The Darkest Corners (28 page)

“I saw him,” I say. “I saw his face, and I know who he is.”

They're silent.

“He works at the prison,” I say. “He's a goddamned prison guard.”

He handed me the bag of my father's things. He smiled at me, and I thought,
He looks like he has a daughter.
And I left and never thought about him again.

“Captain is the warden in
Cool Hand Luke,
” Ryan says quietly. “Damn.”

“What did he look like?” Callie whispers.

“Like Pam said. Bald, but he had a beard. Average build.”

“What about the scar?”

I have to put an arm on the door handle to steady myself. “I couldn't see. But I wasn't close enough, and his beard might've covered it.”

“I'll get my uncle to run his plates,” Ryan says. “We can get a name.”

“You don't have to.” Callie turns and shows me the screen of her phone. She's on the Fayette County Penitentiary website, on a page titled “Our Staff.”

“Is that him?” She points to a white-haired man in a navy police jacket. Captain Phillip Swain, head of corrections.

I shake my head and scroll down the screen. He's smiling in his photo.

He had friendly eyes.

Correctional Officer James “Jimmy” Wozniak.

The son of a bitch isn't even a captain.

Jay Elwood doesn't have a doorbell. Ryan raps on the door until a dog starts going berserk inside. A light flips on in the hall, and a male voice soothes the dog.

Ryan's uncle opens the door and blinks at Ryan. “What did you do?”

He thinks we're here for him to get us out of trouble. I don't know why, but that comforts me.

“Nothing,” Ryan says as a giant white shepherd pushes past him and bumps its nose into Callie's crotch. Then mine.

“Sammy, down.” Detective Elwood tugs the dog's collar. “That's not polite.” He turns back to Ryan once Sammy is lying down at his feet, and angles himself so we can step inside the house. “Your mom know you're here?”

I cross the threshold and wince at the smell of dog and old Chinese food. Off the hall is a laundry room with socks spilling across the hardwood. Ryan's uncle kicks them out of the way and leads us into the kitchen, where he stops.

“Okay, what's going on?” He crosses his arms in front of his chest.

Callie looks at Ryan.

“Are you looking at anyone besides Nick for Ari Kouchinsky's murder?” Ryan asks.

Jay Elwood grabs a half-empty bottle of orange juice from the fridge. He sinks into one of the kitchen chairs, spreads his knees. “You know I can't answer that.”

Ryan holds his uncle's gaze. A staring contest. “If you were, would it maybe be Jimmy Wozniak?”

Jay leans back in his seat. Eyes Ryan skeptically. “Guy who works at the prison?”

Ryan nods.

“He's a nice guy,” Ryan's uncle says. “Does a lot of court transfers.”

Ryan drags a chair closer to his uncle and plops himself onto the seat. “We think he met up with Ari. Nick described this weird guy she found on Connect, and he sounds just like a man who tried to kill a prostitute in Ridgefield.”

Jay sits upright. “Whoa, hold up. Where did you get all this from?”

Callie's eyes flick downward. Jay doesn't miss it. He sets his juice down on the table with enough force to jolt me where I'm rooted in the kitchen doorway. “Have you guys been
talking
to prostitutes?”

“You gotta believe us,” Ryan says. “Jimmy Wozniak uses Connect to find girls to kill.”

“He could be the Ohio River Monster,” I say. “He killed Ari just like he killed those other girls.”

Ryan flinches.

“Who told you how Ari was killed?” Jay's voice is eerily calm. “Did Elliot Banks the
coffee boy
tell you that?”

Callie stares at Ryan. “You said your
uncle
told you the details.”

Ryan looks like a dog that just got spanked. “I didn't want to get Eli in trouble.”

“Unbelievable,” Jay mutters, making a fist on the table. “Kid's ass is grass. This is how shit gets to the media.”

“We didn't tell anyone else,” Ryan says in a rush. He points to Callie and me. “Don't you think they have the right to know? They testified against the guy
your department
says is the Monster. Even if there's the smallest chance they were wrong, they should know.”

Officer Elwood wipes his hand down his face. “Go home, Ry.”

Ryan's bottom lip twitches. “You have to look into Jimmy Wozniak.
Please,
Uncle Jay.”

“I'll pull his file, see if there are any red flags,” Jay says, leading us to the door. “That's really all I can do.”

Jay whistles as he holds the door open for us, prompting Sammy to stand up to her full height. She jumps up and rests her paws on Ryan's chest. “I can't believe you've been digging around behind my back
,
” Ryan's uncle says. “What were you thinking, Ry?”

Ryan flushes and gently removes Sammy's paws from his chest.

“You stay far away from this guy,” Jay says. “If he
is
involved, and you tipped him off…”

I stiffen. Next to me, Callie looks like she's going to faint. Jay shakes his head and shuts the door.

None of us speaks the entire way home.

Callie goes straight to bed after Ryan walks us up to the house. I lie under the bed in the guest room, unable to sleep. The ticking of the cuckoo clock is like someone rattling the sides of my brain. I crawl out, grab the afghan, and head downstairs.

While the computer starts up, I watch the muted TV. I wonder if Jimmy Wozniak can't sleep either, now that he suspects Sasha was never real. Does he realize someone is onto him?

I pull the afghan tight around my shoulders. When the Internet browser loads, I search
Macy Stevens scar.

I get a hit in the Cyber Sleuths forum and comb through the chatter. Apparently when the police questioned Amanda about it, she said Macy had hit her chin on a glass coffee table. But when they talked to Amanda's friends, some of them remembered commenting on the scar, and what Amanda told them.
When she grows up, it'll be a reminder not to be such a little pain in the ass.

Years later, everyone seemed to agree with Brenda Dean that Macy's scar wasn't from an accident.

My mother's voice fills my head. I see her, hovering by the TV, two fingers propped gently against her chin as she absorbed the atrocities of the evening news. Something about a woman who had drowned her newborn.

“There's a special place in hell for people who hurt their own children,” she said.

Above me, the floorboards creak. I shut the computer down and plop onto the couch, afghan over me to pretend I'm sleeping.

Footsteps on the stairs. Callie's voice. “What are you doing down here?”

I sit up. “Couldn't sleep.”

Callie sits on the opposite end of the sofa. Tucks her feet beneath her. “Me neither.”

After a beat, Callie says, “Did you know there were gray fibers on two of the victims?”

I nod. The judge didn't allow the fibers to be introduced into the trial, since they'd been ruled “inconclusive.” Some of the Cyber Sleuths say the fibers couldn't have come from Stokes. They were polyester, and a search of Stokes's trailer didn't turn up any clothing made from that material.

The judge said the fibers could have been from anyone the victims had come into contact with, and besides, Stokes could have gotten rid of the clothes he'd been wearing during the murders.

“The state corrections officer uniform is gray,” Callie says.

I know she's waiting for me to say it. So I do.

“We have to go to the DA's office tomorrow morning.”

Callie closes her eyes. Her face is awash in white and blue from the TV. “My mom will never forgive me. Us.”

I can't tell her what she wants to hear, that Maggie will eventually accept that we're doing the right thing. “I know.”

“Do you think we'll ever find out what happened to her?”

I know she's talking about Lori now. I hear the defeat in her voice, the fear of seeing Stokes walk free without Lori's real killer to take his place.

“I don't know,” I admit. “But maybe this is the first step. They'll open a new investigation, and it'll be something.”

Callie yawns into the dark. She shuts the TV off and curls onto her side, stretching her legs across the couch so they're grazing mine. I do the same.

Neither of us falls asleep, but we stay this way, sharing the couch and the blanket like we used to back when we didn't know that monsters were real.

Callie shakes me awake. The afghan is tangled around my feet. The cable box says it's seven a.m.

“I left a note for my mom saying we're getting breakfast at the deli and going to the pool,” she says.

I'm still in the pants and T-shirt I was wearing yesterday. Callie hands me the pair of shorts we bought at the outlets, and I take them into the bathroom in the hall, tear the tags off, and wriggle them on.

“Is the courthouse even open this early?” I ask Callie when I step out into the hall.

“Eight,” she says, “but I want to be the first ones there.”

And she wants to slip out before Maggie wakes up. I don't think I could look her in the eye either.

I read up on the new district attorney on Callie's phone while we're in the car. She was a public defender for fifteen years before being elected DA three years ago. That's good; she's been on the other side of the law and may be empathetic to Stokes's case.

She also supports the death penalty. Not surprising, since this is Pennsylvania. But also not so good.

“What is it?” Callie is looking at me.

“I just realized something. If Stokes gets a new trial, and he loses, they won't reopen the murders.” I swallow. “Then Wozniak gets to stay free. He gets to keep working in the prison where they're going to kill Stokes.”

“Don't say that.” Callie's knuckles twitch. I know she's trying to stop herself from pulling at her hair. Her fingers stay wrapped around the steering wheel, leeched of color, for the entire twenty minutes it takes us to get to the courthouse.

There are two news vans parked across the street. Outside the courthouse, there's an armored truck marked
FAYETTE COUNTY PENITENTIARY
.

A pit of dread opens in my stomach. I know Callie can sense it too. Something is going on.

A security guard stops us as Callie tries to pull into the parking lot. She lowers her window, and the guard bows his head to check us out.

“You ladies have an appointment?”

Callie glances at me. “No,” she admits.

“No entry today,” the guard says.

“Why? Is something going on?”

“Hearing for a high-profile inmate,” the guard says. “So unless you're authorized personnel, I'm gonna have to ask you to turn around.”

“A hearing?” Callie looks at me, as if I knew about this.
High-profile inmate.

It can't be. The judge hasn't set a date yet for Stokes's first appeal hearing.

We can't already be too late.

Callie's already opted for another tactic. “Sir, this is an emergency. We really have to talk to someone in the district attorney's office—”

“Emergencies are for the police.” The guard taps the top of her car, as if to say,
Get on out.

Twenty feet from us, in the fire lane in front of the courthouse, two guards lead a man in a jumpsuit out of the armored truck. He's Hispanic, and his hands and feet are chained.

“Callie. It's not him,” I say, relief rising in me like a tidal wave.

“Sorry,” Callie tells the guard. I can tell from her voice that she feels it too.

“S'okay. Pull over to the side and make a U-turn when it's clear,” the guard tells us. Callie pulls over to let another van from the prison through, and she's already on her phone when the security guard stops it.

“Who are you calling?” I ask.

“Ryan,” she says. “He's not picking up.”

A door slams next to us. I watch a man climb out of the van from the prison. He opens the back for the security guard to inspect, whistling and looking over his shoulder.

The man notices us idling. He smiles at me, and my legs go numb.

It's him.

I look away, quickly, and Callie hangs up and turns her head.

“Don't do anything,” I whisper. “Don't stare at him.”

Callie's silent. I look up; Jimmy Wozniak is watching us, more intently now. The guard says something to him, and he nods. Gets back into his van and drives into the parking lot.

“We have to get out of here,” I tell Callie. She puts the car in neutral by mistake. Corrects it to drive, then hits the pedal too hard and drives into the curb. The security guard is walking over to us, annoyed.

“Oh my God,” Callie whimpers as she pulls herself together for long enough to make the U-turn. I wave a
Sorry
to the security guard as we speed out of the parking lot.

“It's okay.” I dig my nails into the door handle. “There's no way he could know—”

“My case,” Callie blurts. “He saw me on the phone, and my cell phone case—”

She doesn't have to finish.

Her cell phone case is in the photo we used to lure Jimmy Wozniak to the Target parking lot last night. I swallow.

“It's fine, we're fine,” I say, as if repeating it would make it true. Callie's already tugging at her bangs.

“What are we supposed to do now? I don't want to wait until tomorrow to talk to the DA.”

“We can call and leave a message,” I say, trying to stay calm. As if by doing that I could hold everything together. “There's still time.”

Callie exhales, but the pit in my stomach grows. I don't know if there's still time, but I just need her to believe that there is for now.

Callie calls the DA's office from her cell once we get home. She sits in the armchair, rolling her eyes every time she gets transferred. “There's seriously no one I can leave a message with right now?”

The ball of anxiety in my stomach, the one that's been growing since our trip to the courthouse this morning, finally explodes. “Let me talk to them.”

Callie leans back in the chair as I try to wrestle the phone from her hand. She covers the receiver, eyes wild. “What the hell? Get off me.”

I look down and realize I have my other hand wrapped around her free wrist. I pull back, suddenly unable to breathe. I run upstairs and shut myself into the guest bedroom.

Maybe it's a panic attack, or worse. Maybe I've really, truly lost it. Who is going to believe us about Jimmy Wozniak being the Ohio River Monster? The only reason they listened to our story as kids was because they needed it.

No one was ever really listening to us at all.

I close my eyes, and I see Lori. I see Baby Macy Stevens and I see my father, shriveled and spitting blood onto his cot in prison.

The guest room door swings open, and I yelp. Callie looks at me, confused.

I put a hand to my chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.” Callie walks over, sits next to me on the bed. “Are you okay? You look like you're gonna pass out.”

“Fine.” But I can hardly get the word out. My heart is hammering in my chest, and my chest is so tight, I can't breathe. I lie on my side on the bed, blinking the light spots away from my eyes.

“You're freaking out.” Callie hovers over me, her face concerned. “You want a Valium?”

I nod. Callie disappears, and I pull my knees up, hug them close. The minutes tick by, and my heartbeat slows. I don't even really need the Valium anymore. I sit up and wait for Callie to come back; my knees feel wobbly.

I watch the clock overhead. Callie's been gone almost ten minutes. She must have gotten distracted by something. I lift myself off the bed and head downstairs.

“Callie?” I call out.

She doesn't respond as I pad into the living room. From the hall, I see a glass of water on the kitchen island. Next to it is a bottle of Valium prescribed to Margaret Greenwood.

Also, Callie's cell phone.

I stick my head out the back door and call her name again. Nothing except the dogs going nuts next door.

I run into the living room, push the curtains aside. The minivan is still in the driveway. I open the front door and call Callie's name. Then Maggie's, because I haven't seen her since we got back from the courthouse.

Callie would never go somewhere and leave her phone behind.

He followed us back,
I think, my stomach folding into itself.

I look at the kitchen island. I picture the Monster coming to the back door, telling her to drop everything and come with him. She didn't scream; maybe he had a gun. But the dogs next door definitely heard his car.

I dial 911 from Callie's cell and tell them I need to report an abduction, and to please send Jay Elwood.