Chapter 4
"We're going to see France. You need to see a past you don't know exists." Silas spoke fast, already heading for the door.
"Are you insane? Dragging me back to that godforsaken place in the dead of night? Just the two of us—"
"I've got no choice." He shoved the door open, cutting me off. "Not on this case. Not in this town. I don't trust a single goddamn soul."
He paused in the doorway and wheeled around to face me:
"And my gut's telling me—you're the key to blowing this whole thing wide open."
Twenty minutes later, the pickup skidded to a stop at the edge of nowhere.
Pitch black everywhere. The truck's dim headlights caught the edge of a frozen pond and the skeletal remains of a brick kiln.
I hugged my coat tighter, teeth chattering, and shot Silas a look of horror.
The Red Marsh—the town's most notorious hellhole.
After the brickworks went belly-up, this wasteland became a dumping ground for junkies and mob hits. Even street thugs steered clear in broad daylight.
Except for Elise.
She used to say this was the only place she could escape the screaming drunks and smashing bottles back at the trailer park. The only place she could breathe.
Silas pulled out a flashlight and climbed out, jerking his head for me to follow.
He walked to a stripped car frame, reached under the chassis, and yanked out a rusted tin.
Under the harsh beam, I pried the warped lid open with my fingernails.
Inside: a roll of grease-stained bills and a makeshift notebook cobbled together from fast-food wrappers.
On top lay a yellowed brochure—Rhode Island School of Design.
Scrawled in the top corner in shaky handwriting: [March 17, 1997.]
My breath caught in my throat.
Elise's birthday. The dream she'd whisper about every single day—getting me out east to study art.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely flip the notebook open. Page after page of my mother's cramped, unsteady scrawl.
Silas lit a cigarette, his face grim in the flame:
"Your mother was probably the only woman in that park who could still string words together when she was sober.
"Not like that worthless junkie stepfather of yours. She was trying to protect you two—in her own twisted way."
"But she wasn't—" My throat tightened.
Every margin, every grease-spotted scrap, filled with secrets that bitter woman had no one else to tell.
[June 14, 2009. Girls getting bigger. Dish money won't cut it anymore. Went to that junkie bastard for cash—got knocked flat. Can't call cops or welfare takes them. Had to beg on my knees in the dirt till he threw some bills at me.]
[Dec 21, 2009. Yelled at them again. Watched them run out crying, stomach hurt so bad couldn't get up. Let them hate me. Gotta scream at them every day, make them tough, make them mean so those bastards won't touch them.]
[Jan 6, 2010. Samantha from next door got dumped back today. Just seventeen, pregnant, beat to hell. She told me what really happens to pretty girls who run—hooking in Detroit or dead in some motel room. Nobody claims the bodies.]
"Hold on."
Silas tapped the page. "Samantha. Next trailer over from yours. Three years older than Elise. You remember her?"
"Yeah. Dropped out young, left for the city. Elise idolized her." I frowned. "But I don't remember her coming back in 2010."
"Keep reading."
I followed his calloused finger down the page:
[Jan 7, 2010. I was dead wrong. Poor girls with nothing in their pockets—running just means getting chewed up somewhere fancier.]
Silas's voice went flat. "Your mom saw what happened to Samantha. Realized letting you girls run was signing your death warrants.
"We found Samantha years later—half out of her mind by then. Said when she came back she was so ashamed she hid from everyone. Your mother was the only one who hunted her down that night in this junkyard."
"So what?!"
I finally snapped, screaming into the frozen air:
"She spent our whole childhood treating us like trash! Beating us like dogs! Then suddenly we can't leave? Every bit of love came wrapped in bruises and curses—that's protection?!
"Elise got butchered without ever knowing that woman didn't actually hate her!"
"Maybe... Elise knew." Silas sighed, nodding at the crumbling pages.
The notebook was barely holding together. Only two pages left, torn and stained.
[March 27, 2010. Junkie says once Sloane's done middle school, no more. Everybody works for his fix. Told him no—let her study art. He grabbed my hair, threw me out. Elise helped me up. Didn't cry. Said she knew I was playing bad guy. Said she'd get sister's school money herself.]
[Oct 14, 2011. Elise swore this is last time going for that dirty money. Slapped her, she smiled anyway. Said don't worry. Scared to death. That blood money gonna kill her. Gotta save enough get them both out this pit.]
Silas's voice cracked: "Last entry.
"Less than a month later, Elise was hacked to pieces in that factory before dawn."
The cold from when I was eleven—that bone-deep freeze—came crashing back.
That woman's twitching face. Elise's back on the bottom bunk. The three of us suffocating day after day in that rusted-out trailer.
The tears came hard and fast.
Silas took the notebook from my trembling hands:
"Truth is, soon as could draw, your mom took midnight shifts at the slaughterhouse. Saving to send you both somewhere better. Give you girls a real shot.
"Never made it. One daughter skinned alive. The other ran and never looked back.
"Went full-on crazy after that. Spent her days in the psych ward clawing her own face bloody.
"But before she snapped, nobody knew she came out here every night, counting bloodstained bills in this can, muttering to herself: 'Thank God. Enough for tickets. Sloane can study art. Elise gonna make it. Both my girls gonna make it.'"
Suddenly Silas's gaze locked onto me like a vise.
"Then one night Frank followed the money here. Witnessed the whole damn thing."
"Then where the hell is Frank?!" I grabbed at my hair, voice cracking. "Why didn't anyone tell me this back then?!"
But I couldn't scream anymore. Looking at him, I froze.
His eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, but he wouldn't let the tears fall.
"Frank was right here."
"Fifteen years ago, he died in that kiln."
"...What?!"
"That night Frank called me, said he'd caught a break.
"How the hell was I supposed to know those animals would butcher a state cop along with everyone else?!"
Silas slammed his fist into the truck door, shaking all over. "After Frank died, the brass shut it all down. Buried the files. And I—I didn't have the guts to push back. Too scared of ending up in that kiln myself. I let you both down."
His chest heaved:
"When I heard you were back a few days ago, fifteen years of guilt hit me all at once. I knew reopening this meant putting a target on your back. But I had to bring you out here tonight."
He stepped closer, eyes drilling into mine, voice raw:
"Because I've replayed Frank's last night a thousand times over the years. And I've pieced together something that scares the hell out of me..."
He paused, just for a heartbeat.
"Sloane... I think there's a damn good chance you have seen the killer. Face to face."
