Chapter 20

What followed after everyone learned Cora was safe was a joyous reunion between mother and daughter, a mother whose biggest fear had been that her daughter had been abducted by the Cabin Killer.

As we gathered around to celebrate Cora’s return, my mind was brimming with unanswered questions:

Where had Cora been all this time?

Why had she left the house without her cell phone?

Why was the screen missing from her bedroom window?

I needed answers to make everything make sense.

And right now, it didn’t.

As much as I wanted to question Cora, I shelved my curiosity, deciding I’d wait until everything calmed down, and I was able to speak to her alone.

Time passed, and one by one, those who’d gathered at Ginger’s house began to leave.

As Foley made his exit, he told Ginger he’d assign officers to sit across the street in a patrol car in shifts for as long as it was needed. It came as a welcome relief. Ginger and Cora would sleep better knowing they were being looked after.

Aunt Laura said her goodbyes, and a few minutes later, Ginger retired to bed, leaving Cora and I alone to talk.

“I don’t know about you, but after what just happened, I could use a glass of wine,” Cora said. “Care to join me?”

I nodded, and we walked to the kitchen. Cora removed a couple of glasses from the cabinet and poured a pinot noir into each.

I slid onto a barstool, and Cora set a glass in front of me and said, “I’m sorry for making everyone worry. I had no idea leaving the house would cause so many problems.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. You’re safe. Nothing else matters.”

“I didn’t realize how much trouble it would cause if I didn’t tell you my plans. I was focused on how much I needed a moment to myself. I promise not to leave the house again without taking my cell phone with me.”

“How are you feeling about the note left on your car?”

“When Chief Foley mentioned it after I got home, part of me wanted to leave. The other part of me is tired of running from my past. If I run, the killer wins, again. He doesn’t get to win … not this time.”

Cora was taking a stand.

I was impressed.

“I heard you talking to Whitlock earlier,” I said. “But I only caught bits and pieces of the conversation. I have so many questions.”

“Ask me anything.”

“Why did you leave?”

Cora took a sip of her wine and said, “I was in my room earlier, looking through the yearbook again. I came across a photo of the six of us, and I started to feel overwhelmed.”

“Is that why you decided to leave the house?”

“Yeah, I needed to clear my head and get away from it all for a minute. Between the new investigation and my father’s illness, it’s been a lot to take in, you know?”

“I do. Why did you leave your phone behind?”

“I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. When I left, I didn’t plan on being gone long. I lost track of time.”

“Do you feel better now?”

Cora nodded. “A lot better. As I walked through the neighborhood, I realized how much I’ve missed this town. Sure, it holds a lot of bad memories, but it also holds some of my best ones too.”

“Where did you go?”

“There’s a park about a mile from here. When Owen was alive, we’d walk over to it sometimes to hang out, catch up on things. I always thought of the park as ‘our place,’ and I realized I hadn’t been back there since he died.”

“How did it feel to be there again?”

“A lot more comfortable than I thought it would be. Before I left the house, I started thinking about a place I could go where I knew I’d feel a sense of peace. I was looking at a photo of Owen, and I wished I could talk to him again. A memory came back about a time we were at the park together, and I realized it was the one place I connected to him most.”

“Did you feel connected to him when you were there just now?”

“In a way … I, I’m sure you’ll think I’m crazy for admitting this, but I talked to him tonight. I sat on the same park bench we used to sit on together, and I spoke to him as though he was sitting right next to me.”

“I don’t think it sounds crazy at all,” I said. “You miss him in the same way I miss my daughter.”

“You have a daughter?”

“I had a daughter. She died when she was a toddler, and we buried her next to my father. I visit their graves every week, and I talk to them both.”

Cora took another sip of wine and said, “What do you think happens after we die? Do you think the spirits of those we love are still around, watching over us and what becomes of our lives?”

“I want to believe they are. If not all the time, when we need them most. I believe we’re all connected—the living and the dead.”

“Can I confess something to you?”

“Sure.”

“As I was leaving the park tonight, I told Owen I loved him. I said I’d always loved him. I also said I was sorry he was taken before we had the chance to start our love story together.”

“What you said … it’s beautiful.”

We sat for a time, enjoying the wine, and unwinding from the heaviness of the day. Given the knowledge the killer had reached out to her in a personal way, I was impressed with how she was handling it. The nervousness she’d had the day before was gone. For now, at least.

“I have another question for you,” I said. “What happened to the screen on your window?”

“The cops wondered the same thing. This morning, a bird smacked right into the window with such force, it dented some of the metal around the screen. I removed the screen and put it in the trunk of my car. I was going to drive to the hardware store and get it replaced, but the day got away from me.”

“Is the bird okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I went out to check on the little guy. He was sitting on the grass. I thought he’d hurt himself, but I think he was just stunned. After a couple of minutes, he flapped his wings and flew away like nothing had ever happened.”

“I’m a big fan of birds,” I said. “It makes me a nerd, I suppose, but I don’t care. Something about watching them brings me peace.”

“Have you always been into birds?”

I smiled and said, “Ever since my father died. I haven’t told many people this, but sometimes when I think of him, a bird appears and just hovers around, not close enough for me to touch, but close enough.”

“Is it the same kind of bird every time or …?”

“Different birds, but the behavior is the same.”

Cora reached for the bottle of wine and turned toward me. “Want a refill?”

“I’m all right. I should head out soon. But you go right ahead.”

She shrugged, poured a second glass for herself, and then sat there, staring at it. Something was bothering her.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“There’s so much going through my mind right now.”

“Care to share? I’m a good listener.”

“When I found out about the message left at the cabin and on my car window, I wanted to believe it was a joke, you know? I wanted to believe he’s not around here, that he doesn’t care about what happened to me anymore. I wanted to believe someone else wrote it—not him. Do you think it’s possible?”

It was a question I’d been debating myself.

“My gut says yes, he wrote it,” I said.

Cora bit down on her lip, going quiet for a time.

“I’m a lot stronger of a person now than I was in the past,” she said. “I also know my way around a gun. There’s strength in that.”

“Is the writing on the wall and in the note the only thing that’s bothering you, or is there something else?”

“I … I want to talk to you about someone. I’ll be right back.”

Cora left the room, returning with the yearbook in hand.

She set it down in front of me on the kitchen counter and flipped it open, thumbing through pages until she got to the one she wanted. “It’s amazing the things I’ve remembered as I’ve looked through some of this book.”

“What stood out to you the most?”

She pressed a finger against a black-and-white photo and said, “Him.”

I squinted, taking a good look at the boy in question. He was dressed in faded jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt with a gray T-shirt over it.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“His name is Ty Conroy. He was in our graduating class. His father was our biology teacher.”

“How well did you know him?”

“Not as well as Jackson did. Toward the end of the school year, Jackson started stressing out about not passing the final biology exam. Jackson’s stepdad was … ahh, let’s just say he was always hard on Jackson, and not just when it came to his grades.”

“Hard in what way?”

“I never saw any signs Jackson was being abused, you know, in a physical way, but Aubree did. She saw bruises on one of his shoulders and back.”

“Did Aubree ask him about it?”

“Yeah. As soon as she did, Jackson changed the subject. She thought he was upset with her for asking, so I don’t think she ever brought it up again.”

If Jackson’s stepfather was abusing him, the fact Jackson had been known to be a bully at school made a lot more sense to me now.

His stepfather took out his anger on Jackson.

Jackson, in turn, took his anger out on someone else—someone he could vent his frustration on—instead of venting it on his stepfather.

“What do you know about Jackson’s stepdad?” I asked.

“I saw him a few times at football games. He was a big guy, a lot bigger than Jackson. Everything about him gave off bad vibes.”

“In what way?”

Cora paused a moment, like she was thinking about how to describe him to me.

“He always seemed … well, mean,” she said. “If Jackson was being abused, I doubt his mother knew. Back then she was working a lot at the family business.”

“And the stepdad, what did he do for a job?”

“From the stuff Jackson told us about him, it sounded like before his stepdad got together with his mom, he was always in between jobs, or getting fired from a job not long after starting it. Once he met Jackson’s mom, he started working for the family business too.”

“What type of business?”

“A car dealership.”

I glanced back at the photo of Ty, wondering what the connection was between Ty and Jackson. There must have been one. Why else would Cora have shown me a photo of him and then start talking about Jackson?

“I’m assuming the story you just told me about Jackson’s stepdad relates to Ty in some way,” I said.

Cora nodded. “Ty was the type of person who’d do anything to hang out with guys like Jackson. About a week before final exams, Jackson told Ty he was worried he wasn’t going to pass his biology test. If his final grade wasn’t an A or a B, his stepdad threatened not to allow Jackson access to the funds his mother had set aside for him for college.”

“Did he get a good grade?”

“He did, but it wasn’t because he studied hard for the test. Ty gave Jackson a copy of his dad’s test a few days before the exam. I guess Ty’s dad had used the same final exam for years.”

“Aside from Jackson, did anyone else see the test before the exam?”

Cora hung her head and said, “Yes. A couple of nights before the exam, we were all hanging out in my backyard, talking about the camping trip. Jackson told me about the test, and then he passed it around. At the time, I remember thinking it was too good to be true. I didn’t believe it was the actual test.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah, word for word. I’ll never forget the day we took the exam. We were all looking around at each other, shocked. Thing is, when Ty gave Jackson a copy of the test, he made Jackson promise not to show it to anyone else.”

“And Jackson broke his promise by showing it to all of you. How many of you saw the test?”

Cora looked to the side, thinking. “Jackson, Aidan, Brynn, Aubree, me.”

“What about Owen?”

“He refused to look at it. He said he was uncomfortable about it and would rather take his chances. But he was always a whiz in school, a straight-A student. He didn’t need to look at it.”

“And you?”

“I only saw the first page of the test before the actual exam. As I was looking at it, I realized the questions were in line with what we’d learned that year. It made me feel weird. I knew it was wrong, so after I looked over the first several questions, I handed the test back to Jackson.”

I leaned forward, crossing my arms over the kitchen counter. “Did anyone ever find out they cheated?”

“Yep, the day after the test, Jackson, Aidan, Brynn, and Aubree were called into the principal’s office. Ty’s dad was there, and he told the principal he thought the four of them had cheated. They all scored one hundred percent on the test, which was stupid of them to do. It made the fact they’d cheated obvious.”

“Did Ty’s dad know how they’d cheated?”

“Not at first, and they didn’t admit it either, not until their parents were called.”

“What happened then?” I asked.

“When Jackson’s stepdad showed up, he outed all of them. He said he remembered seeing a copy of the test in Jackson’s bedroom. His stepdad thought it was a practice test at the time, something to help the students get ready for the real test.”

“After Jackson’s stepdad admitted to seeing the test, did they admit they’d cheated?”

“Not while they were in the principal’s office. The next day, when the principal got to his office, there was an anonymous note stuck in the doorjamb. The note revealed Ty had been the one to share the answers to his father’s test with Jackson.”

It was a sad story.

All Ty wanted was to be accepted, just like Xander.

It was possible he thought helping Jackson would somehow create a friendship between them. I doubted it would have, whether the truth of what he’d done came out or not.

“What happened after the truth got out about the test?” I asked.

“Ty was suspended. His father was humiliated, and … well, he resigned. That’s not the worst of it, though. His father committed suicide. When Ty returned to school, he wasn’t the same kid he’d been before. He was angry, full of rage over what happened.”

“Did Ty confront Jackson about it?”

“He sure did. I was at my locker before first period started, and I heard two guys yelling. I looked over and saw Ty shove Jackson into the lockers. He wrapped a hand around Jackson’s neck and started choking him. Took a couple of minutes for teachers to break it up.”

“What happened afterward?”

Cora glanced at me and said, “After they pulled Ty off Jackson, Ty spit in Jackson’s face, and he said he’d make him pay. He’d make us all pay.”