Hazel
Hazel regretted driving up the Peninsula the moment she turned onto M-22. The rain, a sprinkle in town, had become a practical monsoon as she crept along the curvy roads. She stopped twice when the windshield became a mass of pouring and pounding water.
When she pulled her car back onto the road, the rain had slowed. A steady drizzle kept her windshield wipers working. She passed Sapphire Lane and slowed at the curve, eyes drifting to the edge of the forest where sightings of Susie had occurred.
As if conjured by her thoughts, a young woman with long blonde hair burst from the woods. Hazel slammed on her brakes, believing for a second that she was witnessing Susie’s ghost, but then another woman staggered from the trees. Her dark hair was plastered against her face, her eyes huge in her pale face.
“Orla,” Hazel choked, jumping from the car.
Orla and the blonde woman clung together, their faces bruised and scratched.
When she looked at Hazel, she didn’t seem to recognize her. Her mouth hung slack, but after several seconds, her eyes cleared.
“Hazel?” she whispered.
Hazel rushed to her friend.
“You’re alive, you’re alive,” she murmured, holding Orla as if she might vanish at any moment.
Orla nodded into her neck and then pulled away, shooting a frightened glance into the woods.
“We have to call the police.”
Chapter 51
Abe
Abe woke in an unfamiliar room. He blinked at the dimmed lights overhead. A bandage partially covered the right side of his head and he reached a hand up, gingerly touching the wound. An IV ran from his left arm to a tall metal pole holding a saline bag.
“I fucking survived,” he murmured, remembering those final moments in the forest as the hammer swung down.
“Yes, you did.” The woman’s voice startled him, and he sat up, wincing at the stab of pain behind his right eye.
The bandage blocked her from view. He turned his head to find Orla in a chair beside his bed.
She’d braided her long black hair and hung it over her shoulder. She sat with her legs pulled into her chest, her chin resting on her knees. On the table beside her, he saw the wrinkled photograph of Orla cradling the kittens in her lap. He had been carrying it in his back pocket when he’d run into the woods.
He offered her a smile.
“You did too,” he murmured.
“Thanks to you,” she told him.
He shook his head, grimaced at the pain and lay still.
“No. I saw you escape. I probably gave away your hiding place by following you to the kiln.”
She untucked her legs and scooted her chair closer, putting her hand in his.
“I’m Orla,” she said. “Hazel told me all about you.”
He closed his eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Orla. I’m Abe.”
Liz
Liz watched Orla’s mother. Fiona’s face was frozen, her eyes boring into the car. When Orla stepped out, Patrick grinned, but Fiona’s face crumpled. Her small mouth drooped and her eyes gushed tears.
“Orla,” she mouthed and took a step.
Orla ran to her parents, her arms out wide. Fiona fell into her daughter’s arms. An animal wail left her body, and Patrick reached down and braced a hand around his wife’s waist to keep her from falling.
Liz’s breath had left her body. She couldn’t move or speak. Her gaze was fixed, unable to shift from the scene unfolding, knowing, knowing why Fiona had collapsed, why she’d wailed at the sight of her beautiful - living - daughter.
“Liz,” Abe murmured her name. He’d stepped from the car, and stood beside her. She hadn’t even noticed him.
She turned and saw the sadness in his face. He too would be celebrating Orla’s return, but there were so many who would never return.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, reaching up toward the bandage on his head, but not touching it.
“Better than okay,” he said, gesturing at the scene before them as Orla folded into her parents’ embrace.
Liz held her tears in check, strangled her own sobs and leaned against Abe, crying quietly into his shoulder.
Abe
Deputy Waller shuffled Abe into the viewing room. Several other officers and detectives huddled together, watching the interrogation of Virginia Crow. Detective Hansen of the Petoskey police department took the lead.
“I want to see my son!” Virginia Crow demanded.
“He’s at the hospital being treated for a head wound and shock. Afterward, he’ll be transferred to a cell right here,” Detective Hansen told her. “And I understand you’d like to speak with your attorney. He’ll be here shortly. Though I must warn you, we’ve discovered bones in the kiln on your property. A lot of bones. I’ve met some slick lawyers in my day, but you won’t be wiggling out of this one, and neither will your son. Tell me, Mrs. Crow. Is Spencer your first or second-born child?”
She ashed her cigarette, her face pallid beneath the florescent lights.
“My second son. Dr. Crow’s son.”
“I see. But you also named your first son Spencer?”
Her lips curled back from her teeth and she glanced away, blinking rapidly as if for a moment she’d seen him, that original child, watching her from the corner.
“Was he in the kiln, Mrs. Crow?”
She laughed a high, shrill sound.
“I didn’t burn him alive, if that’s what you mean. He was dead already. He died a week after I had my second son.”
“How did he die?”
She took another drag on her cigarette, and pushed a finger in her mouth, chewing the nail to a point.
“The real-life Adam’s Family,” another detective in the viewing room murmured.
“Natural causes, I’m sure,” Victoria sighed, as if she’d grown bored with the whole affair.
Hansen opened a folder and spread the doctor’s notes fan-like across the table.
“Administration of barbiturates, injections of insulin, submersion in freezing water, solitary confinement for hours. The child died before two years of age. You know what I would call that, Mrs. Crow? Murder.”
She glared at the pages.
“He was weak,” she hissed. “If he’d have been stronger, stronger like Spencer was…”
The detective stared at her.
“Are you telling me you did these things to your second son as well?”
“Where’s Byron?” she demanded, ashing her cigarette on the table and ignoring the ash tray.
“I was about to ask you that, Mrs. Crow. He was last seen at the asylum earlier today. His vehicle is still there, but no one knows where he’s gone. We have an eyewitness who saw Doctor Crow being escorted into a dark van by several men.”
She frowned.
“Tell me about the brotherhood, Mrs. Crow.”
Abe watched the woman lift her eyebrow.
“What brotherhood is that?”
Detective Hansen sighed and slipped off his blazer, hanging it over the back of his chair.
“Ben Stoops, the young man who has lived with Byron Crow for nearly two decades, spoke of a brotherhood at the Northern Michigan Asylum.”
Virginia rolled her eyes.
“The young man comes from schizophrenics. You can’t believe a word out of his mouth.”
Abe’s head had begun to ache, and perspiration coated his face.