Chapter 33
Hadley Dawkins
Hadley held her hands up in a placating gesture as Kalen Telfort came to terms with his situation. She was grateful for the brief respite, as she, too, needed a moment to consider her options. Preferably, ones that involved making it out of this cabin alive.
When she’d first realized that Kalen Telfort had the upper hand, cold dread had flooded her system.
At first, she couldn’t bring herself to follow his directive to lower her weapon.
It wasn’t until he pressed the barrel of his weapon more firmly against the back of her head that she didn’t have much of a choice.
The faint metallic clink of chains drew her attention to the corner, where Missy Claymont lay on a narrow cot, her thin frame draped in an old-fashioned nightgown.
The girl's vacant eyes stared at nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if she’d drifted off to another world… far, far away from reality.
Had he drugged her?
“Kalen, let me help you.”
Hadley had to start somewhere, and talking sounded good right about now. She didn’t want him to come to some fatal conclusion without her knowledge. She certainly didn’t want him to grasp her level of fear.
“Missy is safe,” Hadley pointed out, raising her hands a little higher when he did the same with his weapon. Her heart rate joined in. “You haven’t hurt her, and I can see from the dishes on the table that you’ve been trying to get her to eat.”
“I’m trying to get her to love me,” Kalen exclaimed in frustration. “Why won’t she love me?”
The air inside the cabin was stale and heavy. The reeking odor was a mixture of uneaten food, unwashed bodies, and something else that threatened to kick in her gag reflex. Hadley had to swallow a few times before she could respond to him.
“Is that why you took Missy? You want someone to love you?”
“Yes, like Sandy loved my father.” Kalen’s eyes glistened, but no tears fell as he met her gaze. “He was able to make my mother love him, and now it’s my turn.”
Hadley tried to make sense of his words, fitting them into a construct that she and Ramos had discussed earlier on the phone. The theory held, but she’d gotten the family wrong.
She kept coming back to the woman’s name.
“Sandy? Sandy Richardson?”
“My mom loved us. Missy should love me.”
“Where is Sandy now?”
Kalen’s face almost crumbled, and Hadley braced herself for an unwelcome response. His index finger was resting on the trigger, and he was clearly rattled by her unexpected appearance.
“Kalen, do you know why I’m here?” Hadley asked to prevent his frustration from getting the best of him. “We’re searching for the burial sites of seven women.”
She had adjusted her count to exclude Missy. If Hadley could distract Kalen long enough through conversation, she stood a chance of finding a weapon of her own. Hers was currently tucked into Kalen’s waistband.
“The others didn’t love him, so they needed to go away.”
“I understand wanting to be loved, Kalen,” Hadley replied, keeping her voice soft.
She’d intentionally avoided responding to his statement for fear he would believe she was judging him.
She once again glanced at Missy. The girl’s blank stare had nothing to do with drugs.
It was obvious that she had experienced some type of mental dissociation that came from prolonged captivity.
A year of being chained to that cot had hollowed her out from the inside. “Everyone deserves to be loved.”
There was no other exit, which meant Kalen stood between her and freedom. One wrong word could set him off, so Hadley stopped searching for a weapon and concentrated solely on him.
“You do deserve to be loved, Kalen. So do I,” Hadley shared as she slowly lowered her hands. Her act of submission appeared to appease him, and he lowered his arm a fraction of an inch. “Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
“I’ve tried everything with her,” Kalen admitted as he switched his focus onto Missy. “I brought her flowers. I read to her. I even played music, the kind my father used to play for my mother. But she won't talk to me. She barely eats. I think…I think she needs to join the others.”
“Can your mother help?” Hadley asked, hoping to garner information in a different way. “You said Sandy was your mother. Maybe she can—”
“My mom is gone,” Kalen whispered, his lower lip trembling. “She got sick, and there was nothing we could do to save her. She’s not buried with the others, though. Mom was special. Beautiful. Gentle.”
Sandy Richardson had been kept alive, had given birth to Kalen, and raised her son in captivity until her death. The horror of it all was beyond comprehension.
Hadley began to understand that if the women didn’t succumb to their fate, Emanuel would dispose of them, as if they were merely the wrong size shirt.
She had trouble reconciling the cordial man to a mentally disturbed individual who thought he could force someone to love him, to take care of him, and to bear his child.
“Kalen, I’m going to be honest with you right now,” Hadley said gently, meeting his gaze steadily once he stopped focusing on Missy. “The sheriff is waiting for me by the dirt road the Hobbs use for their farm equipment. If I don’t report back soon, he and his deputies will be all over this place.”
Kalen's breathing instantly became erratic, his pupils dilated with fear, and panic was about to take hold. She once again raised her hands, urging him to hear her out. She couldn’t have her life snuffed out in this godforsaken cabin in the woods.
“We have some time, though. Time to sort through our thoughts and think rationally. I’m sure your father told you how important it was not to react without considering all your options,” Hadley pressed, hoping the mention of his father would give her additional time to figure a way out.
“Was your dad showing you his ways? Is that why you brought Missy here?”
Hadley was very careful not to mention kidnapping or abduction. If Kalen believed she understood his motivation, then maybe there was still a part of him that understood the difference between right and wrong.
“Showing me his…” Kalen let his voice trail off. He was clearly confused by her question. He then switched the weapon into his other hand, and she assumed it was due to the strain of holding his arm up for so long. “Dad was gone long before his funeral. He didn’t have time to show me anything.”
“What do you mean?” Hadley cautiously asked before divulging some personal details of her own life. She desperately needed to form some type of bond with him. “I know how hard it is to lose your parents. I lost both of mine, too.”
“Dad had a stroke last year.” Kalen used his free hand to wipe away the thick mucus that had slid from his nose.
“Mr. Hobbs was poking around the cabin. He must have seen my father restocking the wood. Mr. Hobbs was too close to the window and spotted the chains, and he threatened to go to the police.”
Hadley did her best not to react to Kalen’s admission.
“Those chains were only to keep Mom safe. I tried to tell Mr. Hobbs that, but my dad kept asking me to leave, saying that he would explain it all away.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?” Hadley asked, keeping her voice low as she thought of a way to access her phone. Since it was in the front pocket of her blazer, she couldn’t retrieve it without Kalen’s knowledge. “Your father staged Thomas's farming accident, didn’t he?”
Kalen nodded, a flicker of pride returning.
“Dad always took care of his family. Mom. Me. Our land. We couldn’t allow Thomas to take it all away. But then…something happened. The strain was too much.”
“Strain?”
“The doctors said that my dad had a stroke. His left side was completely paralyzed.” Kalen swiped away a tear. “I had no one. And I…”
“And you had to take care of everything alone.” Hadley placed a hand over her heart, as if she commiserated with him. “Your father, the farm, the house. And you wanted someone to share that with you like your father did, right?”
“You get it,” Kalen said while nodding vigorously. “Yes. And I always thought that Missy was beautiful. She was always kind to me.”
“Did you set a homemade trap like your father?” Hadley startled when Kalen straightened his arm at the question, aiming the weapon directly at her face.
She managed to mask her fear while attempting to gain some of the footing she’d just lost. “I was just asking a question, Kalen. I know your father used humane traps in his pursuit of someone to love him. I wasn’t judging. ”
“Missy wouldn’t walk toward it, even though I kept calling out to her. I ended up having to chase her.” An odd expression crossed Kalen’s face as if he’d just come to a realization. “Do you think that’s why she won’t love me?”
Hadley had come to some conclusions herself.
Emanuel Telfort had been the man in the trench coat Sam had seen in the woods that night—not the Threshing Man. Mason had been innocent all along.
An idea came to her out of desperation.
“Kalen, do you think that maybe I was sent here for a reason?” Hadley inquired softly as she gauged the distance between them. When he’d first ushered her inside, she’d made sure to put as much space between them as she could. Now, she needed that space to diminish. “Or believe in fate?”
The unexpected inquiries caused Kalen to blink, confusion taking hold. The gun lowered a fraction of an inch, and she instinctively took a half step forward.
“What are you talking about?” His voice cracked with uncertainty.
“I testified against my brother,” Hadley continued, subtly shifting her right leg forward. “I told the court that Mason confessed to killing Emily Esten. My testimony put him in prison for twenty years. My parents, my brother…all gone. I’m all alone.”
A flicker of understanding crossed over Kalen's features.