BORRASCA - Bagian 5 - Chapter 5 (English)

I called Kimber 34 times in five minutes. It was ten in the morning and I hadn’t heard her leave, hadn’t even woken up when she did. I cursed her and my dope in the same breath. If she didn’t answer soon I would be forced to walk the three and a half miles to downtown Drisking and start asking around for her – a course of action that would get me noticed real fucking quick. I paced the patio for half an hour and smoked cigarette after cigarette, thankful I’d packed an entire carton.

Just as I was pulling on my boots to leave my phone rang. I was relieved to see Kimber’s number pop up – a new edition to my phonebook that would have unfurled a comforting warmth in my stomach if I weren’t so irate.

I answered. “What the fuck, Kimber.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry Sam, I had to. He wasn’t going to meet with me otherwise.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the car, I’m almost back. They haven’t plowed yet in town.”

“Really? In bucolic, perfect, little Drisking, they haven’t plowed the roads by 10 on a Friday morning?”

“I thought it was weird, too. There’s more; I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“Don’t get off the phone with me until you pull into the parking lot.”

“Okay.”

I opened the door and went to wait out in the cold for Kimber’s car. My heart didn’t slow to a normal rate until I finally saw it driving into the parking lot. She pulled into the space below our door and ran up the stairs.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I had to, don’t be mad.”

“Are you fucking kidding me with this, Kimber? I’m already on edge, I can- I can barely fucking breath.”

“Okay, okay, just sit down.” She pushed me into the room and sat me down onto the edge of the bed, pulling off her gloves. Then she crouched in front of me and took me by the shoulders, looking me in the eye.

“The sheriff and most of his deputies are engaged today, which I was told means that they are up at Borrasca.”

“And?”

“And that means that: A. they don’t know we’re here, and B. we can go into town and start discreetly looking around.”

“As opposed to driving up to Borrasca and killing them now?”

Kimber stood up. “I want them dead, Sam, more than anything. But you know what else I want? I want their crimes to be known to the world. They don’t get to die with their “good names”. They don’t get to be martyrs.”

“You want the records.” I said.

“Yes.”

“What do you plan to do with them if you get them?”

“Upload them onto the internet or something. Send them to the FBI.”

“The FBI doesn’t care.”

“We need the records, Sam. I want everyone to know what happened to us.” Kimber’s voice had risen an octave and she seemed on the verge of an anxiety attack.

“Okay, okay.” I stood up. “Maybe Seth can help.”

“Your roommate? How?” she asked.

“He does some pretty illegal stuff online. Maybe he can break into a mainframe or whatever and download the files.”

“So he’s a hacker.”

“He yells at me when I call him that.”

“Is he any good?”

I shrugged. “He’s well known in certain circles.”

She nodded. “Well, we need those files. I just need to find out where they keep them.”

“Are we sure they even really keep records on Borrasca? Seems like a huge liability.”

“An operation that size has to have records. And my source told me they exist.”

“Great, your source.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so you want to go into town and, what, ask around about them?”

Kimber narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s idiotic. I was thinking more maybe we find out where the Clery house is and like…get the information out of Grace Clery.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You want to torture an old lady?”

Kimber fucking exploded. “An old lady that helped to rape, torture, and murder hundreds of women over 50 years, fuck yeah I want to torture that old lady!”

“Alright! Alright. Look I may know someone who might be…sympathetic. And I’m reasonable sure that – unlike your contact – she’s innocent of any knowledge of Borrasca. In fact, she’s the one who helped me and Kyle find you. At the very least she’ll know where the Clery’s live now.”

The drive into town took twice as long as it should have due to the snow. “Why haven’t they plowed these roads?” I asked idly.

“It’s not just the roads. It’s everything.” Kimber said grimly. “A lot of stores have closed in town, buildings are in disrepair, everything looks like shit. They don’t even have any Christmas lights up. It’s bizarre.”

“That’s fuckin’ weird. Are we even sure that Borrasca is still running? The town looks pretty…destitute.”

“I am.” Kimber said and pointed to a bulletin board on the corner of 2nd and Osborn which had six different, and seemingly recent, missing persons’ posters.

“What the fuck is going on.” I murmured as we turned onto Main and into the downtown market place. Everything in town was as Kimber had described: run down and ostensibly poor. “What happened to this place?”

“I don’t know, but lucky for us the antiquities shop is still in business.” Kimber said, pointing across the road. As we parked I zipped my parka up to my neck and lowered my hat down to my eyes. Kimber did the same. The most important thing right now was not being recognized.

Mr. Dranger was still behind the antiquities counter after all these years but gone was his air of haughtiness and pretentious stare. He regarded us coolly but professionally until it was clear we were only traveling through his shop to get to Kathryn Scanlon’s office at the back. He mumbled something under his breath and though I didn’t catch it I was reasonably sure there had been no sign of recognition in his face nor his words.

When we arrived at the office door of the Historic Preservation Society of Drisking I knocked softly and listened for Kathryn’s voice. Instead the door was yanked violently open by a man I’d never seen before.

“May I help you?” He asked, as he eyed us up and down.

“Yeah…ah, yes you can.” I said.

“Alright then, come on in. I’m Don Wheeler; and you are?”

Kimber and I exchanged a careful look and entered the room cautiously.

“Actually we’re looking for Kathryn Scanlan.” I said. I didn’t like the way he was staring at Kimber.

“Oh, Miss Scanlan.” He said, not taking his eyes from her. “You haven’t heard then?” My stomach retched.

“We haven’t.” Kimber said, pulling her jacket around her more tightly.

“Sad business, truly. Disappeared, oh, nine years ago now? Ten? Most people assume she didn’t take Wyatt’s death well and just walked out into the woods to…” Don Wheeler suddenly looked up and seemed to remember his audience. “I’m so sorry, were you all friends?”

I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “Did she ever surface again? Maybe in another state?”

“No. I’m afraid she’s dead.” Don Wheeler shook his head. “She was such a young thing, too.”

“And her…remains?” Kimber asked.

“Nothing was ever found, I’m afraid.”

I was starting to feel ill. “Well then, we’d better- “

“Do you happen to know where the Clery’s live?” Kimber interrupted.

“Grace and Killian? Of course, old friends of mine.” Fuck. “But you must have heard- “

“Thank you for your time, we really have to go. Come on, Allison.” I yanked Kimber out of the room and shut the door behind us. Before I could get a harsh word out I’d fallen against the wall, trying to quell the building panic and nausea.  He knew.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Kimber said quickly. “I just thought maybe- “

I held a finger up as I leaned against the wall with my head between my knees trying to compose myself. Kimber rubbed my back as I swallowed down the bile and waited for the dizziness to pass. Finally, I stood up.

“We have to go.” I didn’t even look at Dranger as we made our way out of the shop, but I could feel him watching us. My mind briefly wandered into the past and I wondered where his daughter was now. I’d never liked Phoebe but I hoped she’d escaped this town. Prayed she had.

The streets were busier than they had been several minutes before when we’d entered the antiquities shop. There were several dozen people trudging through the snow down Main. I wasn’t sure where they were heading since half the stores were closed and the city hadn’t bothered to put up their tree this year.

Kimber walked around to the driver side door of her car. I stared over her head at the people walking by across the street. I hoped my height, beard, and skeleton-like frame disguised me well enough because people were starting to look back. I almost hoped one of them was Clery, Prescott, or the fucking sheriff. We had a trunk full of guns and I wanted this all over with. I needed to go back to the motel and bury myself in smack – and this time I didn’t even want to wake up again.

And then suddenly, just as Kimber sat down into the driver’s seat, I did recognize someone. It was Meera Grady. And she was holding a little boy’s hand. And as I stared I realized who that little boy was. And then I saw nothing but red.