Where the Darkness Goes

Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

GARRETT — PRESENT DAY

The ride to the nursing home is made mostly in silence. I still don’t know what’s going on in Tessa’s head. I know when Will first told me, when he was going through his own battle with it, I needed a while to process. It not only meant that so much about my life was a lie, and that my family might also be a lie, but that there was a good chance Tessa and I could never be together again.

Will needed me more than Tessa, as much as I hated it. He was in a darker place than we’d realized, and he was processing it alone. As much as Frannie tried to help, he pushed her away. I was the only one who could break through the wall he’d put up. I had to focus on him, on getting him better and getting him out of there. And I did it.

I hate every day I was away from Tessa, but I will never regret saving my best friend.

Still, in this moment, I’m furious with him.

“We should’ve told her back then,” I say as we pull into the parking lot of Oak Meadows.

“We don’t know that it would’ve been better.” Will doesn’t look at me as he unbuckles.

I turn to face him. “She would’ve had a chance to talk to your mom about it then. To learn more of the truth than we can ever give her. We aren’t the right people to help her deal with this, man. She needs Frannie, and she’s…” I wave a hand in the direction of the facility, out of breath and out of words. With a shake of my head, I push open my door. “Let’s just go.”

He’s not going to agree with me. He’ll always think he was protecting her, but he may have just cost me everything. I finally had my chance with her again, and now we may have just fucked it all up.

I should’ve told her.

I chose Will over Tessa once, but that night, I should’ve been braver. I should’ve chosen her, fought for her—damn what Will said.

When we reach Frannie’s room and push the door open, I stop short at the sight of someone sitting in a chair next to her bed. Her blonde head turns to face us, and it takes several seconds for me to process who it is.

Mostly because my family doesn’t attend Pastor Charles’s church.

“Mrs. Mabel?” Will asks. I slip a hand into my pocket, trying to think. Why would she be here? What are the odds?

Pastor Charles’s wife, Mabel, turns to face us completely, her expression serious. “Will, hello.” She stands.

There aren’t supposed to be visitors in this room. Tessa was right not to trust this place.

“What are you doing here?” Will asks, moving in front of me.

Mabel’s hands go up. “I come in peace, I promise.” Her voice is soft, and my bet is she’s lying, just like her husband. She casts a look back at Frannie. “I visit your mother often.”

“Why?” That’s Will again, asking the question we both need answered.

“Francis is someone I consider a very dear friend.” She looks sad, not secretive. “Please know I pray for her every day.”

“Forgive us if that brings little comfort,” Will mutters.

Mabel eyes him with a kindness I don’t expect. “Your mother was kind to me when she didn’t have to be. When she probably shouldn’t have been.”

“What are you talking about?” Will asks.

“I shouldn’t say more. It’s her story to tell, and I truly hope someday she’ll be able to.” She picks up her bag from the back of the chair. “I’m sorry if I intruded. I’ll just go.” Her heels click across the floor, but before she reaches us, Will cuts her off.

“Does it have anything to do with what your husband did? Who he is to us?”

Mabel goes still. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean,” he says.

Mabel looks at Will, then at me. “You know?”

“Guys—” I try to stop him from saying anything—we don’t know that we can trust her—but Will’s already speaking.

“We know what he is and what he’s done. We know that he hurt Britney. And so many others.”

Mabel looks down, and I know she’s going to deny it. Or worse, attack us. Pull a gun from that bag and kill us all. But when her head lifts back up, there are tears in her blue eyes. “Your mom is the one who told me. About the affairs. The kids. Being a good, little preacher’s wife, it meant I couldn’t work. My job was to stand by my husband’s side. To look pretty. To smile. To be scrutinized without complaint.” She sniffles, wiping under her nose. “Little did I know, my husband was taking advantage of so many in the congregation, convincing them he loved them, that God had told him he was meant to be with them.” Her voice goes dry and painful as she says that last part. Her cool eyes flick to Will. “He liked to do that. To convince you that whatever bad thing he was doing was God’s will. I know you know something about that.”

Will doesn’t confirm it, but he doesn’t deny it either.

“For years, I prayed for understanding. To understand why I was meant to endure such pain. Why I had to stand there and smile and shake the hands of every woman who’d—” She cuts herself off. “To look at the faces of every child who carried my husband’s chin or his dimples or his eyes. Eventually, I confronted him. I wanted us to pray about it. To seek counseling, but do you know what he told me? He told me God had told him it was his job to fill this town with Godly children. Like Noah. He had to rebuild a town that was failing. To drive out the darkness and sin.”

The Noah comment reminds me eerily of what he said to Will, about the ark and the flood. I’m not religious, but I’ve heard enough about it from everyone in this town to get the picture.

“I let it go for years. ” She sniffles again, drying her silent tears as quickly as they fall. “And then when your mom told me what he’d done to you, Will, and what she suspected, I started looking for proof. Mostly, I wanted to prove her wrong. I’d done everything right. I’d been a good woman. A good wife. I didn’t believe God would test me like that. Punish me like that. Everything changed when Mr. Allen confided in me that Amber had been pregnant before she was killed. The father of the baby…” She pauses, collecting herself. “The father was a boy whose mother I know had an affair with my husband, just like Jill had. He and Amber were likely both my husband’s children. If that baby had been born, every one of Charles’s secrets could’ve been exposed.”

She drops her head forward. “If I’d had any proof, I have to believe I would’ve gone to the police, but I didn’t. Instead, I started paying more attention, and I learned more than I ever wanted to. When Amber told her mom about the pregnancy, Jill confided in my husband. That was when the plan was set in motion, I think. He’s smart, you know. Get the boy to steal the thing, convince everyone it was a robbery. He even gave them all these packets of photos of the victims. Added a new picture each time he planned the next one. He told me it was so he could easily frame any one of them, if he needed to. But what he didn’t count on was friendship. You see, Amber had told Emily and Cassidy about her pregnancy before she died. They suspected the baby’s father had done it, so they’d told their mothers. The baby’s father, unfortunately, was Sheriff Ward’s son. So they felt they couldn’t tell him, and the next best person to tell was, they thought, their pastor.”

She sniffles again. “They trusted him and he killed them, too. All to cover up his sins. And when his plan for Cassidy and her mother was interrupted because Cassidy had snuck out to a party, he followed her there and saw the plan through.” She’s eerily quiet for a long time. “My husband framed Cory Thomas because he worried the police were starting to put things together. He didn’t know what rumors had made it where, and he knew he needed someone to frame in order for it to all be over. But there was no way to prove it. Even when I confronted him, and he eventually admitted it, he said—and I knew he was right—no one would ever believe me. It would be his word against mine, and we both knew who people would trust.”

Will takes a step toward Frannie’s bed, checking on her. “My mom told Tessa that Britney knew about Pastor Charles before she died.” His eyes flit across Mabel’s face, examining her. “Did he kill her, too?”

Mabel licks her lips, looking away. “Britney and I used to overlap with our visits on occasion. Never on purpose, but it was a happy coincidence when it happened. She once mentioned to Frannie that Charles should come up and say a prayer over her, but Frannie became agitated. Her heart rate accelerated, and the nurses had to sedate her. The next time I came back and Britney was here, she had a sheet of paper torn out, trying to get Frannie to spell a word.”

“Murderer.” I fill in the blank as it clicks in my mind before Mabel gets the chance. “Frannie was warning Britney about him.”

Mabel rubs a hand over her arm. “Britney was having an affair with Charles. It seems he never really stopped what he was doing, he just found the next generation.”

It’s a gut punch, and I see that written all over Will’s face.

“I told her everything, and she gave me that piece of truth. She was…she was pregnant. Justin had a vasectomy after Tilly was born, so it could only be…” She pauses, collecting herself. “It seems my husband was expecting yet another baby. She must’ve confronted Charles. I only know that she didn’t come back to visit, and I didn’t see her again until the day we got the call that she’d died.” She chokes back a sudden sob. “He didn’t even have the decency to act shocked.”

I cross the room toward Frannie, feeling suddenly protective of her. I will never agree with her staying in this town despite knowing so much. I will never be able to understand it, but this woman was a second mother to me. She is just one person, one tiny woman, who looks so fragile in this state it’s as if she could shatter with a touch, and yet she didn’t back down. She fought and she tried to stand up to a man she once loved and respected. A man she should’ve been able to trust.

Behind me, Mabel clears her throat again. When I turn around, she’s still talking to Will. “He held onto the necklace because it was the most expensive piece, and the bracelet was enough to frame Cory by itself, but I guess he finally found someone worthy of his favorite toy. The final piece of his twisted puzzle.” She shakes her head. “Whatever Britney said to him, it made him so angry that just killing her, just taking her away from her daughters for the rest of their lives, didn’t seem like punishment enough.”

“I’m going to turn myself in,” Will says, his voice somber. “I’m going to talk to Sheriff Ward and tell him everything.”

“No,” Mabel says sharply.

“I’ve been quiet long enough because I thought it was over. I thought he was done, but with Britney, too… Tessa is—do you know how badly my sister is hurting because of him? And I could’ve prevented it. I could’ve stopped him.”

“You couldn’t have.” She’s eerily calm. “He’s smart, Will. Smart and powerful, and that is a dangerous combination. If you had tried to stop him, if you had told anyone what you did back then, what you knew, he would’ve killed you, make no mistake about it.” Her eyes go distant, clearly thinking about something, and when they find focus again, she nods. “Which is why it has to be me. I came here to tell your mother goodbye. To tell her I’m finally going to end this, as I should’ve done years ago.”

“What are you talking about?” Will asks before I get the chance to.

“I’m going to Sheriff Ward myself. I’m going to tell him everything. Everything I’ve learned throughout the years. The way he wielded his power, the way he’s used people’s trust and respect for his position to control and manipulate and harm the people of this town. I will tell him about the thefts—though I see no reason to bring any of you boys into it, as Charles was the real culprit—and the murders. The six back then and Britney now.”

“He couldn’t have killed Cassidy,” I say, finding my voice. “I know what you said earlier, but someone would’ve seen him if he was at the party that night. He wasn’t there.”

Mabel looks down, wrapping her arms around herself. “My husband learned how to hide in plain sight years ago. He knew who would keep his secrets, who would turn a blind eye. If he’d asked anyone in town not to mention that they saw him, if he told them he was there to help counsel a child who needed someone to talk to, do you think they wouldn’t? People saw him that night. Kids. Your friends, I’m sure. But Charles knows how to lie, how to trick, how to pull strings. Even if they saw him, they would never believe he was capable of what happened. Even if they saw him with the knife with their own eyes.” She shivers, swiping her hands over her arms. “My husband has tried to play God with this town, and I allowed it until that night. When he came home with blood on his clothes, that’s when I learned the truth about everything.”

“Why didn’t you tell?” Will demands.

“For all the reasons I’ve told you. I wouldn’t have been believed. I had no proof, just my word against his. He promised me we’d go to counseling then. He tried to frame Cory, and I, at least, was able to pull strings and whisper in enough ears to make sure that didn’t happen. All these years, I’ve lived with a man who I’ve believed is my direct line to God, but when I look in his eyes, all I see is darkness. How do you reckon with that? Watching him smiling in public, kissing babies, holding hands of families as they lay their loved ones to rest. Watching people turn to him in their darkest hours, all the while knowing what he’s capable of and being helpless to stop it. I was trapped in a prison I chose while he got sneakier and craftier.”

“So what’s changed?” I ask, staring her down. I want to believe her, but for all we know, she’s lying about everything. For all we know, they’re working together.

“Britney,” she says. “It has taken me days to accept that coming forward will shatter her family, that they will be one more casualty in my husband’s path, but if we can prove the child she was carrying is Charles’s, it might be enough to dim the light in people’s eyes when they look at him. Once that shiny fa?ade has dulled, I think I can convince the sheriff of my story. Either way, I have to try. I can’t let him hurt anyone else. If there was any other way… Believe me, I have wrestled with my demons over this. I do not want to leave my husband. I made a vow to him, but he’s caused enough harm to this community.” She narrows her eyes at Will. “Will you forgive me for this?”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell them I was involved.”

Mabel takes a step toward him. “Not that. I only meant…he’s your blood, you know. Those kinds of wounds run deep.”

“He’s not my family. Mom, Tessa, and Garrett are my family. Britney was our family. If I could’ve stopped him years ago, I would have.”

Mabel pulls a tube of ChapStick from her purse and swipes it on her lips with shaking hands, staring straight ahead in thought. She clicks the lid back on and drops it in her bag before turning her attention back to Will. “I’m very sorry you were ever involved in this.” Her eyes travel toward Frannie. “And your mother. You didn’t deserve it.”

Will’s face is stony, but his voice softens as he says, “Sounds like you didn’t either.”

She squares her shoulders and nods, tears in her eyes. “It’s going to be okay, boys. A wise woman once told me the only thing standing in a bad man’s way is a good one.”

Will glances at his mom, his voice cracking when he speaks. “The darkness goes where light refuses to be.”

“So let’s go be the light, shall we?” A single tear streams down Mabel’s porcelain cheek.

Across the room, Will digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He glances at the screen, then at me. “It’s Mark.”

My chest goes icy.

“Hello?” He presses the phone to his ear, staring out the window. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Slow down, man. What are you talking about?” His eyes find mine, and he swallows. “Tessa’s at home. Fuck. How fast can you get there?”

I’m already moving past Mabel and out the door. I don’t need to hear any more. I don’t need to know anything else. I will run the entire way back to Will’s house if that’s what it takes.

When he catches up with me in the parking lot, we fling ourselves into the car, and he whips out of the spot, gunning it.

“What’s happening?” I demand, gripping the handle above my head for dear life.

“Charles went to see Mark, but he wouldn’t let him in. He said he asked him about the coin collection, like he was trying to set him up. He thinks he was recording him.”

My throat is tight, and I lean forward, like I can will us to go faster with just my mind. “He knows Mabel’s going to turn him in.”

Will grips the steering wheel so tightly his fingers are white. “Based on what we know, I think so. And he didn’t get what he wanted with Mark. Another scapegoat.”

“Which means he’s going to find you next,” I confirm what I’ve already pieced together. “Which means he’s going to find Tessa.”