Dead of Winter

Chapter 13

"I don't get it, Amara. How can someone just disappear into thin air?" Ferrilyn whacked the steering wheel with an open palm. Her ancient Honda veered towards the center line, prompting an angry blast from an oncoming motorist's horn. "You'd think someone would've seen her leave! How did she get past the security cameras? There's one on every corner on the main floor!"

Murmuring a perplexed commiseration, I braced myself against the bucket seat. This wasn't the first time since leaving the hospital I'd regretted the decision to let Ferrilyn drive. Gritting my teeth, I held on, grateful that our trip was just a quick sprint across town.

Stunned by news of Taryn's abrupt departure, Rory, although promising to keep an eye out for her, didn't hold out much hope for finding her right away.

"Can you think of anyone else she knew in town?" I asked, hoping for some clue to where she might have gone.

Ferrilyn shook her head. "No one she's ever mentioned."

"She might have gone to a hotel. There's one near the hospital. I could call." I pulled out my phone.

"But why, Amara?" she wailed, taking out her frustration on the dashboard, this time. "It doesn't make sense."

Although I had my own suspicions about Taryn's sudden disappearance, I kept them to myself. "Maybe she's afraid to return home? Last night must've freaked her out."

"She's not herself, not thinking straight, Amara. That's what worries me the most."

We rounded a corner and began the last leg of our trip in silence. As we ascended Veil Drive, the sole sounds to accompany us were the crunch of snow beneath the tires and the hiss of loose crystals flung against the door. By the time the house came into view, a bank of clouds had moved in, swallowing the afternoon sun.

Halfway up the drive, Ferrilyn slammed on the brakes, sending us into a small skid that ended with the car's passenger side against a snowbank. "Did you see that?"

Before I could answer—not wanting a repeat of the morning's drama, I'd been scanning the tree line for intruders—she'd hopped out of the car. While I wrestled with my seat belt, Ferrilyn, who'd reached the front of the car, crouched down. Something in my stomach knotted as I watched her head disappear from view.

She shouldn't be alone out there. It's getting dark, a phantom voice screeched inside my head. You know what comes in the dark!

"Ferrilyn, wait!" As I began scrambling over the center console, she reappeared, clutching something against her chest.

"It's hers, it's Taryn's," she said. "Oh, God, Amara!"

Joining her, I saw the object was a swath of shredded white flannel. It could have been a hospital blanket. Then I saw the blood. So much blood!

The wind gusted again, and with it, a muffled howl rose with its screech. The sound of an animal in pain.

"Taryn? Where are you, Hon?" Ferrilyn whirled about, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. When nothing but the wind answered her pleas, she started across the drive to one of the snowbanks.

"Stop! That's not Taryn!" Terrified, I lunged after her. Fisting part of her coat, I pulled her back inside the car. "Look, Taryn still has her keys, right?" I gasped. "If she came back, she wouldn't be hiding in the woods, she'd want—she'd need to go somewhere warm."

Crash-thud!

We looked up, both seeing the same things at once. Left open, the back door banged against the side of the barn. Stuck to it, fluttering in the wind, were more b****y scraps of white cloth.

"She's here!" Ferrilyn threw the battered green Civic into gear and floored the gas, fishtailing the rest of the way up the drive.

Splotches of blood stained the landing and the basement floor, but permeating the lower landing was a sinister odor. One I recognized from earlier that morning. Hovering in the dark basement like a malevolent cloud, it assaulted our nostrils the moment we ran through the door. Oblivious to the smell, Ferrilyn pushed past me and darted up the shadowed stairwell, screaming Taryn's name. Sensing something much larger amiss, after securing the deadbolt, I flicked on the lights.

Someone had been here. Boxes, ripped apart, lay scattered on the floor amid discarded tools and broken bottles. Shelves, overturned, spewed their contents—tools I needed for my job—across the floor. Picking my way over the worst of it, I crept into the interior, but found no footprints or blood spatter. No sign of Taryn at all.

Fearing the worst, I dashed upstairs.

Whoever had done a number on the basement had spared the kitchen. Everything there remained as we'd left it: dishes drying in the rack, counters clean and bare. The living room hadn't made it through the intrusion unscathed, however. While our furnishings were still intact, someone—I now had to concede it was Taryn—had taken out their aggression on the dollhouse. Its door, smashed to splinters, sat smoldering in the fireplace. Part of its attic floor canted downward, threatening to send its sundered furnishings into the room below.

Sole witnesses to the destruction, Charlie's dolls lay scattered about the floor. Heads torn from their plastic shoulders, their denuded torsos, broken and twisted beyond recognition, leaned together in a haphazard, abstract tableau.

Tears burned my eyes. My last memento of Loon Lake, the last vestige of my childhood, of my father, of my life before, destroyed!

Shattered, I stooped down and began gathering up doll parts, pieces of miniature furniture, and stones from the ruined toy fireplace. Only Taryn would do such a horrid thing. Such senseless destruction, a priceless childhood relic ruined, dashed to bits! All because one selfish, crazy b***h wouldn't tolerate a child's pantomime!

I dug my nails into the carpet, shock and grief turning to rage in an instant. Ferrilyn would make some lame excuse for her childish behavior, but I wasn't having it. Injured or not, Taryn's time with us was over. Over with a 'D.'

Righteous indignation rose like flames within me. "Where the f**k is she, Ferrilyn? I don't care how hurt or cold she might be, you tell that b***h Taryn, I want to—"

Tearful and terrified, a shivering Ferrilyn, still clutching the blanket, met me at the entrance to the bedroom hall. "Our room's been trashed, but no one's in there." She lifted her free hand, her feeble attempt to gesture down the hall ending in a limp drop. The rest of her body followed, sliding down the side of the wall to the floor. "She's gone, Amara. Taryn's gone!"

And good riddance, I thought, though I kneeled to comfort her. The same part of me, relieved by Taryn's departure, also made a mental note to change the locks on all the doors as soon as possible.

After ensconcing Ferrilyn on the couch with a blanket and a cup of tea, I returned to the basement. While the sky darkened and wind shrieked, I swept and stacked and inventoried my losses. By the time Rory returned from work, I'd cleared away the worst of the mess, but my resentment was still fresh as an open wound.

His response to the situation just ground more salt into that wound. "It sucks, but I'm not surprised, Amara. Taryn never struck me as a stable person."

This wasn't how I'd planned to spend the night before my appointment at New Horizons. I'd wanted to feel rested and better fed, but now had no appetite. I also knew sleep wouldn't come without a fight.

Wrapped in our own musings, the three of us passed the rest of the evening in awkward silence.