Authors: Liv James
“Yes. He works for me.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Funny how people aren’t really what they
seem,” he smirked. “You were right not to want to trust anyone Clara.”
“I’m going to go get cleaned up now,” she
said, struggling to stand. Her head swam like she got up too fast and she
steadied herself on the coffee table.
“Easy there,” David said, sitting back on
the loveseat and watching her. “I wouldn’t want you to kill yourself too soon.”
She walked slowly toward the back bedroom.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he
asked, up off the loveseat and taking hold of her elbow. He turned her around
and nudged her toward her own bedroom. “You can get cleaned up in there,” he
said. “And leave the door open.”
She walked into her bathroom while he took
a seat on her bed. He picked up the remote control from the night stand and
clicked on the television. “Damn it,” he grumbled. “The cable’s out.”
Clara didn’t say anything. The swelling
around her cheekbone seemed to be going down on its own, but a nasty, colorful
bruise was deepening under her left eye. She turned on the water and washed her
face and hands. She cupped her hands together and sipped some water from them.
She was incredibly thirsty.
“I don’t have any of my things,” she said,
turning to see David watching her from the bed.
“What do you need?” he huffed, looking her
up and down. “You look fine.”
“I need a brush. And a toothbrush,” she
said, reaching up into the cabinet. “I think my grandmother had some peroxide
and salve in here that I can use on my legs.”
“What’s the matter with your legs?” he
asked, standing and putting his hands on his hips.
“You ripped the crap out of them when you
pulled me off that fence,” Clara said, giving him a hard look.
“Let me see.”
She turned around and showed him the bloody
welts on the backs of her legs.
“You’d better get that cleaned up,” he
said, making a face as if he smelled something bad.
“No shit,” she retorted, turning back
toward the mirror. “I’ll take care of that while you go get me a brush.”
“Where’s the red bag I gave you?” he asked,
inspecting the bedroom as if he thought he’d find it there. His eyes lit on the
unopened package on the rocking chair.
“It’s still in the car,” she said.
“You should have cleaned yourself up in the
car like I told you to,” he said, picking up the box from the chair and shaking
it.
“Are you going to argue with me about
this?” she asked. “I’d like to brush the sticks out of my Goddamned hair. Is
that a crime?”
He gave her a hard look. “Stay here.”
As soon as she heard the door close she
reached up into the medicine cabinet and pulled open her manicure kit. She slid
out her grandmother’s old steel nail file that looked more like a cheese grater
than a file. She tucked it into the waistband of her shorts and pulled out the
peroxide just as David came back in.
“Here you go,” he said, tossing her the
satchel. “You’ll make a lovely corpse.”
CHAPTER
19
“Where the hell is she?” Jon demanded as a
towering state trooper in a wide-brimmed hat clicked Rebecca’s handcuffs into
place behind her back.
A crowd of shorts-clad, water-bottle
carrying vacationers had gathered on the opposite end of the clearing, held
back by two well-positioned black-and-white patrol cars from Valleyview. Small
children were perched on their fathers’ shoulders to secure a better view.
The initial roar of the news helicopter
tripled as each of the major networks moved closer to capture the scene.
Earlier at Firelight
Falls they’d dropped in
so close that Elizabeth’s
blond curls whipped around her terrified face, causing her to close her eyes
and bury her head into Josie’s shoulder as they scooted down the porch steps
toward the waiting patrol car. Jon wondered why the copters hadn’t pulled back
and used their cameras to zoom in. In their zeal to get the most detailed
footage they’d blocked their own best shot. They’d been forced instead to zero
in on Jon and Josie.
With
Jon by her side Josie had proved incredibly strong, comforting Elizabeth as she handed both the little girl
and a small bag of her things to a female cop. The trooper had a worn
expression that barely softened as she gathered the little girl into her arms
and whisked her into the backseat of the idling patrol car. No sooner had the
woman slid in beside Elizabeth
and closed the door than the sirens blared and they were gone, kicking up a
whirlwind of dust and ash from the fire ring.
The choppers disappeared with the patrol
car, following it out of the park and down the mountain road. Jon watched them
fade into the sky to the east as he repeated his statement to the remaining
officer. Josie explained as much as she knew, including where Elizabeth had
been, fighting back tears as she continued stressing that she’d taken care of
her like she was her own granddaughter. The officer explained that Elizabeth’s parents had
arrived in Pittsburgh
late the night before and were in flight now to reunite with their daughter at
the regional airport.
Now the choppers had returned. Jon assumed
they’d captured the reunion footage at the airport and were now hot to snag
prime-suspect footage. Three choppers and a police helicopter circled overhead,
alternately taking in the mountainside trail and then focusing in on the action
at its summit.
Patrick and Meg stood off to the side
trying to comfort Josie, who had started to shake when Rebecca stumbled up from
the trail.
Karen Glass sat on the ground
across the clearing, rocking back and forth as she gripped her knees and stared
blankly at her tightly laced hiking boots.
Rebecca smirked at Jon as he confronted
her. Her shirt was splattered with blood and her bottom lip was swollen to
twice its normal size. He could tell she was no longer trying to pretend to be
anything other than she was.
“Answer me,” he said, taking a step toward
her.
“Sir, you’ll have to back up,” said the
state trooper who’d cuffed her. Jon assumed he was a sergeant because the other
troopers appeared to be waiting for his command. “The little girl is fine. They
radioed in about ten minutes ago that she’s been returned to her parents.”
Jon pointed at Rebecca. “I’m talking about
her sister, Clara Spritzer. She was right there an hour ago and now she’s
gone,” he motioned toward the split-rail fence where she’d been sitting. “Her
backpack is laying over there but she’s nowhere around. I have good reason to
believe that this bitch may have done something to her and isn’t telling us.”
“Jon,” Patrick said, walking up and putting
a hand on his shoulder. “Clara wasn’t with us. I never saw her on the trail.”
Jon studied Patrick, whose face was
streaked with dirt. His hands were filthy with what looked like a combination
of blood, grass and soil.
“You were with Rebecca?” Jon asked,
confused. “I thought she was with Bill.” He glanced around, realizing for the
first time that Bill wasn’t with them.
“Bill’s still down on the trail,” Patrick
said. “Mark and Joe are trying to get him up the trail without moving him too
much.”
“What’s wrong with Bill?” Josie asked,
approaching the men and trying not to look at Rebecca.
“He’s hurt, Josie,” Patrick said, taking a
deep breath as if he’d been trying to work himself up to this moment. “Pretty
bad. Rebecca pushed him from the top of one of the switchbacks. Meg and I were
only a little bit in front of them and heard him yell out, so we backtracked to
see what was going on. That’s when we found Rebecca running up the trail.”
Josie whirled around and faced Rebecca.
“You pushed him?” she cried.
“He deserved it,” Rebecca spit, any
semblance of civility gone from her dirty face. She stared at her mother as if
she would just as soon kill her as look at her.
Josie lowered her eyes at her daughter.
“What did you do?” she asked slowly, her voice low and steady. “Rebecca.”
“What mother?” Rebecca jeered. “Don’t you
dare look at me like that. I really wanted to take care of Clara, but Bill
feels almost as good. He deserved to die almost as much as she does.”
Josie punched her, hard in the lip where
she’d been injured already. The sergeant held Rebecca steady, making no attempt
to move her away.
“Are you saying someone is hurt down on the
trail?” he demanded, giving Rebecca a slight shake by the shoulders.
“No,” she said, lifting her head from
Josie’s strike and smiling through bloody teeth at him over her shoulder. She
turned back to Josie. “By now I’m sure he’s dead.”
“Take her away,” the sergeant said, pushing
her toward a trooper who was standing near him. “Do you know where they are?”
the sergeant asked, pointing at Patrick.
“I can find them,” he said.
“Good, then you come with me.”
“I’m going too,” Josie said.
“Ma’am…” the sergeant started.
“Don’t you ma’am me, young man,” she said
as she pushed past him and headed down the trail, Meg at her heels.
As the sergeant started to follow them he
turned to the officer who was holding Rebecca. “Alert the choppers that we may
need to do a mountainside rescue. Get the EMTs back up here and make sure
they’re ready if we end up having to carry him up.” Then he was gone, sprinting
down the trail to catch up with the others.
Jon cornered the officer who was holding
Rebecca. “Clara Spritzer,” he repeated. “She’s missing. She was here but now
she’s gone. And she knows something about it,” he said, pointing at Rebecca.
“Not a clue,” Rebecca coughed, batting her
eyelashes at him as the officer pushed her head down and lowered her into the
backseat of the cruiser. He slammed the door closed and faced Jon.
“We’ll put out an alert,” he said. “But
it’s likely they’re going to run into her out on the trail. I bet she got tired
of waiting and started hiking down to meet them. But give me a description just
in case.”
Jon considered what the officer said. He’d
thought the same thing, except that Patrick would have seen Clara if she was on
the trail. And she wouldn’t have left without at least taking the water out of
the pack, and it looked full sitting there. He recited Clara’s description for
the officer, then started toward the split-rail fence as the cruiser pulled
away. Jon stopped when he saw Marcy jog into the clearing.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked.
“Looking for you and Clara,” she said,
catching her breath. “I came up the trail with Patrick and Meg and figured you
two would want to know what happened. I knew Clara would want to see Rebecca
before they hauled her off.”
“Did you find her?” Jon asked hopefully.
“No,” Marcy said. “I thought she was with
you but she was nowhere around. I checked both the cabins and the visitor’s
center but they hadn’t seen her.”
“I was at the cabin with Josie when the
police came,” he said. He explained what happened with Elizabeth. Marcy stared at him in disbelief.
“And now Clara’s missing,” he said,
surveying the clearing half expecting her to emerge from one of the trails that
emptied into it. The crowd had dispersed after the police left, with Karen
wandering toward her cabin looking stricken. “Clara’s not around anywhere,” Jon
said.
“Are you sure she didn’t go down on the
trail?” Marcy asked. “She must have been really pissed at Rebecca.”