Two Days After Pine Cottage
Their names are Detective Cole and Detective Freemont, although they might as well have been called Good Cop and Bad Cop. Each had a role to play, and they performed them well. Cole was the nice one. He was young—probably not yet thirty. Quincy liked his friendly eyes and the warm smile that sat beneath a thin moustache grown in an attempt to make him look older. When he crossed his legs, Quincy saw that his socks matched the green of his tie. A nice touch.
Freemont was the gruff one. Short, stout and balding, he had the jowls of a bulldog. They flopped slightly when he said, “We’re confused by something.”
“More curious than confused,” Cole added.
Freemont shot him an annoyed look. “Things just don’t add up, Miss Carpenter.”
They were in Quincy’s hospital room, she too sore to leave the bed. Instead, she was propped into a sitting position by several pillows. There was an IV needle in her arm, its low, perpetual sting distracting her from the detective’s words.
“Things?” she said.
“We have questions,” Cole said.
“A bunch of them,” Freemont said.
“I’ve already told you everything I know.”
That was the previous day, when Quincy had been so groggy with painkillers and grief that she wasn’t sure what she had said. But she covered the basics. She was certain of that.
Yet Freemont glared at her, his eyes bloodshot and weary. His suit had seen better days, the cuffs frayed. A yellow splotch of dried mustard marred one of the lapels. A ghost of lunches past.
“That wasn’t a whole lot,” he said.
“I don’t remember a lot.”
“We’re hoping that you might be able to remember more,” Cole said. “Could you try? Just for me? I’d really appreciate it.”
Leaning back into the pillows, Quincy closed her eyes, searching for something else she could remember from that night. But it was all a black stew, turbulent and dark. She saw before. She saw after. The in-between was gone.
Still, she tried. Eyes and fists clenched, she swam through that mental stew, diving under, searching for the tiniest memory. She only came up with fragments. Glimpses of blood. Of the knife. Of His face. They didn’t add up to anything substantial. They were lost puzzle pieces, giving no hint of the complete picture.
“I can’t,” Quincy finally said as she opened her eyes, shamed by the tears threatening to slide from them. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t.”
Detective Cole patted her arm, his palm surprisingly smooth. He was even more handsome than the cop that had saved her. The one with the blue eyes who immediately rushed to her side yesterday after she cried out that she wanted to see him.
“I understand,” Cole said.
“I don’t,” said Freemont, the folding chair beneath him creaking as he shifted his weight. “Do you really forget everything that happened the other night? Or do you just want to forget it?”
“It’s completely understandable that you do,” Cole quickly added. “You suffered a great deal.”
“But we need to know what happened,” Freemont continued. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Confusion clouded Quincy’s thoughts. A headache was coming on. A light, pulsing pain that exceeded the angry pinch of the IV needle in her arm.
“It doesn’t?” she said.
“So many people died,” Freemont said. “Everyone but you.”
“Because that cop shot Him.” Already she had decided to never speak His name. “I’m sure He would have killed me, too, if that cop—”
“Officer Cooper,” Cole said.
“Yes.” Quincy wasn’t sure if she already knew that. Nothing about the name was familiar. “Officer Cooper. Did you ask him what happened?”
“We did,” Freemont said.
“And what did he say?”
“That he was instructed to search the woods for a patient reported missing from Blackthorn Psychiatric Hospital.”
Quincy held her breath, waiting for him to speak that patient’s name, dreading it. When he didn’t, a warm rush of relief coursed through her.
“During the search, Officer Cooper heard a scream coming from the direction of the cabin. On his way to investigate, he spotted you in the woods.”
Quincy pictured it, the moment superimposed over the image of the two detectives beside her bed. Officer Cooper’s surprise when he noticed a flash of white fabric at her knees, realizing how her dress had been dyed red with blood. Her stumbling toward him, gurgling those words that continually echoed through her pill-stuffed brain.
They’re dead. They’re all dead. And he’s still out here.
Then her latching onto him, pressing herself hard against him, smearing the blood—her blood, Janelle’s blood, everyone’s blood—all over the front of his uniform. They both heard a noise. A rustling in the brush several yards to their left.
Him.
Breaking through the branches, arms flapping, skinny legs churning. Coop drew his Glock. Aimed. Fired.
It took three shots to take Him down. Two in the chest, their impact making His arms flail even more, like a marionette in the act of being abandoned by his puppeteer. Yet He kept coming. His glasses had slipped off one ear, the frames slanted across His face, magnifying only one surprised eye as Coop fired the third shot into His forehead.
“And before that?” Freemont said. “What happened then?”
Quincy’s headache expanded, filling her skull like a balloon about to pop. “I truly, honestly can’t remember.”
“But you have to,” Freemont said, pissed off at her for something she had no control over.
“Why?”
“Because certain things about that night don’t add up.”
The headache kept growing. Quincy shut her eyes and winced. “What things?”
“To be blunt,” Freemont said, “we can’t understand why you lived when all the others died.”
That’s when Quincy finally heard it—the accusation hiding in his voice, peeking out suspiciously between his words.
“Can you tell us why?” he asked.
Just then, something inside of Quincy snapped. An angry shudder vibrated in her chest, followed by a surge of agitation. The balloon in her skull burst, tossing out words she never intended to say. Ones she regretted as soon as they took flight off her tongue.
“Maybe,” she said, her voice like steel, “I’m just tougher than they were.”