Page 31 of Silent Ridge

“Dan, wait,” I say, but he is halfway to the door. I watch him leave. I wonder how a simple evening drink can turn into an interrogation. Welcome to my world.

Twenty-Seven

Across the street she can see inside The Tides. Rylee and her man are having what can only be a lover’s quarrel. Rylee only shows concern when the man leaves in a huff. He’s someone she cares about deeply. She watches him go to his truck and follows, thinking about the similarities between herself and Rylee. Rylee is strong willed. But so is she.

She only made it out of Ecuador because of her extremely strong will, not just to live, but to survive. Those two things were different. One was to barely hang on. The other was to do whatever it took to gain some ground. Because of her cunning, she was able to stow away on an oil freighter. Because of her survival skills, she traded whatever favors she had with the crew and so was brought ashore in America. A little the worse for wear, but alive, her stomach full, hope in her heart.

All she had were the clothes on her back. Little more than rags, except for a T-shirt and a too-big pair of work boots she’d stolen from the crew’s quarters. She ended up being sold as a laborer to an abattoir, a slaughterhouse for animals. Her station on the floor was at the end of the line. Cows’ heads hung from meat hooks and she would trim off the flesh.

The knives she has now, six of them, blades five to nine inches, each as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, are irreplaceable. A gift from Alex Rader when he saved her. He said it was to keep her senses sharp and remind her where she came from.

If she closes her eyes, even after all these years, she can smell the stench of blood, hear the impacts and grunts of the cattle as they were put down. She hated the sights of slaughter but it was a job that didn’t require identification. She was an illegal. She had none. They didn’t care where she came from or where she went at the end of her fourteen-hour shift. They paid in cash at the end of each day.

Her boss at the slaughterhouse took half of her pay for finding her. He allowed her to live in his basement with other girls but charged them rent. His friends paid him to have at her. She was sleepwalking through life. Horror became the norm.

Then her boss decided she could make more money working the streets in Seattle. He dressed her up and put her in his stable of girls. He told her she wasn’t attractive. She knew that. But what she lacked in looks she made up for in skills. During that time he got her strung out on heroin. Her life on the streets was tough, but she was tougher. Or so she thought.

Then the craving for drugs became more important than surviving. She lost weight. Her nails and hair became brittle. Then came the arrest and the beginning of a new life.

Now when she looks in a full-length mirror she can smile at what she sees. She has filled out over the years. Breast implants and time at a gym have transformed her once emaciated body into Alex’s idea of a beautiful woman. She still didn’t see it herself, but if he said it, that was enough.

Then the girl took him from her. When he was gone—murdered by the girl named Rylee—she discovered through an attorney that he had left everything to her. After his death, everything would have gone to his legal wife, with a small amount going to her. It would have been enough to buy a small place of her own. Enough to buy a decent vehicle. But the girl murdered Marie, his legal wife, too. The Raders’ wills left everything to her on the wife’s death.

Marie knew about her. They even met. Were somewhat friends. She is doing this for Marie as well as for herself, but mostly for him. For Alex. Rylee took everything from them. From her. She cares nothing for what she now owns. She’d give it all up tomorrow if she could have Rylee’s head on a meat hook, coming down the line, where she waits to flay that face down to the bone. It is her right. It is her duty. It is fitting that all of his enemies are killed with a knife. That was how Marie died. That is the way they will all die.

She will save Rylee for last.

Twenty-Eight

I walk to my car. I’m caught. Whoever is doing this is using my personal life to get to me. Taunting me. Exposing me. Distracting me from chasing them down. They don’t realize they’re just fanning the flames. I can always move. Take on a new persona, a new job, a new life. They’ll be dead.

When I get home, I go right back to the tape player.

Dr. A: Did the dream have meaning for you?

Me: Caleb told me one time that dreams were messages from your subconscious. I’m more practical than that, but I let him believe that I agreed. I hated lying to him, but I saw the lie as a way to get just a little bit closer to him. So if he was right and I was wrong—and I don’t like admitting it—what was that dream, that horrific dream, telling me? Was Selma me? Was Selma my mother? We’re both blond, not dark-haired like Selma. Our hair is straight, not the mass of curls of the girl running away from the van.

Then it begins to hit me. I roll out of the bed and go to the bathroom, where I sit on the toilet and cry. I am crying so loudly that I turn on the shower so people in the motel room next door can’t hear. In the mirror I see my mother again. Not a ghost or a spirit or whatever, but the essence of her in my face. I don’t say the words, but they move from my mind to wherever my mom is being held.

Hold on.

I’m coming.

I will make him pay with his life.

We will be free.

Dr. A: Did you have doubts? Weren’t you afraid?

Me: I was only fifteen—sixteen at the most. I’m a girl. I’ve never shot a gun or hurt anyone in my life. All the odds are against me except the one thing that my bio-dad could never count on. I am determined to be as ruthless as he is.

I put the tape player away. I’m done in. I need to sleep. I need to decide if I can be as ruthless as this killer. The answer comes right away.

Yes, I can.

Twenty-Nine

The next morning, on my way to the office, I think about calling Clay. I was caught off guard by his interest in me the other day. Actually, that’s not totally correct. I could sense something there before. And Ronnie said that she thought Clay was “sweet on me.” I don’t want to encourage that.

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