That's Not My Name

When “Mary” regains consciousness, Wayne is carrying her over his shoulder. She lifts her head, and he knocks her unconscious again. Later, she wakes again but finds she cannot open her eyes. She is somewhere cold, and she can feel blood dripping down her face. Her memories flood back: She remembers her home and her family, being kidnapped by Wayne, escaping from the van and Wayne chasing her, and falling down a ravine in the forest. She manages to get one eye partially open and sees a single lightbulb dangling above her. Her ankle is shackled. Despite knowing that she needs to try to get away, she is unable to make her body respond. Filled with panic, she thinks of her family, who must be terrified and missing her. Suddenly, she remembers her name.

Drew is relieved that McCurry seems as unwilling as he is to accept Bowman’s assessment of the situation as a coincidence. The two officers argue about whether the identification and other assurances Bowman has of Mary’s identity are enough to write off the evidence that Drew and his friends have presented them with. Bowman suggests that, since Wayne’s cabin is next to Hooper’s, the two officers stop by Wayne’s cabin later in the day when they stop at Hooper’s place to update Hooper’s wife on the search. Bowman repeats his certainty that the young woman at the cabin is not Lola Scott and then says that Drew, Max, and Autumn need to go back home to Washington City. He sees that Autumn is crying, beginning to accept that Mary and Lola are not the same person. He goes outside to get some fresh air and clear his head. When Autumn comes out, she hands him a flier with Ben Hooper’s address on it. She says that she knows Drew will not be able to accept that Mary is not Lola until he sees Mary for himself, so she grabbed the flier, knowing that the Boones and the Hoopers are neighbors. She and Max will have to go back with her father, who will be arriving in Alton in a few minutes, but Drew can take Max’s vehicle and head out to the fishing cabin. Drew speeds out of town. As he drives down the long driveway to the cabin, he sees a man carrying someone that looks like Lola over his shoulder, headed for the basement door at the back of the cabin.

As the young woman regains control over her body, she takes stock of her situation. Her nose is probably broken, and she is dizzy with pain. She is lying on a camping cot in the basement of the cabin. One leg is cuffed to a chain fastened into the floor. A light flicks on, and she sees Wayne sitting at the bottom of the stairs. She realizes that he has been sitting in the dark watching her. He tells her that he is disappointed that, just when he was getting her to behave herself and “Things were going back to normal, like before when [she was] little,” she had to “fuck it up again, like always” (256). As he keeps talking, she realizes that he actually believes she is his daughter, Mary. He castigates her for all of Mary’s behaviors that he disapproved of: having “whore” friends and “hooker” clothes, going to parties, drinking, and “sinning” (257). When she protests that she is not Mary, he screams at her that she is and asks why every time he finds her and brings her home she pretends not to be Mary. When she continues to protest, he hits her and then proclaims that she is unsavable. He implies that the only solution is to kill both her and himself, and exits the basement. Desperate to find a way to save herself, she starts searching the areas she can reach. Under the cot, she finds a list of names scratched into the concrete, each in a different handwriting. She realizes that Wayne has kidnapped and killed many other young women. The door to the backyard opens, and she sees Drew framed in the light, looking down at her with a wild look in his eyes.

Drew stares into the dark basement, struggling to process what he is seeing. There is a young woman with dark hair, freckles, and a floral-sleeved denim jacket staring back at him, clearly hurt and frightened. The young woman is not Lola Scott. Then he sees the list of names on the wall. The most recent name is Lola’s.

Madison can see that the boy at the top of the stairs is devastated as he realizes that Lola is almost certainly dead. He quickly rallies, however, and announces, “We have to get you out of here […] Quick. Before he gets back” (263). He scrounges around the basement and finds some brush trimmers. Madison is overwhelmed that this stranger would risk his life to save her. He says that he alerted the neighbors and asked them to call 911 before coming into the basement, and he gets to work trying to cut Madison free. When Drew mentions that she looks like Lola, Madison realizes that Wayne has been kidnapping and killing young women who look like his daughter, Mary, for a long time. They hear Wayne coming, and Madison urges Drew to get away and save himself, but he stays. Just before Drew succeeds in cutting the chain binding Madison, Wayne attacks. Drew and Wayne fight, and when Madison sees that Wayne is getting the upper hand, she smashes Wayne over the head with the metal cot. It is not enough: Wayne tosses the cot aside and continues to strangle Drew. Madison hits Wayne with the brush trimmers and Drew kicks him, hard. Wayne falls. Madison hits him in the head and he goes still. She wrenches herself free and they run for the stairs. Wayne grabs Drew and pulls him backward so hard that he hits his head and lapses into unconsciousness. Wayne and Madison fight, and she manages to push him down the stairs. She rushes into the kitchen and, from the smell of gas and the lit fireplace, realizes that Wayne was preparing to blow up the cabin with himself and Madison inside. She rushes to open a door, but Wayne grabs her again. As they fight, Wayne repeatedly castigates Mary for interfering with his efforts to “save” her (271). When Madison is able to grab the fireplace poker, her many years of softball training kick in, and she swings it again and again, finally managing to land a devastating blow to Wayne’s head. She kicks him down the stairs and is relieved to see that he is finally dead. When Madison helps Drew outside, they see police cars, and Officer Bowman comes rushing toward them.

An article from the January 12 edition of the Willamette Times reveals that a serial killer, Wayne Boone, has been operating near Alton, Oregon. The article elides Madison’s role in Boone’s death, mentioning only that he fell down the stairs of his cabin and broke his neck. After his death, a search of his McMinnville property disclosed that Mary Boone’s body was buried in Boone’s backyard. Mary died of a broken neck. After her death, Boone used social media to discover and hunt physically similar young women, each time deluding himself that he was finding Mary and bringing her back home to save her from a life he did not approve of. A true crime streaming platform called CrimeFix will soon be showing a docuseries about Boone, Drew, and Madison. The article mentions that Mark Roane will appear in the documentary, calling him “The man many consider responsible for cracking the case” (276).

On Lola’s birthday, Drew sits in his vehicle at the boat launch. He is still deeply mired in grief, struggling to get through each day. He has brought a red velvet cupcake, the same offering he always gave to Lola on her birthday, but he does not know how to cope with the idea that she will never again blow out a candle and make a silly birthday wish. He still feels responsible for her death. As he recalls the moment in the fishing cabin when he realized that Lola was dead, he feels unable to breathe. He gets out of his vehicle and stands by the river, gasping for breath. Roane has lost his position as sheriff, and the community has rallied behind Drew, but it only makes him angrier. He sees their newfound support as hypocritical, and it only increases his feelings of guilt over Lola’s death.

When his phone rings for the third time, he finally answers. It is Max, calling from Autumn’s phone, as the two are now romantically involved. Max asks if he is at the boat launch and then hangs up. Suddenly, Madison appears, saying that Max and Autumn told her where to find Drew. Although Madison has tried to contact Drew over the past months, he stopped responding to her, and now she wants to check in and see how he is doing on this difficult day. He tries to discount his role in saving her, but she tells him that if he had not come looking for Lola she would be dead. She explains that, since Wayne stalked his victims and waited for an opportunity to abduct them, Wayne would have found a way to take Lola whether Drew and Lola had fought that night or not. She also tells him that Lola was killed on the same day she was abducted and that there was no way Drew could have done anything differently in order to save her. Drew sobs as he comes to terms with the idea that Lola never had a chance and that her death is no one’s fault but Wayne’s. Madison helps Drew light the candle on Lola’s cupcake, and they sit together for a while. Drew realizes that, eventually, he will be okay again. When Madison leaves, Drew sees Autumn and Max in the parking lot. They sit down together at the boat launch and tell stories about Lola until night time.