Nine Years Gone Read online

  Also by Chris Culver

  Stand-alone novels:

  Just Run

  Ash Rashid novels:

  The Abbey

  The Outsider

  By Any Means

  NINE YEARS

  GONE

  CHRIS CULVER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Chris Culver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  NINE YEARS

  GONE

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  About The Author

  Sample Chapter from THE ABBEY

  1

  I had anticipated it being a horrible moment. I expected a dark ripple to pass through the room, or a ghostly voice to call out in a low, slow moan that only I could hear. None of that happened, of course; the actual event was much more anticlimactic. One moment, Dominique Girard’s chest moved, and the next it didn’t.

  Prior to last night, prior to witnessing him die, I thought seeing Dominique’s execution would so fundamentally and radically change me that I’d be able to demarcate my life into two distinct spheres, one before and one after. Instead I felt . . . relieved. Dominique Girard was finally dead, executed by the state of Missouri for a murder he didn’t commit, a murder that didn’t even happen. I hate to say it and I hate to believe it even more, but no one had ever been more deserving.

  I shrugged my shoulders into my jacket for my evening walk and smiled at my niece. She grinned back at me, a gap-toothed smile that made the rest of the world disappear for the briefest of moments. Even though I saw her every day, I never got tired of that grin. She hadn’t done enough of it in her short life, and I had made it one of my goals to bring it out as often as I could. I looked at my wife Katherine next. It was a Monday evening, her half-day off and the best day of the week as far as I was concerned. Before Ashley moved in with us, Katherine and I would spend the entire afternoon at home in bed on those days, usually not saying a word. We go out more often now, but I still look forward to Mondays when she’s home. I think we all do.

  I zipped my jacket up before helping Ashley with hers. It was a little before five on a chilly November evening, and the evening sun barely registered as an orange sliver in a cloudless pastel-blue sky. My wife slipped her hand into mine, causing an almost electric tingle to pass over my skin. We hadn’t been married long, but we purposefully avoided overt displays of affection in front of our niece. Even something as tame as holding Katherine’s hand in public carried the thrill of the forbidden. I winked at her and then put my free hand on my niece’s upper back to prod her forward.

  “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold, enough!’”

  Ashley cocked her head to the side and then looked over her shoulder at me, her brow furrowed.

  “Who’s MacDuff?”

  My wife stepped in before I could respond. “Uncle Steve is feeling Shakespearean. He wants you to go first.”

  “Why didn’t he just say so?” she asked, shaking her head. I knew her well enough to figure that she was probably rolling her eyes, and that made me smile even wider. Simon, my golden retriever, led us from the house and onto the sidewalk. Ashley, Simon, and I walked those streets every evening, and we saw the same things every time. The staid but modern architecture of the bank at which I opened my first checking account, the old stone church where Katherine and I were married, the Italianate brick building out of which my father and grandfather practiced law. Nearly every major event of my life had occurred within the comforting confines of those streets, beneath the canopy of trees so old the city had passed ordinances to protect them. Webster Groves, our hometown, had become a part of us, and my family had become a part of it. We couldn’t have left it behind even if we wanted to.

  About ten minutes after we headed out, my cell phone buzzed. Katherine raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, so I shook my head to let her know I didn’t plan to answer. I had made enough phone calls lately; my family deserved some time alone. A short walk later, we reached Bristol Elementary School, and I took a seat on a bench overlooking the playground while Katherine and Ashley went to the equipment. My wife is a physician in the last year of a neonatology fellowship at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, so with her hours, I’m my niece’s primary caregiver. As much as I enjoy my time with her, I know she misses her Aunt Katherine. Monday nights are their nights, and I was glad to see them laughing together on a teeter-totter.

  My phone buzzed again. I knew what Katherine would say if I picked it up. You don’t need to give another interview. You’ve talked about him enough. She’d be right, too. In the week before Dominique Girard’s execution, I gave almost a dozen interviews and told so many lies I had to start writing them down to keep everything straight. As a professional novelist, I at least had practice with that. Since Katherine couldn’t see me, I took my phone out and looked at the screen.

  Unknown caller.

  I tapped the ANSWER button.

  “Hello?” I paused and waited for the caller to respond. “You there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  It was a woman’s voice, one I knew well, but also one that shouldn’t have been calling me.

  Katherine caught my gaze across the playground. She furrowed her eyebrows into a shallow V-shape, pursed her lips, and shook her head just enough to let me know she disapproved of the interruption to our family time. Ashley continued to giggle, so I didn’t think she saw the look. I held up a finger and mouthed that I’d only be a minute.

  “Who is this, please?” I asked, refusing to acknowledge what my ears were telling me.

  “I’m an old friend, and I have information you might be interested in. I’d like to meet you.”

  “My friends have names. Who is this?” I asked.

  “For now, call me Holly Olson. It’s important that I talk to you. I think you’ll want to see me.”

  Somewhere, perhaps carried by the breeze, I heard the crack of a bas
eball bat striking a ball and the shouts of children, encouraging their friend.

  “If this is who I think it is, you know how dangerous it is to call.”

  “I thought you would want to know that I’m okay.”

  I softened my voice. “I’m glad you’re okay, but we still shouldn’t be talking. I’m sorry, but I’m going to hang up.”

  She didn’t respond, so I started to pull the phone from my ear, but stopped as she spoke words I didn’t want to hear.

  “If you know who this is, you know why I’m calling. I need to talk to you about Dominique Girard.”

  The cold fingers of a very black memory, one I wished I could forget, scratched at the back of my mind, and without conscious direction, my shoulders and body tensed up. “I don’t know what there is for us to talk about.”

  “We killed my stepfather. I believe there’s a lot to talk about.”

  Katherine and Ashley walked to the swings. Both waved at me, and I forced myself to smile and wave in return.

  “We can’t do this. I’m going to hang up now.”

  “It’s important that I see you,” she said. “I can meet you at your dad’s old office in ten minutes. Or I can even stop by your house, if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind seeing Katherine again.”

  The pit in my stomach grew. “You’re in town?”

  “Yeah. I’m on Manchester Road in Glendale.”

  That put her about five minutes out.

  “Not at my house. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Bread Co., on Lockwood Avenue. Do you know it?”

  Even after nine years, Tess still got the St. Louis vernacular right. To the rest of the world, the St. Louis Bread Company—Bread Co. to the locals—became Panera Bread several years ago. Not in town, though. Clinging to the name of a local restaurant chain may seem silly, but St. Louis, for good or ill, values its past. It was one of the things I liked most about the area.

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  “I’ll be there at six.”

  I looked at my wife and niece, happily playing, not a care in the world. My wife is my best and closest friend, but she didn’t know everything. She knew about my relationship with Tess, what she had meant to me, but I never told her what I had done for her, and I hoped to God that she’d never have to find out

  “I’ll see you there,” I said.

  “Good. I look forward to catching up.”

  Tess hung up before I did. I stayed still for a moment, and then slipped my phone in my pocket, my hands trembling.

  From the day I met her in kindergarten to the day she left in our sophomore year of college, I planned to spend my life with Tess Gerard. Then I found something out that no one should ever discover about a loved one, and I had to make a choice. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever made, and one I’ve regretted having to make ever since. I gave her up and helped her escape her very wealthy, very powerful stepfather by framing him for murder. With some help from my Uncle Simon and two friends, it worked. Dominique is dead now, deservedly so for the things he’s done, and while I didn’t throw the switch that sent the lethal drugs into his system, I set the course of events into motion.

  As punishment, the universe gave me everything I’ve ever wanted. I lost Tess, but over the course of several years I fell in love with and then married Katherine. For the first time since losing my old friend, I was happy. And that’s the punishment. Every day, I wake up wondering if today is the day in which my past catches up to me, if today is the day I’ll lose my wife, my niece, my friends. I had thought Dominique’s death would end that anxiety, but one five-minute call reminded me how much I still had to fear.

  2

  When she saw that I had hung up the phone, Katherine gave Ashley one last push on the swing and then began walking towards me. As soon as she was close enough, she put a hand flat on my chest. “You’re not going out tonight, are you?”

  “Just for a little while,” I said, thinking of a white lie quickly. “A woman called claiming to have information about Dominique Girard. Derrick gave her my number, so he must think she has something.”

  Derrick Freelander handled freelancers for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and he had funneled stories to me before. It wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go out. I’ve got plans for the two of us after Ashley goes to bed.”

  “I shouldn’t be long.”

  Katherine nodded and looked at our niece. We hadn’t spent much time in the playground, but already the sun had begun to sink below the horizon, scattering orange and purple streaks across the sky. Winter days never seemed long enough for everything my family wanted to do.

  Katherine called Ashley, and we began to walk home together with the sun setting behind us. My wife and I owned a comfortable but small Dutch Colonial home in a swanky end of town. The breeze blew through our wood window frames as freely as it would through an old barn, and the floors felt cold on chilly days because of our exposed crawlspace, but it was home in the best senses of that word.

  When we reached the house, I noticed a blue and white cardboard package propping open the storm door. I knew at a glance that it was from my wife’s favorite bakery, but I couldn’t think of a reason why someone would send us anything.

  “Did I miss somebody’s birthday and not realize it?”

  Katherine shot me her best faux-innocent look. “I don’t know. Better take the cupcakes inside before a jealous neighbor sees them.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I said, bending to grab the box. I unlocked the front door and held it for my family.

  “Hey, honey,” said Katherine, helping my niece remove her jacket in the front hallway. “I need you to get started on your homework before dinner.”

  “But I want to see what’s in the box.”

  Katherine’s eyes darted to me and then back to my niece. “Uncle Steve will show you in a little while. Go do your homework.”

  She pursed her lips and then frowned. “Okay.”

  While my niece traipsed to the dining room table to do her homework, I leaned into my wife. “What’s in the box?”

  She snaked an arm through the crook of my elbow and winked. “Let’s go upstairs and find out.”

  “Okay,” I said, not quite sure what lay in store for me. We walked side-by-side up the stairs to our master bedroom, where, lying on a stack of pillows in the center of the bed, I found a brown teddy bear.

  “Open the box,” said Katherine, smiling. I cast my wife a curious look before using my keys to cut through the brown packing tape that held the box together. Inside, I found three pink and three blue cupcakes with little flags that read CONGRATULATIONS! I put my keys on the bed, my hands trembling once again, but for a completely different reason.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  She stepped towards me and pushed the cupcakes and my keys toward the center of the bed. “Depends. Do you think it means we’re having sextuplets?”

  The smile slipped off my face. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Yes. But you’re still going to be a dad.”

  As soon as she said the word “dad”, any thoughts I had of my phone call disappeared. My smile returned and then stretched into a grin that crossed my entire face. I wrapped my arms around Katherine’s waist and picked her up. She squealed in delight, and I kissed her long and hard before laying her back on the bed, her head beside the teddy bear. I probably would have done a lot more than just kiss her, but she put her hands on my chest and gently pushed me away before I could start throwing off her clothes.

  “Let’s hold off on that until Ashley goes to sleep. I don’t want to be interrupted.”

  I looked at the teddy bear and then at my wife. “I’m going to be a dad.”

  She smiled and kissed me. “Yes, you are.”

  I sat down on the bed and rested my forearm on the hand-me-down end table that customarily held whatever book I was reading. As I did that, reality caught up to me. “We need so
much stuff. We’re going to have to get a crib, a changing table, bottles, strollers, car seats, diapers, and I don’t even know what else. We need to start shopping. We can go tonight after dinner.”

  “We have plenty of time for that, and I’m exhausted,” said Katherine. “You go help Ashley with her homework. I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I hugged her once more and met Ashley downstairs. She looked up from her homework as I arrived.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked.

  “Because I get to spend my evening with you.”

  “Oh,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Do you want to do my homework?”

  “No,” I said, kissing her forehead. “You’re on your own.”

  Despite my telling her that she was on her own, Ashley and I spent the next half hour on her reading homework, but then we split one cupcake and took the dog outside to play for a few minutes. We started with monkey in the middle, but Simon and Ashley tired of that quickly. After that, I chased them both through piles of leaves in the backyard until Ashley fell, exhausted and giggling, on the grass. The kiddo went in at ten to six, which gave me just enough time to drive to Old Webster, the section of town that held my father’s office as well as the St. Louis Bread Company.

  I ordered a cup of coffee and a pastry inside before exiting and sitting at one of the black metal tables out front. Generally speaking, I’m not a religious man, but I found myself praying that I was wrong, that the woman on the phone was somebody, anybody, but who I thought.

  At six, right on time, a white Nissan parallel parked on the street beside the restaurant and a woman stepped out and waved at me. I started to say hello, but the word died on my lips before I could. She had blonde hair that fell in waves against her shoulders; smooth, tanned skin; and pale blue eyes that in high school had convinced me to learn how to play an acoustic guitar so I could sing dopey love songs. One look confirmed what I had feared.

  She walked towards me and smiled, and I felt a thousand invisible spiders crawl on my skin.