Page 98 of Fake Dark Vows
I start walking. “Why do you ask?”
“I think I know where she is.” She’s whispering, and an image of her with her hand covering her mouth pops into my head.
“Where?”
“Don’t tell your father. I read his correspondence while he’s been sleeping.”
“Mom!” I switch the cellphone to my left ear, keep my head down, dodge the other pedestrians on the street.
“American Falls. There’s a reservoir?—”
I end the call.
The CCTV footage. The house on the lake. My father visited the warehouse with Ron. Perhaps he didn’t know how far the Russos would go—I must believe that—but my father is behind everything that has happened.
Sam and I watch the diving teams from the Idaho Police Department, slipping backwards into the reservoir at American Falls. I had to pull some strings in the name of Carlos Russo, using the CCTV footage obtained illegally from the warehouse, and the correspondence that my mother had discovered on my father’s tablet.
The water, reflecting the gray sky, looks murky, sinister, and I’ve been shivering since I got here, despite the thermal blanket a paramedic wrapped around my shoulders, and the coffee supplied by Sam.
Six hours, Luca Russo said. Even using the private jet, it took seven hours to get here minus the customs checks and flight space protocol at either end.
The divers were already here when we arrived. I’ll be charged with wasting police time if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, but I’ll suffer that, knowing I tried my best. Rose should never have been involved in this crazy feud over fucking money. She wouldn’t have been involved if she hadn’t been in the lobby of Weiss Tower with her friend’s kid that day, delivering her dad’s packed lunch.
Coincidence. Fate. The Universe working its fucking twisted magic.
“How are you doing, buddy?” Sam rubs my arm like he can warm me up, inject some hope back into me.
I shake my head, divert my gaze back to the water’s surface, to the waiting boats, the cops expectantly awaiting information from below. I can’t speak.
What if we’re too late? What if Rose is already dead? How will I ever forgive myself? How will I ever live with the image of her drowning, her lungs slowly filling with water, knowing that if I’d only listened to her…
A diver reappears, breaking through the water’s surface, and I straighten, move closer to the edge of the reservoir as if I’ll be able to hear what he’s saying.
Instantaneously, the boats become hives of activity. Winches are activated, heavy chains that lower retrieval mechanisms into the reservoir. The diver disappears again.
“They’ve found something.” I turn around to face the uniformed officer who spoke.
“Did they say what?” Sam asks on my behalf.
“A container. No water corrosion, so it’s likely to have entered the water recently.”
“Hang on in there, buddy,” Sam says with forced cheer. “They’ve found her.”
The process for lifting the container, moving it onto land, and breaking into it, seems to take forever. Six hours. If she’s lucky. By my reckoning, we ran out of luck a few hours ago, and when they finally pry the lid off and the paramedics climb in, Sam will have to restrain me from following them.
Another paramedic, a young woman around Rose’s age, waits with me. She doesn’t offer me false hope—she simply stands quietly by my side, ready to provide whatever comfort she can when required.
Stretchers are brought over from the ambulances. A person cocooned in a silver thermal blanket is lifted out of the container and placed on the first stretcher. I catch a glimpse of black hair and a strangled cry sticks in my throat.
It isn’t Rose.
I stumble towards the stretcher as it’s lifted onto a mobile trolley, the hydraulics raising it above the ground. The young paramedic tries to stop me, but I shrug her off. It’s a woman. Her skin is pale, gray almost, one eye a slit in the middle of pulpy purple flesh. Her jaw is mottled with bruising and her mouth is misshapen, but the face is still familiar.
“Jennifer.” I try to get closer, but an officer pulls me away, and Sam’s voice penetrates the shrieks that are filling my head.
“There’s someone else, Brandon. They’ve found another body.”
Another body encased in silver. This time a glimpse of honey-blonde hair.