Chief replaced the receiver and stared at the wall. Moss had assured him he knew a number of investigators on the agency’s staff that would jump at the chance to shadow Perretti, many of whom owed Moss the favor. Moss had told him not to worry. But the words failed to comfort Chief. His ability to cope was being tested and he prayed he wouldn’t fail the test. There were two people who counted on him too much for him to afford the luxury of falling apart now.

He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and entered the back room. Martha was already seated on the sofa, her knitting spread over her lap.

She glanced over the top of her reading glasses. “You look exhausted.”

“I feel exhausted,” he muttered and slumped into his leather chair. 

“So what is it you wanted to discuss with me? If it’s about Priscilla, I already know.”

Chief glanced at her over the rim of his mug. “Maggy tell you about that?”

“No, Priscilla did the instant I pulled into the drive. Said she wanted her payment immediately so that she could purchase bulbs today and get them in the ground first thing tomorrow.”

“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige her. She’ll just have to get the money tomorrow.”

“It’s quite all right, Robert. I gave her the money and told her where to get the bulbs at half price.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Chief set his coffee on the glass table in front of him. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

“It’s quite all right–”

“I insist.” Chief's voice was laced with the same finality that had worked well all night. Martha let it drop.

“But that’s not what I wanted to discuss,” Chief said after a brief pause to collect his thoughts. 

“Oh?”

Chief left his chair and went to the mantle. He picked up his pipe and lit it while standing. He shook the match free of flame and dropped it into the fireplace. Then he turned to his sister-in-law.

“I want to know what happened on October 22, 1911.”

Martha dropped a stitch and her eyes widened. “What?”

Chief’s eyes were cold as he glared at her; the irises looking more black than their usual light brown. “Let me refresh your memory: Katherine came running home, crying in the fog.”

Martha failed in her efforts at speech. His manner made her feel uneasy.

Undaunted, Chief continued, brutally, “She was upset, Martha. Her chin was bruised, her lip bleeding... and her dress torn.” Chief’s eyes softened. In a more restrained voice he asked again, “What happened that night?”

Martha swallowed and looked away. She felt herself getting flushed and she fought to control herself.

“Why do you ask about that?” she asked in a voice more of breath than vibration.

Chief leveled his gaze at her. “I need to know.”

“I swore I’d never repeat what happened that night. She made me promise.”

“I don’t give a shit. Damn it, Martha! How could you keep what happened from me?”

Martha set her sewing aside and forced herself to endure his scrutiny. “You already know, don’t you?”

Chief fought to control his temper. All those years and the secret was there, just under the surface. Waiting. Waiting for what? This?

“I want to hear it from you.” 

He remained at the mantle, looking down on her.

Martha gazed across the room. Her eyes came to rest on the back door. Its glass panes reflected the gleam of the inside lamps, obscuring the darkness outside.

She started out slowly, her voice quivered. To talk of the unspeakable, that which is sworn to secrecy for so many years, was difficult. “She was attacked that night. She came home in tears.” When Martha turned to Chief, there were tears in her own eyes. “I had just arrived home myself from a date with Gordon. He had left not fifteen minutes earlier. I’ll never forget that night.”

Martha turned to her hands to escape his brutal expression. “I was in the kitchen when I heard the door fly open. I heard Katherine sobbing in the foyer. When I went to her, she was slumped against the wall seated on the stairs. My god, she was shaking so! Crying ... her clothes were torn. I tried to get an explanation out of her, even though I could guess what happened. Then you were there, banging on the door.”

Martha faced Chief once more. She held his gaze, not turning away. “I thought you had done it, Robert. God, at that moment, I hated you.”

“I know.” Chief felt a phantom pain crease the palm of his hand.

Martha returned to her hands, uncontrollably clasping and unclamping in her lap. “After you left, I got her into the kitchen. We broke into father’s liquor cabinet. The whiskey helped to calm her. She told me she was almost raped, but she wouldn’t say by whom. Though, she insisted it was not you. I didn’t believe her until the two of you started dating. Until I saw the two of you together and realized you could not have done that to her. She had told me it was a stranger. But I knew better. I figured out that it must have been Fred Blackney. I confronted her with this, she admitted that it was true.”

“Why didn’t she bring charges?”

At that Martha wheeled on him. “Charges!”

“Attempted rape is against the law, Martha. Some laws do exist to protect women, its up to the woman to guard those laws.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Martha screamed. She gritted her teeth. “And we all know the extent of those so called laws, don’t we? It sets the victim on trial! What a bloody farce! She is the one who has to defend herself in court– not the animal who attacked her. It would be her word against his and in an attempted rape there is no physical evidence. And then of course father would have found out. And you. That was something she could not bear.”

“Don’t you see what you’ve done? He could have been helped–”

“He could have been helped? To hell with him!”

“You don’t understand. It’s this, Martha. All this, is happening because of the secret. Kelly is paying for the lies now. She’s paying for the cover-up. Damn it Martha, all this could have been avoided! Those men– the Crawford girl. If he’d just received some help!”

The room fell quiet as both became entrenched in their own thoughts. Crickets chirped outside the opened windows. The grandfather in the hall chimed the half-hour. Chief walked to the window and gazed out into the darkness. The smell of impending rain saturated the air.

“She should have told me,” he said quietly.

He could hear Martha turning on the couch but he was unable to remove his attention from the solitude held in the darkness. Hypnotic darkness. Comforting darkness.

“She loved you too much,” Martha said from the couch behind him. “She put herself through hell for you. She didn’t want to come between you and your brother– isn’t that how you thought of him?”

Chief turned, the sadness in his eyes was worse than their earlier chill. “Why couldn’t she realize how much I loved her? That I wouldn’t want that for her? She was my life. Everything I did revolved around making her happy. She meant far more to me than any brother could hope to. Did she think I’d take Fred’s word over hers? We were husband and wife. That is supposed to mean something. That is supposed to mean- no secrets. That means trust.”

“To her it also meant sacrifice. It wasn’t a question of whom you’d believe. She knew how important your relationship with Fred was to you. She didn’t want for you to lose that.”

“And what about the possibility of a second attack? Of the night repeating itself?”

Martha stared at him. It was evident that she had not thought of that possibility.

“It almost happened. I sent him here to wait for me. I caught them on the stairs. They explained it away as an accident. That she had tripped and he caught her. But now that I think of it, he had her cornered. The look in her eyes. My god, Martha, I just got there in time. If I had been delayed. What then?”

Martha’s face flushed. She swallowed sharply.

“Now do you understand? It was his other personality- this entity Kelly calls the tiger. He lost control over it.” Chief drew in the smoke of his pipe and blew it out the window. Then he turned to Martha. “If I’d known, maybe we could have avoided all of this. I would have had a viable suspect in the Crawford murder.”

“What would you have done? Brought Katherine’s attack out in court. Dragged her name through the mud? Tarnished her memory? Just what would you have done, Robert!”

“Is that all that matters? Appearances? In the face of all that’s happened, I think appearances are the least of my worries. I stand to lose my daughter! And when I think about how all this could have been avoided–”

He broke off, his expression softened.. He took a deep breath and turned away from the window, leaning his back against the wall, he rubbed his burning eyes. His head was beginning to ache. “It’s my fault, too,” Chief said quietly. “I don’t blame you...or Kate. I should have known. I should have been able to tell. Hell I knew about his beatings. It could have ended there, if I’d have spoken out– years ago.”

“You are living in a dream world, Robert. There were no laws that protect children from abusive parents. Even if you had spoken out then, nothing would have changed.”

Martha bit her lip, her jaw tense. “Why did you bring this up? What’s done is done, is it not? How could rehashing this possibly help you find that animal?”

Chief took another draw on the end of his pipe. “What’s done, is never completely done." 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Chief proceeded to fill the woman in on the transcripts, as well as Dr. Freedman’s diagnosis and Bennet’s insights. “That’s why he is stalking after Kelly. It has nothing to do with her witnessing a murder. He’s fixating on her because he believes she is his salvation...as Katherine was before her. He believes Kate lives on inside Kelly.”

“She does,” Martha stated flatly.

Chief stared. The woman’s tone was unnerving.

“It’s obvious that she does,” Martha explained. “It’s part of what makes the child so special. I’ve watched her grow, every day bringing more exciting evidence of Katherine’s presence. Katherine loved you so dearly. She would not be able to bear to leave you. And just look at the way that child loves you. It’s uncanny, the resemblance.”

Chief was quiet for a while, leaning against the back wall, listening to the sounds of the nighttime. In the distant woods a night owl hooted. Somewhere someone was enjoying a fire. Chief tried to come to terms with the darkness. 

Martha saw how tired he was. He looked like a man who had already lost the fight– but stubbornly refused to quit fighting.

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Would you to take Kelly back with you to Four Oaks after the wedding?”

Martha sat quietly. She had been trying for years to get a hold of the child and straighten her out. She held to the belief that the child desperately needed to be around a woman for a while. But now all that seemed petty. Unimportant. She realized what it would mean to separate the child from her father, as well as separate the father from his child.

“That would devastate the child, Robert,” was all she could manage to say.

Chief nodded.“In Four Oaks she’ll be safe. He won’t know how to find her. She’ll be able to run and play outdoors. She’ll be able to vent, Martha.”

“Do you realize how long I’ve wanted to get my hands on that child?” she said sadly.

Chief nodded.

“This must be difficult for you?” Martha noticed.

“You don’t know the half of it.” He again faced the window. He took a deep breath and returned to his sister-in-law. “Just don’t change her too much. I rather like her the way she is.”

Martha offered him a smile, even though she didn't feel like smiling. She realized how difficult this was. For the child it was going to be far worse.

“Don’t worry,” Martha said, her throat knotting up. “I don’t think I’d change a thing either.”

At that Chief did smile. The smile lacked reason as well as intention and fell much too quickly from his face. “Leave by the north service road. Take the south fork when you get near Dobbs’s place. That will put you back on track. If he’s watching he won’t expect you to go that way. And he won’t be able to figure out where you are headed.”

“I will.”

“Expect a lot of phone calls,” Chief said quietly. “God, this isn’t easy,” he whispered to himself.

There was an unexpected crash from the kitchen sending both Chief and Martha jumping out of their skins.

“Kelly? Is that you?” Chief asked the empty hallway.

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