Girl Jacked (13 page)

Replacement looked like she wanted him to speed up but at the same time not get there. Jack felt the same way.

The day was very warm for January and they both cranked down the windows a little. The smell of the pine trees soon filled the car.

When they turned onto Reservoir Road, they began scanning up and down the area where Sully had said he found the car. That’s when he noticed some marks. Jack could tell where a car became stuck on the side of the road by the turned up dirt and deep tires tracks. He pulled ahead and got out. Replacement fell in behind him.

Today had warmed considerably, and the melting snow was creating deep mud on the side of the road. He walked over to the tire tracks. The ruts by the side of the road told Jack just where the Civic had come to rest. The deep tracks of the tow truck sat just outside those of the small sedan. A series of thin ruts showed where the teens had parked to check out the car. The snow had melted off the road, and he could see bits of plastic and broken glass.

Replacement was walking away, following the debris trail while he examined the tire tracks. What he was looking for he didn’t know. Sometimes it helped him think if he just stared at a crime scene.

It is a possible crime scene.

Jack forced himself to calm down.

Go over your notes; Michelle went missing. The kids found the car here. If the car…

Jack was going down the list but stopped while he watched Replacement. She was not walking down the street as she followed the debris trail but across it.

Jack walked after her, following the bits and pieces of plastic and glass like breadcrumbs. Replacement’s face was puzzled as she looked up the hill. It was extremely steep for about ten feet and then it rose up at less of an angle. Because of that, they couldn’t see that far over the lip, but one thing was obvious to Jack. The car had come from that direction. Tire tracks came straight down the grass hill, and he could see where the front end scraped the pavement as the car came back on the road.

Could she have been driving up on Pine Ridge?

He had to pull himself over the lip of the hill, but once he stood up it was clear; the Civic had gone off the road at Pine Ridge, come down the hill and came to a stop on Reservoir. Replacement now stood beside him, covered in dirt from the climb up the slope.

“Walk slowly after me to make sure I don’t miss anything?” he asked her, but the reason for the request was different. Something felt off. Other cops and soldiers had told him to put away gut instincts and go on facts, but his gut had saved his life more times than he could count.

He could tell that this section of the hill had been the scene of a terrible brush fire years back. Because of that, the trees were new and small. A few dead trees refused to fall over and some twisted ones refused to give in. Jack could see the trail the car had made as it careened down the slope.

They followed the path up until the trail veered at almost a 90-degree angle and large clumps of grass and dirt stuck out. There was a slight gulley. It wasn’t very low but it dropped off a couple of feet.

The car must have come off the granite rocks, and this was where it rolled over
.

He could see some shattered glass. Jack pictured the crash. The car flipped and then landed back up on its wheels. Jack examined the original path the car traveled on and then estimated its trajectory.

It was going straight towards the lake. Instead, it flipped on the rocks and went off to the road below.

Jack looked up and down again. The very straight path it had taken until that ninety-degree twist in the middle surprised him. He looked around the rocks where the car flipped over. There was a lot of glass, a soda bottle, and some trash.

They must have been tossed out when the car–”

“Replacement.” Jack’s voice was calm, and he forced himself to adopt a neutral expression. He turned around and spoke directly to her. “I need you to go and get the camera out of the trunk of my car.”

“Why?”

“It’s very important, and I need it now.”

She started to protest some more but instead turned and headed back down the hill. Jack watched her as she slipped and slid, cursing under her breath back down to his car.

Jack watched her for a long time because he did not want to look anywhere else. He stared down at his hands, and they shook. He squeezed them into fists and closed his eyes.

Please God, help me.

His pleas were always the same. It didn’t matter if he was in Iraq or if he was making a drug bust.

He opened his eyes and went to the top of the rock. He tried to picture the car. It wasn’t too smashed, a surprising fact considering what had happened to it, so it could not have rolled more than a couple of times. He looked where the car had changed direction. The tires had dug deeply into the ground in one spot. It must have landed there. He imagined the car again, and the path it took.

He walked past the spot where it had flipped, moving more toward its original path. He walked a couple of feet and stopped.

No… God, please. Please…

Jack’s eyes involuntarily slammed shut and his head fell forward as it felt like someone crushed his chest. A low guttural moan exploded from him.

Michelle’s body was lying on the grass, partially hidden by some shrubs.

Her face was turned away from him and looking towards the lake. It appeared like she was just sleeping with her head resting on her arm, but he knew she was dead. He could smell it, that unmistakable foul odor of death.

He sank to his knees and his vision blurred. He wanted to scream. Then he thought…

Replacement!

He staggered back down the hill. She was already almost back to him. She was muttering to herself and she was mad. “There was no camera…”

Her words trailed off when she saw his face.

“It wasn’t in the trunk…” Her voice went tight.

She shook her head and tears welled up in her eyes.

Jack slowly nodded. Replacement swayed, her feet slipped, and she fell onto her hands and knees. Jack rushed to her and slipped too coming up beside her. A wretched sob twisted his body as guilt and pain washed over him. He had loved Michelle as a sister. He should have watched over her when he came back from the army, but he had failed. He had two real friends, Chandler and Michelle, and they were both dead now.

Why?

Images assaulted his mind; Michelle riding her bike, Aunt Haddie holding her hand, Michelle at Christmas…

Replacement wailed and began clawing her way up the hill on her hands and knees. Jack knew that he couldn’t let her see Michelle’s body. Not like this. He grabbed her, and her pain exploded at him in a focused rage.

Her hand attempted to smash him across his face. He grabbed her around the waist. Her punches rained down on his hands, but he held on. She kicked at his shins and clawed at his arms.

“I don’t believe you! I want to see her!”

Jack just gripped her tighter. 

“You were supposed to come back! You were supposed to watch out for us! Why?” She continued to hit him and try to break free, and Jack just held on. “Why? What did we do?” She collapsed in the mud, but he didn’t let go.

Jack dug into his pocket for his phone. Cindy was working dispatch, but he couldn’t seem to make out what she was saying. “Officer Jack Stratton.” His voice sounded far off to him. “I’m on Reservoir Road… Send a car and the coroner.” He hung up as Cindy was frantically calling out to him.

They sat in the mud, Replacement sobbing until she shook uncontrollably from the cold.

Closing his eyes, he realized how alone he had made himself.

It was me. I pushed people away.
I wouldn’t leave, but I made them get out of my life. I only lived an hour away, and I never went to see Michelle. I always blamed it on Chandler’s death. I always made excuses.

He stared off into space, and he realized how broken a person he was. He had parents now but he brushed them aside. Aunt Haddie was like his mother, but he turned his back on her. He said he loved Michelle yet she lay dead on this hillside for a couple of weeks, and he hadn’t known.

“Jack.” Replacement’s voice was quiet and soft. “Jack, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Jack turned to her, and her muddy, tear stained face was strained with fear.

“No … You got it right.” His mouth twitched, and he stared down as he shook. He looked at her with tear-filled eyes. “I’m such a rotten bastard I can’t even remember your real name.” He turned to her expecting to see a look of disgust but instead she looked at him with eyes filled with concern. “Please tell Aunt Haddie I am sorry.”

“Jack.” Replacement was still sitting in the mud, and she held a trembling hand out toward him. “Please give me the gun.”

Jack felt the cold metal against his head.

He felt like he was watching what was going on but was not actually there.

“No, please.” She was crying. The tears cut channels through the mud on her face.

Jack could hear the sirens now. When they came, everything would be over anyway. You can’t have a breakdown as a cop. “They’ll know.”

His chest hurt. His heart hurt. He was so tired of pain.

Replacement shut her eyes and when she opened them, she was transformed. She spoke calmly and firmly. “If you do it, I will too.” She looked straight into his eyes.

As the sirens grew louder, they sat staring at each other. Jack couldn’t seem to think. “I‘m broken.” He whispered.

“Me too, Jack.” Her hand came around to lie softly on his. “Don’t leave me all alone…“

She seemed so young and yet so old at the same time. She slid forward and placed her shaking hand over his hand that held the gun. Jack shut his eyes. When he realized how he had just acted, a fresh wave of shame washed over him and dragged him back towards the abyss.

He turned his head to look at the approaching vehicles. He could see that Cindy had pulled out all the stops. Two fire trucks, an ambulance and three cruisers now rushed down Reservoir Road.

“Jack. Please.”

He let go and she pulled the gun away, hiding it in her jacket.

The fire trucks pulled up and Replacement sat next to him watching the men scramble up the embankment towards them. She took his hand and Jack pulled her close. They sat in the mud, and he gently rocked her as she cried.

Jack sat on the end of the hospital bed with his head hanging down. The last couple of hours were a blur. The cops and firefighters coming up the hill, someone covering Michelle’s body, the pained looks… Now he was sitting in a hospital, a thick blanket over his shoulders and a bunch of medicine clouding his brain.

He hated hospitals. They reeked of death. They tried to mask the smell with cleaners, perfumes, and disinfectants but Jack could still smell it. He looked down at the bed he was on and wondered how many people died in it.

Normally he would never allow them to take him to the hospital. They should have interviewed him at the ambulance and then allowed him to go home. Instead, the EMTs checked them both out, mentioning something about shock and insisted they go to the Emergency Room. Jack had been so defeated he had just climbed in the back of the ambulance and let them take him there.

He shrugged the blanket off, burning with shame. He tried to shut down his emotions as he always had in the past, but they smoldered.
He felt like something had broken inside him. The pain was too intense, and it cracked the prison within him that he kept hidden for all these years. That pain now burned unabated.

He jumped off the bed and reached for his jacket. He heard someone clearing his throat and the curtain pulled back.

“Hey.”

Jack froze at the sound of the deep voice. He turned around slowly. Sheriff Ethan Collins. Collins came from Texas. He was tall, and a little lanky, and even though he had been up north for years, he always had a tan. He was nearing sixty, but he wore the years well. He was a by-the-book cop’s cop and he followed rules and procedures to the letter.

He stood holding his hat as he looked at Jack. “My condolences for your loss, Jack.” Collins was also a good man and Jack knew he meant every word.

“Sheriff Collins.” Jack straightened up. “I want to apologize, sir.”

“We’ll cover that later...” Collins stiffened. “You need to take some time, okay?”

Jack relaxed, and he swayed like a deflating balloon. He hated drugs but whatever they gave him mellowed him out.

Collins shifted uncomfortably. The older man cleared his throat. “I talked to the girl you were with. She seemed convinced that it wasn’t an accident. I read over the missing person’s report, and I read that Michelle was getting ready to transfer schools. Now it looks like she went for a ride but something happened.”

Jack stared at the floor.

“I know that something is wrong. I have no hard proof, but I know that she just didn’t go for a ride and… die.”

“Jack, right now you need to think about you.”

“I know it wasn’t an accident.”

“Jack, are you looking for my answer as a sheriff, or as a man?” Collins looked at him, and Jack couldn’t read him. Maybe there was nothing to read because he was so black and white.

Jack swallowed and stared back at him. Something about a Texan accent added weight to the question.

Did it matter what Collins answered? It wasn’t an accident.

Jack nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Jack, if it is all right with you, I can handle the notification.”

Jack’s legs wobbled and he put his hand on the bed for support.

Aunt Haddie.

Jack nodded his head.

“Take your time coming in, Jack.” He turned around but stopped again. Keeping his back to Jack, he added, “If you need to talk… You can talk to me, but talk to someone, okay?”

Jack wanted more than anything not to talk, not to him, not to anyone. He thought back to the burning inside him. Some anger had burst out, and he could no longer contain it. His jaw clenched.

“I will. Thanks.”

Jack and Replacement got a ride back to his apartment from Cindy Grant, the police dispatcher. Jack’s call had upset Cindy so much that she came out to the reservoir herself. She came from a cop family. The joke was that even her dog was a police dog. The whole station loved her, and she doted on them all. She made cakes for every birthday and reminded every cop of each of their spouses’, parents’ and kids’ birthdays, anniversaries... etc...

Cindy was in her sixties but still looked young. It may have been her round, chubby face or her constant smile but Jack always wondered what she must have looked like as a little girl every time he saw her. She had short light brown hair that was cut into a bob and wore a modest dark blue skirt and a blouse with a bright green tree brooch.

The whole ride back Cindy talked. She talked nonstop about nothing in particular but Jack was grateful for the distraction. His chest still hurt. It was a dull burn because of the medicine, but the pain was raw. Replacement sat a couple of inches away from him. She gripped his hand. Her face was very white. She constantly watched him but tried to do so without him noticing.

He wanted to tell her that he was okay, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t. He wanted to comfort her but whenever he tried, he began to breakdown himself.

Cindy brought them both up to the apartment. Mrs. Stevens came out into the hallway. She took one look at Jack and Replacement’s ashen faces and stopped. His landlady bowed her head and retreated without a word.

Cindy hugged them and whispered to both of them. Jack didn’t hear what she was saying, but her being there was comforting. When she shut the door, the silence was oppressive. Jack’s hand twitched into a fist.

Replacement leaned against the counter, and Jack noticed the plates from the morning behind her.

Was it just this morning that she was laughing?

The girl in front of him was a shell of the girl from the morning. He clenched and relaxed his hands forcing blood into his fists.

He walked over to her and gently led her to the bedroom. He tenderly lowered her down onto the bed. She lay still as he removed her shoes and pulled the comforter over her. He stood there, looking down at her. Her hand reached out for his. It looked so small as she grabbed his fingers.

She moved over and softly pulled him to sit down on the bed next to her. Jack lay back and stared at the ceiling. He turned his head, and Replacement was watching him as she cried.

Jack closed his eyes and sighed.

“Alice,” he whispered.

Her name was Alice. Jack finally remembered it. For some reason, he thought she hated it. Chandler and he had cracked up laughing and making jokes when she first arrived about rabbits and Wonderland. That was until Michelle told them to be nice. Michelle reminded them what it felt like when they first came into foster care. How scared they were. That’s when Chandler gave her the name Replacement. Alice immediately liked it. Maybe because she just wanted a new start. He could picture her now.

When he opened his eyes, she was still searching his face. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t remember your real name.”

“I kinda thought that.” She looked hurt.

“It’s nothing to do with you. Something is wrong with me. I can’t remember names.”

She looked at him but his eyes were drifting off as he struggled to remember. He inhaled and held his breath in. He exhaled little by little and then stared at the ceiling.

“I was seven but… I still couldn’t remember it.”

Replacement turned her head toward him. “What couldn’t you remember?

“It’s stupid.” He put his hands behind his head. “My name,” he whispered. “I didn’t know my real name… How’s that for a joke,” he scoffed.

His eyes followed along the cracks in the ceiling.

“She just called me kid or brat or moron, usually with swear words attached to the front and back.”

“Your mother?”

Jack cringed then nodded.

“After she left me in the bus station, I went into the youth system. It was like a whirlwind.” He glanced at her. “Everyone was asking me questions. They kept asking me my name but it was just beyond my reach. It’s such a basic question but I couldn’t grab it.” He shook his head.

“They brought in a woman with an armful of stuffed animals and she talked to me like I was a baby. ‘This is Freddy Bunny and his friend Suzy Squirrel.’ She danced the stuffed animals around. ‘And they want to say hi, but they don’t know what to call you.’ She pretended to speak in a cartoon boy’s voice. ‘What should I call you, buddy?’ she smiled at me and held up the bunny. I wanted to die. I was so humiliated. Who doesn’t remember their own name?”

“You were seven.”

“What’s my excuse now? I didn’t know your name and I still don’t know mine.”

“I don’t understand. Your name’s not Jack?”

Jack shook his head. “No. That’s not my birth name,” he hesitated. “I just wanted to get out of there and get away from that lady with the puppets but she kept asking. All I could think of was my mother getting on that bus and the last thing she said to me… ‘You don’t know jack, kid.’”

Replacement inhaled and looked at him. A tear hung off her lashes and fell onto the bed.

“I named myself. I just told her my name was Jack. To me it meant… nothing. You know the expression? You don’t know jack. It means you don’t know anything. That’s what I was… nothing.”

“You’re not nothing.”

He looked over at her.

“That’s how I feel… sometimes.”

Replacement slid up next to him. “Sometimes… we all do.”