Page 36 of In Her Grasp

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, because in real life, Carl is still alive,” Jake said.

Jenna realized it was a good question. As she drove away from the farm, she thought back to the dream and remembered what Clive Carroway’s ghost had told her about the boys: “They only exist in your mind—and our memories. They’re us—some years ago now.”

“I didn’t actually speak with any of the boys in the dream,” she told Jake. “And Clive said something about the boys not really being there, just being the men’s memories. So those kids in my dream weren’t really ghosts—just images of the past, images that the three ghosts were remembering.”

“Your dream world is complicated,” Jake commented.

“It sure is. I don’t understand it completely myself, even after all the years I’ve struggled with the riddles it gives me.”

Jake’s expression brightened. “Then Carl Reeves might actually be the fourth boy, the one missing from the group of grown men who did speak to you. He could even be the killer.”

“Maybe,” Jenna agreed, pulling the cruiser onto the main road and accelerating smoothly. “The fact that he didn’t tell us anything about his connection to the victims yesterday sure suggests that he’s hiding something. Let’s get out there and find out.”

Jake pulled out his phone, “That other name Tommy mentioned was Jimmy Koontz. Colonel Spelling might be able to tell us more about him.” He made the call while Jenna drove, and Spelling’s response soon crackled through the speaker.

“James Koontz? From Colstock? That name has haunted me for a while.”

“Please explain,” Jake said, and Jenna also listened intently with her gaze still fixed on the road ahead.

“Koontz disappeared two summers back,” Spelling continued. “At that time, he was a writer living in St. Louis, but he was born and bred in Colstock. He had an eccentric streak and liked to go off into the wilderness from time to time just to get some solitude, and when he did, he never told anybody where he was going. That summer he took off on one of his lone wolf jaunts into the wilds of Missouri and never returned. When his friends informed us he was missing, we did our best to find him. But it was like he’d been swallowed by the earth itself.”

“Could be we found him after all,” Jenna observed. “Swallowed up, but not by the earth.”

Spelling hesitated and then asked, “Are you saying he might be one of the bodies we took from the reservoir?”

“It’s looking that way, Colonel,” Jenna responded. “We’re headed to interview a person of interest on this case right now. I’ll keep you updated.”

They ended the call, and in a short time, Jenna drove into the parking area near Paul Rauer’s office at Sablewood Reservoir. When they entered the office, the reservoir manager looked up from his maps and monitoring equipment, startled by their sudden appearance. They asked about the man they had come here to see.

“Carl?” Rauer said with a frown. “He didn’t show up for work today. Didn’t call in sick either. It’s not like him at all.”

Jenna’s instincts flared. This was not the behavior of an innocent man content with routine. She looked at Jake, seeing her own suspicions mirrored in his eyes.

“You want his home address?” Rauer asked. When Jenna said yes, he jotted it down for her. “He lives there alone,” Rauer added.

“Thank you, Paul. Meanwhile, if you hear from him, let us know immediately,” Jenna said. Rauer simply nodded, his expression marked with concern.

Leaving the office, Jenna and Jake hurried back to their car. Jenna started up the cruiser and steered back onto the main road, speeding towards Carl Reeves’ address in the town of Colstock.

“We’re getting closer to nailing this case down,” Jenna said, steering the car through the winding roads. Her thoughts were laser-focused on Carl, on the fragmented history that seemed to weave itself around that man.

In Colstock, the suburban tranquility of modest homes and tidy lawns looked much too ordinary to hold the lair of a killer, but Jenna knew well the unpredictability that could be lurking in places that appeared innocent. Turning onto Carl’s street felt like stepping onto the stage of a play where the final act was uncertain, the ending unwritten.

“Let’s hope Carl is ready to talk,” Jake murmured.

“Or that he hasn’t already run...”

They turned a final corner onto a street of small homes. There, in front of a neat little bungalow, they spotted Carl. He appeared to be loading boxes into an SUV parked with the engine running. His movements were frenetic, the actions of a man spurred by desperation. Jenna’s heart hammered as she brought the cruiser to a halt. Not wanting to spook him, Jenna shut off the engine and got out of the car.

“Carl!” Her voice sliced through the morning stillness, authoritative and clear. “We need to talk to you.”

Her words seemed to reverberate down the quiet street. Carl paused, his body tensed, and in that moment Jenna knew without a doubt: they had arrived not a moment too soon.

Carl went rigid for a moment, the cardboard box clutched in his grasp as if it contained his last shred of hope. His eyes, wild with the fear of an animal trapped at the edge of a cliff, flicked from Jenna to Jake and back again. Then, as if the decision had been wrenched from him by an invisible force, he let go. The box crashed to the ground, the sound erupting in the quiet morning like a gunshot. Contents scattered across the driveway—a chaotic cascade of personal effects that marked the path of a man’s unraveling life. Without a word, Carl bolted, abandoning his belongings as he sprinted with unexpected speed toward the driver’s side of his SUV.

Jenna saw the desperation that drove Carl’s actions, recognized the raw panic that could push a man to flee.

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