No Coming Back (15 page)

Gently, she pulls me deeper into no-man’s land. Weakly,
pathetically
, I offer no resistance.

Life is all about choices and learning to live with them. Choose the wrong path and we can spend the rest of our lives trying to avoi
d pitfalls.

As a teenager, sleeping with Krauss never occurred to me. The younger version of her was more like a doting sister. Time, age, and our separation have changed all that, I realize. Being sexually
intimate
with Krauss doesn’t just feel natural, if feels right.

But she is engaged to another man—albeit it loosely—and I should feel some degree of guilt. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, I don’t. And it concerns me.

“Was contacting your dad on the radio a pretext to get me here?” I call to her as I smooth down the bed linens and plump the pillows. She’s in the bathroom, freshening up after our lovemaking. I can hear her splashing around in the sink, happy as a lark. I’ve never seen her smile so much. As for me, my head is spinning and my body still quakes from an unforgettable experience.
Eighteen
years of pent-up emotion bursting forth like the Fourth of July
fireworks
, with Krauss pushing the buttons.

“Partly,” she calls back. “If I’m being brutally honest it did cross my mind. Didn’t I more than make up for any sleight of hand, though?”

“You did. And you’re forgiven.”

“Thank you. Listen, I’ll be a couple more minutes here. The radio’s downstairs, in the den, if you want to try calling him.”

My clothes smell of Krauss. I pull them on and head downstairs, balance slightly askew.

The den is part office, part storage room, with a computer desk and a swivel chair tucked under a window. A two-way radio sits on the corner of the desk, emitting a constant stream of static, turned low. The needle in the little yellow signal window is fluctuating, but only slightly. I sit down, crank up the volume, and then press the transmit button on the desk microphone.

“Chief Krauss, you copy?”

Static.

“This is Jake Olson. I’m calling from Kim’s place. We need to talk. You there, Chief?”

More static.

“This is urgent. If you can hear me, please come back.”

Just mush.

Expecting the old police chief to answer my call is probably expecting a little too much, given the fact we hadn’t exactly parted on pleasantries:

Eighteen years ago, as I was led out of the courtroom in the wake of a guilty verdict, he promised me, “You’re going away for a very long time, Olson. I hope you rot in jail for what you did to Jenna.”

“I didn’t kill her,” I whimpered back. It was the same pitiful one-liner I’d been spouting since the first inquisition and as a
rebuttal
to every accusation leveled at me throughout the one-sided trial.

His sneer stretched from ear to ear. He didn’t believe me, just like everybody else in the courthouse thought I’d murdered my girlfriend. Verdict unanimous. He leaned close as I passed him by, whispered, “Listen up: if you do ever come back to Harper, I’ll kill you myself. God’s honest truth.”

I settle in the swivel chair and reflect. I know Krauss loves her dad, but feelings make us biased. At the time of my arrest, Chief Krauss was a member of Six Pack. During his investigation into
Jenna’s
disappearance, he didn’t refute the evidence Meeks brought to the table, ostensibly proving I killed Jenna. If anything, he endorsed it. A torn sweater with a trace of blood. Guilty. Many times I have wondered who had a vested interest in driving the case against me. Each time I convinced myself that Meeks was behind the wheel. After all, he had eyes for Jenna and he despised me for being with her. It was clear he wanted Jenna for himself. But Ruby’s revelation has opened up a whole new can of worms, and I have to consider the possibility of not only Chief Krauss being involved in the sex games but also of him being Jenna’s killer.

I try the radio one more time without success.

It’s then that I notice the framed photograph on the desk, next to the radio, and pick it up for a closer look. It’s a picture of Krauss and her fiancé, taken on a sunny day up at the lake. They’re kneeling either side of a slain deer, both grinning, both high from the kill. My stomach turns. Not because of the great white hunter mentality, but because I know the man who Krauss is engaged to.

“I was going to tell you.”

I turn to see Krauss standing in the doorway, dressed in a black silk kimono and looking rosy-cheeked.

Unsuccessfully, I try to prevent my jaw from dropping. “You’re engaged to Meeks?”

It’s a bombshell. It’s not so much the age difference that surprises me, it’s more the fact Meeks was born an asshole and the Krauss I know was smarter than that.

Her nose wrinkles. “Now I feel compelled to explain.”

“Kim, you don’t need to. I’m just shocked, is all.”

“And that’s perfectly understandable.” She takes a step into the den. “But, please, let me explain. You and I were always open with each other, and that’s one of the things I valued about us.” She draws a deep breath. “Believe me, I didn’t plan on getting into bed with Shane. Not at first, anyway. The truth is, after you left I wasn’t planning on hooking up with anybody. Then things got super-stressful at home. I was going through a rough patch supporting mom with her recovery. You were gone and I had no one to confide in. I’m not superhuman; I needed someone to offload onto. Out of everybody, Shane was there for me when things got really difficult. He was supportive when I needed it the most. Our relationship wasn’t planned. It just happened.”

“It sounds like he took advantage.” The comment is harsh, unsympathetic, and I shouldn’t have said it. I have no right commenting on any of Krauss’s life choices. We all make mistakes and we all expect forgiveness.

“And from the outside it probably looks that way. But that’s not how it was. Shane was good to me. I know that sounds bizarre, but he really was. You only know one side of him, Jake. Once you get past all the machismo bullshit he’s different. He gave me time when I needed it. He listened, and he never once stepped out of line. If anyone took advantage it was me.”

“Kim, you don’t need to explain.”

“Yes, I do. After what’s just happened between you and me, I have no choice.” She comes fully into the den and kneels in front of me. “Jake, I was already working for the department at the time. Shane and me, we got close and one thing led to another. It was fun at first. A welcome distraction. No strings attached. Then things got serious. We got engaged and moved in here.”

“So what stopped you guys from going all the way?”

Krauss releases an uneasy breath. “Let’s just say things didn’t work out as planned.”

I want to probe further, demand to know why she still wears his ring and still shares a house with him, but I can see my reaction is already torture for her, and I am not that person.

She cups my face in her hands, looks me directly in the eyes. “Jake, listen to me. What we just did, together, was special.
Beautiful
. Please don’t hold my past against me. I was going to tell you back in the diner, but the turn in events carried us away.”

Distantly, in another room, a phone begins to play a
synthesized
melody.

“That’s yours,” I say.

“So let it ring. If it’s urgent, they’ll call back.”

“It might be your dad.”

For a moment she holds my gaze—hurt and frustration firing in her eyes—then she disengages and leaves the den.

I turn back to the photograph on the desk. The image of Meeks grins at me:
Got there before you, Olson
.

I am about to put the picture face-down on the desk when Krauss returns, looking ashen.

“That was my contact at the Sheriff’s Office,” she says slowly. “They processed the Hangman Falls crime scene this afternoon. During the recovery they found a purse. It was buried in the patch of soil exposed by the fallen tree. There was an ID in it.” Suddenly there are tears in her eyes and a worrying rasp to her voice. “Jake, I’m so sorry.”

I leap to my feet and go to her, hold her. “Kim, what is it?”

“We were wrong, Jake. We shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. The remains up at Hangman Falls, they aren’t Jenna’s.”

“Not Jenna’s?” The words cut through my chest like hot blades. “But that doesn’t make any sense. It has to be Jenna. No one else has gone missing.”

But Krauss is shaking her head and trembling in my arms. “No, Jake. They’re adamant about it. It’s definitely not Jenna.”

I am stunned, astounded. “So whose remains are they?”

Krauss stares at me with eyes magnified by tears. “They’re your mom’s.”

Chapter Seventeen

J
okingly, my brother once said that everybody dies from shortness of breath. If that were the case, then right now I am
banging
on death’s door.

A mixture of fear and disbelief sends me rushing outside, desperate to replace the fire in my lungs with frigid winter air. Krauss’s words have wrapped themselves around my throat and all at once I am unable to breathe or even to think coherently.

“Jake, I’m so sorry,” she repeats as she follows me outside. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s not her.” My vision is pulsating, everything spinning.

“And I didn’t believe it myself, until I saw this.” She thrusts out her phone, the bright screen facing my way.

Blazing away is the photograph of a Minnesota driver’s
license. Clearly visible is the headshot of a young woman with rich
mahogany
hair and eyes like mine.

Erin Olson.

The blades in my chest slice deeper.

“See, Jake, there’s no mistake. This is your mom’s ID. They found it with the remains. It’s her, not Jenna. They’re treating it as a homicide.”

“She was murdered?” My heartbeat thuds in my throat, banging in my ears. “When?”

“The ME puts the rate of decay at around thirty years.”

Another blazing surge of internal fire sweeps through me. My
mind whirls again with the thought of my mother being dead for the
past three decades. If the Medical Examiner has his sums right, then the horrible realization is, my mother died younger than I am today, and probably within days of her leaving home. All my life I have believed she ran away with another man, that she left Harper and possibly Minnesota for good and never came back, that she was elsewhere, alive and healthy, living her new life with a new husband and maybe even a new family. I was seven when she walked out on my father, on us, on me. At first I missed her terribly, crying myself to sleep at night, pleading with God to make her come back, promising I would do everything she asked and never give her any cause to leave me again. But she never returned. As time passed, the hole formed from loss started to fill up with hurt. And eventually the hurt hardened into hate. By the time I realized she was never coming back I was glad she wasn’t. What kind of mother does that to her child?

Now I know: the dead kind.

Krauss pulls me into her arms and holds me close. “Jake, I’m so sorry.”

And the dam bursts. Thirty years of bottled-up denial
breaching
the dike, spilling over, physically unstoppable. First the surges,
then the floods of tears, repressed childhood pain unleashed at last.

Krauss clings on, absorbing my tremors. “Let’s go back inside,” she whispers. “We’ll catch our deaths out here.”

We do. I am not embarrassed about being outwardly emotional in front of Krauss. There is no judging, no thoughts of weakness or of how pathetic it is for a grown man to sob like a little girl. I am not in Stillwater where my tears will be used as a weapon against the weakness. Krauss doesn’t force me to talk about my oppressed feelings, but I do. They gush out, more than they have in any therapy session. For a moment I am back in her bedroom, at her
parents
’ house, in the aftermath of Jenna’s disappearance, spilling my guts and bearing all. It’s as though everything has come full circle.
Coming
back to Harper has exhumed my past and shaken me to the core. Stirred up my darkness and ignited its thorns. Something has changed in me. An awakening. A revival. Roused by my return.

“Kim, I have to go,” I insist, finally, when I am run dry.

She brushes a loose tear from my chin. “You don’t need to go. You can stay the night.”

I’d be a liar if I said I am not tempted by her offer. But I can’t. It’s not just the news of my mother’s death that has unearthed
emotions
in me, I realize; our lovemaking has rekindled a fire, and the heat of it is seductive, irresistible. I can’t be here when Meeks arrives home.

“If you’re worried about Shane,” she says, as if reading my mind, “I’ll tell him to spend the night in a hotel. This is more important than anything else right now.
Anything.
You shouldn’t be alone tonight. I mean it.”

“Kim, I’ll be okay. I need be at home, in familiar surroundings.”

“So let me come with you. Spend the night there, together.”

She wants to. I can see it in her eyes. Krauss is as hooked by our newfound physical connection as I am.

But it’s all happening too fast and I don’t want to spoil our chances by rushing in headlong, mindlessly trampling over anyone else’s feelings, including our own.

I slip from her grasp and get to my feet. “Kim, don’t think for one minute I regret you and me, because I don’t. I just need to get my head together. And I need to do it on my own.”

Krauss kisses me on the cheek. “Call me?”

“I promise.”

Then I pull on my coat and make my way out into the starry night for the long walk home, knowing that the news of my mother being dead these past thirty years comes with two definite
consequences
:

All my childhood emotional wrangling was for nothing.

And she didn’t die of natural causes.