Julie sniffed. Her voice went watery and small. “Tell your girl that he was wearing yellow rubber gloves like my grandma used to have in her kitchen for washing dishes. Smelled like rubber. He didn’t talk. Not a word.”
Derek nodded.
“Did you tell the police?”
“Derek…” she began to cry. Her vitals jumped; heart rate and blood-pressure jumped. The cuff on her arm began to fill. Someone outside noticed as well, and soon a nurse came into the room and gently maneuvered around Derek to calm Julie and attend to her distress.
“I need to tell you something,” she said, but she slurred her words and a rivulet of snot dripped from her nose. “I need to tell you—”
Julie erupted into sobs and Derek took a step back. She yanked her arm away from the nurse attempting to adjust the cuff and began to pull at her IVs. Derek knew he couldn’t jump in to help and so he backed himself into the corner and watched, helplessly.
“We’ll need you to leave, Mr. Shelton,” the woman said without batting an eye or looking in his direction. “Her blood pressure is spiking. I’m sorry. Leave. Now.”
Derek, understanding the tone and the urgency, didn’t think about arguing. Despite Julie’s pleas and tears as he left, he knew he needed to let her rest, sleep off the pain pills, and try again later.
Her sobbing followed him as he opened the door and met Maeve, who was already standing and looking concerned.
“It went well, then?” she asked and tucked her phone back into her pocket.
“She’s sick. Loopy,” he offered. “We’ll be able to talk to her later.”
“Derek—” Maeve started, as though she had something to confess, and he immediately went into lockdown mode. The tone and his name set him off, and he didn’t have any interest in having his world disturbed more than it already was.
“Save it,” he said without giving her a chance to elaborate.
“Oh,” she said, startled. She tilted her head and waited for an explanation. He didn’t really have one, only intuition and worry.
“This person might try to kill you, too. Does that worry you?” Derek asked.
“Yes,” Maeve answered and nodded her head. “But I’m not scared enough to quit.” They began to walk away from Julie’s room and back toward the hospital elevators. A pair of police officers were stationed outside those doors, too, and they waited until they were safely alone to continue the conversation.
“I feel responsible for this,” he said.
“The person who stabbed her should feel responsible for this,” Maeve answered and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You know what I mean. You have a little answer for everything. A little argument for everything.”
“Do you want me to stop talking? I’ll stop.” He could tell it pained her to say it. He understood the sacrifice she was making. “We’ve had this conversation before. It’s tedious. I’m tired.”
He wondered if all great relationships started with having the same conversations over and over again. Here they were, carving out their boundaries, understanding each other’s lives, talking in circles. At least that’s what he thought was happening.
She slipped out of holding his hand as the elevator doors opened to the lobby of the hospital. They slid apart from each other and walked out into the lobby, past a doleful waiting area, and a dimly lit gift shop.
Outside, they stopped.
“I’ll call a car,” Maeve said. “I’m going to my parent’s house. I’ll be fine and safe.” She pulled up the app on her phone, entered an address, and pushed for a car. Two minutes, it read. “I hope today was good.” She added it with a perfunctory nod, distant.
“What’s wrong with you right now?” he asked. Derek hoped the car would take a little longer. He was starting this conversation without much time. It wasn’t the right thing to say and he knew it immediately, but he was tired and it had been a long day.
“What’s wrong with me?” she repeated with a blink. “Two minutes never felt so long,” she said and shook her head taking two steps away.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant,” he sighed and closed his eyes—he wanted and needed her to stop the drama and throw him a bone. His jaw clenched and he couldn’t find the right words. “What is this, even, if you aren’t planning staying. I’m building a house here, Maeve. You know I can’t follow you anywhere.”
“What’s wrong with me and what is this?”
He hated that she was only repeating his questions. They had to have only sixty seconds left and her communication felt like sabotage.
“Here’s the deal,” Derek said. “I need you to walk away from either the case or me. That’s it.”
“You can’t do that,” Maeve said and her thumb hovered on her car cancel button, her eyes growing watery. “That’s an asshole thing to do. You can’t do that.”
“I can and I need to. You didn’t see Julie in there and that happened because of me. Because there’s a killer who wants the people around me dead and you’ll be next and you just won’t stop. If you cared, you’d stop.”
“If you cared, you’d understand why I can’t.” Maeve’s lower lip trembled. “It’s not just me…it’s the whole group. We’re all in this and we all want to know what happened and…”
“And you’ll keep digging and digging into my dad’s life and mine and gaining access to me and things that no one else has.”
“You don’t trust me,” Maeve whispered. “Well, shit.” She looked as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. “I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me.”
“Drop the case. Walk away.”
“Don’t ask me to do that.”
It broke his heart that he had to make the ultimatum, but there was no other choice. He couldn’t live every minute wondering when she was next to be hurt. If she couldn’t see why she needed to back away, he had to let her walk away. That was it.
“Car’s here,” she said and walked toward a silver Prius approaching in the roundabout.
“You’re not going to your parent’s house are you?” Derek asked. Her hand hesitated on the door handle, caught, and he could see it in her eyes—the lie forming and he would let her do it. He waved his hand and his chest hurt as his face crumpled, aware of what this meant. “It’s fine, Maeve. I get it. Choose the case.” He swallowed. “I’m choosing for you because…I can see that’s what you want to choose. So, do it. Get in that car and go. I love you.” He stammered. Her eyebrows shot up and the tears spilled down her cheeks.
It was the first time he’d ever told her.
“I love you too much,” he kept going, the driver waited, Maeve hesitated, her eyes brimming over, body frozen, “to let you choose me.”
“Don’t do this, please,” she said. But he walked away. The driver gave a little honk and he didn’t turn around until he heard the sound of the car door shutting in the background. The Prius took off with Maeve in the back seat.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back inside the hospital. Back to Julie and back to the comfort of those walls.
He liked hospital cafeterias.
They were a gathering place of families and patients. Some were there for new babies, some for goodbyes, and he was always a quiet fly on the wall, watching the microcosms of humans shift across the hours. Lost in other people’s stories was when Derek could understand his own story best.
A young couple was eating in the corner. He was bald and she was feeding him soup, a homemade quilt across his lap. He had to look away, too overcome with loss to keep himself composed. He thought about calling her and telling her that he was wrong—he didn’t mean it.
But he did mean it. He didn’t want Maeve to get hurt because of him and he’d never forgive himself if she was the damage for a life lived for his father’s lie.
His ache for Maeve hurt, but he forced himself to watch the traffic through the buffet. He wiped his nose as a whole family appeared, pushing grandma in a wheelchair, her face cheerf
ul.
The phone in his pocket vibrated as he sat down in a nearby booth.
Derek answered it hoping it was her—hoping she was back—hoping he was wrong.
“Derek Shelton,” a voice said. Derek confirmed he was indeed Derek Shelton, fire victim. “I’m the arson investigator assigned to your fire. We caught a real break in your case,” he said all in one breath. Derek sighed and stood up, working his way back to the elevator.
“Oh yeah?” he answered when he was away from people.
“Best kind of break. A confession, actually,” the investigator said.
“A confession,” Derek repeated. Finally, things were going to spin his way.
“Yeah, Mr. Shelton. What is your relationship with Julie Devereaux?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maeve wasn’t going to her parent’s house.
How had he known? Had he watched her type in the address? By the time she’d crawled into the backseat, a bottle of water waiting, she felt like she was losing her mind.
There she was, off to meet the fourth Mrs. Shelton, and he’d broken up with her. Straight-up told her to choose the world she’d done on the case or her, now the terms not as ambiguous.
He’d avoided it before, but he’d always been dancing at the edge of telling her she couldn’t, stopping himself from really putting an end to things. Except. She hadn’t realized the timing had been perfect. The service was done and he would have no reason to see her anymore.
Services rendered. Maeve felt sick. But it didn’t deter her from wanting to continue the hunt and the fight. She settled back into the car and tried to rid the idea of their break-up from her mind. She had a job to do. She had a job to do and she wasn’t going to let him prevent her from that job, too. If he’d forced her to walk away, fine.
He couldn’t force her to stop and she had no intentions of letting her newest lead go anyway.
It had been easy to find the address for the fourth Mrs. Shelton online. She had been entitled to the house, at the least, and Maeve wasn’t the least bit surprised to see a For Sale sign already planted outside the large estate. What was one woman going to do with all that space? The entire area was gated, and Maeve motioned for the car to drop her off at the gate and leave.
“You want me to wait until you get inside?” the driver asked, as he pulled up alongside the former Shelton residence. The guy looks vaguely familiar, but she shook it away; she was distraught and when she was upset, everyone seemed angry and suspicious.
“Nope,” Maeve answered.
“You sure?” the man asked again and Maeve nodded this time, eyebrows up. “It’s far up here. Might not get a car for a bit…you know the guy who lives here? That dude who just died?”
Now Maeve turned and got a good look at the man. Yes, yes, yes—had she seen him before?
“No, I don’t know him,” she answered honestly and shut the door quickly, tipping the man through the app and waving for him to go away. When she was certain he’d left the driveway, Maeve walked up to the speaker box next to the gate and punched in a number. The box began to call the main house.
“Hello?” a voice crackled through into the night.
Maeve put her mouth close to the speaker. “Hello. My name is Maeve Montgomery. We talked earlier on the phone?” She hoped she didn’t sound like she’d been crying.
“You’re with that group? The group that is studying the murders?”
“Yes,” Maeve answered. She hadn’t lied. That was important. Except, maybe it wasn’t anymore.
“I’ll open the gate,” she answered. A pause. “Did anyone follow you here?”
“Photographers?” Maeve looked around. No.
“Did anyone follow you?” she asked again.
“I’m alone,” Maeve said.
“Walk up the drive and head to the side door on the right. That’s where they discovered his body. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Maeve stood there with wife number four.
Her name was Gillian.
She was at least ten years Timothy’s junior and in her youthful presence, she still had a desire to please Maeve and keep her riveted and feeling welcomed. She walked through the side door to the garage—now absent of Timothy’s collection of BMWs bought with his book proceeds—and into the middle of the open concrete room. She pointed.
“He was found right here,” she pointed to just inside the door, right by the outline of a welcome mat. “And I found his note later that night in the printer. I went to send an email to my family and I discovered it then.”
“Completely typed and printed.”
“Yes.”
“So, you can’t completely verify he wrote the note.”
Gillian shrugged thoughtfully and pointed through the garage to a door leading to the main house. “If you want to know if I think Timothy took his own life, then, I don’t know, I mean…if pushed… I think yes, he could have. He’s been sad a long time, Timothy. The note is real. It sounds exactly like him, but you can read it yourself and see. I suppose your real question, you want to know who has the gun?”
“That’s the next logical thing to ask, I guess,” Maeve answered.
They walked together up a small ramp and into the main house. Gillian’s shoes tapped against the tile and she kept her voice low, as if there were people who could hear her.
“Timothy was a performer. And a total raconteur. But he wasn’t an asshole. Prone to theatrics, sure, but he was very sincere.”
Maeve could tell by the way she was painting a picture of the man she’d married she didn’t want Maeve to think poorly of him. Gillian still wanted Timothy to retain his lovability and his icon status. Certainly, it was better for her in the long run if he remained loved, too. She wasn’t without gain.
“He didn’t come to understand the fuller picture until later, you see. He believed the story for a long time. Everyone was so quick to paint Peter as the Woodstock Killer to cast a broad stroke of justice over the whole mess. The killer left no DNA, only a signature, and Peter’s alibi for most of the nights when babysitters died was Ginny or his mother, and the police were quick to think Mrs. Newell was covering for her boy, you see. So, it worked. And everyone wanted it to work.”
“Okay,” Maeve said slowly, trying to read through the lines as they continued to walk through the cavernous home, down a long wooden hallway past empty bedrooms and a library and a second library.
“Who killed Layla, Derek’s sister?” Maeve asked. It was the first time she’d ever spoken the girl’s name because it wasn’t mentioned often. Layla’s name hardly appeared. Gillian turned and cringed.
It answered Maeve’s biggest question, which was how much did the wife know about his past. When it came to the famous murders, Gillian knew enough.
“You think he did it.” Gillian sounded sad, defeated—she hadn’t hoped her monologue had led to that conclusion. “You think it was Derek?”
“We, this club I’m in,” Maeve started, and Gillian didn’t smile or look the least bit phased, so Maeve pushed on, “had some theories.” She waited. Theories to victims was a lot like sex—the instigator needs some verbal consent before moving forward. The last thing she wanted to do was ram her thoughts down Gillian’s throat. She could get what she needed at the house without that.
“I’m sure I’ve heard them all,” Gillian replied and continued to lead Maeve into the last room on the left, a small study with a computer and printer and a window overlooking the Willamette River. “It’s like those store-bought logic puzzles. So and so was there at this time and gone by this time. This person had access to a gun. If neither Timothy or Peter were the Woodstock Killer, but Ginny was killed by the Woodstock Killer, then…”
“Then, what?”
“Right? There are your pieces. Put your puzzle together, you little justice fighter,” she said in a tone that seemed sincere despite its patronizing language. “I don’t know anything.”
The pieces of that puzzle slid into place
inside her mind, thinking of all the different ways those deaths could have occurred and by whom. She’d been thinking of nothing else for weeks. But for the first time, she had to entertain the idea that she’d been biased.
Maeve felt her arms atrophy and her legs become like lead as the idea rolled into view.
Derek. The fucking conspiracy could have been right all along. There were other explanations, sure, but that one made the most sense. Timothy would cover up for Derek because he’d do anything for his child—Maeve had seen it. He’d spent his whole life chasing Derek and trying to win his favor. Derek only wanted to be understood. Timothy never listened and Derek wasn’t allowed to feel sad, angry, or depressed.
Derek could have killed her by accident or out of rage. Thirteen-years-old and hormonal was awful, and Maeve was grateful she’d experienced her own teen angst without access to a gun.
Except, Timothy’s gun was accounted for.
Maeve sighed. She had to go until she hit a dead end. And backtrack. And repeat. She stared at Gillian and was certain this fourth wife was there partly because the case excited her, too.
Was she, Maeve, like this woman? Had Derek been right to think of her as a murder chasing fangirl and not someone he could spend the rest of his life with? The case had been more important from the beginning and he knew it and he felt it and Maeve felt ashamed as she sat there in Gillian’s house.
The woman delighted a little too much in pointing out where her husband’s body had been found and Maeve could tell she was studying her reactions, watching to see if she found the new facts titillating. She’d hired a crime scene cleaner to come with the blood and she slipped Maeve the man’s business card which had been embossed with a bio-hazard logo.
Maybe there wasn’t any difference between fourth wife, Maeve, and the women who married serial killers on death row.
Gillian pointed to a desk and encouraged Maeve to sit. Once Maeve was seated, Gillian handed her a copy of the suicide note. The only light in the room was lamplight and the digital blue of the computer screen on her face. The hallway outside was dark and Maeve realized they’d walked forever to reach this isolated spot in the rear of the home.
Forgotten Obsessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 1) Page 21
