Shattered Secrets (19 page)

Like a kid who’d been punished for something he didn’t do, he kicked the tree, then walked back into the crowd.

* * *

As Tess and Vic walked down the busy street toward the pub, she noticed a table she hadn’t seen before, maybe because she’d skirted around the mayor. Neither he nor his bench was there now, so had he spirited it and himself away? More likely, he’d hired a couple of guys to move it for him so he could hold court somewhere else in the market. Or maybe the buyers there were so thick she just hadn’t seen it. The table she was surprised she hadn’t noticed had piles of Halloween costumes, with others hanging from racks. The table also had decorations for sale under a sign that read Creekside Gifts.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m surprised the Kentons came.”

“They didn’t. Friends offered to take care of it for them. Mrs. Kenton’s not doing well, and the father, Win, is understandably mad as heck.”

“I think that’s how my father must have reacted, and at my mother.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Tess noticed they’d also displayed baseball caps with bills that looked like tombstones. She suddenly imagined herself looking out a window, down at a small cemetery, the stones gray in the day or at dusk....

She must have been looking out a high window, maybe from the attic in Dane’s house at the animal graves. And hadn’t she had some nightmare about seeing people in open graves, maybe ones crying like in the drawing she’d done? Could Dane have threatened her by saying he’d bury her out there if she didn’t behave, didn’t stop being a bad girl? Had he terrorized her so that she, amnesia drugs aside, couldn’t clearly recall much else?

“Sometimes I think I do remember Dane’s house,” she told Vic as they passed the police station. “I hope Gabe gets that search warrant soon. But the thing is, since Dane seemed the obvious culprit before, I don’t want that to influence my memories. That can happen, you know. A child’s memories become warped to fit something not understood. The big, noisy reaping machine turns into a monster, for example. I read about displacement in a book from the library here.”

He held the pub door for her and waited until they were seated to answer her. “So the cemetery of your buried—pardon the pun—memory would be of a cemetery much smaller than what Dane Thompson has now, since he’s really expanded over the years.”

“Yes. Yes, exactly. I picture a smaller one.”

“Then maybe we’re getting somewhere, the beginning of a breakthrough. But Gabe and I’d better find something in his place like drugs that cause amnesia—or something like Rohypnol or Scopolamine, the so-called date rape drugs. I call them predator drugs, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with in these abductions—a predator. Still, I don’t think an interrogation and especially a court case can turn on vague, traumatic memories buried this long.

“But listen,” he went on, after they’d ordered Reuben sandwiches and soft drinks, “you haven’t phoned your father yet, have you?”

“No, but Reese Owens told me to and gave me Dad’s phone number, which I didn’t have before. Their connection over the years strikes me as strange. So you’re thinking I should call him?”

“Well, yeah, maybe with Gabe or me on the line in case he says something about Reese we can use.”

“Or about himself? Vic, his phone number is burning not only a hole in my pocket but a hole in my heart.”

“It’s hard to forgive someone for desertion on top of unfaithfulness.”

“Yes, he was unfaithful to leave us like that.”

“I’ll bet your mother partly blamed herself.”

“For not watching me better that day. He accused her of that.”

“He should have blamed himself for being gone so much for their marital troubles. Your dad must have thought your mother or Rod McCord wouldn’t find out about the affair between him and the sheriff’s wife.”

Her stomach cartwheeled. And then all the missing pieces of things Gabe had said—and mostly hadn’t said—slammed into place for her. He’d come so close to telling her more than once but had always changed the subject. Her mother had begun to tell her once that there was another reason her dad had left besides Tess’s abduction. No doubt it was the elephant in the room her sisters knew about but never explained.

Now Tess understood some things. That her mother had tried to protect her too much. That Vic had assumed she knew about the affair because he felt she should be treated like an adult and not some child to be coddled. But Gabe didn’t. He could not be trusted to tell her the truth she needed to know even if it hurt. It was almost as if he’d lied to her. She was going to tell him off and then go it alone. And if it came to it, she’d just sell the property long-distance.

“Vic, I’m sorry to be rude, but I need to go find Gabe and talk to him right now. I’ll cancel my order on the way out.”

“Tell him about the memory of looking out at Dane’s pet cemetery?”

“Yes. Those little tombstone hats back at the gift shop table...”

She was afraid she wasn’t making sense, that he would see the hurt and anger on her face, but maybe she looked like that all the time. Except now she’d been betrayed not by a stranger, not even by her long-gone father, but by Mom, Kate, Char and the man she’d stupidly imagined she loved.

20

B
linking back tears, Tess stormed out of the pub and headed for Gabe’s office. As she walked in, Ann looked up and frowned at her. “I wouldn’t advise that you bother him.”

“So he’s here?” Tess demanded. “Alone?”

“Yes, but I’ll just have you wait for him and let him know,” Ann said, and moved to pick up her desk phone.

“I’m not waiting for him anymore,” Tess said.

“Hey, just a minute!” Ann shouted as Tess strode back to Gabe’s office. The door was ajar. He was on the phone, arguing with someone.

She pushed the door open just as he hung up. “That judge has dragged her feet too long,” he muttered as he looked up at her. “Did you see Grace and Lee and their—”

Tess slammed the door in Ann’s face. “Don’t blame Vic for this, blame yourself!” she shouted.

“For wh—”

“Oh, it’s my fault, of course! For thinking you were treating me like an adult. Vic let slip about our parents’ love affair. Your bored, lonely mother, my angry, supersalesman father, right? Right? And you wouldn’t tell me, not little Tess, who still can’t think things through for herself. If I’m willing to face what happened to me when I was kidnapped, don’t you think I can handle a family hardship?”

He put up his hands as if to hold her off, though she stayed on the other side of the desk. She was not getting near this man again, in any way.

“I was honoring your family’s wishes,” he insisted. “Since they hadn’t told you, why should I? You’re delicate enough, and I needed to protect—”

“Needed to use me to get what
you
wanted and needed! How can I trust you? Though I sometimes feel trapped in my past, I’m not a child, Sheriff McCord!”

“That’s obvious to me in more ways than one. My eyes—my entire body—are fully aware you are not a child, Tess. I thought protecting you from something that would upset you was the best way to go. And I guess I should have clued in Vic that you didn’t know about our parents.”

“No, you should have clued
me
in! Before you kissed me at the falls and at your house! Before you made me think you cared about me as more than just an eyewitness who could not remember one stupid thing! But now I’m starting to recall sounds and sights.”

“Sights, like what?”

“See, that’s all you care about! Like seeing a small graveyard out an attic or upper-level window.”

“Dane.”

“Probably. And I’m remembering what an idiot I was to think you cared about me.”

“Tess,” he said, slowly coming around the desk. “It’s the wrong time to say this, but I not only need you to help me solve this—your case—but I need you in other wa—”

“No!” she shouted, moving out of his reach. “You need to find Sandy Kenton and Jill Stillwell, Amanda Bell too—so if I think of anything that will help, I’ll let you know. Probably through Vic or Deputy Miller. Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay locked in my house at night until I decide if I’m staying or going from your Cold Creek kingdom!” She yanked open his office door.

Ann stood in the hall. She jumped back, knowing she’d been caught listening. Tess glared at her and walked out into the hall. No way was she going to run like a child.

“Gabe,” Ann said. “Jace called, but I told him you were...occupied. He said Dane’s driven his van into the Lake Azure area, but he didn’t follow him farther since he’d be spotted. And a fax is coming in for you from Judge Wilson’s office.”

“Thanks. Call Vic for me and get him back here pronto.”

Tess slowed to hear what was happening. She knew Gabe probably wanted to chase her, but he wouldn’t with his precious search warrant waiting. She hesitated in the empty outer office, tempted for one moment to go back.

“And tell Vic,” she heard Gabe call out to Ann, “as soon as Dane gets back on his property, we’re going in. I want to shake him up when we serve the warrant and start to take the place apart. Who knows what he’ll admit then?”

Tess went outside. She was working on her own now. It was nearly noon, and the farmers’ market was winding down. Shoppers were leaving; a few tables were being carried by vendors to their cars.

She went to her car and drove away, thoughts racing. Dane wasn’t home and Marva was still at her market booth. Gabe wouldn’t be on Dane’s property until the vet got back from Lake Azure.

She was going to go there herself on foot, through the cornfield, to take a look at the pet cemetery. It just had to trigger memories. And from now on, she was going to dig up her past not for the sheriff, not for herself, but for those lost girls. And any risk was worth that.

* * *

Tess dumped the contents of her purse onto her kitchen table, then took her new house keys and phone out of the pile of items. She put the two items in the child’s backpack she’d brought from home, mostly because it reminded her of her students. She’d stenciled SUNSHINE AND SMILES on packs for each of her kids last year.

For the first time, she analyzed the real reason she was so dedicated to her job as a preschool teacher. She realized she’d been trying to recover from her lost, damaged childhood through her students. She needed to protect and comfort them. She desperately wanted to have her own day care center, to make the lives of children better, sweeter, safer.

She went to use the bathroom, threw on her dark windbreaker, pulled a scarf over her head and knotted it. As she slung the little backpack over one shoulder, her phone rang. She dug it out and checked the caller ID. Gabe. She let it go to voice mail.

She had to get this done quickly before Dane returned to his place or Gabe showed up.

She locked the back door and ran across her yard and into the corn. No more room for fear. No more clinging to Gabe or calling Char for counseling or hoping Kate called her again. As she shoved her way through the tall stalks and bumped into the ears, she thought she might phone her father once she calmed down. But how could she ever forgive him for having an affair with Gabe’s mother, for daring to blame Mom for not keeping an eternal eye on his “terrific, terrible Teresa,” then deserting all of them?

How many people in Cold Creek knew her father had been unfaithful with Mrs. McCord? She realized Miss Etta had alluded to it when Tess had first come back to town, but she hadn’t caught on. “Your father was interested in other things,” Miss Etta had said with a disapproving tone.

Out of breath, Tess stopped several rows from Dane’s property. She was proud of herself for coming right through the field full of anger instead of fear. And she was just where she thought she would emerge, behind the pet cemetery with the east side of his large, old house in view. She stared up at the second floor and attic windows. Had she been held there for the eight months she was gone? Had she gazed out those small attic windows toward the then much smaller graveyard? She realized she would have seen her own house from those windows. Why couldn’t she recall gazing out toward home?

She wanted to get closer to the house to see if it triggered any new memories. There were old buildings out behind Marva’s abandoned, derelict farmhouse. Could she have been kept there?

Tess crept out of the cornfield and strode through the tombstones. Some of them were small, but most were square or rectangular, nearly the size of those in a human cemetery. But wasn’t she picturing narrow, rounded stones? Embedded in these polished marble ones, pictures of dogs, and a few cats, caught her eye. She saw the little QR codes Marva had mentioned. If only there was some way to access stored images from her past.

Many epitaphs were sad, some funny. She was amazed that people had money for these elaborate memorials when so many others—kids especially—were starving or homeless. She paused before heading out into the open again. After looking around carefully, then glancing out onto the road, she ran across the driveway and pressed her back to the house between two windows. She looked back at the graveyard.

Vic was right, of course. It would have been much smaller twenty years ago, the stones not so elaborate or technology-enhanced. She did see a few toward the front, probably early ones, that were more modest. But she experienced no flood of thoughts, no buried fears unearthed. The cemetery triggered no memories.

She decided to check the death dates on the smaller stones to be sure they would have been here twenty years ago. She darted away from the house and into a row of them just as she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. Dane’s van turned into the driveway and parked in front of the vet clinic.

Tess ducked behind a gravestone and huddled there, waiting for him to go inside. When he got out of the van, he was talking on the phone. She heard him say something about a meeting. He carried a satchel with him, probably a vet bag with medical supplies. To her surprise, he didn’t go into the clinic or his house but walked into the cemetery just a few rows from her.

She crawled behind another stone and put her back to it, sitting on the ground with her knees up to her chest. Not talking, but with the phone still to his ear, he walked past the spot where he could glance down and see her. Tess scolded herself for wishing Gabe was with her. He said he’d be waiting when Dane returned ready to serve him with the warrant and search his house, so where was he? Not that she wanted him to find her here meddling in his plans.

She wondered if Dane was heading for the cornfield. Could he be meeting someone there? Or what if he had something in his satchel to take through the field and leave in her yard? No, probably not in broad daylight.

She wasn’t sure where he was. He could double back and see her. She debated making a run for the cornfield but it was a tall maze in there if she didn’t go in the direction toward home.

She knew she should phone Gabe to tell him that Dane was here, but she was done working with Gabe.

She heard Dane speaking again. He sounded upset, but he was far enough away that she couldn’t catch his words until he shouted, “No!”

A single bang sounded. Tess jumped so hard she hit her head on the stone she was pressed against.

Tess knew she shouldn’t have come here on her own. She wanted to get out of here. Let Gabe and Vic take over. Dane’s voice had stopped, so he must have ended the call, but that didn’t help her pinpoint where he was. She decided she was going to make a break for it.

She got to her feet carefully and yanked the child’s backpack up on her shoulder. Bent over so her head didn’t show above the stones, she started toward the field, glancing at each cross row to be sure Dane didn’t see her.

She’d made it to the last row of tombstones before the field when something caught her eye. Dane Thompson was sprawled on the ground with no one else in sight. Was it a trick to get her to come closer?

She tiptoed two steps nearer. It looked as though he’d hit his head. She saw blood on the corner of a tombstone. Could that have caused the sound she’d heard?

“Dr. Thompson, are you all right?” she asked from about ten feet away. When there was no response she crept closer.

There was blood on the bottom corner of the stone, but as she looked carefully she saw it was spattered all over it, even in the grass!

Horrified, she moved closer. A gun—some sort of old pistol—was in his outstretched hand. She didn’t see his cell phone, but a scarlet-speckled note lay on the slick grass. As she moved around the bloody stone, she saw blood on his neck and shoulders, and half his head was gone.