No Coming Back (21 page)

“Where were you the night she disappeared?”

“Why? Do you think I had something to do with that, too?”

“Just answer my question.”

“I don’t remember; it was a long time ago. I know I wasn’t with her that night. And I definitely think I’d remember if I kill
ed her.”

I look at my uncle with fresh eyes, every bit of respect I had for him turning to stone. “But you did have sex with her.”

“Yes.”

Something turns in my stomach. It’s an effort not to leap out of the chair and knock him to the ground.

“But it was all consensual. No one forced her to do anything she wasn’t happy doing. In fact, she loved the attention, the stuff we bought her.”

Now my fists are curled. “She prostituted herself for gifts?”

Owen senses my anger and settles onto the arm of a couch. All at once he looks every bit the frail old man. It isn’t easy admitting to this kind of wrongdoing, especially to family and more so to the boyfriend of the girl he slept with.

“I guess it didn’t seem that way at the time,” he says quietly. “Like I say, no one forced Jenna to do anything she wasn’t willing and eager to do herself, or suggest. She seemed so, I don’t know, enthusiastic. Like she was exploring her own sexuality.”

I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. “If that’s the case, why was she going to throw off the lid and expose everything?”

He shrugs, looking genuinely mystified. “If she was, it’s news to me. You’re thinking that’s what got her killed?”

“Consider it a work in progress.”

“But there was no conflict. We all liked Jenna. There wasn’t a shred of animosity among us.”

“What about barbershop Chuck?”

“What about him?”

“For starters, he was into all those hardcore porn movies. What if he had plans on making some of his own, with Jenna, and she wanted out?”

The thought hasn’t occurred to me until now, and I can see it has never occurred to my uncle. It should sound ludicrous but it doesn’t.

Owen shakes his head. “The Chuck I know wouldn’t go down that road. Sure, he liked his porn, but he was real gentlemanly with the girls. What you’re talking about there is more like the kind of harebrained scheme Gil would come up with.”

I sit forward. “Who’s Gil?”

“Chuck’s younger brother. You won’t remember him. He got a job with a logging company in the Pacific Northwest when you were still just a boy. Gil’s the reason we started the parties in the first place. He’d been seeing this girl from Babbitt for a while. She was sixteen. He brought both her and a girlfriend of hers out to Lyle’s cabin one weekend. We all got drunk and one thing led to another. The parties became kind of an annual tradition after that.”

Gil Hendry is the mysterious sixth member, I realize, which leaves me with no more members of Six Pack to pin Jenna’s murder on. My stomach is tense with disgust. “So how many girls were there over the years?”

“I don’t recall exactly. No one got hurt.”

Teenage girls experimenting with their sexuality with older men, learning how to manipulate, to get what they wanted,
fooling
the men into thinking they were desirable. None of the girls
traumatized
in later life, for sure.

“Right from the start your dad told me to stop. But I wouldn’t listen.”

“My father knew about the girls?”

“It’s the main reason we fell out all those years ago, before you were born.”

Unquestionably, my father is a bad man—unholy in spite of his
self-righteous preaching. But the thought of him knowing about his brother and his friends sleeping with teenage girls, and not exposing them to the authorities, doesn’t just fill me with revulsion, it goes against the grain of everything he professed to stand for, to believe in. In his prime, my father was no saint, but turning a blind eye to something like this was beneath even him.

Owen rubs a hand through his thinning hair. “Your mom never forgave him when she found out he was covering for us. They were never the same after that. Arguing all the time.”

“That’s why she had the affair with Lars?”

“You know about that?”

“Tolstoy told me. He said Lars and my mother were in love and that’s why she went away with him. Then she was dead, withi
n days.”

He nods. “Walt told me about the remains at Hangman Falls and whose they were. He was up there hunting when the
Sheriff’s
Office were cleaning things up. He recognized your mother’s purse. That’s why he called into town this afternoon. He wanted me to know they’d found Erin. Jake, I’m sorry. You’ve got to believe me. I had my suspicions all along, but to get the confirmation was
horrible
.”

Now I am on the edge of my seat. “You knew she was dead? You knew my mother was dead all these years? Oh my God, Owen! And you never once said anything to me when I was a kid! You let me go on believing she’d run away and left me with my abusive father. You let me hate her!”

His complexion is ashen. “Don’t hate me for it, Jake. It was only a theory. I never had any proof to back it up. What do you want me to say? You were hurt enough already. Her leaving tore your world apart. Telling you I thought she was dead would have tipped you over the edge for sure. Like I say, I never knew for certain. I just
suspected
it. The only family your mom had was in Brunswick. After her leaving, your dad was a mess, so I called them several times on his behalf, but she never turned up. Even a year later, no one had seen or heard from her.”

“She was with Lars.” It comes out like a hiss.

“At first, yes. But not by that time. She only stayed with Lars for a few days, to get her head together. She wanted to come back for you and Aaron, but it wasn’t safe.”

“My father threatened to kill her.”

“If he laid eyes on her again that’s what he swore he’d do. All the while he was making threats and smashing things up. He even went to the Grossinger mansion and threw rocks at the windows. Walt told him to desist or he’d lock him up. Eventually, your mom agreed to an arbitration meeting, at Merrill’s, to talk things through on neutral ground. Must have been five or six days later, after the fire in your dad’s rage had died down a little. I was there, refereeing and trying to get your dad to see sense. So was Walt Krauss. She told your dad it was over and there was no going back. She wanted to move her boys out to Lars’s place. Your dad said she could take you but she wasn’t taking your brother. He said she was corrosive, a bad influence. He caused a scene. He even grabbed up your mother’s purse—the one they found up at Hangman Falls, according to Walt—and tried to bash her skull in with it. Being the chief, Walt intervened and carted him away for the night. The last anyone heard of your mom was she was heading home to pick you boys up.”

“Only she never made it.”

“No.”

Suddenly, my thoughts are whirling again, heart quaking. My mother had intended to come back for me, for us. But
something
—or someone—had stopped her along the way and changed my lif
e forever.

“Did anyone ever look for her?”

“No. But I wish we had. We all thought she’d had a change of heart and skipped town. There was no evidence of her being abducted, least of all murdered. Like I say, I had my suspicions, but no proof. Your dad didn’t want to file a missing persons report. He said she could rot in hell for all he cared. So I guess she just fa
ded away.”

Like a Polaroid picture left out in the sun.

All this time I’d hated her for never coming back.

But she’d tried.

The weight of my guilt is crushing.

“Of course, Jake, I did my best to watch over you, through the years, to make up for my brother’s failings. You were such a sickly child. Always one malady or another. When your mom disappeared I made a point of spending time with you. We used to go fishing, remember? You loved to go fishing out by the lake. You loved the quiet, the calm. Those were great days, weren’t they? You helped out in the store, too, during the holidays. You were always a pleasure to have around. A little introverted, shy, but on the whole
well-beh
aved.”

He leans toward me. “We never told you this, but your aunt couldn’t conceive. Having you under our feet was good for her, for us. We thought of you as the son we never had. You were so fragile, we just wanted to wrap you up and look after you. When I heard you were being bullied by that upstart Meeks, I spoke with Aaron to make sure he had your back. When your dad was going through his meltdown over your brother and his plans to join the military, I asked Jenna to step up and take your mind off their bickering.”

I straighten my spine, blink. “Wait, what? You did what?”

“I asked Jenna to help out. Jake, you have to remember you were absolutely miserable at the time. Worrying over your graduation and what was to come after that. Worried about Aaron leaving home, stranding you with your dad. You became isolated again, the same way you were after your mom left. It was a critical time in your social development. I wanted to cheer you up, make your life a little less grim. Jenna was already on board with the club by that time; it was no big deal to her. Seemed like the perfect fix. I pointed out my little nephew was down in the doldrums and she willingly jumped at the challenge.”

Bitter discontent rumbles deep in my larynx. After hearing Ruby’s revelation I had begun to foster suspicions about Jenna’s true motive for being with me, but to get the confirmation is a doubl
e betrayal.

The awful truth is, Jenna had dated me out of obligation, to satisfy my uncle’s desires in more ways than one. Not because she was interested in me. Not because she had any feelings for me. It’s as though my whole life has been a sham.

“I did it for you,” Owen says. “It worked, didn’t it? She made you happy, didn’t she?”

His words cut into me and I am gutted by them. My uncle has no idea. No concept that his good deed is the cause of all my woes. He makes Jenna’s relationship with me sound like a task, or, worse still, a chore.

“Don’t hate me for it, Jake. You’re my nephew and I love you. We’re family. We’re all we’ve got. We need each other. I’ve only ever had your best interests at heart.”

With vomit pluming in my throat, I get to my feet and rush for the door.

“Where’re you going?” He calls after me. “Jake! Will you just hear me out? I swear on your aunt’s life I didn’t kill Jenna. But there is one other person who might know what happened that night. The other girl. She could hold all the answers you’re looking for.”

I pause with my fingers on the door handle, swallowing back puke. “Who?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

E
very which way I turn, ghosts reach out to grab at me from the shadows. They follow at a distance, joining forces, whispering my name, slipping into the dark the moment I glance over my shoulder.

I don’t believe Owen is responsible for Jenna’s death, not
directly, but I do believe his choices helped put the pieces in place for somebody else to kill her.

His closing words hammer through my brain like shots from a nail gun. His recorded confession is enough to blow the rumors about Six Pack out of the water and sink reputations. Their fate, their memories, are now in my hands. Unexpectedly, I don’t feel powerful for it, just hollow. Their debauchery comes with
consequences
,
victims
: the girls, whose lives will fall under public
scrutiny
the second this gets out. Most will be wives now, mothers, with good careers, husbands and children, decent lives devoid of
debasing
sexual misconduct.

But the roar of the wild waits for no man. Right?

Mind racing, I rush along sleeping streets toward the center of town, blindly cutting through snowy alleyways, slipping and sliding over frozen puddles, mindlessly putting distance between me and my uncle’s depraved world.

The darkness inside me is stirred, agitated. Monsters moaning in the abyss. Memories clawing their way to the surface.

I stop, gasping for breath, both palms pressed flat against the side of a building, as vomit gushes out onto the snow. Tears spring from my eyes and acid sears at the back of my nose.

“Leave me alone!” I bark at the ghosts lingering in the mouth of the alleyway. “I can handle this!”

My phone rings. A dog barks. I wipe goo from my lips, take a deep breath to settle my nerves, then answer:

“Kim?”

“Jake, where are you? I tried your home number but you didn’t answer. Are you close by? I know it’s the middle of the night, but I’m missing you like crazy here. Is that wrong of me? What do you think? Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is: do you want to come over? Shane isn’t here, if that’s what’s stopping you.”

Every fiber in me is suddenly yearning to be near her. Krauss is my keystone, my mainstay, the one person holding the arc of my story together. Whenever my world has been in crisis, Kimberly Krauss has been my savior. I need her to bring focus, to bring coherency to my chaos.

“I’m on my way.”

“Hurry.”

I reach Main Street and head for the solitary vehicle still parked at an angle outside the bait shop. My father’s Bronco starts first time. Headlights illuminate the storefront, revealing a door sealed with yellow-and-black police tape.

The truck spits out fumes as I gun it down the road, heading for Krauss’s place.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

W
hen we were young, my brother taught me two valuable life lessons: never wager more than I was willing to lose, and never enter into a fight I couldn’t win.

Meeting Krauss, knowing what I do, has me on an uneven keel. How can I explain Meeks’s fate and her father’s face-off with Tolstoy without condemning myself and getting wounded in the crossfire?

“Hi there, stranger,” she says through a broad smile as she pulls open the front door. The silk kimono is gone, replaced by her day
clothes.

“You headed someplace, Kim?”

“No.” She raises a blonde eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s two o’clock in the morning and you’re dressed for the
outdoors
.”

“So are you, but I’m not asking.”

“Except, I’m not wearing a gun.”

She laughs her hyena laugh and bats my remark aside with a hand. “Will you stop overthinking everything and get your ass in here? For Pete’s sake, you’re letting all the heat out.”

I step inside.

She closes the door behind us. “Come on. Give me your coat.”

I shuck it off.

She hangs it on a hook by the door, then lifts up on her tiptoes and pecks me on the lips. “I missed you. Thanks for coming back. It’s warmer in the kitchen and there’s fresh coffee in the pot.”

Holding me by the hand, she starts to lead me down the
hallway
. But I resist and swing her back around to face me. “Isn’t there something you want to ask me about?”

Parallel lines etch themselves across her brow. “Like what?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

The lines deepen. “Happened?”

“Kim, look at me. I’m standing here in your hallway with my face all busted up and you haven’t batted an eyelid.”

“Oh.” Her mouth twists in the way I know it does whenever I catch her being evasive.

“Well?”

“Okay, so I can’t lie, Jake. I know what happened, or at least I know the gist of what happened.”

I keep hold of her. “How?”

A man’s voice echoes from down the hall, in the direction of the kitchen: “Because I told her, Olson.”

I turn to see Chief Krauss standing in the doorway. He’s cocooned in snow-camouflage gear, a sheen of sweat on his balding pate. In his hands is a hunting rifle, pointed in my direction, white tape wound around its barrel.

I nod a greeting. “Walt. I thought you were dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Sorry about your cabin.”

“It’s insured.”

“So what happened to Tolstoy?”

“What can I say? He insisted on driving his truck straight to the bottom of the lake.”

“With your arrows in him, no doubt.”

“No doubt. It’s the least I could do in return for him burning down my home, don’t you think?”

“And now you’re going to finish what you started and kill me, too. Is that it?”

He raises the rifle. “Unless you can give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

Kim pulls free and steps between us. “Okay, truce! I won’t allow the two men I love the most to fight like this. Not only is it
ridiculous
, it’s entirely unnecessary. Dad, this is Jake here. He’s good people, remember? I know you’re pissed at him, and I don’t blame you, but hasn’t there been enough killing for one day?” She turns back to me. “Jake, we just want to talk, that’s all. Find out what you were doing up at the cabin. My dad’s pretty precious about his business, and has every right to be, but he knows I feel the same way about you.”

She doesn’t know what happened to Meeks, I realize. Her dad didn’t witness the events inside Krauss Outfitters, only those outside and from afar. But he knows Tolstoy and I weren’t there to purchase a canoe. He wants to know what I was doing up there with
Grossinger’s
hired hitman, burning down his business. They have no idea what went on inside, and it’s to my advantage.

Walt Krauss motions with the rifle. “Okay. Come on. This way. In here. Let’s talk this through where it’s warmer.” He sees my
hesitation
and adds, “Relax, Olson. Kim doesn’t want me to kill you. For some reason she’s got an affection for you and that’s your saving grace. But I will shoot you if you misbehave.”

I have no zip ties on my wrists but my hands are tied.

The three of us go into the kitchen, Kim bringing up the rear. I need to know how much they know, and so I’m happy to play along with their little charade, for now.

Walt waves me to a seat at the breakfast bar. “Sit. It’s not a request.”

I perch myself on the stool and get out my phone.

Immediately, he swipes it out of my hand and places it face down on the counter. “No phone calls, okay?”

“Sure, Walt.”

“So let’s get this started, clear up a few mysteries here. I found Gavin Luckman’s truck parked round back of my cabin. And on the way down here I passed Shane’s patrol car on the side of the
highway
, with bullet holes in it. I want to know what happened up there tonight and why it ended with my place being razed to the ground.”

“Plus, I’ve tried calling Shane,” Kim adds, “a number of times now, and he isn’t answering. I know the reception up there is touch and go at best, but something’s not right here. You need to help us out, Jake.”

The pair of them stare at me through the same cold eyes. Father and daughter, cast from the same mold.

At this point I have a choice: I can level with them, tell them the truth, trust that Walt Krauss has a shred of decency still left in him, trust that he’ll see that the killings were in self-defense and on the tail end of an abduction, trust he’ll do the right thing; or I can fabricate and see what develops.

I loosen up my shoulders. “Okay. I’ll try my best.”

“Go right ahead.”

“It’s simple, really. I was on my way home, from here, from being with Kim, when Gavin Luckman and Ryan Hendry jumped me. As you can see from my face, they knocked me around.”

Walt nods. “You’re a big boy now, Olson. I’m sure you can
handle
yourself in a fist fight.”

“Only Hendry had a gun on me the whole time. They beat me up and then bundled me into Luckman’s truck. From what they were saying, I knew their intention was to take me out into the woods and chop me into little pieces.”

“I told that jackass to lay off,” Kim says through her teeth. “Jake, I’m sorry I didn’t arrest him this afternoon. If I had, none of this would have happened.”

I don’t say that bad things have a tendency to happen around me no matter what preventive measures are taken.

Her dad nods. “So how does Meeks factor into all this?”

“My guess is he got wind of what they had in mind and came to put a halt to it.”

“Meeks intervened?”

“Sure. He pulled them over on the highway right there and got me out. We started back toward town, but Hendry used his gun and shot out Meeks’s Mustang. The thing died on the roadway,
stranding
us.”

The chief looks skeptical. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Why, because Luckman and Meeks were bosom buddies and so he’d never go up against him? Walt, you’re forgetting one thing: they were blinded by rage and drunk on revenge. Plus, Hendry is a real bad influence. He’s Harper’s resident psychopath, remember? He had Luckman all wired up. They wanted me dead and buried, and they weren’t going to let anything or anyone stop that from happening. Besides, their argument wasn’t with Meeks. He just happened to get in the way. That’s why Hendry only knocked him out cold and left him by the roadside. Then they carted me off to your cabin.”

Kim’s eyes widen. “Oh my God, is Shane okay?”

“I’ll get to that, Kim.”

Walt makes a disgruntled noise. “Why my cabin?”

I shrug. “My guess is they wanted to torture me first and needed somewhere secluded to dice me up. They’re nut jobs. They attacked the police chief. Who knows what they were thinking?”

Kim looks concerned. “Okay, so what happened with Shane? He wasn’t anywhere near the patrol car when my dad passed through. Is he okay?”

Her feelings for Meeks are deeper than she admits. I meet her gaze, keeping my expression blank, hoping she’ll buy my story. I have a nice yarn to sell. If I spin it out slowly, she’ll catch the thread and run with it.

“It’s like this: we all know Meeks and Luckman were the best of friends. They were a tag team, always were. I bet Luckman couldn’t fart on the other side of town without Meeks sniffing it out. My guess is Meeks must have anticipated where they were headed, because the next thing I know he’s bursting into the cabin, waving his gun around like Bruce Willis, and subsequently all hell broke loose.”

Walt taps the muzzle of the rifle against the granite countertop. “Whoa, slow down there. Backtrack a little. You’re saying he abandoned his car and came on foot, past Hangman Falls?”

I nod. “It’s the straight line option. By which time Luckman and Hendry had already beaten me to a pulp and were about to start skinning me alive.”

“What happened next?”

“They started arguing, the three of them. It got heated, loud. Tempers flared. Hendry came at Meeks with a tire iron.”

“Oh my God,” Krauss gasps, hand to mouth. “Is he injured somewhere?”

“Worse,” I say without any emotion. “Kim, he’s dead. Luckman killed him. He thrust the tire iron into his chest.” I hit her with the sucker punch, full on, without holding back, without any padding to cushion the blow.

She recoils from it, eyes flaring wide, steadying herself against the kitchen counter.

“He’s lying,” Walt says. “Something’s off here. I don’t buy that course of events. Gavin would never hurt Shane. Not in a
million years.”

“It’s the truth, Walt. Those two were acting crazy. Meeks didn’t stand a chance. Once that fire’s died down, you’ll see the evidence will confirm my story.” I stare him out, comfortably knowing that prison perfected my poker face.

“Son of a bitch,” he breathes.

Now that I have them eating out of my hand, I don’t stop there: “To his credit, Meeks managed to fatally shoot Luckman and
Hendry
before he died. Got to hand it to him, he was a crack shot. Got both of them in the face. It was heroic. And that’s when Tolstoy turned up.”

Kim looks stunned, teary-eyed. I don’t feel sorry for her loss. Meeks was a bully. The world is a safer place without him in it.

Her dad wraps an arm around her shoulders, tries to draw her into him, but she shrugs him off. It’s the first time I have ever seen her shun him.

Walt’s wounded eyes rotate back to me. “So how’d the fire get started?”

“You can thank Tolstoy for that. I was all banged up. He carried me out of there and then went back and doused the place in gasoline, set it on fire. I have no idea why. Maybe he was following orders. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

“Very funny, Olson. Doesn’t explain why he tried running m
e over.”

“You shot him, fatally, and he knew it. Even if he hadn’t gone through the ice he wouldn’t have survived. That first bolt pierced his lung and probably a major artery. Either way, you killed him, Walt. The evidence will show that, too.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’s at the bottom of the lake, isn’t it?”

“Which leaves you with a dilemma. I’m witness to an unlawful killing by your own hand and you don’t know what to do with me, either of you.”

Walt nods. “You’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you? Well, I won’t hide the fact I’ve never liked you, Olson. When you were kids, coming over to our place to study, I tolerated you for Kim’s sake. God knows what she sees in you. To me, you’ll always be that runt kid who ruined his dad’s life. If it was up to me I would’ve put you down the minute you were born.”

I force a smile onto my face. “Love you, too, Walt.”

“As it is, Kim doesn’t want me to do anything. She’s all hung up on you the same way she’s always been. Even more so now that you and she have gotten to know each other in the biblical way.”

I glance at Kim. “You told him?”

She just blinks. Her face is blank, eyes filled with tears. She’s still trying to absorb and process the fact her estranged fiancé is not only dead but also cremated, and I played a part in it.

“Kim and me, we’ve always been upfront with each other,” Walt continues. “There are no secrets between us, never have been.”

I force the smile again. “Well, I’m happy for you, Walt. Really, I am. You tell each other everything and that’s fantastic. It’s the way it should be between father and daughter. Congratulations. In that case, I take it she told you she was one of the girls who had regular sex parties with most of the members of Six Pack back in the day?”

It’s one of those moments when the world stops spinning and
people
get off.

The statement is seismic in magnitude and the shock instantly shows in their faces. It rocks them on their feet and shakes them to the core, snapping Kim out of her mourning.

“Before you try and deny it or cover it all up again,” I say, “let me point out I have it on good authority and from a very reputable source. My Uncle Owen told me everything. All there is to know about Six Pack, about who did what and to whom. I know Kim here was one of two girls who prostituted herself to the club, Jenna being the other.”