The Silent Graves of Mountain Laurel
The house was dark when I pulled into the driveway at 0300 hours, three days early. The deployment had been cut short after a diplomatic resolution nobody saw coming, and I’d caught the first transport out of Kabul. Sixteen hours of flying, another two of processing at Fort Bragg, and then the nine-hour drive home to rural Pennsylvania. I was bone-tired, my body aching in places I’d forgotten I had, but the thought of seeing my daughter Emma’s face had kept me awake through all of it.
Six months. That’s how long I’d been gone this time. Emma was seven now. I’d missed her birthday by two weeks, a guilt that gnawed at me during every patrol, every mission. But this was the last one. I’d already submitted my papers. After twelve years in the Rangers, I was coming home for goo
I killed the engine and sat for a moment, savoring the stillness. No mortars, no gunfire, just the rhythmic chorus of crickets and the distant sound of wind sighing through the pines. The house looked exactly as I’d left it: the blue shutters my wife, Brenda, had insisted on; the flower boxes that were dead now in late autumn; the tire swing hanging from the oak tree in the front yard like a pendulum frozen in time.
I grabbed my duffel and moved quietly to the front door. I wanted to surprise them. Brenda would probably be asleep, but maybe Emma had had a nightmare and was up. She used to crawl into bed with me when she was scared. The thought made me smile, a crack in the armor I’d worn for half a year.
The door was unlocked.
That was the first thing that felt wrong. A subtle shift in the atmosphere. I’d told Brenda a hundred times to lock it, especially when I was deployed. I pushed it open slowly, my training overriding my fatigue. The house was too quiet. Not the peaceful quiet of sleep, but the heavy, stagnant silence of abandonment.
I moved through the living room. Dishes were piled in the sink, crusted over. Mail was scattered across the counter like fallen leaves. Brenda’s purse sat open on the table. I climbed the stairs, each step careful and deliberate, avoiding the squeaky board on the third riser.
Our bedroom door was open. Brenda was there, sprawled across the bed in the clothes she’d worn that day, one arm hanging off the edge. An empty wine bottle stood sentinel on the nightstand. My jaw tightened. I moved to Emma’s room, pushing open the door decorated with the princess stickers she’d picked out before I left.
Empty.
The bed was made with military precision—too neat for a seven-year-old. Her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Hoppers, the one she’d slept with since she was two and refused to let out of her sight, was gone. Her shoes weren’t by the door.
I was back in the master bedroom in three strides. I shook Brenda’s shoulder, harder than I meant to. She came awake with a start, eyes unfocused and bloodshot.
“Eric? What… You’re not supposed to be…” She blinked, trying to process my presence through a haze of sleep and Merlot.
“Where is Emma?” My voice was flat, controlled. It was the voice I used when things were going wrong on a mission, the voice that kept panic from getting people killed.
“What time is it?” she mumbled, rubbing her face.
“Where is our daughter, Brenda?”
“She’s at my mother’s. I told you in the email.”
“What email? I didn’t get any email. Why is she at your mother’s at 0300?”
Brenda sat up, running her hands through her messy hair. “She’s been there since Tuesday. Mom’s been watching her while I… I had some things to handle. Work stuff.”
I stared at my wife. In twelve years of marriage, I’d learned to read people; it was a survival skill. And right now, every instinct I possessed was screaming that something was fundamentally wrong. Brenda wouldn’t meet my eyes. Her hands were shaking, and not just from being startled awake.
“I’m going to get her,” I said, turning on my heel.
“Eric, it’s the middle of the night!” she protested, but I was already moving back down the stairs, out the door, into my truck.
Brenda’s mother lived forty minutes away, deeper into the mountains. Myrtle Savage had never liked me. The feeling was entirely mutual. She was a hard woman, cold in a way that had nothing to do with the Pennsylvania winters. She ran some kind of retreat center on her property. “Religious counseling,” she called it. I called it a grift.
The roads were empty ribbons of asphalt under the moonlight. I pushed the truck harder than I should have, taking the mountain curves fast, the tires protesting against the gravel. My hands were steady on the wheel, but my mind was racing. Tuesday. Emma had been there since Tuesday. Four days. Why hadn’t Brenda mentioned it in our last video call? Why had she sent our daughter to that woman?
Myrtle’s property was set back from the road, a long gravel drive leading to a sprawling farmhouse that looked more like a fortress than a home. Lights were on. That was the second wrong thing. Nobody was up at this hour in this part of the county.
I parked and got out. The front door opened before I reached it. Myrtle stood in the doorway, backlit by the harsh interior lights. She was a tall woman, rail-thin, with gray hair pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a long nightgown and an expression that might have passed for concern on anyone else’s face. On hers, it looked like calculation.
“Eric,” she said, her voice like dry leaves skittering on pavement. “Brenda called. Said you were coming.”
“Where’s Emma?”
“She’s sleeping. You shouldn’t be here disrupting—”
I pushed past her. The house smelled like bleach and something else—something organic and wrong, lurking underneath the sterility.
“Emma! You’ll wake the other children!” Myrtle’s voice was sharp, a command she expected to be obeyed.
I stopped dead in the hallway. “What other children?”
“I run a program here. Troubled children. Their parents send them to me for discipline and spiritual guidance.”
I’d known about the “program,” but had never paid it much attention. I assumed it was Sunday school on steroids. Now, looking at Myrtle’s face, a cold weight settled in my stomach.
“Where is Emma?” I repeated, louder.
“She’s in the backyard. Getting some… reflection time.”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. I moved through the kitchen and burst out the back door. The yard stretched into darkness, bordered by dense woods. I could see shapes in the moonlight—structures that looked like small sheds or outbuildings.
“Emma!” My voice echoed off the trees.
A small sound answered me. A whimper.
I ran toward it, pulling out my phone and thumbing on the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness and caught something that made me stop dead.
It was a hole in the ground. Maybe four feet deep, three feet wide.
And standing in it, shivering in her thin pajamas, was Emma.
“Daddy?” Her voice was so small, it broke my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.
I was in the hole in seconds, lifting her out. She was ice cold, her pajamas soaked through with mud and dew. She wrapped her arms around my neck with a desperation that terrified me.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.” I pulled off my jacket and wrapped it around her. She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering. “How long have you been out here?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed into my chest. “Grandma said… she said bad girls sleep in graves. That I need to learn. That I need to…”
She dissolved into incoherent sobbing. White-hot rage flooded through me, a level of violence I hadn’t felt since my first tour, but I forced it down. Emma needed me calm. I needed to get her warm and safe. Then I would deal with Myrtle.
“Daddy,” Emma whispered, her mouth against my ear. “Don’t look in the other hole.”
I froze. “What?”
“Please don’t look. The other one.”
I turned, my flashlight beam sweeping across the yard. There. Twenty feet away. Another hole. This one covered with plywood boards.
“Emma, I need you to close your eyes. Okay? Can you do that for me?”
She nodded against my chest, squeezing her eyes shut. I carried her toward the house but stopped by the second hole. I had to know. I had to understand exactly what I was dealing with.
Using one hand while holding Emma with the other, I shoved the boards aside.
The smell hit me first. Decay, wet earth, and lime. I shone the light down.
Bones.
Small bones. A skull that was unmistakably human and unmistakably a child’s. Scraps of rotted fabric. And something else—a metal tag, like a dog tag, half-buried in the dirt. I leaned down, squinting.
Sarah Chun.
My training kicked in, overriding the horror. This was a crime scene. Multiple crimes. I took three photos with my phone, making sure to capture the tag clearly. Then I replaced the boards and carried Emma toward the house.
Myrtle was waiting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, as if this was a normal Tuesday visit.
“She’s being dramatic,” Myrtle scoffed. “It’s only been an hour. The cold teaches them humility. Sit down, Eric.”
My voice could have cut glass. “Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t even think about running, because I will hunt you down.”
I carried Emma to the truck, started it, and cranked the heat to the maximum. She was still shaking.
“Baby, listen to me. You’re safe now. I’m taking you somewhere warm, okay? Can you tell me who Sarah Chun is?”
Emma’s eyes went wide with terror. “You looked. I told you not to look.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. But I need to know. Who is she?”
“She was here last year. She was bad, too. Grandma said she ran away, but…” Emma started crying again. “I heard her screaming one night, and then she was gone. And Grandma said if I was bad, I’d end up like the girls who run away.”
I pulled out my phone and called the one person I knew I could trust. Donald Gillespie picked up on the third ring.
“Gillespie.”
“Don, it’s Eric McKenzie. I need you to get to 4782 Mountain Laurel Road right now. Bring backup. Multiple units. And call the State Police.”
“Eric? Thought you were deployed. What’s going on?”
“I just found a dead kid in a hole on my mother-in-law’s property. There might be more.”
Silence on the other end. Heavy, stunned silence.
“I’m ten minutes out,” Don said, his voice hard. “Stay on the line.”
I looked at the house. Myrtle was in the window, watching. She didn’t look worried. She looked angry. That told me everything I needed to know. She thought she could get away with this. She thought she had permission.
“Don, listen carefully. The property owner is Myrtle Savage. She runs some kind of ‘religious discipline’ program. My daughter was in a hole in her backyard. There’s another hole with remains. The victim might be a Sarah Chun.”
“Jesus Christ,” Don breathed.
“There are other kids here. Myrtle said something about ‘other children.’ We need to get them out.”
“I’m calling CPS and the FBI. Eric, get your daughter out of there.”
“Already done. But Don… I’m not leaving until I know every kid here is safe.”
“Do not go back in that house. That is an order.”
But I was already moving. I turned to Emma. “Baby, I need you to lock the doors and stay in the truck. Keep the heat on. I’m going to get the other kids. Okay?”
“Daddy, no!”
“I promise I’ll be careful. But those kids need help just like you did.” I kissed her forehead. “Lock the doors. If anyone but me or a police officer comes near this truck, you lay on the horn. Understand?”
She nodded, terrified but trusting me.
I walked back to the house. The father in me was screaming, but the soldier was in control. I wasn’t clearing a house; I was infiltrating a hostile compound.
Myrtle was still in the kitchen. She stood when I entered. “You have no right to—”
“Where are the children?”
“They’re sleeping! You’re overreacting. That hole is a therapeutic technique. It teaches—”
I crossed the distance between us in two steps. I didn’t touch her, but the sheer force of my presence made her stumble back. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where are they?”
“Upstairs,” she spat. “But they’re fine. They’re here because their parents can’t control them. I’m helping.”
I was already moving. Up the stairs. Down a hallway lined with crucifixes. The first door was locked from the outside with a sliding bolt. I threw it open.
Three children, all under ten, were sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor. No blankets. No heat. The window was barred.
“Wake up,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “My name is Eric. I’m a soldier, and I’m here to help you. Police are coming. You’re going to be okay.”
They stared at me with the kind of hollow, haunted eyes I’d only seen in war zones. One little boy spoke up, his voice trembling. “Are you taking us home?”
“Yes. Right now. Come on.”
I shepherded them downstairs. Myrtle tried to block the front door. “You can’t do this! Their parents signed contracts! It’s legal discipline!”
“Their parents signed contracts with a murderer,” I snarled. “Get out of my way.”
She didn’t move. I picked her up bodily and set her aside like a piece of furniture. She weighed nothing.
I got the three children outside just as headlights flooded the driveway. Four police cars, lights flashing, tore up the gravel. Donald Gillespie got out first, a big man in his fifties with a weathered face and kind eyes. He took one look at the shivering children and grabbed his radio.
“We need ambulances. Multiple juveniles. Possible abuse and neglect. Start a crime scene log.”
The next two hours were chaos. More police arrived. FBI agents. Child Protective Services. They found six more children in a locked basement room. All of them were malnourished, bruised, terrified. All of them had stories about the holes in the backyard.
They found three more graves.
I sat in my truck with Emma wrapped in a blanket, watching as investigators swarmed the property. Myrtle had been arrested, screaming that she was doing God’s work, that the parents knew, that everything was legal.
Donald came over around dawn.
“They’re going to need statements from you and Emma,” he said quietly.
“Not today. She needs a doctor first.”
“Agreed. What about the other graves?”
“One’s been identified already. Sarah Chun. Missing from Pittsburgh last year. Nine years old. Parents thought she was at a summer camp.” Don’s face was grim, etched with lines of fatigue. “The other two… we’re working on it.”
“Eric,” he paused. “How did you know to come here tonight?”
“I didn’t. I came home early. Brenda said Emma was here. I just… I knew something was wrong.”
“Brenda.” Donald’s expression shifted, becoming guarded. “We need to talk to her, too. Did she know what was happening here?”
I looked at my friend, and then at my daughter sleeping against my chest. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
The hotel room was warm and bright, nothing like the cold darkness of Myrtle’s property. I’d gotten a suite with two beds. Emma had finally fallen asleep around noon after a doctor from the hospital came to check her over. Mild hypothermia. Bruises. Psychological trauma.
“She’ll need therapy,” the doctor had said at the door, voice low. “Children don’t just ‘get over’ seeing what she saw.”
Now Emma slept, and I sat by the window with my laptop, running searches I should have run years ago. Myrtle Savage. New Beginnings Spiritual Retreat.
How had I never looked into this? Because you trusted Brenda, a voice in my head answered. Because she was your wife.
The search results made my stomach turn. The website looked professional. Testimonials from grateful parents. Photos of smiling children. Bible verses about discipline and redemption. But when I dug deeper into forums and cached pages, I found the rot.
One parent wrote: “We sent our daughter there for three months. When she came back, she wouldn’t speak. Just cried and had nightmares. We asked what happened, and she said if she told, they’d put her in the ground.”
Another: “My son was there for a week. He lost ten pounds. Myrtle Savage said it was ‘spiritual fasting.’ I called the police, but they said it was a family matter.”
I found a news article from three years ago. An investigation by the county. Child Services had visited the property after a complaint. They’d found nothing wrong. The investigator’s name was Christina Slaughter.
I searched for her. Retired last year. Bought a house in Florida. A nice house. Way too nice for a county social worker’s pension.
The pieces were snapping together, forming a picture I hated. Myrtle had been doing this for years. Kids had died. But she kept operating because someone was protecting her.
My phone rang. Derek Mullins. My brother in arms. We’d served together for eight years.
“Don called me,” Derek said, skipping the pleasantries. “Said you found some heavy shit.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at Emma. “Still sleeping. You still in Virginia?”
“I can be in Pennsylvania in six hours. You need me?”
“I need to know who I can trust. Don’s good, but there’s something bigger here, Derek. People were protecting this place. A social worker got paid off. Probably cops involved, too.”
“What do you need?”
“Can you do some digging? Quietly. Myrtle Savage. Christina Slaughter. Follow the money. Eric… how’s Emma?”
“Alive. That’s all that matters right now.”
“And Brenda?”
I looked out the window at the parking lot. “I’m handling that today.”
After I hung up, I opened my email and wrote a single message. Subject: Resignation. After twelve years, I was done. Emma needed me more than the Rangers did.
My phone buzzed. A text from Brenda. Where are you? The police were here. They asked about Mom. What is going on?
I didn’t respond. Instead, I pulled up the photos I’d taken of the grave. I looked at Sarah Chun’s tag for a long time, letting the image burn into my memory. This was going to war. And I needed to be ready.
Around 3:00 PM, Emma woke up. She panicked for a moment, disoriented, until she saw me.
“Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” She sat up slowly, clutching the duvet. “Is Grandma in jail?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Her voice was hard, a tone no seven-year-old should ever have to use. “Daddy… are we going back to Mom?”
That was the question. I sat on the edge of her bed. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. Even if you think it might hurt my feelings.”
She nodded.
“Did Mom know what Grandma was doing? With the holes?”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears. “She said I was being bad. That I wasn’t listening. That Grandma could teach me to be good. She drove me there Tuesday and told Grandma I needed to ‘learn respect.’”
I felt something cold and final settle in my chest, displacing the love I’d held for my wife for a decade. “What did you do that was so bad, Em?”
“I wouldn’t eat my vegetables,” she whispered. “And I talked back when she told me to clean my room.”
She started crying. “I didn’t mean to be bad, Daddy. I just wanted you to come home.”
I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight while she sobbed. Over her head, my face was stone. Brenda had sent our daughter to be abused—possibly killed—because she wouldn’t eat vegetables. Because she talked back. Normal kid stuff.
“You weren’t bad, Emma. You hear me? What Mom did was wrong. What Grandma did was evil. You are staying with me forever. I promise.”
There was a knock at the door. I checked the peephole. Donald.
I let him in. “How is she?”
“She’ll survive.”
Donald pulled out a notepad. “Four graves so far. Sarah Chun we knew. The second is Marcus Wright, ten years old, missing from Philadelphia two years ago. Parents were told he was at a boarding school. The third is a girl, maybe eight. Still identifying her. The fourth…” Donald paused, looking sick. “The fourth is recent. A boy named Tyler Brennan. He was only there for a week.”
“How many kids went through that place?”
“Myrtle’s records show over a hundred in the last five years. We’re checking every name. And Eric… about Christina Slaughter.”
“You found something?”
“FBI is looking into her. But we found financial records. Myrtle was charging parents fifty thousand dollars for a three-month program. Cash. We’re talking millions.”
“Where’s the money?”
“That’s the problem. It’s not in her accounts. It’s being funneled somewhere.”
“She has partners,” I said. “Someone helping her look legitimate.”
“That’s what the FBI thinks. But Eric… they want to talk to Brenda.”
“She knew, Don. Emma told me. Brenda drove her there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just make sure everyone involved goes down. I don’t care who they are.”
After Donald left, I made a decision. I called Melody Hendriks, Brenda’s sister. She answered immediately.
“Eric? Oh my god. Brenda said you were home. Are you okay?”
“Melody, listen to me. Your mother was running a torture camp. Four kids are dead. Emma was in a hole in the backyard when I found her.”
Silence.
“That’s… no. Mom is strict, but…”
“I saw the graves, Melody. The FBI is digging them up right now. Did you ever see anything? Anything wrong?”
“I haven’t been there in years,” Melody stammered. “Mom and I had a falling out. She said I was raising my kids ‘too soft.’ I told her to stay away from us.” She paused, her voice shaking. “Brenda still talked to her, though. Said I was overreacting.”
“Brenda sent Emma there.”
“No. Brenda wouldn’t.”
“She did. Because Emma wouldn’t eat her vegetables.”
Another long silence. When Melody spoke again, her voice was steel. “Where’s Emma?”
“With me. Safe.”
“Keep her away from Brenda. I mean it, Eric. If she knew… keep her away.”
After I hung up, my laptop pinged. An encrypted email from Derek.
Preliminary findings. Myrtle’s financial records show payments to a shell company. One name on the LLC documents stands out. Herman Savage. Myrtle’s brother.
I stared at the screen. Herman Savage. He lived in town.
He was a County Judge.
The next morning, I took Emma to a safe house arranged by Donald—a small apartment above a bookstore owned by a retired cop.
“I don’t want you to go,” Emma said, clutching a new teddy bear I’d bought her.
“I’ll be back tonight. Officer Janet is nice, and you’ll be safe here. The door has three locks.”
“Will you bring Mom?”
My jaw tightened. “Do you want to see Mom?”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “Not yet.”
“That’s okay.”
I drove to my house. Brenda’s car was in the driveway. I walked in. She was in the kitchen, looking haggard.
“Eric! Finally. The police won’t tell me anything. They took Mom. Where’s Emma?”
“I’m trying to decide,” I said quietly, “if my wife is stupid or evil.”
Brenda’s face went white. “What?”
“You sent our daughter to a woman who murders children. You drove her there on Tuesday and told Myrtle she needed to learn respect.”
“I didn’t! It’s not like that! Mom’s program is strict, but it works!”
“Emma is seven! She wouldn’t eat vegetables! So you sent her to be buried alive in a hole?”
“That’s not—Mom wouldn’t—”
“I pulled her out myself, Brenda! She was hypothermic! There was a dead kid in the hole next to her! Sarah Chun! Her bones were still there!”
Brenda collapsed onto a chair. “No… that’s not possible.”
“Did you ever visit? Did you ever actually see what she was doing?”
“I trusted her!” Brenda shrieked. “She’s my mother! I thought… I thought a few days would just scare her a little.”
“You can’t be a little bit evil, Brenda. You can’t torture someone a little bit.” I pulled out the photo of the grave and slammed it on the table. “Look at it!”
She looked. She ran to the sink and vomited.
“You have until tomorrow to move out,” I said to her back. “If you’re still here when I come back, I’m calling the cops.”
“I have rights!”
“So did Emma. So did Sarah Chun. You’re going to talk to a lawyer, you’re going to give me full custody, and you’re going to cooperate with the FBI. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be charged as an accessory to murder.”
I left her crying in the kitchen of the house we’d built together. It was ash now.
I met Derek at a diner outside town. He looked tired.
“Judge Herman Savage,” Derek said, sliding a folder across the table. “Handles juvenile cases. Family court. Guess what happens when parents complain about Myrtle?”
“Cases get dismissed.”
“Bingo. Six complaints in five years. All dismissed by Herman. Christina Slaughter is his ex-wife. They’re all on the payroll of an LLC called New Beginnings Holdings. Herman, Myrtle, Christina. They split about three million dollars over five years.”
“Herman provides legal cover,” I said. “Christina handles the state investigations. Myrtle runs the horror show.”
“There’s more,” Derek whispered. “I found gaps in the ledger. Big cash withdrawals. Ten grand a month. Protection money? Bribes?”
My phone rang. Donald.
“Myrtle’s talking,” he said. “Trying to cut a deal. She says she was coerced. But Eric… she implicated Brenda.”
I closed my eyes. “What did she say?”
“She says Brenda helped recruit families. That she got a finder’s fee. Five thousand dollars per kid.”
The diner seemed to tilt on its axis.
“How many?”
“Maybe twenty. Over three years.”
I hung up. I didn’t feel rage anymore. I felt a cold, surgical precision.
I went to Melody’s house. Brenda was there, sitting at the table.
“The FBI says you got five thousand dollars a head,” I said. “Is it true?”
Brenda looked at me, tears streaming down her face. “We needed the money, Eric! You were deployed! I had debt!”
“You sold children!” I shouted. “Twenty kids! For a new car? For vacations?”
“I didn’t know they were getting hurt!”
“You didn’t care! Stay away from us, Brenda. If I see you near Emma, I will end you.”
As I drove away, my phone rang. Agent Morrison, FBI.
“Mr. McKenzie. We’re building a RICO case. Racketeering, trafficking, murder. We’re going after everyone. Herman Savage, Christina Slaughter, your wife.”
“Good. Get them all.”
“We will. But watch your back. Herman Savage has powerful friends. And desperate people do dangerous things.”
The next week was a blur of interviews and lawyers. I hired Margaret Vance, a shark of a family attorney. She filed for emergency custody. With Brenda facing federal charges, it was granted immediately.
But the law moves too slow for justice. Herman Savage was out on bail. A million dollars, paid in cash. He was sitting in his house, wearing an ankle monitor, probably destroying evidence.
“I need you to do something illegal,” I told Derek.
“Way ahead of you.”
We broke into Herman’s house at 0200 hours. Not physically—digitally. Derek cracked his Wi-Fi. We found his cloud backups.
What we found made the previous horrors look like a prelude.
Spreadsheets. Lists of children. Notes on which ones were “problematic.” Invoices for “disposal services.”
And emails. Emails from Herman to powerful people—CEOs, a State Senator, a local real estate mogul.
The boy knows too much about the accounts. Fix him.
My daughter found the photos. She needs to learn silence.
Myrtle’s program wasn’t just for discipline. It was a disposal service for the inconvenient children of the elite. Kids who knew their parents’ secrets. Kids who threatened to talk.
“This is big,” Derek said, his face pale in the glow of the laptop. “This is ‘get us killed’ big.”
“Send it to everyone,” I said. “The FBI. The press. Every news outlet in the country.”
“If we do that, there’s no going back.”
“Good.”
We leaked it all. The “Children’s Grave Conspiracy,” the headlines called it.
The fallout was nuclear. The State Senator resigned. The CEO was fired. Herman’s bail was revoked.
But two names were missing. Edward Carlson and Alberto Drew. Two wealthy fathers who had paid for “Permanent Solutions” for their sons. They had vanished.
“They fled,” Morrison told me. “We think they’re out of the country.”
“No,” Derek said later, looking at a satellite map. “They’re in Alaska. Carlson owns a hunting lodge. Completely off the grid.”
“The FBI can’t go there without jurisdiction complications,” I said. “It’ll take weeks.”
“We aren’t the FBI,” Derek smiled.
We flew to Alaska. We hiked ten miles through snow and dense forest. We found the cabin.
We didn’t kill them. That would have been too easy. We zip-tied them and sat them down.
“My son was going to ruin me,” Carlson wept. “He had evidence of my fraud.”
“So you killed him,” I said.
“I had no choice!”
“You always have a choice.” I leaned in close. “Here’s your choice now. You call the FBI and surrender. You testify against everyone. Or I leave you out here tied to a tree for the wolves.”
They called.
Six months later.
The trials were televised. Myrtle got four consecutive life sentences. Herman got life without parole; he lost an eye in prison a week later. Brenda got five years for conspiracy. She cried on the stand. I didn’t feel a thing.
Emma didn’t have to testify. The video deposition was enough.
We were in the backyard of our new house. A smaller place, but it was ours. No memories of Brenda. No shadows.
Donald Gillespie was flipping burgers on the grill.
“How’s she doing?” he asked, nodding at Emma, who was chasing a soccer ball.
“Good. Straight A’s. She laughs again.”
“You did good, Eric. You stopped it.”
“Not all of it,” I said, taking a sip of beer. “There will always be monsters.”
“Yeah. But they know not to mess with the McKenzies now.”
My phone buzzed. A text from Derek.
Saw the news. Another ‘discipline camp’ in Ohio. Similar setup. Thought you should know.
I stared at the screen. Justice was never finished. Evil was never completely defeated. But someone had to stand against it.
I typed back: Send me the details.
I looked at my daughter, alive and safe in the sunlight. I’d won this war.
I’d win the next one, too.