It’s only when I break from the tree line that I hear it.
Music. A guitar riff, and a twangy male vocal.
My father was a freak for country music. He loved Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash, and Tim McGraw. He’d play all their music loud, dance my mom across the living room floor, and she’d laugh so hard, making me giggle until my sides hurt.
But my father is in prison now. Tucked away in a cell.
So where is that music coming from?
At first I think it’s just me, hearing things. But then I creep to the front of the house and see a yellow Jeep, top down, idling in the same place where my father used to park his red pickup.
The guy in the driver’s seat is around my age. He has dark-rimmed glasses and narrow features. He’s looking at something on his lap, so he doesn’t spot me right away.
When he does, he startles. It’s a good thing the Jeep doesn’t have a hard top, because he would’ve hit it—that’s how high hejumps. Then he exhales and turns off the ignition, and Alan Jackson’s “Gone Country” cuts abruptly to the sound of birds chirping in the trees.
“Je-sus,” he exclaims. “Where the hell did you come from?”
I point behind me. “I was…walking…”
“You walked all the way out here?”
I nod. “It’s not that far. There’s a trail in the back, about a mile from…”
I drift off when I notice the state of the cabin. There’s graffiti of all kinds here, but someone has written in bloodred paint across the whole front of the house:ROT IN HELL THORN!
I stare at the venomous epitaph, then at the big wraparound porch, thinking about all the times I used sidewalk chalk on it, scribbling words and silly pictures, only to let the rain wash it away. The red lettering was obviously painted a long time ago, but it’s still there, a monument to the hatred this town feels for my father.
The guy follows my gaze, warier now. “So you just stumbled upon this place?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Yeah.”
“You ever hear of Gabriel Thorn?” He motions to the cabin.
I shake my head slowly.
“Girl. Stop lying. You saw the press conference, didn’t you?” He chuckles loudly. “You’re here for the cool hard cash. Virgin, huh?”
That catches me off guard. “Excuse me?”
“It’s your first time coming out here, right? You were all excited, thinking you could find some clue that would lead you to the bodies, or to understanding the man behind the legend?”
I offer a shrug. “Busted.”
He responds with a crooked smile. “Well, let me tell you. I—and about a thousand other amateur sleuths—have combed every inch of the property. If the bodies are buried, it’s not on this land.”
“No?”
“Nope. Trust me, I’ve been looking into this case for years. I know everything there is to know about it.”
Not quite everything. I mean, he’s standing here talking to Thorn’s daughter. Not very detective-esque of him, is it, now?
“What is there to know?” I play dumb.
He snorts. “You got the weekend? It’ll take that long to go over all the evidence I’ve found. I got piles and piles of it.”
I swallow my scorn. He might think he’s something special, that he has intimate knowledge of this case, but I highly doubt it. So I decide to test him. “I heard the bodies were thrown into Sturgeon Lake.”
“That’s one theory. But they dragged that lake multiple times. Never found anything.”
