Ren pulled me to the side. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs, and his fingers were soft on my cheek. “It’s okay, Della. I agreed to go with them. It’s all right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…something has come to light, and this might be the fastest way to clear this up.”
John stepped forward. “Wherever you’re taking Ren, we’re all coming.”
The officer shook his head. “Sorry. It’s over an eight-hour drive. Mr. Wild has agreed to accompany us, but no others.”
Ren lashed an arm around me, kissing my temple as he turned to face the policeman. “Bring her.”
“What?”
“Please,” Ren said. “She has a right to see it.”
“See what?” Cassie asked.
The officer ignored her, staring at Ren. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
Ren pointed at the manuscript weighing heavily in the cop’s hands. “That is our tale. That is our truth. Della is my truth. And she deserves to know.”
I couldn’t stop shaking, cuddling into his side. My future hung in the balance, and the officer looked at John as a friend rather than a law enforcer. “I can’t take you all. There isn’t enough room.”
John’s chest puffed up. “We’ll drive ourselves.”
“No.” Ren shook his head. “This is something Della and I need to do on our own.”
“Do what?” Cassie asked, finally earning the attention of everyone.
The officer shot a look at Ren then me, before he admitted, “The Mclary’s are dead. Their estate is still untouched, and Mr. Wild has agreed to help us with this investigation.”
Dead?
I shuddered harder.
Parents who gave me life.
Parents I hated more than anything.
Gone.
“She’s coming.” Ren straightened. “Or I’m not.”
How were they dead?
How long had they been dead?
All this time they’d been a dark, devilish stain chasing us across the country.
Before I could ask what any of this meant, the officer slowly nodded. “Okay. She comes.”
Marching toward the cop car with my words in his hands, and the second officer who’d arrested Ren last night sitting patiently behind the wheel, he added, “Let’s go. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
* * * * *
I can’t explain the feeling of being chauffeured in the back of a police car for eight hours.
Every traffic light we stopped at, people peered inside, sneering at us, believing we were criminals. Every bathroom break and snack grab were met with leery stares and confused looks as to why we weren’t handcuffed.
Six hours into the trip, we found a diner on a lonely stretch of road and shared an awkward dinner. As we ate our meals, the waitress couldn’t take her eyes off Ren as if he were some infamous outlaw that only made him all the more attractive.
I don’t want to mention how jealous that made me. How petty I was, even then, to be angry with women for finding Ren as handsome as I did. Little did they know I still had his kisses on my mouth and his orgasm inside me.
Those were my secrets, and I clung to the knowledge…doing my best not to fear what we were driving to, and what would happen when we got there.
Martin Murray, who introduced himself as we pulled away from the police station, was quiet in manner and talk, leaving his fellow officer, Steve Hopkins, to fill in the gaps.
Not that there were any gaps to fill as no one was in the mood for conversation.
Ren and I shared a few lingering looks, a few whispered sentences, but silence had infected us, too, our thoughts already in the past—the past we were driving across country to.
When we finally arrived in some quiet country town with a bedraggled Main Street, sparse unloved houses, and a church with a wonky cross, Officer Murray drove straight to the small satellite office of the local law enforcement, and together, we all sat down with Bob Colton and Remy Jones—two more officers who were the first to the scene of my parents’ death—and chatted about tomorrow’s adventures on no sleep, lots of coffee, and a long journey.
Bob Colton had already collected the keys for the Mclary farmstead from the bank who were looking at possibly demolishing the house and sub-dividing the land—seeing as no one was interested in buying such a big place that needed so much work.
Then again, we were there to enlighten everyone on what truly happened at that farm. And it would be yet another reason it wouldn’t sell.
On the drive over, Martin had filled me in on what he’d told Ren.
About what my mother did to my father.
About the empty house where two corpses had lain rotting for weeks before someone reported the stench.
About how, when the forensic team combed the house for clues on why my mother had murdered my father, they hadn’t found a single shred of missing children, malicious abuse, or a barn full of bought employees.
That worried Ren. I could tell.
The crease between his eyes never stopped frowning. His eyes dark and turbulent.
If they’d been alone when they’d died, where were the kids? Had they sold them or killed them?
Those questions squatted in my mind, making sleep impossible as we were put up for the night in some dingy motel with only cold water in the shower and a single towel to share.
At least, they’d given Ren and me the same room.
There was no talk of what we were to each other, or if it was illegal for us to stay together, or what the hell all of this meant. For now, everyone was focused on finding out where we’d truly come from and just what Ren had endured.
A policeman sitting outside our door was the only sign we weren’t just guests on this little foray and Ren was still a suspect.
When Martin had surveyed our room and stepped outside to leave us to it, he pointed a finger at Ren and said, “I’m trusting you not to run, boy. You came here freely. Continue to be cooperative and this will be smoother for all of us.”
Ren nodded as the door closed, and I whispered under my breath, “His name is Ren…not boy.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
REN
* * * * * *
2020
THE FIRST STEP onto Mclary’s property filled me with a complex recipe of emotions.
Hate.
Horror.
Rage.
It felt as if I’d only left yesterday, yet the house was smaller than I remembered, the tractors not as scary, the barn not as huge and hungry for tiny children.
With our entourage of two officers from home, two officers who’d overseen the murder/suicide, and another two for good measure, Della and I were as popular as we’d ever been.
We all moved down the muddy driveway past rotting bales of hay and around a pile of scrap iron to the front door where I’d bolted with a baby Della clinging unseen in my stolen backpack.
Della slipped her hand into mine as we crossed the threshold into the house, and just like that, I was a ten-year-old kid again.
My world narrowed to terror.
My throat constricted.
My body reacted.
Bruised and beaten, starving and sad. Ghost images of a screeching Della ripped my head toward the kitchen. Long ago echoes of a TV program showing what a real family was wrenched my head to the decrepit lounge.
Della felt my tension and squeezed my fingers, dragging me back to the present.
Coughing, I gave her a grateful look, forcing myself to stay in the now.
“How do you want to do this?” one of the officers asked. I didn’t know which one, and I didn’t care. I merely drifted forward, clutching Della’s hand, taking comfort in the thud of my boots and the reminder that I wasn’t ten anymore.
No one could hurt me again.
They were dead.
Good fucking riddance.
“Where’s the box of evidence that you guys gathered in the murder/suicide investigation?” Martin Murr
ay asked, leading the officers into the kitchen where notepads came out, and a box was brought in from a cruiser and placed on the well-used bench.
“This is all we took. Some bank statements. A few IOUs from a local feed store. An unpaid invoice for a tractor service, along with this.” Remy Jones, a middle-aged pot-bellied man held up a red notepad that had been curled and rolled with an elastic band and a pen jabbed in the pages. “We figured she killed him and then herself because they were up to their eyeballs in debt, and it was only a matter of time before they lost everything. She blamed him for their lack of fortune; couldn’t be bothered struggling anymore. Bang, bang.”
My eyes locked onto the notepad as he waved it around with his stupid conclusions. Mrs Mclary didn’t shoot her husband for something as useless as money. She shot him because she’d had enough of him raping girls. Maybe in her twisted mind, she thought he cheated on her, or perhaps, she’d finally woken up to how fucking horrible they were and what they were doing to kids.
Either way, she’d killed pure evil and then done the world a favour by eradicating herself, too.
I tried to look away from the notebook as the officer flicked through its pages with a scowl. “This thing makes no sense, though. It’s just a bunch of numbers with prices beside it. Four hundred here. Two hundred there. A thousand dollars a few times, but that’s rare.” He shrugged, tossing it back onto the counter with a slap. “Must be another IOU book, or maybe how much they paid for stock?”
No one seemed interested in answering him, but I couldn’t tear my gaze off that damn red notebook.
Something familiar…something tugging me to tumble backward through time.
Red.
Pages.
Pen.
The farmhouse fell away, replaced with an older version—a version where Marion Mclary still lived, and she sat rocking on her rocker by the grimy window, her spindly hand scribbling.
I’d been tasked at lugging in firewood. Load after load until my arms shook and my shoulders threatened to pop from their sockets.
She hadn’t cared.
On and on she rocked, writing in that little notebook before creaking her way toward the bookcase that lived in a shadowy part of the living room.
The past and present blended as I followed the tug of my feet, leading me toward the bookcase that still groaned under the weight of cookery books that were never used and auto mechanic magazines that were torn up as fire kindling.
“Ren?” Della asked softly, but I wasn’t really there with her.
I was in an in-between world. A place where I was neither thirty nor ten. I was plasma, merely a figment as I reached for the book where I’d seen Mrs Mclary stuff cash that afternoon before swatting me around the head for spying.
Pulling the Bible free, a few coins tinkled inside as I released Della’s hand and flopped open the Book of God. Inside, instead of silky pages of testament, someone had hacked away and created a box—a carved out section for secrets.
Martin Murray came up behind me, muttering something to his colleague as I gingerly reached in and held up a matching notebook to the red one he held, except this one was black, sinister, and dripping with filth.
Someone reached over and pinched it from my fingers, leaving me to stare at a few measly bucks and a chewed-on pencil in the Bible. Placing it back on the shelf, I shook my head clear from memories and re-settled into my current existence.
I expected the same hum of conversation from before. The same beat of footsteps as cops trawled the house. The same knowledge of safety that comes from hustle and bustle when you aren’t the main attraction.
Only, I kind of was.
Bob Colton scanned the notebook pages then gave me a strange, almost scared look. Snapping his fingers, he commanded, “The red notebook. Now.”
An officer scrambled into the kitchen, darting back with the matching notebook to the black one he held.
The moment Bob had it in his hands, he strode to the sideboard, shoved aside an old candelabra with decades’ worth of dripped wax, and spread out both booklets, his finger trailing one line of text before matching it with another.
“Oh, my God.” He flicked me another look. “Do you know what this is? How did you know where to look? You’ve been in this house five minutes and already found more than we did.”
Della gave me a worried glance, staying silent beside me.
This was the house she was born in, yet it was as foreign to her as it was familiar to me. I shook my head, swallowing a cough. “I saw her one day. Writing something. She stored cash in the Bible.”
“There are two hundred and seventeen names here.” Bob’s face turned to chalk.
“What do you mean?” Martin brushed up to him, skimming the same text.
I didn’t understand why both men suddenly looked at me as if I was some unknown specimen. Some sort of thing that shouldn’t be standing before them.
Martin swallowed hard, his face matching Bob’s in chalkiness. “You said there were ten or fifteen.”
“Ten or fifteen?” I questioned.
“Children. You said there were ten or fifteen children in captivity here.”
“Yes. At any one time. I have no idea how many came and went on top of that.”
“Holy fuck.” Bob Colton clamped a hand over his mouth and spun to look at his team. “Call for help. Cadaver dogs. Diggers. As many hands on deck as you can.”
Della asked nervously. “Wh-what’s going on?”
Martin’s grey eyes landed on hers, wide as full moons. “The two notebooks are a ledger.”
My heart sank to my toes. My lungs stabbed with pain. “She kept records?”
He nodded, beckoning me forward to glance at the two spread apart notebooks. “See? The red one has the line number and price. The black one holds the name.” His voice became unsteady with fury for all the children the Mclary’s had bought and hurt. “Number eight in the red notebook correlates to a girl in the black one called Isabelle May.” His uniform creaked as he murmured sickly, “They paid two hundred dollars for her.”
Della sucked in a gasp, her eyes dancing over text faster than I could, latching onto names, breathing them like a chant. “Duncan Scott, Ryan Jones, Jade Black, Monica Frost.” Her blue eyes glittered with malice for her mother and father as she snatched the notebooks and flicked the pages faster and faster, skimming and skimming until she finally froze, face tight, body stiff, hands shaking. “Ren Shaw.”
Icicles replaced my heart as my feet locked to the floor. “What?” My question was barely audible as Della read the number beside my name and tracked it to the number in the red notebook.
Tears spilled down her cheeks as the notebooks fell from her hands, and she threw herself into my arms. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars.”
And the farmhouse vanished.
And all that mattered was holding Della as we trembled together.
Because I finally had answers to whom I was.
I was Ren Shaw.
And my mother had sold me for a measly seven hundred and fifty dollars.
* * * * *
I suppose I had something to be thankful for.
For the past six hours, the Mclary farmhouse had become a hive of activity with cops buzzing and machinery humming and dogs sniffing.
I was no longer the suspect of a kidnapping investigation. I was the kid who should never have survived and, instead of side glances whenever I touched Della, I received thumbs-up for taking her away from this morgue.
Because it was a morgue.
In the past few hours, the cops who’d brought reinforcements from every county they could, who’d strung up police tape, and blocked off every way onto the property, had already found four tiny skeletons.
One beneath the veranda just tossed like one would a mouldy potato.
Two in the offal pit, boy bones with sheep bones and pig.
And one behind the house that had at least been partially buried with fingers sprouting through the grass
like a new species of weed.
No one noticed us anymore.
No one commanded us to leave or get back.
We were invisible as I led Della out of the farmhouse and toward the fields I’d toiled in for two years.
Funny, how two years had felt like an eternity back then but were nothing in the scheme of a life. Odd, how two years had scarred me so spectacularly, leaving gorge marks in my soul and unfilled holes in my psyche.
We didn’t speak as we walked hand in hand, ducking past digging cops, keeping a wide berth of dogs as they galloped from one side of the yard to the other, barking warnings that there were yet more bodies below the earth.
We bypassed two police who studied discarded building materials on the ground. One kicked a partial fallen wall with his foot, making it break into dust. “Shit, that’s asbestos.” Talking into a crackling walkie-talkie, he said, “Get a contractor here who’s qualified in contaminated removal.”
Spotting us, he pointed away, indicating to give the crumbling wall a wide berth. “Hazardous substance. Stay back.”
We didn’t speak, just merely drifted away, letting the farm guide us where it wanted to.
I didn’t know where we were going.
I didn’t care.
I just had to walk; otherwise, I’d explode with the tumbling, tearing feelings inside me.
I felt guilty.
So fucking guilty that I’d run and not tried to help the others.
I’d been selfish and afraid, and I should’ve done something.
But I hadn’t.
And now, the hundreds of missing children files would be stamped deceased and their families notified. Whether it was parents who’d sold their kids, or an evil uncle or aunt, someone would have missed the lives that the Mclary’s had bought, abused, and ultimately snuffed out.
At least, I hoped someone would because it was too sad to think otherwise.
Della’s hand twitched hot and tight in mine. We didn’t just hold hands; we held ourselves together as we traversed the fields and somehow, some reason, my feet turned toward the barn that had been my bedroom for so long.