Long time gone, p.25
Long Time Gone, page 25
“And you think Preston wants to leave Cedar Creek?”
Now it was Annabelle’s turn to laugh. “You think you control everything that goes on, but you know so little. And when you find out, your perfect little world with all your money, and the cookie-cutter houses you make your kids live in, and your country-club lifestyle, it’s all going to crumble. And the sad thing is, you don’t even know it’s about to happen.”
Charlotte began to fuss. The rising tone of Annabelle and Tilly’s exchange caused her to cry and squirm in her bassinet.
CHAPTER 64
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
“I HAVE NO IDEA,” NORA SAID IN RESPONSE TO SLOAN’S QUESTION about who was operating the camera in the photos of Annabelle and Tilly.
“How many negatives are left on the roll?” Sloan asked.
Nora went to the enlarger. “Four.”
“Let’s go. Let’s see what’s on them.”
A frantic energy filled the darkroom. As Sloan and Nora stood in the red glow of the safelight, they both sensed they were on the precipice of solving a decades-old mystery, even if they could not comprehend what they were about to uncover.
Nora worked expertly now. She was no longer a teacher taking Sloan under her wings. She was a master, running through the developing process like someone who’d done it thousands of times before, pointing and giving orders that Sloan followed without hesitation. Nora exposed the negative onto the photo paper in twelve-second increments to make sure they’d have a clear image. Then she ran the blank photo paper through the developing baths. This time, though, as they waited while the image sat in the final tray, Nora got busy working on the next negative. By the time she had the photo submerged in the developing solution, the first image was ready to come out of the fixer.
While Nora prepared the next negative on the roll, Sloan clipped the photo to the drying rack and then she used tongs to move the second image to the stop bath. Her movements were rushed, but under Nora’s guidance, each step of the process was done correctly. Finally, they had four photos hanging on the drying rack, each in different stages of development.
The first image, still dripping with fixer solution, had come to life. Slightly blurred, it showed Tilly with a handful of Annabelle’s hair and Annabelle’s head pulled down from the force.
“They’re . . .” Sloan pulled the photo off the drying rack. “Fighting.”
Nora removed the second photo from the drying rack, and they stared at it. The seconds passed at a snail’s pace as they waited for the image to form. Finally, the color came through and they witnessed Annabelle pinning Tilly against the kitchen counter with outstretched arms.
Nora grabbed the third photo from the drying rack. She and Sloan were breathing heavily, the pictures were a portal to the past that put them both in the middle of the battle being waged inside Annabelle Margolis’s home nearly thirty years earlier. Nora blew on the blank photo to hurry the developing process. As the image visualized, she gasped.
“Oh my God.”
Sloan looked at the image in Nora’s hand. In it she saw Tilly Margolis holding a long butcher’s knife.
THE PAST
Cedar Creek, Nevada
Tuesday, July 4, 1995 The Day Of . . .
“WHAT’S WRONG, TILLY?” ANNABELLE SAID, HER FACE CLOSE TO her mother-in-law’s. This confrontation had been a long time in the making. “For the first time in your life, you’ve got nothing to say?”
“Oh, I have plenty to say. And you’re going to listen. You may hold a spell over my son, but you possess no such effect on me. I know the game you’re playing. You’re white trash out for a payday, and you’ve completed the trap. I’ll give you credit there. I don’t take Preston as a fool, but I’ll be damned if he’s not a complete buffoon when it comes to you. Here’s the offer. Reid and I will pay you to go away. You’ll be well taken care of, and so will your child.”
“My child?” Annabelle said with a laugh. “You mean your son’s child, too, right? And your granddaughter?”
“I’m under no illusion as to what that child represents. She was a way for you to trap Preston into a life of servitude. And I admit, you’ve won. Reid and I will readily grant you the victory and give you what you want. You’ll see that the package we’ve put together is more than fair.”
Annabelle laughed again. “You and Reid are offering me, like, a severance package to go away?”
“Like, exactly. We can have the marriage annulled, and we’ll pay you a monthly stipend until the child is eighteen. You’ll see that the offer is more than fair.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tilly! Are you still running that crazy idea through your warped mind? I don’t want your money.”
“No, you want Preston’s. But what you don’t understand is that Preston has no money. Not the kind you’re after. If he goes through with this nonsense, Reid and I have warned him that he will be excommunicated from the family.”
“Excommunicated? Has Cedar Creek turned into the Middle Ages?”
“Cute,” Tilly said. “Preston will be cut off if he continues this nonsense with you.”
Annabelle shook her head. “With the way you keep them on such tight leashes, it’s no wonder your own son is stealing money.”
The comment, Annabelle noticed, went straight over Tilly’s head. She truly was clueless.
“Cut off means Preston gets no more family money. He’ll be fired from the law firm. He will not be allowed to work anywhere in Harrison County.”
“You promise?” Annabelle said. “Please, Tilly, promise me that everything you just said is true. Promise me that you’ll let Preston leave this godforsaken place and never look back. He’ll be here soon. Will you please tell him what you just told me?”
Annabelle took a step closer to her mother-in-law.
“You think idle threats like that will scare him, but in reality they’d set him free. It wasn’t my idea to leave this place. It was Preston’s. He can’t wait to get the hell away from you.”
“You little tramp!” Tilly yelled, startling both Annabelle and Charlotte.
Charlotte began to cry in earnest now, kicking her legs and flailing in the bassinet. As Charlotte squirmed, one of her kicking feet struck the button on Annabelle’s camera, which rested near the edge of the bassinet. Charlotte’s heel connected with the button, snapping off a photo just as Tilly exploded into a fit of rage and grabbed Annabelle by the hair. The two women wrestled but Annabelle was unable to break free from the woman’s grip as Tilly pulled her head down and spun her around.
Annabelle charged forward in a bull rush and she and Tilly crashed into the kitchen counter and cabinets. The impact was jarring and caused Tilly to lose her grip on Annabelle’s hair. Annabelle pinned Tilly against the counter until she could safely back away from her. When her mother-in-law turned around, her right hand gripped a long, serrated knife from the butcher’s block. Annabelle was so shocked by the sight of the knife that she had no chance to react. Tilly plunged the blade into her midsection. Annabelle let out a cry, more from fear than pain. Strangely, she felt nothing at all until Tilly pulled the knife from her gut. Then Annabelle felt the warm flow of blood pour over her hands as she grabbed at her stomach.
Lightheadedness quickly descended and Annabelle was only peripherally aware when Tilly plunged the knife into her a second time. A moment later Annabelle collapsed onto the kitchen floor. The house would have been eerily silent but for Charlotte’s wailing. As Charlotte’s legs flailed, her heel activated the camera again, firing off another photo, this time of Tilly holding the bloody knife.
Cedar Creek, Nevada
July 4, 1995 The Day Of . . .
WHEN PRESTON PULLED UP TO THE HOUSE, HE SAW HIS MOTHER’S car in the driveway.
“God damn it!”
He saw the trunk to the BMW open and suitcases piled inside. He had hoped to escape Cedar Creek without confronting his mother. And God help him tonight if his father was inside. Preston shut off the engine and opened the car door. As soon as he did, he heard Charlotte crying from inside the house. Not simply crying, though; his daughter was screaming in a way Preston had never before heard. He ran to the house, took the front steps two at a time, and rushed through the front doorway. He jumped over a duffle bag that lay in the foyer, and when he made it to the kitchen he saw Charlotte in her bassinet, positioned on the kitchen table. His daughter was kicking and squirming and unleashing a bloodcurdling scream that colored her face fire-engine red.
He took a step into the kitchen and the story unfolded. Annabelle lay on her back, one leg bent backward at the knee, arms crumpled at her sides, and a pool of dark red blood encircling her body. Standing next to Annabelle’s body was his mother. She held a serrated kitchen knife smeared with blood in her right hand. When Preston looked at her, she dropped the knife and it clattered to the floor, the noise momentarily overcoming Charlotte’s screams.
“She attacked me, Preston,” his mother said. “You must believe me. She attacked me and I defended myself.”
Charlotte continued to wail in her bassinet.
“What did you do, mother?”
“It was self-defense.”
Preston reached his hands to his head and grabbed his hair as he stared down at his wife and the blood and the knife. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“She attacked me, and I defended myself,” his mother said again, this time with anger in her voice.
Preston shook his head and reached for the phone, lifting it off the wall jack.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling an ambulance.”
“No,” Tilly said. “You can’t do that.”
Ignoring his mother, he began to dial. Tilly ran over and swiped the phone from his hands. It skidded across the floor.
“You can’t. She’s already gone. It’s over, son, and it’s better this way.”
Preston’s eyes filled with rage, and he shoved his mother backward. Tilly stumbled and fell onto the floor next to Annabelle, barely missing the pool of blood. As the anger bubbled from him, Preston climbed on top of his mother and placed his hands around her neck.
“What did you do?” he said through clenched teeth as he violently gripped his mother’s neck. “Did you kill her in front of my daughter?”
Preston saw his mother’s face turn a deep purple. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“You hated her. Even though I loved her, you hated her. I’ll kill you like you killed her!”
He spat the words out in a craze-filled scream before he heard a loud crack and felt the concussion of something striking the back of his head. The blow took the strength from his arms, like a spigot had been opened that bled all the energy from his body. Although he tried to continue squeezing his mother’s neck, his hands and arms would no longer cooperate. After a second, Preston slumped to the floor and, just before his eyes closed, saw Ellis standing over him. There was a baseball bat in his hands.
Charlotte screamed and Preston looked at the child. Her feet continued to flail, her right heel striking the camera a final time.
PART VI
Soaring
CHAPTER 65
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
SLOAN AND NORA STARED AT EACH OTHER AS NORA HELD THE PHOTO showing Tilly with a knife in her hand.
“She killed her,” Nora said. “Tilly killed Annabelle.”
Sloan swallowed hard and looked back to the photo, trying to process what she was seeing, how these photos came to be, and who had taken them.
“I’m still . . .” Sloan said, shaking her head. “Who took these photos?”
“And what happened to Preston?” Nora said. “And you. What happened to you that night?”
Slowly, as if the answer dawned on them at the same time and from the same place, they looked to the drying rack and the final photo that hung there. Enough time had passed so that the image was clearly formed. Nora pulled it off the clip. With her mouth agape, she reached over to the wall and clicked on the overhead light. In her hand the photo showed Ellis eerily staring into the lens of the camera and holding a baseball bat. Sloan’s mind made the connection to Dr. Cutty’s impression of Baker Jauncey’s head wound, which she believed had been caused by a baseball bat.
“Nora!” a voice yelled from somewhere outside the darkroom.
It was Ellis.
“Nora!” he yelled again, this time his voice was louder and closer.
Nora and Sloan looked at each other with panicked eyes. They’d left the cellar door off the kitchen opened and footsteps pounded down the steps. They both startled when Ellis pounded on the darkroom door.
“Nora, are you in there?”
Nora held her finger to her lips for Sloan to stay silent. But when Sloan placed her trembling hand onto the table to steady herself, she knocked over one of the trays containing the developing solution. It fell off the table and crashed onto the floor.
“Nora,” Ellis yelled. “Open the door!”
The door shook as Ellis pounded from the other side.
CHAPTER 66
Cedar Creek, Nevada Friday, August 2, 2024
ERIC DROVE AT CLOSE TO 100 MPH AS HE RACED NORTH OUT OF Reno and away from the bank where he and Marvin Mann had discovered his father’s message—a sticky note written in his father’s cursive that was now affixed to his dashboard. It read: Guy Menendez = Ellis Margolis.
“Call her again,” Eric said to Marvin Mann as they raced north toward Cedar Creek.
“It’s going straight to voicemail,” Marvin said. “Her phone is either off or she has no service. Even an old man like myself knows this.”
“Just try!” Eric said, knowing that Sloan was at Margolis Manor with Ellis, and in grave danger.
Marvin tried again.
“Voicemail.”
“Text her. Same message.”
Marvin worked his fingers over the keyboard of Eric’s phone, retyping the identical message he’d sent numerous times since they’d left the bank.
Ellis Margolis is Guy Menendez. Find an excuse to leave and call me!
“Done,” Marvin said.
Eric ran a hand through his hair as he thought.
“Look up the number for the police department in Bend, Oregon.”
“Where?”
“Just do it, Marv!”
Marvin used Eric’s phone to search.
“Got it.”
Marvin dialed and handed Eric the phone.
“Bend Police Department,” a woman said on the other end.
“Hi, my name is Eric Stamos. I’m the sheriff down in Harrison County, Nevada. I’ve got an emergency and need to speak with someone up there. Your chief or someone in charge.”
“Do you need to call 9-1-1?”
“No, the emergency is up by you. I need to speak with someone in charge up there.”
“And what was your name, sir?”
Eric took a calming breath. “This is Sheriff Eric Stamos from Harrison County, Nevada.”
“One moment please.”
An eternity passed before someone returned to the line.
“This is Chief Mortenson, who am I speaking with?”
“Hey Chief, this is Eric Stamos. I’m the sheriff down in Harrison County, Nevada and I need your help.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. What’s up?”
“I need you to get some uniforms over to Margolis Manor.”
“The winery?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got a situation developing. If you could go out there and check on things, I’d consider it a personal favor.”
“What’s the issue out at the winery, Sheriff?”
“It’s a long story, and we don’t have time for me to give you all the details. I’ve got a friend out at the winery, and I think she’s in danger. I can’t reach her by phone, and I need you to go check on her.”
“What’s this friend’s name?”
“Sloan Hastings.”
“Sloan . . . the girl in the news?”
“That’s her, yes.”
There was a short pause.
“This phone number you’re calling from is the best way to reach you, Sheriff?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll head out there myself and let you know what I find.”
“Thanks, Chief. If you can make it a priority, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’m headed there now.”
CHAPTER 67
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
“SHIT,” SLOAN WHISPERED AS THE TRAY CRASHED TO THE FLOOR.
“Nora! Is Sloan with you? Open the door!”
Ellis pounded and the doorframe shook. They both looked again at the photo of Ellis eerily staring from the photo, a baseball bat in his hands. They heard heavy footsteps as Ellis walked away from the darkroom door and bounded up the steps. Moments later he was back. They heard jingling.
“Keys?” Sloan whispered. “Are those keys?”
“No,” Nora said. “The lock is not key activated. It’s a deadbolt.”
When they heard hammering, they understood. Ellis was going to dismantle the lock one way or another.
“He’s coming in, Nora!”
“Follow me,” Nora said, running to the far side of the darkroom.
Sloan hadn’t noticed the other door. She’d only been in the room for a moment originally before Nora had cast the space into darkness. Then, the room had been lit by the glow of the red safelight. But now, with the overhead lights ablaze, she saw it. A heavy wooden door, rounded on top and with thick wooden planks creating an ornate X across the front.
Nora twisted the lock and pushed the door open. The hinges protested in a high-pitched screech until the door came to a halt. Based on the franticness of his hammering, Ellis had heard the door open.
“Nora! Stay in the darkroom. Something’s happened. It’s not safe for you to leave.”
Sloan saw Nora hesitate, and sensed her doubt. Sloan knew she wanted to believe her husband. She grabbed Nora’s hand and pulled her through the doorway and into the darkness beyond.
