The Captive Read online

  “No. Keep reading.”

  “For the dressing: Two tablespoons sesame oil. Three tablespoons rice vinegar. A squeeze of agave syrup.”

  “That’s from a cactus, agave syrup.”

  “I know. One green chili. A small bunch of fresh basil. A small bunch of fresh cilantro. Two tablespoons toasted white or black sesame seeds. A splash of light soy sauce.”

  Brooke listened through to the end of the salad directions and then told Holly to turn out the lamp and go to sleep.

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Okay, well, I am.”

  “So, goodnight,” Holly said, already looking at her book again. Brooke waited for a minute, thinking of all the bedtimes she’d wasted on impatience when her daughter was young enough to want her to stay. So many nights, lying in the dark, waiting for Holly’s breathing to drop into sleep so Brooke could sneak back downstairs to have time for herself, or with Milo, or to do chores. She must have known that sweet dependence wouldn’t last forever.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Holly said, as if reading Brooke’s mind. “You can tell me the truth.”

  “About what, Hol?”

  “Did you and Dad have a fight?” The sharp planes of her cheekbones. Earnest eyes. “Is that why you’re back early?”

  “I just wanted to be with you kids.”

  Holly sighed, as if abandoning a futile task, and returned to her book.

  Brooke hesitated, unsure how to tell Holly what she needed to know. It had always been easier to say nothing and believe she was preserving their innocence. But that had been reckless, she saw now. Reckless and selfish.

  “You know to be careful around— Like, if anyone ever showed up here, someone you didn’t know, you know you should be careful, right?”

  “No one comes here, Mom.”

  “Like today, when Dad and I were gone. If you heard someone outside, or saw someone on the property, you don’t have to— If you don’t know them, I’d rather you were safe than polite. You could hide. With your sister. You’d be in charge of her, if something like that happened.”

  “You want us to hide from strangers now?”

  “If you don’t want to be a kid anymore, I’m going to trust you with some grown-up things.”

  “Okay.”

  “Like, there are bad people out there. People who would hurt you.”

  “Yeah, obviously. I’m not stupid.”

  Brooke could have told her about the warrant. Holly would have heard of the Cawleys; she wasn’t entirely naive. Nonetheless, Brooke held back.

  “I know you’re not stupid. It’s just better to be safe, no matter what. Even if you think it’s embarrassing. Just promise me.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m going to see literally no one, living here.”

  “But if you did.”

  “I’ll dig myself a hole and hide in it forever.”

  Holly was looking at her book again when Brooke left the room.

  THE SUN CLEARED the eastern woods and the sky opened up blue. Brooke heard a door smack and glanced up the hill to the house. She couldn’t make anything out at this distance. It would be Milo setting out to clean the shed, letting Holly and Sal sleep in. She doubted he’d locked the door behind him; she stifled the urge to climb back up the hill and check.

  Brooke took the thermometer from her backpack and drove the spike deep into the base of the nearest plant. She waited until the machine beeped, and squinted to make out the display: four degrees above freezing. She pulled a cranberry off the plant and rolled it between her fingers. Still a hard, shiny vermillion. The plants at the farther end would be a stage ahead. If it frosted again tonight, they would begin the dry harvest from the south end tomorrow, get through as many plants as possible before the snow came. Once the dry berries were in, they’d flood the bogs with creek water from the reservoir for the wet harvest.

  They’d always had horses to draw the harrow and boom and ferry the crop uphill to the rinsing shed. The thought of doing it unassisted was daunting: slogging through frigid water in leaky, duct-taped hip waders, beating the submerged plants, and herding the floating berries into rafts.

  It would take all of them working day and night, Brooke thought with a pang of guilt—even Sal. She wished they still had Star.

  Brooke remembered the horse’s warm coat under her hand when she’d said goodbye at the harness shop. It seemed to her that she ought to be able to reach out, right now, and take Star back. She forced the thought aside. It was done. Star was gone—some stranger’s now. Though she wouldn’t have realized it yet, Brooke knew. Star was smart, but she was just a horse. She would still be waiting for Brooke to come back.

  Brooke shouldered her pack and moved through the irrigation ditch, checking for gaps in the walls. In the north dike, she found an inch-wide hole below the flood line. She sniffed the edge and caught the distinctive reek of some rodent’s fresh marking.

  “Come on out,” she said, blowing into the tunnel.

  There was a hiss from inside: a weasel. It had probably taken the den over from its prey, a mole or mouse whose skin now lined its former home.

  “It’s for your own good,” Brooke said, stabbing her trowel into the tunnel and drawing sharply up, exposing the hole right down to the burrow. The weasel whirled out, a six-inch blur, barking shrilly.

  “You’re all right,” Brooke said. “Settle down.”

  The weasel backed away from Brooke, her white winter fur conspicuous against the dead ground. There were no kits; she’d find someplace else to live. Slow and watchful, the creature disappeared alone into the cranberry plants.

  Brooke filled in the excavated burrow and completed her circuit of the bogs, clearing out two more nests, both empty. It was good to move, good to work, her thoughts absorbed in the tasks ahead. In the farthest bog, as she’d hoped, she found the plants nearly ripe enough to start harvesting.

  Brooke wound her way back through the ditches and climbed the hill to the house, peeling off her coat. The grass was dry and brittle and broke under her boots, leaving a trail of splintered ends. When she reached the yard, she noticed with irritation that Milo had left the double doors of the rinsing shed open after cleaning it, and a stirring pole was lying on the ground. He was as messy as the kids sometimes.

  As she bent to pick up the pole, Brooke’s neck prickled with apprehension.

  “Milo, are you in there?” Her voice faltered as she looked through the open doors.

  She had been breathing heavily from the hill. Now the air went out of her. She stood frozen for what felt like a long time. In the dimness of the shed was Stephen Cawley, fair-haired, blue-eyed, a scar from his lip to his chin. He was turning toward her. She saw recognition settle on him.

  Her mind flew to the house. The kids. Milo.

  Run, she thought, panic flooding her body.

  Then the muffling calm came back to her, long forgotten but familiar, swallowing her fear. She saw the necessary actions in front of her like a map.

  It couldn’t have been more than a split second. Stephen Cawley opened his mouth to speak and Brooke lunged, grabbed the rinsing pole from the ground, slammed the doors, and shoved the pole through both handles, trapping him inside. A heartbeat later, the shed shook as Cawley pounded the doors from within, shouting something Brooke couldn’t make out. The pole held.

  Brooke observed with detachment that there was no vehicle, no horse.

  In her mind’s eye, she circled the shed. No windows, no other doors. Floorboards he could pry up, packed dirt underneath. He would dig out if he had to, though it was easier to keep ramming the doors until they gave. Which they would. The pole was strong ash, but the doors themselves were only pine; they would break first. Brooke considered fire and discarded the idea. He might plunge through flame-weakened walls and survive.

  He was still shouting, and now he began banging at the door hinges with something heavy. Metal. A shovel, possibly. Brooke had nothing. It was only chance, Milo’s carelessness clea
ning out the shed, that had given her the pole, and she couldn’t use that without opening the doors.

  The doorframe was starting to give. She had to be ready. The moment he came through would be her only chance. If she didn’t cut him down when she had the advantage, it was done. He was bigger and stronger.

  Brooke pressed a hand against her throat. Could she kill him? She’d have to. If she didn’t, he would kill her, and then only Milo would stand between Cawley and the kids.

  With horror, she realized Cawley might already have found them. Wouldn’t he have gone to the house first? Why hadn’t anyone appeared to see what the noise was about? She wanted more than anything to call their names, to hear them answer, but she bit back the wish.

  Just kill him. Decide how and then do it.

  Axes. There were axes twenty feet away, in the woodshed.

  Her footsteps over the dry grass were masked by the banging behind her. She leapt onto the chopping block and reached into the rafters for the big axe, the one they used for maple. Hefting it in her hands, she turned back to the rinsing shed.

  Halfway there, she saw the top hinge of one door give way and a shovel blade slice down through the opening, hacking at the planks.

  It was a mistake. The planks were reinforced by a thick crossbar as well as the pole. Cawley should have been working on the bottom hinge. But to Brooke’s surprise, one board snapped and its top half fell to the ground. Three like that and he could climb through, though it would be high and awkward.

  If she could get above him, she’d have a clean strike at his head. No, she thought, the roof was sheet aluminum, slippery and noisy, and there wasn’t time. She had a minute, maybe less. She would have to stay flush to the side of the shed, take her chances that, in his struggle to get over the bottom half of the door, Cawley wouldn’t see her before she swung. He might think she had already run for the house. He might come out ready to chase, not fight.

  She raised the axe. She’d have one swing.

  There was a crack as two more planks splintered. A shoe appeared over the crossbar. A leg. Now he saw her. As he pulled his other leg through and shifted his weight to raise the shovel overhead, Brooke swung.

  She felt the axe pivot in her hands, blunt end forward. A barely conscious choice, mercy sneaking in where it wasn’t wanted. Nor had she swung hard enough, she realized now. Too late.

  The square face of the axe hit Cawley’s kneecap, and his leg caved inward, throwing him off-balance. Seeing him stumble, Brooke kicked hard into the hurt knee and pushed him back. He fell to the ground, the spade of the shovel slicing the necks off a clutch of dry nettles.

  Brooke brought the blunt end of the axe down again, this time on the ankle of Cawley’s other leg, and felt something give. A grunt escaped his throat. He had the shovel up again and swung hard, forcing Brooke to jump out of the way. At the end of his swing, before he could bring it around again, Brooke threw herself forward, blocking the shovel with one hand and ramming the axe head into Cawley’s injured knee with the other. He yelled in pain. Not giving him a chance to recover, she threw the axe behind her, came down with her knees on either side of his chest, and grabbed the shaft of the shovel with both hands, forcing it against his throat.

  Cawley thrashed, trying to throw her off. His injuries gave him no leverage. He tore at her, punched her face, her arms, her throat. He clawed for the discarded axe. Brooke locked her elbows and bore down with all her weight. His face turned purple and thick. He tried one more time to heave himself up. She held on with the shovel and kicked down into his injured knee. He choked, his eyes bulging and red, and went limp.

  Brooke counted out the seconds in a panted whisper. After a minute, she eased off with the shovel. He was breathing weakly but he didn’t move.

  She heard a fluttering sound overhead. A flock of snow buntings had landed on the roof of the shed and sat fluffing their feathers and chirping softly to one another.

  Cawley lay under her.

  Kill him. Like a rooster or a lamb, any animal: fast and without thinking. She stood and retrieved the axe. She ran her hands over the smooth wooden handle, picturing the motion, making it rote, imagining the force it would take for a fatal stroke, so that when she lifted the blade over his exposed neck, her instincts would not betray her again; she would have only to follow the steps and be done.

  If she didn’t kill him, there was no doubt what would happen. She’d seen him recognize her, and he hadn’t looked surprised, either. He’d come here looking for her. Somehow, they’d found her.

  Just do it. End it. Get Milo and the kids and run.

  If Stephen Cawley knew where to find her, there would be others not far behind.

  Run where, though? No horse, no money, no one to trust.

  Kill him.

  She watched herself step away from Cawley and reach through the broken shed door for the coil of baling twine that hung there.

  What are you doing?

  Brooke rolled the captive onto his stomach and pulled his wrists together.

  2

  Deep down, Brooke knew she had no right to this life. She had allowed fifteen years’ refuge to lull her, telling herself she was no longer in danger, that Milo and the girls didn’t need the truth; they were used to Brooke’s muteness on the subject of her past, and their conversations flowed around it reflexively, like water around a rock. She’d stopped watching, stopped waiting for it all to be ripped away. But she knew.

  She should have run farther in the first place.

  She’d arrived in Buxton eighteen years old, scraped raw up one side, and favoring her right shoulder. She’d taken a job at the sawmill, intending to stay only long enough to heal and make a little money, then keep moving in the spring. The mill owner had given her a room above the office, with a window opening onto the stable roof; she could have Star saddled in minutes.

  All that long, cold winter, Brooke had kept to herself, sweeping sodden wood chips from the mill floor. The workers got used to the girl who moved like a ghost between machines, her face turned away. She sank into a deep freeze along with the ground—didn’t speak, didn’t think. If she left the mill at all, it was with a ball cap pulled low over her eyes.

  She listened: for names, rumors, bits of news. Once, while she was sleeping in her room over the office, two men with Shaw County accents had visited the mill clerk selling diesel. She woke with the feeling of falling, something not right, fighting her way out of dreams to distinguish the voices coming up through the floor, listening for her name. Panic blurred everything, making her uncertain. When they left, she lay shaking.

  She didn’t go to the mill floor that day. She sat dressed in everything she owned, ready with the window hasp open in her hand. She didn’t eat. Peed in a Tupperware. Night came and she stayed awake. A late harvest moon rose in the sky, big and orange and monstrous. It shrank and whitened as it climbed until it disappeared beyond her window frame, casting its glow down over the silvered roofs of town. That night passed, and the next day, and another night, and still no one came. Brooke’s face was stiff and her body felt brittle and dry as an old bone.

  Finally, she ventured out. The roar of machinery, calls of the night shift piling lumber. She saw the unswept wood chips piled muddy and thick around the saws. She was dizzy and trembling from hunger. She scooped a mouthful of water from the tap and returned to work, sweeping and oiling and waiting. And no one came.

  For fifteen years, no one had come.

  Now, Brooke looked down at Stephen Cawley, lying unconscious, bound at the wrists and ankles, where she’d dragged him to an inner room of her rinsing shed. His jacket had yielded a few dollars, an empty key chain, and a baggie dusted with the remnants of chalk, the powerful amphetamine-opioid hybrid that had held sway for as long as Brooke could remember. No needles; he must have been snorting it. She found no gun, no knife. No clue to how Cawley had gotten here. Under his body stink, Brooke could detect neither horse nor diesel.

  She closed the door, thre
w the bolt, and hurried to the house. Crossing the yard, she listened for voices, movement, any sign of life. Nothing. Then, as she came through the door, she heard music.

  Milo was alone in the living room, picking out a tune on the kids’ ukulele.

  “Where are the girls?” Brooke demanded.

  “Outside.” He kept playing, didn’t look up.

  “Where?” she shouted.

  Milo flinched, skewing the melody.

  “I said they could go.” He laid his fingers across the ukulele strings, muting them. “Holly wanted to look for a cell signal. It’s okay, I cleaned out the shed.”

  Brooke remembered teasing Milo at the auction about the frivolous expense of the phone battery. That felt like months ago, not days. She thought quickly. If the girls were looking for a signal, they would have gone north, to the high ground near the road.

  “Good,” she breathed. “Okay.”

  “What’s up?” Milo asked. “I heard you hammering out there.”

  Brooke had raced to the house without considering what she would do if they were safe, what she would say. She hesitated. If there was ever a time to be honest, this was it.

  A sudden rattle from outside made Brooke jump. The breeze catching a loose flap of siding.

  Time was running out. Telling Milo now would mean feelings, and questions, and that would slow them down. As it was, he was unhurt, the girls miraculously hidden at the northern edge of the property. There was still a chance Brooke could get them out of this, if she acted fast.

  “Listen,” she said, trying to decide how much of the truth she had to include. “There’s someone here.”

  “Who?” He put the ukulele down on the couch next to him. Absently, Brooke picked it up and hung it from its bracket on the wall.

  “In the rinsing shed. He’s going to wake up soon.”

  “Someone’s sleeping in the shed?” Milo looked more confused than worried.

  “It’s that man the marshal was looking for in Buxton,” she said, the words coming out stilted. “Stephen Cawley. One of the Cawleys from Shaw Station.”