“I don’t understand.”
“You’re only as sick as your secrets. Isn’t that what they say in AA?” Jane nodded. “Our ancestors have laid a twisted road for all of us. Consider for one second who staked their claim in this great country: conquerors, explorers and Puritans. When they all started screwing each other, confusion ensued. When your nation is born from a Puritan fornicating with a conqueror, you’re guaranteed to have deep issues.” He leaned toward Jane. “Family secrets, Jane. Of all the secrets we hide,
family secrets
are the most dangerous. They breed like mice. None of us are immune. Turn over any rock in any family and you will find the dark corners and the stories that are only repeated in the
minds
of those who suffered the indignity that lead to the shadows. The happiest-looking family, the sweetest-looking couple, the purest-looking kid all share the DNA of a secret that could never be revealed. Every one of us bears the pain and dishonor of buried secrets that our families refuse to acknowledge.
“Those secrets fester throughout the generations, unspoken and never dared whispered. In our sanctimonious need for concealment, we falsely believe that within our silence is honor. But what they
never
told you…is that the secret you keep and bury takes on a life of its own. The secret becomes flesh and blood and it chases the family from one generation to another, contaminating the bloodline as it goes. It hovers around you and within you…” He pointed his mud-caked finger at Jane. “… and
operates quite unconsciously through your ancestry. But here’s the crazy thing, Jane. When that secret is not acknowledged, it is doomed to be repeated by the sons and daughters that follow in the shadow of their family tree. You see, buried secrets bubble under the skin of the generations yet to be born. And like little soldiers, we unwillingly support the secret by recreating it in our lives.” Jordan began to count them off on his fingers. “Murder, incest, rape, suicide, clandestine adoptions, marital violence, homosexuality, alcoholism, drug abuse. Sounds fucking insane, right? But it’s true! If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself. I’ve seen it play out dozens of times! It’s all done on such a
deep
, unconscious level that it seems unbelievable and so, of course, it’s easy for the ignorant to disregard this idea. But mark my words,
every single person
on this earth is carrying the heartbeat of another in their bloodline. Whatever was buried long ago, will repeat and repeat and repeat. And you will continue to be the victim of what your ancestors could never say out loud. The
only way
out of this eternal cycle is to listen and then wake up and acknowledge the truth that your ancestors—those discarnate souls—are now begging to reveal to you.”
Jordan took a step back, allowing his words to sink in. “But, hey, we all know the way mankind leans. Illusions die hard and the status quo dies even harder.” Jane instantly remembered the words, “Illusions die hard,” that Mollie inscribed on the bridge under her dragonfly drawing. She said it was one of the last things Jake said to her. “Who wants to face their shadowed truth when it’s so much easier to keep the ball rolling that feeds the machine and makes one’s life a false existence? How many people have the courage to seek the truth within themselves and within their own bloodline? How many people are willing to live a life of transparency? How many family members would disown you because you have exposed their secret? How many friends would leave you because they see you as a loose cannon? Is it safer to live your life manipulated by a family secret, or is there more freedom in the revelations… no matter how
bitter or sick the discovery?
Is the trade-off of loneliness and shunning that comes with that discovery worth the freedom of living without any illusions
? For most people, the answer is a resounding ‘
No
.’” Jordan ran his dirty fingers through his coarse beard. “Do you have
any
idea the kind of energy it takes to fight the system? I’m talking about the
family system
, Jane? You serve the system for decades and you never serve yourself. Hell, you don’t even know what’s good for you anymore because that system is so much bigger than you. It’s like this unconscious ploy to keep you rotating in the same sludge your ancestors waded through. But let’s just say for shits and grins that you said, ‘Fuck it!’ After years of absorbing and accepting all that pain as your own, you finally realize that it never belonged to you. So you say, ‘I’m breaking out!’” He smiled sarcastically. “My God, do you
truly
understand what it takes for a person to do that? Do you have any idea how many levels of people, situations and patterns work to prevent it? It’s a choice that ultimately frees your soul but destroys the world you’ve come to know. Don’t think for one moment that altering that energy is easy. Most people would rather live in denial and their comfortable illusions than risk it all on the truth and be set free. Most people are willing to give up their right to see the truth that made them because they don’t want to be alone or exiled to a life of what they believe is sheer existence. And that, my dear,
is what the secret is counting on
. The secret wants you to be a mushroom: kept in the dark and fed shit all day long. And even when you wake up briefly and say, ‘This doesn’t feel right to me’ or ‘What I see isn’t jiving with what I’m being told,’ the secret is there to feed you more shit and satiate your psyche with lies. For those of us who are brave enough to seek the truth and renounce the secrets that stalk us, it can be crazy making! But I tell you, sister, what doesn’t kill you makes you wiser.”
Jordan relaxed a bit, exhausted but somewhat brightened by being able to express himself to Jane. She considered every word of what he said, percolating the abstruse discourse in her
mind. As anomalous as it sounded, somewhere deep down, it made frightening sense. Jane couldn’t believe she was concurring with this lunatic; this monster who brutally took the life of a helpless boy decades earlier and was possibly involved in the disappearance of another boy. Her heart was at odds with her troubled head. But there at the back of her heart was the feeling that Jake Van Gorden was one of those brave souls who stepped outside the mushroom pit of lies and rejected the damp darkness for the light of truth. By taking that step, did he sign his own death warrant? How could the man standing before her—the man who declared that truth was dangerous—destroy a boy for seeking the one thing that he admitted was so valuable?
But it was the coincidental comments that were identical to what the kidnapper wrote or spoke that still concerned her. And more than ever, the tale of an eight-year-old red-haired boy standing at a back gate and talking to Jordan—not with his words, but
through his mind
—rankled Jane to the core. There were too many odd coincidences competing for her attention. While Jordan’s narrative felt prophetic, she couldn’t allow herself to accept it as fact or have the luxury of taking down her guard in his presence.
“So, tell me, Jordan. What family secret stalks you?”
He dropped his head for a moment before looking back at Jane. “There are no secrets left buried for me. I’ve dredged all of them up and laid them bare. Why do you think I live a solitary existence? Why do you think I’m still the outcast? When you live in Midas you are bound by the secrets you share. I can’t explain it, but everyone here is inexplicably drawn together by the knowledge that each of them harbors something so unforgivable…so deep and life altering….that they are like
magnets
, sucked together by what they choose to keep hidden. In Midas, we are all born from the same wound and die from the same heartache.” He cocked his head. “Turn over a stone in Midas and you’ll find five boulders.”
“Do the citizens protect one another?”
Jordan seriously considered her question. “They don’t know the great mystery that could destroy their neighbor. They may suspect certain possibilities, but the only connections they make with each other are in the ether. The only way they protect each other is with their silence. Silence is worth more than all the money this town possesses. So you
must
appreciate it, Jane, that Midas is a precarious place to live when you have a penchant for seeking the
truth
.” He flung his arms into the air. “Is it any wonder that I’m their scapegoat? They’ve tried to shut me up my entire life!” He moved his large frame close to Jane, hovering over her like a human monolith. “When you go back out into that town today, I want you to ask yourself, what are they willing to sacrifice to keep their secrets?
Who
are they willing to sacrifice for that secret?”
Jane stared at Jordan, showing no hint of fear. “You talking about them sacrificing you?”
He looked off to the side. “That’s a given, Jane. I’ve been sacrificed before to serve my family’s secret. Thirty-four fucking years, Jane.”
“You served time because you killed a child and hid his body under your bed. How can you say you were sacrificed?” Her tenor was pointed and driven.
“Because every story is only half told. It’s what’s not revealed that carries the meat.” He walked away from her, leaning his battered body against the trunk of a tree. Plucking another few needles off the spruce, he wadded them into a fragrant ball. “Home is where the heartache is. Home is where the secrets hide.” He popped the aromatic gob of needles into his mouth. “You know what they say, Jane?
You can’t go home again
?” Jane’s ears perked up. Of all the statements he could have said, he used those exact words. “But until you unleash your family’s secrets, you’re a prisoner to that home.”
Jane turned and headed back to her car.
“I can hear you, Jane!” Jordan yelled after her, in a singsong manner. “You think I took that kid! You gonna send me up the
river, Jane?” He took several steps outside the stand of trees. “Well, good fucking luck! You’ll get stalled when you look for a jury of my peers. You will not find twelve people who are as smart as I am!”
Jane continued to trudge toward the Mustang, never turning back to Jordan.
“You’ll be back again, Jane!” he yelled loudly toward her. “But the circumstances are gonna be out of your control next time!”
Jane wasted no time speeding like hell out of Jordan’s property. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice the time on the dashboard clock until she hit the pavement on the highway. It was nearly 11:45 am. She’d pulled up alongside the river at 10:10 am and figured she landed on his property around 10:15 am. But there was no way in hell she’d been there for ninety minutes.
What kind of time warp operates on those grounds?
she wondered, as she sped closer to Midas.
She rounded a curve right before the bridge just as a coal black Land Cruiser roared past her on the left. It wasn’t hard to spot the driver—Bailey Van Gorden. From her quick observation, it looked like he was alone in the car. Jane pulled out her cell phone and dialed Weyler’s number but the tight canyon walls prevented the call from going through. She tried calling again as she neared the turnoff. After four attempts and no signal, she figured she would tell him that she tried to call to let him know what she was doing. Tossing the phone onto the passenger seat, Jane turned the Mustang sharply and crested the hill toward Blackfeather Estates.
CHAPTER 16
Carol Van Gorden stood in the front doorway, looking as apprehensive at Jane as she did the first time they met. “Is something wrong?” she meekly asked, her voice filled with fear.
“No, ma’am,” Jane said in as comforting a tone as she could manage.
“Oh, I wasn’t expecting you. I’m not really presentable.”
Jane wasn’t sure what in the hell the woman was talking about. It was closing in on noon and she was dressed in a neatly pressed pair of black slacks, a white cashmere turtleneck and a bold string of black pearls surrounding her narrow neck. Her blond bob looked to be freshly coiffed with nary a hair out of place. If this wasn’t
presentable,
Jane wondered what was. She looked down at her own shirt, caked with mud from her fall on Jordan’s property and her jeans, splattered in various spots with dirt and affixed with the occasional dried leaf and pine pitch. “Well, I won’t tell anybody if you don’t,” Jane retorted, figuring it was an apropos statement to someone who lived in the town of secrets.
Carol waved her inside, her body tightening. “Bailey’s not here,” she quickly put forth.
“Oh, really?” Jane responded, trying to sound as surprised as she could. “I thought he said he was trapped in the house.”
Carol’s face froze. It was the same look of terror she displayed during their first tête-a-tête. Jane desperately wanted to do something,
anything
, to calm the woman down. “Oh, uh, well, he…he,
is
trapped here. Yes, that’s quite true. But he got an unexpected call last night from Louise, his mother. She’s flying in today from back east. He just left to pick her up in Denver.”
“Wentworth, New Jersey. Wasn’t that the name of the town where Bailey grew up?”
Carol moistened her lips. “Yes. Right. Wentworth.”
“And your mother-in-law still lives there?” Jane made sure her tone was as offhand as possible, yet Carol was acting as if
Jane had a loaded gun to her blond head.
“Yes.” The word fell more like an odd question than an answer.
It was clear to Jane that this woman was not equipped to manage a conversation by herself without the annoying presence of her husband to direct the dialogue. “Isn’t Louise battling terminal liver cancer?”
“Yes.” This response sounded genuine to Jane. “She’s in bad shape. Her doctors were not in favor of her taking the trip out here. But she needed to come.”
“She’s close to Jake?”
“No,” Carol said, without thinking, before she caught herself. “I mean, uh,
sure
she’s close to him. She’s his grandmother. Jake’s her only grandchild.” The excuses were stacking up higher than a Sunday morning pancake special. “It’s just that she lives so far away…”