The knock came again, this time with more urgency.
With her muscles wound tight, she slunk slowly into her room, and separated two yellowed slats in the window blinds. Warily, she peered outside.
Standing on the front porch with a manila envelope clutched in five wrinkled fingers, was the frail, yet commanding, Richard Barrett. He raised his knobby fist and knocked at the door a third time.
The tension in Amy’s shoulders melted away. She felt no more terror, only a slight twinge of pain.
Before the white-haired man turned his blue-eyed, wrinkle-creased visage her way, she stepped back from the window with a tight frown, recalling all Richard Barrett did to her, and to her father— making
him
into the Nightmare Man, planting that fear into her mind.
The twinge of pain sharpened.
She wondered what was in the envelope he held. What could have brought him all the way to Pine Run today?
I don’t care.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Amy reached for the framed photograph on her nightstand. It was a picture her father took of her and her mother on the beach at a family outing to Gulf Shores. Unfortunately, it had been the last of such outings before her father committed a grave breach of trust and was kicked out of the house.
A few months later, her mother was murdered.
What happened to us? Amy fought back an onslaught of tears.
She touched the locket dangling close to her heart.
She heard the sound of an engine. She assumed Richard Barret had given up and was now backing his fancy black Cadillac out of the driveway. Amy was glad.
Why couldn’t her father just couldn’t shake the demons eating at his soul?
“You can’t change a man who doesn’t want to get better.”
Those were her mother’s words to her the day her father was escorted by police from their old house in Mobile.
Amy had watched from the foyer, with her arm in a sling, as he loaded his suitcases into his truck and drove off without apologizing for busting her lip after backhanding her when she tried to keep him from beating her mother. She had watched him leave, the tires kicking up dirt, without apologizing for throwing her into a wall. For dislocating her shoulder, and not explaining why he was the way he was, why he refused to get better, to change.
Amy clutched the photograph from a lifelong dead and buried to her chest and curled into a fetal position on the bed.
Will he ever truly change?
She knew the answer was no.
She also knew that, despite her resolve to get behind the truth of her mother’s death, she was still too afraid to confront him about it. She’d have to get to the truth alone.
The dark black hole widened in the pit of her stomach. Feeling hollow inside, Amy closed her eyes.
Chapter 32
Even though he turned his car back onto the interstate heading home, Richard Barret was not done, not by a long shot.
He’d get the truth to his granddaughter even if that meant driving all the way back here tomorrow and personally delivering the message to her at her school, which he planned to do.
He didn’t want to leave the case file at her doorstep because her father might intercept it before she had a chance to read it, thus thwarting his plans.
If that happened, Richard knew Amy would never learn of the horrific things her father had done, and he would lose any chance at hammering the final nail in Hank’s coffin.
Richard wished Ellen had known the truth about his past. Had she, Hank Snow would’ve never been a part of her life.
No matter how much of a rebel she had been, she never would’ve slummed that far into the gutter.
Richard had a pretty good idea who left Hank’s case file at his home. The man, after all, was just as suspicious of Hank as Richard had always been.
Detective Patrick Keene of the Azalea County Sheriff’s Office.
He was the only one of the investigating officers who did not turn a blind eye to Hank’s possible involvement in Ellen’s death. He pursued every lead uncovered to get to the truth, and he did everything he could do for Ellen. He even let Jane and Richard know whenever any leads in the case came in. For that Richard was grateful.
He felt he had an ally. One more person to help him see that Hank finally met the cold, swift hand of justice. And make sure he fell to his knees in a crumbling ruin, begging to be put out of his misery, which Richard would gladly do.
Chapter 33
“Where the hell have you been?”
Heading for the stairs, Layne brushed passed his father and muttered, “Out.”
Frank Hardy, district manager of loss prevention at Sears, reached out to grab his son by the arm but missed him by a hair. “I almost called your probation officer after you were out all night, but I didn’t want to get Terry involved in this yet. Why didn’t you answer your phone when I called? And what is that Godforsaken smell?”
Climbing to the second floor, Layne shouted, “Nothing!”
“Get back here, damn it! I’m not done talking to you!” Frank climbed the darkened staircase after him.
Layne slammed his bedroom door and locked it. Baring his teeth, he threw his fist against the wall, making yet another hole in the plaster.
“You’re going to explain yourself,” Frank shouted, pounding on the door. “I’m not going to take this shit anymore! Open this damn door, now!”
To drown him out, Layne slid a heavy metal CD in the stereo perched atop his dresser and turned the volume up. Flipping his father the bird, he plopped down on his water bed.
As the doomsday distortion of heavy metal filled the room like the black wings of death, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. His nerves were a wreck.
He knew he’d fucked up bad, but there was nothing he could do about it now. What’s done is done.
Billy Brown was dead, and Zero killed him.
After throwing up last night’s whiskey, Layne discovered his Pathfinder parked in the woods near the grisly remains of the bonfire.
He also found his clothes scattered in the dirt nearby and a knife— the one he kept in his glove compartment— near Billy’s bones.
Its blade was smeared in blood, and chunks of flesh were stuck between its sharp, serrated teeth.
He’d found out it was Billy after rummaging around the old pickup truck for clues to the skeleton’s identity.
Luckily, the fat fuck lived so far out in wooded desolation that there wasn’t anyone around to witness the crime; no one to see him cover it up. At least, he hoped not.
After finding a shovel and burlap sack in the junkyard that was Billy’s home, Layne dug a hole out in the woods. He made sure to wipe his fingerprints from everything he touched, too.
No one could find out what he was.
A murderer.
No. Zero was a murderer. Jekyll can’t be held accountable for Hyde’s crimes, can he?
Unfortunately, Layne knew the answer.
Frank was no longer shouting at the door but Layne knew it wasn’t over. Eventually, he’d have to come out of his room, and face the yelling and accusations. He would deal with it the only way he knew how. By bottling it up inside and laying the burden on Zero, which was what his court-appointed therapist said led to his dissociative identity disorder in the first place.
A coping mechanism they called it.
As a way to handle the tragedy of his parent’s divorce, the pain of his mother abandoning him, and Kelley’s abuse, Layne, at a young age, had internalized his emotions, forcing them all on what would become a whole new persona.
Zero came to form in his teens. First revealing itself the day Ashley, Layne’s half-sister, nearly drowned in the backyard pool. If their father wasn’t around to administer CPR, she might not be alive today.
Layne closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to think about that day, but couldn’t avoid the memory. He loved Ashley and would never do a thing to hurt her.
After all, she was a defenseless child with autism. Only a heartless monster would throw her into the deep-end of a dark pool knowing she couldn’t swim. So when he woke up at the side of the pool with a headache and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and his father told him what had happened, Layne didn’t believe a word of it.
Kelley, however, didn’t believe him.
She hit him over the head with a wooden mallet later that night when his father wasn’t looking. She never did such things when Frank was around.
Frank never believed Layne when he told him the things that Kelley had done. Instead, his father accused him of acting out and telling malicious lies.
Well fuck them both.
Layne took a drag from his cigarette. How long would it be until the cops came knocking at his door?
In all honesty, he felt no remorse for what happened. It wasn’t like the pool incident with Ashley, or the rape with Marianne Weber was his fault.
Billy Brown had it coming to him after what he did to Amy. Now his bones were as good as buried in an unmarked grave, forgotten forever, or at least he hoped.
Layne started to tremble. The nicotine wasn’t doing much for his nerves. He took another drag, and tried to quiet his conscience.
But it would not be silent.
Chapter 34
Amy popped a frozen lasagna dinner into the oven.
“Set the timer,” Hank called out from the living room. “Don’t wanna burn it like ya did that casserole Thursday.”
Biting down on her tongue, Amy set the timer.
“And get me another beer while you’re in there.”
He was almost halfway through the twenty-four pack of Coors Light he bought at Walmart, but Amy grudgingly did as told.
“Thanks, babe.” He accepted the beer and blew cigarette smoke from his nostrils like a bull as he watched Alabama play football. “They’re gonna win this thing for sure.”
“Great,” Amy said, without enthusiasm.
“Why you so glum? You’ve been like that since I got home.”
“I’m just tired,” she said. Of course, she didn’t tell him about her grandfather stopping by. She didn’t want to upset him.
And she’ll never tell him about the ghost. That would upset him even more. He would also think she’s crazy.
“How long ‘til dinner?” Hank asked.
“About an hour,” Amy said. “I’ve gotta get started on some homework.”
“All right.” Hank popped her on the fanny as she passed his chair. “Keep an ear out for that timer.”
Amy clenched her fists and stomped to her room. She hated it when he treated her that way. It was similar to how he used to mistreat her mother.
I’ve taken Mom’s place.
The idea sickened her.
In her room, she began reading the poems about which she was assigned to write essays for class. But before she could finish, she heard the oven timer go off.
Her father hollered her name.
“Coming!” Amy rolled her eyes.
Luckily, the lasagna wasn’t burned, so she wouldn’t hear any complaining from her father who chose to eat in his smelly recliner with his plate propped on his beer paunch.
Amy set up a dinner tray for herself in front of the TV which was tuned to the local news. She handed her father his eleventh beer of the night as he commanded.
The big story on the news was about the finding of a body in Wilmer. It belonged to a Mobile teenager named Amber Frey. She was reported missing by her parents in early October. No suspects were named. No motive given.
Before more information could be divulged by the press, Hank changed the channel back to ESPN.
“Dad, I wanted to see that.”
“Nothin’ to see,” Hank said around a forkful of pasta. “One of them missin’ girls was found dead. Police are investigating. All there is to it right now.”
Amy wondered how much of that was true.
After dinner, she rinsed off her plate in the kitchen sink and returned to her room.
In bed she propped her American Literature textbook on her legs and turned to the final poem she was assigned.
It was by Amy Lowell and titled “The Captured Goddess.” Chewing on the tip of her yellow highlighter, Amy rolled her eyes along the page.
In the poem, the narrator followed a goddess soaring in the sky with rainbow-colored wings. She was entranced and stumbled all about as she made her way into the city.:
“Bound and trembling. Her fluted wings… fastened to her sides with cords, she was naked and cold, for that day the wind blew without sunshine… Men chaffered for her, they bargained in silver and gold, in copper, in wheat, and called their bids across the marketplace. The Goddess wept.”
Amy felt a slight tinge of despair in her gut. She knew how the goddess must have felt: trapped, helpless.