Conner was speaking in platitudes, Jonathan thought. Ripping lines he’d heard countless times in made-for-television movies or paperback thrillers. It made the whole notion of it more unreal, as if it were all scripted and they were just reading their lines. He had no choice but to continue. The show must go on.
Michael’s eyes were dead serious with a glaze of ice over them. “You don’t have to convince me.”
Jonathan said nothing but stood and went to the bar for another pitcher of beer. He slugged down a rocks glassful of Canadian Club while he was there.
The bartender eyed him. “You okay?”
“No.” He took the beer and sat back down at the table. He looked at Conner and Michael. “So what are you suggesting?”
Conner, realizing that he was finally reeling Jonathan toward this terrible shore of reality, held his hands up in a calm, stabilizing manner – likely taught to him by Human Resources. “We just have to go up and move the trunk,” he said. “I’ve already arranged to rent the cabin again from Bill Flood.”
“Jesus. He’s still alive?” Jonathan said.
“Yes. And that’s part of the problem. Any records he has will have us on them at the same time that kid went missing. Plus, he’s got a mind like a steel trap. Remembered everything about us when I called. One of those old guys who can’t find his way home, but remembers everything about you. He’s selling his land to the developers. This is the last shot we have at this before they break ground and start digging in the spring. We just go up there like we’re going hunting again, dig up the box and move it somewhere no one will ever find it.”
“What makes you think we can even find it once we’re up there?” Jonathan said.
“Have you forgotten where it is?” Michael said.
Jonathan looked down at his drink. “No, no, I haven’t.” Then, “Where do we move it?”
“There’s a lake on the other side of the western ridge,” Conner said. “Part of the deal for the roadway and the developers was that section of forest would be preserved indefinitely. The lake there is deep, two hundred feet, easy. Made from an old glacier back in the ice age. It’s even more remote than Coombs’ Gulch.”
“How far?”
“Seven miles.”
“Seven miles? Are you kidding me? Hauling that thing through that terrain?”
“We put some holes in the trunk, load it with rocks, take it out to the center of the lake and sink it. It’ll never be found.”
“It,” Jonathan said.
“That’s the best I can do. I don’t know what to call…whatever. That’s the plan. It would probably be a two-day hike, considering the gear. We’ll need a raft to get the trunk to the deepest part of the lake. After that we haul ass back to the cabin and just…just forget about it.”
“This is so wrong,” Jonathan said.
“It’s been wrong since the beginning,” Michael said. “Wrong would be letting it ruin everyone else’s life besides our own. This is the best we’ve got.”
There it was, Jonathan thought, the same excuse used around the world for centuries to justify every lying, cheating and murderous man of means or politician to cover up his crime after the fact. But they weren’t even men of means; they were just three losers sitting in a bar, trying to eke out a middle-class existence. Their downfall would ruin the lives of the people they loved. For everyone else it would be a quick headline in the newspaper.
But still, the thought of Mary or Jacob knowing what he did – and subsequently who he truly was – meant he had to do it. Exposing his soul terrified him more than any prison sentence and more than any seven-mile hike, hauling the remains of his life over a mountain so it could sink to the bottom of a lake. Jonathan realized just then that he was the most frightening thing he’d ever encountered. He thought suddenly of that night in the strip club, of stumbling hand in hand with a dancer and catching a glimpse of a pathetic and evil creature in the mirror. Since that night in Coombs’ Gulch, he had lived with that mirror image; it was horrible and twisted and inescapable. He was no longer sure which version of himself was true, but he didn’t want to gaze upon it anymore and never wanted his wife and child to see it – ever.
“No one else will be up there?” he asked.
“According to Bill, no one has been up there for years. Hunting went to shit. Place is all dried up. He even tried to convince me not to waste the money because the animals had all cleared out. I told him we just wanted to get away, old times’ sake.”
Jonathan looked at the Braddick brothers across the table, both of them staring back in unison like a pair of snakes, entrancing him with their eyes.
“How long have you been planning this?”
“I found out six months ago,” Conner said.
“And you’re just telling me now?”
“We didn’t think you’d say yes until now.”
Jonathan slowly moved his finger around the rim of his beer. “Did Gene know?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear them say it. He looked back and forth between the two brothers.
Conner sighed. “We told him last week. We thought he could help convince you.”
Jonathan stared at them. “You’re the reason he’s dead. The two of you. You fucking killed him.”
“No,” Conner said. “Gene killed himself when he pulled the trigger and if we don’t fix this it will kill the rest of us, too.”
Jonathan drove the short distance home that night drunk, the heavy, impenetrable darkness of a moonless night surrounding his car – the lone beacon of light on the roads. There were no streetlights in their small town; the setting sun plunged the area into darkness. He turned into his wooded neighborhood and it seemed abandoned, every house light off, everyone
