The Origin of Dracula (8 page)

I tried to think of a way to extricate myself from the ranger’s questions. “I’m going to sit down and wait for my dad,” was the best I could come up with.

“You can wait inside,” the ranger said.

No, I can’t
. If Lee saw me heading inside, it would be an invitation for him to ruin my life. “I’m okay out here,” I said, and pointed to the picnic table nearest the parking lot. “I’ll wait over there where my dad can see me.”

“All right, son. I’ll keep an eye out for you in case you feel any worse,” he said. Then he headed back into the cabin.

I started toward the picnic table at a fast clip, but quickly slowed down—I didn’t want the ranger to think I was well enough to hurry anywhere. At the picnic table, my fears continued unabated. First, that the ranger would get a report about a dead body that had just been fished out of the Potomac and would rush out of the cabin to question me. And second, that Lee would appear and interpret my early departure as evidence that I’d ratted him out.

Neither happened.

My dad picked me up, and I told him that I was already feeling better, which was true. I was feeling better because I was leaving Cold Falls forever. Or so I hoped. But that would turn out not to be the case. In two decades, I’d return to the scene of the crime, and maybe in the back of my mind, or in my gut, where a dull ache had started to grow, I knew those woods and that night would draw me back in.

In the days that followed, I could’ve told my dad the truth about Cold Falls and gotten his advice about going to the police and combating Lee’s version of the story. My dad and I had a close relationship, so confiding in him wouldn’t have been as hard for me as it might have been for some kids.

But I didn’t confide in him. Instead, I watched the local news every night, flipping between stations, expecting to land on a story about a man who’d recently disappeared, or about a man who’d been fished out of the Potomac, or about a man who’d washed up on the riverbank with his head cracked open. In the mornings, I’d search the
Washington Post
looking for a headline about a man who’d drowned in the Potomac, or about a man who’d been found bruised and battered in Cold Falls State Park.

Days turned into weeks, and I never saw or heard anything about any such man. And when weeks turned into months, not only did it seem foolish to confess, I also became more convinced that the incident hadn’t unfolded the way I’d originally thought. I replayed it over and over again, in great detail, to confirm that, indeed, it had been a nightmare of shadows, fog, and fear.

But there was a huge kink in that interpretation. Lee had
admitted
to pushing the man over the cliff. And obsessively reliving that night didn’t wipe out that kink. More times than not, when I was caught up in that loop of creepy, unsettling images, it triggered a clawing guilt, accompanied by a physical reaction. My skin felt clammy and dank, as if the fog were touching it again, reaching out from Cold Falls to haunt me. It took me a long time to stop reliving that night. Only when months turned into years was I able to bury it in a hard-to-reach corner of my psyche.

“I remember it all,” I said. The dreadful images from that night may have been buried deep in my psyche, but they were perfectly preserved, ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice.

Lee was looking at the mantelpiece as if he was studying the vases of dead flowers. “But you never believed me,” he said. “That that guy was hunting me down.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” There was no point in debating the past. And there was no time. This was all about saving Nate’s life.

“If you really remember that night,” he said, “you’d remember it was fucked up.”

That much we agreed on, but I still wasn’t sure if he was referring to the surreal elements. “So?”

“No one reported the man missing,” he said. “It was like he disappeared.”

“We got lucky.”

“And now you think our luck finally ran out?” His question dripped with disdain, as if he was daring me to agree with something absurd.

“Someone discovered what we did and is getting revenge.”

“No one found out.”

Anger suddenly boiled up inside me. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s him.”

“Him? You mean the guy you killed?”

He didn’t answer my question, but he held my eyes, resolutely and confidently, meaning “yes” and also calling me out as a fool for not believing him.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You’re the one who doesn’t remember that night. He couldn’t have survived that fall. I heard his body hit the boulders.”

“But what did you
see
? Actually
see
?”

“Just because I didn’t see him hit the rocks and float on downriver, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean what
did
you actually see?”

If he wanted me to talk about the dank, foul fog, or the wolf, or the castle, or the unearthly pallid shade of the man’s face and the strangely satisfied expression it bore, he was barking up the wrong tree. When it came to covering up the murder—now that it might cost the life of my son—that creepy, otherworldly vibe from that night didn’t matter. Lee had killed a man, and someone was getting revenge for that sin.

“I didn’t see anything else,” I declared without disguising my anger.

“You know what? It doesn’t really matter,” Lee said. “We’re both after the same guy, no matter who the hell you think it is.”

There was no question about that. We had to make the connection between that night and the murder of our wives if we were going to find Dantès.

Lee reached for the letter. “Let me take a look at that again.”

I handed it to him, and as he scanned it, he said, “Why didn’t Dantès send
me
the letter?”

Lee was clever to probe in this direction. He was analyzing our dilemma with precision, getting to know our enemy. If I had thought to ask him more questions—and if I had believed at least some of his answers—he might have opened up right then about what he knew, rather than later. There was more going on than what the letter implied, and he knew it. But he also knew that I wouldn’t buy it. Not yet.

“Is there a connection between your wife’s death and Cold Falls—anything from our camping trip?” Lee said. “I’ll tell you this, it’d be tough to make a connection to what happened to Grace.”

“Nothing jumps out at me. Not anything from the police report. But I think I know where we should start.” My suggestion came straight from the letter. “‘The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even the past.’ Cold Falls.”

“You want to head to Cold Falls?” Lee wasn’t bothering to disguise his doubt.

“You have a better idea?”

He looked down at the letter, scanned it for a minute or so, then conceded. “No. But there’s one person we should talk to first.”

“Quincy,” I said.

“Did you track him down already?”

“Just his address and phone number.”

“You want me to call him, or do you want to?”

“You call him while I talk to Nate.” I gave him Quincy’s phone number.

“Are you going to send Nate to his grandmother’s?” Lee said, and I thought I heard concern in his voice.

“I can’t. You’re right. Dantès knows too much about us.”

“Take it for what it’s worth, which isn’t much. Don’t send him to any relative. The guy behind all this is gonna track him down. Send him to someone who’s not too connected to you.” This time the concern in his voice was evident, and I liked him for it.

I nodded, acknowledging his good advice, and immediately thought of Jenna Corcoran. A few years ago, Lucy had helped Jenna. She’d taken on Jenna’s case, pro bono, and saved her from doing time for a minor drug offense. Afterward, Jenna had turned her life around, gone back to school, and earned a nursing degree. She had been eternally grateful for Lucy’s help.

Nate would be safe with Jenna. At least, that was my thinking then.

But it wouldn’t take me more than a day to realize that Nate wasn’t safe with anyone.

Lee ducked into another room to call Quincy while I called Jenna on my cell. I lied to her, telling her I’d been asked to go to a conference at the last minute as a replacement for a sick colleague, so I needed someone to take care of Nate. She was more than happy to help out. Within minutes, it was all arranged. I’d drop Nate off at her place and he’d spend the weekend with her.

In the kitchen, Nate had finished his sandwich and chips and had the TV on. He was watching another Nickelodeon animated show.

“Do you remember Jenna?” I said.

He smiled, which made me feel good about my decision. “Yeah. Mom was proud of her.”

“That’s right.” I was surprised he’d understood that. Jenna had come over for dinner a few times, and Lucy had praised her dedication. Jenna had gotten her nursing degree in record time, landed a good job, and received a promotion. I had assumed Nate was too young to have picked up on how proud Lucy had been of Jenna.

I kneeled down beside him. “You’re going to be spending a couple of days with her.”

He looked up from the TV show. “What about my birthday party?”

How stupid could I be? Naturally that’d be his first question, and because I wasn’t prepared for it, I doubled down on my stupidity.

“You’ll be back for that,” I said, instead of warning him in advance that the party might have to wait until another weekend. Now he’d be even more disappointed if Sunday came and he was still with Jenna, with no party on the horizon, which was the mostly likely scenario.

He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes, and shot me a curious look. “I know what you’re doing.”

My pulse quickened. Had he been eavesdropping on Lee and me before turning on the TV? I braced myself.

“You don’t want me around, so you can get me a surprise for my birthday!” he said. He was so excited that he abandoned the TV show and turned his attention to me. “Tell me what the surprise is!”

I’d managed to make things even worse. His expectations were now sky high.

“Please tell me, Dad!” He couldn’t contain himself.

“Honey, there isn’t a surprise. I just found out that I have to be at work for most of this weekend, and I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Okay…” he said, grinning, as if he was still expecting a surprise. “I can hardly wait until my birthday party.”

I felt awful, but there was no time to fix this. If I had any chance of ensuring he’d have many more birthdays to celebrate and that he’d grow up to lead a full life, I had to focus on the real horror I’d brought into his life: Dantès.

“Go ahead and finish watching your show,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll go home and pick up some of your clothes, then head to Jenna’s.”

When I walked back into the living room, Lee was just stepping out of the hallway. “Quincy is dead,” he said. “A drowning accident a few days ago.”

I didn’t quite feel the shock I should’ve, nor sorrow. Probably because I was still reeling from the revelation that Dantès had murdered Lucy. My reaction was cold and analytical. “It’s another clue from Dantès.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t, but I was sure it was.

“So, do we go down to North Carolina and check it out?”

“We need to find out more about it first.” I already had the sense that the web of clues I’d have to follow to uncover Dantès’s real identity would be dense, so no stone could be left unturned. On the other hand, we also didn’t have time for a wild goose chase to North Carolina.

“While I’m taking Nate to Jenna’s,” I said, “will you find out everything you can about Quincy’s death? I’ll be back in less than an hour, and we can head to Cold Falls.”

He nodded, and our unlikely partnership was born.

At the house, I packed some clothes for Nate and asked him to grab a couple of his toys and books. Then we headed to Jenna’s.

I didn’t take the most direct route in case Dantès was watching us. My circuitous course took us into the parking structure for the Ballston Common Shopping Mall and through a neighborhood that was packed with dead end streets. If you didn’t know the neighborhood well (and I did), even with navigation in your car it was almost impossible not to get to lost.

But the whole ruse made me feel like a fool. Lee had summed it up best. Did I think I worked for some kind of covert ops outfit? Did I think I could outwit a killer who knew so much about me? And even those thoughts themselves seemed absurd. How could things in my life have changed so much in the course of a couple of hours?

The past isn’t dead
.
It isn’t even past.
That’s how. My long ago transgression had come back to haunt me.

Nate didn’t say anything about the long and winding route to Jenna’s, and I was glad I didn’t have to explain it. But I wasn’t glad about his demeanor. He seemed lost in thought and didn’t chatter at all. I hoped he hadn’t picked up on the fact that I was in crisis mode again, like I’d been right after Lucy’s death. Of course, I had never really shifted out of crisis mode, had I? Wasn’t that why I’d become a distant father?

Jenna opened the door to her townhouse and greeted us warmly. In that instant, I knew I’d made the right decision. She was a petite brunette who radiated enough positive energy to light up any room—and Nate would be bathed in that positive energy instead of in the gloom that emanated from me.

She showed us to a spare bedroom, which Nate immediately liked. The walls were light green, his favorite color. Lucy and I had promised to paint his room green, but we’d never gotten around to it. I unpacked Nate’s suitcase while he laid out his toys and books on a dresser. Then he went on to explore the rest of the townhouse while I filled Jenna in on the one thing that might cause a problem, using another lie to do it.

“I’m having a hard time getting a flight back from the conference on such short notice,” I said. “So I may not be back by Sunday.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “He can stay here as long as you need him to.”

“I appreciate it, but it might not be okay with him. His birthday is on Sunday and we planned a big birthday party. If I can’t get a flight back, I’m going to cancel it, and he’s going to be crushed. He’ll be inconsolable.”