Secret Memories Page 8

  Kicking her legs and using upper body strength, Angela pulled her head out of the window. The lower portion of the house was still standing but collapsed in on itself. It seemed like the middle third had fallen into the water while the other two sides had collapsed on themselves. The bulldozer was half buried in the debris.

  Boom!

  A bullet zipped by her head. Angela dipped back inside the building. Another bullet came really close to her fingers. Angela let go and found herself falling. She smacked into Frank, knocking him into the water with a loud splash. As soon as the cold touched her, she pulled herself up. The water was up to her belt line. It was a swirl of mud and broken ice. She twisted back and gave Frank a hand. Completely soaked, he steadied himself against the ceiling that was now the wall.

  Heavy snow fell on them through the open bathroom window.

  Angela grabbed Frank’s wrist. “Come on.”

  They waded through the flooded hallway and to the next bedroom. Frank boosted Angela through the doorway and to the inner wall beside it. The bed, dresser, mattress, and all other furnishings were slammed into the wall nearby. Angela took Frank’s damp hand and helped pull him into the room, causing her to fall on her bottom. Without saying a word, they piled the furniture into a tower toward the window.

  “Give me your gun,” Frank demanded.

  Angela looked into his eyes, knowing he was serious. She unholstered her weapon and handed it to him. Frank flipped off the safety and started to climb the wobbly tower. He reached the window and slid it open.

  “I’m going to draw his fire,” Frank declared. “Use that time to get the hell out.”

  “Got it,” Angela said.

  Frank bit his lower lip, squeezed the gun tightly, and pulled himself out of the window.

  Like thunder, gunfire sounded.

  Frank shot back as he vanished into the heavy snowfall.

  She waited a few moments, waiting for the gunfire to cease. The water rose through the open bedroom doorway. Angela shut the door. She started to ascend the “tower,” climbing up the stack made from a dresser, bedframe, mattress, and a bedside table. The furnishing wobbled with every one of Angela’s motions. She tried to calm herself, but her whole body was shaking. She got closer to the window. Snow poured through the opening and stuck to her face and clothes. She reached out to grab the windowsill. The tower shook. Angela scrambled. The tower collapsed. Angela fell back and the world turned to black.

  Angela was in her parents’ cabin. She grabbed the puzzle piece from the floor and turned back to Kelly, Thomas, and their golden retriever Lazlo. “There’s someone outside,” she said.

  The cold enveloped Angela. Her eyes shot open. The memory ended. She was floating in the icy water along with furniture. Darkness lingered in the corner of her vision. She sat up in two feet of water and glanced about the flooding room. Snow continued to fall from the open window.

  Angela grabbed the tipped-over dresser and pulled it upright. It was much easier when Frank was with her. Nevertheless, she gathered the strength to get it where it needed to be. The drawers had fallen out of it. Men’s clothes swirled in the water around her knees. Trembling, she grabbed the nightstands and put them in a stack on top of the dresser. She climbed up with them. The dresser swayed in the water. Angela climbed to the highest point. Her knees shook. She took a few deep breaths and jumped for the window. The tower fell below her. Her finger snagged the inside of the window while her legs dangled over the ice water of the sinking house. Her wet glove began to slip and the snow blinded her.

  Angela peered down, looking at the broken furniture swirling beneath her. She tried to regain her grip, only to have her right hand slip. She was falling. Again. Only this time, she only dropped a foot. Someone squeezed her wrist. Her shoulder popped. The figure pulled her through the window. Angela’s belly dragged on the outer wall of the house until she was fully up.

  Frank let her go.

  “You good?” he asked, his breath misting up and his beard powdered with snow.

  Angela sniffled and shook. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Frank handed her back the gun. Angela looked out at the ruined house. The part that had broken off had stopped sinking. “Did you see him?”

  Frank shook his head. He pointed to the clearing by the woods where they had seen the car previously. It was gone now. “They were already on their way to their car when I came up. I chased them a bit, but they drove out.”

  “Did they have a license plate?” Angela asked.

  “No,” Frank replied.

  Angela rotated her shoulder. She felt her gut twist, knowing that she wasn’t just following some cryptic clues. She was being hunted.

  They jumped onto land. Angela checked her phone. It still worked. She started to dial the police, but stopped when Frank gave her a nasty look. “They’ll only make things worse.”

  “They could help us.”

  “Put us in cuffs more like,” Frank replied. “We just broke into a house that was brilliantly destroyed. Apart from the perpetrator's tire tracks, we have nothing to back up our story.”

  “We need their resources,” Angela argued.

  “I think we’re capable of doing this ourselves,” Frank said.

  Angela set her jaw. She looked at the ruins. Parts of the house jutted from the cracked ice surface of the lake. The damage was catastrophic. Angela crossed her arms, trying to keep herself warm in her wet clothes. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

  Frank sighed in relief. “Let’s search this place and then get the hell out of here.”

  Angela sifted through the ruin of the ground floor that hadn’t fallen into the water. Frank walked around the woods near the driveway and collected the shell casings.

  “Standard rifle munitions,” he shouted. “Probably from a Remington hunting rifle.”

  Angela turned over part of the crumbled wall. She grabbed a loose desk drawer. She set it down before her and sifted through bills addressed to Dr. William Blake. She did a quick web search, learning that Blake was a plastic surgeon in Destin, Florida. Angela decided to give his office a call.

  “Is Mr. Blake in?” Angela inquired of the assistant.

  “He is.”

  “May I speak to him?”

  Angela was put on hold for a moment before a man with a tenor voice answered. “Dr. Blake speaking.”

  “My name is Angela. I’m a private investigator looking into the murders of Albert and Macy Trent. Are you aware of them?” Angela asked.

  Blake hesitated, replying with unease. “Yes.”

  “They lived in your Tennessee home, previously?”

  “My summer home, yes,” Blake replied. “I bought it at an auction, so I can’t say that I have had the pleasure of meeting the Trents. Some of their stuff remained, like the bloodstains and a few old photographs. I got rid of most of it.”

  “Most of it? Did you save any of the photographs?” Angela paced, trying to stay warm.

  “A few. It felt weird to just discard something like that. All that remains of their memory is that house and those photos,” Blake said. “If you’re asking to see them, you’re going to have to wait a while. I’m not returning to Ashton until April.”

  “That’s okay, Dr. Blake. Thank you for your time,” Angela hung up. “Frank!”

  Frank turned to her.

  “There are some old photographs of the Trents somewhere in this rubble. Give me a hand, will you?” Angela asked.

  Frank pocketed the shell casing and jogged her way. They spent half an hour turning over wood shards and broken furniture. Angela periodically turned to the road, expecting a line of squad cars to come racing her way. It was quiet though. This deep out in the woods, she didn’t expect any trouble, but there was always that small fear in the back of her mind. She also felt guilty as sin for what had happened to the house. To return home to a place like this must be a nightmare.

  Frank cleared the way to the first-floor storage closet that was still standing. Turning on
their flashlights, they entered the dark room. There were stacks of old chairs, collapsible tables, a few paint cans, and some old shoeboxes wrapped in duct tape. That was where Angela started. She removed the lid and peered down at old pictures until she found some of the Trent family. They were a lovely couple with a beautiful seven-year-old daughter. Holding her Maglite with her teeth, she divided the pictures into two stacks, handing half to Frank. With crinkled brows, she flipped through the images. He did the same, tucking the ones he had viewed under his armpit of his flashlight-holding hand.

  They were mostly photographs of the seven-year-old Trent girl, Maxine. There was one of her sitting on the dock in the middle of the summer, another of her dressed warmly and holding a sled, and a few from her birthday. As Angela studied the photographs, it felt like she was looking intimately into the Trents’ life. They were a normal, happy people. She wondered where Maxine was decades later. Was she as broken as Angela felt or did she move on from the past? Angela stopped leafing through the photos when she saw a familiar face.

  She turned the image Frank’s way. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He took the photo from her grasp. Angela took the mag light from her lips. “I wasn’t expecting to see her either.”

  She leaned over Frank’s shoulders. Together, they studied the photo of a woman with short brown hair and a small smile on her thin lips standing with the Trent family. It was Rosemary, the woman impersonating Iris’s mother.

  Frank studied the photo. “Why would she be with them?”

  “I say we find out.”

  They finished flipping through the photos, not finding any more with Rosemary. With their search done, they left the property and headed back to Hitch’s house. Angela took the first shower and let her clothes dry out while she changed into a sweater and sweats. Frank borrowed some of Hitch’s clothes after he had dried off. Drinking hot coffee, they went through the evidence box again. Like last night, they had no luck finding anything about the killer. They laid out the folders they needed on Angela’s bed, giving Hitch the living room to take his afternoon nap. They didn’t tell him about what happened at the Trent house.

  As they laid out the crime photos and reports from the Trent murders, Angela glanced at Frank. “Thanks again for helping back there.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Frank replied, his eyes on the crime reports.

  Angela found the transcripts from various interviews conducted with the suspects in the Trent murder. She looked at the different names on the interview list along with a brief description. The first was Benjamin Harper, a black man in his thirties that worked with Mr. Trent at the spa. He claimed that Trent was a friendly guy with many friends and few enemies. There was no one he suspected who would want to harm the Trents. The second transcript was from Anna Green, Maxine’s third grade teacher. She made mention that Maxine had made few friends. It was an older woman who spent time with the family. That led to the third transcript, the one that grabbed Angela’s attention. She read aloud. “Carmela Irving. Age 41. Five feet six inches. Caucasian female with short hair and grey eyes.”

  “She was a witness?” Frank asked.

  “She was a suspect,” Angela replied.

  “Even better.”

  Angela browsed the transcript, speed reading through the introduction portion and the small talk. About a third of the way through, she got to the good stuff. Angela read it aloud. “I met the Trents at the store one day. They were just the friendliest people with the cutest daughter. After we saw each other in passing a few days later, Mrs. Trent invited me over for dinner. We became good friends after that. I would babysit Maxine when they were away.”

  “Never trust the babysitter,” Frank added.

  Angela didn’t laugh at his comical remark. She kept reading. “The night of their murder? I was at home, I believe. Stayed in the whole night.”

  The cop pressed Carmela for more information, but the woman had a reply for everything. She was polite, respectful, and almost too innocent. She was never brought back in for a second interview.

  Frank thought for a moment. “Is her home address listed on there?”

  Angela flipped through interviewer’s report page. She scanned it, finding Carmela Irving’s signature and address. Frank put it into his phone’s GPS. “It’s only forty minutes away.”

  Angela recognized the street. It was in town. Good. That meant witnesses. “Let’s see if she still lives there.”

  “The murders happened in 1992,” Frank reminded her.

  “Yeah, well, anything is possible,” Angela replied.

  “What if this is another one of her traps?” Frank asked.

  “How would we know?”

  “Because of the photograph.” Frank pointed out, “Don’t you think that was conveniently placed in the drawer?”

  Angela brushed off the comment. “I thought I was the paranoid one.”

  “All I’m saying is that I don’t want to end up in any more bulldozed houses.”

  “We can agree on that, Frank.” Angela finished her coffee. “Let’s move out.”

  Hitch sat up in his recliner when Angela and Frank entered the living room.

  “Leaving so soon?” Hitch replied. “Hopefully you don’t get wet this time.”

  Angela hated lying to him, but she did choose to leave out information about the collapsed house. There were certain things you didn’t tell your parents, and that was one of them. As they headed to the driveway, Angela saw just how thick and wet the snow was. She turned to Frank. “You want to take the Jeep?”

  “I thought you liked caravanning,” Frank replied.

  “I like my car more and don’t want to see it in a ditch,” Angela replied with snark.

  Frank chuckled. “Oh, but it’s okay if my Jeep does?”

  “You were bragging about its special tires. Now it's time to put your money where your mouth is,” Angela replied as she climbed into the passenger seat. Frank got into his side and turned the ignition. Classic rock and roll blasted through the speakers.

  “Sorry!” Frank yelled over the noise. It was so loud, Angela could barely hear him. Frank turned down the volume.

  Angela popped her ear. “How do you listen to that without going deaf?”

  “What?” Frank said and then smiled from ear to ear.

  “Ha ha,” Angela said dryly. She buckled up and rubbed her gloved hands together. Her winter coat, gloves, and socks were all from her youth. She missed her fur-lined coat already but knew it had be dried off. Frank wore Hitch’s heavy-duty snow jacket, pants, and beanie. His beard was scruffy and had him looking like a mountain man. He sped down the street, quietly singing along to Boston. Angela propped her head against the glass. She wondered what would’ve happened if Frank had not gone with her. She may still have found the puzzle pieces in the cabin, but the bulldozer fiasco would’ve been a nightmare. It still was a catastrophe, but at least she wasn’t alone.

  Angela imagined herself back in that hallway as it flooded with water. Instead of Frank boosting her up, the ice-cold lake consumed her. Her body trembled uncontrollably. No one heard her screams. The water would have swallowed her up and if the cold didn’t get her, the lack of air would. If by some miracle she managed to get out of the window, the shooter would’ve blasted at her from the woods. Or the killer could have shot her in her kneecaps, leaving her defenseless as he held her down and carved another butterfly on her back. Only this time, he would open her neck when he finished and Angela would be with her parents.

  These dark what-if scenarios made her grateful for Frank Frankford’s contribution. For the first time since she started the case, Angela didn’t just see him as an extra body to take the flak when things went wrong. He was someone she could count on now, at least for a little bit. Him drawing the shooter’s fire saved them both from a watery doom. Angela would never forget it.

  She turned to him as he drove. His beard was chestnut-colored. His hair was brown. His eyes were blue. His smiles
were lost under a little pit of his mustache. If he cleaned up, he’d be quite handsome. He did have the jaw for it. Angela didn’t know why she was thinking such thoughts. Boy, she had been alone for way too long to be falling for Frank Frankford. He was a corrupt, unkempt, childish, cocky, womanizing, shallow, self-centered alcoholic, and yet he risked his life for her without any expectations. Angela had to admire that. He really was like the damaged heroes from her father’s books.

  They drove into the town of Ashton. It was mid-afternoon. There were people out on the sidewalks today. The snowplow had salted the roads and sidewalks last night. Nevertheless, the day’s heavy snowfall had left a half-inch on the road. There was even more snow on the flat rooftops, gas station pumps, and cars that had been parked there overnight. An elderly couple walked their dog. There was a man heavily bundled up and talking on the phone. There was a middle-aged man smoking.

  Angela pointed at the colonial-style house in the distance. It was middle lower-class standard, two stories. The paint was chipping, and there was a tree with an owl hole in front of it. The house looked hollow and dead from the outside. Its wooden walls were chipped and damaged and gave Angela splinters just by looking at it. It looked like a haunted house attraction. The type of place a bunch of misfit kids would lose their baseball and dare one another to retrieve. This wasn’t a family home. It was a nightmare house and appeared even more dreadful in the snow. Perhaps that was the juxtaposition between the dark wood house and the white surroundings that threw Angela off. For reasons unexplained, Angela’s skin crawled like she’d just taken a bath in a million roaches. Her stomach churned. There was something about this place that invoked dread, pain, and sorrow deep within.