I parked down the street and then had to run to catch them. But then when I hit the woods where there was no trail, I had to stop because my feet were making the ground crackle. I walked a few yards, then hid behind a tree, listening for the sound of their voices and my mother sobbing. They were not being careful about the crackling, so it was not hard to follow them.
The river gorge is a seventy-acre park belonging to the neighboring town. It has a lot of wetlands and walking trails. Our father used to drag us there when we were young because he thought we should be in nature. But we hated the bugs and the soft ground that sucked in our sneakers and covered them in mud. We hadn’t been there since we were little girls.
When Mr. and Mrs. Martin stopped, I stopped also and crouched behind some prickly bushes. They were whispering now and Mr. Martin was digging with his shovel in the soft ground near the wetlands. Mrs. Martin was crying even harder.
That’s when I felt the hand cover my mouth and pull me to the ground. I thought then that this was how I would die, that somehow Mrs. Martin was not standing in the distance with Mr. Martin, or maybe Richard Foley wasn’t really dead, and instead he was here and he was going to kill me for doing this. I thought, So … this is how it ends.
The night Emma and I disappeared was just over one week after Mrs. Martin had sex with Hunter. Hunter had gone back to Hamilton, all puffed up by his victory over all of us, but especially over Emma. He didn’t even know that we knew, but inside he had the kryptonite and I could see that he would get great pleasure plotting out how and when he would use it on my sister.
Emma came to my room after dinner. She had not been able to calm down since that night. Not the vodka or the cigarettes or even the pot she stole from Hunter’s stash had helped her. She was losing her mind.
I’m gonna tell her tonight. I’m gonna tell her what we saw.
I begged her, No! I told her that we could use the information in a better way to get something, like maybe being able to live with our father finally. But Emma didn’t want to live with our father. She had become just as addicted to the war with Hunter and the competition with Mrs. Martin as they were addicted to their wars and their jealousies.
Tell her something else, Emma. Tell her you’re pregnant! Tell her it’s Hunter’s baby!
Emma shrieked. You’re a genius, Cass! Oh my God! This will kill her. It will actually make her die inside! She left my room laughing even though she was not happy. I did not follow her. I went to the edge of my room, right by the door. A few moments later, I heard the murmur of talking from down the hall, inside Mrs. Martin’s bedroom. The talking began to escalate until it turned to yelling. It was then I could hear the words.
You’re going to ruin this family! You stupid whore!
Me? What about you? You were fucking Jonathan while you were still married to Daddy! You brought them into our house, and now look what they’ve done!
Look what you’ve done, Emma! YOU!
Lights came down the driveway and shone into the window from the upstairs balcony. Mr. Martin was home. The screaming stopped for a second, so I peeked out from behind the door. The light had shone into Mrs. Martin’s room as well—I could see it lighting up Mrs. Martin’s angry face. Emma ran out but Mrs. Martin grabbed her by the hair and she screamed again, first from pain and then from rage.
Get off me, you bitch! I’m telling him! I’m telling him! I’m telling him what his son did to me, how he raped me and got me pregnant!
Mrs. Martin pulled harder. Emma swung out her arm like she was about to slap her face, but her hand caught the edge of a framed portrait hanging on the wall and it crashed to the ground. Mrs. Martin grabbed both her arms before she could try again. Emma squirmed and spun her around, and they both fell against the railing of the balcony, Emma’s back to the railing and Mrs. Martin’s body pushing against her from the momentum of their struggle. Emma screamed one last time as she felt herself hovering over the top of the railing. I know what that feels like, when you are about to fall unexpectedly, when your body sends you an alarm to grab hold of something or adjust your feet or brace yourself with an open palm. Her back arched. Her arms reached out for our mother. But Mrs. Martin swatted her away like a pesky fly and then stepped back so she had nothing to hold on to. Nothing to save her.
I was lying on the ground in those woods, the hand over my mouth, staring into the eyes of Dr. Winter as I remembered the sound my sister made when she fell over that railing, over that balcony, and hit the ground below, as I remembered the sight of my mother staring at her still body, hands covering her mouth and finally silent.
Dr. Winter
When Cass saw who was holding her, she stopped fighting. Abby put a finger to her lips to tell her that they needed to be quiet and she nodded. She sat up then, beside Abby, and they both watched as Jonathan Martin dug into the ground with his shovel with Judy standing beside him sobbing like a small child.
Agent Strauss was on the hill, crouched behind a wall of bushes, watching them dig.
Cass
I scurried like a quiet little mouse back into my room that night. I was shaking. I couldn’t think. I heard Mr. Martin come inside, and I peeked out the door enough to see him. He cried out in shock when he saw Emma lying on the ground, not moving. I did not see her with my own eyes, but I know she must have been still. I know there was no blood because they tested for blood all over our house when we disappeared and found none. But from the urgency in their voices, I knew it was bad.
Mrs. Martin screamed from up above that it was an accident. That they’d been fighting and Emma pushed her and she pushed back and then she just fell!
Mr. Martin sat beside Emma. Call 911, for Christ’s sake! Why are you just standing there? Oh, God!
Mrs. Martin rushed down the stairs. Emma had told our mother that Hunter had raped her and that she was now pregnant. She said she was going to have the baby and that Hunter’s life would be ruined because he would go to jail and be a sex offender for the rest of his life. She said she was going to tell everyone whose baby it was so the world would know what kind of house this had become.