Snow Creek(26)

Sheriff gives her an affirming nod. “What did they say?”

“Shooting at one of the malls in Tacoma. Case came in and crime lab gave them priority. Lots to process.” She looks down at her notes. “Late tomorrow. Next day. Can call in the morning for a better idea.”

The DNA results will only confirm what I know to be true. The Missing Person’s report and BOLO for the Wheatons will become a murder case with a chief suspect.





Seventeen





Regina looked at her wife and smiled reassuringly. They were still in the bed, curtains pulled, doors locked.

Regina got up and poured water onto a towel from a pitcher on Amy’s nightstand. Amy sat up and let Regina wash her.

“Feels so good. I wish we could go swim in the creek like we used to.”

“When you’re stronger,” Regina said, dabbing the moistened towel over Amy’s brow, then down her cheeks to her neck. Next, she put a very small amount of olive oil on her palms and worked it gently into her skin.

“Stop that, Reggie. You’re making me feel sexy.”

“It’s what I do,” she said.

Amy snuggled tighter against Regina.

“I’m so sorry for everything. Your eye. The things I said.”

A tear fell from Regina’s eye. She put her fingertips against Amy’s lips.

“Shhh… I don’t want to cover this ground ever again. We can be sorry and wallow in our own self-pity or we can move on and love each other forever. It’s what we chose to do, babe. Remember? We chose love.”

Amy didn’t say anything more.

Regina stayed quiet too. She had said everything that truly mattered. Their love was stronger than any disagreement ever could be.





Eighteen





This is how my brain works. Little things spark big things. It would be far easier for me if I could just forget. Forget who I am. Where I come from. That my brother hates me. That I haven’t had a boyfriend for three years—and that’s being generous. A one-night stand from a Tinder pick-up doesn’t really count, right?

Make that five years.

I think of Maxine Jacobson and all those cats. I think of Joshua and Sarah. The case is spooling through my head. The sweet potato vine. I grew one just like that when I was a girl.

I text Sheriff a reminder that we’ll need a search warrant.

We need to find the hammer.





DNA results will be all we need. Have a good night. Enjoying a bowl of rabbit food for dinner, wishing for a taco.





Your wife wants you to stick around. We all do. Good night, Bugs.





I reach for the next tape and slide it into the recorder. Dr. Albright is telling me to lie back and tell me what happened after we got off the ferry.

Me: Okay. I remember seeing the front page of the Seattle Times. It was right there, you know. Staring at us. It was our house. Our photographs. I remember the headline: “Port Orchard Murder Mystery Stuns Neighborhood. Father Dead, Mother and Children Missing.” (pause: noise of static on the tape) Sorry. Just thinking of how real it all became. I knew it was real, of course. It was that by seeing our photos and Dad’s name and Mom’s and reading what the neighbors thought of us. Just made it real.

Dr. A: I’ll need to turn the tape over now.

Me: Okay.





As I do the same, my mind wanders back to that time. How I looped through the ferry collecting all the newspapers and tossing them in the recycle box. I knew that I looked different than the photograph. Hayden too. But I wasn’t about to take a chance.

The tape starts playing again.

Dr. A: You were on the ferry. You were making a plan, isn’t that right?

Me: I was. Or I was trying to. I knew that the key I had since I was eleven was to the safe deposit box. I knew I had to get there. Hayden is only thinking about Mom and Dad. I was thinking about them too.

Dr. A: What were you thinking, Rylee, when it came to your mother at that time?

Me: At that time? Right. I was just thinking about how we needed to find her.

Dr. A: Why?

Me: Like I said before, I knew he took her. I knew that she was alive because he wouldn’t kill her. He wanted her. Killing her would take away his motivation. His reason for being.

Dr. A: Which was?

Me: Owning her.





I remember the reason for the long pause that fills the tape just then. Dr. Albright looked at me with a mix of horror and disbelief. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d said “owning her” with a bizarre casualness or if it was because the very idea of it shocked her.

That’s enough; I remove the tape and put it back inside its little clear plastic holder.

The breeze moves the kitchen curtain and the sound of laughter from the kids next door wafts into the room.

I was about seven when I first started to understand that we were a little different from other families. It might have been earlier, but when you’re not of school age, you don’t mark time the same way. Seasons blend together, and time seems to go on forever. No rituals divide the months. No back-to-school shopping. No carnivals. No winter breaks. I’m not even sure where we were living then, except I remember the smells of the country. Cow smells. A dairy farm was nearby. The land was flat, long and green all the way to the edge of the horizon. Later, I learned we had been living in eastern Nebraska, not far from the Iowa border.