Lynda ended up sitting in the dark room where Claire and Mickey had been not too long ago. She at least had a Coleman’s camping lamp on the ground. Her knees were squeezed against her chest. Her eyes burned and the inside of her nostrils felt on fire. A wet patch covered both her knees. When the tears fell, she’d wiped her cheeks on her knees. When snot ran down her nose, she’d rubbed that on her knees too. She wanted to know where Bruce was. She kept running the night over and over in her head. It didn’t make sense. Her dad? The guy who cried at the movie Old Yeller? None of this could be real, could it? She ran it through her mind again.
When her dad opened the door to the SUV she’d thought she’d been saved. It never occurred to her to think what her dad was doing out here at the precise time a girl was being murdered and Bruce was ripped from the truck and beaten until his breath gurgled in his lungs. Why would she even consider the why of it? In her mind, her dad was on his annual fishing trip with her uncle Greg and their childhood friend, Ray. He was supposed to be up north on some cold lake, drinking beer, smoking cigars and eating fish over a campfire while Creedence Clearwater Revival roared out of the speakers of what her dad would call a ‘boom-box’. It didn’t cross her mind that her dad was the one killing that girl and beating on her boyfriend Bruce. When he backed out of the truck, his face drawn and eyes bulging and shiny like hard-boiled eggs, she furrowed her brow. Where was he going? Why was he leaving her here?
Glancing out the window, she saw three men arguing and her dad was one of them. The dog was straining at the leash to get at Bruce and then it hit her. What the fuck? Her hands shook and then the rest of her body took the queue from her hands and followed suit. Her teeth clacked together and she thought, I have to get out of here. I have to go. I have to tell someone. Get help for Bruce. And then the scariest thought of all, what was her mother going to think?
Moving slowly with her eyes wide and on her father and his friends, she slid her left foot into the driver well and gritting her teeth, willing them not to notice her, she settled into the chair and hovered a foot over the brake. The keys were still in the SUV and the engine was humming. All she had to do was put her foot on the brake, shift into drive and get the fuck out of here. Don’t see me, don’t see me…she depressed the brake. The lights flared fire in the darkness.
“Hey!”
She clutched the shifter. The door opened. Hands reached in. Lynda dropped the shifter in drive and it shot ahead. She heard a scream and it sounded like Bruce and she tapped the brake. She turned her head and Uncle Greg was at the open door. He pulled her from the SUV and tossed her on the ground. She rolled. Felt rocks scrape her skin and her wrist bent back sending a spike of pain running up her arm. She heard her dad say, “Don’t fucking hurt her!” And the tires of the SUV stopped rolling over gravel.
Pushing herself onto her knees, she glanced towards Bruce. The light from the house windows caught the top of his head and upper part of his chest. She could see he was breathing.
Her dad knelt in front of her, “Are you ok?”
She tasted blood in her mouth. She said, “Mom is going to kill you.” And she burst into tears.
“Yeah.”
Ray approached with the dog. He said, “Hank. Sit.”
The dog sat and stared at Lynda. After what she had seen the dog do she sucked in a breath and the dog glared at her with eyes as black as obsidian. She now knew what a steak felt like.
Ray with a chuckle said, “You ran over your boyfriend there.”
Lynda started crying again. She couldn’t help it.
“C’mon Ray! Why’d you have to go and say that?”
Ray, the one Claire thought of as the leader said, “We gotta get a move on here.”
“Yeah, yeah.” To Lynda, he said, “C’mon honey, let’s go.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and she pulled away from him, “Don’t touch me!”
Neil, bending down with his hands on his knees said, “We have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!”
Ray said, “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re coming with us and there is no getting around that. The only question is, how do you want to do it? You want me to drag you by your hair-“
Neil said, “Hey!”
Ray continued without looking at Neil or acknowledging he had spoken, “or have Hank here persuade you? Or… and this option is the most pleasant, for all of us. How about you just walk your ass over to that SUV and get the fuck inside.”
She looked at her dad. He dropped his eyes. She heard steps behind her. Uncle Greg.
She stood, wincing when she straightened. She said, “What about Bruce?”
Ray said, “He’s coming with us too.”
Bruce’s chest rose and fell. A lump settled in her chest. Her eyes shone. Her lips trembled when she spoke. She sounded like a little child when she said, “You promise?”
Ray smiled and using his index finger drew an X across his chest. He said, “Cross my heart.”
. . . . .
Lynda was taken back to the cabin, squished in between uncle Greg and Ray while her dad drove. Hank sat in the passenger seat, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. They placed Bruce in the back seat of the SUV. He groaned when they moved him, but he was unconscious. They used jumper cables to tie his hands behind his back. Even though he lay battered, Lynda thought he was the lucky one. Her dad and uncle Greg hefted the dead girl and placed her lifeless body in the trunk with grim faces. She couldn’t believe it was her dad. How could it be? When she sat in the SUV, Ray took her cell phone and Bruce’s cell phone. She watched him take the back off and remove the battery from both of them. He stuffed the batteries in one pocket and the phones in another. They drove to the cabin in silence. It wasn’t until they emerged from the trees to see the squat little building in a small clearing did Lynda say, “Whose place is this? Does mom know about this place?”
She caught her dad’s eyes in the rearview. He didn’t answer. He stopped and put the SUV in park.
Ray said, “Does this truck have OnStar on it?”
Neil said, “I didn’t see a sticker for it.”
Ray said, “Doesn’t matter. We’ll have to get rid of it anyway.” To Greg, “Take it to that little trail, where that boulder is with all the old carvings on it? You know the one I mean?”
“Yeah. About two miles from the cave.”
“That’s right. You take this truck out there and Neil will pick you up. Before you leave, set fire to the SUV to get rid of any evidence. It should be dark enough for a while yet to cover the smoke and no one should be way out there to see the fire at this time of night. Hopefully, no one will find it for some time.”
“Alright.”
Neil said, “Wait a minute. Why don’t you get Greg?”
“Because I don’t need you getting any ideas about Lynda here before we have a chance to talk about it, that’s why. Put Lynda in the room. Greg here will help me with Bruce and the…other one. Once the clean up is done, we’ll meet back here to decide what to do next, alright?”
Neil said, “Alright. But you’re coming with me to get Greg.”
Ray said, “Oh yeah? Why is that?”
Neil said, “Because I don’t want you to get any ideas about Lynda before we have a chance to talk about it.”
Her dad escorted her to the hidden room and uncle Greg handed her the lamp.
Neil said, “We’ll feed you when we get back alright, hon?”
“What are you going to do with Bruce?”
“We haven’t decided yet. We’ll have to talk about it.”
She wiped at the tears pooling in her eyes. With gritted teeth, she said, “Don’t you kill him, dad. Jesus, I can’t believe I said that! Who the hell are you?”
“I’m your dad.”
“No, you’re not. My dad wouldn’t be doing this. Not the dad who took me to judo lessons, or used to let me paint his toenails! That dad wouldn’t be chasing a girl in the night with a dog! A dog for fuck’s sake! And then killing her? Like what the fuck? You were supposed to be fishing with your friends! Like you do every year!”
Her mouth hung open and she brought her shaking hands up to the sides of her head. She turned her head, taking in the room, the secret room in a secret cabin and said, “Have you ever even gone fishing? Every year…were you doing…this? What is it that you’re doing, dad? What have you been doing? Year after year after year?”
Neil reached in to put his hands on her shoulders and she jerked back as though he was a coiling rattlesnake and said, “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you fucking touching me!”
He backed away, his mouth opening and closing, his hands held out in a placating gesture as Lynda crawled away from him further into the darkness.
He pulled the door closed and before it shut completely, Lynda said, “What are you going to do with Bruce?”
Ray, winked at her from over her dad’s shoulder and said, “Lynda? You should be more concerned about what we’re going to do with you.” He closed the door. Grumbled voices faded with distance. She curled up on the mattress and even though the room was warm, humid even, she couldn’t stop shivering.