CHAPTER 62
Dan knew Calloway was pointing in the direction of the peaks of the hills above Cedar Grove, but he couldn’t see beyond twenty feet with the darkness and swirling snow.
“He kept her alive in a room in the Cedar Grove mine. He waited until the dam was about to go online and buried her where he knew it was going to flood.”
“How do you know that?”
“Logical, given where we found Sarah’s remains.”
“No, how do you know he kept her in the mine?”
“We got to keep moving.” Calloway trudged on, Dan at his side and straining to hear. “Parker found it,” Calloway said. “Edmund used to leave the house on the ATV and go off into the mountains. After he was convicted, Parker thought of the mine and wondered about whether maybe Edmund had been going there on the ATV. He came and told me about it and we went up with bolt cutters and cut the lock from the gate at the entrance. At first we didn’t find anything, but then I noticed the wall in the office seemed crudely built for a large mining company. When I looked closer I found a seam for a door. House had built a false wall and kept Sarah chained in a room behind it. We found a gray frock on the floor, manacles and chains bolted to the wall.” Calloway shook his head. “Made me sick to my stomach thinking of Sarah in a place like that, what he must have done to her. We left everything as is, locked the entrance, and never went back.”
Dan grabbed Calloway’s shoulder, abruptly stopping him. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell anyone, Roy?”
Calloway knocked Dan’s hand away. “Tell them what, Dan? Tell them we all lied, that we manufactured evidence, but now we were sorry and want to do it right? House would have walked free and killed someone else’s daughter. What was done was done. There was no going back. House had a life sentence and Sarah was dead.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Tracy?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why the hell not, Roy? Jesus, why the hell wouldn’t you?”
“Because I swore I wouldn’t.”
“You let her suffer for twenty years not knowing?”
The fur lining of Calloway’s hat had completely iced over and ice crystals clung to his eyebrows. “It wasn’t my decision, Dan. It was James’s.”
Dan squinted in disbelief. “Dear God, why would he do that to his own daughter?”
“Because he loved her, that’s why.”
“How can you say that?”
“James didn’t want Tracy living the rest of her life with the guilt. He knew it would have killed her to know.”
“She’s lived with the guilt the last twenty years.”
“No,” Calloway said. “Not this kind of guilt.”
Edmund House sat on the generator box. The light over his head crackled and emitted a low hum. “It’s sort of ironic, isn’t it?”
“What?” Tracy asked.
“All this time has passed and here we are, finally.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and me, here.” He spread his arms, grinning. “I built this for you.”
She hesitated, looking about the room. “What?”
“Well, the Cedar Grove Mining Company did most of the work, but I put in the little home touches like the carpet and the bed and the bookshelves. I knew you liked to read. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but things go to hell when you don’t keep up with the spring cleaning for twenty years.” He smiled. “Honestly, I’m surprised it’s still here, just as I left it. They never found it.”
“I didn’t even know you, House.”
“But I knew you. I’d been studying everything about you from the moment I arrived in Cedar Grove and saw you at the high school. I used to go and watch the kiddies get out of school, and then one day out you walked surrounded by all these students. At first I thought you were one of them but then I could tell by the way you carried yourself that you were more mature.
“I knew from that moment that you were the one. I’d never had a teacher before, though I’d fantasized about a few. And I’d never had a blonde. After I saw you, I made a point of driving by in the afternoon when school got out. I needed to find out what kind of car you drove. But you can’t park around a school too often without some nosy neighbor cluing in. Once I figured out you drove the Ford truck, I’d just look for it in the faculty parking lot, and if it wasn’t there I’d drive into town. You used to go into that coffee shop and correct tests. I was there once, drinking a cup of coffee. If you weren’t at the coffee shop I’d drive out of town past your house and see if the truck was parked in the driveway.
“I found a spot up the road where I had a better view of your bedroom window. Some nights I’d watch for hours. I liked the way you used to get out of the shower and look out your bedroom window with your hair wrapped in a towel like a turban. I knew what we had was special, even though you started dating that guy. Never did see what you saw in him, or why you’d move from that big old mansion to that shitty house. He complicated things, always being around. I couldn’t just walk up to your front door or wait inside the house for you. I realized I was going to have to create my own opportunity. That’s when I got the idea of messing with your truck so it’d break down.”
The thought that House had been watching her made Tracy’s skin crawl, but House’s mention of the truck raised another, more sickening possibility. Sarah had been driving Tracy’s truck that night. She looked to the black Stetson on the shelf.
“Threw me for a loop first time I saw your sister,” House said. “She came into the coffee shop one time while you were working, snuck up behind you, and covered your eyes. I thought I was seeing double.”
“You thought she was me that night.”
House stood, pacing. “How could I not? Shit, it was like that Doublemint gum commercial with the twins. You guys even dressed alike. ”
Though the cave was bone cold, Tracy had broken out in a sweat.
“When I saw the truck on the side of the road and then saw her walking in the rain, alone, wearing that black hat, I thought for sure it was you. Imagine my surprise when I got out of the truck and realized it wasn’t. I was disappointed at first. I even contemplated just driving her home. But then I thought, hell, I’d gone to all that effort. And who was to say I couldn’t have you both.”
Tracy slumped against the wall, her legs weak.
“And now I have.”
“You didn’t bury her. That’s why we couldn’t find her.”
“Not right away. That would have been a waste. But I couldn’t have her escaping like Annabelle Bovine.” House’s jaw clenched and his face went dark. “That bitch cost me six years of my life.” He pointed to his temple. “A smart man learns from his mistakes, and I had six years to contemplate how to do a better job the next time. We had some good times here, your sister and me.”
Sarah disappeared August 21, 1993. The Cedar Falls Dam had gone online in mid-October. An acidic burn inched up the back of Tracy’s throat. Her stomach lurched and cramped and she bent over, retching.
“But that asshole Calloway kept pressing me. When he told me about the witness, about Hagen, I knew it was just a matter of time. A man like that has no integrity. It’s disappointing isn’t it? I imagine you must have felt the same disappointment in your father.”
She spit bile from her mouth and looked up at him. “Fuck you, House.”
His smile broadened. “I’ll bet your father never imagined that someday I’d use the jewelry and pieces of hair he used to frame me to get out of that hellhole, or that you’d be the one to help me do it.”
“I didn’t do it to help you.”
“Don’t be that way, Tracy. At least I never lied to you.”
“What are you talking about? This whole thing was a lie.”
“I told you they framed me. I told you they manufactured the evidence. I never once said I was innocent.”
“You’re fucking delusional. You murdered her.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No. I loved her. They murdered her—Calloway and your father, with all their lying. They didn’t leave me a choice. With the dam going online, they forced me to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but big-shot Calloway wouldn’t let it go.”