TWENTY
We watched Junior’s car disappear around the final bend that marked the private drive leading to the hospital’s front door. Drake asked the driver to stop on the side of the road.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t exactly just stroll in alongside him, can we? We’ll have to sneak up from behind—the same way I went earlier today—and see if we can find a good spot to observe him.”
“To observe him?” I asked, my voice trailing off.
Drake was right, of course. But I’d been so ignited by the events of the day I still struggled with my role as spectator in the mission. My job was to solve the mystery, but if I were already here now, why couldn’t my job change? I thought of future Jill and Ada and their full lives. I owed it to them to not distort their present reality. But what was Dorothy owed? Somewhere, her tormented soul was unable to rest for a hundred years. What if she were still alive inside the ominous brick mansion? I could not stop seeing the image of her eyes, so wide and terrified. Didn’t I have a duty to help her too?
Drake eyed me watchfully and saw right through me. I could tell. For now, I’d follow his advice, but if the situation took a turn for the worse, I wondered if I could restrain myself from intervening.
The moon’s glare caught the branches of the leafless trees and cast long, forlorn shadows on the ground. Dead brown leaves, trampled by animals and saturated by passing storms, were scattered across the forest floor. Drake took my hand and led the way through the grove. I was thankful for the light of the full moon, but my heartbeat still raced as I took in our spooky surroundings. A cold clamminess crept over my fingers, so I interlaced them in Drake’s.
The wind picked up and rattled the brittle branches of the slender trees. The forest was silent except for the sounds of our feet trampling over the ground. An owl hooted and I leaned into Drake, thankful for his protective presence beside me. Fear drained the last of my reserves and my eyelids felt strained with the basic effort it took to keep them open. My body flagged; being separated from my physical body for this long was definitely starting to take a toll. My brain was sluggish and my legs ached with the effort it took to lift them. It felt almost like I were walking through water but I pushed forward.
My mouth was dry and my eyes throbbed from being on high alert for so long. I looked around anxiously but saw only the same scene of pale gray trees in every direction. Drake was silent beside me. My heart skipped a beat a few times while staring at the eerie shadows of the trees when I saw movement within them, but it was probably only a trick of the light. Finally, after about ten minutes of walking, I could make out the dark shape of the house through the forest. As we approached the back of the hospital, I spotted something in the foreground that I hadn’t noticed before. Our steps were almost silent in the night, and I realized we were coming up to a fence. As we got closer, I could see what Drake described earlier.
We crept up to the fence and sure enough, six plots marked with plain, round stones delineated the graves. Each plot stood out fairly obviously from the trampled forest floor surrounding it. The dirt within them was darker and looser. Most were packed down with leaves and twigs partially covering them. But two looked like they’d been recently dug out, possibly within the last few weeks. Only a few leaves and twigs were visible on the tops of them. The earth was piled up in soft, rounded mounds, unleveled by time and climate. As if the new plots weren’t intimidating enough, something else caught my attention. I pointed to the far end where the ground looked untouched from the surrounding forest floor. But upon closer inspection, the color was slightly different there too. Drake’s eyes followed my finger and stopped when he saw two more plots that looked identical to the other six. He stiffened.
If we were right, and I felt with an ever-growing sense of certainty that we were, that would mean eight bodies. Eight women were lost in time, eight different families whose hearts ached just like Ada and Jill’s, eight mysteries as to where their daughters, sisters, wives, and girlfriends disappeared to. My mind flashed with burning hatred toward the doctor and his slimy, lizard tongue and sallow eyes. I shook my head as the sadness of the scene overwhelmed me. I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“Come on,” said Drake gently, taking me by the arm and breaking my morose thoughts, “we have to hurry. I can see Junior getting out of his car.”
Sure enough, beside the dark form of the house I could just make out the shape of someone stepping down from an old car. The squat figure heading toward the house now was none other than George Griscom Jr., presumably coming to rescue the mother of his child. Hope swelled in my chest despite the future proof that Junior’s heroic efforts tonight would be in vain.
We made it to the back of the house just in time to hear a loud knocking from the remote property. Our backs to the wall, we slunk around the exterior perimeter of the building and made our way to the side of the house, near where Junior had parked his car. I peered around the corner and saw Junior standing in front of the door. He was holding a gun. My mind flashed to the bag he left the house with. I stared at the gun with shock and disbelief.
“He has a gun!” I whispered to Drake.
Drake tapped my shoulder and I switched places with him so he could peer around the corner too. He looked back at me with wide eyes. I nodded, with the same expression of shock.
“Should we do something?” I asked.
“Non, ma minette. We have to wait to see what happens.”
“Let me in, you slime!” shouted Junior from the porch. Junior’s words faded in the crisp winter air. Silence descended over the scene, broken only by the soft hoot of an owl.
I had to find a way to see if Dorothy were still in her second story room, but we were stuck at the opposite end of the building.
“I know you’re in there, Dorothy!” More knocking echoed around us, but the green hedges absorbed the sound. Suddenly, Drake’s arms pushed me to the ground when a deafening gunshot rent the air. It left my ears ringing, and the few birds that were perched nearby scattered with a cacophony of panicked caws and hoots. I switched places with Drake once more and nervously peeked around the corner of the house.
Junior was now kicking the door, and from inside, the baby started to cry. Its shrill wails were punctuated only by the nerve-wracking, steady thump of Junior’s foot pounding on the heavy door.
Another voice came from a high window at the front of the house.
“Leave now, Junior!” yelled the high, loathsome voice of the doctor. He screamed over the sound of the infant’s screaming. The kicking stopped. My heart was beating so fast, I feared it would burst from my chest. We needed to get to the other side of the building. I tapped Drake on the shoulder and pointed back the way we came. He nodded and followed me as I edged alongside the house.
“Come out and face me, you worthless sack of shit!”
“You’re not welcome here!” returned the voice of the doctor. The words rang clear and true in the still night. We continued along the back of the building. I was careful to remain as silent as possible as we moved towards the building’s opposite end.
“You can’t protect her anymore!” Junior yelled back. “I’ve been made a fool of long enough!”
I stopped in my tracks, wondering if I misidentified the voice that had just spoken the last sentence. I turned back to face Drake, and his face was also frozen in surprise, confirming my suspicion: it was Junior who had just spoken.
Then, the realization dawned on me; and clammy heat smothered my chest. I remembered my conversation with Dorothy with renewed shame. When she said he would kill her, I naturally assumed she was talking about the doctor. But she wasn’t referring to the doctor at all. He only kept her here to protect her! Everything was falling into place with sickening clarity. Except one thing. Why would Junior want Dorothy dead? I couldn’t imagine that having a child without marriage was such an insurmountable issue—not so significant as to make someone angry enough to commit murder? It seemed too extreme. My reverie was broken by the doctor’s reply.
“You. Are. Not. Welcome!” His words were interrupted by another deafening shot. This one was accompanied by the sound of splintering wood, breaking glass, and a woman’s scream. The birds had already vacated their perches, so this time, the silence that followed the gunshot was more deafening than the initial cacophony. I picked up speed and rounded the corner onto the right side of the house. Drake followed on my heels. Dorothy’s room only had one window that was visible from the front of the house. There was no way I could enter her line of sight without tipping off the armed maniac.
Inside, the baby started to cry again. When I got to where the front of the house met the side, I looked around the corner once more. Junior was still standing at the front door, the gun balanced on his shoulder menacingly. He took a step back from the door, and smoke came from where I assumed he just blasted a hole. A well-aimed kick at the damaged entrance splintered the wood and the weakened door surrendered to his powerful blow. He aimed another kick. The baby continued to cry; and the sound was coming from above us. The third kick resulted in a loud crunch and I watched Junior’s body lurch forward as the last of the wood gave way.
I turned back to Drake with a worried expression and began to round the corner along the front of the house. Drake caught my shoulders and pulled me back.
“What are you doing?!” he asked in an urgent whisper.
“He just went inside! We have to follow him!”
“You want to follow the deranged maniac with the gun? Peyton if you die here, you’re gone… For good! You won’t wake up to your former life. It’s all over, do you understand that?” he practically hissed the words.
“What are we supposed to do, just stand here and listen to her being murdered!?”
I heard another scream from inside. Drake looked at me desperately.
“We’ll sneak in, come on. Nothing’s going to happen to us.” He shook his head emphatically, but I turned away from him and rounded the corner a second time. He cut in front of me, his back still pushed to the wall even though we were now facing the driveway. He put a finger to his lips in an unnecessary reminder to remain quiet. I cast a glance up at Dorothy’s window but the curtains were closed. We had to hurry.
We carefully tiptoed to the front steps. I went first this time. The door was still closed but the large hole made it easy to enter. No noises came from inside the house. I looked through the door but couldn’t see anything except the large room lined with beds. I motioned for Drake to follow me and clambered as silently as I could through the sharp spikes of wood from the door. I turned to watch Drake struggling to fit his large frame through the gaping hole.
I saw no sign of anyone in the house. Silence descended once again. I started towards the stairs. As we got closer, I could hear two voices: the doctor’s smarmy, high-pitched tone and Junior’s raspy voice, now raw from all the shouting. The voices came from the upstairs hallway, outside of Dorothy’s room. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying so I started up the steps. On the second stair, the wood creaked beneath the weight of my foot and I froze. There was a brief break in the conversation before it started again, and this time, I could make out the words.
“…expected me to believe it was my child,” I caught the tail end of Junior’s sentence. “But that little whore forgot one very important detail.”
“Junior, please,” begged the doctor. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were in the hallway, just a few rooms away from Dorothy and her baby.
“I had an accident when I was young. She didn’t know that, of course; I never told her. But I’m sterile, doctor. That baby isn’t mine… all her lies about how much she loved me? Ha! She didn’t love me. I was going to marry her! Did she tell you that? Did she tell you that she wanted to marry me? She never wanted me. She didn’t want the baby either. I would have taken her back too. I would have in a heartbeat. But you had to make it difficult, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t make anything difficult,” the doctor argued.
“All you had to do was remove the blockage!” Junior yelled at him.
“Junior, please, calm down,” the doctor beseeched.
“You had to complicate it, didn’t you, Dorothy? You never wanted me; you lied to me!” Junior’s voice became hysterical. Then he spoke again, “Well, now the joke is no longer on me!”
“Please, please, Junior,” begged the doctor as he started to sob. “Please!”
But the only response he received was the ear-splitting crack of the third bullet.