“So she did. Because of neglect. All right. We’ll have the hearing on this on December the tenth, if that’s acceptable to everyone?” Dave and the man at the other table agreed. “All right then. Everyone, thank you for coming in today. We’ll see you in two weeks.”
They were putting the cuffs back on Wendell even before Winslow was out of the room. This wasn’t right, damn it. He wanted to go home today. Whistling for the judge when shouting at him didn’t work, Wendell stopped the men from dragging him out of the room.
“Wait a damned minute here. They’re pinning me back up again. I want to know who is going to take me to my house to get ready for my boy.” Winslow asked him if he’d heard a thing that had transpired here today. “You mean me telling you that I didn’t kill her? Then yes, I heard it. I said it. I don’t want to be in jail no more. You tell these men to let me go. Tell them. Or else.”
“Or else what, Mr. Bennett?” The tone of Winslow’s voice had him pause, like he was fixing to have a fit for something. “Did you just threaten me? Because if you did, you can kiss about anything that might have been coming your way goodbye right now.”
“No. I was telling you that they’re locking me up again. Didn’t you just tell them that we’d all meet back here on the tenth? I won’t miss it. I swear to you, I’ll be here with my son.” Winslow said nothing and walked out of the courtroom. Before Wendell could begin to think what that meant for him, he was headed back to the jail. “This shit is going to get someone in trouble, see if it don’t.”
Things were not going the way he thought they should. Why the hell was he going back to prison? As they drove by his home on the way back to jail, he saw that someone had been there painting the place up. It had words on there that someone was gonna have to clean off. Murderer and baby killer were just the ones that he could make out. Damn it to all the way to hell and back, he was getting the shaft, Wendell thought.
~*~
Easton wasn’t sure what he was doing. The funeral director had told him that he was there for him. That wasn’t helping. Easton had no idea how to even begin to make arrangements. Looking up when the door opened again, he was never so happy to see someone there in his entire life. Especially having Wayne and Cara at his side.
Holding Wayne’s hand after having a seat again, Easton felt like he could get through this. Cara was asking questions, ones that he’d not formed yet. It wasn’t that he was stupid, but he’d never thought of some of the things that she was asking the director.
“Can they be in the same casket? Mary wasn’t very big as, you know, and Margaret was tiny for her age.” He explained while he had no trouble with it, the cemetery that they used would. “All right. We’ll have two then. Can you tell me if there can be an open casket for either of them?”
The funeral director, his name was Peter Sampson, looked at Easton. He knew that it was going to be his decision, but he didn’t really have enough information to do that. Before he could ask him about it, the man spoke softly to him.
“Mr. Hunter, I’d not if I were you. Your niece was, as you heard, in terrible shape before she passed on. And from what the coroner told me; she’d passed some time before she was found. Your sister, we’ve been able to cover most of her wounds. The wound at her throat was very large and needed extra care, but still shows a great deal of the trauma that she suffered. If it were me, I’d only have the caskets open for family, and not for the viewing or service.” Easton nodded, thinking again of how he’d failed his sister by not coming home more. “Sir, there was nothing you could have done about this. I know that I shouldn’t say this, but your sister, she was well loved, and others would have stepped in to help her had we only known about what she was hiding from us all. I didn’t know there was a child. I swear to you, had I known, I would have gone to prison to get them both out of that situation, as I’m sure you would have.”
“He locked her up like she was an animal.” Easton broke down then, and held onto Cara and Wayne while he spilled out his pain. “He did that to Peaches because she was underfoot and in his way. Then he forgot about her. Wendell cut Mary’s throat because she wanted to have her baby in the hospital. Instead, it was born in a field while she was wrapped up in a rug that he no more cared about than he did his family. My nephew was born after his mother was gone. That monster locked my sister in a cage too, keeping her from food and water, the basic needs of any human being. Why? Why would he do that to them?”
It took him some time to regain control of himself. Easton was surprised at himself, as he’d never had such an emotional outburst before. He didn’t know if it had only just hit him as to why he was there, or the fact that he felt safe in the arms of the two people that he’d come to depend on. It had been a long time for him since anyone had made him feel this safe.
After he went to the bathroom and freshened himself up, things went better. They were doing as suggested and only having an open casket for the family. Since he didn’t have much family, other than Wayne and Cara, he didn’t think it would bother anyone.
The flowers for the caskets were something he thought Mary would have loved. A spray of daisies and carnations, instead of roses. On it there would be banners declaring her as a mother, sister, and friend. He wasn’t going to mention Wendell and his relationship to her. It made him feel better just knowing that this was the way to make it right.
For Peaches, which was what he’d forever think of her as, there were small sweetheart roses. She would never get any from a suitor, or someone that loved her like her mother had. Cara suggested that they put a banner on her spray that simply said Loved, in addition to the ones that said sister and niece and daughter.
After everything was set up, the three of them were headed to the house where his sister and her family had lived. All he wanted was something to give to Alex when he was older. Easton had already been saving the newspapers to let him read about his father. While he wasn’t sure yet if that was what he was going to do, he knew that he could always toss them out if he had better ideas later on.
“Do you want to go in alone?” He looked at Wayne when he asked. Shaking his head, he asked that they both go in with him. “All right. I was hoping you’d say that. To be honest with you, Easton, I don’t think that I’d want you to go in there alone even if you didn’t mean the world to me.”
“Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I needed the two of you today.” Nodding, they all three got out of the car. “They said that she was murdered right around here. In the yard, I guess.”
They saw it as soon as they were where the car might have been parked. Easton knew that the car, along with other items, had been taken from the house to do tests on. Jake and Forrest had both told him that they’d recommend that he not get them back. Easton was glad that they’d not gone into more detail than that. He didn’t need any more visuals than he already had in his mind.
The house was neat. It was old and falling apart in some places, but he could see where someone, more than likely his sister, had tried her best to make the house livable. What bothered him the most was that the place was cold and dank. The power had been shut off for some time as well.
Easton stood staring at the large hooks in the floor—two of them—and the chain that ran from them to the stove was very telling. Cara came to stand by him, and he could feel her anger. Taking her hand into his, he asked her if she was all right.
“No. I can honestly say that I am not all right. That fucker needs to die.” He nodded. “Oh, Easton, I hurt for what you’re going through right now.”
So did he.
Wayne found what appeared to be the bedroom. In it there were cans of foodstuff along the wall, as well as a deep freeze that was stocked full of meats and vegetables. The combination lock on it made him realize that Wendell had kept things for himself and not his family.
The more he had to deal with Wendell and the things that he’d done to his family, the mo
re he wished he could get into the cell with him for five minutes. That was all it would take for him to tear his throat out. Easton was sure that he wouldn’t even have to shift. He would just reach out, dig his nails into his flesh, and rip off his head.
Finding the area where Peaches had been, he could see where she’d been caged. The cage itself was gone, taken into evidence for his trial. But the smell alone would have told him that this is was where the little girl had spent her final moments. Locked away like she was nothing more than the monster that her father was.
He found a box, tattered and old, hidden in the bathroom. Easton wondered what it would have taken for Mary to have been able to stash it away. Opening it took him to the floor. Sobbing again, he fingered the things that Mary would have thought of as treasures.
There was an envelope on the bottom of the box, a handful of bus schedules that had been marked to go where he lived, as well as fifty dollars in varying amounts of mostly change and one dollar bills. Not nearly enough to come to him, but he knew that it had been hard won for her to have. Pulling out the envelope, he saw his name scrawled over the front of it in his sister’s handwriting.
Opening it, he could smell her there—the way she had smelled when they’d been children together. She wouldn’t wear perfume, not his Mary, but plain old vanilla that she’d dab on her throat and behind her ears. Taking the letter to his nose, the memories of her flooded his mind.
He didn’t want to read the letter from her. Not knowing what she wrote was better than knowing, he thought. To think how hard it must have been for her to write this to him was small compared with what she would have had to have done to hide it from her husband. Opening the letter up, Easton sobbed harder when he realized that it was dated only a few days before she’d been murdered.
Easton. If you’re reading this then it means that I have died. I don’t know what to think about that, so we’ll just pretend that you received this in the mail and are happy to know that I took the time to write you. You remember how much I hated to write letters. I’m not going to make it to see you. I thought that I could get there, but I’ve figured out that Wendell is getting more and more fed up with me daily. As I said, I think he will murder me before my child is born. He murdered my darling daughter. I found her little body yesterday when he allowed me to cook him a steak for dinner. She was nothing but skin and bones, her body so thick with bugs that I could only swat them away for so long before he yanked me back to my duties to him. Had I the poison, I would have done it then. But he barely lets me have food to eat, much less something that would cause his demise. I have never hated anyone in my entire life as much as I do him.
Easton, I would like for you to do me a favor. I have set myself a will up. It was as difficult as you can imagine. If I should be able to give birth to this child before I am dead, I wish for you to raise him as your own. I wanted to call him Alexander Patch, but you must name him as you wish. I have left you all that I have. You will understand that better after my body is put into the ground. I’m not allowed to leave the house anymore. I haven’t been anywhere but here for the last several years. I’ve been such a fool to allow this to happen to me and my child, but there was no other way I could have kept you safe. Wendell was going to kill you if you ever came here again. And then he said he’d kill me.
I love you with all my heart, Easton. There has been no other brother like you, and will never again be one that has been as kind and loving as you were to me. You aren’t to grieve too much for me. I wish you all the happiness in the world, and I hope that someone someday finds a way into your heart and makes you has happy as I’d like for you to be. I will see you in the next world, my loving brother.
Then she signed her name. The postscript made him cry even harder when she told him that she would be at his side when he dealt with Wendell.
Easton handed the letter to Wayne when he came to see if he was all right. As he read it aloud to Cara, Easton looked around the place. It broke his heart to know that his sister had lived here like this, and he’d not done anything to save her.
“You should let Forrest see this. I mean, right here she’s foretelling her death by Wendell. It might not mean anything, but you never know.” He told Wayne that he’d do that first thing. “We looked everywhere, Easton. I’m sorry to say that there isn’t a single photograph or anything personal in this house for anyone other than Wendell.”
“I think I knew that when I came here. But I had to see for myself what she endured.” He was helped up by Wayne, who held him tightly for a few moments. “Tomorrow I get to bring home Alex, and after that, I have those classes. I’m going to have my apartment closed up and the things out there brought here. That is, if you’re sure you want me here after all this.”
Instead of answering him, Wayne kissed him on the mouth. It wasn’t sexual, but comforting. As they were leaving the house to go to the car, he took another look around at the home. He was going to buy this place as soon as he could. Then he was going to have it torn to the ground. Getting into the car, he pulled out his phone to make the call to Forrest to get things started.
Chapter 4
Henry was on a mission. Today, Mary Bennett’s spirit had come to see him and asked that he help her speak to her brother. He’d said that he’d do that, no problem. So here he was, waiting on the front porch of Wayne and Easton’s home to talk to him. When the little girl showed up too, he wondered why anyone would kill such a precious being. Smiling at the two of them, he talked about his meeting Easton when he’d first arrived.
“He still calls you Peaches. Did you know that?” The little girl hid behind her mother, but peeked at him while he spoke. “I wondered where he might have gotten such a name for you, darling. I mean, you don’t appear to be fuzzy or anything.”
“Because I had pink cheeks.” Her voice was light and soft, like she’d not had much of an occasion to use it. Henry asked her if she had seen her uncle around town. “Yes. Uncle Easton is a big man.”
“He is at that. And smart too. Did you know that he makes games for kids to play?” He felt stupid for saying that, knowing that she’d never play games again. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I can play games, Mr. Henry. I get to play them all the time now.” He nodded, his heart—which was already broken—breaking a little more. “Dogs and cats can see me too. I play in the yard, and sometimes keep them from barking too much. I wish that I could feel their fur. Is it as soft as I think it is?”
“Much more so.” She looked up at her mother, and then back at him. “If either of you have a question, you know that I can answer it for you. I can’t help you with Wendell, as much as I’d like to, but I can answer anything you might want to know.”
“Do you think we can go and see Alex?” The question wasn’t what he thought it would be. For some reason, Henry thought that they’d want to know if they could haunt Wendell. Seeing the baby was something that he could arrange. “I know that he’ll be able to see us. Even if it’s only for a little while.”
“You don’t have to have my permission to see your brother, honey. You and your momma can go there anytime you want and see him. I’m to understand that he’s coming home to live with Easton tomorrow.” Peaches looked at her mom and smiled. “I think he’d love to see you both. I know that I would if I were him.”
“How will he see us?” Henry looked at Mary, who to him looked like she’d been murdered and beaten. “Will he see us as we are, or can we hide the violence from him?”
“He’ll only see what you want him to see. You think on what you want to appear like, and that’s all it will take. I can see you how you are, but I’m older and don’t care about the mysteries of death anymore.” Mary nodded and looked out to the drive. “That would be them coming now, I think.”
Greeting them all, he was surprised to see that Cara was out of the hospital already. But he’d not realized t
hat she was a wolf too. Shaking hands with Wayne, he wondered if he should mention that there was someone in town looking for him. Not a ghost, but a person.
“I have someone that wishes to speak to you, Easton. I’ve been talking to Mary and Peaches.” He knew that the man knew that he could see ghosts. It had been explained to him when Easton had met the rest of them. “She said that she also wants to see little Alex, if you don’t mind. I told her that the two of them should go and see him. I hope that’s all right.”
“It is. Mary and Peaches are here?” Henry noticed that the other two, Cara and Wayne, went to the front door and opened it. “How does this work? I mean, will I be able to see them?”
“Yes, if you wish.”
Wayne invited them into the house and Easton followed. Henry was bringing up the rear when he thought of something else that he’d figured out recently. “I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to allow them to haunt Wendell. So long as they don’t harm him in any way, they can haunt him as much as they want. They’re to do no wrong to the living, but in this, the way that he murdered them both, I think it would do him a world of good to get a little scared once in a while.”
They were laughing as they were sitting down in the living room. Cara went to get the baby, and Henry noticed that Peaches went with her. Henry thought that it would do them all a world of good when Wendell died. He’d caused them all enough trouble for several lifetimes.
“I can let you see her, but I want to warn you that you’ll be able to see other ghosts as well. I’m not sure how that works completely, but since coming here and being friends with the others, my abilities have taken on some different aspects.” Wayne asked him if he’d see them too. “I honestly don’t know what you can get from this. Or what Cara might get. I just want to put that out there so that you’re not freaked out when they start hanging around here.”
“Are there any in this house now that aren’t related to me?” Henry hated that question. It made him think that Easton was going to ask him to make them go away. However, he answered him that there were several. “Any of them going to cause us trouble? The reason I ask is...actually, I have no idea why I asked. I just don’t want any trouble from anyone right now. We’re just getting things set up here, and that could make it difficult, I think.”
Easton: Forbidden: Paranormal Romance Page 4
