Cold Fear (23 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

A dark wind
had taken Emily as the
night neared.

Seized her at the command post and took her back…forced
her back to the days of Buckhorn Creek…back to that day.

The day of the monster.

Butterflies. Darting. Fluttering. Leading her and her
little sister, Rachel, through the forest to…
the monster
.

Suddenly standing there at the cliff, waiting for them.

“Hello,” he says, “want to play a game?”

Seeing trouble, she squeezes Rachel’s hand.

“No thanks, we can’t. We have to go back.”

Rachel giggles. She wants to play.

The monster is beckoning.

“Stand closer to me. Watch me.” He laughs.

“No. We should go back.”

“It’s just a game.”

Rachel pulls her hand away; the warmth of it
vanishes. She goes to him.

“Rachel, no, don’t.”

He turns, takes two steps. “Guess what I’m going to
do. Watch.” He disappears off the cliff before them.

“He’s dead!”

Rachel stands there, giggling. Peering over the
cliffside.
Giggling!
It is all horribly wrong!

Now Rachel is Paige standing there.

Emily screams…and screams…until--

“Emily!” Hands on her shoulders. “Emily!”

The FBI agent. Bowman. In her tent, shaking her.

“It’s OK, Emily. Wake up Emily!”

Her heart is throbbing against her chest. Her hands are
moist with sweat, fear. Bowman is rocking her as she weeps.

“I think I am losing my mind. It’s happening again. I
cannot--”

Others have come, murmuring concern outside the tent.
Everything’s fine. A bad dream, Bowman tells them.

“I cannot take it anymore….If I lose Paige, I--”

“Shh-shh. You need rest. Talk it out. Tell me, whatever
it is you’re carrying inside. It’s OK Emily. It’s time to tell someone. Shh,
it’s OK. It’s time.”

A game. That was how it began. A game with a monster.

Emily struggle to talk. It was so painful. It hurt so
much. In the weeks, months, and years after Rachel’s death, she was gripped by
a dark obsession to understand what her sister’s final moments were like.

Did she suffer?

My Sun Ray.

Her sister’s death destroyed everything. While she
searched to understand why it had happened, her mother and father withdrew into
prisons of pain, leaving her under a cloud of accusation.

“Why didn’t you save her?”

The wound would not heal. About a year after the trial,
her father confronted her with the rumor slithering through Buckhorn Creek

“It’s going around that you lied about what happened out
there that day.”

Lied? No.

He was working in the corral on his horse, a big bay
that seemed uneasy.

“I told the truth, Daddy.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing. People are saying
you
pushed your sister.”

“You pushed your sister.”

His words had burned like a branding iron into her soul.

“It’s a lie!”

“Is it?”

His horse was snorting and jerking. He yelled at it,
“Settle down there!”

The blow of her father’s words brought her to her knees.

“You’re my father. Why are you saying such a horrible
thing?”

“Because a man has been sentenced to die,
goddamn
you!”

Goddamn you
. Was that
directed at her? Or his horse?

It began bucking wildly, throwing her father from his
saddle, the animal’s hind legs kicking. It’s hoof like a sledgehammer to his
temple, killing him instantly in front of her, his accusation hanging in the
air, rising up to the mountains with her terror.

“Daddy!”

Her mother rushing from the house, throwing herself on
the soft earth.
“Winston! Winston! Oh sweet Jesus!”
Her eyes turning to
Emily, filling with horror, hurt,
blame.

It was as if her father had bequeathed his suspicions to
her mother. He died, never knowing the truth; while her mother lived, refusing
to hear it, taking her first drink the night after they buried him next to
Rachel.

Not long after, her mother sold their ranch. Their
perfect, happy home nestled against the Rocky Mountains. They moved to Kansas City, where she changed their names.

Natalie Ross no longer existed, except as a headstone
for a beautiful life that died in Montana.

She was now Emily Smith.

“We’ll start over. New people. New life. No past.”

They moved into a stifling apartment above a shoe store.
Her mother waitressed in a small diner six blocks from a school and they never
spoke of Montana. Sometimes at night, when she heard the chink of glass, Emily
would slip from her bed to see her mother, sitting in the dark, talking to her
dead sister and father.

They stayed in Kansas City for a year or so, then moved
to Toronto. Changing their names again; her mother drinking more. Next, it was
Dallas, then Miami. They fell into a haze of moves, staying in one city long enough
to get bus fare to take them to the next.

There was one night she heard her mother muttering
incoherently about the country attorney debating whether to reopen the case.

Finally, her mother took her to San Francisco where they
stayed with her mother’s sister, Willa. But that didn’t last. One morning, her
mother was gone. Vanished. A year or so later, Emily’s aunt got a telephone
call from Toronto. Emily’s mother had died of a heart attack in a women’s
shelter, clutching pictures of her family taken when her daughters were little.

Her aunt claimed her mother’s body. The service was in Buckhorn Creek, Montana, where they buried her next to her father and Rachel. Emily refused
to attend the funeral. She stayed in San Francisco, staring at the Pacific Ocean, thinking her parents died suspecting she was responsible for Rachel’s death.

She was sixteen years old. She was alone.

No one knew the truth about what happened that day.

Except the monster.

“You can tell me, Emily.” Bowman was listening. “You
have to tell somebody before it is too late.”

Emily stared into the night, forcing herself to go back
to the butterflies that led them to the cliff.

The monster.

He is just there. Waiting.
Dirty jeans, boots, layers of shirts, frayed. In his teens. Tall, brown hair pasted
to his head. Small, dark animal eyes hidden deep in a face lined and scarred so
badly it looks like he is in pain. His smile reveals jagged brown teeth that
have never known a toothbrush.

She knows his name.

Isaiah Hood.

The kids in town speak of him
as if he were a myth, a spirit in the Rockies. Some sort of psycho. His father
has hooks for hands. They live in a shack in the forest near the Blackfeet
Reservation and the Canadian border. People rarely see him. But on this trip
there are whispers around the campfire that he is out there.

And anyone with any sense
knows, you do not ever go near him.

In fact, no one in Buckhorn
Creek wants anything to do with the Hoods. They are regarded with scorn for
what they are, pitiful.

But the butterflies lead her
and Rachel to him that day, stopping them dead in their tracks.

“Hello. How about a game? Want
to play a game?”

Tightening her hold on
Rachel’s hand.

“We should go back.”

Rachel giggles. She wants to
play.

“No,” he says. “Stand closer
to me. Watch.”

“No. We should go back.”

Rachel pulls away, steps
closer to him. Closer to the cliff.

“It’s just a game. Guess what
I’m going to do. Watch.”

He turns and steps off the
cliff before them.

“Oh no! He’s dead!”

Rachel is peering over the
cliffside. Giggling! Looking back at Natalie.

“It’s just a game, Lee, see?”
She’s laughing.

He’s sitting cross-legged on a
large flat ledge, a few feet below, grinning at having fooled her into thinking
he had jumped from the mountain.

“OK, very funny. We have to
get back. Time to go, Rachel.”

He stands. “No. The little one
wants to play. Come on. You try it, Rachel. I’ll catch you down here.”

“OK.” Rachel giggles
nervously. Counting one-two-three. Jumping from the higher cliff. “No, Rachel!”
She is reaching for Rachel’s hand but she is not fast enough. Rachel is now on
the lower ledge with him. Laughing.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve
got her.”

They are sitting on the
sun-warmed ledge. It is as big as a large bed.

She extends her hand to her
sister.

Time to go, Rachel. We’re not
supposed to play with you, Isaiah Hood.”

Hood’s smile disappears and
his face darkens, cold black eyes burning into hers.

“You think you’re better than
me and my dad, don’t you?”

“No, that is not what I mean,”
she lies.

“All of you in town think
you’re better than us. We hear it. We know it.”

“Rachel, come on. We have to
go.”

“Not yet,” he says. “I say
when you can go. One more game.”

He stands with animal
swiftness. Takes Rachel by the wrists, pulling her arms straight
up--“Owww”--lifting her. He is so tall, strong, baring his dirt-brown teeth.
Scarred face grimacing. She is a small doll in his grip, light and easy to play
with.

“Lee!”

She jumps to the ledge. “Let
her go! You can’t have her!”

“Guess what I’m going to do.”

Holding her, he inches to the
ledge, letting her toes brush the rock.

He is laughing.

“God, please! Let Rachel go.
Please!” She pounds on his arms. Futile. They are so strong.

“Think you’re all better than
us, like you just walk on air, my daddy says.”

“Lee!” Her sister is
terrified. “Please!”

He is at the ledge. A sheer
drop of five hundred, maybe six hundred, feet.

“Guess what I’m going to do.”

Slowly, he extends his arms.

“No! Oh--Lee!”

Slowly, he holds Rachel over
the cliff, chuckling as she tries in vain to reach it with her toes. Gasping, breathless,
sobbing.

“Please!”

Rocky
Mountain
winds are curling through
the ranges, shooting up. The earth below is a dizzying drop.

She is stretching to reach
Rachel’s wrist, but his arms are longer.

“Lee! Oh, please! Oh, please!”

“Guess what I’m going to do.
I’m going to see if she can walk on air!”

“Noooo!”

“But you help me, big sister.”

Suddenly, Hood releases one of
Rachel’s wrists.

“You get her now, big sister.
You save her now! Unless she can walk on air.” He laughs.

She reaches for Rachel’s free,
flailing hand, brushing it, touching it in time to feel it slipping from hers
as Hood releases his grip.

Rachel is suspended for an
instant.

Their eyes meet. Rachel,
horrified, terrified. Knowing. Face is contorted with fear. “No, Sun Ray.” Hand
brushing hers, a feathery touch so fast, Rachel’s head lifting.