothe Crissy and Abe when they were little. Your mother loves you so much. She doesn’t ever want to lose you.
“It had complete control of me,” Felicia went on. “Made me do things I’ll regret until the day I die, things I could never have imagined myself doing. That’s the nature of the disease.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. That was a lie. A month ago, I’d shot a witness because I allowed residual feelings of fear to interfere with my work. PTSD was a
n anxiety disorder, too, and I wasn’t myself when in its clutches.
And yet, a voice in my head said, No. You saw the pain she inflicted on her kids. It isn’t the same. Felicia’s struggle was undeniable, but the hurt it caused wasn’t limited to outbursts of violence. Between the emotional neglect and her constant diatribes about the dangers of their world, she’d tinkered with their heads all their lives. There was no comparison between what Felicia had done and the inner conflict I called my own. Was there?
“I don’t know what you see when you look at me,” Felicia said, “and I’m not sure I want to. When you were young, your allegiance was always to Abe. You tried to protect him from me, but I hope you know I love him.”
I pictured him in our kitchen. All those pizza nights with the cousins. He was desperate to get out of his house and into ours. It must have felt like escaping a battlefield and stumbling, stunned and blinking, into a meadow.
I love him, Felicia had said.
“I’m better now,” she went on. “I’ve finally got the right cocktail of medications, and I’m seeing a good therapist. I’d give anything to go back in time and do those things sooner, be the mother I should have been, but I can’t.” Felicia turned her head to look at her sister, and Mom gave a nod. Go on, it seemed to say. You can do it. Felicia nodded back. “Please believe me, I wasn’t right in the head back then, not at all. But I had nothing to do with what happened to Brett.”
Loyalty among sisters. That’s what I was witnessing. They’d die for each other, these women, do anything to defend one another against harm. My mother had clearly tipped Felicia off about my theory, and I knew she’d fight tooth and nail to prove Fee’s innocence. Her devotion to her sister ran that deep.
Suppressing a chill, I held my aunt’s gaze. “If you weren’t involved, then help me. Tell me everything you know—the truth, this time. Were you really not aware Brett had a girlfriend? I talked to Crissy and Russell Loming, and I’m going to talk to Cheryl Copely. You’re not doing yourself any favors by hiding the facts.”
