The Weight of Blood (92)

By the time Ken Scott Senior arrived at the command center, all hell had broken loose. We were doing everything we could to bring the backup generators on. We had enough power for another thirty minutes before we’d have to evacuate. Phil Dung came in. Said the town was on fire. That there had been an accident by the prom and kids might’ve been trapped. Poor Ken, both of his kids were out there. We all told him to go on, but he insisted on staying. Said he had to save his family.

The meter shot up another ten K. We couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There was more than enough water to keep the system cool for at least another two hours. But the temperature kept rising every fifteen minutes or less. It peaked, and Ken was just about to hit the evacuation command when the meters started declining and stabilized, quicker than quick. I remember looking at the time, 1:12 a.m.

I kept thinking about what Phil had said about the town burning, and so we ran up to the roof deck. You could see fires everywhere—a ball of them in the distance. Didn’t even hear Ken behind me, but he took one look and broke down crying.

Other than the power going out, I don’t know what that Maddy girl would’ve had to do with the system failure. But that generator had multiple system checks that month. I supervised two of them myself. All passed with flying colors. So I can’t say for certain what went wrong.

But I did see something else kind of strange that night—when I was standing on that roof, I remember looking up and seeing the sky full of crows; just a blanket of them, circling, as if looking for the right place to land.





Twenty-Eight


MADDY DID IT

EPISODE 11

“Wendy: Part 2”

Michael: There’s a lot of conflicting reports about who was really responsible for the paint. Do you have any idea?

Wendy: Don’t think it matters at this point. Some could say we all poured that paint on Maddy.

Michael: Okay. So . . . where is Kendrick Scott?

Wendy: Ha! Your guess is as good as mine.

Michael: There was record of him being in the hospital the night after prom, but then he went missing. You were his last known visitor.

Wendy: I’m aware. And like I told everyone before, they got it wrong, ’cause I went looking for him and couldn’t find him.

Michael: So you really have no idea what happened to him?

Wendy: If I did, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier. Look, you haven’t asked me a unique question yet, and I’ve told you everything that I know.

Michael: Alright. Who is Mireille Germain?

Wendy: I . . . got no clue.

Michael: You don’t know the name?

Wendy: Am I supposed to?

Michael: Mireille Germain was a live-in nurse who worked for a family on the East Side of Springville. That family referred her to Thomas Washington. Her last known address was in Beaufort, South Carolina, about a year before prom. Then, she seemed to disappear. Wendy, there are cell phone tower records pinging you near a Greyhound station in Greenville. On Prom Night, a Boston-bound bus left the Greenville Greyhound station at four a.m. It made stops near Beaufort.

Wendy: Hm. Did you ask the driver if he saw Maddy? Or if anyone saw Maddy that night?

Michael: Well . . . no.

Wendy: So you’re making assumptions that any bus that just happened to stop in the state of South Carolina had Maddy on it?

Michael: Well, not exactly. These are theories, of course.

Wendy: Doesn’t seem like you can prove any of these “theories” to me.

Michael: But the cell phone records put you in the area.

Tanya: Wendy . . . I have to agree with Michael here. Given the updates in forensic data analysis, they can track your phone via pings off cell phone towers within a mile radius.

Wendy: No one’s cell was working right that night. You even mentioned that on this little show.

Tanya: But it looks like yours was once you were away from Springville.

Wendy: Why are you looking at my cell? Isn’t that an invasion of privacy or something?

Michael: It was a part of the commission’s investigation. They didn’t have evidence, outside of the cell phone records, of you being in Greenville. But that CCTV video proves you were indeed there. Once we linked the times with the bus schedules and tower pings . . . it’s very clear you were in Greenville only mere hours after you were last seen at the Barn.

Wendy: Look, I don’t know what to tell you. Yes, I was in the Barn. Yes, I went to Greenville. But I didn’t carry Maddy to some bus stop. I’m sure you’ve heard by now how she basically threw herself at my boyfriend and he fell for it. She also killed just about all of my friends worth knowing. So no, I didn’t help Maddy escape. Why the hell would I help her? Maddy never left Springville. As far as I know, she burned along with the rest of the town.

Michael: So you don’t think Maddy’s alive?

Wendy: It honestly doesn’t matter what I think. Dead or alive, everyone thinks what happened is my fault. Whatever way I thought I was helping her did more harm than good. Hell, if I could go back in time and take it all back, I would. But I can’t. No one can. Maddy is where she needs to be and we’re all safer for it. Let’s just leave it at that.

FROM THE SWORN TESTIMONY OF SHERIFF PETER WEST

In my fifty-something years, I ain’t never heard that alarm at night. Woke me right up. Radios weren’t working, lights were out . . . I just knew there was trouble.