J. Gonzalez - They

He began smoking pot again.

Hemp had always served as a good escape vehicle in the past and it proved to be more so now. And with California’s new medicinal marijuana law on the books, he liked to tell himself that he had a legitimate claim for his use of it. He tried to get to the bottom of the dreams through therapy, but he was making no headway there. He’d started smoking pot again one night after dropping some work off at the home of the man that owned the CD ROM company. “You look beat,” Jeff Townsend had said that night. “Something wrong?”

“Haven’t been getting any sleep,” Frank had said. The dreams had been keeping him up and Mark was hitting his terrible two’s, which made it worse. “I’m really stressed out.”

Jeff had already fired up a joint and handed it to him. “Have a hit. Sit down. Relax a little bit.”

And he did. He didn’t even think about the consequences of what falling off the wagon would do to him. He took two hits off the joint and it hit him immediately. He felt relaxed and at ease; more relaxed than he felt in a long time.

He’d bought a dime bag of pot from Jeff that night and took it up again. He did not slip further down the ladder of Schedule 1 drugs like he feared he would. Pot was all he did. As a medicinal tool, it worked wonders. It relaxed him, made him calm, more at ease.

Naturally, Brandy was worried about his descent back into drug use, but when he displayed no signs of going back to the harder stuff, or alcohol, she relaxed a little but kept a wary eye on him. What she was worried about were the memories being unearthed in his therapy sessions, which he resumed late last summer.

The first time he told her about the memories he’d buried so long ago, memories he never even knew he had , he’d wept in her arms in utter fear.

The therapy sessions had continued, unearthing long buried horrors of his past.

He’d found out his mother had been involved.

In early fall he realized he wanted to find out exactly what had happened to him. But most importantly, he wanted to find out what had happened to his father.

Two years before, a man named Mike Peterson had called Frank out of the blue. Mike claimed to be a friend of his father’s. At the time, the only thing Frank knew about his father was that he’d left his mother when he was three. He’d barely remembered the man. He’d talked to Mike on the phone and told him that he had no idea where his father was and had no desire to know, thank you very much, and he was doing just fine without daddy-o around. Mike had been pleasant enough and had told Frank that if he ever wanted to talk about his father, if he ever wanted to talk about anything , to call him. He’d left Frank his phone number and that was it.

When the long buried memories of his past life came bubbling forth in his therapy sessions, his past life before he’d tried to deaden it with massive quantities of drugs, he’d called Mike Peterson.

He’d met with Mike that weekend at a restaurant in Orange County. Mike confirmed that the memories that were flooding back weren’t simply planted or suggested by his therapist. After Mike filled in the gaps to what Frank was already realizing, he agreed to help him.

And now, eight months later, they were closing in.

Half a dozen more people had crowded into the bar and the music begun to blare loud. Party time. For the first time in seven years, Frank wished for a cigarette. He checked his watch: it was already closing in on eleven PM. Time to leave now if he wanted to make it home by midnight.

He pushed his empty Coke glass back along with the assorted dollar bills in change for the bartender’s tip. Then he rose from the bar and headed out.

When he got outside he paused for a moment to breathe in the summer air. The action on the strip was already starting. The music from the Roxy was loud and foot traffic along the strip was beginning its midnight shuffle. He headed to the parking lot where he’d left his car.

As he drove home he rehearsed in his mind what he was going to tell Brandy. He hadn’t lied to her yet about his work with Mike. She knew it was important for him to find out about his childhood, to dig up those demons and confront them. He’d told her everything his long buried memories had unearthed and she’d supported him every step of the way. That had made their marriage more rock solid, their relationship closer. Baring his soul to Brandy in all this had not only made him more vulnerable to her, but had also created a strong bond of trust. He felt she was part of his team, working with him to get to the bottom of what he knew he had to do even if she wasn’t on the front lines with him and Mike. Her support of him in this was one hundred percent.

He mulled this over as he drove home along Sunset Boulevard, headed toward Pacific Coast Highway. He hoped that what he and Mike had in store wouldn’t place Brandy and the kids in too much danger. Still, he had to be prepared. Earlier that afternoon he’d picked up plane tickets for them and Mike had reserved the cabin in Vermont under one of his aliases. When it came to the lives of his wife and children, he wasn’t taking any chances.

The plan was simple. Ship Brandy and the kids back east. Tell her it was for her safety; she knew that some of the information they’d dug up was dangerous; hell it was scary , but he had to do this. He had to put a stop to these people, had to make sure they were caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But most of all, he had to contact Andy. Mike had just located him.

Andy was the reason for the insanity. The murders.

The rituals.

With a heaviness in his heart, Frank drove home through the dark night.

June 25, 1999, 8:30 a.m., Lititz, Pennsylvania

VINCE WALTERS WAS in the bathroom of his motel room shaving when the phone rang.

A frown creased his face as he paused in mid razor stroke as the phone rang a second time. He’d already shaved the left side of his face, so he turned the water off, set the razor on the bathroom sink, and went into the main body of the room to answer the phone.

He scooped up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Vince?”

“Yes.”

“This is Detective Jacobs. We met a few nights ago.”

“Yes, Detective. What can I do for you?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“What is it?” His stomach grew leaden.

“Lillian Withers suffered a fatal heart attack late last night.”

At first the words didn’t ring clear to Vince. He stood at the motel room’s desk, holding the receiver to his damp face. Then it registered and he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His haunted eyes stared back at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.” His heart began thudding hard in his chest.

“I’m afraid not.” Detective Jacob’s voice was weary, heavy with the bearing of bad news. “She was found this morning by Reverend Powell.”

Vince was still trying to grasp the concept of Lillian Withers dead. How could she be dead? He’d just seen her yesterday. Had made preliminary plans with her regarding his mother’s funeral service. She’d told him that he was family to her, something he always felt. And now she was dead.

He took a deep breath, the loss burrowing in his chest. His limbs felt numb, shaky. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to will away the pain that was beginning to pulsate.

“Vince? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. He opened his eyes. “I’m fine.” He felt far from fine. He felt like he wanted to scream.

“Vince?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”

“Thank you.” Vince hung up the phone. He sat down on the bed and looked out the window. Then he got up and went back to the bathroom and finished shaving. When he was finished, he got dressed and drove to Reverend Powell’s house to begin the long, painful process of burying his mother and Lillian Withers.