Brian Freeman: The Burying Place

Valerie shook her head. 'That wouldn't accomplish anything.'

'All I know right now is that her own baby died,' Serena said. 'She couldn't deal with it. She became obsessed with Callie.'

Valerie was quiet. 'So she was desperate,' she said finally. 'I know what that's like.'

'Don't put yourself in her shoes,' Serena told her. 'She crossed lines you can't cross. It doesn’t matter how many bad things happen to someone. You don't do what she did.'

'I know, but I've been at the end of my rope, too.'

'That's the past,' Serena said.

She watched Valerie's face and saw exhaustion and emotion catching up with her. The roller coaster of the night was taking its toll. 'Why don't you get some sleep?' she suggested. 'We won't get to Duluth for another hour.'

'I'm not sure I want to sleep,' Valerie admitted. 'I want to be sure this is really happening. I'm afraid I'll wake up and it'll be a dream, you know?'

'It's not. You're both safe.'

'I'll sleep when we get there,' she said, but she leaned against the window anyway, and her eyes blinked shut. When Serena looked over again, Valerie was sleeping peacefully.

Serena was tired herself, and the dark highway was hypnotic, but she had plenty of adrenaline to keep her awake. Part of it was the knowledge that, like Valerie, she was about to be free, even though it wasn't a freedom she had sought or expected. Part of it was the knowledge that Kasey Kennedy was out there somewhere, and she didn't know how far Kasey would go or what she would do next.

I know what it's like to be desperate .

She followed her high beams down the lonely road and thought about Kasey on this highway as the fog gathered in a cloud around her. A young cop who was blind and reckless, toppling a set of dominoes that would leave so many people in ruins. She would have been alone on the road then as Serena was alone now, alone with the deer, lakes, and trees of the northland.

Except as Serena drove, she realized she wasn't alone.

As the road flattened into a long straightaway between the swamplands of the Indian reservation, she glanced into her mirror, and there they were again, a mile behind her. She had first spotted them five miles outside Grand Rapids, coming and going behind the shelter of the curves.

Headlights.

Kasey leaned against the wall of the old house, almost too tired to stand. She knew she had to keep going, but she didn't know how. She was bleeding again under all the bandages. When she touched a finger to her neck, it came away sticky and red. Her head throbbed. She was dizzy. She could barely hold the gun in her hand.

All she wanted to do was lay down. Lay down and sleep. Lay down and die.

She waited in the frigid night for her last chance. The harbor water lapped at the shore behind her, and she could hear the louder rumbling of Lake Superior on the other side of the street. Behind the dune. Behind Stride's house.

When she looked up and down the Point, she didn't see cops waiting for her. There were no squad cars, no flashing lights, no one patrolling in the shadows. There was only Serena and Valerie, at home where she had followed them along the deserted highway. She could see them in the front bedroom that looked out on the street. Bright lights were on, shining through the clean glass of the window. Valerie held Callie in her arms.

Kasey's heart broke, seeing Callie. Her anger came back, the same anger that had propelled her for the past week. Fury that her child was dead. Fury at God's mistake. Desperation to hold a child again. Crying, breathing raggedly, she coughed and tasted something wet in her mouth and realized it was blood. She staggered and propped herself up with a hand on the wall. The gun slipped from her fingers and hit the pavement with a clatter. She bent down and picked it up.

She checked the street again. Empty.

In the bedroom, behind the window, Valerie hugged Serena as they separated for the night. Kasey saw Serena return to the great space behind the front door, and she ducked as Serena peered through the sheer curtains out to the street. Serena opened the door and stepped out on to the wooden porch, where she carefully studied the house and shadows around her. Kasey huddled behind a trash bin, hiding. When she peered past the bin, she saw Serena go back inside and heard the sharp click of the deadbolt. Inside the house, the lights of the living room went black.

A moment later, in the other room, she saw Valerie reach for the light too. The entire house was dark. Valerie and Callie were alone.

Kasey let fifteen minutes pass before she pushed herself off the wall and weaved across the narrow street. She eyed the parked cars as she passed quickly in and out of the glow of a street light. Flurries blew down in a cold rain and bit at her skin. The roar of the lake got louder, as if it were a large animal out of sight on the other side of the sand.

She avoided the front door. On the west side of the house, she spotted a twisting wrought-iron staircase that led to the upper floor. She limped toward it, not caring about the tracks she left in the snow.

When she tried to climb, she found the metal steps slippery with ice. She put a hand on the railing and dragged herself up step by step. The effort exhausted her, and the openness of the iron frame made her light-headed when she looked down. By the time she reached the top, she had to stop to let her vertigo subside.

She looked down at her feet. Drops of blood dotted the snow like cherries.

Kasey tugged the sleeve of her coat over her hand and punched the small chambered window near the doorknob. The window shattered with a low, musical crash. Glass sprayed on to the floor. She bent down to the broken window and listened for noise from the floor below. When she heard nothing, she reached through the hole for the doorknob, undid the lock, and let herself inside the house.

The attic level was dark and cold. Nails hung down like teeth from the wooden beams in the ceiling. The unfinished floor was littered with boxes and equipment. Through the shadows, she spied a staircase leading to the ground floor, and she stepped carefully over broken glass to reach it. The stairs were pitch black, and she felt for a handrail and didn't find one. She held her breath and put her foot blindly on the first step. Then the next. She swayed and thought she would fall. Her eyes adjusted and she could see the outline of a dozen steps below her, but she froze with every footfall as the wood squealed in protest. She didn't know if the noise would carry through the closed door below her. To her, it sounded loud.

Kasey reached the bottom step and waited. She felt warm air on the other side of the door. Silently, she turned the handle and pulled the door open. She could make out the shapes of leather furniture in the great space. Another handful of wooden steps led to the carpet. She heard wind sucking air up the chimney with a rush. The front door and the wall of windows leading to the porch were on her right. So was the bedroom where Valerie and Callie were sleeping.

She made wet tracks to the door. She undid the lock and opened it, giving herself an easy escape to the street, and she thought about going through that door and walking away. Go back to the car. Drive. Start a new life. But it was too late for that. She had already lost Jack. And Bruce. She wouldn't lose Callie, too.

Kasey stared at the closed door of the bedroom. No light shot under the crack between the door and the carpet. She listened for breathing inside and heard nothing at all. The gun was heavy in her hand. She wondered if she would have to kill again and hoped it didn't come to that. She was tired of death. Tired of killing. Nothing had gone as she'd planned and dreamed.

She reached for the knob and opened the door silently, pushing it inward. On the wall to her right, in the gloom, she saw a twin bed and the humped outline of a body. She took two tentative steps until she was fully inside the room. She lifted the gun and crept toward the bed.