Immoral (8 page)

Heather smiled. “I used to come out here when I was a teenager. A lot of us kids did.”

“What did you do here?” Lissa asked.

“We just explored a lot. Like you.”

There was no need to explain the real reason. Back then, she and dozens of other Duluth teenagers came out here to have sex. It was the hottest make-out spot in the county. It got so bad that there was even a secret sign-up sheet passed around school, to make sure there weren’t too many people parked out behind the barn at any one time. Heather’s first sexual experience had been out at the barn, in the back of a pickup truck, under the stars.

She wondered if today’s students used the barn. There were still plenty of overlapping tire tracks leading around back. She also saw empty beer bottles littering the field. If she looked hard enough, she would probably find used condoms.

Heather looked down at Lissa again. “Don’t you pick anything up, either.”

Lissa frowned. “Well, that’s no fun.”

Heather softened. “You can pick up rocks and sticks, but no people things, okay? If you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.”

Lissa shrugged. “Okay.”

Mother and daughter separated. Heather kept an eye on Lissa as she wandered into the brush. Satisfied that the girl was okay, Heather began scoping out her shot, tramping in the field to find an angle that satisfied her. When she settled on a location and began her setup, she saw Lissa dart behind the barn.

“Be careful back there,” Heather shouted. Lissa called something in reply, which Heather couldn’t hear.

She knelt down, looking through the camera’s viewfinder, seeing the image in the frame take shape. The sun, behind her, was approaching the level of the tallest trees. Heather felt a jittery jumping in her stomach and a quiver in her fingers, the way she always did when she knew she was going to get exactly what she wanted. She took a few seconds to measure the light again and adjust the exposure. Then, ready at last, she squeezed the shutter, then again, and again, hearing the motorized whir as the film advanced each time.

“Mommy!” Lissa shouted from behind the barn. “Come look at this!”

“In a minute, sweetheart,” Heather called back.

“Look, look, look,” Lissa cried. She came running from behind the barn.

“Lissa, Mommy’s busy now. What is it?”

“Look what I found. Isn’t it pretty?”

Heather looked away from the camera long enough to notice Lissa holding a gold bracelet. “Where did you find that, sweetheart?”

“Behind the barn.”

Heather frowned. “Didn’t I tell you not to pick things up? People things?”

“Well, yes, but this is different,” Lissa argued.

“How is it different?”

“It’s not dangerous or anything. It’s just a bracelet.”

“Yes, and it’s a bracelet that belongs to somebody else, who’s probably going to come looking for it,” Heather said. “Now put it back where you found it.”

“You mean I can’t keep it?”

Heather sighed. It was always this way with Lissa and jewelry. “No, you can’t keep it. It belongs to someone else. Put it back right now.”

“I don’t think they’d want it anymore,” Lissa complained. “It’s all dirty.”

“Well, then, why do you want it?”

Lissa didn’t have an immediate answer. She thought about it. “I could clean it up,” she said.

“And so could the person who owns it. Now no more arguing. Put it back.”

Lissa gave up fighting and walked away unhappily, back toward the rear of the barn. Relieved, Heather turned her attention back to her camera. She looked through the viewfinder again.

Perfect
.

Behind the barn, Lissa reluctantly put the bracelet back where she found it, which was in a muddy patch near the edge of the field. It didn’t really seem fair, though. She didn’t believe that anyone would be coming back for it.

“But Mommy said so,” Lissa murmured to herself.

After putting it back, Lissa continued exploring. She already had a successful collection, including several interesting rocks and pretty blue flowers, all of which were stuffed in her coat pockets. She wasn’t aware of time passing. It seemed only an instant later that she looked up and realized the sun had dipped below the trees.

Just then, she heard her mother calling. “Lissa, come on, it’s time to go!”

For once, Lissa didn’t need to be told twice. She started running out of the field toward the barn again. As she did, she had to pass right by the puddle, where the bracelet was.

“Lissa!” her mother called again.

Lissa thought about it. She really wanted that bracelet, and it was pretty careless of whoever owned it to leave it here. Besides, she could keep it and clean it up, and if the owner ever wanted it, she would be keeping it safe and sound. And she still thought maybe the person had simply thrown it away.

Mommy just didn’t understand. She didn’t like jewelry anyway.

Quickly, Lissa bent down, grabbed the bracelet, and crammed it deep into her pocket. “I’m coming,” she called, and ran for the front of the barn.

Bird Finch paced the shadows of the studio, lifting his stilt-like legs over the cables stretched across the floor. No one talked to him. They had all learned long ago that Bird never said a word in the last few minutes before a live broadcast. He was too high. His emotions were churning. He was psyching himself up.

Tonight the ratings would be sky-high again.

After three weeks of courting them since Rachel’s disappearance, he had landed the first live interview with Graeme and Emily Stoner. For the first time, they were ready to talk about losing their girl. And they wouldn’t be alone. Joining them on the set was another grieving family, Mike and Barbara McGrath, who had spent more than a year searching fruitlessly for their daughter Kerry. Two families would sit down with him, purge their emotions, and send the police a message.

There’s a killer stalking the north shore and snatching teenagers off the street.

Find him.

Bird stopped and crossed his arms. On the brightly lit set, Graeme and Emily Stoner sat in comfortable chairs while two makeup artists fluttered around them, dabbing at their faces. He saw the McGraths walk up to the Stoners and watched the two families exchange awkward greetings.

“Two minutes,” a voice on an overhead speaker announced.

Bird emerged out of the darkness of the studio and crossed the set with the grace of a large cat. He stood like a black tower over his guests, who stared up at him from their four chairs. He smiled at them, revealing paper-white teeth against his black skin. He grabbed each of their hands in turn in a crushing handshake.

“I want to thank all of you for joining me tonight,” he told them in a sober, rumbling voice, which he reserved for victims. “I can only imagine how hard this is for each of you. But it’s so very important that the rest of the people in this state hear your story. And, God willing, maybe your voices can reach out to your girls, or to whoever stole them away from you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Finch,” Barbara McGrath said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stoner, I will do everything I can to put you at ease,” he said. “I don’t want you thinking about the camera. Just talk to me. Tell me your story.”

Bird squeezed his tall body into his usual chair. He rubbed one hand back over his shaved scalp and glanced at his suit to make sure his pockets, handkerchief, and cuffs were in place. He cleared his throat and draped one bent arm over the left side of the chair.

He gave his guests a last sympathetic smile. The red light went on.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Bird said. “I’m Jay Finch, and tonight I bring you a very special interview with two families from Duluth, Minnesota. These four people only met for the first time tonight, but they share a bond that brings them closer together as each day passes.”

The camera backed up to reveal the Stoners and McGraths sitting across from Bird on the set.

“Fifteen months ago, Kerry McGrath, the daughter of Mike and Barbara McGrath, disappeared off the streets of Duluth. Three weeks ago tonight, Rachel Deese, daughter of Emily Stoner and stepdaughter of her husband, Graeme, suffered the same terrible fate. Two teenage girls who went to the same school and lived only a few miles apart. Both missing persons. We all pray for their safety, and we all fear for their lives.”

Bird’s voice hardened. “The police will not tell you these crimes are related. They say simply that both investigations are continuing, although they release no evidence to suggest they are any closer to solving these awful mysteries. Meanwhile, the families of Duluth face another night of uneasy sleep. Each time one of their girls goes off to school, they wonder if she will return home safely. Each time their daughter leaves them to visit a friend, they call to make sure she arrived on time. This is what fear does. This is the price of not knowing. Because everyone in Duluth is whispering the same question: What happened?”

Bird focused his eyes into the camera, as if he were standing in the living room of every viewer.

“What happened? Is there a serial killer stalking the young women of Duluth? Is someone else in danger? Will a year pass this time between crimes, or has the killer’s patience been exhausted? Is he back on the street tonight, cruising in a lonely vehicle, slowing down at each person he passes?”

The words burned on his tongue like sour candy. He could feel the fear like a tangible thing, and he knew he was spreading it throughout the state. Bird didn’t feel guilty. They needed to be afraid.

“We don’t know the answer to those questions,” Bird said softly. “We don’t know what really happened on those two nights a little over a year apart. God knows we all hope that Kerry and Rachel are both safe somewhere and that in the very near future we will see them back home with their parents. But in the interim, the citizens of this state are looking to the police for answers—answers that are long overdue.”

Bird turned to Barbara McGrath. “Now let’s hear from the other victims of these crimes, the families who suffer and wonder. Mrs. McGrath, do you believe in your heart that Kerry is still alive?”

Emily heard the woman answer. She said the expected thing. Yes, Kerry was alive; she felt it keenly in her soul; she knew her girl was out there somewhere; she would never give up hope as long as Kerry was missing. Then this stranger next to her, Barbara McGrath, turned and stared at the camera and spoke to it, pleaded with it.

“Kerry, if you’re out there,” Barbara said, “if you can hear this, I want you to know we love you. We think about you every single day. And we want you to come home to us.”

With a sigh, her emotions overran her, and Barbara buried her face in her hands. Her husband leaned over, and Barbara let her head fall against his shoulder. His hand nestled in her black hair and caressed her gently.

Emily stared at them with a curious detachment. She felt far away. When she looked at Graeme, he was studying them, too, with an impenetrable expression on his face, devoid of emotion. She wondered if he was feeling what she felt—envy. She envied these people their pure, uncomplicated grief and their ability to find comfort and strength in each other. She had none of those things. That was why she had resisted the interview for so long, because she knew she would have to lie about so many things. She would have to say the expected things, even if she didn’t feel them. She would say how much she missed Rachel, while wondering if she really did. She would hold Graeme’s hand for support and feel nothing in his lifeless grip.

The only person who understood, who could help her, wasn’t there.

Like a ghost, she felt herself floating above the set. She heard Bird Finch talking to her, his voice echoing from the end of a long tunnel.

“Mrs. Stoner, is there anything you want to tell Rachel?” Bird asked.

Emily stared at the camera and the red light glowing above it. She was frozen. It was as if she could really see Rachel, somewhere in the dark reflection of the lens, and as if Rachel could see her, too. She didn’t understand what she was feeling now. The hostility had been an ache inside her for so long that she still didn’t know how to live without it. Rachel was gone, and so was the bitter war. It was unimaginable that she could want it back.

Did she? Or was it really better this way?

There had been many times when she had wished that Rachel would disappear. She fantasized that her life would finally get better when the weight was lifted. Maybe she could have a marriage again. Maybe she could love her daughter better when she was gone.

What happened?

“Mrs. Stoner?” Bird asked.

Maybe she should tell them all the truth. If only they knew the secret, maybe they would leave her in peace. And the truth was that Rachel was evil.

Emily had been working two jobs in the years since Tommy died, grinding the debt down, climbing out of the hole in which he had buried them. From eight o’clock to five o’clock, she was a teller at the downtown branch of the Range Bank. Then she jumped in her car, hurried up Miller Hill, and sold romance novels and
Playboy
magazines from the bookstore until the mall closed at nine. The world was a perpetual haze, in which she felt drugged by stress and sleeplessness
.

The only bright spot in her life had arrived three weeks ago, when she brought home a West Highland terrier from the pound. After years of coming home to silence, or to Rachel’s quiet hostility, it was refreshing to have the noise and playfulness of the dog filling the house. Originally, Emily had bought the dog with Rachel in mind, but Rachel ignored him, and Emily was the one to take him into the backyard at night to chase down the blue chew-toy she threw for him again and again
.

That was when she made a surprising discovery. The little white dog, with its cropped legs and scruffy fur, had cracked her own facade. She realized she looked forward to coming home again. The dog welcomed her maniacally, as if she were the best, most important person on the planet. He slept in her lap and in bed with her. On the weekends, they walked together, the dog leading the way, tugging at the leash, pulling her up and down the streets
.