Beneath Devil's Bridge(73)

Clay clutches at his stomach. Blood pulses, oozes, hot through his fingers. His knees buckle under him. He tries to cry for help, but no voice comes. He staggers sideways, leans his body against the wall, but he can’t stand. Dizziness swirls. Slowly he slides down the wall, leaving a bright-red streak. He slumps to the floor. Blood pools out from under him. He watches it. Shiny and thick and red. It spreads and turns into a river on the antiseptic-smelling tiles.





RACHEL


NOW


Sunday, November 21. Present day.

The road into Mission parallels the long, brown, lazy Fraser River. There is no rain here, but heavy clouds scud across the sky. It’s midmorning, and time is ticking. Anxiety winds tightly inside me as I fist the wheel of my truck. I need to speak to Clay, get information from him before Trinity does. Now that I know who she is, I’m worried about her endgame. I fear that any half-truths she might broadcast before they can be properly followed up and validated could wreak serious damage. What is her ultimate intent? Does she actually believe her father is innocent of murder?

Does she want to exonerate him?

Or is it revenge she’s after?

Is she gunning for me? Or my family? Or does she just want a cracking podcast that will have a stunner of a climax when she reveals on air that she is baby Janie Pelley?

Does it even matter at this point? Should I have listened to Granger and just sat back and let unfold what may?

I clench my jaw. No. It does matter. I need the truth, too, now. The whole truth. Luke was right. There were, and still are, unexplained loose ends. It’s time to close off those ends, no matter what comes. For starters, I need to know which therapist Clay was seeing. I want to know what happened to Leena’s journal. And if Clay didn’t kill Leena, we all need to know who did.

Because if it wasn’t Clay, the real rapist-killer could have been hiding in plain sight, right in Twin Falls, all these years. Living and working among the community. Shopping for groceries, recreating, eating in restaurants, going to the doctor and dentist, borrowing books from the library. Or perhaps he was a transient and moved on. Or maybe he was a resident who left and went somewhere else, where he could have killed again. More than once. And we’d possibly let it happen by putting the wrong man behind bars.

I see a road sign. I’m nearing the prison. My pulse begins to race as I take the off-ramp.

Once I recovered from the shock of learning who Trinity Scott was, Joe Mancini told me that her mother, Lacey Scott, was in the advanced stages of early-onset dementia. He learned this after contacting the number listed for Lacey’s mother, Jocelyn Willoughby, and asking to speak to Lacey. Jocelyn said her daughter was in a care home. Joe then contacted the home to inquire about the patient. He also gave me Jocelyn’s number.

While parked outside the flooring store, I called her. She told me she could no longer keep Lacey’s secret. She said her daughter had lied to us. Clay had come home early that night, as he’d initially stated. Lacey lied in order to protect herself and her daughter. She wanted her husband taken away, especially after she found the child porn in his shed. In truth, said Jocelyn, her daughter had really wanted to kill her husband. Setting him up to take the rap for murder by lying about what time he came home was easier. It was an opportunity that had presented itself to a distraught young wife and struggling mother. Jocelyn said Lacey had, however, been telling the truth about the jacket showing up laundered and ironed. She also believed Clay had been sleeping with Leena.

My fists tighten on my truck wheel. I turn down a road. The correctional institution looms ahead.

What I don’t know yet—what Jocelyn Willoughby doesn’t know—is whether Clay Pelley is aware that Trinity Jane Scott is his child. As far as Jocelyn knows, her granddaughter, Trinity Jane, has not yet told him.

I pull into the prison parking lot, come to a stop, and stare at the building, the walls, and the fences topped with coils of barbed wire. It’s like all roads suddenly lead here.

All the answers are in there.

I don’t have an appointment, but I plan to get one. I reach for my wallet, then freeze as I catch sight of two people near a red van. Trinity and Gio.

What renders me motionless is not the fact that they are here, but the emotion in the vignette itself. Trinity’s producer is hugging her, stroking her back, and she seems to be crying and gesticulating frantically toward the prison building.

My heart, which was running fast to begin with, beats even faster as I think back to the call I got this morning.

Her daughter’s name is Janie Scott? Trinity Jane Scott.

Wind gusts and leaves blow across the parking lot.

Trinity puts her face in her hands. Gio draws her closer. She rests her head on his shoulder. Her body heaves. She’s sobbing.

My gaze remains locked on them as I reach for the door handle. I exit my truck. Slowly I walk toward them, the wind tearing at my coat, my hair, my scarf. A sense of doom unfolds in me, dark as the thunderous clouds muscling across the bleak sky.

They see me. Both go still. They stare. Their faces are white, their eyes wide as if with shock. Leaves clatter, crisp and frozen with frost.

“What happened?” I say as I reach them.

Trinity shoots a glance at the correctional institution, the coils of razor wire.

“What are you doing here?” demands Gio.

“He’s gone,” Trinity says. “Clayton is gone.”