“Because he was a hero,” Maeve whispered. “In the lie, he was a hero.”
“But he knew it was a sham,” Derek whispered back. “Didn’t he?”
“If he didn’t…then he’s just a sad man, chasing an illusion.”
She stood up and turned off the overhead light, leaving the lamp on in the corner.
“I think all heroes know that,” she said. Maeve looked from the lamp to Derek and back again, and sighing she asked, clearly uncomfortable, “Do you want me to grab the light?”
“Do you normally sleep with it on?” he asked, studying her.
Maeve nodded.
“Leave it on,” he said, and she did.
Chapter Eighteen
The next day, the other nurses wanted to know details. It was a fairly slow day—some over-protective parents, an elderly man with dementia who’d fallen in a ditch, a dog bite, and a Russian man who wanted to be admitted so he could take a nap.
Debbie, his mother-surrogate and no-bull-shit communicator eyed Derek with a sideways glance. She looked between him and the monitor in front of her, running through a list of numbers and names.
“Derek,” she said. “You slept like a gentleman on that woman’s couch all night? My son is your age and you know I’d ask him, too.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
Debbie laughed. “She was waiting for you to come into the bedroom. You know that right?”
“You tell that to your son, too?”
“No, because I’m pretty certain he wouldn’t have stayed like a gentleman. No need to tell him.”
“If she wanted….me…she could’ve asked. Or at least kissed me before bed. You weren’t there, Debbie, I’m telling you. It wasn’t the right mood. Murder and death is a real romance killer.”
“Oh, sure.” She stuck out her lip. “A gutted trailer and the death of your father? Self-medication comes in all forms, Derek, if you need reminding.”
“Remind me what constitutes sexual harassment, again?” Derek said and he grabbed a chart and began to make his way down the hall to check the vitals on a homeless man brought in for a drug overdose.
To his back, Debbie replied, “Doesn’t work that way. But if you’d said any of that to me, darling.”
Derek shrugged, aware that she was right, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. He could see the young man now leaning over the side of the bed and throwing up violently onto the floor. He paused and turned back around to look at Debbie who peered around him and spotted the scene.
They exchanged knowing and exhausted looks.
He hopped into the supply station and grabbed a vomit hat. Another nurse walked by, a thirty-something named Leann who’d been popping in and out of the conversation all day.
“You don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to, sweetie. But you know that girl will have to go through rigorous testing before she’s unleashed on you. Par for the course,” Leann said with a wink. A few of the doctors and nurses laughed—Derek was constantly being set up on dates with visiting cousins and best friends. He’d often wondered if there was some sort of hidden finder’s fee for whomever successfully landed him a girlfriend.
The fact that he found Maeve on his own meant they were all disappointed.
Shari finished up with a concussed child and joined the fray as Derek walked back to the man in A1. He’d stopped throwing up for the time being, but he hung half-in and half-out of his bed.
“She sounds lovely,” Shari said and walked into the room after him. Derek walked around the mess and assisted the patient back into a sitting position. He stuck the thermometer under the patient’s tongue and asked his routine questions.
Shari was by his side and an orderly hopped in to mop up the mess.
“We all want to know because we love you,” she said. “An ER full of moms.”
“I’m going to see where it goes,” he said.
“Mr. Evasive,” Shari said and smiled, and that was the end of it. Together they worked on their patients, exchanging notes and running rounds and calling people in for triage. With the ER buzzing around him and his colleagues too busy to ask any more questions, Derek found himself reviewing his week in a rush of sheer disbelief.
As his shift was winding down, he filled out paperwork at the nurse’s station, and one of his colleagues slid on by and tapped the desk in front of him.
“Delivery for you at the front desk. They wouldn’t let me sign for you and bring it back,” the other nurse said.
“Delivery of what?” Derek asked, incredulous.
“Flowers,” the nurse shrugged and disappeared into the fray.
Immediately, his thoughts went to Maeve. She didn’t seem like the type to send unsolicited gifts, but there was no one else in his life other than Julie, maybe, who’d send him flowers. He wondered if it was a memorial gift for his father—and without a permanent address, the hospital would be the quickest way to get in touch with him.
Lazily, Derek walked out of the automatic double doors separating the sick from the waiting and approached a middle-aged man holding a supermarket bouquet.
“Derek Shelton?” the man asked as Derek walked up to him.
“Do I need to sign for something?”
“Yeah, just this receipt, I guess,” the man said, and thrust a single sheet of paper at him. Derek used the front desk and their pen to sign his name. The man handed the flowers over and said, “Have a good day.”
“Are these from a florist or—” Derek scanned the leaves and petals for a note. He saw a tiny card tucked inside.
“Someone just paid me to deliver them in person. I’m a car share driver.” As if that was enough of an answer, the man walked back out the doors of the ER to his car idling in the roundabout.
Derek turned and fled through the quiet groups of people, ignoring the curious eyes and whispers—a flower delivery to a handsome nurse was certainly the kind of gossipy fun that helped cure boredom in an ER waiting room. Derek walked back to his desk, keeping the flowers by his side, and when he was seated and away from prying eyes, he pulled the note out.
Debbie suddenly appeared and leaned over to inhale the collection.
“Oh, oh. Someone sent you flowers. Now I’d say that’s a sign that she liked you staying in your own room.” She roared with laughter.
It was impossible not to crack a smile, but Derek knew the flowers were not from Maeve. Nor was their casual assortment anything but random. The plastic crinkle of the sheathing and the summer collection of sunflowers transported him. For a moment, he could see a bouquet similar to this in his memories…but he couldn’t place where.
Someone brought flowers like these to him before. Before reading the note, Derek leaned down and read the sticker on the outside of the plastic. The flowers were from Zupans. The specialty market near his home all those years ago—did that chain still exist? He was certain he’d read the entire chain had disappeared out of the Portland market. And if the chain didn’t exist, then someone made a fake label to trigger his memories.
Their house had been near a Zupans. Late at night. The bouquet.
Yes, Peter brought a bouquet to Ginny earlier that night. He’d been there earlier in the evening, before he left, before the attacks. He’d brought flowers. Derek’s anxiety surged.
He remembered.
Debbie looked at him and turned her head. “You okay, sweetheart? You’re looking pale.”
“I’m…yeah,” he swallowed. “I’m good. I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. He was feeling weak, but he couldn’t admit it to the people he worked with, who would no doubt put him on lockdown. The panic surged.
There was no way the flowers in front of him and the flowers Peter brought Ginny were connected. But there they were—and there was his memory of it, from all those years ago, and for the first time in fifteen years, he could see them perfectly.
Peter brought the flowers. Walked right through the front door when they were all eating dinner and Ginny screamed,
terrified at first, and then angry.
He’d brought them for Ginny as a surprise. Derek didn’t understand why she was scared, but she yelled at her boyfriend and said he had to take them home with him because if flowers showed up, the Sheltons would know he’d been over. Then she bribed Derek with half of her babysitting money to never talk about it. She didn’t live long enough to pay up.
Peter stayed for the movie Ginny put on.
Then slinked out. Gone for most of the movie. He forgot to take the flowers.
It came up in the investigation. Where did the flowers come from? And no one knew. Except Derek knew. Peter. Peter left the flowers.
He never told anyone. Why would Peter bring flowers to the girl he was about to murder?
Peter was dead. His dad was dead.
And Derek had been sent flowers by a ghost.
Unable to wait any longer, he tore into the note and set it in front of him. He scanned the lines once, twice and looked up at Debbie, eyes big and panicky.
“I need to get to a room,” he said, breathing heavily now.
“Oh, boy. You’re looking faint. Come on, come on,” she said and was immediately by his side. Debbie and a few close orderlies put Derek in the closest empty room. He rested on the bed surrounded by all the medical equipment anyone could ever need to save a life. But nothing beeped or shrieked for him—the nurses turned off the lights and grabbed him warm blankets and asked if he needed water. All the things he knew he’d do for himself if he could. Debbie rubbed his head and turned off the lights.
He’d try to stave off the wave of a panic attack, but he didn’t feel weak for succumbing to the terror of realizing the truth was catching up to him.
His entire life was catching up to him.
Clutched in his hand was the note from the bouquet.
Written on the note in all block letters was a message:
THE SHAM IS OVER. I WILL KILL AGAIN. SAY GOODBYE. TO THE LIE.
A little reminder that the story and falsehoods he’d clung to his entire life were about to erupt and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Chapter Nineteen
She’d met some of his colleagues and they were so sweet and kind as she wandered into the ER and retrieved Derek, who was pale and quiet and lying down in a darkened room, his feet wrapped in white booties, his arms tucked behind his head. It seemed a strange twist of parallelism—an older nurse with a commanding presence calling her to say Derek needed someone to come take him home; he’d had a shock, he was alone.
It was hard to think of Derek Shelton as a person who didn’t have any connections, but when she saw him practically comatose on the vacant bed, eyes glazed over, body slightly trembling, she wondered if it was possible. He had admirers, but no real family and no close friends besides his coworkers. Maybe his friends were all Julie’s—God, Julie. She didn’t want to be a typical basic bitch and hate the girl just for having been the last one to love him, but still, she was so easily hateable.
Maeve had only known him for a week and she was the only person they could call?
That level of isolation worried her. Everyone needed a support team.
“They told me you had a panic attack,” Maeve said. She didn’t know what else to say. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of…”
Derek didn’t look at her. He spoke to the ceiling. “I’m not ashamed of having a panic attack,” he said simply, his lips pursed in dismissal. “My body had a physiological response to stress and I’m okay. I’ll be okay. They worry and they are coddling me, and that’s fine. I told them I could drive. They are exercising an abundance of caution,” he said in a sing-song, mocking voice. “Really, I’m fine now.”
“Maybe you could take some time off work and really let yourself grieve your dad,” Maeve offered in a whisper. Derek’s eyes flashed over and she knew in an instant she had overstepped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Ignore me. Do whatever you need to.”
“I need to plan his memorial. I want it small,” he said and closed his eyes.
She wanted to laugh. Small? For Timothy Shelton? That wasn’t going to happen.
Maeve waited for him to elaborate and when he didn’t, she asked, “Do you want my help with that?”
He nodded against the hospital pillow. “Sure. Yeah. I’m not good at asking for help,” he said.
“I’m not good at guessing when people need help,” Maeve tried to say with warm humor, but he didn’t respond and her stomach tightened with regret. Oy. She needed a lifeline. He was clearly struggling and she wasn’t the best with struggling people. Everything felt like an overstep; she felt each bottled-up cringe. Outside his darkened room, only a thin glass wall and a heavy curtain separated them from the sounds of the rest of the Emergency Room. Maeve heard thunderous laughter and anxious shouting, she saw medics rolling a gurney with an old man and a bleeding head right by their room. A doctor was running to meet someone at the ambulance. Funny though, she never heard sirens.
“You wanna get out of here? Let me get you out of here. You can’t stay here. I mean that’s what the lady said who called me. And they didn’t know who else to call, but I can take you anywhere. We just have to go, okay? I’ll even let you break up with me in the car, or whatever, but we should go—”
He smiled at her.
She didn’t know which part made him smile, but she tried not to die of gratefulness.
“You’re so eager,” he said. He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t need you to take care of me,” Derek added.
“Clearly,” Maeve answered with a side-smile. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you think you need. Let’s just get you home.”
“I don’t have a home, yet. So you mean home with you?”
The prospect sounded nice. And she couldn’t lie and say she hadn’t spent most of her waking hours daydreaming about him in some capacity. Taking him home had featured in several of her more exciting episodes.
“I’ll take you anywhere,” Maeve said.
“I should look up hotels. My insurance,” he tried to sit up on to his elbows, “sent me a list to choose from.”
Maeve didn’t understand why she felt a deep grief starting when she looked into his eyes. Yes, of course, he needed to stay in a hotel. She nodded and started to get up to see if someone could help him check his email, but Derek shifted and sat up completely.
He looked at her with bleary sadness.
“Look, Maeve,” he started and Maeve knew where the conversation was headed. How many great conversations started with those two words? She lowered her head and looked down at the hospital floor, shiny and tiled, and braced for impact. Don’t cry, she told herself. “My life is not simple and I have tried to fly under the radar, but things are about to get complicated. Like…paparazzi and shit storm complicated. And I don’t think you should be with me,” he said. “Being with me is dangerous.”
She’d heard that before.
“I don’t care,” Maeve answered flippantly. “Dangerous or not, you’re coming home with me and I’ll help with what I can, and then I’ll go. Just for one more day,” she offered. “Fight me tomorrow about it, okay?”
“It’s personal,” Derek whispered.
Maeve took a deep breath and shook her head. “What’s personal?”
“The Woodstock Killer,” he mumbled and refused to look at her.
“The Woodstock Killer is personal? Like, what do you mean? Peter Newell?” Maeve asked.
Derek turned his head and stared at her, his jaw tight.
“Derek…” she started and stopped. He sat up. His hair was matted to his head and he blinked often, staring at her.
“Not Peter Newell,” he said deliberately. “The serial killer who got away with murder because the police and my dad wanted Peter Newell to be their guy.”
Maeve gulped. Stunned. She was a broken record.
“What do you mean it’s personal?”
“He sent me a note,” Derek said and he lifted up his right hand in a fist.
Slowly he pulled back all his fingers to reveal a tiny notecard. Maeve lifted her finger to tell him to wait. She rummaged through her purse and procured tweezers. Carefully she tweezed the edge of the card and picked it up out of Derek’s hand.
She read the message and she read it again. Say goodbye to the lie, the Woodstock Killer wrote. The lie that Peter Newell was responsible. Maeve didn’t understand. Why now?
“I don’t want to go to the police,” Derek said. She didn’t understand why not, his father was gone, he had no one left to protect. “I need to keep this close to just the two of us until we know for certain what we’re dealing with here. It’s a gut feeling. This person has tormented me my whole life…and…no police. Not yet.”
“Some people thought the Zodiac Killer was a cop,” Maeve said with a sage nod. She’d listened to so many podcasts about murder and she’d definitely been holding out on showing off her murder facts. Crooked cops were a real thing. Except, Derek didn’t seem to find the trivia interesting and he swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes, his shoulders slumped.
“Actually, I can’t even believe I’m going to ask this, but—”
“Would the Love is Murder Social Club be interested in helping?” Maeve finished with an eager nod. She knew it. She knew it!
“I thought you said you weren’t good at guessing when people needed help,” he said. Derek stood. He stretched and slipped the booties off his shoes and shoved them into the closest wastebasket.
“Those women know everything about your dad and the Woodstock Killer case, and probably everything about you, too. And when you tell them what you really remember about that night, they’ll be able to start rewriting the narrative to match the truth. It’ll recast everything and in the new light, we’ll know where to look. They have the facts and their only motivation is justice. They can do it, Derek. I’m serious.”
“I know you’re serious. I asked you first, remember. You don’t have to convince me. It’s just weird, you know, that a bunch of internet crime fans can be the ones to crack this case. I couldn’t have even imagined that fifteen years ago.”
Forgotten Obsessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 1) Page 13
