She hadn’t been back since that night. She got out of her car and headed north through the woods, where the snowdrifts were over a foot deep in places. People rarely came out this way in the winter, but the warmer months were another matter. The old logging road used to be a lovers’ lane, and the cabin had once been popular among high school students looking for a place to party after the big game. Now it was a favorite Halloween haunt. Local kids held séances in the old cabin, hoping to conjure up the dead. Savannah Wolfe had become something of a legend around here—an amusement for some, a campfire story for others. The cabin in the woods was almost as good as Haunted Acres out on Route 27. Her little sister had been turned into fear porn. The thought of it was crushing.
Kate hiked another twenty yards or so through the prison-bar tree trunks on an exhausting trek through the knee-deep snow. She was perspiring heavily under her winter clothes by the time she reached the cabin. She stepped onto the dilapidated porch and waited for her heart rate to slow down. The battered door was wide open, as if the cabin had been expecting her.
She shivered as she crossed the threshold, and one of the floorboards made an audible crack like a gunshot. The walls were covered with graffiti. The floor was carpeted with crushed beer cans and fossilized condoms. The roof had been leaking for decades and was pocked with holes large enough to invite in hanging vines; rusty clumps of dead foliage that swayed from the ceiling like broken chandeliers. More vines grew in through the shattered windows and crawled across the floor, where they clutched cigarette packs and empty beer cans like obstinate drunks, refusing to leave after last call.
It was so gloomy inside the cabin that she dug the keys out of her coat pocket, turned on the halogen penlight attached to her keychain, and directed the small beam over the graffiti on the walls. Names. Dates. Insults. She could make out peace signs and penises, four-leaf clovers and middle fingers, words of both love and hate. Icy water seeping down from the ceiling hit the frozen puddles on the floor, each drop echoing loudly. If the local kids had managed to summon Savannah with their candles and Ouija boards, then Kate wished to release her.
The week she was killed, the media had swarmed into town like flies—bribing the residents of Blunt River for any tidbit of information about the dead girl. They were ecstatic when they found out about Julia’s tragic death, feeding off her suicide for weeks; they knew how long it took for a person to drown, and what she had been wearing the night she jumped in the river. They found out who Kate and Savannah’s best friends were, what kind of grades they got, and the fact that they walked past Henry Blackwood’s house every day on their way to school. For the longest time Kate wanted them dead. She guessed it was easier to shoot the messengers than the murderer on death row.
A whispery kind of creepiness brushed against her skin as she recalled that long-ago August night. The summer trees were silhouetted against the dying sky, and there was a poignant finality to the day. They’d left the car parked on the narrow logging road and walked into the woods together, sharing a single flashlight between them. The bugs were biting. After a few minutes of scratching, Savannah began to whine. She’d wanted to tag along so badly, but now she was bored and itchy.
The dank-smelling cabin hadn’t been as decrepit as it was now—the roof was intact and the windows weren’t all broken. Most of the kids were down by the lake, which was the cool new hangout that summer. The cabin was so yesterday. Good for Halloween scares and late-night bull sessions for the stoners who weren’t part of the in-crowd, but not much else.
It was eight o’clock by the time Kate and Savannah got there, and the older kids wouldn’t be showing up until after midnight to drink beer and smoke pot and talk trash. For now it was just Kate and her little sister—and the cute boy who’d been waiting for her to show up. He was surprised to see Savannah. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, sounding miffed.
Kate tried to explain about their father, how he sometimes disappeared unpredictably, and how she couldn’t just leave her sister home alone. How she’d broken all the rules to be with him tonight.
As the horizon faded from orange to purple, the cute boy persuaded her to come with him into a clearing in the woods, not far away from the cabin, where they could be alone. He had a dazzling smile. She told her little sister to wait in the cabin and promised they wouldn’t be long.
“How long?”
“Just a few minutes.”
“Why can’t I hang out with you guys?”
“Because… I need to talk to him in private.”
“What about?”
Kate smiled and ruffled Savannah’s golden hair. “I’ll be right over there, pipsqueak. See those trees? That’s like… ten yards away. No biggie.” It was farther than that, but still. “Don’t be scared. I’ll be close by.”
“I’m not scared.”
Sixteen years later, Kate stood in the exact spot where she’d abandoned her little sister. Just for a few minutes. Or maybe it was longer than that? Maybe it was ten minutes? Or fifteen? Or fifty? She couldn’t remember. Her eyes filled with stinging tears.
She had lived with the consequences of that decision every day of her life—it hummed along the surface of her psyche, shimmering and alive, like a raw wire. She would have to lighten the load eventually. Now she fumbled in her coat pocket for Detective Dyson’s business card. She took out her phone and dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me. Kate Wolfe.” She paused. “Do you still want to talk?”
Without hesitation, he said, “When can we meet?”
“I’m in Blunt River.”
“Okay, I know a great place.”
22
THEY MET IN ONE of the wood-paneled eateries across town. Kate took a seat in a back booth and ordered a cup of coffee. She watched as Detective Dyson drove up in a vintage white pickup truck and walked inside, making the old-fashioned bell jangle above the door. He spotted Kate and headed down the aisle, pausing to chat with some of the other diners along the way—clearly a popular guy. He removed his cowboy hat and smoothed the static out of his salt-and-pepper hair. He smelled like cigar smoke and wet wool. He peeled off his winter coat and said, “I haunt this place. But I am a quiet ghost.”
She smiled. It was funny, even though she didn’t get it.
He sat down opposite her and picked up the greasy menu. “They make a prize-winning grilled-cheese sandwich here, if you’re interested,” he told her. “They use gruyere and smoked bacon.” He had walnut-brown eyes ringed by dark eyelashes. “You in?”
“No thanks, I’m good.” She held up her cup of coffee.
He ordered a Coke and a grilled-cheese sandwich from the waitress, then turned his full attention on Kate. “Okay. This is how I see it. Henry Blackwood has maintained his innocence since day one. He passed a polygraph, and that ain’t beanball. And now his niece, the state’s star witness, has recanted her testimony. So if Blackwood was with her the whole time, then that begs the question—who killed Savannah Wolfe?”
Kate shook her head. “Nelly has issues. She could be lying or confused or deluded. My sister was buried in Blackwood’s backyard. His fingerprints were on the shovel. They found his hairs tangled up in the rope.”
“True.”
“Besides, a jury saw all the evidence and convicted him.”
“Not all of it.” Detective Dyson’s grilled sandwich arrived, and he wasted no time digging in.
“What do you mean—not all of it?”
“Put two lawyers in a room, they’re gonna play games.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“A couple of witness statements and other possible leads were never brought up in court. A red van was spotted in the neighborhood driving around suspiciously that day. Another witness reported seeing a young girl matching your sister’s description get into a green pickup truck on Route 27, which connects to the logging road.”
“So you think some random guy in a red van or a green pickup truck kidnapped my sister and buried her in Blackwood’s backyard? Why? Who would do such a thing?”
Dyson paused to wipe his mouth on a paper napkin. “Bear with me. I’m just getting started.”
“Look, I don’t doubt for a second that Nelly is telling the truth about her uncle. I know a sexual abuse victim when I see one. But that just reinforces his guilt in my mind, because it’s not such a leap from child-molester to child-murderer.”
“What would you say if I told you that everything you know about the case is wrong?”