The Follower Read online

  ‘What about now? Is he still in Roanoke?’ He’d take what he could get.

  She gave a low laugh, presumably more at ease now that he’d moved away from the sore spot.

  ‘No, thank goodness. He hasn’t been here in years. They stayed in town for maybe six months and then I understand there was some … trouble over at the campgrounds. Don’t know the details, but I gathered he and his girl had some kind of falling-out. He never mentions her in his letters now.’

  Adam could feel the color draining out of his face. What if he’d gone through all this trouble to track down her father, and now they were estranged? Or worse, what if that was an excuse he’d told his sister, and in reality he had finally killed the girl? An abrupt end of the line for Adam’s long quest.

  ‘He still writes you?’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘How else is he going to ask for money?’

  ‘So you do know where he is.’

  She sighed, stood up, and walked over to the window, where she stared out at the daffodils growing wild far down the hill below the house.

  ‘Listen, the one thing I don’t want to do is make my brother angry. He has a temper, still drinks. He’s unpredictable. True, I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I don’t know when he’ll turn up and what kind of havoc he’ll wreak in my life. I don’t want to have a mark against me in his book.’ She turned to face him.

  ‘Tell me the truth. Why do you want to find his daughter? Is she in some kind of trouble?’

  Adam paused, his mind running through all the possible excuses before landing on one he thought might work. He had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him anything if he mentioned murder. He needed a sob story.

  ‘No, not at all. The truth is, this isn’t a police matter. It’s personal. You see, I think we might be related through her mother. I haven’t been able to track her down, so now I’m looking for Laura Martin. My cousin needs a bone-marrow transplant and we can’t find a match.’

  She walked back to her spot on the couch, sat back down. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and hands clasped together. Her eyes softened.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And of course the family would love to meet her after all these years.’

  ‘Hm. Well, that girl probably would have been better off sticking with her mother’s people, truth be told. Or living with me. You know, I offered to raise her.’

  Adam surveyed the cozy room and his heart sank for Laura Martin. That news cast it in a different light. Things would have been so much better for her if her father had taken her up on the offer. Living here, in this peaceful, comfortable home, with this sane woman who was obviously capable of protecting them both, would have changed everything.

  She stood up.

  ‘Well, I doubt he knows anything about her current whereabouts, but hold on.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll tell you where he is. Might make up for some of his sins to help out in this situation.’

  She went over to the pale yellow painted desk in the corner of the room. It was covered with papers, which she shuffled around for a bit. She picked up a handful of envelopes and rifled through them, tossing the discarded ones into a drawer.

  ‘Here, this is the most recent one I have. He’s in New York. Way upstate, Rochester.’ She leaned in, squinting at the small print on the envelope. ‘Northwoods Resort.’

  Adam smiled at the name as he wrote it down in his notebook that he then slid into his front shirt pocket. He stood to go.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you want me to deliver any messages?’

  ‘I’d prefer it if you kept my name out of it, to be honest. Whatever he’s doing in Rochester, he should keep at it. I haven’t heard from him in over three months. No telling what kind of scam he’s running, and I don’t want to know.’

  Adam let himself out, careful to keep the screen door from slamming behind him, and drove directly to the regional airport. He’d sleep in his car that night to save money, and drive it back to the rental lot first thing before moving on. He needed to go back to Stillwater, then on to Rochester. More plane tickets, more rental cars, more rounds of scrimping on badly cooked diner meals.

  Adam had checked the balance of his bank account earlier that day. For the first time, he’d dipped under five thousand dollars. That wouldn’t last much longer at the rate he was spending money. If only those two had stayed in one damn place. Eventually he’d have to grovel to his mother, but even she couldn’t afford to keep him going. He wouldn’t be able to sustain this search much longer. He needed a breakthrough fast.

  At the airport, he watched the small planes taking off and landing. It calmed him, made the world seem so orderly to see them wait their turns on the runway before tilting out into the sky, filled with the hoi polloi on their way to dull business meetings, tense family reunions, and drunken sales conferences. Normal things. While he, he the defrocked and disgraced pseudo-cop, was wasting years of his life tracing an untraceable girl who’d brought a bloodbath down on a small town twenty years ago. He’d never shake the dark side, never be ordinary. He knew that even now, as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, whistling the killer’s tune from the old Fritz Lang film before he realized what he was doing and abruptly stopped.

  He shook his head. He mustn’t get discouraged. If he gave up now, everything would be for nothing. He’d never be the hero he was born to be, would never claim his birthright.

  Staring at the flat asphalt expanse before him as the blue-and-white runway lights flicked on, he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

  ‘Laura Martin, where are you?’ he whispered out to the jetway.

  CHAPTER 37

  They’d been at the new camp in Virginia for three weeks and Cora still hadn’t spoken to a soul there. She refused to go to school, figuring that by the time someone reported her to the truant officers, the academic year would be over anyway. For the most part she barely left their tiny kitchenette, spending the bulk of her days hugging her knees in the corner by the sink going over the events of the previous year in minute detail. She was looking for the mistake, trying to figure out how everything had gone so wrong. It was her own fault, she knew, and now she had to puzzle out a way to tame this destructive power of hers.

  Meanwhile her father left her alone. He didn’t want to face their day-to-day practical concerns any more than she did. They were trapped in the nuclear halo of what happened, still disoriented and confused. He watched her quietly out of his watery, blinking eyes, waiting to see who would make the first move in this delicate dance of theirs. They simply didn’t know how to relate to one another now. Neither seemed able to decide whether to address the murders head on or to tacitly agree to let those horrors lay buried in Stillwater.

  Cora knew that same set of memories must be swirling in both their heads. Tying them to the chairs, the panic and screams and tears. Surely he thought of that same moment that played for her on repeat: her father’s hand gripped around her own, forcing the blade into Reed’s flesh. She hadn’t wanted to do it, but she was guilty just the same. She hated herself for her weakness, for her stupid missteps that had led them straight to catastrophe.

  Her father too must wake with a start each day, ripped from sleep by violent images of blood and bone and flesh. He must be feeling the same sinking regret that flooded into Cora’s heart with every sunrise. The ‘if onlys’ that tried to erase it, but never could, bubbling up like foam in a flooded stream. Those three faces, floating before them at night, when they wanted sleep. Maybe that was why their eyes couldn’t meet, why they took their meals at different times, why one left the trailer as soon as the other entered.

  Through all of it, she was surprised to find she missed the old place. As much as she’d tried to avoid making friends at that camp, she’d taken comfort in the familiarity of the hippie lady next door and the autistic kid three trailers down. They hadn’t exactly been family. Not exactly, no. But they were constant, and that kind of regularity w
as something she’d never had before Stillwater.

  She stopped herself. There was the name again. It echoed in her head because she knew she was supposed to have wiped it clean from her memory. The killings had made national headlines, if only for a day or two, but it had been enough to make her father paranoid. He’d traded their brand-new, though stolen, jumper cables for a beat-up transistor radio, and he spent half the day sitting out front with his ear glued to its speaker as it churned out static-y weather reports and news on the half-hour.

  The story had only been a brief mention at first and then it was gone, lost in a sea of other, more significant, tragedies. Domestic terrorism, chemical-plant explosions, hurricanes, avalanches, wars. No one cared about a few lower-middle-class kids stabbed to death in some forgotten mining town in the flyover part of America. At least not without a particularly diverting narrative to attach to it, like a pedophile ring or a cult killing or a known serial killer with a twisted M.O. Theirs looked by all accounts like an ordinary drug deal gone bad, so the media lost interest fast. Lucky for them.

  Her father started to breathe easier as time wore on without fresh news. They’d outrun it, it seemed, just like all his other more trivial crimes. She could tell it was bothering him though. He kept to himself more and even made sporadic yet feeble attempts to stay sober, attempts that sometimes lasted all the way until nightfall. Still, it had affected him deeply, she knew, and so she braced herself for the inevitable breakdown that would set their worlds rocking.

  Once the camp started to liven up after hours, he couldn’t help himself though. The warm weather came early in Virginia, and so did the campfire drinking. Lively shifted to rowdy and then to chaos by midnight, and her father seemed determined to be the drunkest of them all. It was how he could forget. Cora was envious of him for having that escape, but when, without a word, he passed her an open bottle of gin one night, she shook her head with regret. In truth, she wanted to remember. She deserved her punishment and wanted to feel its full effects, however painful and for however long it took.

  The heat got to her in a different way. Forced outside to escape the unbearable swelter of the trailer, Cora moved her sleeping bag over to one end of their patch of yard and built a provisional shelter out of their last garbage bag. She enjoyed staying there all night under the stars, reciting the names of the constellations when she had trouble sleeping. Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Cepheus. They sparkled above her the same way night after night, wherever she’d lived and whatever had happened, unchangeable, unfeeling, without regrets of their own.

  If sleep proved to be especially elusive, she’d get up and walk, sometimes for hours. The place grew still in the early hours of the morning when the partying finally subsided. She loved it there then, alone with her thoughts and the chirping crickets and the black night, stepping over the passed-out bodies of these forgotten souls who littered this dirty corner of nowhere.

  It was on one of those midnight rambles that she noticed a glowing light a few hundred yards from the edge of the camp, in the woods that were strictly off-limits. An orange sign posted on a black locust tree designated that area as private property, but somebody had strayed over the line nevertheless. Something was happening.

  A flicker of light shone through the twisted trunks. A rumbling voice mumbled quietly and a chorus of answering ‘amen’s called out from the shadows.

  She crept closer and crouched down behind the thick underbrush just outside the clearing. There were about ten scraggly-looking men and women of varying ages gathered around a blazing fire, sitting cross-legged on the ground, their eyes closed and their hands clasped in prayer. One ethereal-seeming man stood at the edge of the ring in a filthy long white robe. Their leader, she presumed. A golden amulet the size of a half-dollar hung from a bright red ribbon around his neck. His long hair and beard covered his face except for his glittering eyes, which avidly studied his flock.

  His expression was stern as he muttered under his breath and made his way slowly around the circle. By his side was a thin girl, not much older than Cora, who trailed behind him with a large silver bowl in her arms. She wore a robe similar to his except hers was a faded army green. Her thick hair was wound into a demure bun topped by a coronet of flowers. She had a skittish air about her. Her eyes were locked on his, as if waiting for a secret signal. Every now and then he dipped his hands into the bowl she carried and then touched the forehead of one of his supplicants.

  Then his voice boomed out, ‘Though the world may judge you, I have foretold that the universe has its place for each of you, my Followers. A place where only the Spirits may distinguish between true rights and wrongs.’

  Cora rolled her eyes. She’d seen this sort of nonsense before. Missionaries were always roaming around the camps, handing out pamphlets, talking about God’s love, the kingdom of heaven, and the renunciation of earthly sin. Cora and her father had always ignored them, slamming the door in their faces if they dared to knock. They knew the drill. Half the time these wanderers were just trumped-up beggars with a well-practiced scam.

  With that in mind, Cora decided to leave before she was caught spying on them. She didn’t want to have to explain herself or fend off the inevitable offers of redemption and perfect peace.

  His voice rose up again: ‘Destiny! It is our destiny to differentiate between the sacred and the profane.’

  His congregation, such as it was, rose at his words, lifting their hands in mute joy. He gestured for them to sit, so he could continue in peace.

  ‘The earth is filled with both pleasure and pain. But we, the Chosen Ones, shall rule over all.’

  Cora had had enough but as she turned to go, she had to do a double take. She gasped, unable to believe her eyes.

  Her father sat in the circle, as enraptured as any of them. The preacher’s hands were crossed over his face as he chanted some ridiculous prayer or incantation.

  She realized then that she hadn’t actually laid eyes on him in at least two days. She hadn’t thought much of it, figuring he’d gone on one of his patented benders and had been crashing at that guy Leroy’s camp but apparently not. She stared at the scene, in awe this time, noticing how her father’s shoulders shook ever so slightly, the telltale sign that he hadn’t had a drink in several hours. And at this time of night? It made no sense.

  And lo and behold, there was Leroy beside him, looking up at their leader with what could only be called religious fervor.

  Had those two actually fallen for this? It was the last thing on earth she would have expected.

  She had to get closer.

  ‘The Visions have revealed the truth. They have sorted the mystical from the mundane. Hear the Words, and be glad.’

  Squatting down, she crept a few feet toward the circle under cover of the brambles. She didn’t recognize this man. He must have moved into the camp within the last week. There’d only been one spot over on the north side left with a proper RV hook-up, so he must have taken it.

  He was tall, late twenties she guessed, and, while he wasn’t handsome exactly, she could see his appeal to the crowd. He had a charismatic, seductive quality to him that she could read even at this distance. His voice had a soothing undercurrent, comforting and lilting until it would suddenly burst into a deep-throated thunder.

  Cora didn’t like this. No, she didn’t like it one bit. Her father wasn’t one to fall prey to these shysters. There was something dangerous about this man, something to watch and fear. Every nerve in her body was on high alert. Instinct told her to run, get out of there, get her father and move on to another camp.

  The hot night air shifted and blew her hair around her face. She pulled it out of her eyes and crossed her arms, rubbing away the goosebumps that had popped up. There was a strange energy surrounding her like a mist. She could feel it pulsing under the earth, flowing around her, carried by this wind. It wouldn’t let go unless she shook it off with force, unless she outpaced it, but she was rooted to the spot, immobilized by a strange sens
e of dread.

  Suddenly the man looked up in her direction. She was certain he couldn’t see her there in the dark, hidden by the thick forest, but she held perfectly still just in case. He paused in his sermon. Her heart beat faster.

  Could he see her?

  It couldn’t be the case but it seemed as if he was staring right at her, right through her, with eyes aflame. Then his voice bellowed out, exploding in a barrage of unintelligible words, a terrifying and mystical gibberish, some kind of dark, archaic spell in a long-lost language.

  ‘And so it is written in the dark book of Time,’ he ended with a wave of his arms.

  Everything was dead silent. Cora blinked once. Twice.

  Then, with that booming voice rising up at the end of each word, he called out her name.

  CHAPTER 38

  Cora didn’t hesitate. She turned and broke into a hard run, forcing her way through a netting of branches that seemed to close in around her, pulling her backwards toward the circle. She ignored the scratches on her arms and face and hands. She felt she was running for her life. Something there had scared her, shaken her to the core, and her fear drove her on, to get far, far away from it.

  Damn her father for getting involved with that man. Damn him for dragging her to this camp in the backwoods of hell. Damn them both for leaving Stillwater in the first place.

  She ran on until she couldn’t breathe, stumbling back into the camp and flying up the steps into their trailer. She slammed the door behind her, trying to catch her breath, trying to figure out a way to protect herself from the evil lurking on the other side of the door. The lock was useless and she had nothing to barricade herself in with. Even in that enclosed sealed space she felt vulnerable and exposed.