Page 54 of Cougar Point

“Well, he knows you. At least all he wants to know about you. I don’t guess I merited more than a cursory look.”

“So, what’s Lucas doing now?”

“I told him about Rebecca’s call. We promised to share information now.”Not.“He’d done some digging and the address Vinnie gave on his arrests was an empty lot in Custer, but it turned out to be a camper parked behind the tavern. He doesn’t live there. The owner let him stay in an old VW Bus camper. He did some work around the place but drank more than he was paid and took off. He came back the day after he was bailed out by your mom and paid cash for the VW. It’s gonenow and he hasn’t been heard from. No one here knows where he might have gone.”

“Can we trace the VW?” she asks.

“Tammy said it’s a ’68 or ’69 and gave me a description. Primer red paint with a cartoon wizard painted on both sides, and a florescent green grill. She unsurprisingly didn’t have paperwork on it and it didn’t have license plates. I asked her who she bought it from and she said she didn’t have a name. She’d let some guy park it behind her tavern to sleep in. He was gone the next day and left it behind, so she owns it. Finders keepers.”

“Sounds like it’s stolen,” Ronnie says.

Sounds like a circus vehicle. “I’m more interested in where Vinnie got the cash to buy it. She said she sold it to Vinnie for two thousand cash.”

The road is straight and the scenery passing by is making my eyes heavy. Too much Scotch.

“So my uncle is in the wind,” Ronnie says.

“Yep. Anything new at the house?”

“I left Rebecca with Dad. He said there was nothing new.”

It’s starting to get dark. I’m tired and the Scotch has taken its toll. “I know you want to keep at this, Ronnie, but we need to eat and get some rest. Let’s start early in the morning if you don’t mind?”

“You’re right. I guess we need to get a fresh start.”

I can tell she’s thinking about her mom being out there somewhere. Victoria’s scared out of her mind. Maybe hurt. Ronnie and Rebecca are frightened out of their wits. I can relate to that feeling. I was out of my mind with worry when I was looking for my own mother. Every minute spent sleeping or eating felt like I was betraying her. But I’m relieved I don’t have to try to talk to anyone else tonight. My stomach is talking trash to me. I’m worn out from my session with my mother yesterday morning and worrying about what poison she’s put and isputting in my brother’s head. I feel guilty about not pursuing my first thoughts about telling Hayden everything when he first got home from Afghanistan. Well, almost everything.

And I get a chill thinking about the story Lucas told about the Ohio kidnap victim. Maybe I’m making similarities up. I’m tired and a tired mind does what it wants.

I debate whether to tell Ronnie about the Ohio woman that was murdered, body dumped here, and what was done to her. It would only cause Ronnie and her family more distress than they are already going through. I’ll tell Ronnie in the morning and let her decide what to tell Rebecca and Jack. There’s no reason we both lose sleep.

We’re in our own heads until we get to Cougar Point. We say goodnight and go to our rooms. I strip and put my blazer and khaki pants under the mattress. Rebecca has laid out a toothbrush, toothpaste, water glass, thick luxurious towels and hair dryer. It was very thoughtful of her. The fancy high dollar shower is a treat. The water is hot unlike my sometimes-working water heater. The multiple shower heads can be set as a rain shower or can strip the skin right off your body. I like it hot and blasting. I get out, dry off, comb the tangles out of my hair, and brush my teeth before getting in bed.

The bed is just right. The pillows are soft and fluffy and numerous. The lights across the bay twinkle artfully.

My mind drifts back to the Ohio case. I haven’t had time to process what Lucas told me yet. I take out my phone and Google “Cincinnati,” “Greenwood,” and “Whatcom”. There’s only one news story on the case, in the CincinnatiEnquirer. I’m guessing there aren’t follow-up articles because there was no trial. TheEnquirerpiece relates some of the details Lucas relayed to me earlier: that a woman identified as Olivia Greenwood was found dead in a creek thousands of miles from her home. There’s a line at the end requesting that anyone with information contactsDetective MacDonald at Cincinnati PD. I make a mental note to call tomorrow, if I have time. Maybe MacDonald will be able to tell me why they couldn’t charge the husband.

In the meantime, I’m hungry and too wired to sleep so I rummage in my bag for the candy bars and chips. It’s been a long couple of days, and I’ve accomplished very little. Some hotshot investigator I am.

I put the wrappers back in my bag. This place is too nice for my tastes. My father was a killer. Ronnie’s dad is an asshole. We have some things in common. However she has a sister that loves her. I have a brother that hated me, but he’s warming. In another twenty years maybe he’ll forgive me. Ronnie just discovered her mom has quite a few secrets. I discovered my mother had been lying to me all my life.

THIRTY-SEVEN

I was twenty and a college student, when I first met Dr. Karen Albright, a psychiatrist who also became my friend when I most needed her. During my sessions with her, I poured out my soul and she helped me process my hideous history and the ideas that I was doing good while doing bad things. She taped these sessions and when I was finished therapy, she gave me a box of cassette tapes of the sessions and a tape player. I remember crying during that conversation and that was the first time I’d allowed my emotions to show. Crying was a weakness that my mother never allowed. I had to be strong and emotionless like her. Sure she could turn the tears on and off like a faucet, but only when she was manipulating someone.

I remember that conversation with Karen like it was yesterday. Karen said, “You’ll want these someday.” To which I’d responded, “I can’t see that happening.” She’d smiled at me and said, “Trust me. You will. The day will come when listening to the tapes will make you stronger.” I didn’t feel strong. She had put her arms around me, and that was the first time I’d allowed someone to touch me in that way and I welcomed the comfort. I knew it wasn’t goodbye forever. But it was my last therapy session; therapy that had spanned a year and a half. Atthat time I was graduating from the university with a degree in criminology and had enrolled in the police academy in suburban Seattle. But more importantly I was graduating from therapy. Karen thought I was ready. I wasn’t so sure, but Karen was the only person I could trust completely in life.

She was right about me needing the tapes. I’ve listened to each tape many times, and each time I’ve found answers I didn’t know I was looking for, some tidbits to help me solve a case, or just get through the day. Over the next several years I visited her sporadically when I felt like I was sliding back into the whirlpool of blackness.

The original tapes are still in a box in the bottom drawer of my desk at home, but I never felt comfortable with them being accessible to anyone else. For one thing, Hayden has a skill I didn’t teach him. He picks locks. I’ve come home and found him in my kitchen making himself at home. If he found the tapes, they would tell him everything about our past, about our mother, about our real father, about what I’d done. I don’t want Hayden to find out that way.

It took me several weeks, sitting at my desk, my iPhone recording what my cassette tape player was playing. But I don’t need to listen to the recording to remember the conversation with Dr. Albright.

Karen: Take your time, Rylee. I’m here for you. Let’s go through this together. You found your stepfather murdered? And your mother was gone. It was just you and your little brother. Why did you think your mother had been kidnapped?

Me: Hayden was on the floor kneeling in a pool of blood beside Rolland’s body. On the wall behind Rolland a word was written in blood.Run.

Karen: Tell me what the word ‘run’ meant to you back then.

---