“From there we got into this old gold car. This inside smelled; it was a strange smell, something like gasoline mixed with rotting food combined with the scent of his air freshener. He needed at least fifty of those air fresheners. It reeked of something dead.
“We didn’t go far. It was dark but I had a good idea of where I was. See, the road never changed from dirt to gravel. Once you get used to the roads up here, you can usually tell what path you’re going with your eyes shut. Dirt, then gravel, then black top means you’re going into town. Plain old dirt with swerves and drops in the road means you’re going deeper into Cavegat. We were in the deep forest, right by Dad’s ice fishing shack. He snapped the door open, shoved me inside, and locked it. During the night, I heard him outside talking to himself. He seemed to be talking about his plan. Honestly, I just thought he was talking to himself. He did a lot of that. I didn’t realize where I was until I started feeling around inside the fishing hut. My leg kept getting caught on something in the floor. Something round. I later figured that that must have been the cut-out where Dad would fish from. I started banging, hard, on the door, yelling as loud as I could hoping that someone, anyone would hear me. It didn’t last long though because he soon pressed his rifle in on my face. He kept me in there for the next day. There was no food, no drink. He sat there, staring at me. He only left me alone for about an hour, when he said he had to take care of something. I later got out of him that he planned to kill everyone so that they could no longer ‘interfere’ with ‘our’ lives. He planned to kill every single one of my family members. It seemed like someone caught him on the property though because he came running back in a hurry. I thought I heard Adam and Liam’s voices. From then on, he kept the door locked from the inside. When the dogs and the voices came near, he forced me to lay on the floor under a blanket. When I tried to kick out of the blanket, he stapled it to the fishing hut floor, so that I couldn’t move.”
“Did he touch you?” DiNolfo asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“No,” Tristan assured her, anytime he came near me I was swinging, biting, anything I could do to get him away from me.”
“What happened next?”
“He started to get hungry. He thought he had the all-clear, so he unlocked the door and peaked out. That is when I made my move. I charged at him full force despite my hurt foot, knocked him out of the way, and I bolted. I know the back woods like the back of my hands, but in that instance, I was just trying to get away. He was standing closer to the house so I bolted in the opposite direction. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. When I looked behind me, I didn’t see him anymore, so I walked. I walked all night, until these two busybodies on the highway insisted I go to the hospital. I was just trying to get back home.”
“At the hospital, I was told that he had a disguise. Can you tell me more?”
“He was acting like he was one of those aides that take patients to different parts of the hospital. What are they called… an orderly? He looked completely different. He had dyed his hair black, used bronzer, but I could tell it was him. He still had the scratch I had given him across his left cheek. After I knew it was him, I tried to get away. I remember you had told me that my Dad was here, so I screamed. Dad must have heard me. When Dad came, he shot Dad and took me again. He was completely insane. Told me that he was going to take me to South Dakota to start a new life. I wasn’t having it. I severed the rope around my wrists and used it against him to stop the car. I guess I pulled too long though because the car veered off the road and we plowed into a ditch. He went unconscious. I unbuckled him and he fell out of the car. I took the car and bolted for Elkhart. Uncle Frank saw me first, on Mountain Road. I knew Kendricks would come back for me, and he did. He came up from the basement. He had me alone in the house, he thought he had me cornered. So did I for a minute. Then Dad came charging in. The weirdest, sickest thing out of all of this… he swore I was my mother. Like he was cut off from reality. It wasn’t just a game to him. I was her in his eyes. And it was weird… when Dad showed up, he expected it to be you.”
As DiNolfo scribbled furiously into her notepad, Jack allowed his face to sink into his hand.
“So there are some things that have fit together since we’ve last spoken,” said DiNolfo, keeping her eyes on her notepad.
Jack, in spite of the seriousness of the situation, chuckled. “I’ll say.”
“Brace yourself,” warned DiNolfo, this information isn’t pleasant. Amos ratted out Kendricks. He was trying to take your wife, too. But she fought, ran, and made it very difficult for him. He chased her all the way across the property, through snow and blizzard force winds, all the way to Croft Lake. She fell through the broken ice, and he held her head down, drowning her.”