Always Watching

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The next morning, after a restless night’s sleep, I woke groggy and sore, all my muscles aching. Thankfully, I was off that day and didn’t have to go into the hospital. I poured a coffee to take to the back patio. I craved the light, the open air. The sun was landing on the top step, so I sat there, lifting my face to the warmth. I heard a small thud to my right, and my eyes jolted open as I spun in that direction, my body braced for an attack. But it was just the cat, having leaped off the railing. She watched me, her eyes blinking in the bright light.

I rubbed my fingers together, called her closer. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

She walked along the bottom of the railing, pausing once in a while to bump her head against the wood. When she was a couple of feet away, she stopped to lie down in a patch of sun. I made another kissing sound. She rolled over, then pulled herself closer by her claws, a rumbling purr starting up in her throat. Joy spun through me, the sweet pleasure of being responded to by another creature. She was a foot from me. We sat together, basking in the sun. Her black fur looked warm. A light dusting of dirt, maybe from my garden bed, shone on the tips. I reached out and ran a hand down her back. She rolled over again, head bumping against my hand. Another thrill of pleasure. I scratched behind her ears. She rubbed her cheek against my thumb. I moved lower, put my whole hand on her chest.

Lightning fast, her claws came out and she wrapped herself around my hand, biting. I shook her off, accidentally bumping her nose. She leaped up to the railing, jumped to the fence, and was gone. I rested my head on my knees, my brother’s words echoing in my head. You pressured her.

All my life I’d been fighting for, or against, something. Before, when things had gotten difficult, I’d always been able to comfort myself by thinking that at least I was helping people, at least I was doing some good on this earth—all the sacrifices were worth it. Now it seemed that all I’d sacrificed was my daughter.

Inside, I heard the phone ring. When I checked it, I recognized Kevin’s cell number. I put the phone down. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. Despondent, I decided to go for a drive. I didn’t have a destination in mind, just let my car and my heart lead me until I found myself heading out of the city. This time, when I drove through Goldstream Park, I thought about a gas tanker that had recently overturned when a drunk driver lost control of the truck. Cleanup crews had worked for days excising the contaminated soil, but it was too late for the fish. The gas had oozed into their gills and killed them in minutes.

One terrible mistake, and it would take years to recover.

At the top of the Malahat, I turned toward Shawnigan, deciding to hike to the trestle and see for myself how the repairs were going. My body was still sore from falling at Garret’s, but it wasn’t a long walk from the gravel parking lot, and it might loosen my muscles. I was also hoping it would help lighten my mood, or at least my thoughts, so I could see clear of the fog surrounding me. When I’d parked my car, I grabbed my gloves and threw on some hiking boots I kept in the trunk, then started down the gravel road, remembering when it was still covered with railway tracks and ties, the wood hot and sticky with creosote in the summer.

When I’d reached the trestle, I stopped and admired the majestic site, over six hundred feet of crisscrossed wooden beams curving out across the river, meeting with the forest on the other side, mountain ranges and trees in every direction. I couldn’t see the river—it was probably over one hundred feet below—but I could hear it. A few big machines were parked on the other side, and metal construction fencing blocked off both ends, but I found an area where I could climb under. I walked onto the trestle, now a boardwalk, remembering how as kids we used to dare each other to stay on until the train came, always running when we heard the whistle. The last train had crossed over in 1979.

Many things had changed since then.

In the middle of the trestle, I leaned on the edge of the top railing, feeling the breeze whistle down through the valley, carrying with it the scent of fir trees and forest, cold, crisp mountain air. I breathed it in, trying to clear my mind. But I couldn’t stop going over every moment of Lisa’s childhood, all the times I’d left her alone with Garret. I was her mother. I should’ve protected her, should’ve seen what was happening.

I was gazing down at the river, thinking of my own mother, when I saw a movement to my left. I glanced up and spotted someone walking toward the trestle. When I realized it was a lone male, my body stiffened. Had Aaron sent someone after me? I held my breath and let it out in a relieved rush when the man’s features came into focus, and I noticed a German shepherd beside him. When Robbie finally reached me, his face was flushed and his breathing ragged, like he’d been walking fast.

“What’re you doing up here?”

“I needed to do some thinking. What are you doing here?”

“I was working at a job site at the end of the road and recognized your car—you have that hospital staff–parking thing on your rearview mirror.”

I nodded. “Right.” I looked back down at the water. “Remember when we used to dare each other to stay on until the train came?”

Robbie rested his elbows on the edge of the railing, looked around. “We never made it. Dad would’ve killed us if he knew what we were doing.”

I gave a small laugh as I leaned on the railing near Robbie, thinking that the train probably hadn’t seemed as dangerous to us as our father.

He said, “So what did you need to think about?”

While I considered how to answer, Robbie reached for his pocket, still searching for his smokes. When he didn’t find them, he shook his head. “Damn dog.” The damn dog looked up at him, circled a few times, then fell asleep.

I took a breath and spilled it all. I hadn’t meant to share everything, not about Garret or what he’d done to Lisa, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. When I told Robbie that I thought someone was watching my house and that I’d been getting threatening phone calls, his mouth tightened to a thin line.

At the end I said, “I’m scared for Lisa. She’s vulnerable right now, but I also have a bad feeling about Joseph. The way he looked… He’s close to the edge. I don’t think it would take much to set him off.”

When I was done, we both stared down at the swirling river for a while. Far below, one lone tree limb spun around and around, caught in the current.

Robbie cleared his throat. “I remember what happened at the commune.”

I turned. “What do you mean?”

“Aaron, the way he looked at you. I didn’t like you being alone with him.”

Now I remembered all the times Robbie had interrupted us when Aaron was talking to me, and how ashamed I’d felt, worried he’d find out my secret. I’d snapped at Robbie, told him to leave me alone—and he did.

Robbie continued. “You were right. Willow and me, we were more than friends.” His face flushed. “Guess you could say she was the first woman I really cared about—last one too….” He drifted off, swallowed hard a few times. “She was from Alberta.” So I’d remembered that part right. It wasn’t much consolation. “Her parents were dead, and she was being raised by an uncle and an aunt, but I got the feeling her uncle was trying to mess around with her, so she ran away.”

“Do you know if she really left the commune?”

He glanced at both ends of the trestle, then looked at Brew, like it was easier to talk to him.

“We met at the beach by Mason’s Store. I flirted with her and told her to come back to the commune, that we had good weed. So she left her friends and climbed in the truck…. She trusted me.”

I held my breath, sensing what Robbie was telling me was taking all his courage, and that one movement on my part could stop his flow, maybe forever.

“But I screwed up. I let her down.”

When he’d paused for a long time, I whispered, “What happened to her?”

“He buried her.” Robbie met my gaze, and the torment in his eyes broke my heart. He looked away, blinking hard and clearing his throat.

My blood was pulsing loud in my ears. Everything else seemed distant and muffled. The river a dull hum. “She’s dead?”

He nodded. “Aaron wanted her vest. She wouldn’t give it up—I told her it wasn’t worth pissing him off over. He was already angry at her for arguing about spiking trees. I’d warned her that he’d use it as a way to make her leave.” A bitter laugh. “I thought that was the worst that could happen.”

I remembered following Robbie and Willow down to the river after she’d disagreed with Aaron, wondering what they’d been talking about. Now I knew.

Robbie continued. “She’d told him he wasn’t the only person who could help people. He hated that. We’d had a fight the next day too, because she’d decided she was sick of Aaron’s crap, and she wanted to leave anyway. She wanted me to go with her, but I wouldn’t, not without you and Mom.”

As Robbie paused, I wondered why Mom finally did leave. Was it really because of social services, and to give her marriage another try? Or had she actually been afraid of Aaron? Was that why my father showed up with a gun?

He started talking again. “Willow said she was going to take you with her. She wouldn’t say why, just that you weren’t safe there.”

I was stunned. I thought about how young Willow had been, only seventeen, and I was touched and saddened by her courage.

Robbie was still talking. “I told her I’d call the cops and report her as a runaway. She was pissed off, said she expected better from me. That’s when I got mad and told her she wasn’t as smart as she thought, and I walked away. I looked back from the road and saw Aaron go after her, but I didn’t follow….”

I held my hand over my mouth, waiting for the rest of the horrible story.

“I thought he’d talk some sense into her.” His voice was strangled with emotion. He paused, caught his breath. After a moment, he continued. “Later, I’d cooled off and felt bad. I thought maybe she was right—we should try to leave with you. When I came back, everyone was still on the reflection walk, and I couldn’t find Willow. Then I walked around to where we’d been digging…”

“Oh no. The outhouses…” I remembered now. The men had been digging holes behind the new cabins. That’s what Aaron had been working on that day.

He nodded. “One of the holes was filled back up. I grabbed the shovel and dug as fast as I could, got down to one of those forty-five-gallon drums we’d used for paint…. I pried off the lid, and I could just see the top of her head.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. Robbie was staring at Brew, his face expressionless, like he had to disconnect from his words to be able to speak them.

“I tried to feel her pulse. But she was already cold, and there was blood in her hair—” Robbie’s voice broke, his shoulders stiff and his neck tight with the effort to rein in his emotions. “Her nails were torn and her fingers all bloody. The back of the lid, it was scratched. He must’ve hit her, with the shovel or something, to stun her, but she was still conscious when he put her in there.”

“My God.”

Robbie was talking fast now, trying to get it all out. The horrible truth finally bursting free. “I was going to call for help, but none of you were back yet, then Aaron came around the corner. I told him I was going to the cops. He said if I broke up the group, he’d have to punish me by taking away something that I loved. I knew he meant he’d hurt you or Mom. He said he didn’t want to do it, but that the Light would make him, like it had with Willow. It was her fault she died because she wouldn’t give him her vest. He had to protect the family.”

It hadn’t been about the vest. He wanted her gone.

Robbie said, “I told him he’d killed her. And he said no, he’d come back to release her.”

He came back to release her. I couldn’t have known this story, but it seemed familiar, a hard knot of dread and fear in the pit of my stomach. I ran my mind over the words but couldn’t think of when I would have heard them before.

Robbie was shaking his head, his hands fists on the railing. “He was so sick. You could tell he actually believed it—that it wasn’t his fault that she died.”

I had no problem believing he’d convinced himself he wasn’t responsible for her death.

“What did you do with her?”

“He made me put the lid back on the barrel, then we filled the hole, and he made me dig a new one for the outhouse. I sat in the woods all that night, watching over her grave, just kept hoping that it was a crazy nightmare. She’s still there. I go there sometimes and tell her I’m sorry….” He drifted off.

I said, “What are you going to do? We can’t leave her there any longer.”

“I know.” He shook his head, a quick angry motion. “I was worried about him coming after you—he stops by every couple of years, letting me know he’s keeping an eye on you, so I won’t say anything.” That’s why Aaron had let Robbie walk around for decades with this knowledge. He’d used me as the threat.

“Is that why you told me that you saw her hitchhiking down the road?”

He nodded. “I wanted you to drop it. But you’re already in danger now, and getting him arrested is the only way to keep him away from you and Lisa. I’ll talk to the cops.” He searched his pocket again for phantom cigarettes. Brew looked at him with concern, his nose twitching, sensing the anxiety in the air.

“We can go to the police now. I’ll take you.”

“Okay, let’s do this. But I’ll follow in my truck with Brew.”

As we walked back to our vehicles, we didn’t talk much, but I could feel the first tentacles of healing, a subtle shift. So much made sense now. How he’d changed when we got home, the coil of anger that always simmered in his eyes. Why he’d never let himself get close to another woman.

When we got to the station, we were informed that Corporal Cruikshank was out and wouldn’t be back for about an hour. The officer on duty said it would be better if we talked to her as she was already handling the investigation in Shawnigan. Robbie decided to wait at the station. When I said I’d stay with him, he answered, “Nah. I’d rather do this on my own anyway.”

“You sure? I don’t mind waiting.”

He shook his head. “Just go back to Victoria and hang tight.”

I gave him my new Victoria cell number and he agreed to call after he was finished giving his statement. Before heading down to Victoria, I drove back to Mary’s to tell her the news—Aaron’s days as a free man were numbered. When I got there, she was digging in her garden. I stopped near the gate and climbed out. Mary turned at the sound of my car, squinted at me as I walked toward her.

I said, “I need to speak with you again if you have a moment.”

“I thought about what you said last time, but I’m not talking to the cops.” She continued with her task.

“You might not have to. That’s why I came here.”

She turned around, the spade in her hand. “What’s happened?”

I told her what Robbie had shared and that he was back at the station, waiting to give his statement.

“Aaron will never get out after this. As soon as the story breaks, other victims of abuse will likely come forward.”

She bowed her head and covered her face in dirty hands. She took a shuddering breath, like she might be crying.

I said, “Are you okay?” I was confused about her reaction.

Speaking into her hand, she said, “I want you to leave. I need to be alone.”

I wasn’t ready to leave yet, not without an explanation. Something about her tears didn’t feel right. “Are you upset about Willow?”

She nodded. “Willow had come to me for help, about her vest. She wanted to keep it. But I wasn’t ready to go against Aaron yet.” She looked down at her missing finger. “That was before this.” She looked back up at me, her eyes wet. “I wouldn’t help her, so she said she was going to leave the commune.”

I crouched down. “You didn’t know Aaron would hurt her.”

She said, “I thought she was wrong, that she should give him her vest. I was caught up in everything he was saying, like all the others. I told him she was planning on leaving. I told him.”

So there might’ve been more to Aaron’s reason for killing Willow. I wondered now if they’d argued, and Willow had told him she was taking me. “The police might want to know that. It would help their case, show motive and—”

She stiffened, the pain in her eyes disappearing into anger. “I already told you I’m not talking to the police. I want you to go now.”

She got up and walked toward the house, leaving the spade still stabbed into the earth.