by Tess Oliver
"Thought I told you to turn around." Isaac stepped out of the shadows. He had his shotgun leaning against the porch railing.
"Isaac," I said calmly. "It's me, Kingston. Malcolm Bristow's boy." Growing up, Isaac knew us more by who our parents were than by our own names. Fortunately and unfortunately, my name was unique enough that he usually remembered mine.
Silence followed as Isaac shuffled more into the light. Just as Tyler had mentioned, his beard hung to his belly. He'd grown into a withered old mountain man. He had skinned dead animals hanging from the porch to prove it.
"Bristow?" he asked. "You're not Malcolm Bristow. He was supposed to come fix my roof."
"I'm his son. I'll remind him about the roof." I was certain Dad had stopped coming out to Isaac's cabin years ago, but I assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that friendliness and familiarity were going to help. I moved closer to the cabin, taking only incremental steps. For all I knew, he had booby traps set up around the place.
Isaac squinted out into the diminishing daylight to get a better look at me. It was better than seeing him reach for his gun. Tyler seemed certain it was unloaded. Since I'd never known Isaac to actually shoot anyone, even though he probably had good cause back when we were teens trying to harass him, I decided to take my chances. I still had the phone tucked in one hand, ready to send off an emergency text if necessary.
"I know you," Isaac said. His voice was hoarse. It seemed this was probably more talking than he did in a year. "You're Malcolm's boy. You're that hoodlum who likes to ride his bike through my yard." It seemed Isaac was stuck in the past. There was no way anyone could ride a bike through his yard these days.
"Yeah, it's me, Kingston. Sorry about riding through on my bike." My rebellious teen years were coming back to bite me in the ass.
"Kingston, that's right. Ridiculous name," he laughed. "I always asked your dad why he chose that name." He laughed again. It seemed my ridiculous name had lightened the mood. Maybe I wouldn't get shot after all. Tyler's assessment of his mental health seemed overstated. Isaac seemed to be stuck back in time.
I got close enough that we didn't need to yell, but we still had to talk loudly. My toes came in contact with one of the metal troughs. The clang reverberated through the forest. The sudden noise startled me more than him.
"Hey, Isaac, can I ask you a question?"
"Don't you forget to tell your dad about my roof. It leaks something terrible."
"I can see it needs repair. I'll let him know." I felt bad lying, but I was fairly confident my dad wouldn't be coming out anytime soon to fix his roof. It was hard to believe he could survive out here in such a wreck of a cabin. That roof looked as if it had been falling in on itself for years.
"Isaac, do you remember Mary Jensen?" I tossed the question out there like a flaming arrow. It seemed to have struck its target.
He lowered his face to get out of the last bit of glare from the dying sun. "Mary Jensen? She's dead. Dead and buried," he said. "What are you asking about her for?"
"See, that's the thing. The town wants to have a proper funeral for her. She never had one, so we were hoping you could tell us where she—"
"She's up at the park. Not supposed to tell you, but that's where she is. Under that tree. Damn rainy night, that night."
It seemed Tyler's assessment about his mental health wasn't that far off after all. He was letting the whole sordid deed flow free from his mouth and to a near stranger.
"Why is she in the park, Isaac? Why isn't she in the church cemetery?"
He waved his arm. It nearly knocked him off balance. "He didn't want anyone to know. Just like with those girls in the barn. He didn't want anyone to know." He pointed a crooked finger my direction. "See, he knew he'd be in trouble, so he didn't want anyone to find out."
"Who is the person you're talking about? Who is he?" I sent off the text. No matter what was about to transpire, the police were going to want to hear what Isaac had to say.
Isaac's beard swung like a pendulum as he shook his head. "Nope, can't tell you that. That girl was going to have his baby. She wouldn't get rid of it so, he had to get rid of her. So much gasoline, I can't believe we didn't burn the whole damn hillside." An ill-timed chuckle followed. Isaac's social skills were still a little off for polite society. It was also apparent that he had a few things to get off his chest after years of being a recluse. I had no doubt about the identification of the person. It seemed I was about to discover the truth about a decades old mystery. I was going to try a new strategy.
"The three girls who died in the barn," I started, "you and Nicholas Jensen set the barn on fire to get rid of the girls?"
He squinted out at me again. "Who did you say you were?" It seemed I'd gone one step too far by actually naming the murderer.
"It's Kingston, Kingston Bristow, Malcolm's son." I hoped I could drag him back into the therapy session we'd been having. "We were talking about the barn fire and Mary Jensen."
"Yep, we buried her that night. Worst rainstorm in twenty years."
"Where is she?" Sutton yelled from behind me. "Where is my mom?" She marched toward the metal barrier.
"I've got this covered," I muttered from the side of my mouth. "Get back in the truck."
"No, he knows she's not in the park. Where did my dad bury her?" She was half crying, half yelling as she pulled off her hat and sunglasses and threw them in the dirt.
I was so busy trying to get Sutton to go back to the truck, I hadn't noticed that Isaac had stepped off the porch to get a closer look at his uninvited guests.
I turned back to him. He was waving a finger at her. His leathery face was ashen white like his beard. "You. It's you." He stumbled backwards a few steps. "I threw you in the river. I threw Kenzie in the river. She was a bad influence. She was a devil."
Sutton and I stood stock-still behind the makeshift barrier in the middle of a forest where darkness and chill were quickly descending on us. The old, weathered man behind the barrier truly looked as if he had seen a ghost. And it seemed he had.
Sutton marched closer. "It was you, you monster. You never left me alone. You followed me everywhere, you creep. You were always trying to talk to me, but I wanted nothing to do with you. I wasn't the devil. You were."
Everything was spilling into craziness. I was hearing shit that had my head and my heart pounding with confusion.
Isaac nearly fell over backward as he turned quickly to grab his shotgun.
"Sutton, get back in the truck now!" I yelled.
Her face was streaked with tears. "Did you hear that? He killed her!" She covered her face. "It should have been me." They were the last baffling words I heard her utter before bright lights lit up the entire clearing.
Isaac was still trying to get his bearings. It seemed seeing his murder victim alive and talking was sending him into shock. I raced over to Sutton. "It's all right. I recorded everything. The police are here now. It's over. It's all over."
"Kenzie," the deep voice sent a chill down my spine and caused the woman in my arms to collapse.
She trembled wildly and held onto my arm for support. We both froze to the spot as Nicholas Jensen stepped out from behind the glare of headlights.
25
Sheriff Jensen was smaller, shorter somehow or maybe I was just bigger. He was entirely bald and his posture wasn't as ramrod straight as it used to be back when he'd approach me with his crisply pressed uniform, hat and sunglasses to ask me what trouble I'd been up to. One thing was certain, there was no missing the glaze of pure evil in his eyes. Instinctively, I moved Sutton behind me. She was shaking so hard her teeth were clattering. She clutched my sweatshirt to keep from folding at the knees.
"Bristow," Jensen said coldly. "I heard you've been back here making trouble again. I told your dad over and over that you were a bad egg, that you were never going to amount to anything. He never argued with me."
"That's because everyone in this town hated your fucking guts. You weren't
worth the time of day. Why would he listen to a murdering asshole like you?"
It was all coming back to me, the ice cold way the man could look at you, showing no emotion and making you want to take off at a full run. But I wasn't a kid anymore, and even though I had no doubt that he was armed, I wasn't about to run.
Big black shoes, the same I remembered with the steel toes, the toes that could kick in a door, moved toward me. I reached back to let Sutton know I had her.
"I also told that lazy, stupid dad of yours that you were never, ever to go near my daughter. And what happens? I find you standing in the middle of the forest with her glued to your back."
I was processing all the shit he was hurling at me, so I didn't notice that Sutton had stepped out from behind me. "You're a fucking murderer. You killed my mom, and you're going to jail for the rest of your life."
Jensen's nostrils widened. The only evidence that her words were affecting him. "You knew Isaac killed my sister. You knew. Did you fucking help him? You weren't even crying—that night—after they pulled her from the river. You pretended. It was a fucking act."
"You were delirious from what happened," he insisted. "Of course I was upset. Just like I was when your mom left. She left the two of you all alone. I raised you, and you two brats repaid me by constantly switching identities. I never knew who I was talking to. It was your wicked plan to drive me crazy."
"It was the only thing we could think of to throw you off your game. We thought we could just gaslight you into confessing to us that you had killed Mom. It was Sutton's idea. I mean that's how little you cared about us. What kind of father can't tell his two daughters apart?"
His laugh sent a chill through me. The scene and conversation unfolding in front of me was shocking, unsettling and downright heartbreaking.
"I could always tell you apart, even when you pretended to be the other. I know you're Kenzie. I'd recognize that stubborn pout anywhere. You're the reason Sutton is dead. It was supposed to be you, wasn't it? You pushed the plan too far. Sutton was pretending to be you that afternoon when Isaac attacked and killed her. Isn't that what you just learned from that blathering imbecile in front of the cabin?"
With the dramatic scene in front of me, I'd nearly forgotten about Isaac. I glanced back and saw that he had returned to his porch to cower in the shadows. He was either deathly afraid of Jensen, or he finally realized that he had confessed to Sutton Jensen's murder. Sutton. All along, I'd been with Kenzie. And she never told me. She'd never confessed.
Kenzie's gasp pulled my focus back to Jensen. He was pointing a gun, not at his daughter but at me. "I didn't kill your mother. She tried to hit me with a frying pan. I pushed her. She fell and hit her head on the kitchen counter. Now, I want you to go get in the car while I clean up here." Jensen cast a murderous scowl my direction.
"The station already knows everything," I lied. "I recorded Isaac's confession."
A dry laugh spurted from his mouth. "Great, then they can arrest him. I'll tell them all about the accident and get off with a plea deal." He had everything calculated down to the plea deal. It was the number one problem with trying to accuse a lawman of murder. That, and the fact that he was a skilled shot with a handgun. I had another big piece of ammo in my arsenal, the barn fire murder, but I wasn't sure if it would be worth mentioning with the gun pointed at me.
I tried to weigh my options but didn't need to look any further than the half dozen headlights moving quickly toward the cabin. They weren't even slowing down for the rough road.
Isaac jumped out of hiding. "More intruders!"
His call of alarm alerted Jensen to the incoming cars. He swung around. "What the hell?"
It was the first time he sounded worried, his hardened veneer cracking. He laughed but this time it didn't have the usual arrogant confidence. "Big deal, I'll just let them know that Bristow was trespassing and that he was holding my long lost daughter hostage." It was slightly impressive how quickly his evil mind could develop a scenario to get him out of trouble.
"First you'll have to explain to all your ex-coworkers why you told them Kenzie had died in the river from suicide and Sutton killed herself a year later," I said.
"Your reign of terror is over," Kenzie said, her voice shaky. She was starting to fall apart from the sheer shock of everything she'd learned. I wasn't feeling too steady myself, and I'd had even more revelations tossed my direction.
Behind me, I heard the cabin door slam. Isaac had gone inside to hide, but he wasn't going to be able to hide from his guilt. The only chance he had now was to turn on Jensen, his lifelong, murderous friend and accomplice.
"Your friend is inside hiding because he knows it's over . . . for both of you," I said. "I'm still trying to put all the pieces together. So Isaac helped you cover up the barn fire, where you killed three girls just because you got one pregnant." That statement turned his face grayish white. "He even helped you cover up your wife's murder. I was there that night, remember? I was on the trail, and I came upon you two with your shovels and flashlights. By the way, when you cleaned up after yourself and moved the body, you left behind a bracelet."
"Fucking liar. None of this is true. It's my word against yours and I'm Sheriff Jensen."
"You mean you were Sheriff Jensen," Kenzie said weakly. "Now you're just a murderer about to head to jail."
The patrols cars were just about in the clearing. I was feeling confident that Jensen wasn't going to pull the trigger in front of witnesses, including his own police force. I stepped closer to him, fists curled. I badly wanted to pound him, but the damage would be done soon enough. "When Isaac killed Sutton, you helped him cover it up because he knew so much about your murderous past, he could ruin you. You helped cover up the murder of your own daughter," I added. "Fucking monster."
Kenzie screamed and ran toward him with fists flying. She got in a few good punches before I pulled her off.
"You don't know who you're talking to." Spittle flew from Jensen's mouth as he yelled. The calloused, ruthless shell had broken. We were watching him fall the fuck apart in real time. "I'm Sheriff Jensen!"
"Not anymore," a woman's voice said from behind. I hadn't met the new sheriff, Sheriff Watkins, but I'd heard she was tough, no-nonsense and highly respected. "It's over, Nicholas. We've found the body, your wife's body, in the park. It took us a few runs, but we've got her."
"You'll want to talk to Isaac. I just sent Tyler a recording I made. I think you'll find Jensen has more than one murder on his plate and Isaac too," I added.
"We're going to need you both to come to the station and make statements," Sheriff Watkins said. "In the meantime, Nicholas Jensen you are under arrest for the murder of Mary Jensen."
Kenzie was still holding onto me, after I'd pulled her off her dad. She peered up at me through teary eyes. "You did it, King. You got him."
I nodded. "We got him. And once you and I finish with our statements, we need to have a serious discussion."
"Yes, I owe you that at least," she said weakly.
"At least."
26
It was well past midnight by the time Kenzie and I were through answering questions and giving statements. It was odd thinking of her as Kenzie and not Sutton. The whole thing had torn me in two. I couldn't deny that I'd felt duped, like a real idiot, but it also helped me make sense of some of the weird shit I'd been feeling. Right from the start, I'd felt instantly bonded to her, just like I'd been with Kenzie. In my mind and my heart, I had to sort those feelings with a new reality, that the woman I was falling in love with all over again was her sister Sutton. It was confusing as hell for someone who had always been crazy about the other twin. My immediate strong feelings made sense now. She was Kenzie. She was the girl I had been obsessed and infatuated with my whole life. Or was she? It seemed the twins had been playing a massive prank, not just on their insane and dangerous father but on the whole fucking town.
I waited on the bench in the visitor area in the police station. The
arrest of Nicholas Jensen had stirred up a hurricane of energy and emotion at the station, and if I wasn't misinterpreting it, there was some celebration. Apparently, the Westridge youth weren't the only people who had a visceral hate for Sheriff Jensen. It made sense considering he was a cold-blooded murderer. The activity at the precinct had been charged with electricity, but once the shock had worn off and the gossip had been spoken, the place had calmed down.
A door opened and Sheriff Watkins followed Kenzie out into the hallway. "We'll call you if we need anything else," Watkins told her. "Just let the coroner know when you've made arrangements for your mother's remains. And again, I'm so sorry."
Kenzie nodded. She looked pale and tired and as if every ounce of life had been drained from her. It was a lot to absorb in one night, but at least she could bring that much needed closure to two terrible tragedies in her life. One thing was certain, Jensen was going to jail for a long time. Watkins immediately had her investigators pull the file on the forty-year-old barn fire. It turned out that the first Sheriff Jensen had signed off on the claim that it was just an accident. There were no autopsies, no information other than one line that claimed the three girls were trespassing in an old barn, and they had dropped a candle and started a fire.
I stood up. Kenzie walked right into my arms. I held her for a long time, but I was drowning in a sea of mixed emotions. I finally had the girl I'd always wanted in my arms, only I wasn't certain I could forgive her. Loving Kenzie had always been complicated, a thorn in my young life. First, there was having to compete for her attention with every other guy in town. She tortured all of us, flirting and making every guy feel like he was the chosen one, which confused the hell out of all of us. She had been playing us, all of us. She'd admitted as much to me the night I'd followed her into the alley of the band venue. But then, I thought she was Sutton. It turned out Kenzie was confessing to me that she had been playing me, Bret, all of the guys who followed her around like stray puppies just waiting for a little attention. And she had continued the game. She was still playing me. All this time she had pretended to be Sutton. I'd fallen for the pretend version of Sutton. The whole fucking thing was messing with my head.
