39. The Shadow

THE SHADOW

E ven as I drove to Ava’s house to meet her, something didn’t feel right.

Like, I was missing something.

There were too many loose ends. Too many unanswered questions.

I knew it.

Ava might not realize it yet, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the last few hours, but she would.

Perhaps not today.

Perhaps not even next week once we were sunning ourselves on some far-flung exotic beach.

But one day, she’d wake up, the cracks in Dr. Vale’s story growing too wide, so wide that she would fall back in it.

I could only hope that I’d make her happy enough that she’d never want to return to this suffocating island.

The feeling grew even worse when I discovered the audio file that Ava had sent me on my phone .

I let it play over the Bluetooth speakers, my hands gripping the wheel so tightly that my knuckles went white, my jaw hurt from clenching.

I listened to her confronting Dr. Vale about her pills being memory suppressors.

I’d never forget what I inadvertently allowed to go on for that year Ava lived with us at my father’s estate. I didn’t deserve to. It was fitting punishment for my boyhood crimes.

But I could help Ava forget.

I could get her more memory suppressors. She wouldn’t have to deal with the darkness.

I would carry her across the ocean, across the world, as far away from this dark place as I could.

I’d spend the rest of our lives making up for failing her all those years ago.

She need never know what happened to her.

It could stay buried.

That’s what she wanted. Right?

By choosing to run away with me, Ava was saying she wanted to let this all go, to leave this all in the past.

I could leave my guilt behind, too. Maybe.

I didn’t think it was possible. After that night all those years ago, I couldn’t imagine a future in which I was ever happy again.

After that night , I could hardly imagine a future at all.

But Ava chose me.

She was my redemption.

My penance.

My absolution.

I could lavish her with such a beautiful, safe, beloved life that there would simply be no room in her memories for my father and his poisonous touch.

There would be only my touch. My protection. My love.

Only ever mine .

I pulled up in front of Ava’s mansion, a smile on my face. God only knows when the last time I truly smiled was.

I think I even started whistling as I strolled up to the front door.

I smoothed down my hair in the window reflection, then knocked.

Finally. Ava and I would be together.

I should have known it was all too good to be true.

Moments ticked by and the mansion remained silent.

I backed up and stared at her window. There was no movement. But the light was still on.

I went to call out, but something stopped me.

A lump rose in my throat, thick and suffocating, making it impossible to swallow without feeling like I was choking on it.

No, I was being paranoid.

The only person who knew we’d discovered Dr. Vale’s secret was Dr. Vale. Right?

But doubt weaved through me. They were smart. Who knew what kinds of contingencies they had in place.

I raced to the side wall covered in ivy, the one I’d climbed so many nights into her bedroom.

I clambered up the ivy, not bothering to keep my movements slow and quiet. I practically tumbled over the railing onto her balcony and burst into her bedroom through her balcony door.

“Ava? ”

There was no response.

I raced through her room to her en suite, screaming her name, my heart thudding louder and louder as the silence swelled to deafening.

I ran out into the hallway and toward the stairwell, satisfying myself that she was not here, before I raced back to her bedroom, calling her phone as I ran.

Her phone went straight to voicemail.

I had to stay in control. I had to manage the torrent in my chest.

I’d check Lisa’s house first.

Maybe she’d gone there to say goodbye, despite my warning her not to, lost track of time, and her phone ran out of battery.

I raced back into her bedroom, ready to sprint out the balcony door again, when I spotted her backpack, zipped up and lying askew on the floor.

I skidded to a halt.

It was then that I spotted the overturned lamp, the pillows shoved aside. Small subtle signs of a struggle.

They had taken Ava.

I had to find Ava. I had to get her back before anything happened to her. I just prayed I wouldn’t be too late.

Something occurred to me as I stormed back into Dr. Vale’s house.

Something so glaring that it snapped me right out of my single-minded focus on getting Ava back.

He had claimed that his family had been threatened, but I saw no evidence of a family living here, except for those framed photos of them on his desk.

I snatched up a photo of his wife and two girls from his desk and studied it.

Now that I was inspecting it closer, something looked off.

I opened the back of the frame.

It wasn’t a photo. It was an image printed out on paper.

It was a fake photo.

I opened up the rest of the photos and sure enough, they were all faked.

Dr. Vale’s “family” wasn’t real.

Which meant that Dr. Vale was lying when he said he was being forced into drugging the girls because his family was being threatened.

He knew something.

I stormed down into his basement.

I had planned to make an anonymous call to the police once Ava and I were safely out of the country.

Ava had made me promise to let him live.

But now, all bets were off.

I unlocked the basement bedroom prison where I’d stashed the doctor.

He jolted in the small chair I’d tied him up in as the door slammed against the concrete wall.

“Where is Ava?” I demanded as I stormed toward him.

“What? I don’t know—”

I grabbed his collar and threw him across the small room. He slammed against the closet, the thin wood panel shuddering in its hinges .

Then his chair toppled over, bringing him down with it. Dr. Vale lay on his side, coughing and gasping for air.

I’d secured him in that chair nice and tight. I’d used handcuff knots for his wrists onto the arms of the chair, a harness tie around his chest and torso securing him to the back, and a figure eight knot for both his ankles to the chair legs.

I’d even bandaged his finger like a considerate host.

I swept my arm across the bookshelf, knocking books and dolls onto the carpet, pages fluttering like frightened birds and plastic cracking under my feet.

“Someone took her.” I brandished a knife. “And you’re going to tell me where she is.”

“She… she… she said you can’t torture me!” he wailed as I brandished my knife.

“She… she…” I mimicked his pathetic whimpering, “she isn’t here!”

I kneeled beside the doctor.

His glasses were askew from the fall and sweat covered his brow.

“Lucky me that you soundproofed this room, am I right?”

His eyes told me I was right. Whoever he was planning on keeping down here, no one would ever hear their screams.

The twisted irony wasn’t lost on me and my body flooded with righteous anger.

No one would hear his screams.

“I named this knife Jack .” I placed the tip of the knife against his cheek. “Can you guess why? ”

The good doctor trembled in my grip and flinched away from me. “P-please…”

“Wunh wunh,” I made the wrong answer buzzer sound. “He obviously doesn’t know his nineteenth century London serial killers, Bob. Maybe he’ll do better on the next question.”

I pressed the tip of the knife into his flesh, just enough to draw a bead of blood. “ Who took Ava? Where would they take her?”

“I d-d-don’t k-know.”

I sliced his cheek and he bucked against my tight grip on him, his scream echoing in this tiny prison.

“Oops, guess my hand slipped.” I tilted my head so I was eye to eye with him and I placed the knife on his opposite cheek. “Unless you want a matching scar, you tell me where Ava is.”

“I swear, I don’t know,” he sputtered as blood dripped from his wound into his mouth.

I ground my teeth in irritation. I was normally such an immaculate butcher. I was being sloppy. Messy. Leaving too much DNA evidence. But right now, I didn’t care.

“Then tell me who they are,” I pressed the tip of the knife into his flesh just enough to draw blood.

He screamed and sobbed. “I d-don’t k-know. They made me—”

“I know that your family photos are fake, Doctor.” I jabbed the point in the air in front of his eyes. “It’s clear no one lives here except for you. You don’t have a fucking family to threaten. So don’t play games with me… Who are they? ”

He stared up at me with wide, fearful eyes.

Whoever took Ava, whoever he was working for, he was afraid of them.

I just had to make him more afraid of me .

I grabbed his jaw and raised the knife to his mouth. “How about, every time I ask a question and you don’t answer, I take one of your teeth.”

His eyes widened with fear but his lips pressed together.

Very well.

I grabbed his jaw and squeezed hard. He squirmed and tried to yank his chin away, but I was too strong.

I wiggled the tip of the knife in between his teeth and lifted an eyebrow as the knife cut his lip, blood running down over his chin.

I let out a sigh, pulled back the knife, and shook his chin to get his attention.

“If you keep fighting me, I can’t be blamed if I cut off your face trying to get to your teeth. Now open up and say ahhhhhhh.”

“Sochaaaa!” he screamed, garbled through my grip on his jaw.

I paused, my knife an inch from his cheek. “Come again, dear doctor?”

Dr. Vale gasped for air, his eyes pinned to the knife, his face going pale.

“The Sochaí,” he repeated. “That’s what they call themselves.”

Sochai meant Society in Irish.

“Who are the Sochai?” I demanded.

“I’m still on the outside,” Dr. Vale said, eyeing the blood dripping from the tip of the knife. “I’m not a member yet. I just do as I’m told, I swear. I don’t know anything else.”

A chill traveled down my spine. A nauseous feeling made my grip on the knife slip with sweat as a realization hit me.

This was bigger than Liath.

Bigger than Ava’s investigation into Liath’s disappearance.

“Their members were abusing Liath and the missing girls,” I said, dread filling my stomach like acid. “You covered it up for them.”

I relished his renewed screams as I carved another line across his butchered cheek.

“Where did they take her?” I shouted.

Blood sprayed across my face as Dr. Vale began to laugh, surely going into shock.

I couldn’t cut him anymore. He’d lose too much blood. He’d pass out. Or worse, die on me.

And Ava would be lost to me forever.

I threw down the knife and shook him by the collar of his sweater.

“Tell me!” I yelled, heart beating far too fast. “Where is she?! What did they do with her?!”

Dr. Vale was so far gone he could only laugh as I began to kick him in the gut, ribs snapping in two, one after the next.

If he didn’t tell me something soon, I’d kill him. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I was like a wounded animal, pained and desperate.

They had Ava.

And this fact made me insane .

Spit flew from my lips as I leaned over him and screamed, “Where is Ava?!”

“Okay. Okay.”

I stopped kicking and Dr. Vale coughed up blood into the carpet.

“There’s a place I know,” he wheezed, “that belongs to them.”