“Who kept you?” Rowan asks.
My pulse pounds in my head, and I’m suddenly dizzy, but I force myself to look at her and decide to tell the truth. “There were two of them, Rowan,” I whisper. “Two men played those torture games with us. Jerry and Liam. Only one of them got caught.”
“Take his cuffs off,” Rowan says in a teary voice, looking at the deputy. The deputy glances at the man she called Evan, and he gives a small nod. I can tell there is something between Evan and Rowan. They look at each other as if they can read each other’s thoughts.
The cuffs click a few times, and my arms are stiff as I rub my wrists.
“You are safe and home now,” Dad tells me. “You will always have a place here.”
I’m touched and tears well in my eyes.
How many times have I dreamed of this moment?
Home. Real family. Safety.
Thor comes and shoves his nose in my hand. I’m surprised, and I hesitantly touch the dog’s head.
“He likes you,” Rowan says. “He’s very gentle.”
The dog sets his head on my leg, and I run my hands over Thor’s back, sinking my hands into the fur. I can’t hold back my smile. I slide off the sofa onto the floor, and Thor tries to sit in my lap.
I wrap my arms around the dog, close my eyes, and I finally can relax.
“Wow,” Rowan said. “I’ve only seen Thor do that with kids.”
“I know he’s a search dog,” I tell her. “I read it in the newspaper. There was a picture of you and Thor. That’s how I discovered you weren’t dead and decided to escape.”
Her mouth hangs open in a large O.
“Knowing you were alive gave me a reason to leave. I hated it there.”
“I know,” she whispers. “It was hell on earth.”
“You have no idea.”
42
Hours later the twins had gone home, Evan and the deputies had left, and Rowan’s parents had gone to bed. Everyone was exhausted both mentally and emotionally. She and Malcolm had continued to talk as the people disappeared one by one.
“Do you want me to leave so you can go to bed?” she asked him, worried she was keeping him from getting much-needed rest. Thor had fallen asleep, curled up at their feet.
Malcolm glanced in the direction of the stairs. “Can you come up with me for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
Upstairs he hesitantly walked down the hall, pausing at a bathroom and nodding as if acknowledging that was where it should be. He moved past the bedroom that had belonged to the girls and stopped at his old room, pushing the door fully open. Thor entered ahead of them, sniffing at the floor.
Rowan bit her lip, wondering what was going through Malcolm’s head. “It’s a guest room now. Mom and Dad put all your things in storage.” She gave a nervous laugh. “They did the same with our stuff when me and the twins moved out. Our room is full of exercise equipment, though.” She spotted a small pile of men’s clothing on the bed that her mother must have left for him.
The room was decorated in relaxing green and blue shades. A queen-size bed with a quilt a friend of their mom’s had sewn. A few nature prints on the wall. A tall dresser and a chair.
The colorful boy’s room with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posters and sheets was long gone.
“Want me to go now?” Rowan asked.
“No. Stay for a bit, please.” Malcolm sat on the bed, looking haunted as he gazed about the room. “It’s changed a lot. So many times I thought about how much I missed my bed.”
Her heart cracking, Rowan sat beside her brother and wrapped both arms around him, leaning heavily into his side, her head on his shoulder.
How many times did we sit like this in the shed to keep warm and fight off our fears?
He set a hand gently on her arm that was clasped across his chest, and she felt a faint quake go through his body.
“It’s over, Malcolm. You’re safe.”
“I was remembering how we sat like this . . . there . . .” His voice was almost too quiet for her to hear. He’d been stiff when she first hugged him, but now he relaxed. “It was so weird seeing the twins,” he said. “I’ve never been able to imagine them as grown. In my dreams they were faceless adults or still toddlers.”
Rowan squeezed him harder. “They’re fantastic women. Strong and smart.”
“And seeing Dad so old. Is that how I’ll look in thirty years?”
She laughed. “Probably. Trust me, it could be a lot worse. He looks great for his age. Both him and Mom. We’ve inherited good genes.”
They sat silently for a long while as Thor lay on the floor, watching them with attentive eyes.
“Do you want to talk about . . . them?” Rowan asked. “Jerry was arrested five years later. No one knew there had been two men.”
“Looking back, I realized there had been two men with us while we were blindfolded,” Malcolm said. “Liam wore red laces in his hiking boots. Jerry did not. I’d see the boots below the blindfold sometimes.”
Rowan sucked in a breath. “I remember.”
“Liam got Jerry arrested. He bragged about it.” His body started to violently shake, and he covered his face with his hands.
“What is it?” Rowan asked, aching to take away his fear and hurt.
“They made me do awful things, Rowan. If the police ever find out, I’ll go to prison.”
She sucked in a breath. “What did they make you do?”
He wiped tears from his face. “Liam killed two women while I was there. I don’t know how or why he did it. I knew better than to ask questions, but he made me dig a grave and help him bury them. I’m an accomplice, Rowan. There’s no getting around that.”
Rowan straightened. “You said ‘a grave’ but two women. They were in one?”
He nodded. “Two women in the same grave a couple years apart. I must have been eighteen or so. Liam made me help him take them through the forest in a wheelbarrow. It was so hard. It’d take all day.” He took a long breath. “The second time, he made me dig up the grave of the first woman, saying it’d be easier to put the second there since the dirt would be looser. Oh my God, Rowan. The smell of that old grave . . .”
“He forced you, Malcolm. You had no say in the matter. No district attorney would dream of bringing charges against you. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“That’s not all,” he whispered.
She waited a long moment as Malcolm struggled to form words to continue his story.
“There was a boy. Elijah,” he finally said. “He was ten like me. They made us fight like they did with you and me.” He cried, tears dripping on her arm across his chest.
She squeezed tighter, knowing the story wouldn’t end well.
“They killed him and made me help bury him, Rowan. I never even got to know him. All I knew was his name and age. They kept us apart. I wanted so bad to have someone else there with me.” He shook his head. “But why would I wish that hell on someone else? I’m a horrible person.”
“No!” She took his head in her hands, turning it toward her. The pain in his eyes broke her heart. “You were a lonely and abused child. It’s normal to feel that way. There was nothing wrong with you.”
“I see his face every day, Rowan. It’s my fault he’s dead. I don’t know what I did to make them choose me over him.” He took a shuddering breath. “But there were many days I wished I had been killed instead.”
“It’s not your fault, Malcolm. Those men are responsible for their own actions. They killed him, not you. And I’m so glad you’re alive. You made it out of there and back to us.” She wiped his tears, crushed that he’d been consumed with such dark thoughts. “Were the two women buried near Elijah?”
He nodded.
She hugged him again. “We found their bodies, Malcolm. I thought the boy might be you, but now because you know his name and age, we’ll be able to tell his family and give them some closure. Not knowing if someone is dead or alive is torture.”