by Debra Webb
I think of the second blood type found at the scene. “You planted my DNA in that shithole you call home.”
“Pretty fucking brilliant for a not so bright nothing like me.”
“Too bad you just confessed to a police detective.”
“They’ll never believe you. Not after all the bizarre shit you’ve done this week. I’m sure your hotshot fiancé thinks you’re crazy as hell already. You told me that yourself. I don’t think you meant to. You came in here muttering and talking to yourself. I swear, you even had me convinced you’d lost it. Between me and Newhouse, we done mind fucked you up good, girl.”
I ignore his crude words. What he thinks is irrelevant to me. “I know what you did, Fanning. You set this whole thing up. You want me to take the fall for your murder. That’s your way of getting revenge, isn’t it?”
“Now you’re getting the picture.” He smirks.
I want to beat that smirk off his twisted face.
“I had a different plan at first, you wouldn’t have liked it any better, trust me. But you see, right after I was released from prison I found out I have AIDS. Full blown. Hell, that damn prison hospital probably knew it but didn’t tell me just to keep from having to take care of me. I was so close to my release date, they just kept that little secret to themselves and let me find out all on my own. The clinic says I can’t take the medicine I need because of all the other shit that’s wrong with me. So, you see, I’m a dead man anyway. Even if this,“ he tugs at his restraints, “is cutting my time a little short, it’s worth it to have sweet revenge before I go.”
Now I understand what my father was doing looking up information on the victims and visiting him in prison. Fury twists inside me. My fists clench with the need to tear his head off.
“Making you angry, am I? Too bad. You’re the reason I went to prison. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have contracted this shit. All these years you’ve had it made. Been treated like a princess. Now, you’re going to pay for what you did to me.”
“Well.” I nod, my brain too weary to process reasonable thoughts anymore. “I guess there’s only one thing left I can do.”
He grins up at me as if he can’t wait for me to come at him. The bastard wants to die. Wants me to pay the price for killing him.
I laugh. Not today. “Goodbye, you piece of shit.”
Detective Walter Duncan
The tires squeal as I slam to a stop in front of Preston’s house. I jump out of my Tahoe and rush to the front door and start pounding. I need to find Liv. She isn’t answering her cell. I’m worried. Worried sick.
This whole idea is wrong. Not possible. And yet I know there is no other reasonable explanation.
The rattle of the lock and the swing of the door opening sends renewed tension through my muscles. Preston stares at me. “If you’re looking for Liv, she’s not here.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“I have no fucking clue.” He walks away, leaving the door open.
It’s not until then that I notice the box cutter in his hand. A frown nags at my brow. The stack of boxes I helped Liv move from her place still stands to one side in the entry hall. Preston zips the box cutter along the taped edges of the box closest to him.
Since he left the door open, I take it as an invitation. “Are you saying you haven’t seen her today?”
“Oh yeah, I saw her.” He puts the potential weapon aside and reaches for the flaps of the box. “I woke up in bed with a woman covered in mud from the waist down. She’s fucking lost it.” He shakes his head, laughs the sound of defeat. “I have no idea what’s happening.”
I wonder if he knows she’s carrying his child. The urge to beat the shit out of him is nearly overpowering. Instead, I take a breath and follow my cop instincts. “Where did the mud come from?”
“You tell me.” The words are high pitched, oozing with frustration. “She first said it was from a crime scene.” He stares at me as if he believes I already know all this. “Then she said that was a lie so I have no idea.”
I take another breath, again resist the urge to pound his high and mighty ass. “How long ago did she leave?”
“Maybe two, two and a half hours ago.” He pauses and looks at the grandfather clock in the corner. “It’s eleven now. I got up at seven-thirty. Saw the mud and freaked out. She showered and left. I’m pretty sure she was out of here by eight-thirty, maybe quarter of nine.” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know. She’s gone over some edge or something.”
The claws of worry dig deeper. “You have no idea where she went?”
“I figured she went to you.” He turns to face me. “She seems to care more about your feelings than mine.”
I got no time to deal with his ridiculous suspicions. “Clearly, she isn’t with me. You think she went to the farm?”
He shrugs. “Probably. She apparently doesn’t want to be here.” He reaches into the box and pulls out an object. “What the hell is this?”
The ragged old teddy bear confirms what I can no longer deny.
I’m on my way out the door as I shout back to him, “I’ll let you know when I find her.”
Driving like a crazy man, it takes the longest twenty-five minutes of my life to reach the farm. Liv’s car is there. The tight band around my chest loosens a fraction. I check her car. Her wallet and cell phone are on the console. I frown at the mud. The fiancé was right. Mud on the floorboard and some in the driver’s seat.
I rush to the house, pound on the door and it flies inward. My heart drops. I reach for my weapon and enter the house slowly.
Scanning the great room, I move to the right, check the library and workout room, then head for the hall beyond the kitchen. Laundry room, her father’s office and downstairs bedroom are clear. En suite bath is clear. Closets are clear.
I rush up the stairs. Spot mud on the carpet. Damn. But no Liv. Her bed looks as if she slept in it. Photo albums are scattered on the floor. There’s mud on the rug, on some of the pages in the photo album. “Where the hell are you, Liv?”
Back outside, I scan the yard. I check the garage and the garden shed which are the only outbuildings near the house. No Liv.
My gaze shifts to the barn.
That’s when I start running, my weapon palmed.
I reach the barn, my chest wheezing, pain radiating through me like an electrical current. Inside, the overhead lights are on. Florescent fixtures suspended below the hayloft, showering the stalls with light. I check the tack room, nothing but piles of trophies. I remember that Liv and her mother were big into horse shows.
That denial I’ve been hanging onto hardens into a bitter ball in my gut.
One by one I check the stalls. The smell of human feces sifts into the lingering scent of hay and earth as I near the rear of the barn. My heart rate climbs as I grow closer and closer to the final stall. The gate is already open. I line up with the open space and stare at the naked man chained to the back wall.
His head droops forward. A gaping pus filled gash stretches down the upper part of his right arm. Bruises are stark against his gray skin. I move closer. See the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He’s alive.
I crouch down and take a look at his face. Definitely Fanning. His lids flutter open. He’s in bad shape.
His cracked lips spread into a smile. “I got her.”
Son of a bitch.
To avoid finishing him off, I push to my feet and turn away. The logical part of me wants to reach for my cell and call it in but I can’t do that. Not until I know what the hell is going on here…
Not until I know the truth.
I’m all the way outside in the sun before I realize I’ve been holding my breath. The air pours into my aching lungs as I walk back toward the house. I see Liv sitting on the front porch steps. My heart twists with an agony that far exceeds the pain in my failing lungs. As I reach her I notice the shovel propped against the porch next to her. Her shoes are muddy as hell, as are her jeans. I want to gr
ab her and hug her, to promise her everything will be all right, but first I have to know the whole story.
I have to find a way to protect her.
I muster up a calm face and sit down beside her. “I was looking for you.”
“I was in the woods. There was something I needed to do.”
She stares at her open palms and I flinch at the bloody blisters there. The thousand knots already in my gut twist a little tighter.
“That’s where the bones Fanning was muttering about are buried. I had to make sure her remains were covered. To protect them until…” She meets my gaze then. “Until she can be moved to the cemetery where her parents are buried.”
Liv falls silent then, her attention shifting out to the barn.
“So,” every ounce of strength I possess is required to keep my voice calm and steady, “you want to talk about it?”
She exhales a big breath. “I don’t even know where to begin.” She looks at me again, her blue eyes full of uncertainty. “You should arrest me now, Walt. And call a bus for that piece of shit out in the barn, assuming he isn’t dead yet.”
“He’s still breathing.” I reach for my phone. “I’ll call EMS and have an ambulance dispatched and then you tell me the parts I need to know starting with how Fanning got in your barn.”
I have a feeling that part is going to make all the difference in how this ends.
Friday, May 25
Detective Olivia Newhouse
“Detective Newhouse, the internal affairs investigation has confirmed that the deceased, Joseph Fanning, did indeed set out to frame you for his own murder. An unexpected and surprising new way, in my opinion, to commit suicide by cop. Based on the testimony of Fanning’s attorney, Alexander Cagle, and that of your partner, Walter Duncan, the Internal Affairs investigation found no evidence of criminal behavior on your part. However, the matter of unprofessional behavior remains in question. Taking into consideration the conclusions in your psychiatric evaluation it is clear you were not aware of your interactions with Joseph Fanning after he imprisoned himself on your property; and, therefore, not criminally liable for those actions. However, that conclusion calls to question your mental fitness.”
I wait for Lieutenant Weatherford to continue. This is a special hearing—not the usual review board or meeting with superiors—because this is an unusual situation. All involved, from the DA to Internal Affairs and to my captain, have struggled with how to proceed. The past nineteen days have been the longest of my life.
“The review committee has weighed these conclusions as well as all the supporting documentation of this horror story that was your life, Detective Newhouse. We are prepared to proceed with a final determination on those findings; however, you have requested an opportunity to make an additional statement. Do you still feel so inclined, Detective?”
“I do, sir.”
Weatherford nods. “Very well, please proceed.”
I take a breath and begin. “My name is Olivia Newhouse. I am a detective with the Metro Nashville Police Department. Though Olivia Newhouse is my legal name, I am not Olivia Newhouse. Olivia Newhouse died at home when she was fifteen years old after being in a coma for two years.
“I have no idea what my real name is or who my parents were. The complete details of how I came to be Olivia Newhouse are in my statements which you have already reviewed.” I brace to say the rest. What I am about to impart are the hardest words I have ever had to say aloud. “Though the Newhouses loved me—I’m certain of that—and they gave me a wonderful life, I realize now that I have actually been a prisoner twice in my life. First, to the monster who took a seven-year-old child and raped and abused her, and then to the parents of a dead girl who only wanted their daughter back. In both instances I was remade into what others wanted me to be. I can’t be certain of the long-term ramifications to my mental stability. It was hardly more than three weeks ago that the buried memories began to resurface in the form of debilitating migraines.”
The lieutenant raises a hand to stop me for a moment. “The psychiatrist who conducted your evaluation feels strongly that you are not mentally fit for field duty. He suggests an extended leave with continued counseling and eventually an administrative assignment. Have you had an opportunity to digest and come to terms with that evaluation?”
“Yes, sir. He’s right.” I pause for a moment, get right with the rest of what I need to say. “I wouldn’t want to be my partner in the field. Though I feel fine and I’ve had no more migraines or blackouts, I no longer trust myself to be the backup a partner deserves in the field.”
“Are you willing to accept an administrative assignment once the other conditions specified are met, Detective Newhouse?”
“Sir, with all due respect, it is my wish to resign and to step away from police work in any capacity for now.”
A weight lifts from my shoulders as I say the words. Under the table, my hands press gently against my abdomen. I have other things that need my attention. There’s the baby and I need to be there for Walt for whatever time he has left. And there’s David.
I’ve thought long and hard about the future and decided that the greatest thing I can do for the memory of the man and woman who gave me their love and their security is to donate the farm to an organization that will turn it into a safe haven for abused children. The money the Newhouses left me will fund the transformation of the house as well as the operation for years to come. No matter that what they did was wrong, divisive even, their intent and the relationship that developed between us as the years passed was loving and generous.
I owe them my respect and my love.
After a final statement from the lieutenant, the hearing adjourns and hands are shaken. My captain holds onto my hand for an extra beat and tells me I will be missed. I thank him and he wishes me the best of luck.
I walk through the doors into the corridor where David and Walt are waiting for me.
David smiles and hugs me. “You okay?”
I inhale the scent of him, so very grateful that I didn’t ruin our relationship with my secrets. My therapist has helped me to see that David’s attempts to stop our relationship from falling apart triggered the child I once was to fight against the perceived domination. We have a long way to go to get where we need to be but this baby will need both of us.
I draw back from his hug and nod. “I am now.”
“Good.” David steps aside so Walt can give me a hug next.
“You did the right thing, kid.” He glances at David. “We all did.”
The three of us walk out together. Walt officially retired on Monday. For some time to come I’ll be focused on the therapy I need and with taking care of Walt. David understands this and I genuinely appreciate his support. Later, he and I will revisit the possibility of marriage. Whatever else happens, we’ve agreed to raise this child together.
In addition to all the psychiatric testing I’ve endured the past two and a half weeks, I’ve had all the other necessary tests, including for HIV since I was in close contact with Fanning. So far so good, but that test will be repeated in two months and then again two months after that just to be sure.
But, I am moving forward. This is just the beginning of my new life.
The life I’ve led until now belonged to someone else. In truth, I suppose you could say I’ve died twice and been resurrected. This time this life will be mine. My goal is to figure out the motherhood thing so I can be the best mother possible for my child. I don’t really know how normal people take care of normal children. I’ve never really been normal, certainly none of the people involved with the first three decades of my life could be labeled as normal.
I want this child to have a real normal…whatever that is.
I have no desire to find out who my biological parents were. They’re dead. There’s no point going back there. But the child, the baby boy, taken from me when I was fourteen is another story. I wanted to find him and I did. Actually, Fanning did. When my father ga
ve the bastard’s attorney all that money, one of the things that Fanning asked him to do was to locate the boy. Fanning intended to use him to hurt me. But his plan backfired. My son is a happy and healthy fifteen-year-old who lives in Brentwood. I met with his parents and explained everything. They are wonderful people, he is happy and I will not spoil that.
Maybe one day he’ll want to know about me, but until then I want him to live his life without the shadow of my painful past.
In fact, that’s exactly what I intend to do: move on without looking back.
There once was a child, frightened and alone, but that child grew up—I look from David to Walt—and I am definitely not alone.
I hope you enjoyed this story! If you’d like more from Debra Webb, check out BREAKDOWN starting with the first in the four-part miniseries, the dead girl.
Gone Girl meets Big Little Lies in BREAKDOWN, a stunning suspense mini-series written by four USA Today bestselling authors: Debra Webb, Vicki Hinze, Peggy Webb and Regan Black.
Life is perfect in Shutter Lake, an idyllic town tucked in the hills of California…until the woman who knows the dirt on everybody in town is murdered. As four strong women set out to discover who in their perfect town committed murder, their own lives start to unravel and the dirty little secrets of Shutter Lake’s most prominent citizens are exposed!
DEBRA WEBB is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 150 novels, including reader favorites the Faces of Evil, the Colby Agency and the Shades of Death series. She is the recipient of the prestigious Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense as well as numerous Reviewers Choice Awards. In 2012 Debra was honored as the first recipient of the esteemed L. A. Banks Warrior Woman Award for her courage, strength, and grace in the face of adversity. Recently Debra was awarded the distinguished Centennial Award for having achieved publication of her 100th novel. With this award Debra joined the ranks of a handful of authors like Nora Roberts and Carole Mortimer.
