The Ravine (11 page)

On this morning, as the sun rose and poured through the windshield, the time for philosophical debate had ended. It was too late to undo the horrible things he had done, and so he placed his head on the steering wheel and sobbed uncontrollably, praying to the God whose existence he doubted, hoping He would forgive him. The thing he’d
plotted for so long, the plan that seemed so logical just the day before, had gone as wrong as wrong could be. He looked over at the passenger seat as if listening to someone, and then opened all the windows so he could hear the wind one last time. The leaves scattered on the ground and a few blew in through the window.

Danny leaned over, picked up the shotgun resting on the Escalade’s floor, inserted it barrel-up between his knees, and delicately placed his chin on the round, metal rim. He swallowed hard. Then, with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right thumb on the gun’s trigger, he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

The truck took off, gaining speed as it scaled the embankment leading up to the quarry, until the speedometer read over eighty miles per hour. At the precipice, the car narrowly passed between the two large boulders, snapping the trees at the mouth of the quarry as it became airborne. As the Escalade propelled off the cliff, Danny closed his eyes, braced himself, and with one final cry, pulled the trigger of the powerful gun.

A single shot rang out and echoed against the quarry walls as the heavy weight of the engine pulled it down into a dive. The vehicle bounced off the jagged side of the one-hundred-foot ravine before crashing into the quarry’s watery bottom. There, the car rested on its side and quickly engulfed Danny. Little did it matter.

He was already in the hands of the Lord.

C
HAPTER
7

Forever Young

Brief is life
,

But love is long

—Lord Alfred Tennyson

N
OVEMBER
17, 2004, began as a normal weekday for Carolyn and Mitch Bianci. He charged out the kitchen door dressed for the gym a few minutes after seven, juggling his dress clothes and briefcase with an apple clutched in his mouth, cradling his cell phone to his ear and somehow managing to wave good-bye. Carolyn raced around and, by some motherly magic, was able to whisk Luke and Joey out to the bus stop in front of the house just before the doors closed. She then ran back inside and wrestled Frankie into his winter coat, despite his protests that it made him look like a little kid. She drove him to his kindergarten class, dropped off the clothes at the cleaner, stopped at the supermarket, and finally started to relax when she pulled into the driveway, envisioning the steaming cup of coffee she presumed was in her immediate future.

As she was coming in the door, she heard the tail end of a message her mom had just left on the answering machine “—so, you need to call me back right away.” That was Carolyn’s first inkling that today was not going to be just another day.

“Well, that doesn’t sound good, whatever it is,” she said under her breath, as she dialed her mother without first listening to the message.
Her mom definitely did not sound like herself, so naturally Carolyn started to conjure up a dozen scenarios that might be the cause of her mother’s call.

“Hi, Mom, it’s me. What’s going on?”

“I don’t really know all the details, sweetheart, but like I said on the message, it’s about Danny and Rachel and the boys.”

“What do you mean? Were they in a car accident or something?”

Silence. And then her mother began to weep.

“Mom, Mom, what is it? Are they okay?” Adrenaline shot through her system, and the receiver began to shake in her hand.

It took another minute for Rosemary Hamilton to collect herself, and even then she couldn’t quite believe the words she was about to say to her daughter. They didn’t make any sense. They were too foul and despicable to say out loud. She didn’t want to speak them, because somehow that would make this horrible thing real, and she wanted it to be a dream—but she knew it wasn’t. Every instinct in her body told her to protect her daughter, yet she knew what she was about to tell her would shatter her life.

“Mom, Mom! What is it? Tell me!” Carolyn shouted. She backed up and tripped over a toy, landing softly on the rug in the family room, as if an angel sister had caught her and gently sat her down.

“Rachel’s gone, and one of the boys . . . and Danny, too.”

Carolyn couldn’t comprehend what her mother was saying. Clearly there was some misunderstanding, because earlier that morning, she had listened to a message from Rachel about passing her real estate exam, and how they would get together that weekend, and how grateful she was for Carolyn’s pep talk.

“No, there has to be some mistake,” Carolyn objected. “I just heard from Rachel!” She tried her best to block out the truth. She knew the message was from last night, but didn’t want to admit it. Yet the fact came worming back to the forefront.

“Mom, I don’t get it. Tell me this isn’t true! Rachel, one of the boys, and Danny dead? I don’t believe it!”

“I’m sorry, honey, but it’s true, and I’m afraid it’s even worse.”

“Worse than that? What? What could be worse?” Carolyn was starting to feel numb.

At this point, Rosemary could no longer contain herself. She began to sob in great heaves, finally gathering up the strength to say these horrific words: “Danny shot and killed Rachel and one of the boys, and they found his car at the bottom of some quarry down in Akron, so the police think he drove it off the cliff and killed himself.”

Carolyn did not believe what she was hearing. It didn’t compute. Danny wasn’t violent. He loved Rachel and the boys. He didn’t even own a gun as far as she knew. Why would he drive his car off a cliff and kill himself?

“Oh, my God, Mom, this can’t be true. Who told you this? There has to be a mistake—this doesn’t make any sense. Danny doesn’t have a gun, and he never even yells at the kids. He and Rachel never fight, and if they were having trouble, Rachel definitely would have told me—”

“Honey, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I wish it weren’t, but it is!”

Carolyn’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it was going to leap right out of her chest. She started mechanically shaking her head “no,” and then she began shouting, over and over, “No, no, no, no, no!” She fell to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably. Throwing the phone down as if it were some vile creature, she dropped her head to the floor and screamed into the rug. She began to gasp for air and felt as if she were drowning; then a horrendous pain shot from the small of her back to the top of her head. Carolyn thought she was about to pass out. Suddenly she sat up, leaned back, and forced herself to take a deep breath. Now she felt better; she had it figured out. She crawled to the phone lying on the floor. It wasn’t true. Her mom had gotten it wrong. She probably saw something on TV, about a murder in Akron,
and just thought it was about Rachel and Danny. That was it. Just one big mistake.

She felt relieved now that she was about to get to the bottom of things. She was almost smug when she said, “How do you know, Mom? Who told you?”

“Dixie Clemons. She lives in Akron, one street over from Rachel and Danny. Remember she was at their cookout last summer? She heard all the police cars and ambulances this morning and went over there. There was a big crowd in front of the house, and when she found out what happened, she called me right away because she didn’t want you to hear about it on the news, or from someone else. One of her neighbors in the crowd told her what happened, and then she spoke with a police officer, and while she was talking to him, a report came in about Danny’s car being in a quarry because he drove it off a cliff. I’m sorry, honey, but it really happened.”

“Oh, my God, Mom! Rachel . . . Danny . . . dead? And one of the boys? Danny killed them? Which boy, Mom? Christopher or Evan?” Carolyn felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. The question she just asked sounded surreal; she had the sensation that she was standing across the room watching herself speaking on the telephone.

“I’m not sure of their names—I always get them mixed up—but Dixie said she saw the younger boy sitting in an ambulance, and he looked like he was in shock, but he wasn’t hurt. Then the ambulance drove off with him.”

“That means that Evan is dead. That can’t be; he’s only ten years old!”

“I know. It’s so awful. That poor little boy. And dear, dear Rachel. Oh, I wish it were a mistake, but it’s not.”

“Then that means Christopher saw it all, and he’s all alone,” Carolyn mumbled.

“Carolyn? . . . Carolyn? Are you still on the phone?” She could hear her breathing, but there was no response.

“You stay there; don’t go anywhere. I’m going to come over right away.” Rosemary wished she could just jump through the phone and hold her daughter, but forced herself to hang up and run out the door to her car.

Carolyn continued to hold the phone to her ear and listen to the dial tone as if it were a sound she had never heard before. She stared straight ahead and abruptly stopped crying. She put the receiver back in the cradle, and calmly walked to the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms. She had an overwhelming desire to hold the high school photo of Rachel and her that was sitting on her dresser.
The one where Rachel is planting a kiss right on my cheek
, she thought.
We always get a big laugh out of that!

She felt Rachel’s presence and pictured her wide eyes and welcoming smile that first day. “You look like you could use a partner. I’m Rachel. What’s your name?” Like a little girl reciting a rhyme, with each step she climbed, she repeated out loud: “I’m Rachel.”
Step
. “What’s your name?”
Step
.

She bargained with God to let this chant reverse what had happened and wake her from this nightmare. However, the instant she touched the photograph, the brutal reality consumed her and she collapsed on the bed.

Mitch had just walked into a meeting with a client who had travelled from Oregon to meet with him and his team. Mitch would lead the pitch about why he should select Xanadu Architects, Inc., to design his new chain of organic food supermarkets, which hoped to compete with Whole Foods. This account presented many challenges, but could be quite lucrative if the idea took off. The client was interviewing several firms and made it clear he could devote only one hour to meeting with
XAI because he had a plane to catch. He appeared tired, bored, grumpy, and impatient—just the sort of challenge Mitch relished.

At the outset of Mitch’s presentation, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket, but chose to ignore it. A minute later, just as he was launching into the second slide, it buzzed again, and he ignored it again. The client was already starting to look antsy and Mitch couldn’t risk losing his rhythm once he got his mojo working. He was just starting to get to the part about why their unique mix of creativity and practicality would be a perfect fit for this project when his phone rumbled again. Now he was concerned, so he asked a colleague to take over the presentation. The client made sure Mitch noticed he was annoyed as he excused himself and stepped outside the glass-walled office to check his phone.

His father-in-law, Joe, had called three times. That wasn’t like him, so Mitch guessed something important must be happening. Joe picked up on the first ring and got right to the point.

“Mitch, you had better go home right now. Mom’s over at the house with Carolyn, and she is not doing well.”

“What? What is it? Did something happen to one of the kids?” Mitch felt panic about to set in.

“No, son, but there has been a terrible tragedy with your friends Danny and Rachel, and Carolyn is going to need all the support she can get.”

When Joe told him the details, Mitch ran to his office, grabbed his car keys, shouted to his assistant that he would be gone for the rest of the day, and headed out of Cleveland in a complete state of confusion. Danny, Rachel, and Evan all dead? Danny killed them all, and then killed himself? What in God’s name could have happened? He knew Danny was struggling with some financial issues, and that Rachel had caught him cheating, but that was a few years ago, and they had seemed fine the last time they had dinner together up at Johnny’s.

He slowed down a bit on I-91, after he cut off a semi driver who blasted his horn. He realized he wasn’t thinking straight in his desperation to get home. He was upset, but he knew that Carolyn must be devastated. He couldn’t imagine how she had taken the news, and he feared that his wife would never recover. Then his thoughts went to Christopher.
Oh, my God, that poor little boy was left in his house alone. Who knows what he witnessed, before his father abandoned him to the horror he created?

For the first time, the enormity of the situation enveloped Mitch, and he banged the steering wheel and screamed, “Danny, you rotten coward, how could you? What would make you do something so horrible? Why? Why? Why? Oh Lord, why do you allow such misery to happen in our world?” He felt crazed and carried on like that for the rest of the drive home, but composed himself as he pulled into his driveway. He would be no help to anyone if he was out of control.