Blackout (31 page)

I join Dare picking up trash and cleaning his cabin. On the floor, an abalone jewelry box shines in the dim light. “Did your mother give you this?”

“Um.” There’s a distraught look that shadows his eyes.

When I pick it up, the latch pops open and the contents spill out. I shove the jewelry into the box. A charm bracelet sparkles within the pile.

A memory sparks in my mind. The charms dangling on her delicate wrist as she swings me around. “Mama, it makes me sick. Please stop.”

I stop, swallowing hard. I hated it when she would swing me. It’s my first memory of her.

The more I stare at the silver bracelet the more my surroundings close in on me, shoving a pillow over my face. It’s hers. She was there. I’m certain of this now.

“Where did you get this?” I ask between ragged breaths. “Why did you keep this from me? Is this how you knew she was there?”

Dare’s hands tremble and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “I found it in the clearing months afterward. I’d forgotten about it. It was your mom’s? I thought it might be.”

“Yes, how could you keep this from me?” Hurt pinches the corners of my eyes. That’s how he knew she was there. That’s why he thinks she’s dead. “I need to go home.”

“Teal,” he begs. “Please don’t. I didn’t mean to.”

I roll the charms between my fingers, the Eiffel Tower one pinching me. Something doesn’t add up, and I can’t wrap my mind around it. “Why didn’t you give this to the cops?”

Dare takes a seat, exhaustion smudging the crescent moons underneath his eyes. “I didn’t see the point. I’d already been convicted. I always meant to ask you about it, but I couldn’t get near you.”

“I should go home.” Something’s not right, and I can’t put my finger on it.

“Teal, you aren’t mad?” His hands slip around my waist, and his affection assures me.

But that’s not what I need now. “I remembered something about her. I need to think.” I need sleep. I need to remember.

If Dare hadn’t been convicted then neither of us would be the incomplete souls we’ve become. We would’ve found the truth of that tragic day instead of letting it drag us to the bottom of the bog for the last ten years, but maybe that worked out for the best. Whoever is stalking me would’ve killed us both as children. Now, we may have a chance.

Dare takes me outside to the truck. He drops me at home where I plan on spending the day sleeping in the sun by Kami’s side and dreaming. A memory surfaced. That has to be good indicator.

Lulu fusses around the kitchen. “Your dad went to bed. He’s very angry with you and me for not telling him about all the break-ins. He thinks I should’ve called him sooner. Good thing your young man did, or we’d both be in the doghouse forever.”

“I’ll talk to Daddy.” It was stupid of me not to involve him.

Lulu feels her way around the counter then the table where a large box rests. “This came a little while ago. Who’s it for? I couldn’t read the address.”

I read the label on the packing slip. “It’s for me.” I search for the return address, but there isn’t one. The stamps and postage on the box indicate that it originated from Paris. I already received a gift from Daddy, so whom could it be from?

My fingers tremble while they run over the packing tape. I pull out a sharp knife and slide it under the adhesive. When I reach inside, popcorn tumbles out. My hands touch cool glass with Styrofoam statically collecting on my arms as I dig them out.

I gasp at the vase’s exquisite and unique beauty. Gold and silver interlace with a wash of aquamarine and other rich hues of blue and green amongst the clear lead crystal.

I close my eyes, letting the coolness of the glass infuse into me.

The gold, the silver, the gems. I tried them on, playing dress up, swirling around in her bedroom. It’s Daddy’s room too. I love him.

Mama catches me. I freeze, scared, not that she’ll hurt me. It’s the ugliness.

She rips her shirt off me. I conceal myself with my hands, even though I have nothing to show. She always told me to cover myself, so boys wouldn’t look. She’d told me men were evil, and that if I wore modest clothing, they wouldn’t attack or hurt me. That must be why I cover myself.

“Oh, honestly, Teal,” she’d say. “Go put on jeans. You were supposed to be a boy.”

I jerk out of my memory. I don’t think I liked her, but I didn’t hate her. I so wanted her attention, to be like her, beautiful, mysterious, but I was uninteresting, boyish in her eyes.

Lulu reaches for the vase in my hands. “What is it?”

“A glass vase.”

She elbows me. “I told you she’s alive. Describe it to me. Lynn is very talented—all my children are.”

I tell her what it looks like while I search for a card or letter. In the midst of the packing, my fingers gloss over linen paper. After all this time, what will she say? What can she say? What could possibly make up for all this time? For my lost memories?

Opening the perfume-scented letter, my mouth dries, and my hands shake. It smells of Chanel Number 5.

I cannot possibly excuse myself for not writing sooner, but I’ve been busy with my art and doing well. I wish I were there to celebrate your eighteenth and hope you will think of me whenever you look at this vase. Lynn

No “sorry.” No “I miss you.” No explanation. And no Mama, only Lynn.

I plop down onto a kitchen chair. How could she? And why now? I know what Dare would say. That my daddy sent it from Paris to make me continue believing Mama is alive. It’s hard imagining that Dare could be right.

“It’s about time your mother sent you something.” Lulu hugs me. “You should go see her.”

“There’s no return address. Just Paris.”

“Her work shouldn’t be too hard to find. Put the vase somewhere we can all admire it. How I wish I could really see it.” Lulu’s hand glosses over the smooth glass.

Lulu’s right. I could search my mother out, but do I want to? Do I care about her? I only want answers—if she’s alive.

I fix breakfast for Lulu before she shoos me outside where I relax in the sun, exhausted from last night. Whoever took Dare’s gun and hit him in the head needs to be caught. Daddy came home within near proximity, and that leaves me uneasy. His timing couldn’t have been worse. Why would he hurt Mama? What would be his motive? He grew up with money, so I can’t think of any.

Dare didn’t say he’d pick me up, so I take a taxi over to Miles’ office.

I walk into the lobby where several comfortable chairs and magazines clutter coffee tables. I wait for him there while Miles visits with another patient. When I enter, an older woman stops wringing her hands and fingers through a magazine instead. A middle school boy finally comes out, his head hung down low, avoiding any eye contact. It makes me wonder what his story is.

I notice Miles doesn’t touch him. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. He told me some children take a long time before they can trust adults. That’s not me. If I wasn’t molested, what happened? What made me shutdown?

Miles gestures to me to join him in his office. After he closes the door, he says, “You have a stack of documentation. I read through your testimony that Dare dropped off, and I’ve gotten through half of the other court documents.”

“Dare dropped it by?” When? I sit on the sofa, kicking off my sandals and tucking my feet under me.

“Yes. He seemed upset and concerned.” Miles grins. “He’s quite taken with you.”

When the outside door closes, Miles gets up and opens the inside office door. “Good, you’re here.”

Dare strolls into the office. He’s in khakis and a work shirt with Tucker’s stitched onto the pocket. “I went by to get you,” he says to me.

“Sorry. I wasn’t sure.”

Dare shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. Grease stains his fingers. “I didn’t mean to be late. I got tied up with a customer.”

I could see him in a clinic, caring for children’s pets, instead of working for his dad.

Miles sits on the arm of his wingback chair. “I know this may be difficult for you, Teal, but I’d like for you to hear Dare’s version of what happened that night too.”

I inhale slowly. I’ve been expecting this, but fear plays tug of war between my lungs and my mind. “Okay.”

Dare takes a seat next to me and laces his fingers into mine. He blows out a breath to begin, his hand slightly trembling. If he’s frightened, then how will I handle what he saw? He stares down at the beige carpet, practically shrinking into himself. I realize now that he has had a hard time dealing with whatever happened that day too. No one has ever really listened to it, other than possibly his family.

“When Teal stumbled up to me, I was frog gigging, which isn’t exactly legal in the refuge.” He unintentionally squeezes my fingers too tightly. He swallows. “Blood was splattered all over her shirt, and her arms and legs were cut up pretty bad, but that was probably from the swamp. Not the blood on her shirt though. It was thick. She’d also been hit on the top of her head really hard by something. I was scared. I couldn’t leave her there, but I couldn’t carry her out of the swamp either.”

I wiggle my fingers that he has a death grip on now.

His grip loosens only slightly on my hand. “I shouldn’t have left her at all, but she passed out, so I covered her with my jacket, hid her in a hollowed out tree, and went to search where she’d come from. Whoever did this to her could’ve still been around.”

“Continue, Darius,” Miles says. “How are you doing, Teal?”

I need to remember soon before anyone else is hurt. “Okay.”

Dare’s breathing becomes ragged, and I feel my own pulse quicken. “I followed Teal’s trail as best I could from the broken branches, remnants of her clothes, and blood. There’s a small area where deer bed down, and when I reached it, it w-w-was a slaughterhouse. I’ve never seen that much blood. Pieces of what looked like flesh were strewn about, but there was no body, no dead animal, just blood everywhere.”

I shake hard now, my heart speeding up like someone has stomped on my gas pedal. Images flash in front of my eyes. The same smells of a cigarette and gasoline and the whine of a loud machine bombard my senses.

I let go of Dare, curling into the sofa while black dots spot my vision. Dare stops talking, and his hand grasp my shoulders, but I fall into the void anyway. This time is different. The images are blurry, but I can make some of them out. The buzzing in my ear drowns out all other sounds. I cup my hands over my ears.

As I come to, Dare is leaning over me, worry creeping into his brow. “Teal, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You okay, Teal?” Miles grasps my arm. “What did you see?”

“It’s fine, Dare. For me to be cured, this needs to happen.” I slowly sit up because the room is spinning and my eardrums feel like they’re about to burst. “The buzzing was so loud that day.”

Miles turns toward Dare, sitting on the edge of the armchair. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Dare cocks his head. “The forest service was cutting down brush and trees to perform controlled burns that day. Could that sound be a chainsaw?”

I nod, thinking of the noise. “Yes, it could be.” It’s the first identifiable piece of my missing history. The more I think about it the more distinct the sound in my mind becomes.

“Anything else?” Miles has moved from the arm of the chair onto the seat cushion.

“Masks. Party masks. I told you about those.” I glance up. “One woman and two men. They were wearing them and doing something weird.”

Miles scratches the stubble on his chin. His caterpillar eyebrows knit together so that they look like a black snake. “What you saw as a child might not have made sense to you at the time. I’d like to cover your testimony and some of the evidence while Darius is here.”

Miles shovels through the transcript and reads, “Kirkland: are you sure? Are you sure, Darius Tucker didn’t touch you? Teal: yeah he touched me. He put his coat on me.” He tosses the transcript onto the coffee table. “You never once said Darius touched you inappropriately. He leads you throughout the entire testimony, which leads to ambiguity. You should’ve had a child advocate with you.”

Dare puts his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Why was I convicted then?”

Miles exhales. “Teal’s testimony could be taken that you touched her. You were three years older. Her clothes were torn.”

“But why did Kirkland give her leading questions?” Dare trolls for more answers.

Miles shakes his head. “The law isn’t always about justice. It’s often about appearances. A small town has a young girl missing. They find her, her clothes are torn, she has blood on her, and she has a concussion. Someone had done something to this eight-year-old girl, and the police needed an arrest.”

Dare cracks his knuckles, anger flaring in the curl of his lip. “And that was me.”

“What’s interesting is the police never came up with how her skull was cracked open. Teal adamantly states you did not hit her.” Miles relaxes in his wingback. “Did the police check for the blood? I haven’t read that far into the court proceedings or reviewed the evidence.”

Dare lets out an irritated sigh. “Yeah, a few days later, I went out there with them. The blood was completely gone. There was nothing there.”

“Did the State Crime Lab take any soil samples or test for blood?” Miles asks.

Dare grips my knee. “Only the sheriff and a couple deputies were there. They just looked around.”

Miles shakes his head. “Doesn’t surprise me. There are too many holes in the story and investigation. It’s interesting that the police never looked into your mother’s disappearance.”

“I think she’s alive.” I can’t look Dare in the eyes. “She sent me a birthday present.”

Dares looks skeptically at me, but Miles is the first one to speak. “Her leaving and your injuries don’t seem like a coincidence. That’s why we will keep digging until we find answers, and we have to find out soon. With your friend missing and the break-ins, someone doesn’t want you to find out, and now we have not one but three people involved that day in the swamp. I don’t know what to think about that. It’s hard to keep one mouth shut, let alone three.”

Miles rubs his face. “Your recovery, Teal, depends on solving what’s most likely a murder. This is a first for me.”