Chapter 15
A miya hadn’t truly accepted Nick’s story of seeing a stranger slip into the woods.
She believed he thought he had spotted someone, but her experience in psychology had proven that people viewed the world through an imperfect lens.
Emotion, faulty memory, bias, and environmental factors influenced perceptions.
It was the exact reason why eyewitness testimony was often discounted in criminal trials.
So when they had traveled along the trail for several minutes, brushing past brambles and vines—and then discovered actual evidence that they weren’t alone, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of disbelieving her own eyes.
“What the . . . ?” Nick said, letting the sentence trail off unfinished.
Amiya, too, was silenced by what they’d found.
A makeshift campsite had been erected in a small clearing about twenty yards off the trail. A damp, tattered bedsheet had been tied between low-lying tree branches, providing a crude shelter. Raindrops escaped the tree canopy and beat a solemn cadence against the fabric.
Nearby, small chunks of wood had been gathered in a pile, evidently serving as kindling for a fire. The wood was charred and dusted with ashes.
Underneath the bedsheet roof, Amiya saw a dirty blanket full of holes.
“Someone’s been living out here, in the woods, like a homeless person,” Amiya said. She pursed her lips. “I’m trying to understand how this could be happening here.”
“I bet it was the same person I saw,” Nick said. His eyes looked haunted. He clutched the rifle against his chest. “But I don’t see them now. They’re gone.”
Using a long tree branch she’d picked up off the ground, Amiya turned over the blanket. She found a decapitated doll’s head underneath. The plastic face was smeared with dirt, the fake black hair full of dead leaves, and one eye was missing.
“This is a child’s home.” Amiya shook her head, trembling. “Probably a girl. My God. We’ve got to report this, Nick. This is terrible.”
“Yeah.” Nick lowered the rifle, breathing deeply.
With a scream, something dropped out of the trees and landed on Nick’s back. Nick yelped in surprise and collapsed to his knees.
Amiya realized that the shrieking, attacking creature was a child. Wild-haired and dark-skinned, wearing only a filthy blue housedress, she was trying to stab Nick with a sharpened piece of wood.
“Get off him!” Amiya shouted.
She seized a fistful of the girl’s dress. Baring her teeth, the girl swiped at her with the stake, drawing a searing cut across Amiya’s forearm. Amiya cried out and pulled back.
Nick got his bearings and flipped the girl over his shoulders. The child tumbled against a tree, but bounced back onto her feet.
Like a feral feline, she hissed at them and brandished the stake.
Amiya estimated the child to be eleven or twelve years old. The poor girl was emaciated. The sodden dress hung on her bony frame like a shapeless sack. She wore a muddy pair of low-cut sneakers with ragged shoelaces. A weathered, small purse with a thin, fraying strap was slung across her chest.
Runaway , Amiya thought, and felt her heart kick. So much of her counseling work had been with young girls like this, victims of abusive households who often wound up trapped in the sordid world of underground sex trafficking. Amiya had seen it so many times, and it was always heartbreaking.
Fear glistened in the girl’s penny-brown eyes, but there was a threat there, too. Amiya knew this child would not hesitate to strike at them again if she sensed danger.
“It’s okay,” Amiya said softly, but in a firm tone. She opened her hands to show they were empty. She was so focused on the girl she barely registered the bleeding cut on her arm. “We aren’t here to hurt you.” She glanced at Nick, who had already lowered the rifle. “You okay?”
“Yeah, got some nicks and scratches, nothing serious.”
Nodding, Amiya turned back to the girl. She noticed some type of raised welt on the child’s neck, a symbol that looked like a “W,” and her stomach twisted.
She’s been branded with a mark of ownership. Like property.
“My name is Amiya,” she said, and tapped her chest. “This man here is my friend, Nick. What’s your name?”
“The Overseer comes looking at night,” the girl said, in a tremulous voice so soft Amiya could barely hear it over the pattering rainfall.
Amiya frowned. “Who is the Overseer?”
“Stay away from the plantation,” the girl said, and cast a quick, terrified glance behind her.
“Plantation?” Nick asked.
“He has helpers.” A tear tracked down the child’s soot-filmed cheek. “If he catches you . . . you’ll never leave.”
“Have you seen my grandfather?” Nick asked. “He’s very sick. He was wearing overalls and a hat.”
Amiya thought she saw recognition spark in the child’s frightened eyes.
“The Caretaker can’t be touched,” she said, and shook her head.
“You’ve seen him?” Amiya asked. “Where is he? He needs our help, honey.”
In Nick’s eagerness to get answers, he moved toward the girl. The girl drew backward like a startled animal.
“Hey, wait,” Nick said.
“Get out!” she screamed. She whirled around and darted into the brush.
Amiya chased after her, Nick on her heels, but the girl moved like a zephyr and clearly knew her way through these woods. Within a minute, Amiya had lost track of her.
Amiya stopped running and leaned one hand against a tree trunk to aid her balance, her heart racing. Nick bent over next to her. He coughed, spat in the dirt, cursed.
“She knows about my grandpa,” he said. He scowled, wiped rain out of his eyes.
Amiya had taken the first-aid kit from Grandpa Lee’s pickup and fitted it in her purse. She took it out then, and used an antiseptic pad to clean the cut on her arm. She applied an adhesive bandage over the wound.
“She jabbed that stake at you a few times,” Amiya said.
“I’m good,” Nick said, waving off her help. “She called my grandpa ‘the caretaker.’ What the hell does that mean?”
“Not sure, and she said he can’t be touched. I’m assuming he’s off-limits to . . . someone? Everyone?”
“What was all that talk about an Overseer, and a plantation?” Nick asked.
“I was hoping you might have some idea. Does of any of that sound familiar?”
“All I know is that my ancestor was a slave here, and somehow got this property from his owner,” Nick said. He shook his head. “I don’t know if there was ever a plantation here. I’ve never seen it, and no one’s ever said anything to me about it. I’m as clueless as you are.”
“I don’t think she was lying.” Amiya shivered, hugged herself. “She was terrified.”
“And the Overseer?” Nick said.
“Clearly, it’s someone that frightens her. Most likely, it’s the same individual who branded her on the neck with the letter ‘W.’”
“Westbrook,” Nick said, softly.
“Come again?”
“Grandpa Lee, he’s always called this land ‘Westbrook.’ I thought it was only something he made up, but maybe it’s not.”
“Maybe the plantation is named Westbrook,” Amiya said.
Both of them were silent for a moment. Amiya had always been uncomfortable with the idea of plantations.
The very word “plantation” conjured lurid images and disturbing narratives of her ancestors bartered for and sold like common property, family members separated, women raped; shackled, whipped, forced to endure hard labor in sunbaked fields from dawn to dusk.
“We’ve got to find this place,” Nick said. He swung the rifle around from where it hung across his back and into his hands. “Grandpa Lee could be there. If this girl was there, there could be others like her, too. Remember, she said this Overseer person has ‘helpers.’”
“A helper could have taken your granddad, you think?” she asked.
“I’m convinced he didn’t disappear on his own, whether she claims he can’t be touched or not.”
“I’m trying to understand how all of this could be going on here without your granddad’s . . . consent,” Amiya said, delicately. “A runaway child and some person who calls themselves an Overseer, all of this happening on his property? I’m struggling with this.”
“What’re you trying to say?” Nick glared at her. “You think he’s in on it?”
“I can’t imagine that Grandpa Lee is involved in anything as awful as this; I truly can’t.”
“But?” Nick asked.
“The child knew his identity, Nick. She had a name for him. I don’t know the extent of his involvement, but he certainly hasn’t been totally forthright with you.”
“Fair enough.” Nick grunted. “Then I think we’d better find him.”