A stage sits in the main parking lot, a podium at the center with six chairs behind it. It’s standing room only, stretching from one end of Main Street to the other, as five hundred twenty-eight members of the Balsam Grove community, as well as families of the victims, gather for the press conference the town has been waiting for since the disappearances began ten years ago.
Acting Sheriff Daniel Andrews stands at the podium wearing a somber look that matches the crowd’s. Dressed in brown slacks, a matching button-down shirt with a gold badge pinned to his pocket, and a wide-brimmed hat, he looks every bit the part. Danny has been ready for this moment since we were playing cops and robbers in elementary school. His confident eyes scan the sea of faces, commanding our attention.
The locals were shocked when they found out the truth about what happened to the hikers. Everything they had been certain of for the last seven years since Henry June’s arrest was false. Instead, the true abductor—and now confirmed murderer—had been right under their noses the entire time, living among them, breathing their air, ruling their town. Sheriff Brooks was adored by many. Despite his comfort with bending the rules and covering up the odd crime here and there to maintain the town’s squeaky-clean reputation, he seemed as sane as the rest of us.
“Thank you all for being here today,” Danny starts, his voice projecting through the speakers set up along the sidewalks. I squeeze Aurora’s hand, but she doesn’t need my comfort. If I’ve learned anything over the past three months, it’s that Aurora June is the strongest woman I know. Her jaw is set, pointed straight ahead at Danny, ready for the closure I know she’s been seeking for years.
“I want to start off by acknowledging the men and women sitting behind me who have worked tirelessly over the past three weeks to uncover the information I know you all are waiting to hear. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow deputy, Tanner Brooks, who has taken a leave of absence due to personal reasons. His family asks that everyone respect his privacy during this devastating time.” He continues to scan the crowd as he speaks, but there’s not even a stir as everyone awaits the closure they came for.
This part, Aurora and I already know.
It took close to three weeks for the homicide detectives to explore the entire cave and locate all six missing bodies. After finding a stash of trash bags, tools still caked with dried blood, zip ties, and stacks of cement blocks, it didn’t take long to piece everything together—especially after they found a manmade window at the other end of the cavern. Brooks used it to deposit pieces of the bodies into the deadliest part of the waterfall when he was done torturing, raping, and dismembering them.
Brooks was one sick fuck. He’d befriended Aurora’s father—sat with him at the bar, loaded him with shots, then drove him home like the great sheriff he wanted the town to believe he was—and learned all facets of Henry June’s personality—the stable ones and the delusional ones. He became a trusted ally just by being present when everyone else turned their cheeks. He egged on Henry’s delusions of devil worshipers, of sinners who had premarital sex, and shared fantasies for how they should be punished. He planted the idea for Henry to stalk Brooks’ potential victims—all females between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four, all unmarried, and all from out of town, except for Aurora. And over his bar chats with Brooks, he’d report back, unknowing of Brooks’ plans to carry out what Henry had only ever imagined. The tree carvings were, in fact, trophies of Brooks’ Balsam Grove killings.
Sadistic fuck.
After an investigation to put the final pieces of the puzzle together, it was confirmed that each of the girls had what he considered inappropriate relations with someone they were in town with—a boyfriend, a friend, a fiancé. He’d bragged about his conquests to Melody Roberts when he was tying her up. She was supposed to be next.
Detectives were there to question Melody when she woke up in the hospital. Disoriented and scared, it took a few visits to get the information out of her. Information that answered many questions regarding why Brooks started killing in Balsam Grove again, using the same methods that made Henry June the prime suspect seven years ago. And between Brooks’ confessions to Aurora and Melody, the detectives were finally able to close the case.
Danny clears his throat after delivering the key findings to the crowd, giving them everything they need to understand what played out over the last decade. “Wrongful convictions cannot be taken lightly,” his voice booms. I swallow, my pulse racing because I know what’s coming next. “And so while it deeply saddens me that Henry June is not here to accept my sincerest apologies for the crimes he was accused of, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my regrets on behalf of the Balsam Grove community to his daughter, Aurora June.” Danny’s eyes lock with Aurora’s.
My heart twists in my chest as I look over at the love of my life, the wind blowing back loose strands of her dark brown hair, her chin raised high, a sad smile lifting her rounded cheeks, and a glossy mask of tears filling her big, beautiful, light blue eyes. She nods up at my best friend, accepting his apology, and then she looks at me and squeezes my hand.
Aurora wholeheartedly forgave me for the fact that my testimony was one of the key pieces of circumstantial evidence to help arraign Henry June, an innocent man under the law. His actions leading to the murders were still questionable. Still immoral. But one thing’s for certain. Henry June is innocent of all accused crimes, except for doing nothing about his daughter dying in his arms. But now that the facts are out in the open, his actions on the day he found her escaping the cave come down not to malice, but to poor judgement based on a mental disorder he couldn’t control. He never had a part in the killings—not knowingly, anyway. And the voyeurism Brooks accused him of may not be true at all. That’s something we’ll probably never know for sure.
Danny goes on to recognize the dozens of victims outside the county whose bodies are now being uncovered at the bottom of various waterfalls. His method of killing seemed to remain the same, though his tree markings were reserved only for the girls he took in Balsam Grove.
“And the final Balsam Grove victim, Scott Turner, who, after extensive investigation, we concluded was simply guilty of giving a friendly ride to someone in need, will be sorely missed by his loved ones.”
I know this statement hurts Aurora most of all. Scott shouldn’t have been driving that night. He was as drunk as Melody Roberts was when he pulled off the road and headed down the trail, deep into the woods. They were just trying to wait out the storm.
While there may be closure with her father and the crimes he was accused of committing, she’s working on forgiving herself now. Scott’s death will be a hard one for her to recover from. She may never fully heal from losing her childhood best friend, and that’s something I’ll learn to deal with, too. For Aurora. For Scott. Because the only thing Scott was guilty of was loving her, and I can’t be angry at that.
In the end, I’m thankful Aurora can finally put her father to rest. Because although Henry June had a mental disorder that made him a less-than-pleasant man in his final years, she was right. He wasn’t a monster.