One of Us Read online

  “Yes,” I tell him. “You deserve this.”

  “You’re wrong,” he says, lowering his voice into the rasping, almost sensuous whisper that he used while torturing his victims, “but I forgive you.”

  I step outside the cell. Carson follows in a shuffle.

  “I guess this is it. Is she here?”

  I already checked for him.

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to stay then. I won’t see you. I’m going to close my eyes. I was only going to keep them open if she was here.”

  “You’re not going to let go of any of it? Not even at the very end?”

  His lips make a few involuntary flutters and I wonder for the first time if maybe this tic of his is an unconscious expression of the kisses he was never given a chance to bestow.

  “You’re confused, Doctor. My mother never gave me anything to hold onto. Not even her hand.”

  His pain is real. It’s how I know he’s not a monster, just a man, which makes this final act all the more tragic and all the more necessary.

  I’M SITTING IN MY idling car at the gate of the parking lot when I get a call from Max.

  He’s surprised when I answer.

  “I was ready to leave a message. Shouldn’t you be watching the big send-off?”

  “He told me I didn’t have to stay.”

  “Imagine that. Carson Shupe has an unselfish moment.”

  “Unselfishness had nothing to do with it. What’s going on?”

  “We just received the strangest fax here at the office. It was sent from a UPS store with a 724 area code. Isn’t that the one from your hometown?”

  “Yes,” I say, immediately awash in a bad feeling.

  “It must be from your mother or father. I’m sending you a scan of it right now.”

  Neither my mother nor father has sent a fax in their lives.

  It appears on the screen of my phone written in red.

  I recognize my dad’s terrible handwriting immediately from all the notes he used to pen to the school lying about the so-called accidents that led to my absences.

  I stare at the words, knowing in my heart that he would never express this sentiment unless he truly had a gun to his head. The use of the past tense confirms this. As he was writing, he knew he was going to die.

  The letters swim in front of my eyes before they dissolve into a crimson haze:

  You were a good son.

  twenty-seven

  I CALLED RAFE RIGHT AWAY. I knew in my heart that it was too late. Scarlet wouldn’t have bothered to send confirmation if the deed hadn’t been done. I knew she sent a fax because she wanted to think of me in my office watching a machine slowly spit out the physical piece of paper with its ominous past-tense message penned in faux blood signifying the end of any chance for me to confront my father. She wanted me to hold it in my hand, to be enslaved by its permanence, unable to perform the aggressive act of crumpling and throwing it away; deleting blips from a screen requires no emotional investment.

  Rafe was already at Dad’s house. He wouldn’t give me any details other than to say my father was dead. He wouldn’t tell me what had been done to him except to assure me Scarlet was involved.

  I made him promise to keep my mother and Tommy safe. He said they were.

  His greatest fear now was no longer protecting his citizenry but keeping Scarlet from escaping. He had no legal reason to detain her. He didn’t even have a reason to talk to her. There was still no concrete evidence against her. All we had were outlandish theories and a handful of coincidences and what Scarlet had was an enormously wealthy set of parents who would do everything in their power to make certain none of her story was ever revealed.

  Even the DNA at Marcella Greger’s house couldn’t help us. We had no proof that it belonged to Scarlet Dawes, only that it belonged to a relative of mine, and those were results that could never come to light since Rafe didn’t have legal cause at the time to have the test performed. He needed a court order to compel Scarlet to give a DNA sample in order to prove she was there and he couldn’t get one.

  He called the Dawes estate looking for her. Walker talked to him and informed him that he heard about Rafe harassing Scarlet with questions about a police officer misplacing his gun and that if he ever wanted to talk to her again about anything he would have to go through their lawyer.

  I suggested to Rafe that I might have better luck. He told me to stay the hell away from her. He said I’d done a brave thing going down in that coal mine to help Rick Kelly, but I shouldn’t let it go to my head. I wasn’t invincible.

  Bravery is playing no role in my pursuit of her. I’m also not doing it because I’m inflamed by a desire to bring her to justice, even though this is something I want. My actions are beyond my control; I need to ask her what Dad’s message meant.

  Once Rafe realizes he’s not going to talk me out of it, he asks me if I’d be willing to wear a wire. I tell him I have a small tape recorder in my briefcase. I use it to record interviews. I’ll put it into my coat pocket.

  I’ve called her over and over and she doesn’t answer. I’m within ten miles of Lost Creek when she finally does.

  “What do you want? You’re really starting to bother me.”

  “I want to see you. I’m back in town.”

  “I thought you were in Philadelphia. I thought you had so much work to do.”

  “I got your fax.”

  “I didn’t send you a fax.”

  “Okay. I mean, I got a fax from my father.”

  “How sweet.”

  “I just found out someone killed him.”

  She falls silent. I don’t press her.

  “I had an opportunity to meet him,” she says. “Briefly. You can’t tell me you had any feelings for that man.”

  I have feelings for him. Plenty of feelings, and I know his death isn’t going to make any of them go away; it will only amplify them.

  Like most children of abusive parents, I always secretly hoped for our miraculous day of reconciliation. Carson Shupe hoped for his until the moment an IV dripping poison was stabbed into his vein.

  I longed for that propitious occasion when my father would tearfully express his love for me, tell me he’d always been proud of me, and ask for my forgiveness.

  I’d accept his apology and listen compassionately as he explained that he was just one of those guys who couldn’t express his feelings well and then we’d share a beer and talk about guns and carburetors and football and all the other rites of rural manhood I was never initiated into.

  I’d make excuses for him. He was only human, after all, and his own life hadn’t been an easy one. He was allowed some anger and bitterness. I’d rationalize away his behavior refusing to accept the sad, simple reality that some people are mean, selfish, and incapable of love, and these people often reproduce.

  I knew this day would never come, but as long as he was alive, I could pretend it might. Scarlet had not only taken my father from me, she’d taken the last of my hope.

  “I want to see you,” I say again, appealing to her vanity and need to control.

  “I have a plane to catch.”

  “Please, give me ten minutes. I’d consider it an expression of sisterly love,” I add when she doesn’t respond.

  “Fine. Come to the house.”

  I’VE SPENT THE DAYLIGHT hours driving back and forth from one side of the state to the other and it’s almost dark by the time I drive down the winding lane to the Dawes mansion.

  In town and along the salted roads, the snow is already mixed with mud and melting into slush, but here it’s remained as pristine as when it first fell. The treetops and hillsides are unmarred. Their pure white iciness glitters softly beneath a bright moon of the same color.

  The house looks like a snow queen’s castle out of a children’s
wintry fairy tale. Every window is lit from within, throwing rays of crystal onto the vast front lawn and bathing the brick in a frosty pink.

  Scarlet is alone, standing in the circular drive beside the trunk of a dark sedan.

  She’s covered from neck to knee in her black mink and from knee to toes in a pair of chocolate brown alligator-skin boots. The glossy fur of her coat shimmers with undertones of peacock blue each time she moves, and her hair gives off glints of red-gold that almost seem like sparks. Everything about her screams wealth and privilege. I wonder what the same woman, the same genes, would have looked like if she had been left with us, if she had grown up living in Lost Creek instead of owning it.

  Her mind would have remained the same; this is all that matters.

  I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say to her, but I’ve decided to use the blunt approach. I think she responds better to what she believes is my do-gooder earnestness.

  She’s smoking. She takes the cigarette from between her lips and blows.

  “The police aren’t going to let you on a plane,” I tell her.

  “The police can’t stop me from doing anything.”

  “You got sloppy. There’s no way out of this.”

  “Me? Sloppy? What are you talking about?”

  “You left DNA at Marcella Greger’s house. That’s how we found out you were my sister.”

  She smiles.

  “So Candy Cop does know.”

  “And the fax. The boys working at the UPS store will identify you.”

  “Those boys at the UPS store? That’s the best you can do? I sent a fax. It doesn’t prove anything. I visited the cousin of my dear departed nanny. That also doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It’s over. It’s all going to come out now.”

  “You underestimate my resources. Gwen and Walker will do everything in their power to keep this as quiet as possible.”

  “Money can only go so far.”

  “It’s not just money, Danny, or even a lot of money, but one of the biggest fortunes that’s ever been dug, pumped, and blasted out of the planet earth. Don’t be naïve.”

  “The same fortune that got the Nellies executed,” I remind her.

  She doesn’t seem interested in this fact.

  I decide to try another tack.

  “You said you met our father. How did that go?”

  “He didn’t have an ounce of remorse over what he did to your mom or you. Or even me. He said something about how he gave me a better life by giving me to Walker. He said he did me a favor. Can you believe that?”

  I gesture at the house and the beautiful surroundings.

  “I’d say he did do you a favor.”

  She finishes her cigarette and tosses it into the snow.

  “I’m going now.”

  “Wait,” I almost shout the word.

  She’s amused by my desperation but also obviously irritated.

  “I’m worried about you. You’ve suffered a huge emotional trauma, and I don’t think you’re dealing with it.”

  “I really don’t care.”

  “How can you say that? You’ve just found out that your entire life has been a lie.

  “You’re not one of them,” I say, pointing at the sparkling mansion.

  I place my hands on my chest.

  “You’re one of us.”

  She studies me with her blank eyes that also somehow manage to be full of knowledge, but of things I don’t want to know.

  I sense I’ve gone too far.

  She can’t be part of anything. I’ve encountered the isolation of her kind before. She’s a lone entity whose only requirement of others is that no one gets too close.

  “You’re going to try and psychoanalyze me? Try and find out what I’m feeling?” she says. “I finally get it. I’d be the biggest catch of all for you, wouldn’t I? The best freak head you could mount on your wall of forensic psychology fame?”

  I take a step back from her. I don’t know why. She can’t hurt me. She’s a woman; I’m a man. I’m fairly certain I could take her in a fight and I know for sure I can outrun her.

  Nothing in her voice, gaze, or posture gives signs that she’s upset with me, but I know this doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t feel rage the way other humans do. She encounters an obstacle and makes a calculated decision whether she can walk around it, over it, or if it needs to be permanently removed from her path. I fear I’ve just become a big boulder on the road to her contentment.

  She brings her hand out of a fold in her coat holding Billy Small’s gun. I don’t have any time to react before she pulls the trigger.

  I don’t feel any pain at first, just a pressure in my chest that knocks me off my feet. I slam into the snow with the quiet thud of a child falling into a drift about to make the imprint of an angel. I didn’t hear a gunshot but my ears won’t stop ringing.

  I must be in shock because all I can think is I didn’t get to ask her about Dad’s note. I didn’t get to tell my mom I’m sorry I didn’t believe in her. I didn’t get to tell Tommy he’s the best man I’ve ever known.

  “What are you doing?” I’m able to ask her.

  I drop my gaze from her face to her feet. I see the stitching, the exquisite quality of the leather.

  “You’re the biggest disappointment of all,” Scarlet says.

  “Don’t hurt Mom,” I say before my throat fills with blood.

  “Shut up. You should be thinking about me right now. Not her.”

  She’s practically standing on top of me. I feel her foot pressing into my stomach the way Dad used to do.

  I try to look up at her. I begin to shake uncontrollably.

  She makes a disgusted sound.

  “Blood on my Blahniks. I should’ve never come back to this shitty little town.”

  Another shot rings out. This one I hear. I wait for death. It comes in the form of a dark suffocating weight on my chest.

  I see the thick glossy pelt. It’s a bear, I think. Tommy killed a bear and it fell on me.

  In my delirium, I smile at the idea.

  I know I’m dead because an angel appears above me. A snow angel dressed in white fur with a halo of opalescent hair blowing behind a kind, alabaster face as old as the heavens themselves. She says nothing, but a single tear like a diamond clings to her pale cheek.

  twenty-eight

  THE GRANDSON OF PROSPERITY McNab stands on a dais in the middle of Lost Creek especially erected for the occasion. He’s surrounded by hundreds of townspeople and onlookers. His doomed ancestor looked out on a similar scene, except today it’s green and sunny and the atmosphere is lighthearted. Conversation and laughter waft through the soft spring air, and everyone is dressed in bright, festive colors. The only black present is paired with Steelers gold.

  Nora Daley is introducing him after talking at length about the history of the Nellie O’Neills, the good works of the NONS, and the surprising end to their struggle to raise enough money to put up a memorial statue.

  There’s been no attempt to hide the identity of the generous donor who paid for the statue. The fact that the money came from a descendant of the man who was responsible for executing the Nellies who then turned out to be a descendant of one of the Nellies instead has been taken almost in stride here after the initial shock passed.

  The entire story was too incredible to keep quiet. Scarlet was wrong about the Dawes’ fortune being able to do so. It spread rapidly and soon became the biggest scandal the county has ever seen aside from the rise and fall of the Nellies. The legitimate media has had to treat the allegations delicately since there’s no verifiable proof and since Walker Dawes has remained completely silent, but there are plenty of pseudo-news outlets nowadays that thrive on unconfirmed gossip, speculation, and innuendo and have no compunction about putting it out in the wo
rld for others to judge.

  Nothing can be done to bring Walker Dawes to justice. In a court of law it would be his word against hearsay and a piece of paper written by a dead woman that incriminates his wife, not him, and part of which is a lie.

  There’s no forensic evidence. The infant Scarlet has been dead too long to be able to retrieve DNA from her body, and we weren’t able to get any from Molly because Walker had her cremated before Rafe could get a court order to stop him.

  His crime is too old and he’s too rich for anything to be done. A child was taken from her mother and a mother was taken from her other child. Another child was lost and never mourned. Another mother permanently damaged without understanding why.

  He won’t be punished by our judicial system but he is being tried in the court of public opinion and not faring well.

  To everyone’s surprise, he didn’t run away. He has other homes but he’s stayed here in the estate the Original Walker built. The rumors are he never leaves the house even to take a walk around his property, and he’s plagued with paranoia, which has led to him firing most of his house staff. He’s also handed over the reins of Lost Creek Coal & Oil to his son, Wesley. No one thought that would happen until he was lying on his deathbed. Maybe in a sense he’s already there.

  I’ve managed to stay out of the limelight as much as possible. For once I don’t want to be an expert witness or any kind of witness at all. My recovery has been slow and has given me a good excuse to avoid interviews.

  Tommy has become an undisputed media darling. He’s even assisting a young filmmaker in the making of the definitive Nellie O’Neills documentary in which Tommy is set to star as the narrator.

  I see the director on the fringes of the colorful crowd with one of his cameramen. Another roams through the spectators. Billy Smalls, carrying a newly issued Glock, and Troy Razzano in dress uniform patrol the perimeter. News vans line the streets.