Brian Freeman - Thief River Falls

“I’m guessing it didn’t,” Lisa murmured.

“Oh, no. Nick got out, came home, and put Fiona in the emergency room.”

Lisa shook her head and swore under her breath. As a nurse, she’d seen that same movie play out over and over at the hospital. What was worse was seeing how many of the women went back to their abusers, because they had nowhere else to go. She pictured Fiona’s sweet face in her head from the photographs on her mantel, and she had no trouble imagining how that face had looked after Nick was done with her. She was angry on Fiona’s behalf, and for the first time in her life, she actually felt a little sorry for Denis Farrell.

“This time Nick got two months in jail,” Tom went on. “Denis wanted Nick behind bars for a lot longer than that, but you know what the courts are like in these situations. Plus, I think the judge didn’t want to look like he was handing out a stiffer sentence because Denis was personally involved. Anyway, Nick went away to do his time, and Denis made sure Fiona got a restraining order and a divorce. When Nick got out in the middle of September, Denis had a sheriff’s car parked outside Fiona’s home day and night in case Nick decided to go after his ex-wife again. Except nothing happened. Nick left town. He got in his car, and according to the credit card receipts, he drove all the way to Florida. Delray. The family was pretty relieved to have him gone, you know? We all figured that was that.”

Lisa closed her eyes. “That wasn’t that, was it?”

“No,” Tom replied. He flicked his first cigarette out the car window. “That was definitely not that.”

“What happened?”

“Ten days ago, Nick drove back to Thief River Falls. He parked a couple of blocks from Fiona’s place. Denis still had a cop outside — better safe than sorry — but Nick waited until the guy left the car to take a leak and swung a pipe into the cop’s skull. Knocked him out cold. Then he went after Fiona. She never even had time to call 911. He kicked in the back door, grabbed a butcher knife, and went after her. Neighbors heard screaming and called the cops, but by the time they got there, Nick was gone, and Fiona was dead in the bedroom. Seventy-plus stab wounds. I mean, he just went after her in a frenzy. Worst crime around here in decades. Maybe ever.”

Lisa could see the blood on the carpet. The screams reverberated in her head. She could picture Fiona on her back, could see Nick over her with his arm flying up and down, blood spraying everywhere. It was as if she’d been there to witness the whole thing. She felt sick again.

“They’re sure it was Nick who did it?” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Prints everywhere. On the knife. On the pipe where the cop was hit. Neighbors saw him running away, too.”

“What happened to him?” Lisa asked. “Where did he go?”

Tom shrugged. “That’s the million-dollar question. Your guess is as good as mine. The cops would love to find him, but he’s in the wind. They’ve been on the hunt for Nick ever since the murder.”

“He’s missing ?”

“Yeah. He was on foot, too. The cops were all over his car, so he just ran. The sheriff put a squeeze around the whole town. I thought they would have nabbed him by now, but it’s been ten days, and there’s no sign of him. It’s hard to believe he could still be hiding in Thief River Falls, so I figure he managed to get through the dragnet and steal a car. He’s probably down in Florida again.”

Lisa stared at the windshield, but it was almost completely covered in a light layer of snow. “I don’t think so,” she murmured.

“No? You think he’s still around?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You got any particular reason to believe that?” he asked.

Lisa didn’t answer, and Tom lit a fresh cigarette. Number two. The smoke stopped going out the window and settled over the Camaro’s interior like a cloud.

“Well, you could be right,” Tom went on, when he realized she wasn’t going to say anything more. “Maybe Nick is still holed up somewhere around here. He can’t hide forever, though. And I’ll tell you one thing. Nick better hope that the cops catch him before Denis Farrell does. This was his daughter. Believe me, Denis is out for blood.”

Daylight was waning as Lisa slipped back through her old neighborhood. She made it to her house unseen, and when she was inside, she called for Purdue. He didn’t answer, so she took the steps down to the cold, cluttered basement. She navigated through the maze of garage sale junk they kept down there to the tiny crawl space. Her heart felt a flood of relief when she spotted his face poking out from behind Madeleine’s old Christmas decorations.

Purdue snaked from his hiding place and dropped to the floor. He wrapped up Lisa in a hug.

“You were gone so long!” he said. “I was afraid you were never coming back.”

Lisa mussed his blond hair. “Don’t worry about that. Wherever you are, I’ll always come back for you. Why were you in the crawl space? Did someone come to the house?”

“I heard something outside, and I got scared. I didn’t know who it was, so I figured I would hide.”

“That was the right thing to do,” Lisa told him.

The two of them went back upstairs to the main part of the house. Purdue went from window to window to peer outside as if he were a spy, and Lisa went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. The kitchen was a match for Fiona’s house, without the marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. There were knives on the counter, just like there had been at Fiona’s, but none of the knives was missing. Lisa took Madeleine’s butcher knife out of the block and thought about all the times she’d seen her mother cutting up chicken pieces with it and singing, “Alouette, je te plumerai” while she did.

When the water was boiling, Lisa brought her tea into the living room. She took a seat on the sofa and patted the cushion for Purdue to join her. The boy galloped over and sat with his legs underneath him. It felt right to have a boy running around the house. Her eyes drifted to the mantel of their fireplace, which was where they kept their family photographs, just as Fiona had. Except Lisa had turned all the photographs facedown when she came back into the house. Seeing them was still too painful.

“I explored the house while you were gone,” Purdue told her. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Sure. It’s fine.”

He pointed at a copy of Thief River Falls on the coffee table. “I found that book in the bedroom upstairs. Is that yours? Is that the one about the boy who’s lost, like me?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

“Can I read it?”

Lisa shook her head. “Not yet. It’s a little old for you.”

Purdue fidgeted on the sofa. He looked at the book and then down at his lap. “Well, I started reading it anyway. I read the first part, about the boy in the ground who’s talking to his mom.”

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Lisa said.

“Does the boy die?”

“No. I told you he gets rescued.”

“What about his mom? She’s dead, right? Like mine. You didn’t say that in the book, but I figured that was it.”

“Purdue, this is not a book for kids. It’s a book for adults.”

“What happens? Who rescues the boy?”

Lisa shook her head and didn’t answer. She wanted to get away from the book; she didn’t want to dive inside the plot of Thief River Falls . Not now. Then she heard an echo of Willow Taylor’s voice in her head, and she realized she didn’t have a choice. The more she tried to get away from the book, the more she kept finding herself in the middle of it.

Do you ever worry about someone bringing your books to life?