Dying to Tell (2 page)

Slaughter Creek, Tennessee

Sheriff Jake Blackwood had come back to Slaughter Creek to raise his daughter.

But now that he was sheriff, he might as well take advantage of the office, so he’d pulled the old file on his father’s disappearance. Maybe he could finally get the answers he’d wanted for so long. Just being back in town stirred up his need for closure.

And his little girl had been asking questions about the family. He’d like to give her some answers, too.

He opened the file and rifled through the papers. Not much to go on.

Sheriff Bayler had checked out the family house, but there were no signs that Jake’s father had packed a suitcase or planned a trip. No bus schedules or plane tickets, no note.

Nothing except that he was gone.

His father had been dating some woman from the neighboring town, but none of them, not him or his brother, Nick, had known her name or how to get in touch with her.

The trail had stopped cold.

He just hoped he wouldn’t find out his father was dead.

But what other explanation could there be for him to desert his two sons?

Had his father run off with this woman?

Jake just couldn’t make himself believe that, although Nick had accepted it a long time ago. But Jake figured that was because Nick and his father hadn’t been close.

Hell, in the back of his mind, he’d even wondered if Nick and his father had gotten into it, and...

No, he wouldn’t let himself go there.

But he would find out the truth.

The phone on his desk trilled, and Jake snatched it up. “Sheriff Blackwood speaking.”

“You’ve got to come, Sheriff.”

Jake tensed at the sound of the terrified voice on the phone. The minute he’d seen the Nettleton number, he’d known there was trouble. Ms. Lettie had a nursing background and had taken care of Amelia Nettleton for years.

Amelia Nettleton, who had mental problems and did crazy things when she went off her meds.

“What’s wrong, Ms. Lettie?”

“Amelia, she got away from me, and then Sadie phoned—”

“Sadie?”

“Yes...,” Ms. Lettie said. “She got a call, thought it was from her sister, but it musta been one of the
others
, and then she heard
a gun go off, and Sheriff, I’m scared to death...Scared Amelia done killed her granddaddy.”

“Wait outside, Ms. Lettie. I’ll be right there.”

“I will, but hurry, Sheriff.”

Jake jogged to the squad car, jumped inside, and tore from the parking lot.

Trees flew past as he steered the vehicle up the winding mountain highway, the car spitting gravel as he veered onto the dirt road leading to the Nettletons’ farm. His headlights panned over ruts and trees and then lit up the property ahead, and he silently noted how dilapidated the farm had become as it popped into view in the distance. Rotting fence posts. A broken-down tractor in an unplowed field. Hay that hadn’t been cut.

Two quarter horses pranced gracefully in the pasture. Moonlight cast ominous shadows across the front yard, and as he screeched to a stop, he noticed weathered side buildings, a sagging front porch, paint peeling, and an overgrown yard.

Ms. Lettie hobbled from the edge of the porch and hurried toward him. Her gray hair had slipped from its bun and blew haphazardly in the wind, and she tugged a faded shawl around her bony frame as if the garment could protect her from whatever bad had happened here.

“Have you heard anything else?” Jake asked.

Ms. Lettie shook her head. “No...Jesus, this is all my fault. Amelia’s been talking out of her head all day. I put her to bed, but she musta got up and snuck out.”

“Shh, don’t blame yourself,” Jake said.

“But I shoulda known something was wrong. I found a bunch of her pills dumped in the ferns yesterday.” Her voice cracked, then she glanced at the house again with worried eyes.

Jake removed his weapon from his holster. He hoped he didn’t have to use it. “Go wait in the squad car till I return. I’ll check out the house.”

Ms. Lettie bobbed her head up and down, then clutched her shawl around her shoulders tighter as he raced inside.

The acrid scent of death, blood, and body waste filled Jake’s nostrils as he entered. He nearly stumbled over a pile of newspapers. At first glance, he thought someone had ransacked the place. Then he realized that the piles of junk lining the wall to the den were semiorganized.

Walter Nettleton was a hoarder, he’d heard someone in town say. He bought boxes of junk from the salvage store and kept a stockpile of canned food, cleaning supplies, and other necessities in his house as if he were stocking a bomb shelter.

The floor squeaked above Jake, and he held himself still, senses honed as he listened for an intruder.

Then a low-pitched keening reverberated through the dark.

Holding his gun at the ready, he crossed the foyer and scanned the kitchen. Dirty dishes piled in the sink. An empty coffee cup along with other mugs sat on the counter. A cigarette burning in the ashtray. A bottle of Ezra Brooks, half empty. A broken glass on the stained linoleum floor, the bourbon spilled out.

And more piles of junk, file folders full of papers and receipts, supplies, plastic containers, mason jars that looked as if something was growing inside...There was barely a path through the mess.

But no one was on the first floor.

He moved to the left and stepped onto the winding staircase. The pine floors crackled beneath his boots, the acrid odors growing stronger as he climbed.

And so did the sounds.
The woman’s cries
.

Sucking in a sharp breath, he paused at the threshold of the bedroom door and peered inside the room, alert for an attacker.

He had seen death before. Death from natural causes—his grandparents, God rest their souls. Other bodies twisted and
mangled from car accidents—a teenager. A mother of four. Two truckers on Highway 9. A drunk.

But nothing had prepared him for the sight of the old man’s body slumped on the floor beside the four-poster bed. Dammit. Walter’s blood and brains were splattered all over the dingy whitewashed walls and the faded chenille spread.

Walter, Sadie’s grandfather. Sadie, the girl he’d once wanted with a vengeance. The girl who’d run away from Slaughter Creek and left him when he’d needed her most. The girl with the twin who was so crazy she’d been in and out of a mental hospital half her life.

And judging from the bloodbath and the sight of Amelia crouched in the corner, clutching a sawed-off shotgun, the woman would be going back.

Knowing there was nothing he could do for Walter now, he lifted a warning hand to calm Amelia and slowly walked toward her, stepping over shoe boxes and more bins that held God knew what.

But Amelia didn’t seem to notice that he’d arrived.

Then a scream pierced the air, and Jake turned to see that Ms. Lettie hadn’t obeyed him and stayed in the car.

She had run into the room and was staring at the bloodbath.

And at Amelia, the girl who looked just like Sadie.

Except Amelia was covered in blood, with a gun in her hands.

San Francisco

“Your sister shot Papaw, Sadie...He’s dead.”

Sadie collapsed into the chair in her studio apartment, Ms. Lettie’s words vibrating through her skull. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to prop her elbows on her knees to keep from dropping the handset.

Memories crashed back, one piling on top of the other. Her granddaddy stoop-shouldered and leaning on his horsehead cane as he’d been the last time she’d seen him. Sitting on his knee when she was four as he bounced her up and down.

Memories of him holding her while she cried at her grandmother’s funeral when she was eight.

Memories of him pacing the floor when she was fifteen and Amelia was out of control. He’d tried everything, he’d said. The preacher at church. An exorcism. Doctors. Pills. Amelia had been institutionalized when she was twelve, then fourteen.

Nothing seemed to work.

When her grandmother was alive, she’d worried that Amelia’s illness stemmed from the fact that their parents had been killed in a car crash when the girls were three.

She and Amelia had been in the car when it had happened and had luckily survived. Amelia couldn’t possibly remember it...but doctors suggested that the impact of the crash might have somehow caused internal injuries to her brain that they hadn’t detected on a CAT scan.

Gran thought it was the trauma of losing her parents so young. That trauma had manifested itself in a splitting of Amelia’s personality—she’d adopted new personas to protect herself from the memory, inventing Bessie to play with her when she was three.

Of course, Skid had been surly and had a bad attitude, but he hadn’t been violent.

Not until that night.

The night after prom.

The awful night Sadie and Amelia’s lives had changed. Sadie could still hear the scrape of the shovel against rock and dirt, see the bulging eyes of the dead man staring up at her as she and her grandfather covered him with dirt...

Ms. Lettie’s sniffle jerked Sadie out of her reverie.

“After you called, I got hold of Sheriff Blackwood—you remember Jake,” Ms. Lettie said, “he went to school with you—well,
he’s sheriff now. He found your papaw’s body on the floor in his bedroom, and poor Amelia was holding his sawed-off shotgun.” Ms. Lettie broke down and started weeping. “Sheriff’s with her now.”

No...Amelia wouldn’t kill their granddaddy. Not Papaw...

But other memories hacked at her consciousness, memories she’d tried so hard to banish.

Memories of meeting the others
...

Amelia might not be capable of murder. But her alter Skid was.

“Did you hear me?” Ms. Lettie asked.

Sadie realized she’d zoned out while Ms. Lettie continued her rant.

“I said Jake is gonna put your sister in handcuffs and take her to jail.” Tears clogged her voice. “She’ll never survive there, Sadie. One of them will kill her, sure enough.”

Ms. Lettie was right. Her sister was...sensitive. Delicate.

Sick.

Sadie had to drop everything and go home.

This was what she did—she interviewed traumatized victims for a living. She could handle this.

She’d talk to Amelia. Pretend she was just another patient. Use art therapy and interview techniques to access the alters.

Then she’d find out which one of the people inside Amelia’s head had pulled the trigger.

That damn Sadie thought she knew everything. Everything about her sister and the alters.

But she didn’t know about
him
.

No one did.

He
lived inside Amelia’s head. He had for years. And he ruled whatever she and the others did.

But they had served their purpose. And now it was time for all of them to go bye-bye.

Yes. One by one, they had to die.

And if Sadie got in the way, she’d have to die, too.

Slaughter Creek

J
ake’s cop training kicked in. Even though he knew Amelia and Walter personally, he had a job to do, and this was a crime scene now. All personal feelings notwithstanding.

He had to assess the situation. Determine if Amelia was an immediate threat. Secure and process the scene. Take photographs. Call the coroner.