Free Bank Owned by J. Joseph Wright

her own soul in the process. It wouldn’t erase all her guilt, but it would be enough. She’d lived a long life. At her age, now, after all these years of bowing to that goddamn bank, she didn’t care anymore. She only wanted to do what was right.
     
    At the turn onto Pebble Creek Road, she had to reach quickly and save her paperwork from sliding into the crack between the seat and the passenger door. Right then she wished she’d placed it all in an envelope or something. She didn’t have the time. Earl had been watching her like a hawk lately (seemed he knew what was on her mind), so Betty had to be hasty about digging up all the newspaper clippings and internet printouts she’d gathered regarding the Castle over the years. Small stories, not much individually, telling of a house being abandoned in Vernonia. Some even told of owners who’d disappeared, yet none really went into depth about what had happened to them. Betty always wondered why no industrious reporter ever put it all together and blew the lid off the story. She guessed that was up to her, and that’s what she was going to do. She’d bring all this stuff to that young woman, Angie Mason, and she’d clear at least a little of her conscience by saving their skin, and by ending the tragedy once and for all.
     
    The sun roamed to her left, flitting through the tall timbers, and when she shifted the visor over, Betty no longer had a view of the side of the road. She had no way of seeing the deer, charging hard and fast, taking several yards of ground with each large, powerful leap. She didn’t see the animal until it was right in front of her, and her automatic reaction was to jerk right, sending the Cavalier at a hard angle. In the rearview mirror, she saw the deer, a young buck with forked antlers, standing straight and proud on the dotted yellow divider line. She was looking back when she should have been looking forward. Her car ran out of pavement and jettisoned over the edge, down a large embankment, crashing through underbrush and scraping against an old rotten cedar trunk. Betty died instantly when the car hit the cold water of Pebble Creek. She didn’t know her Cavalier wouldn’t be found for over three months, though it was a bright and conspicuous red, and though over a hundred volunteers from as far away as Seattle searched relentlessly. She also didn’t know the creek water would claim her notes and printouts and newspaper clippings, washing away the evidence of the terrible evil. She did know one thing, though. She knew, as her neck broke from the impact and she went on to that other place, that she’d never get the chance to save those two young people.
     

 
     
    17.
     
    The only thing Angie saw at the foot of the stairs, on what she calculated as the third level below her house, was the faint glow from the floor above. That was it. Not even her hand in front of her face. From the sound of her own breath resonating off the walls, she surmised the room was small, though for some reason, she got the sensation of spaciousness, and took one brave step after the other into the nothingness, keeping her hands out. Slowly yet thankfully, her vision adjusted and she saw shapes, outlines, the ceiling and…something on the floor.
     
    One, two, three steps closer and the image came into focus. A small cluster of cloth, round and tight and…and moving. In one motion she gathered it up from the floor and instantly a baby started to fuss and squirm in her arms.
     
    “Shhh…Shhh,” she said gently, holding the darling to her shoulder, twisting at her waist slowly, carefully, gently. “I’m here now.”
     
    She felt a piercing ache in her collarbone and at first attributed it to a strained muscle or sprained tendon. The pain became so searing hot, she pulled the baby away from her chest and shrieked at all the blood. She shrieked again at the sight of the baby’s features. A squared forehead and deep-seated eyes, too far apart and