Mommy May I

by A. K. Alexander

  “Fine. We’ll go. But on one condition.” She held up a finger. “That is, if this hunch of Tyler’s doesn’t pan out, you’ll quit playing the cop and come be with us.”

  Patrick stood. “I told you that I would.” He clapped his hands. “Good. It’s all settled. I’ll tell Frankie. She loves it over there. After Leeza and I split up, I had the place redone. Think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Patrick, about Leeza?”

  “Yes?”

  “Was there a service? I mean did you take care of it?”

  He let out a long sigh. “I obviously couldn’t attend, but yes I arranged a small service for her.”

  “That’s good. When we return, I need to go to her grave. There’re some things I need to tell her.” Patrick looked at her quizzically. “Basically, I need to make some amends to her, tell her that I’m sorry. We may not have been friends, but she didn’t deserve to be murdered by that beast. And I’m also sorry that I ever caused her any despair. The affair we had was wrong. Our love may not have been wrong, but you were married and I can understand how hateful she must’ve felt. I don’t agree with the way she took out her anger on Frankie. But I have to face facts, and that is, I had a part in it all, and now I wish I could’ve said those things to her while she was alive.”

  “I think she’ll hear you. I’ve felt the same way myself. I know that I caused her a lot of pain, and truthfully Leeza was simply a vulnerable little girl deep down who struck out when hurt. It’s crazy how we always think we have the time to tell people we know just how we feel, and then they can be gone in a heartbeat and we missed our chance.”

  “I don’t ever want to miss any more chances again,” Helena replied.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  The next morning, Helena, Frankie, and Claire took off on the Gulfstream. Helena had invited Claire along. The world wanted their story, and Helena had given the exclusive to Claire.

  Tyler delivered as promised by giving the media the slip. They’d pulled an FBI van into the garage, and the women had ducked down under blankets in the back. Two agents sat up front, with Tyler between them. As they pulled out of the gate in the wee hours of the morning, only a couple of reporters were hanging around. It was fairly simple to get them to the airport unnoticed.

  Knowing she had the inside track, Claire’s former boss begged her to return to work. He’d offered her carte blanche—but she wanted to write an exposé about the scandal-peddling media and how it had impacted one particular family. Claire really wanted to write a full length book about the story, but she’d had difficulty convincing Helena.

  “It’ll sell like hotcakes. It’s not like your life is some big secret,” she told her, as they flew west over the bright blue Pacific.

  “I know, Claire. Do an article, but a book? I’m tired of being exploited. And, I don’t want Frankie involved.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that, I promise. It’s not about the money. I’ll write what actually happened in a way that the world will finally understand the real Helena Shea and Patrick Kiley.”

  Helena stared at her, obviously weighing the proposition. “I’ll let you do it on one condition. Since you say it’s not about the money, then half the proceeds go into rebuilding Shea House and to charities that help find missing children.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Story is yours, my friend, but I get final okay on everything.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Helena looked over at Frankie, whose hand was entwined with Helena’s. She’d been holding it since the plane had taken off. The poor kid had already slept halfway through the flight, obviously exhausted.

  “She’s amazing,” Claire said.

  “That she is. I wish I’d known her as a child. It’s difficult to comprehend that she’s almost a woman now.”

  “I bet.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Eventually, Helena drifted off to sleep. Claire watched mother and daughter, recognizing her own longing for that connection with a child. She was surprised to realize that a part of her strongly wanted that to happen with Tyler. She looked forward to seeing him again. She would spend a few days on the island getting her story, then fly home. Hopefully, when all of this was behind them, she and Tyler could get to know each other better.

  Just thinking about him made her giddy. Was this what it was like to fall in love? She was pretty sure she was falling for Tyler Savoy, but could he ever fall in love with her?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The folks in Dobson, the town outside of Redding where Richard had lived with his aunt and uncle, remembered Richard for a variety of reasons. Tyler spoke to the man who’d owned the town’s bakery. Like many bakers, he carried a few extra pounds around the belly.

  “An odd one, that boy.” The man made a face, wrinkling up his large nose, his salt and pepper eyebrows furrowing together.

  “Why was that?” Tyler asked.

  “Well, it’s not like you could blame him—not after what happened to him.”

  “You mean with his mother?” The divine smell of baking cinnamon rolls made Tyler’s stomach growl. “Hey, by the way, can I buy one of those rolls off you?”

  “Sure. They get to everyone.” The baker laughed, handing him the sticky treat. “I was pretty good friends with his Uncle James, and he told me that the boy was crushed when he found his mama shot to death. James was pretty well devastated by her death, too. He really loved that sister of his. But, Valerie, oh boy, no way she wanted any part of them.”

  “The aunt? Know what that was about?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure.” The baker crossed his arms in front of his large belly. Tyler took some money out of his wallet to pay for the roll. “No, no it’s on me. There’s been a story or two going around, especially after they found poor old James—well, you know.”

  “Tell me.” Tyler took a bite out of the roll.

  “James was found, well, having sex with dead-as-a-doornail Mary Neils. He had a heart attack right there on top of her.” The man leaned in to whisper, “Heard Mary could do that to you.” He winked at Tyler.

  Tyler realized that perhaps Richard wasn’t the only offshoot of his family’s dysfunction.

  “It’s been speculated amongst some around here that the boy was actually James’ son. Some folks knew Elizabeth and James as kids, and they say they both had a real tight relationship with each other, know what I mean?”

  That would account for a lot. Combine genetic inbreeding with an abusive childhood and you couldn’t have a better scenario in which to mold a psychopath.

  “My missus—she’s no longer with us—used to say that Valerie would carry on about that boy and what a freak of nature he was. Val liked to tipple at times and it loosened up her lips. She told my missus that Richard thought his father was Mills Florence.”

  “As in the makeup all the stars used way back when?”

  “Yep. But Val said no way that the sister had ever been to Hollywood. She nearly came right out and said that Richard was James’s son.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Don’t know what to think.”

  Tyler would be sure to check out Richard’s birth certificate. He asked the man a few more questions and headed back to the motel where he met up with Patrick. A beer in his hand, he tossed one to Tyler.

  “Needed a cold one, huh?”

  “It’s been interesting,” Patrick said. “I feel like I stepped into Mayberry, but with a demented edge to it.”

  “I hear you, pal. You know, if my higher-ups find out you’re with me, I could get canned.”

  “I’ll take the heat as a concerned father seeking revenge. There’s no law saying a man can’t ask questions or be in the same town as you.”

  “No, there isn’t. But we didn’t stay at the same place together.” Tyler took a swig of his beer.

  “Gotcha.”

  “I spoke with one of the cops who’d gone out to the farm the day the aunt died. He’s always do
ubted the story that James told, but he was a rookie, and the police chief bought it and advised him to leave it alone. Seems James was well liked around here. Anyway, this cop was a few years older, but he went to school with Richard and remembers that the kid was weird. After the aunt died, Richard moved away. No one has seen him since. Not even at his uncle’s funeral.”

  “Uncle, ha. Have I got news for you.” Tyler told Patrick everything that he’d learned from the baker.

  “Yeah, well here’s another doozy the cop told me. He said that there was a little girl who went missing way back. The dad later killed his wife and himself, and everyone thought that it was all connected. This cop, who is now the chief of police himself, said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Richard Shelton hadn’t done it; said he had a hunch.”

  “Like I suspected, Shelton has been at this for years. We’ve got to nail him, Pat.”

  “I hope we can.”

  “We will,” Tyler replied, but he wondered, as he knew Patrick did, if they would ever find Richard Shelton.

  ****

  “I think this asshole has us on a wild goose chase,” Tyler said as they sat in the Plaza bar in New York City.

  Patrick was enraged that they hadn’t found Richard. They’d left Dobson a couple of days ago and had been all over the LaGuardia and Kennedy airports interviewing people on a shaky tip that he might have flown out of one of them. It came from a low life who had crawled out of the woodwork upon hearing there was a decent sized reward out for Richard’s capture. The man had apparently supplied Shelton with new I.D. under the alias James Hilyard. But Richard had probably wised up by now and changed his identity once again.

  “Let’s just head out to the islands,” Patrick said. “I don’t like my girls being there without me any longer. This jaunt has gone on way too long. I get the feeling Shelton is laughing at us from wherever he is, like we’re some big joke to him.”

  Maybe a few days in Maui would shed some new light on the case. And if Tyler was honest with himself, he found that he was missing Claire. “Let’s go then.”

  “Okay, when?” Patrick said.

  “Now.” They both tossed back their drinks and then booked the next flight out.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Helena was thrilled to see Patrick, though she tried not to show it. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. To try again? To become a family and have a committed relationship? She didn’t know, but thought maybe that might be exactly what she wanted.

  Even though security guards had surrounded them for the past week, she felt safer with him on the island. Going to Maui had been good for them, as Patrick said it would be.

  Frankie had really been able to open up to both Helena and Claire and tell them details of all of the demented games Shelton had played. “The only way I think I can get on with my life is when they catch him. I don’t think there’s any other way. I’m afraid of him and where he might be.” Frankie shuddered as she told them this.

  It saddened Helena to hear the fear in Frankie’s voice, but she understood it. She felt the same. Now, with Patrick here with them, maybe Frankie could rest easier. Helena remembered how comforting her own father’s presence had been during times when she needed to feel secure.

  She and Patrick sat out on the verandah, watching another amazing Hawaiian sunset as Frankie swam in the pool below them. Claire had gone over to meet Tyler at The Grand Wailea Hotel. Everything was so tranquil that Helena hated to bring up the subject, but felt compelled. “Did you turn up anything on him?” she asked.

  “He’s got quite a history. It turns out that the uncle he was raised by was actually his father. Seems his mother and father were also brother and sister. He found his mother murdered when he was only eleven.”

  “Ooh, how horrible.”

  “He comes from a long line of extreme dysfunction.”

  “How did I let him into my life? I trusted him. Tim was the first person I’d call if I needed anything.”

  “He earned your trust to discover who you were and what you were about. He focused on your vulnerabilities. Then, he struck.”

  “But why? Is this just about my advising Brianne to leave him? We only had maybe a couple of conversations about it. It would never have crossed my mind that my advice would cause her to be murdered and bring about all this chaos. It’s so, I don’t know, inconceivable, I guess. And to think he’s killed, what did you say, twenty women or so?”

  “Probably more. Right now the FBI is working on identifying each one of the death masks he made.”

  “My God, when I think about what he could’ve done to Frankie. But why didn’t he kill her? What made him change from the deranged serial killer to whatever he was trying to be with Frankie?”

  “In his twisted brain, he’d conjured up a fantasy of being a regular guy with a wife, picket fence, a dog and maybe a couple of kids. For some reason he saw all of that with Brianne, and it was, to him, as if he’d been released from killing. He stopped for a while when she was with him. But Tyler says he’s certain that, no matter what, he would’ve started up again eventually, even if his relationship with Brianne had worked out. Tyler found a journal of Brianne’s in a safe Shelton kept at the cabin. She wrote in it about your suggestion to leave him. Tyler figures that when he found that, he killed her for betraying him, but he had to blame you for her death because he still loved her. So, he decided to get even with you.”

  “So, did he really love Brianne?”

  “Not in the terms you and I think in, but in his head he’d convinced himself that it was love. There actually are some of these lunatics with wives, families, and friends—like Ted Bundy—really bizarre. Apparently Shelton tried to have romantic relationships throughout the years without any obvious success. Maybe it was because of her youth or naiveté, but according to her journal, Brianne seemed to genuinely care for him. But there was always a clear undercurrent of fear in their relationship. Tyler believes that one of the reasons Shelton’s need to kill subsided during his stint with Brianne was because he thought he’d found a replacement mother figure. His intimacy needs were being met, even though they weren’t sexual with each other. Although a grown man, and a very calculatingly intelligent one, Richard Shelton is still emotionally that eleven-year-old boy who found his mother murdered.”

  “My God. Do you think he’ll come after us? If he’s that insane, and he blames me for all of this, I have to think that he’ll come back,” Helena said. “I don’t want the three of us always looking over our shoulders.”

  “We’ll be fine. We’ve got plenty of protection, and they’ll find him. Trust me and the police, okay?”

  Helena nodded, but was not convinced at all.

  “By the way, I’ve also got some news on Collier.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” As Helena reached across Patrick for a pitcher of iced tea, she felt a buzz being so close to him.

  “Don’t worry, they’ve dropped all of the charges against you. Tyler says that Collier is being investigated by Internal Affairs for the way he conducted this investigation. Looks like the detective had his own vendetta with you.”

  “What?” Helena set her glass down on a rattan and glass side table.

  “He had a daughter who’d sent some pictures to your modeling agency some years back. In fact, it must’ve been right after you first set up shop. She received a standard rejection letter in return. She was an unstable kid, dabbled in drugs, didn’t get along with her folks all that well, and had delusions of becoming a superstar. She’d sent her photo to all the local agencies as well as a few in New York. Yours just happened to be the last one to come back to her, and she couldn’t take it. She overdosed on pills with all of the rejection letters next to her, yours on top.”

  “He blamed me for her suicide?”

  “The industry, probably, but meeting you put a face on it for him, and since you were in so much trouble, he couldn’t help himself. I think in his mind he’d convinced himself you
really were a monster who’d done all of those things. It probably relieved him of some of his own guilt.”

  “I had no idea. I feel sorry for him. I didn’t think I’d ever be the one to say something like that about Collier, but I really do—losing a child, well—we know, because we almost lost one ourselves. There were moments when I thought we had.” She sighed, then took a long sip of her mango iced tea. Grasping the cold glass tightly in her hands she said, “You know I’m ready to get out of this business completely. It’s so harsh. I can’t even tell you how many of those letters go out, and yes, you become a bit jaded, so many young girls out there want to be models. I’m truly tired of leveling the gavel on them. Besides, the longevity of the career is so short, and if you don’t know how to invest or budget your money, you can’t win. When we get home, I want to sell the agency, put all my focus into rebuilding Shea House, and help women get their lives back instead of helping to break them down.”

  “It’s a business, Lena. Like anything, it’s cutthroat.”

  “Let’s say I’m tired of cutthroat.”

  “Can’t blame you. And I’d also like to help you rebuild the center.”

  “I think I’d like that.” She held her glass to his. “Cheers.” They clinked their glasses in a toast to these new possibilities.

  That night they all watched a movie together, but Frankie fell asleep on the couch before it was over. Helena covered her up, not wanting to disturb her.

  Patrick took Helena’s hand. “Let’s go for a swim.”

  “What about Frankie?” She looked down at her sleeping daughter.

  “She’s fine. We’re safe here.”

  “Well, all right. Let me get my suit.”

  “You don’t need one.” His smile was inviting as she reached for his hand.

  “The hell I don’t. This place is surrounded by security guards. I don’t want to be their evening’s entertainment.”

  “They can’t see through the bushes. Besides, they’re mostly down at the gate and on the perimeters.”