We stare at each other for a long moment.
“Listen to me, Dean,” I break the silence. “You have to think about this. When Violet was murdered, you were only thirteen years old.”
“That's plenty old enough,” Dean says. “You should know that. Look at some of the prisons and ask murderers how long they've been in there. I guarantee you'll find some who were twelve, thirteen, fourteen when they killed for the first time.”
“But they aren't you. And it's not just your age. You were almost taken. You were almost a victim of this kidnapper. How can you possibly think that you might have had something to do with it when he grabbed you?”
“Did he?” Dean asks. “You read the case file. You read the reports from the police who first responded after those people found me at the bottom of the embankment. I told him what happened, and they examined my injuries. All they could say was that my shirt looked as if it had caught on a tree, and then I fell. Did somebody grab onto me, or did I imagine that? Did my mind make that up to cover what I had just done? There was so much blood on me, Emma. I wasn't that badly hurt.”
“Violet didn't have any wounds on her,” I say. “She was decomposed, but there was still enough flesh on her that it would have shown. There would have been blood on her clothes or in the cavern. There was nothing.”
“So, maybe it wasn't Violet,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“The shoe. That shoe did not belong to her. That shoe belonged to a much older child. Like the one I saw and described, then wiped out of my mind. Nobody knows what happened to her.”
“She wasn't reported missing,” I say. “No child of that age or description was reported missing anytime during that summer. It was just Violet. Whoever you saw and described probably ended up right back at her camp with her parents.”
“Then why did I hear her screaming?” Dean asks. “There's no reason I should have known where that cavern was. I've got chunks of a memory that are missing. I can't even tell you who I was with those last three years. I just know I was there. I know I was at the park.”
“I thought you started your journal after that,” I say. “How would you know if you were there?”
“It's not in the journal,” he says. “I’m talking about the night of Ken Abbott’s investigation.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What about that? If those bones were real, somebody put them in that cavern. And you were nowhere near this park then. You were meeting with that client.”
Dean picks his phone up from where it's sitting on the desk in front of him and hits a few buttons. I hear his voice mail click on.
"Hey, Dean, this is Philip Buckman. I thought we were supposed to meet tonight, but I'm not seeing you anywhere. Please give me a call or send me a text to let me know if I got the night wrong or if I'm just missing you. Talk to you soon. Bye."
I stare at the phone in his hand, trying to make sense of what I just heard and searching desperately for words to say to him.
“I got to the meeting place over an hour after I was supposed to meet him. You did the drive a couple of days ago, Emma. You know Harlan isn't very far from Hollow River Mountain.”
“What's in your journal for that night? What does it say you did?” I ask.
“It has a note about the meeting with Philip. Then there's a note about us watching the special. It says Arrow Lake Campground. There's an hour missing," he says.
“Dean, I have never known you to have complete blackouts. They haven't been affecting you. Why would they suddenly be showing up now?” I ask. “Don't you think there could be another explanation?”
“I don't know why they came back,” he says. “I have short little memory lapses pretty frequently. But nothing that impairs my functioning or puts Xavier in danger or anything. It's been years since I've had any that lasted for long. But I had two in the last couple of weeks, including one that night.”
“Have you talked to anybody about it?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “I got in touch with my old therapist. He reminded me to journal and to cut down on my stress. The more stressed and anxious I am, the stronger and longer the lapse. It got really bad after I was injured and discharged.”
“Where do they come from?" I ask.
“The therapist thinks I might have witnessed something traumatic when I was young, and my brain wanted to block it out. It learned to click off when I was under a tremendous amount of stress or emotional distress," he says.
“How did you possibly get through boot camp and serve in the special forces? That is nothing but stress,” I wonder.
“Determination,” he says. “That's the only explanation I have. I was determined to do that for Violet.” He scoffs and looks down at the desk. “All these years I believed I was living a better life to atone for that little girl's death. And now…”
“Stop,” I tell him.
Dean shakes his head. “What have I done?”
I get up and walk to the other side of the desk so I can wrap my arms around him.
“Dean, listen to me. I know you didn't do this. You have carried the weight and the pressure of blame and fault your whole life, and this is what it's done to you. We are going to find out who did this. Now, let's get to sleep. It's been a long day. And it'll be another long one tomorrow.”
He exhales but doesn’t say anything. Just gets up, brushes his teeth, and goes to bed.
I sit on the edge of Dean's bed until
