One Last Scream (36 page)

“Oh, my God,” Karen murmured.

“So, weeks later, that Sunday morning Amelia went missing, Lon came over to Clay’s looking for her. Clay let him come in and look around. But he also took that opportunity to tell Lon that if he found one more mark on Amelia, he’d kill him. Anyway, after Lon left, Clay called me. He said it was obvious Amelia had run away again, and he thought she might show up at his house eventually. He wanted me to come over. He also figured if Amelia had any new bruises,
I
should take the Polaroids, and then we’d call the state police, a lawyer, or child protective services.”

Naomi let out a long sigh. “I was at work when he called me that Sunday. They needed me there to work the register at the goddamn Safeway. I remember Clay asking me, ‘You mean, you can’t take a few hours off to help a child who might be in trouble?’ Then he hung up. That was the last thing he ever said to me.”

Naomi started to cry. “I was still at work when someone at the store told me Clay had been shot because they’d caught him trying to molest a neighbor’s little girl. I couldn’t believe it, and I still don’t. Clay never would have hurt Amelia. I might not have been there to see how it happened. But I know they have it wrong. There’s a difference between what people saw that day and what’s true. I’m certain of that.”

“I agree with you,” Karen said. “Do you think it’s possible Amelia was in her underwear because she wanted to show Clay some new bruises?”

“I wondered that, too,” Naomi said. “But they’d have said in the newspaper that she’d recently been beaten and then, no doubt, used it as more evidence against Clay. Besides, I don’t think Clay would have let her take off a stitch of clothing after that cop made those innuendos about the Polaroids.”

“Well, maybe Amelia was napping—” Karen started to say. But a click on the line interrupted her.

“I’m sorry. Just a sec,” Naomi said. “Let me see who this is.”

She clicked off, and while Karen waited, she figured even if they came up with a reason why Amelia had been in her underwear, they still couldn’t explain why she’d run screaming from Clay’s house and into her abusive, sadistic father’s arms.

Naomi clicked back on the line. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, there’s a crisis at work, and I need to go over there, to the same Safeway. I’m a manager there now. How’s that for progress?”

“Well, congratulations,” Karen said, with a weak laugh. “Thank you for talking to me, Naomi.”

“If you’re ever able to figure out what really happened that day, let me know, okay? You have my number. Sorry I wasn’t more help.”

“But you have been, believe me,” Karen said. “Amelia’s still in trouble. And you have helped her, Naomi. You have.”

“Well, thanks. Take care.”

Karen clicked off the line. She sat in the front seat of the car and watched the raindrops sliding down her windshield. Across the street, a woman stepped out of the library, put up her umbrella, then headed down the sidewalk. She disappeared around a corner.

Karen glanced at the library doors again and then at her watch: 7:50.

“Damn it,” Karen murmured. “She should have been here at least an hour ago.”

Amelia was once again missing.

The car window was open. Amelia felt the cold wind whipping through her hair and an occasional raindrop on her face. She was driving Karen’s Jetta, on her way to Wenatchee. She felt tense, but excited, too. She thought about how she’d finally get to use her father’s hunting knife slitting that bitch, Karen Carlisle’s, throat.

Amelia woke up with start, and in total blackness. She’d been having these horrible dreams all night. This was the latest, her gleefully planning Karen’s murder.

Earlier, she’d had a nightmare in which she’d put a gun in Shane’s mouth and pulled the trigger. They’d been in rowboat on a lake somewhere. She’d washed Shane’s blood off her face and hands with lake water. It had seemed so real. But Amelia kept telling herself these were just nightmares. She was still asleep in the spare bedroom at Karen’s house.

But why was it so dark? And what had happened to the sound machine? She didn’t hear the waves and those seagulls. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything.

A panic swept through her. She didn’t remember the bed feeling this hard, or the scratchy blanket. It smelled musty, like a basement.

Something had happened in the middle of the night.

Amelia had thought she’d dreamt that, too. She’d seen herself at night in Karen’s backyard with a strange-looking, pale man with jet-black hair. They’d lifted a decorative stone from the garden, uncovering where Karen hid the house key. Then they’d snuck into the house. The next part, Amelia figured
must
have been a dream, because she and the man had been in Karen’s spare bedroom, standing over
herself
in the bed. She’d watched herself sleeping. Bending over the bed, the man had put a damp cloth over her face. It had burned. For a moment, she’d felt as if she were suffocating.

Had it all really happened? It must have, because she was no longer in Karen’s guest room. This dark, dank room was in a totally different place far away from all sounds and light.

Amelia sat up and blindly groped around for a light. Her hand brushed against a lamp beside her, and she switched it on. Someone had taken away the lampshade, and the bare lightbulb was blinding. It took Amelia a moment to recognize the secondhand lamp from the guest room in the lake house. Sitting up on a cot with an army blanket over her, she glanced around the gray little room. There were a few boxes shoved against the wall, a stack of old records and board games, some old paint cans, and a broken hardback chair.

Amelia ran a hand through her hair, and realized most of it had been chopped off. They must have cut her hair, very short, while she’d been asleep, but why? She touched her nose and lips. They still burned from whatever was on that cloth the man put over her mouth. She had no idea how long ago that was. She looked around for a clock or a mirror. But there wasn’t one on the makeshift nightstand beside her. Someone had turned over a box to hold the lamp without a shade.

But they’d left her an opened can of Del Monte sliced peaches, a pack of chewing gum, and a small jar of Noxzema.

Amelia stared across the room at the big, bulky door. It was closed.

She knew where she was. This place had always given her the creeps. For years, she’d been afraid of somehow getting trapped here.

She was in the family cabin by Lake Wenatchee in the basement fallout shelter.

And yet, somehow, at this very moment, she could still feel the motion of Karen’s car, and a cold breeze through the open window kissing her face.

And she knew Karen was going to die.

She wandered up and down the aisles at the Wenatchee library, searching for Amelia. Karen figured she might have missed her somehow. But she’d already walked around outside the building in the cold rain searching for Shane’s car. She’d seen plenty of vacant parking spots, and no sign of the VW Golf. She’d already explored the reference, periodicals, and nonfiction sections with no luck. Now, as she zigzagged around the shelves of books in the fiction section, Karen heard an announcement over the PA system saying that the library was closing in five minutes. Above her, every other row of overhead lights went off.

Karen was filled with a lost, hopeless feeling. She kept thinking about how Amelia was the only one who could get through to her sister, Annabelle. She might even know Annabelle’s next move.

After four months with Amelia in therapy, Karen still didn’t have a handle on her. What kind of therapist was she anyway? Even with all she’d uncovered about Amelia’s childhood, Karen still felt as if she didn’t really know her. It baffled her that little Amelia had fled from Clay’s house the way she had that day. Besides her twin, he’d been her only friend, and she’d run away from him, screaming.

“The Wenatchee Public Library is now closing,” a woman announced over the public address system. “We will be open again tomorrow at 10
A.M
. Please exit through the front doors. Thank you and have a nice evening.”

Slump-shouldered, Karen wandered toward the front of the library. She wasn’t sure about what to do, except maybe call the state police. She could give them a description of Amelia, and Shane’s car, and then ask them to look for a motorist in trouble on Highway 2, somewhere between Grand Coulee Dam and Wenatchee.

A little blond girl, who apparently didn’t want to leave the library, was screaming and crying as her father dragged her toward the exit. Karen held the door open for him. He nodded at her, muttered “Thank you,” then finally scooped the screaming, squirming kid into his arms. Karen watched them walk down the library steps. She thought about how Lon Schlessinger had handled that same situation by throwing the hysterical child in her room and locking the door.

She remembered what Miriam had told her about Lon taking Annabelle with him on his aborted trip to the police station that Sunday afternoon fifteen years ago: “He said he didn’t even make it to the police station, because Annabelle started pitching a fit. None of us could figure out what was wrong with her.”

Karen hiked up the collar to her trench coat and started down the library steps. She could still hear that little girl screaming as her father carried her to their car, halfway down the block. Karen suddenly stopped dead. The rain was stronger now, but she didn’t move. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “He never went to the police station. He went and switched the twins.”

It was exactly as Naomi Rankin had said: “There’s a difference between what people saw that day and what’s true. I’m certain of that.”

Annabelle had been the cooperative twin, the one their father had had on a tight leash. She’d pretended to be her sister that afternoon.

It was a skill she would hone later as a young adult.

Ignoring the rain, Karen stood on the sidewalk. Behind her, the lights inside the library went off. All she could think about was Amelia, struggling in her father’s arms as she’d been smuggled out of Clay’s house, dressed in her sister’s clothes. Karen could almost hear her screams, until her father had clasped his hand over her mouth and locked her in her room. And from her bedroom window, Amelia might have seen everything that had happened down the block at her friend Clay’s house. She might have even seen her father gun him down.

No wonder they’d found it necessary to get rid of the child after that. She’d been too rebellious. She’d seen too much.

No wonder Amelia had blocked out all memory of her family—a demented, violent, serial-killer father, an ineffectual mother, and the twin sister who had betrayed her.

Karen suddenly realized her cell phone was ringing. She grabbed it and checked the caller ID. She didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was local: 509. “Hello?” she said into the phone.

“Karen, it’s Amelia….”

“Oh, thank God,” Karen said. “Where have you been?”

“I’m sorry. Are you still waiting for me at the library in Wenatchee?”

“Yes. Didn’t you get any of my calls?”

“No. Something must be wrong with the frequency, because I tried to phone you several times, but it didn’t answer. It didn’t even go to voice mail.”

“Where are you, honey?” Karen asked.

“Well, I feel like such a lamebrain. I decided to try a different way back, and ended up getting lost. I totally overshot Wenatchee, and then Shane’s car broke down. It’s been a nightmare….”

“Where are you now? I’ll come pick you up.”

“Well, I ended up getting a tow from this garage my dad used to go to near Lake Wenatchee. They were about to close, so I asked one of the guys there to give me a lift to this little restaurant near our lake house.”

“You mean Danny’s Diner?” Karen asked.

“Yeah. How do you know about Danny’s Diner?”

“I was there earlier today,” Karen said. She started walking toward her car. “I’ll explain when I see you. Listen, this is important, okay? Have you had a—premonition about something happening at George’s house?”

There was silence on the other end.

Karen stopped in her tracks. “Amelia?”

“Um, I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Have you had any feeling that something’s wrong at George’s house, something with Jessie or the children?”

“No. Why are you asking?” There was a little panic in her voice. “Karen, are they okay?”

“Um, for now, I think they’re all right.” Karen hurried toward her car. “I’ll be at the diner in about thirty minutes. And please, please, don’t go anywhere, Amelia. I need your help with something, and it’s very important. We have a lot to talk about, too.”

“Does it have anything to do with why you’re in Wenatchee?”

“Sort of,” Karen said, climbing inside her car. She shut the door and started up the ignition. “I’ll explain when I get there. I promise.”

She switched on the wipers and headlights. She didn’t hear anything on the other end of the line. “Amelia?”

“If you were at Danny’s Diner, you must have gone to the lake house,” she said. “Were you looking for evidence that I was there the night everyone was killed?”

“Amelia, I
know
you weren’t at the lake house that night.” Karen pulled out of the parking spot, and started down the road. The highway on-ramp was two blocks ahead. “Stop blaming yourself for that, and for a lot of other things,” she said, “even things dating back to your early childhood.”

“My God, you found out about my real parents, didn’t you? Are they still alive?”

Karen didn’t answer. It wasn’t something she wanted to tell her over the phone.

“Karen, please. For God’s sake, don’t make me wait. Alive or dead, I’m not going to fall apart if you tell me now. I don’t even remember them. I’d just like to know. Are they alive?”

“No, honey, I’m sorry. They’re both dead.”

“Were they dead when the Faradays adopted me?”

“No, they were alive at the time. Amelia, I’ll explain it all when I get there.”

“Do you know why they gave me up?”

“I have a pretty good idea, now,” Karen admitted. “But I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. Besides, I’m just about to get on the freeway. I need to hang up. Just stay there and wait for me. We have a long drive back to Seattle. I’ll tell you everything then.”

“Karen?” she said, a sudden urgency in her tone.

“What is it?”

“Earlier just now, you asked if I had any premonitions about something happening at Uncle George’s house….”

“Yes?” Karen said, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.

“Well, I’ve had this awful feeling most of the night that someone’s in danger. But it’s not Uncle George, or my cousins, or Jessie. I keep thinking something bad is going to happen to
you
, Karen. Please, be careful. Okay?”

“Well, I—I will be. Thanks,” Karen managed to say. She swallowed hard, and then started onto the highway on-ramp. “Just stay put and I’ll see you soon.”

“All right,” she said. “Good-bye, Karen.”

Standing in the booth outside Danny’s Diner, Annabelle hung up the phone and started laughing. She loved screwing with Karen’s head like that, warning her of the danger ahead. And yet Karen was rushing here, probably speeding all the way to her demise.

It was unfolding perfectly, even better than she’d planned. Looking back now, if she’d killed Karen in the basement of that rest home—or in her bed last night—her death just wouldn’t have had the proper impact. It was important for Amelia to see Karen, her therapist, her confidante, her last remaining friend, dead. It was important for Amelia to realize that she had no one left but the twin sister she’d forgotten she had.

Amelia had run away by herself that Sunday morning in November nearly fifteen years ago. She hadn’t said a thing to her about it. Amelia had just disappeared, leaving her alone to deal with their angry father. And when he was riled, it never mattered who had misbehaved, he lashed out at whoever happened to be around at the time. The only way she and Amelia had survived up to that point had been by sticking together and being there for each other. They had their own secret language. They could read each other’s thoughts. They protected each other. And it wasn’t just because they loved each other. No, it was more than that. Whenever Amelia got a beating, Annabelle felt it, too, and vice versa. Amelia only made things worse for
both
of them when she incurred their father’s wrath, which she frequently did. Their father may have beaten Amelia more often and more brutally, but Annabelle still felt every punch, slap, and kick.

One of the worst sessions had been after their dad had gone out to punish a bad woman. It had been one of those nights Uncle Duane had come along to help their father with his “work.” They’d brought Amelia. Apparently, she’d done everything they’d told her to do. But as soon as they’d put the bad woman to sleep in the car, Amelia had started screaming and crying. She’d even tried to jump out of the car. Their father and Uncle Duane had been furious with her. She’d almost ruined everything. It had been a night of agony for both twins. Amelia had bruises all up and down her back. But Annabelle had felt every blow, too. The next day, Annabelle couldn’t get out of bed, she ached so much. But even with all her pain, Amelia had snuck off to that Indian’s house. She didn’t tell Clay
why
she’d been beaten. She only showed him the marks on her back. “Clay took pitchers of me,” Amelia later told her. Annabelle never got to see the “pitchers,” but after that, they weren’t allowed to go anywhere near Clay’s house.

Weeks later, on that chilly Sunday morning in November when Amelia ran away, Annabelle knew where she’d gone. So did their father. But he didn’t find Amelia hiding over at Clay’s. However, Annabelle knew her sister was there, hiding from both Clay and their father. Even though Amelia hadn’t told her about her plans to run away, and even though they would both get in trouble for it, Annabelle kept silent. She didn’t want to betray her sister.

Sure enough, a few hours later, Mrs. Getz called from down the block, saying she’d spotted Amelia in Clay’s backyard. Their father asked the old woman to come over, and tell him exactly what she’d seen. Annabelle got scared when her father announced he was taking her with him to the police station. She thought she and her sister might end up in jail or something.

But once Annabelle climbed into the car with her father, he told her, “You’ll have to be your sister for a while. It’s pretend.”

She’d been only four years old at the time, but Annabelle remembered everything about that day. She recalled feeling relieved the police weren’t going to arrest her or Amelia. Her father drove around the block, and parked in back of old Mrs. Getz’s house. They cut through her yard. He kept telling Annabelle if she said one word, cried, or even coughed, he’d smack her.

They crept through the bushes and into Clay’s backyard, past the little playhouse that Amelia loved. The windows at Clay’s house were too high for her to see, but her father got a look inside. At the risk of making him mad, Annabelle kept tugging at his shirtsleeve. “Is she in there?” Annabelle whispered.

With a sigh, her father finally lifted her up to the edge of the window so she could see. Inside, Amelia sat at Clay’s kitchen table, eating a cookie and drinking orange juice. Clay was on the telephone. He hung up the receiver, then moved over to the table. “C’mon, pumpkin,” she heard him say, his voice a bit muffled through the glass. “I want you to lie down and take a nap. I need to talk to some people. They’re going to help you. They’ll make sure he won’t ever hurt you again.”

Annabelle kept waiting for Amelia to say, “What about my sister? Can you make sure my sister doesn’t get hurt, too?”

But Amelia didn’t say anything. She just finished her cookie.

Annabelle’s father set her back down on the ground. Crouching along the side of the house, they moved over to another window that Clay had just opened a bit.

Annabelle tugged at her father’s sleeve again. She wanted to know what was happening. “Stop that,” he hissed. “Want me to crack your face?”

She kept very still and said nothing for several minutes.

“Goddamn redskin, he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” her father muttered, almost to himself. “Well, I’ve already planted something in there for you, Cochise, and it’ll fix you, but good. Smug, uppity son of a bitch.”

He turned to Annabelle. “Take off your clothes,” he whispered.

Aghast, she just shook her head. It was cold out. And besides, she didn’t want anyone to see her naked.

“Do it!” her father hissed. “You can leave your underpants on if you want. I need to put your clothes on Amelia, so Mrs. Getz thinks she’s you. I told you, you’re going to be Amelia for a little while.”