Chapter 21 #2
“I need to know if there was anything left out of the court transcripts,” Hadley said, holding up a hand to the guard.
He was well aware that she wasn’t merely visiting family.
She’d made sure that those at the prison understood this meeting was official business by the State Police.
“Did Emily ever tell you that she was afraid? Did she mention anyone following her or maybe someone paying a little too much attention to her?”
Mason's expression remained unchanged, but something flickered in his eyes.
Not surprise, though.
Maybe confirmation?
Mason leaned back in his chair, the sound of the metal frame creaking slightly traveling through the receiver. His eyes took on a distant quality as he shook his head slowly.
“No, Emily never mentioned anyone following her or making her uncomfortable." Mason drew a deep breath, his chest expanding against the faded fabric of his prison uniform. “I'd been saving up from yard work all summer just to make sure I had enough money for the festival.”
Mason’s voice was somewhat monotone as he recounted the past.
Hadley was strangely grateful that he was able to shut his emotions off in such a manner.
“I wanted to make sure she had fun that night. She was waiting to hear back from Clemson University. If she had been accepted, that festival would have been her last until after she graduated.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“I had enough money for tickets, games, food—the works. Emily loved those cherry slushies. She always got brain freeze because she'd drink it too fast, but she didn’t care.”
A memory materialized for Hadley of Emily’s bright red lips.
She’d press her thumb against the roof of her mouth when the cold hit too hard, laughing afterward.
Mason had taken them both to the convenience store one day, and he’d treated them both to cherry slushies.
The happy memory was both foreign and achingly familiar, like finding photographs in a forgotten box.
“I arranged for you to stay with Lisa Wheeler since Mom was working the late shift at the diner. I didn't want you home alone, and I knew you'd have more fun with Debbie Wheeler, even though she was a couple of years older than you.”
The care in that simple detail struck Hadley unexpectedly, and she pressed her lips tightly together in repressed anger. Even at eighteen, preparing for a date with his girlfriend, Mason had made arrangements for his little sister. Not her mother, but her brother.
“I saw Emily's initials carved in Gleason's barn,” Hadley said, noticing the guard’s impatience. “But not yours.”
“Mom was late for her shift, and she didn’t have time to drop you off. I picked Emily up after the group had already been to Old Man Gleason’s barn.”
Another memory came to the forefront—Mason checking that her overnight bag had everything she needed. She'd been annoyed by his hovering, eager for him to take her to Debbie’s house.
“We spent hours playing games, riding the rides, and eating way too much cotton candy. We met up with everyone around ten that night.”
“And it was Sam who dared everyone to walk through the Cox’s cornfields?”
“Yeah,” Mason replied, his gaze unfocused as if he were watching a slideshow of his past. “Sam had hit the moonshine a little too hard. He said the Threshing Man would be out that night for sure, with the moon being so full. It was stupid teenager stuff, you know?”
“But you all went along with the idea.” Hadley was more in control of her emotions now that they weren’t focused on their own emotional trauma. “Seven of you.”
“To start with, yes. But we had to walk through the patch of woods. Before we could enter, Lori and Nicole backed out. Sam, Jerry, and Billy all ran ahead.” This part of the story had never been clear, because the police had focused solely on Mason and Emily once they had established the others hadn’t witnessed a thing.
“I told Emily that we should just let them have their fun. It was getting really dark, and you know how Mr. Cox can get about his property. But Emily was fearless. She wanted to see if there was anything to the legend, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her. ”
“What happened then?” Hadley asked, though she’d already memorized his version of events. “And don’t leave out a single detail, Mason.”
“We'd gone maybe a hundred yards in when we realized that Sam and the others were too far ahead of us to catch up to." Mason's voice grew rough around the edges, the memory clearly causing physical discomfort even after so many years. “Emily tugged on my hand—‘Come on! I don’t want to miss anything’—before she bolted ahead. When I told the police how upset I’d been that she’d run off like that, nothing else mattered.”
“I still need to hear the details, Mason. I read the report, but I can’t trust that Chief Garber documented everything.”
“I was hoping that if I didn’t join her, she’d get scared and come back.
But then I heard her scream.” Mason’s jaw tightened, and Hadley got the sense that he heard that scream often in his mind.
“I found her caught in some kind of trap. Like a snare, but more elaborate. Wooden spikes had cut into her ankle. She was bleeding. Crying.”
No trap had been found during the subsequent search of the woods, and neither had Emily’s body. It wasn’t easy for a prosecutor to receive a guilty verdict without a body, but he’d gotten one all the same.
“I pulled out my pocketknife to cut her free,” Mason continued, his fingers unconsciously mimicking the motion.
“I kept telling her that it would be okay, that I'd get her out of it.
Then I noticed the tarp underneath her. I even stopped trying to pry the trap open, trying to understand what was happening.
But that's when something was thrown over my head.
A bag, maybe a hood—all I know was that it was burlap.
I couldn't see, but whoever did it cinched it tight around my neck before shoving me to the side.
By the time I was able to get the hood off, Emily was gone.
So were the tarp and trap. All three had just vanished like they'd never been there at all.”
“A tarp?” Hadley couldn’t recall a tarp ever being mentioned back then. And she had read through those court transcripts enough to be certain of her memory. “No tarp was ever mentioned at trial.”
“I brought that to my lawyer’s attention, too. He said there was no mention of a tarp in my original statement. To bring it up during trial would signal that I was changing my initial story, and he didn’t think that was wise.”
Mason fell silent for a moment, his breathing shallow and controlled.
“I tried to find her, Hadley. I called her name a thousand times, but she never answered me. Eventually, I found my way back to the festival, hoping that someone would help me find her. No one believed me, though. I had her blood on me, on my knife, and there was no evidence anyone else had been there. I couldn’t even find the place where the trap had been, but then I realized that’s why the tarp had been placed underneath.
I couldn’t prove a thing. Like I said, Emily’s blood was all over me, my knife, and my fate was sealed. ”
The image of Mason with blood on his shirt and hands flashed in Hadley's mind. The look on his face had been guilt, but not for the reason he was convicted by a jury of his peers. He couldn’t save Emily, and that was a fate worse than death.
“Do you have any idea what kept me going all these years?” Mason asked, not waiting for her response as he leaned forward with such intensity that Hadley pulled back from the partition.
“Knowing that in ten years, I'll walk out of here and find who really killed her.
I think about it every day—who might have been in those woods that night, who might have wanted to hurt her.
It's the only thing that matters anymore.”
Hadley had been wrong, and she’d misjudged her brother completely. Mason wasn’t resigned to his fate. He’d been fueled by a single-minded purpose all these years, and he sought vengeance for a crime that had gone unsolved for two decades.
She was prevented from responding when a guard approached Mason from behind. He wasn’t the one near the door, but the guard who had signed her in and stored her firearm in a locker.
“One minute, ma’am.”
Hadley nodded her appreciation at the courtesy. She could have spoken to the warden and requested additional time, but she needed to get back for Reed’s funeral.
“You should know that I kept the house,” Hadley disclosed, noticing the way Mason’s shoulders had tensed upon hearing their time was coming to an end. “I've been paying the property taxes on it, though it still needs to be cleaned out. You’ll have a place waiting for you when you get released.”
“Do me a favor, nugget. Be careful,” Mason warned, concern written on his features. “I don’t want Sam’s next visit to be a death notification. If Reed was murdered to cover up those abductions, this guy won't hesitate to kill you. He’s been getting away with this for decades. He won't stop now.”