Page 33 of Little Stolen Memories

“It would be confusing to know what to do,” I said. “I imagine I’d feel the same.”

I wouldn’t feel the same, but right now, I needed him to feel like I sympathized with the situation he had encountered.

“A minute passed, maybe two, and I decided to leave the girl and figure it all out when I got home,” he said. “I walked about twenty feet, and I found another kid. A guy this time. It looked like he’d been whacked in the head a lot harder than the girl had been. Blood was everywhere.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“What else, Danny?”

“I heard something, what sounded like a woman screaming somewhere in the distance. I listened for a minute, but I couldn’t figure out what direction it was coming from. I panicked. Someone else was in those woods, someone who was up to no good.”

Cora had said that she’d found Jackson right before she was attacked, leading me to believe they were the two people Danny came across that evening.

As for the screaming he’d heard, that could have come from Brynn or Aubree, in the last moments of their lives.

“After you found a second injured person, what did you do then?” I asked.

Danny hung his hand, shaking it back and forth and saying, “I ran. I ran as fast as I could back to my place. When I got there, I bolted the door, turned all the lights out, and I hid under the stairs all night with an axe in my hand, and my eyes glued to the front door.”

“Did you hear or see anything else during the night?”

“Not a thing. Not one thing. It was the quietest night I’d ever had out there. The next morning, I got in my truck, and I drove along the dirt road that led to some of the nearby cabins. I didn’t get far before I saw cops had swarmed Millie Callahan’s place. I thought they’d figured out what had gone on up there, and I wanted no part of it. I turned right back on around and got the hell out of there.”

“Just to be sure, you’ve never told any of this part of the story to the police before today, right?” I asked.

“Nope.”

We all sat in silence for a moment, taking in everything that had been said. Even Dorothy was speechless. Here was her brother who’d found innocent victims of a crime, and for fear of his own life, among other reasons, he left them there.

“I know what you’re all thinking,” Danny said. “I’m a coward. You think I should have been a hero, done more than I did. When I think back to the screaming I heard, I often wonder if I had the chance to save someone. I don’t know. But I could have tried.”

“Why didn’t you?” Dorothy asked.

“I’ve thought a lot about it over the years. The fear I felt was stronger than anything I’ve ever experienced before. I was terrified, worried someone would come after me like they’d gone after them. He was still out there. He could have been anyone.”

“So you did nothing,” Dorothy said.

Danny bucked out of his chair and jabbed a finger at his sister as he shouted, “Shut up! Just shut up! You have no idea what you’re going to do in a situation like that until you’re in it. Besides, it’s not like I saw anything that would have made a difference. If I had, it would be different.”

“Why tell me all of this now?” I asked.

He paused a moment, then said, “It’s not easy keeping something like this in for as long as I have. It’s taken a heavy toll. When I realized Cora was alive when I found her, and the guilt I’ve endured over that fact alone is almost too painful to bear.”

I thought back to the panicked look in his eyes when he’d opened the door and Dorothy explained who I was and why I was there.

“The way you reacted when I started questioning you earlier makes a lot more sense to me,” I said.

“Think about it. The case had gone cold, and I thought it would stay that way. Then you show up here with your questions, and I learn the case has been reopened.”

“And forensic evidence has come a long way since then.”

He pointed at me and said, “You got it. What if I left something behind when I tripped over Cora. A hair, or I don’t know … anything. I don’t see how I could have, but there’s this little part of me that’s saying, ‘What if you did?’”

Being at the crime scene right after the murders happened made him a viable suspect. If it turned out Silas was able to place him there through a piece of old evidence brought in for reexamination, I understood why Danny wanted to get out of town.

“I meant what I said before, about not pressing charges,” I said.

Danny looked at Giovanni and then me. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

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