The Torment Read online

  Of course, the people were the best part of the job. Daphne and Jared were students in her last sixth-grade class before she quit to tend Martin ten years ago. She loved being around them. Jared was a quiet but confident boy, Daphne was basically a mouth with feet. She still thought of them as kids. But then there was Darrin Collete, angry and suspicious. He had been a bully, tormenting everything that moved. Here she was years later, still dealing with him on the same level.

  Lacey turned the corner of the hallway and unlocked the cell block entrance. Collete was spread eagle on his stomach with his head lifted back, chin practically resting on the concrete floor as if to prop his head up. His tongue protruded between his teeth. Lacey marveled fleetingly at how he could have ended up in this position. Even as she ran to the cell, working the keys out of her pocket and yelling back to Daphne and Jared to call EMS, she knew he was dead. There was no way in hell they would be able to revive him.

  2

  JARED

  “SHIT, WHERE’D THE KID GO?” Jared said to no one in particular as the county EMS guys took control. Sometime within the initial fifteen minutes of excitement, Robbie Collete had disappeared from his seat by Jared’s desk.

  Lacey and Daphne looked around. Even Jan stood up at her desk and surveyed the room over her glasses.

  “He was just here, I think,” Jan said, “He couldn’t have gone very far.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Lacey said. Jared paled suddenly, but she couldn’t deal with that at the moment. “Jared, go check the men’s room.”

  A few more deputies were there, starting or ending their shifts. Some of the phones were ringing at alternating intervals, though the volume of calls wasn’t that bad. It was still early. Daphne answered the phone ringing at her desk. “Thanks, Mr. Stanton, we’ll get someone out there,” she said at the end of the call.

  “Mr. Stanton’s out at his cottage at Tomson Lake,” she told Lacey. “He was taking a walk this morning, ‘Surveying the storm damage,’ he said, and he spotted a blue sedan in the lake. It’s in the area where no cabins are built, down the unpaved drive off County Road T. He can see part of the rear of the car and part of the roof—like it’s submerged at an angle. Get this.” Daphne paused for emphasis and stared at Lacey.

  “Spare me the dramatics, Daphne. What?”

  “He says, ‘I think it’s that damn fool Collete’s car.’”

  Jared walked back into the room, looking puzzled but a little less shaky than a few minutes before. “The kid’s not in the bathroom. I walked around back in storage, even in the cell area in case he snuck by us, but he’s not there.”

  “This is turning into a disaster. The father dies in the cell and the child disappears. Daphne, drive on over to the Collete place and see if you can raise Tamara. If she’s there, tell her about Robbie and that we’re looking for him. Don’t say anything about her husband. I’ll come out to give you a hand with that. First, I want to do some searching around here for the boy. Jared, get out to the lake and see what’s what with that car.”

  “What car?”

  Daphne filled him in before Lacey had a chance. Jared nodded once he got the gist.

  “I’ll call TJ to get his tow truck out here.”

  “Fine.”

  Both deputies were already moving. Lacey’s eyes circled the room, considering options. What if the boy had found out what happened to his father, got scared, and ran off or hid? There was no telling what kids would do under stress. Lacey searched the entire Municipal Building, checking all doors, closets, and anything else that could provide a haven for a little boy. She gave explicit instructions to everybody else in the department to hold on to him if he reappeared.

  When she came up empty-handed, she walked back and approached the dispatch area. Jan’s daughter Molly had arrived with some dry clothes for Robbie. She hadn’t noticed the boy outside on her trip in.

  “He’s not waiting in the truck outside, is he?”

  Lacey and Jan looked at each other. Neither one had thought of checking. “For Pete’s sake.”

  Lacey walked outside. The sky had cleared and there was a pleasant breeze from the northwest that was continuing to lower the humidity. Collete’s pickup truck was still sitting in its half-assed parking position by the curb. She strolled to the truck and swung open the door in a fluid but slow motion so as to not frighten the boy. It didn’t matter. Robbie wasn’t there.

  Lacey stood with her arm draped over the driver-side door. She took in the small downtown area without really seeing it. She examined the sidewalks of the main street in the hopes of spotting a little boy strolling along. More than anything, though, she was getting annoyed.

  I can’t believe we left that kid unsupervised.

  Something caught her eye on the driver’s seat. A set of car keys with a key chain that said “Tamara.” The keys were for the make and model of Collete’s other car, the one that might be sitting in the lake.

  Lacey’s apprehension escalated a little. She remembered Jared’s reaction earlier when they realized the boy was missing. He was nowhere near panic—Jared had too much composure for that—but his mind was clearly racing. He couldn’t help slipping into a troubled state of mind when faced with a bizarre turn of events, and a dead detainee and a missing child within minutes of each other certainly qualified. Still, he rebounded quickly to gain control, which was typical.

  Now it was her turn for the heebie-jeebies. What were Tamara’s keys doing here if the car was in the water? Why was the boy wet? And where the hell was he?

  At that moment, her radio came alive. Daphne was requesting assistance at the Collete place.

  Not a living soul was in the house when Lacey arrived. Tamara and her little girl weren’t around, and the boy couldn’t have beaten them to the house. Nonetheless, Lacey and Daphne called his name and searched for him on the off chance he’d made it back at inhuman speed. Two ominous pieces of evidence shook Lacey. One, the door had been wide open when Daphne arrived. Two, there was blood splattered on the wall of the master bedroom. The sheets and pillows were soaked in red.

  She’d seen enough. She called in the crime technicians from the state and posted some deputies to preserve what they could of the scene. Then she called Jared and asked for the status of the car towing. Jared told her that after some initial difficulties, everything was finally in place and they were getting ready to bring the car out of the water. She said she would be there in five minutes.

  Lacey had no illusions that this would end happily. She was fully expecting to find Tamara’s body in the car, probably dead from the blow that produced the blood in their bedroom. She couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking when he did this. Then again, who knew what frame of mind he was in at the time. Given Daphne’s description of his behavior earlier, Collete hadn’t been doing anything remotely like thinking clearly.

  Where was the little girl? She didn’t want to even consider the possibilities.

  County Highway T brought her near the less developed side of the lake where she turned onto an unnamed dirt road. Jared’s patrol car was parked well off the shoulder of the highway. He must have walked to the lake or hitched a ride with the wrecker. The dirt road wasn’t very wide, but people towed small boats down here, and others hiked or rode bikes. It generally didn’t get the heavy lake traffic. Much of the vegetation had become overgrown with branches and limbs hanging along the edges of the road.

  After a few minutes of driving at a fairly slow pace to protect the car, she cleared the trees and came upon the lake. A tow truck with TJ’s Towing Service stenciled on both the driver- and passenger-side doors stood idling, having already completed its job. A midsized blue Ford sat on the water’s edge with the driver’s door opened. Water was running off the vehicle copiously, draining from every conceivable source.

  TJ himself, another former student from the same class as Jared and Daphne, was standing about ten feet away. He was soaked from hooking the tow to the submerged car. His hands were on
his knees as he stared down at his vomit. He turned his head and nodded a greeting. “Mrs. Nelson.” Like many, he couldn’t figure out whether to call her “Sheriff” or her teacher name.

  “Hello, TJ. Thank you for coming. Although I suspect you might be regretting it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jared didn’t look much better, although he had managed to keep his breakfast in his stomach. His eyes reflected sheer horror. Lacey wasn’t aware of how much horror until she looked in the car.

  Tamara’s body was slumped on her left side, her hair tangled and askew on one side of her head. It took Lacey a few seconds to see why. Her husband must have hit her multiple times with something heavy. Her skull had caved in. The water had washed away much of the blood, making her initial confusion apparent. Their daughter was strapped into her car seat behind Tamara. The little girl’s head drooped, her chin touching her chest. Lacey was thankful that she didn’t have to look into her face, and she hoped to God the child hadn’t suffered.

  The sight shook Lacey to her foundations. She would never make sense of this.

  Behind the driver’s seat was the body of Robbie Collete. His missing sneaker was on the floor of the backseat. Lacey suspected that Robbie had struggled to get out of the car, but didn’t make it.

  Not alive, anyway.

  Lacey had expected the office to nosedive into a frantic mess. Instead, she found that the department maintained a level footing, although colored by a sense of shock. Calls were answered, drop-ins were serviced—it could have been a typical day. Attempts at gallows humor were few, and those that occurred fell disconcertingly flat. She felt like she was submerged under deep water while straining to hear some kind of activity on the surface. The most common exclamation among the deputies and the staff was a variation of What the fuck followed by some question: Was the kid really here? Are you sure it was him?

  Many of the questions were directed at Jared, who dealt with them mostly by shrugging. Lacey knew, though, that the event was digging at him. His face tightened into a steel intensity. He was a million miles away, absorbed by fragments of memory that nibbled at him mercilessly. Finally, Lacey went into the central squad room and demanded everyone’s attention.

  “Okay, folks, listen to me for a second.” The room was instantly silent. Even the phones seemed to obey.

  “I have no explanation for what happened, and neither does anyone else in the building.” Lacey instinctively nodded in Jared’s direction, then caught herself—but not before everyone’s eyes shifted to him. He focused on his computer screen. Daphne floated over behind him and squeezed his shoulder briefly. “We may not be able to explain it. For now, let’s keep this morning’s unusual events under wraps. The family is dead, murdered by Collete, who later died in his cell. End of story.”

  Lacey looked around at her deputies. She nodded once and returned to her office. The comments were hollow and lifeless. But what else could she say? How could anyone make sense of it?

  Thirty minutes later, Jared went to the men’s room. She walked to the doorway of her office, leaned against the frame, and waited. After a few minutes, the young deputy opened the door.

  “Jared,” she called softly, and he stopped in his tracks with a puzzled look. “Come here for a moment.”

  Lacey sighed softly as she eased back into her chair. He wouldn’t be happy with what she was about to say.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This has been a strange day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Go home. Take some time off.” She stared intently at his face.

  “That’s okay, Sheriff. I can do my work.”

  “Jared. This isn’t an option. You look shell-shocked. Just go, we have enough hands to cover things.”

  Jared looked disgusted but would never say anything rude. “Really, it’s no big deal.”

  “Yes it is. Take the rest of the afternoon off. You should go to your parents’ house for dinner tonight.”

  Jared’s mouth opened in surprise.

  “Sorry, I called your mom. I can’t help the teacher in me. She promised not to pry.”

  Jared sighed.

  Lacey took a cruiser out for her patrol. She didn’t need to take a turn since she had her deputies, but she felt the need to contribute to the grunt work. Besides, she had an ulterior motive. She radioed Jan at dispatch to inform her that she was stopping at Jared’s to check on him. Jan acknowledged her call with something official. Then her cell phone rang, and Lacey had to smile.

  “Good timing, Sheriff. Daff’s been chomping at the bit to go check on him. She’ll appreciate you being there more than one of us calling him.”

  Daphne and Jared, both nearly twenty-three, had known one another since kindergarten, and they were clearly an item now. Both of them thought they were doing a good job of hiding their romantic relationship by spacing their morning arrival ten minutes apart. Of course, everyone knew what was going on.

  “Sure thing. I’ll let you know how he’s doing.”

  As she stepped out of the car, Jared’s place had that vacant look. He wasn’t home. Lacey paused and heard the bouncing of a basketball drift along the breezes crisscrossing the valley. Lacey smiled inwardly. She knew where he was.

  Jared’s neighborhood wasn’t what you’d expect for a young man living on his own with his first job. He lived in a development with the godawful name of Mountain Heather Dale. It was about two years old, comprised of single-family dwellings for wealthy youngish couples with kids and townhouses meant for empty nesters. Jared lived in a townhouse, one of two units within a single structure. His aunt Rosemary lived in the other unit. Each unit generally listed for somewhere in the vicinity of half a million dollars.

  Jared’s aunt and uncle had bought both places while they were being built. They wanted to downsize, if you could call it that under the circumstances, and have a ready location for visiting kids and grandchildren. Lacey thought it telling that they wanted a separate unit to house their adult children. There were three of them, two boys and a girl, but one of the boys, Mitchell, had disappeared off the face of the earth six years prior. Jared’s uncle never recovered from the vanishing of his youngest child and died of a heart attack a few months before moving into the new place.

  Everyone in town wondered if Rosemary would follow through with the move, and damn it all, she certainly did. She wanted out of that “house of despondency,” as she called the home where she’d raised her children. The trouble was, the surviving son and daughter visited either rarely or not at all. There was no delicate way to say this, but these “children” had an unflattering sense of entitlement. All three used superficial charm to worm their way out of trouble or get what they wanted. Even Mitchell, the one who disappeared, had been the smarmy and ingratiating type. Lacey had seen him in action and considered him a bully.

  But Rosemary had a brother and sister-in-law with one child—Jared. He was the opposite of his cousins, whom he’d never really hung out with much; Mitchell, who was closest in age to Jared, ran with a crowd that was considerably beyond the scope of Jared’s social connections. Their most meaningful interaction was a brutal fight they’d had at school when Jared defended a boy with special needs, Laz, from Mitchell’s ridicule. This was a couple of days before Mitchell disappeared.

  When the rest of the entitled cousins failed to materialize for visits, Aunt Rosemary found herself sitting with a frequently uninhabited adjacent townhouse. Jared was stunned when she offered him the opportunity to live there at a ridiculously low rent, provided he maintain and keep an eye on the place when she went out of town to visit her thankless kids. Jared accepted. This got him out of his parents’ house and seemed to make Rosemary happy. If she was troubled by sharing a wall with a single young man, she didn’t show it.

  Lacey left the cruiser in the driveway and strolled down the street. About fifty yards ahead, the street banked to the left and descended rapidly down the hill to a busier road where a clubhouse for t
he development was situated. The place had a pool and a workout area with equipment that rivaled an expensive health club. Jared used it frequently, according to Daphne, who happened to be his regular guest. Outside were a few tennis courts and basketball courts. On one of the latter, Jared was shooting baskets.

  “I think you had a better jump shot when you were twelve.”

  Jared turned, clearly surprised. His movement was jerky and edgy, containing none of its usual fluidness.

  “That shows what you know. I’ve improved since sixth grade.” He smiled, trying to look relaxed. “Is there something wrong?” Jared bounced the basketball twice with deliberate slowness.

  “I wanted to check on you.” A number of details to explain her remark went unsaid. They both knew what those were.

  “Here I am.” Jared looked embarrassed, like he’d been caught skipping school.

  “Today really troubled you.”

  “C’mon, Sheriff. Didn’t it freak you out too?”

  Lacey sighed. “Yes, it did. Still does. But…”

  Jared frowned. “You wanted to see that I wasn’t huddled in a corner and having flashbacks. Reliving my narrow escape from the Torment.”

  She walked over to a bench off to the side of the court and sat down. Jared followed. As he sat next to her, she caught sight of a scar on the side of his leg, from midway up to the knee. There was another on his thigh, hidden by his shorts, shorter but more jagged and ugly. And another on his side, lurking under his T-shirt.

  “It’s just that…” Jared took a breath. “Okay, it’s like this. What am I supposed to feel? I don’t remember what happened to me. But everyone thinks I’m supposed to figure it out, like I’m supposed to have this grand aha moment. Some big revelation. I thought all this was behind me.” He shook his head.

  So, it was weighing heavily on his mind. Lacey plunged ahead.

  “Do you think these things are related?”

  “God, I don’t know. Yeah, probably. I mean. I have no clue what happened to me or to Mitchell. He’s just gone. My aunt understands, so do my parents. They don’t press me for details. Never have. It’s like…”