In Too Deep (28 page)

As the small houses became fewer and farther between, they gave way to the lush green vegetation of the Deep South. The summer song of the insects buzzed outside her window as she drove by.

She slowed the SUV and turned left at the sight of an old faded blue mailbox. The name Adams had long since disappeared under the harsh elements of the Alabama seasons. The vehicle left the paved road and continued onto rich, red mud. Although she knew the route, she drove slowly, not knowing it half as well as the road about two miles back, closer to town. The road that led to her childhood home.

She drove carefully, winding her way through the overgrown kudzu looming down over the trees across the road as if it were waiting to envelop her. She was on her way to her grandfather’s property, where the private detective had said Jay would be.

After a half a mile or so, the tunnel-like road opened up into a clearing and she brought the SUV to a stop and killed the engine. The smell of rain hung heavy in the air, not yet falling where she now sat.

She gazed through the windshield at the house before her. It stood just as she remembered it, smaller than the one she was raised in, but a hell of a lot warmer.

Thunder made itself known in the distance as she climbed out of the vehicle and sank her hiking boots down into the lush green grass around her. The ground was rich and soft, giving way to her weight as she walked up to the old graying house. The front porch steps squeaked their protest as she made her way up them and walked between the pillars overgrown with more hungry kudzu.

The screen door stood equally as old and a little more tattered on loose hinges and she carefully pulled it open to knock on the door. A dog barked in the distance, somehow hearing her light knock and determined to alert everyone around him. Getting no answer, she knocked again and let the screen door bang closed as she walked to a window and tried to peer in. She cupped her eyes, blocking out the surrounding light, and squinted into the dark house.

From behind, a twig snapped, followed closely by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun cocking, ready for fire. She straightened up slowly and raised her hands before trying to turn around.

“Don’t you move an inch,” the voice warned from the yard below. “This is private property.”

Liz tensed a little, recognizing her sister’s voice, but worried that Jay had failed to recognize her. “I know—”

“Well, if you know, then I ought to shoot you right here and now where you stand.” Her Southern accent had returned full force, reminding Liz of times long since past. Bad times.

“Jay, it’s—”

“How do you know my name!” The voice was loud and shrieking, alarming Liz and calling for desperate measures.

She ducked just as a shot rang out and shattered the window behind her. “Jay!” she shouted over the echo of the discharge. “It’s me, it’s Lizzie!”

Silence prevailed and she dared not even to look up from her crouch. The steps creaked as Jay ascended them. Liz could hear her reloading the shotgun as she approached. She stared at the muddy boots that came to a halt before her, then raised her eyes very slowly to meet those of a coiled rattlesnake in filthy overalls.

“What did you say?” Jay demanded, but not nearly as fierce as she’d been a moment earlier.

“I said, it’s me. It’s Lizzie, your sister.”

Jay stared at her long and hard, apparently contemplating whether to believe her. She kept the shotgun raised, trained on Liz. Finally, seeming to be satisfied, she lowered the gun a little.

“You come alone?” she asked, jerking her head around to make sure there was no one else hiding in the surrounding woods or sneaking up from behind.

Liz took full advantage of her sister’s distraction and sprang up from her crouch to grab the barrel of the gun while sweeping Jay’s feet out from under her. Liz quickly unloaded the shotgun and tossed it out onto the grass.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said, placing a boot to her sister’s throat, compelling her to stay down. Jay’s paranoid behavior worsened when she drank.

“Maybe.” Jay struggled for a few seconds before finally allowing her hands to fall at her sides in defeat.

“There’s no maybe about it.” Liz lifted her foot by degrees, making sure Jay was lucid before allowing her to stand.

She took a step toward the screen door and raised her hand to pull it open, but Jay caught hold of her arm, preventing her.

“What are you doing here, Lizzie?”

“I came to see you.” Liz noted how filthy her skin was, her fingernails embedded with dirt. She needed to reach her sister soon or she would be lost forever, sucked into the dark abyss of her own mind and held prisoner there for the rest of her life. And it was already happening, starting with the drinking and the personal hygiene, and leading into paranoid behavior.

“Why?” Jay was skeptical.

“Because you’re my sister and because I need answers.”

“Heh…I knew there had to be a reason. You hate it here.”

Liz looked around at the green, rich woods surrounding the house. “Yes, I do,” she agreed with a whisper.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Jay bounded down the steps, not waiting for an answer.

“No,” Liz declared, remaining firm on the porch.

Jay picked up the gun and searched her pockets for shells. “You want to talk, Lizzie? Then you’ll come with me for a walk.” She found a shell and loaded it. “’Sides”—with the shell in place she closed the gun and cocked it—“you ain’t still afraid of the woods, are you?”

Liz stared her wild-eyed sister down, ignoring the taunt. “I’ll go, but only if you leave the gun.”

Her sister seemed to consider the proposal. “You got something on you in case we run in to trouble?” Jay asked, completely serious.

Liz nodded and Jay propped the shotgun up against the house. She then led the way around the back of house and out to the tiny path that led into the woods.

Even though it was early afternoon, the darkening storm clouds had snuffed out most of the daylight, casting a dark and ominous atmosphere throughout the woods. Liz followed her sister, childhood memories reaching out for her from the wicked-looking tree branches.

“Why did you kill those men in Valle Luna, Jay?” she asked, hoping the topic would help to distract her mind from her current surroundings.

Up ahead of her, Jay stopped walking and turned around. “Cause they was messing with you.” She reached up and pulled off a hickory twig and pulled off its leaves. As they continued through the woods, she groomed the hickory.

“You can’t just kill people, Jay.”

“I did it for you.” She flicked the flexible switch, making quick whooshing sounds.

“But can’t you see that you made things worse for me, by doing what you did?” Liz tried guilt, desperate to find some way to reach that last grain of reason deep within her sister. And she knew how much Jay loved her.

Jay fingered the switch in her hand as if were alive, a pet that needed comforting. “I thought it would help you. Those men were hurting you.” Her eyes grew wide as she spoke, excitement straining her voice.

“What about Kristen, then? Was she hurting me too?” Liz was growing impatient with the ludicrous workings of her sister’s mind.

Jay looked away, flicking the switch.

“You have got to stop this. I can take care of myself now.” Liz forced herself to speak calmly, hoping to soothe her sister into some sanity. “You don’t have to worry.”

Jay stared at the ground as if mesmerized by the fallen leaves. “You can’t, Lizzie. the bad people are everywhere.”

Liz sucked in a quick breath. “Let’s go back.”

She suddenly knew that she needed to get out of the woods, to get Jay back to a hotel where she could sit her down and talk some sense into her. These woods, they held too much. They were crawling with the ghosts of the past.

Jay raised her eyes slowly from the ground and an evil grin spread across her face. “No, let’s not. Let’s keep going.” She jogged ahead, laughing as she trotted through the woods. “Come on, Lizzie, just a little bit farther!”

Liz clenched her fists and debated calling the police on her sister herself. She was almost willing to do anything to avoid having to follow Jay farther into the woods.

“Come on!” Jay shouted from up ahead.

Thunder growled again and Liz looked up, knowing it was almost directly overhead.

“Jay, wait up…it’s getting ready to storm.” She jogged after her sister, hoping that the promise of the storm would cause her to turn back.

She found Jay a few yards up ahead, her tracks in the soft mud leading off the path to where she stood atop a large rock, the switch hanging at her side. “You know where we are, Lizzie?” The grin once again spread across her face.

Liz stared down into the ravine. “Let’s go back, Jay.”

“And miss all this?” Jay waved her stick in the air. “Not a chance. Let’s reminisce, Lizzie. Relive our youth,” she said in a satirical tone and then laughed out loud at herself.

“Enough, Jay.”

“No. I gotta remind you of the bad people. To show you that you still need protecting. Think back, Lizzie, to that day. Remember that day?” She jumped down and pointed her stick down into the ravine’s heart, overgrown with ivy, weeds, and bushes.

“I remember.”

Liz never knew exactly what had happened to the bad man in the woods that hot summer day twenty years earlier. And whatever the man had done to Jay also remained a mystery. Her sister had never told her. She only knew that from that day on, Jay wasn’t the same.

Light sprinkles of rain fell cool on her warm skin. She looked down and ran a finger across the scar on her left arm. An eternal reminder of that terrible day. She met her sister’s gaze and felt profound empathy for the young girl who had sacrificed herself in order to protect her. How had she deserved that?

“I’m sorry, Jay,” she said. “It should’ve been me. He should’ve taken me.” She meant it.

Jay laughed and swatted at the rain with her stick. “Nah, Lizzie. It shouldn’a been anybody. Not me, not you…not that poor dead girl.”

Liz remembered that the girl had been from a neighboring town, her murder never solved. Not in a legal sense, anyway. Thunder cracked loudly directly overhead and she stepped away from the ravine, heading back to the house. The electricity in the air pricked the hairs on her arm.

“Lord knows even your worst thoughts couldn’t come close to what he did to me,” Jay said, seemingly unaffected by the close proximity of the storm. “But that son of a bitch got what was his.”

“You mean with Jerry?” Liz asked, startled that her sister seemed to know more about the disappearing man from the woods than she did.

Jay shook her head, a smile spreading across her face. “It was the only time in my life when I can remember that drunk piece of shit doing right by me.”

Liz nodded her understanding. Jerry hadn’t exactly been the best father figure for Jay and her, but he hadn’t been the worst either. He had been a man hell-bent on control and he had ruled their aunt and their home with an iron fist. Always quick to dominate, he took no excuses and offered none either.

“That night, after they had found me and chased him down in the woods…” She tossed her stick aside, suddenly finished with it as she concentrated in memory. “Jerry come over to Doc Hill’s to get me.”

Liz only vaguely remembered leaving Doc Hill’s that night. Her aunt had taken her to the hospital for surgery.

“Well, Doc Hill told Jerry what all he thought the man had done to me, and Jerry like to have killed him on the spot for saying such things. He grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me outside, the whole time yelling at Doc Hill not to tell nobody. I almost thought he was gonna whip me. But instead he took me out back to the shed. And they had that man in there, all tied up. They were taking turns beating him and burning him with lit cigarettes. I didn’t know what to do. I guess I was in shock. I just stood there staring, feeling nothing. And that’s when Jerry did it. He handed me his shotgun and told me to shoot him.”

“Jesus,” Liz whispered as she thought of her raped and battered eleven-year-old sister standing there, gun in hand.

“Yeah, that sick fuck started talking about Jesus. Started begging me not to shoot him, crying and wailing like Dayne used to do when her and Jerry fought. I just stood there watching him, the gun feeling real heavy in my arms. Jerry bent down next to me and asked me if what Doc Hill said was true. I said yes and he said then it was my right to take back from him what he took from me.”

Jay paused and breathed in deep, shoving her hands down deep into the pockets of her overalls.

“So did you shoot him?”

“I did,” Jay responded, looking at the ground. “I nearly blew his head clean off too.”

“My God.” Liz wished desperately that she could take it all away and give her sister a clean slate in life instead of the tarnished and scarred one she had been forced to make do with.

They walked in silence for a while and she tried to make sense of Jay’s life. The events of her past had done more than enough to steer her in the wrong direction, as they had Liz herself. But she hadn’t ever killed anyone. She wished she could say the same for Jay.

“Jay, will you promise me something?”