Page 6 of Little Stolen Memories

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Not before he hit me. But after, when I was lying on the ground, he crouched down beside me, and I swear he whispered something in my ear. I figured he thought I was dying. Maybe I was … I don’t know how I survived when everyone else didn’t. The doctor told my parents the impact of the hit I’s taken wasn’t as hard as it was for the others.”

I jotted a few notes down, read what I’d written, and said, “Going back to the man, is there anything else you can remember about him?”

“One minute he was there, the next I was hit on the head, and I went down.” Cora swept a few locks of hair to the side of her forehead, revealing a scar. “Nothing like having a constant reminder of the worst night of my life.”

“Do you have any recollection of what happened after he hit you, other than the man bending over you and speaking to you?”

“I think I passed out. I don’t know how long I laid there, but at some point, I woke up. I didn’t move for a long time. I worried the man was still there somewhere, watching me. After a while, I worked up the courage to stand, and I made my way back to the cabin as fast as I could. I thought about Aubree and Brynn and hoped they were alive, but when I opened the door and stepped inside, that’s when I … when I saw them, lying side by side on the floor in the living room. Dead.”

CHAPTER 4

“They were all dead,” Cora said. “Everyone but me.”

Nothing I could say would ease the pain she’d experienced then and was still experiencing now, so I said the only thing I could think to say: “I’m sorry.”

Sorry didn’t fix things.

Sorry couldn’t change the past.

Sorry couldn’t ease her pain.

But it let her know I cared about what she’d been through.

“I still have nightmares about what happened that night,” Cora said. “I see Jackson, and Brynn, and Aubree. My nightmares are so vivid. They take me back to that night, and I find myself reliving what happened all over again.”

I crossed my arms, thinking about what it must have been like for her that night. Terrified, lying on the ground, wondering if the killer was still lurking around somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to strike again.

“What did you do after you found Aubree and Brynn?” I asked.

“I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife I could find. Then I called my parents. As I explained what happened, my mom became frantic. I couldn’t even understand what she was saying at first. She put my dad on the phone, and he told me my grandmother kept a pistol in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. He told me to get it and to lock myself in my grandmother’s room, because it was the only room in the cabin with a deadbolt.”

“Did you do it?”

She nodded. “I never even knew my grandmother owned a gun until my father told me. I’d never liked guns, but I knew how to shoot.”

“How?”

“My family went camping a lot when I was in high school. My dad would save pop bottles for our trips, so we could use them for target practice. He knew I didn’t like guns, but he encouraged me to learn how they worked anyway.”

“How far was the cabin from your parents’ house?”

“About an hour. Waiting for my parents to show up was the longest hour of my life. I remember sitting on my grandmother’s bed with the gun pointed at the door, worried the killer would jiggle the door handle, break through the lock, and come for me a second time. But he never did. I figured he thought he’d killed us all.”

A fortunate misjudgment on his part that saved Cora’s life.

“If I remember right, your father called the police, and Harvey Kennison was the first to arrive at the cabin,” I said. “He was one of the detectives who worked on your case. He’s also my stepfather now, though I presume you know that.”

“I do. Yeah, he got there a lot faster than I thought he would, about ten minutes before my parents. When he got the call about what was happening, he was closer to the cabin than they were.”

“Did he wait for backup before he entered the cabin?”

“I don’t think so. I remember hearing a door slam downstairs, and then a man started shouting my name. He said he was a detective with the San Luis Obispo Police Department. I remember hearing his footsteps as he walked up the stairs, and then he approached the door and knocked on it. He asked if I was inside the bedroom and if I was all right.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t respond at first. How was I supposed to know if he was who he said he was or if he was someone else? He let me know my parents were on their way along with some of his fellow officers. He said it was okay for me to open the door, but first I asked him to slide his badge under the door so I could prove he was telling the truth.”

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