Ashes of Another Life Page 6

  Something in Tara Jane snapped when Father spoke of mother’s death, as if it had been a punishment from God. A guttural sound like a mix between a wild animal and a monster erupted from inside her. Her vision swam. Rage coursed through her, hot and panicky, and her whole body shook. With one last, desperate effort, she kicked him as hard as she could.

  His fingers loosened for a moment, and a moment was all she needed. She delivered a blow to the only place she knew would incapacitate him. Father buckled over as her foot smashed into his groin, and now it was his turn to howl. The children watched from the bed, whimpering. Their cries worsened, and Tara Jane clenched her teeth and growled, a mother bear protecting her cubs.

  She swiped her leg under his feet in an attempt to trip him. He lost his balance but didn’t go down. He scowled, regained his footing, and locked eyes with Tara Jane. Not a hint of love remained in those dark, menacing orbs. They shook angrily in his face, distorted by the heat waves.

  She scrambled over to the bed and scooped a child under each arm. They were heavy, but she only had to make it outside, as far away from Father as she could manage.

  We will be free. We will never come back.

  She spun around. Her heart froze to see Father standing close. He shoved her with both arms, and she went flying onto the bed. Susie and Jackson spilled onto the mattress, and Tara Jane let out a sigh of relief, thankful they hadn’t hit a wall and sent molten debris raining down on their heads.

  He reached for her, but Tara Jane ducked under his arm. She dove onto the hardwood floor and landed on her side. Father spun around, flames dancing in his eyes. She couldn’t fight him. She had to get help.

  Black clouds distorted her vision. Her clothes were soaked with sweat, and her lungs burned, but Tara Jane pushed to her feet and ran. She looked over her shoulder as Father lunged for her. His muscular arms reached out and narrowly missed grabbing her arm. He gave chase, but his foot got caught on a pillow that had fallen to the floor. He lost his balance and tumbled down.

  The top of the door frame almost fell, but instead it dangled in the doorway, charred black, pouring embers onto the floor. She ran to the door and ducked under the hanging wood. She stopped, looking back.

  Father was on his knees now, sobbing, talking to God again. Jackson and Susie were huddled close to each other on the bed. They looked more frightened than she had ever seen them. At the thought of leaving them behind, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t make her legs move.

  My world, my whole world is trapped in that room with him. I can’t lose them.

  “I’ll get help,” she told them. “I’ll bring someone to save you!”

  Father leered at her and rose to his feet. Jackson and Susie never moved from the bed. It was getting hard to see through the smoke, but still, they looked so sad and innocent.

  She glanced down the hall toward the other bedrooms. Their screams were beginning to die out. A lump rose in her throat, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry or vomit. Instead, she turned and dashed for the front door.

  Black smoke filled the living room, but she managed to find her way, certain that Father would catch up any second. She fumbled with the door, flung it open and burst outside.

  She ran. The cool breeze felt magical on her skin. Her lungs were grateful for the fresh air. She fought the urge to cough, wetting her mouth with fresh saliva and swallowing hard. She had to keep running. Had to get help. They’ll die if I don’t. Please God, no. They’re only kids.

  When she had cleared the yard and was heading down the road, she looked back at the humble one-story home, filled with a flickering orange light. Flames flickered in the windows of the sister wives’ rooms, smoke filling the night sky.

  That’s when it hit her. The sister wives. Why hadn’t they helped the children?

  Unlike the children—whose rooms were simple additions built hastily into the largest bedrooms—the sister wives all had windows. They should have escaped and went back in for the children. But they hadn’t. Goosebumps rose on her skin. And she knew. They must have been obeying Father’s orders. Obedient unto death.

  The true horror of it weakened her, buckled her knees. She felt dizzy now, but no… she had to keep running. The nearest phone was five houses away.

  Tara Jane was seeing spots by the time she arrived, struggling to stay conscious. A fit of coughs exploded from her lungs when she finally stopped. She pounded on the front door, taking deep breaths between coughs.

  It’s too late, a little voice in her head said.

  She placed a call to 9-1-1 and ran the distance back home, hoping the firemen could save her family. She’d made a promise to Jackson and Susie that she would come back with help. Yet when help arrived, there was nothing left to save.

  Now, the memory of the fire had left an ache in her chest. Her heart ripped anew like mother’s hand-me-down dress Tara Jane had worn that night, the freshly mended hem ripping as Father dragged her down the hall. Her pillow was soaked with tears. She peeled the side of her face away from the cold, clammy fabric and sat up.

  Here in this new home, she had her own bed and a thousand opportunities to succeed. Her foster parents were good people who would do anything to make her happy. Still, she didn’t want this life. She pined for her old life. She missed her family, so much it hurt. Even Father, in some way, though she missed the memory of what he used to be and not what he had become. She sat with her knees pulled to her chest and gnawed on the thumb of her closed fist. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. She’d never felt so alone.

  She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could have done to save them. At least that’s what everyone said. “Tara Jane, you did everything you could,” Mrs. Wendell, her caseworker, had assured her.

  Tara Jane didn’t believe it. She couldn’t because it wasn’t true. Most people aren’t given a chance to affect the outcome of a loved one’s life or death. They don’t know how many times a person can run through the same scenario and find a thousand different ways to respond. Some days the guilt was so bad, it made her lightheaded.

  The love of a sibling is a special kinship, a comradery that on some levels holds a deeper sense of trust than any other relationship. An undercurrent of love, forever flowing behind the petty arguments and rivalries. The last time she had looked at Jackson and Susie, they were alive and trusting her to help them. No matter what anyone said, she had failed. In her brother and sister’s last moments, they had realized as much.

  Father hadn’t set the fire. The police let Tara Jane know this information as soon as they discovered it, thinking it might provide her with some peace of mind, but it did nothing to ease her pain. Father had kept his family locked up inside while the house burned to the ground. Nothing would ever make that okay.

  Tara Jane went over the circumstances leading to her family’s death, and she gritted her teeth.

  I don’t blame the police officers for the raid. They were only protecting the law. But the journalists, the media… they came to exploit us. They broadcast our private lives on every news channel. They are as much to blame as anyone.

  Federal officers had been shocked to discover the family sizes in Sweet Springs, some with as many as twenty wives and over a hundred children, but it was the media who took careful count as the children were removed from their homes, snapping photos. The secret lives of Sweet Springs residents were suddenly headline news, plastered everywhere.

  What people didn’t know was that the Family Services office, overwhelmed by the sheer number of children, had released them to their parents the next day. Quite simply, there were too many children to accommodate and the matter would have to be sorted out later.

  When Tara Jane had learned the fire was intended as a “prank” on the adults in the family, the arsonists who delivered the Molotov cocktails having no idea the children were inside, it only deepened her emotional wound.

  So pointless. And then another thought came, unbidden: If yo
u play with fire, you will get burned.

  None of that mattered now. She didn’t care about the arsonist’s vengeful, misguided actions. It was Father who was really to blame. Father, who saw the fire as a sign from god, a chance to avoid perdition.

  He hadn’t set the fire that had killed them, but he had burned his family alive. He’d been fasting and praying all day, asking God how he could keep his family together as the government tried to rip them apart. In his mind, this was the answer to that question. A fire, to cleanse them of a troubled life and carry them to the next. “It is the will of god for us to begin our next life together, before we are torn apart in this one,” he had told her.

  His anger for her that night, the insanity in his eyes, it was because he didn’t want her to go. He loved her, in his own deranged way, and he didn’t want to leave her behind. She knew this, but it provided little comfort.

  Father had taken everything from her.

  Chapter Ten

  Officer Robert McKelvey stood over the dead woman with his thumbs hooked through his belt, frowning. Her pasty lips looked crooked on her broken jaw, mouth open wide like she wanted to scream. He’d never get used to working homicide, not if “getting used to it” meant growing callous and detached like a good number of his colleagues.

  The two deputies who had directed him to the bathroom had since vanished, leaving him alone with the corpse.

  They think it will help me focus… help me tap into that sixth sense of mine. He rubbed his brow above his right eye, thinking, Not this time. Not today.

  He was good at what he did. He had earned the medals to prove it. He’d even been the hero of a few positive press releases (a rarity and a blessing). But once upon a time, he had thought his passion for justice was a common thread among all his peers, and now he knew better. In the long run, the force had fallen short of his childhood fantasies of police work. In moments like this, confronted by the corpse of a once-beautiful woman now covered in blood and laying in her own waste, he thought, maybe you’re not cut out for this anymore, old man. A nice, cozy desk is what you need.

  He groaned and rubbed his forehead. To others, he would appear to be nursing a migraine, but in truth he just needed to block the murdered woman from his sight, if only for a moment. His hands covered his eyes for a few ticks of his wrist watch. He dropped his arms to his sides and she was back again, her chalky skin drained of color and her slit neck yawning like the unhinged jaw of a snake.

  He turned away and barely recognized his own reflection in the mirror.

  That’s not you. Just an old man with bags under his bloodshot eyes and tears wetting his pitiful cheeks.

  He wiped them with his fingers.

  McKelvey had known this victim. He had spoken to her in person. He could picture her bright blue eyes, now clouded over, and hear her voice, forever silenced. She’d been a sweet young woman, the “bleeding heart” type with good intentions and infectious ambition.

  He faced the tub again. A lump rose in his throat.

  Who could do this? Why? Why do this?

  He closed his eyes and exhaled. He had to tell Rita, but he would wait until later this evening and deliver the news in person. Rita was the type of woman who would need an entire box of tissues and a two-hour shoulder-crying session after hearing this kind of news.

  Forensics gathered evidence as cameras flashed.

  In the other room, the victim’s self-proclaimed best friend kept mumbling, “This can’t be. This can’t be. Not Casey,” and weeping softly into her hands.

  When Casey wouldn’t answer the door for their weekly “Latte Night,” she had let herself in with a spare key. The neighbors said they could hear her screaming in the next building over when she stumbled onto the gruesome crime scene. She’d placed the 9-1-1 call but had barely been coherent with dispatch. Now, McKelvey understood why.

  He turned around and exited the bathroom, keeping his head down as he walked. The little boy inside him, the one who had always wanted to be a cop, who had played make-believe games of busting the bad guys—that part of him wanted to solve the case. But the other part of him, the weary part that had witnessed too much violence in his time, it wept for Rita, for Ms. Wendell, for Tara Jane…

  He made his way through the small group of analysts and officers gathered in the main room. The image of Casey Wendell and the red-stained bathtub stayed with him, still vivid in his mind. As he suspected it always would be.

  Chapter Eleven

  Randall tugged at the collar of his button-up shirt. It was a breezy May evening, but his long sleeves and undershirt stifled the effects of the wind. He tried to remain still as he crouched in the bushes, concealed by the rustling leaves. He was starting to feel itchy and discouraged.

  After he had left Casey Wendell’s apartment earlier in the day, it had taken him a while to find his way back to her office building. He needed to retrieve his SUV, but he didn’t want to drive his murder victim’s car to get it. Don’t be stupid, he had told himself. Rolling up his sleeves to hide the blood stains on his cuffs (there was nothing he could do about the splatter across his front), he had walked the distance back to the parking lot on foot, taking the turns he had committed to memory during their tense car ride.

  He had scanned the parking lot for any signs of police or Casey’s co-workers and slipped into his vehicle unnoticed. He wondered if the parking lot had security cameras. If it did, they’d catch up with him eventually. By then he’d be home, under the prophet’s protection. There were places in his community where a person could hide and never be found. A lot of folks didn’t even have social security numbers.

  Randall had arrived in this neighborhood shortly before nightfall, finding a shady cul-de-sac where he could park the Cherokee unquestioned by neighbors. He followed the sidewalk to the address on the Post-it note and gazed up at the spacious, two-story home.

  Is this it? Is Tara Jane really in there?

  The address jotted on that sticky note could be anything, but Randall had a feeling this was where he’d find the girl.

  At first he’d been happy to find a thick line of shrubs at the edge of the yard. But now, an hour had passed and he still didn’t have any idea what to do. He was desperate for a plan. He peered through the bushes, searching the windows, looking for signs of Tara Jane.

  A neighbor passed, walking a mutt who sniffed the air and barked in Randall’s direction. Randall held his breath.

  Keep walking, keeping walking. Lord, don’t let them see me.

  Through a mesh of thin branches, he saw the furry mongrel drool and sneer, looking right at him, but its owner yanked the leash, and the furry nuisance had no choice but to comply, trotting away.

  Randall took a deep breath.

  Thank you, Lord.

  He turned his attention back to the house and pursed his lips. The clock was ticking, and he didn’t know if Tara Jane was inside.

  And how will I get her, even if she is? It’s too late to pretend I’m a salesman or gain entrance to the house by friendly means. Besides, I’ve got blood on my shirt and nothing to sell. I’ll wait until they are defenseless, until tonight when they are sleeping in their beds…

  Headlights cut through the darkness as a vehicle pulled to the curb. The high-beams blinded Randall, who was beginning to feel like the bushes provided very little cover. He shielded his eyes and gulped as a Hispanic woman climbed from the car. Her black hair shined in the lamplight as she slung a purse over her shoulder. She closed the door and adjusted her shirt, paying no attention to Randall. She took the driveway to the patio and rang the bell.

  A pale woman with brown hair answered the door, and Randall strained to hear their conversation.

  The homeowner stepped outside and shut the door behind her. “Ms. Martinez. Thanks for calling. Do you mind if we talk out here? It’s such a nice night, and Tara Jane is just inside. I’d hate for her to overhear us.”

  The other woman nodded. “That’s fine. And please, call me Vaness
a. I’m wondering… how has Tara Jane been doing? She mentioned she’s not taking her medicine?”

  A solemn head shake. “That’s a complicated issue. I’ve tried to encourage taking the medicine. I have. She refuses to take it.”

  She gripped the porch railing tight, staring at the stars. Sighing heavily, she added, “Forgive me if this is wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it… but when I saw her anxiety building and her episodes getting worse, I started… putting the medicine in her food.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know. It sounds terrible… to do it that way, to force it against her will. But these are her prescriptions, prescribed by a doctor for her own well-being. No one sees how she gets when she has a nervous episode.”

  “I understand,” said Vanessa. “I’ve seen PTSD symptoms many times.”

  “It’s no use anyway. She’s stopped eating. I slipped in into her lemonade today… and I—I feel bad about it. All I want to do is establish trust with the girl, and here I am being deceitful.” Her voice shook.

  “Tell me, is it wrong? Should I allow her to refuse treatment? The guilt, it eats her up, and I can’t stand to see it.”

  Vanessa reached out and patted the other woman’s shoulder. “I understand why you did it. Tara Jane needs treatment. She’s on the verge of a breakdown. But she has to want help if we’re going to make progress. She has to take the medication on her own.”

  “But how can I get through to her?”

  “Patience,” said Vanessa. “She’s close, so close to a break-through.”

  Randall watched as they finished their conversation and eventually said their goodbyes. The black-haired woman walked past him for a second time, unaware of him watching her from the bushes. She started her car and pulled away.

  They are holding her hostage away from her true home and force-feeding her pills on top of it?

  His pulse quickened. These outsiders had no business meddling with one of God’s chosen children. He’d get the girl, tonight, and bring her home. No matter what.