Page 147 of Nash Falls

“I don’t know. I just hope he’s out there somewhere trying to… oh, I don’t know, figure it all out. He was real good at that. He helped me so much. Got me all set in life with this house and my finances and everything. So kind, so… capable. I… I miss him.”

“Sounds as though you thought a lot of him.”

“I did. Ido. And Ty would have known if his son was some sort of monster like that. But Ty died with his son’s name on his lips. He loved his boy. So that’sallI need to know.”

Nash again had to look away at these comments because he had suddenly teared up.

After a few more minutes of conversation he rose to leave. “Well, thank you, Rosie, for the coffee. And the talk.”

She gazed curiously up at him. “You know, you look familiar somehow. Have we ever met before?”

He gave her a lopsided grin that was hiding more than a little anxiety. “Hell, in this crazy old world, who really knows?”

CHAPTER

71

THE PLACE WOULD NOW ALWAYSbe hallowed ground for Nash. Fifteen miles away from her home Maggie’s remains had been found in this wooded area off a rural road that very few people would ever go down. It had been a hunter, in fact, who had found what was left of her, the news had said. Out searching for a deer he’d shot, he had come across something that he thought were animal remains, until he had seen the bones of a human hand.

Maggie’s hand, thought Nash as he pulled his truck to a stop behind some trees and well away from the spot where it was reported her remains had been discovered. He got out and walked into the woods. The police had long since finished their forensic search of the area and had left with the remains of his daughter. A DNA test had confirmed it was her.

Remains of a daughter. Something no parent should ever have to contemplate.

The now big, strong Walter Nash stopped and leaned against a tree, trying hard to keep his legs from buckling.

She had apparently been killed not too long after the video was posted. As Parker had noted, the police suspected Nash had found and killed her, then dumped her body here to rot. They had found bones, some of her beautiful hair, and two of her teeth. The rest, the police speculated, had been taken away by animals over the long passage of time.

That thought made him nearly vomit. As he was looking around for the actual spot where she had been found, he heard a car approach and Nash froze.

He quickly took up an observation post behind a large clump of holly bushes and waited. He thought it might be the police coming back for another look, but that didn’t make much sense, not after all this time. Maybe it was whoever had killed Maggie. His fingers curled into fists at the thought.

At first he didn’t recognize the person who stumbled into view a few minutes later.

The woman had on a hat pulled low. She was dressed in a billowy skirt. And despite the relative warmth of the night, she wore a heavy jacket. Her heeled shoes were not meant to be walking around muddy forest grounds. They sunk into the wet dirt, forcing her to tug them off and continue barefoot.

As she removed her hat, Nash saw that it was Judith. She staggered up to a certain spot and dropped to her knees. She settled her hands together, as though in prayer. A moment later she let out a scream the likes of which Nash had never heard before from either human or beast. It seemed to be the release of her very soul. She fell forward onto the dirt and clawed at it, her cries rising higher.

Part of Nash wanted to rush out, take the woman in his arms, and comfort her. Under any other circumstances, he would have. The tears slid down his cheeks from witnessing a mother’s complete and devastating agony.

And she believes I abused and then killed our daughter and then dumped her here. Married for over twenty years and she could think I was capable of that.

Judith lay there prone in the dirt until the sobs ceased, until the fingers stopped clutching at where her daughter’s remains had once been.

Then Judith slowly rose, picked up her hat and shoes, and said, “I’m so, so sorry, Maggie. I love you so much. I—” She couldn’t finish. She turned and staggered back out of the woods. A couple of minutes later Nash heard a car start up, and he stayed in hiding until it had driven off.

He came out from behind the bushes and walked over to thespot where his wife had been sprawled. That was when he saw what she had left there. There were actually several items: A bracelet that Maggie had given her. A picture in a frame that Maggie had drawn for her when their daughter had been a young child. A pom-pom that Maggie had used when she’d been a cheerleader in high school. They all looked weathered, indicating they had been here awhile.

This was a shrine, Nash concluded, that his wife apparently visited regularly.

And then he saw it, off to the side. The bits of fresh dirt showed that this was the object Judith had left here just a few minutes before.

It was the necklace she wore around her neck, with the locket on it.

He squatted down, picked it up, opened the locket, and looked at the picture of his daughter from the day she had been born. He had both taken the picture and purchased the locket for his wife. She had worn it every day since then.

Until today.

His tears dripped down on the picture while he stared at his beautiful and now-deceased child.