13 Nights of Horror: The Disappearance of Rose Hillard (4 page)

Five years ago

“Come on,” Ricky said with a leering grin, “just stay out with me until the morning. What’s the problem?”

“I can’t,” Rose said, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.

“Why not?” He reached over to the passenger seat and put a hand on her bare knee.

“I have to be back,” she told him coldly. “I have something to do after this.”

“You have something to do after midnight?”

She nodded, before pushing his hand away.

“Keep your attention on the road,” she added, turning to him. “Ricky, I only have a few hours before I have to be back, so let’s not spend the whole time arguing, okay? It’s just… I came out with you because I want to be distracted, and because I don’t want to think about everyday stuff. If you can’t do that for me, you might as well turn this pile of junk around and drop me at the nearest bar. I’m sure I can find someone there.”

“It’s cool,” he replied, clearly a little surprised by her forcefulness. “So when we get to Cantonville, there are two movies showing. First, there’s -”

“I don’t want to see a movie.”

“You don’t?”

“Not tonight.”

“But I thought that was the whole -”

“I changed my mind. Can’t we just park up somewhere, maybe look up at the stars?” She turned to him again. “Can we get out of town, go somewhere there’s no light pollution? I want to feel small.”

“Well…” A faint smile crossed his face. “Okay. I get it. Why don’t we head out to the lake? There’s never anyone there. I’m sure the stars’ll seem so goddamn bright, they’ll damn near burn your eyes out.”

“Sure,” she replied, watching the dark road ahead as the headlights picked out the tarmac. “Just keep driving. Don’t stop until the stars are the brightest you’ve ever seen them.”

***

“What’s that?” she asked as she watched Ricky grab something from the back seat.

“My new video camera,” he replied, slamming the door shut and making his way around the car to join her. “It’s a proper professional model with two built-in microphones and military-grade night-sight. Damn thing cost a few grand, but I got it cheap in this second-hand deal with the local school. They were selling their old stuff off ‘cause they’re getting new equipment. You like it?”

“No,” she replied, staring down at the large, black device in his hands. “I hate it. Put it away.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked, holding the camera up and aiming the lens straight at her, only for her to push it away. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like cameras,” she told him. “You can either take me to the lake or take the camera, but not both. I can always walk home.”

“Jesus,” he replied, opening the door and carefully setting the camera on the back seat. “Whatever. Sorry, Rose, I really didn’t know you were so touchy.”

“I just don’t see why everything has to be filmed all the time,” she continued, turning and taking a few steps toward the edge of the shallow ridge that led down to the shore of the lake. Ahead of her, there was nothing but darkness and the occasional glittering ripples of moonlight dancing on the surface of the water. “Cameras, phones, computers, wearable tech, even hidden devices… Sometimes I feel like, one day, everything everyone does is going to be caught on camera. Doesn’t that freak you out?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” he replied, walking over to join her. “I just like making movies, that’s all. Are you cold?”

She shook her head.

“Take this, anyway,” he continued, removing his coat and placing it over her shoulders.

“I don’t need it,” she replied, pulling the coat off and handing it to him before making her way toward the water’s edge. “Stop trying to look after me. Come on, I want to see the water!”

“See what?” he called after her.

She didn’t reply.

Sighing, he put his coat back on before hurrying after her, catching up just as she got to the shore.

“So are those stars bright enough for you?” he asked, looking up at the vast canopy above them. “Jesus, I think I see what you mean. They’re definitely more cool out here, aren’t they? It’s, like, you can see them a lot more clearly.”

“There are so many of them,” she replied, tilting her head up, “and they’re so bright, and yet… All that bright white light, and it’s still so dark down here.”

“I, uh, think that’s because they’re a hell of a long way away,” he pointed out.

“I know that, dumb-ass. I was just commenting on it, that’s all.”

“You’re pretty cool,” he continued. “Did anyone ever tell you that, Rose? It’s like you see the world in a way that other people -”

“Have you ever done anything really bad?” she asked suddenly, turning to him. “I mean really,
really
bad, like… morally… evil? Something repugnant and unforgivable and just purely horrifically evil?”

“Um…” He paused. “No?”

She stared at him.

“Why?” he asked. “I mean… have you?”

She turned to look out at the water again.

“Rose?” he continued cautiously. “That was kind of a weird question.”

“What if you did it before you realized it was evil?” she continued. “What if you did something truly awful, something that you could never recover from, not in a million years… But what if
when
you did it, you were too young and too afraid and too alone to really understand what was happening? What if someone who was supposed to protect you… instead, they told you it was okay? They
kept
telling you it was okay, over and over again, and even though you were starting to guess the truth, you didn’t feel like you could say anything until eventually it all became too much and you just wanted to…”

“Wanted to what?”

“End it.”

“End what?”

He waited for an answer.

“So… what?” he continued with a faint smile, as if he still hoped the whole thing was a joke. “Are you trying to tell me you did something huge and awful? Is that why you wanted to come out here with me tonight? To confess to all your evil crimes?”

She turned to him, with pain in her eyes.

“What happened?” he asked, swallowing hard. “Rose? You’re scaring me. You didn’t kill anyone, did you? I mean, no way you killed anyone…”

She shook her head.

“Then what?”

“I wish I
had
killed him,” she continued. “If I’d killed him, at least it would have ended. At least I wouldn’t have to do it again.”

“Do what?”

She stared at him for a moment longer, with tears in her eyes.

“You’d never understand,” she said finally. “God bless you, Ricky Baggard, you’re not exactly Mr. Clean yourself, but you’d never understand what happened to me, what’s still happening to me. It’s going to be over tonight, though. Or… in a few hours, anyway. The thing is, it’s been a couple of years now since I realized how bad these things are, and I’ve been wanting it to end but now that the final night is here, I’m scared. I don’t know what to do tomorrow, when I’m free. I’ve been waiting so long for someone else, anyone else, to do the right thing. I guess I have to do it myself.”

“It’d really help,” he replied, “if you’d tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“I…”

She paused, before suddenly a smile crept across her face.

“Do you want to get ice cream?” she asked.

“Ice cream? At -” He checked his watch. “Rose, it’s almost ten at night. Where the hell are we going to get ice cream this late?”

“I guess you’re right,” she replied, as the smile faded. “I should have realized, it’s too dark. Everything’s too dark. I just hoped the stars…” She looked up and widened her eyes, as if she wanted to take in all the light she could from the hundreds of stars above them.

After waiting for a couple of minutes, watching her staring straight up, Ricky finally cleared his throat. When that didn’t work, he figured he had to try something else.

“So,” he said eventually, “do you want to… go for a walk?”

Slowly she looked back down at him, and now the tears were gone from her eyes.

“Sure,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. “I’m sorry if I scared you, Ricky. I just wanted to say that stuff out loud for once, instead of in my head. Come on, we don’t need ice cream. Let’s just go for a nice walk.”

With that, they began to make their way along the shore of the lake, two dark figures disappearing into a night that was still pitch-black despite all the stars above.

Today

“Sheriff Gorman!”

Stopping by the door to the station, Gorman watched as an umbrella-wielding figure ran desperately through the pouring rain, jumping over several puddles in the car park before finally joining him under the awning. Closing the umbrella, the figure – a young woman with large, striking brown eyes – smiled at him.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she told him, “but I’m -”

“Deborah Culstone,” he replied. “You’re a reporter.”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “I don’t know whether to be impressed by your memory or by my memorableness!”

“Is that even a word?” he asked with a sigh, already well aware that the conversation was likely to be headed onto his least favorite topic.

“It is now,” she replied. “It’s terrible weather we’re having, isn’t it? Apparently it’s got all the meteorologists stumped, it’s almost defying logic with the way it seems to be highly localized in this county. I just heard that most of the roads into Vantage have been blocked by fallen trees.”

“And yet you managed to get here anyway,” Gorman said with a forced smile. “How about that, huh?”

“I guess you could say I’m pretty determined,” she told him. “I’ve actually been calling your office for a few weeks now, trying to schedule an interview. God knows how many messages I left, but you never got back to me.”

“Is that right?”

“Obviously there’s been a failure somewhere along the line,” she continued, “but the thing is, I’m writing a story about the fifth anniversary of Rose Hillard’s disappearance and, well, it’s going to go ahead regardless, but I’d really like to get some quotes from you. I mean, it’d hardly be fair and balanced if I didn’t talk to the most important man in the case, would it? You wouldn’t be able to defend yourself.”

“If I asked you nicely to turn around and leave Vantage,” he replied, “and never come back, is there a chance in hell that you’d just… do that?”

“No,” she replied with a faint smile.

“I figured,” he muttered, holding the door open for her.

***

“The alleged sightings of Rose a few counties over were followed up, I believe?” Deborah asked as she sat in Gorman’s office a few minutes later, reading from her notebook. “I assume nothing came of that avenue of investigation.”

“Oh, sure,” Gorman replied, propping his cane against the wall and heading to his desk. “I found Rose Hillard ages ago, I just never thought to mention it to anyone.”

“How’s the leg?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“It’s my hip, actually,” he replied, “and it’s fine, thank you for asking.”

Deborah looked over at the bottle of pills on his desk.

Sighing, Gorman grabbed the bottle and dropped it into one of his drawers.

“You were hit by a car, I believe?” she continued. “Not long after the Rose Hillard investigation had started fading from the headlines? Hit and run, wasn’t it? That’s got to hurt. I mean, you can’t even track down the person who almost killed you.”

“If I get to retirement and that’s the worst injury I ever sustain,” he replied, “then I guess I can count myself to be extremely fortunate.”

“Has no-one ever shot you?”

“No, M’am.”

“Huh. You
do
surprise me.” She smiled as she looked at her notes. “So the sightings that were reported in the months following her disappearance were definitely dead ends?”

“Absolutely.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I looked into them,” he continued. “Most of them were genuine cases of mistaken identity, and a couple were just malicious attempts to waste police time. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that Rose Hillard ever left the town of Vantage following her disappearance, and it’s my opinion that she certainly didn’t leave the county. In most cases like this one, evidence is disposed of as soon as possible, which means a very short time for travel. A twenty-five mile radius is my best guess.”

“So you’re certain she’s dead?”

“I think it’s by far the most likely explanation. Trust me, I know how the mind of a killer works.”

“Such a shame,” she continued, holding up a photo of Rose. “She was so pretty, and apparently such a smart and ambitious young woman. Photogenic, too. Of course, that can be both a blessing and a curse.”

Gorman smiled, although he found it difficult to look at the photo of Rose’s face for more than a fraction of a second. Looking down at his desk, he started neatening a pile of papers as a way of distracting himself.

“Interesting,” Deborah said after a moment.

“What is?” he asked.

“You clearly don’t like seeing her face. Could it be that you feel guilty, Sheriff Gorman, for never having caught her killer? I imagine that must burrow into your soul, especially at night. Does your conscience ever whisper into your ear when you’re trying to sleep, reminding you that you let poor Rose Hillard down?”

Looking over at her, he saw that she was still holding the photo up.

“Of course I feel guilty,” he said after a moment. “The resolution of the case was not as I would have preferred.”

“What
would
you have preferred?”

“For her to have turned out to be alive.”

“So what do you think actually happened?”

“I don’t think we need to -”

“Kidnapped, obviously,” Deborah continued. “She’d hardly be the first pretty young lady to get snatched from a rural location and then… Well, we all know what happens to young ladies in such situations. The only question, usually, is where the body is disposed of and what attempts are made to conceal the evidence. My understanding from covering many such cases is that usually it’s relatively simple to discover the bodies, since the criminals involved generally aren’t exactly masterminds, so I’ve got to wonder whether the person who kidnapped and killed Rose Hillard was very smart, or just lucky that the body wasn’t uncovered.”

“Are you impugning my handling of the investigation?”

“Impugning? That’s a big word for a man who’s in charge of a small town.”

“Did you came here to insult me?”

“I came to see if there’s any news about Rose Hillard,” she replied. “It’s a case that captured the public imagination five years ago, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of interest now that the five-year anniversary is rolling around. I came to get at the truth, to perhaps provide some closure for her family -”

“Leave them alone.”

“Why?”

“They’re good people,” he continued, “and they don’t deserve to have the past raked up.”

“They deserve to know the truth. It’s horrible to think of her killer still being out there, feeling all smug because he thinks he’s managed to get away with it. Besides, what if he’s struck again somewhere else? What if this case is linked to others and more innocent people have died because of mistakes that were made right here in this office?”

“I’m confident that this is not at all possible.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked. “Is it common for killers to slaughter one victim, hide the body perfectly so that no-one ever finds them, and then take early retirement from the game?” She waited for him to answer. “If I didn’t know better, Sheriff Gorman, I’d be tempted to suspect that you’re withholding some vital information from me, something that actually makes this story make sense.” She smiled. “Not that I’m impugning your reputation, obviously.”

“The Rose Hillard investigation is very much an ongoing concern,” he replied firmly. “That means that possible leads are still being followed up on a regular basis, and I absolutely believe that we will find both the culprit and the body. I know the media wants every case to be wrapped up neatly so that it fits in with the news cycles, but that isn’t how the real world works. Sometimes, proper detective work simply takes time.”

“Five years, in this case.”

“Why would I lie?” he asked. “Why would I drag my feet at all?”

“To protect someone? Yourself, maybe, or someone close to you? Maybe even Rose herself, for some reason. I’ve been around the block, Sheriff Gorman, and I know that the human mind can twist itself into all sorts of knots until it believes black is white and right is wrong. Plus, this seems to be a perfect example of Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is either that you’re incompetent, which isn’t the case, or that for some reason you’re holding back with the truth.”

He stared at her, fully aware that nothing he said would be able to get her off his trail.

“Thank you for your time,” she continued, closing her notebook. “If I have any further questions, I’ll be sure to get in touch, and in the meantime I’ll be staying at the motel down the road for a few nights while I work on my story. I just hope… Well, I hope that you haven’t been losing too much sleep over this case. I’m sure the mystery of Rose’s disappearance has been haunting you for the past five years now.” She turned to leave, before stopping as she noticed the door of the safe still hanging open. “An interested approach to security,” she told him with a smile. “Nothing valuable in there, I hope?”

“Absolutely not,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Just a few documents that wouldn’t fit in my desk.”

Thirty seconds later, as soon as Deborah Culstone had finished her goodbyes and left his office, Gorman was on the phone to a local judge, seeking to obtain an emergency search warrant for a room at the local motel.

***

“This is an outrage!” Deborah shouted barely two hours later, as one of Gorman’s deputies held her in the doorway of her motel room. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Conducting a search for stolen material,” Gorman replied, holding up the hurriedly-arranged and faxed warrant for her to see. “And before you ask, no, I don’t have any obligation to tell you
what
I’m looking for. I told Judge Oakes that I have reasonable grounds for suspicion, and he knows me well enough to be satisfied with that explanation.”

“This is intimidation,” Deborah continued, watching in horror as Karyn and a couple of other officers continued to go through her possessions. “We live in the United States of America, Sheriff Gorman, not Soviet Russia. You have no right to go rampaging through a journalist’s private possessions -”

“Unless I have good cause,” he replied, picking up one of her notebooks from the nearby desk and flicking through it, “and I
do
have good cause. So tell me, Ms. Culstone, is there anything you want to tell me before my officers complete their search? If you admit to any wrongdoing now, your cooperation would materially improve my inclination to go easy on you.”

“Found a laptop!” Karyn called out.

“We’ll need the password,” Gorman told Deborah.

“Sure. It’s gotohell, all one word, lower case.”

“We can easily take it back to the office and brute-force it,” he replied. “We might be out in the sticks here, but we still know how to get access to a hard-drive.”

“I’m surprised you even know what a hard-drive
is
,” she spat back at him.

“The password,” he said firmly. “Now. If you refuse, you’re just wasting my time, and that’s going to piss me off more than ever.”

“Fine,” she muttered, pulling away from the deputy’s grip and heading over to the desk, where she typed her password into the machine. “Happy now? There’s nothing on there apart from my research and some notes! Oh, and some racy photos I sent to a few of my favorite boyfriends over the years. I
do
hope you’ll all avert your eyes when they come up on the screen.”

“Check her emails,” Gorman told Karyn. “See if she’s arranging any exclusives. Also check for hidden partitions and encrypted sections on the drive. I want you to go through that thing with a fine-toothed comb and make sure there’s nowhere she could hide anything. Pay particular attention to media files.”

“What exactly are you expecting to find?” Deborah asked him. “You’re acting like there’s something very specific that you’re worried about.”

Ignoring her, he watched as Karyn continued to work on the laptop.

“This is going to be part of the story, you know,” she continued. “My cover piece on the ongoing failed search for Rose Hillard is now going to include a full account of the day the local police department came storming into a journalist’s motel room and raked through her possessions. What’s wrong, Sheriff? Are you getting paranoid? Are you worried that I might succeed where you failed and actually find poor Rose Hillard?”

“I doubt that’s going to happen,” he replied.

“There’s nothing here,” Karyn said after a moment, closing the lid of the laptop.

“Check again,” he said firmly.

“Sir, there’s nothing -”

“Check again!” he shouted.

While Karyn got back to work, Gorman watched as Joe began to check under the mattress. Slowly, he was starting to feel that perhaps he’d jumped the gun, that Deborah Culstone’s arrival in town really
had
been a coincidence, and that she had nothing to do with the missing disc. If that was the case, however, he was back at square one and he had to assume that for some insane reason, Michael Hillard had decided to implicate himself in the crime. The idea made no sense at all, but at the same time it was the only possibility that in any way fitted the facts. All he could think was that perhaps Michael had lost his mind.