But then her parents discovered her dark secret and the real trouble began. The child was put under house arrest, not allowed to see or to communicate with anyone. One night she decided she no longer wanted to live that way, so she swallowed a whole bottle of her mother’s secret stash of sleeping pills.
When she was found, unresponsive and barely breathing, she was rushed to the hospital. But the damage was done. Her heart continued to beat with assistance, but her brain was already dead. In time, Dr. and Mrs. Newhouse took their beloved brain-dead child home and made her as comfortable as possible. No matter that a machine was required to keep her breathing and that Dr. Newhouse was well versed in the science of what had occurred, they hoped and prayed that the specialists were wrong and that one day she would open her beautiful blue eyes and come back to them.
But she never did.
Each day for two long years, Corrine drew more deeply into herself. The beautiful horses were neglected and eventually sold. Dr. Newhouse gave up his practice. They sat in the quiet house day in and day out, listening to the wheeze of the machine keeping their daughter alive and waiting for a miracle that was not going to come.
Dr. Newhouse decided he had to do something or he would lose his precious Corrine as well. He thought of all the young girls who lived on the streets of the city. The ones whose parents had forsaken them ... the ones whom society had let down. He began searching the streets until he found exactly the girl he was looking for. A girl with the blond hair and blue eyes of his precious daughter. A girl the right height, who could, with the proper grooming and education, become his sweet daughter and fulfill the life she had been destined to live. But this child had been damaged by another man—a monster—and it took time for Dr. Newhouse to convince her to trust him. Finally, she did.She climbed into his car and allowed him to take her to the farm he had told her all about ... to the woman waiting to be her new mother.
That was the day I, the Child who once belonged to a monster, became Olivia Newhouse.
My new father took the “it” Carl Fanning had created and polished her into the perfect daughter.
I stare toward the woods and the grave I opened last night. I know now that the real Olivia Newhouse was buried there once the machine keeping her body alive was turned off. My new father waited until my transition was complete, then he told me that it was time for the child in the bed to have peace. I remember thinking she was like Sleeping Beauty except no prince was coming to wake her. Her brain was dead and no force on this earth could bring her back.
But she could be replaced, and that is what the Newhouses did.
Of course, by then, I didn’t remember my former life. During those long months of grooming and educating, I didn’t understand that I was being reprogrammed. Though my father meant well and certainly saved me from a life on the streets and perhaps a horrible death, what he did was ultimately brainwashing. Using hypnosis and other techniques, he slowly replaced my bad memories with good ones—with Olivia’s memories.
I swipe at my damp cheeks again and shake my head. Basically I can tell you everything about her and her parents. About this place and the lives they lived here. The vacations they took ... everything.
But I do not know my real name. I don’t remember my biological parents.
Until one month ago, I didn’t recall the name Carl Fanning. I saw his face on the news during his highly publicized release from prison, but the name and image of the man barely registered in my brain. My beloved father did a very good job of scrubbing him from my memory.
I now recognize that approximately one week ago, just before Walt and I landed the Fanning case, my subconscious started trying to recreate those awful memories in an effort to prompt me to protect myself. I had no idea I was being watched by pure evil. But mymost basic instincts sensed that danger hovered close by. Fanning was watching me. I saw him more than once, but he had disguised himself, and the recognition didn’t click in my consciousness, only in my subconscious. The human mind is a very complex thing. It hides the details that one cannot bear to face. Denial is one of the strongest human emotions that exists. Considering my brain had been programmed to avoid any aspects of the past, the denial was even more powerful. I saw what I wanted to see and ignored all the rest.
But those deeply entrenched survival instincts from my early childhood combined with the enhanced protective hormones of pregnancy ultimately proved stronger than my denial. They kicked in, and the child I once was emerged. All those times in the past week that I crashed into the blackness of an intense migraine, went utterly unconscious into what felt like a black hole, the child I used to be resurfaced ... did what had to be done. Even in my dreams, sometimes the memories seeped through. But each time I awoke, the carefully programmed adult me took over and the deeply ingrained denial did the rest.
Then, a few days ago during the aura—those awful minutes before a debilitating migraine kicks in—some of the memories came crashing back in spurts of ugly images and awful words, and this time a few of them lingered. The denial was fighting a losing battle. This very minute, more memories are filtering through the carefully constructed membrane of protection the only real father I have ever known helped to put in place in my damaged mind. I assume these recalls are of actual events, but I can’t be certain. So much is still unclear.
Had all the elements of this perfect storm not occurred, I might still have no idea about my real past.
Even now, all that I know for certain is that I cannot remember my real name—the one given to me at birth—but I am the child Carl Fanning raped and abused for eight long years. I am the “it” whose universe was filled only by him and what he wanted.
Now all I have to do is find that son of a bitch and make sure he never does that to anyone else.
First, I need to check that in my sleep last night I didn’t move the bones. They are evidence now. Everything on this farm is evidence. The files, the videos. All of it.
As I pass my mother’s potting shed, I pause. I spot something blue but only a glimpse. Moving cautiously, I ease around the corner and stop stone-still in my tracks. A blue Ford pickup—an older one—is parked behind the shed.
“What the hell . . . ?”
I move closer, open the passenger side door, and look in the glove box. The registration shows the truck belongs to Janie Hyatt’s riding academy. What the hell is it doing here?
I think of the cabin Walt and I visited and the barn that was burned. Fanning’s neighbor stated that two women matching Hyatt’s and Reeves’s descriptions drove past Fanning’s rented house. I consider how, according to both Patricia Shelby and Melanie Hardeman, the victims banded together to plan his demise. But why would they bring him here? They couldn’t have known my secret. Even I didn’t know it.
But Mario Sanchez did.
The reality hits me like a punch to the chest. He is the skinny kid I helped escape. He may know who I am ... God knows Walt and I have been on television enough.
I was in the shed yesterday. Fanning is not in there. That leaves only the barn. I head in that direction. I think of all the times I have traveled this path with my mother or father. Some of the memories, of course, are not real, but they feel real.
I open the barn door and step inside. Even after all these years, it still smells of hay and horses. My heart quickens. I’ve had flashes of memories about him being chained, and after discovering the bones I dug up, more snippets of memory seeped into my head. Images of me—the other me, the one I didn’t remember—torturing him. I shudder.
I find the switch for the lights, flip it, and then move deeper into the enormous structure. The tack room is on the right. My mother’s trophies and ribbons as well as those of the child who’s buried in the woods are neck deep in that room. All the horse gear was sold along with the horses.
At the end of the row, in the very last stall, I find him. A length of chain has been looped to the ring on the wall meant for a horse’s lead rope. He is handcuffed to the chain. The smell of feces and urine and death fill my lungs. My first impulse is to see if he’s still alive, but I resist. I will not go near him. I hope he’s dead.
