My Sister's Grave (41 page)

“That didn’t come out at his trial,” Dan said, bracing against a gust of wind. His hands and feet had gone numb.

“It was Tracy’s truck and Tracy had given Sarah her black Stetson. She wore it that night to protect her from the rain. They looked so much alike. In the dark, House couldn’t tell the difference. When he told me what he did to Sarah, how he’d repeatedly raped her before he killed her, he laughed and said, ‘and she wasn’t even the one I wanted.’ That also never came out at trial. James didn’t want Tracy living with that.”

“It would have killed her,” Dan agreed. “But Roy, why not stop Tracy before we got to this point? Why not tell her before it came to this?”

“Because I never thought it would come to this,” Calloway said. “I forgot about the Polaroid and that Sarah couldn’t wear the pistol earrings. Tracy held all that back, convinced it was a conspiracy. I also didn’t know the strands of hair had come from a brush they both used. Didn’t think about it back then. Besides, anything I said to try and convince her, she would have thought a lie, and her father was dead and her mother never knew. There was no one to convince Tracy to let it go.”

Calloway looked to a faint glow of light coming from a building at the back of the property. “I never thought I’d be here again.” He locked eyes with Dan. “I’m not sure what we’re about to find in there. If anything happens, you just shoot. Don’t even aim. You just pull the trigger.”

They moved forward from one snow mound to the next, until they’d reached the ramshackle house. When Calloway removed his gloves, Dan did the same, shoving the gloves in his pocket. The stock of the shotgun was freezing cold. It hurt when he flexed his fingers, balling them into fists. He tried blowing into them, but his mouth was bone-dry, and he felt like he couldn’t catch his breath.

Calloway held the .357’s barrel up and reached for the door. The knob turned. He gave Dan the same knowing look he’d given him when he uncovered the tree stump.
He knows we’re coming.

He stepped in. Dan caught the door to keep the wind from slamming it open, followed Calloway, and quietly closed the door behind them. Inside the house, he heard the hum of a generator. He followed Calloway into an adjoining room, Calloway moving deliberately, his gaze darting left and right. Halfway in, he stopped abruptly, then moved swiftly to an armchair.

Parker House sat in the chair, spikes driven through the back of each hand into the armrests, which were covered in blood. Two more were driven through his boots into the floor, where blood had pooled. “Oh, God,” Dan said.

Calloway put a finger to his lips. He stepped down a hall and turned on his flashlight, directing it into two rooms, along with the barrel of his gun. Then he returned and put two fingers to Parker’s throat. The man was ashen, his lips blue. “He’s alive,” Calloway whispered, though it didn’t seem possible. Parker opened his eyes and the tiny movement was startling, like the dead coming back to life. His eyes were dull. He looked like he was half-asleep.

Calloway knelt. “Parker? Parker?”

His eyes fluttered open.

“Does he have her?”

House looked about to speak, then grimaced, struggling to swallow.

“Get him something to drink.”

Dan hurried back to the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets before he found a glass and filled it at the tap. When he returned, Calloway was dragging blankets and bedding from the hall. Calloway wrapped the blankets around House, took the glass, and tilted it to the man’s lips.

House took a small sip.

“Does he have Tracy?” Calloway asked.

“The mine,” Parker croaked.

Calloway set the glass on the floor and straightened, talking to Dan. “I need you to go back and get on the radio.”

“The radio isn’t working, Roy.”

“The radio
is
working. We just didn’t reach anyone. Finlay should be at the station by now and I told him to sit by the radio. You don’t have to do anything except hit the power button. Tell him you need an ambulance and every available officer in Cascade County. Tell them to bring chainsaws.”

“That will take forever.”

“Not if you hurry. You get there, you do as I say, and then you get back here and build a fire. If you can’t find wood, burn the damn furniture. Try to keep him warm until they arrive. That’s all we can do at this point. When Finlay gets here, tell him to follow my tracks. Tell him House has her in the old Cedar Grove mine.”

“If you’re going up there, I’m going with you.”

“We need more men, Dan. One of us needs to go back and get more men.”

“You don’t even know if I can reach anyone, do you?”

“You’re wasting time,” Calloway said. “Right now, I need you to do what I tell you. Tracy’s alive, but she might not be much longer.”

“How do you know?”

“Because House isn’t trying to hide this time. He could have killed DeAngelo and he could have killed Parker. This is like a trail of bread crumbs.”

“For who?”

“For me. I’m the one he wants. I’m the one he hates.”

“That’s all the more reason to wait.”

“If I wait, Tracy might die. I lost Sarah, and I lost one of my best friends. I’ve lived with that too, for twenty years. I’m not going to let that son of a bitch take Tracy.”

“Roy—”

“We don’t have time to debate this, Dan. One of us needs to go back and get on the radio and get more men. You don’t know where the mine is. Now go get help or they’re both going to die.”

Dan swore under his breath and handed Calloway the shotgun. “Here. Take this.” Calloway tried to hand Dan the rifle but Dan shook his head. “I can move faster without it.”

Calloway stepped to the back door, pushing it open. Wind rushed into the room, bringing flakes of snow.

“Roy.”

He turned back. The big man had always had a presence about him. He was the law in Cedar Grove, and everyone living there felt better knowing it. But now, Dan saw a man beyond his prime, setting out into a blizzard to find a psychopath.

Calloway nodded once, stepped out, and was swallowed by the storm.

CHAPTER 66

T
he generator continued to hum, but the available light was quickly fading. Tracy did not have enough slack in the chain to reach the box and crank the handle herself. The filament had dulled from white, to red, and now a pale orange. The daunting onset of darkness made her think of Sarah chained to the wall—her baby sister, so afraid of the dark. What had she done all those hours alone? Had she thought of Tracy? Had she blamed her? Tracy looked to the lone patch of carpet leaning against the concrete wall at the back of the room and wondered if that had been the place where Sarah had sat. She touched it, needing to feel a connection, and noticed faint but distinct scratch marks in the concrete. She pulled back the carpet and leaned closer, seeing grooves in the wall. She traced them with her fingertip and realized they were letters.

Tracy bent closer, blowing away the fine white dust. She traced the grooves with her fingers. The letters became more distinct.

I am

Her stomach tightened in a knot. She blew harder and wiped with a greater sense of urgency, tracing the indentations.

I am not

She scraped at a second line of letters just below the first row.

I am not afraid

A third line was scratched below the second, though the grooves were not as distinct.

I am not afraid

She ran her hand farther down the wall but did not feel any other grooves. She angled herself so her body did not cast a shadow on the wall, but she did not see the rest of their prayer. Sarah had apparently never finished it.

To the right of the prayer, Tracy felt more scratch marks but these were vertical grooves. Again she angled her body so as not to block the remaining light.

////
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/

Tracy sat back, hand covering her mouth. Tears streaked her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” she said. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Another thought came to her. The reason for the calendar was obvious, Sarah was keeping track of the days of her captivity, but why their prayer? Of all the things Sarah could have written, why would she have written something only she and Tracy knew? She could have written her name. She could have written anything.

Tracy turned and looked to the door in the wall. Her gaze migrated to the black Stetson on the shelf and it brought a realization.

“He told you, didn’t he? He told you I was the one he wanted,” she whispered.

Sarah must have feared Tracy would someday be chained to the same wall, and she had left her a message—but it wasn’t just the words that were meant for Tracy. There was more to it than just their prayer.

“What did you use?” She felt the scratch marks again. Sarah clearly hadn’t made them with her fingernails.

She had to have used something sharp and rigid. Twenty years ago the concrete would not have been weakened by the years of moist soil above it and damp air.

“What did you use?” She looked about the floor. “What did you use? And where did you hide it from him?”

The mine shaft would be more than a mile and a half up the hill, if Calloway could even find it. When Parker House had led Calloway up the mountain twenty years earlier, nature had already reclaimed much of the mining road. In the intervening two decades, the lush vegetation had likely completed its reclamation—not to mention the fact that the road was now buried under several feet of snow.

Calloway directed the beam of his flashlight over the snow, searching for footprints. He instead found sled marks, the kind made by a snowmobile. The tracks led away from a shed behind the house and carved a path up the mountain. He stepped inside the shed and swept the light over an ATV and rusted and dilapidated equipment, but did not see a second snowmobile. His breath marked the air. Calloway directed the beam along the wall, stopping when it illuminated a pair of antique snowshoes made of wood and woven rope, hanging on a hook.

He pulled the shoes from the wall and removed his gloves to put them on. His fingers quickly became numb. The toeholds on the snowshoes weren’t quite big enough for his boots, but he forced them on and adjusted the straps as best he could to secure them. He slid his hands back inside his gloves and stepped outside. The wind gusted as if to greet him, or to warn him. He lowered his head into it and followed the sled marks up the hill. The first few steps in the snowshoes were awkward, the wooden frames kept digging into the snow. He kept his weight distributed more on the balls of his feet and soon got the hang of it.

Within minutes, his thighs and calf muscles burned, and his lungs felt as though he had a weight compressing his chest and preventing him from getting enough oxygen to fill his lungs. He concentrated only on putting one foot in front of the next, using a mountain climber’s rest step to conserve energy and catch his breath. But he kept his body in motion, fearful that if he remained idle, his body would shut down. He took another step, straightened his leg, rested a beat, and continued, step after step, fighting off exhaustion and the unrelenting voice that he stop and turn back. He couldn’t turn back. He knew what this was about. House wanted his pound of flesh. He wasn’t hiding Tracy the way he’d hid Sarah, and he wouldn’t wait long for Calloway. He’d kill Tracy. The wind that battered him was also erasing the snowmobile tracks, making them more difficult to follow. Still he pressed on, up the mountain.

This time he intended to finish it.

He had no doubt that was also Edmund House’s intent.

CHAPTER 67

D
an collapsed against the Suburban’s snow-covered hood, panting and wheezing. He couldn’t catch his breath. His chest ached and his lungs felt like they were about to explode, like he was suffocating. His face, hands, and feet burned from the cold. He could not feel his fingers or his toes. His legs and arms were leaden.

He had plowed back through the snow as fast as he could, using the trail he and Calloway had carved while getting to the property. He had not allowed himself to stop. He thought only of getting to the Suburban, radioing for help—if the radio even worked in the storm—and getting back to help find Tracy. A part of him still believed that Calloway had sent Dan away just to get rid of him, not wanting to put him even further in harm’s way.

Stumbling along the side of the car, he nearly fell, but gripped a door handle to keep himself upright. When he tugged open the door, snow tumbled from the roof onto the floorboard and seat. He gripped the steering wheel and used it to pull himself up, laying his flashlight across the bench seat. Inside, he took only a moment to catch his breath, which marked the air inside the car with white bursts. Dan removed his gloves, blew into his fists, and tried to rub life back into his fingers, which felt swollen. He flipped the power switch on the radio. It lit up—the first good sign. He unclipped the microphone, took a deep breath, and spoke in gasps. “Hello? Hello, hello.”