If she’d walked into a trap, no one could hear her scream.
It was Gillian all along! No, she made herself focus, even though Maeve couldn’t conceal a head-shake of frustration when she remembered her mace. In her purse. In the other room.
Before she could think of a kind way to excuse herself or check to see if her phone had any service, Gillian took a step back and angled her gaze down at Maeve, a shadow of suspicion immediately clouded her eyes.
“Wait,” Gillian said and raised a hand. “I brought you here and didn’t even ask for any ID. How do I know you aren’t here to kill me?”
“Kill you?” Maeve asked and tried to suppress a growing laugh. “I thought you were going to kill me!”
“Why, darling, would I want to kill you? Give me a motive. And I saw you get dropped off, so I suppose someone knows you’re here.”
“An Uber,” Maeve shrugged.
“Oh, yes, very traceable. Besides, I’m listing the house and I already have one death on the property, so I’ll pass on murdering you. Also since I have no reason to, that’s a good reason in itself. Also, that crime scene clean-up guy was exorbitant.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a weird few weeks,” Maeve tried to explain, but the woman didn’t really want to hear about it and she pointed to the paper in her hand. Maeve turned back to Timothy’s last words and tried to commit them to memory. “Can I take a picture of this?”
“That’s your copy,” Gillian said. “I wanted you to see where I got it though and where it was left.” She pointed to the printer tray.
“Face up or face down,” she asked.
“Face down.”
She looked down and scanned the note again:
A woman called me today and asked if I would give an interview for the 15th anniversary of the tragedy in my home that ended the reign of the Woodstock Killer. These anniversaries are never-ending. Why are they never-ending? Often in my marriage to Gillian, I have mentioned this end as a solution to what haunts me. It is not that I do not know the truth; it’s that in order to see justice for my daughter and so many other daughters, I must lay down my lie. A lie that netted me everything I see around me, but lost me Derek. I’m a despicable human and I have too much ego to show the world that side of me and also stick around to see it. The gun I use tonight. It’s the gun that killed Layla. Give Derek the file. I’m not taking the risk of the cops finding it before Derek. It’s Derek’s story to tell now. He deserves to find out what happened and proceed.
Love to all. Love to all who read this and will use it to try to understand a dead and disgraced man. The only understanding I wish to lay within my note to the world is this: I’m leaving because I’m selfish. I don’t want to die a failure. So, I choose to go out now, while I’m still a hero.
In life and the beyond – to Layla and Sandi and Aubrey I go. Mom and dad. See you soon.
Maeve looked at Gillian and pointed to the end of the letter. Sandi, she knew was Derek’s mom, but the name Aubrey wasn’t familiar. A sister, she guessed. “Who is Aubrey?” she asked.
Gillian made a small scowl of disbelief. “Wifey three? Wait. You hadn’t heard about her? She died.”
“The wife before you passed away? No. I don’t think any of us knew.”
“On the phone, you mentioned Derek stopped by the meetings, or at least he knew that you were helping with the case, and the whole time he didn’t mention Aubrey?” she pressed again.
“No,” Maeve said.
“You’re kidding.”
That familiar feeling of the moment before receiving bad news flooded Maeve again. She froze and waited for the bomb in total slow motion. Why would Derek have needed to mention wife number three specifically? And why Gillian’s gasp of disbelief? Aubrey. He’d never mentioned that name once, she was certain.
“He’s never talked about it,” Maeve forced herself to say, her mouth dry. She stood up and kept the paper tightly in her hands, like a shield against bad news.
“Aubrey Shelton nee Colson,” Gillian recited as if launching into a monologue on a tour through Timothy’s life, which, Maeve realized, she was, “was the third wife—which Timothy gets the most flak for in all of the online shit because she was bought and paid for. A little online flirting, a little exchange of photos, and he’s flying to Ukraine for a month to get married. They honeymoon around the world. They come back, everyone is shocked, Derek is angry, but, he comes around. Aubrey is kind and she dotes on Timothy. And this house?” She paused. “Built for her.”
Maeve didn’t want to predict what followed. Gillian seemed fine inheriting a home built for her husband’s former mail-order bride.
She could hear the tide quickly changing for Aubrey.
“How’d she die?” Maeve asked.
Gillian stopped. She took a breath and continued.
“She was killed by medical malpractice. Aubrey was in a car accident and was suffering from broken ribs and a punctured lung, and a nurse in the ER administered medication intended for another patient into her saline IV.”
“Derek…” Maeve guessed, her heart nearly dropping out of her body. “Please don’t tell me.”
“Oh,” Gillian said and she put her hands on her hips and closed her eyes, taking in the moment.
“What?” Maeve asked, but she knew already what that sound meant. She could feel herself close to tears and she tried to will it away—that “oh” meant she didn’t know him. She didn’t know anything about him. They had talked with all the depth of kiddie-pool, and hadn’t they both said it was easy to hide the truth. She felt like a fool.
“He wasn’t held liable in the end,” Gillian said. “Mislabeled by the pharmacy; it would’ve been a miracle had he detected the switch, and he didn’t. Timothy took it poorly.”
“Shit.”
“Some families can’t catch a break,” she offered with a frown.
“You’re very understanding of his past,” Maeve said. Gillian took the compliment and pondered it while she led them both back out into the long, dark hallway.
“Jealousy is rooted youthfulness, insecurity, and not understanding how the world works. Timothy loved me, and our relationship was different than any other. I was the one he opened up to. I’m the one he talked to. Told the truth to.” Maeve burned. The truth. The truth. It carried so much weight in the family and she’d screwed it up. “He was a different man in the end. I’d describe it as resigned. He understood what he’d done and the cost.”
“Hiding the truth that Peter wasn’t the killer. Why did he have the gun that shot his girl?”
Gillian didn’t answer. She’d arrived at the end of her answers.
In a matter of moments, they were back out near the front of the house, and Maeve could feel the woman readying herself to say goodbye. Maeve had learned enough and now it was time to go.
It wasn’t rude, only direct.
At the door, Gillian reached inside her pocket and pulled out a safety deposit key. Maeve went to reach for it, but Gillian laughed and pulled her hand back, dismissive and hurtful.
“No, I can’t just hand this over to you. This is for Derek. You get him to come here, get him to talk to me, and he gets the key, the story and the answers. That’s the deal Timothy made and that’s the deal I have to own. I’m the keeper of the tale.”
“And you aren’t going to tell anyone…”
“…but Derek. That’s right.”
“You know how unlikely it would be to—”
Gillian nodded and put the key back in her pocket. “Whether he knows it or not, he deserves to know the truth. Except, he can’t run from it anymore. And he doesn’t need to be afraid of me. His father’s anger over Aubrey subsided in time. Derek never forgave himself.”
Maeve nodded, because she thought she understood, “He’s stubborn,” Maeve said, as if the woman didn’t know better than she did.
“That he is. So, do what you can. Without this key, everything remains the same. The identity of the person who deserv
es to be in jail for those murders still lives and breathes as a free person. And for the first time, that’s not what Timothy wanted. He hoped his son would blow the whole thing wide open. The lie was his biggest mistake.”
“And what if his son doesn’t want to crack the case this way?” Maeve asked, already anticipating coming alone, again, and begging for her to take the key to Derek herself instead of making him come to the house and face Gillian—something he’d never do.
And now she’d never be able ask him anything related to the case again; not after how things were left. This was impossible.
“I’ll meet him wherever,” Gillian said, as if reading her mind. “You get him to me. I don’t care how you do it.”
“I care,” Maeve admitted, but Gillian had no time for navel-gazing. She opened the door and ushered her hand toward the deck. When Maeve stepped outside, the door shut easily behind her with Gillian’s soft goodbye trailing her down the steps.
Maeve called a car. Two minutes away. She rolled her eyes, the same driver had been banking on her needing a lift back. She sighed and walked back down the drive, the weight of the letter in her hand, and the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Heya, that was quick,” the man said. She didn’t say a word and tried to blend into the back of his car. Don’t get murdered, she mumbled to herself. Don’t get murdered.
“Oh, headed home,” he said and began to drive toward her destination. Maeve went still.
She’d never mentioned she was heading home. She kept her eyes trained on the man in the mirror while she pulled her phone up and kept her finger over the emergency call button.
Maeve wasn’t taking any chances.
“Pull over,” she said as softly as she could. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She leaned over and the man quickly crossed over and parked on the shoulder. She scooted out and tumbled a few feet away from the car, bending over. She canceled the drive and called her sister.
“You need to come get me,” she hissed in a whisper.
Millie said she’d be there in ten and to run to someone’s house, but Maeve knew better than to add fuel to the moment. She simply wanted to get out of the car and she also needed to have a meltdown.
Derek broke up with her. He’d been suspected of being negligently responsible for the death of his dad’s wife and he broke up with her the night of his dad’s memorial because, she now wondered, if he never wanted her to know that.
Maeve pushed back a rush of emotion that overwhelmed her and she wondered if she really was going to throw up on the side of the road.
“I’ve called my sister to come get me. Thank you. You need to leave me here,” she said and she reached into her purse and pulled out her pink mace, relieved to have finally needed it and had it at the right moment. The man looked shocked, but he didn’t need to be told twice. “Get away.” She shut the door and the car quickly merged back into the road, leaving her be. As it sped off, she thought she saw a glimpse of the sticker on the back. Something about math. She wondered where she’d seen that before.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Derek stood next to the charred pieces of his chess set. In his mind, he imagined Julie with her gasoline can, burning the wooden carvings out of sheer malice, and he couldn’t see it. He’d have never suspected her to be so malicious and he couldn’t understand her motivations.
“She confessed,” he repeated to the arson investigator. It was a statement wrapped as a question. How could she have done that to him?
“The trailer fire was a mistake. She called it in herself. She only meant to set the chairs on fire. The chairs went up fast and took out the canopy. She couldn’t stop it then, and called the fire department herself.”
“Shit,” Derek said. “Why the chairs?”
“Said she saw you kiss your new girlfriend while she was on the chairs. She’d arrived to reconcile…”
“Come on,” Derek said and looked up at the investigator with raised eyebrows. “She stalked me. From the Italian place that night. I should’ve known...”
“You can file a restraining order, too. I don’t know what impact that would have on her sentencing. Of course, we won’t serve her until after she’s recovered from her wounds.”
Derek looked up at the investigator and contemplated the idea of Julie serving time for a malicious accident. Okay, so, she’d been pissed about Maeve and she’d been willing to do this? Risk this? He didn’t understand. Julie ended their relationship, handed him back his ring, and went on her way. She wasn’t allowed visitation rights when she felt lonely.
“I’ll look into it,” he replied, but he had no intention on punishing Julie more than she already had been. He thought of her in the hospital, beaten up, remorseful. “Have her do some extra community service or something.”
“That kid who set the Eagle Creek fire got probation and more hours of community service than he could do in his high school career. Had to repay millions, too. Ms. Devereax will face consequences for—”
“Look, whatever happens is fine with me. She made a mistake. We all make fucking mistakes,” he said, but he seemed to say it more to himself than to anyone else.
He and the investigator explored more the wreckage, slated for removal, and Derek moved around the foundation for his house—poured by his construction men. He walked the outline, standing to the edge of the perimeter, tracing his future in a straight line and another straight line. He’d designed every inch of the home and seeing it come together was everything he’d hoped it would be. At least Julie’d taken out her anger before he’d put up any walls in his real place.
Every time he thought of the walls, the furniture, the building of a space, he thought of Maeve.
God, Maeve.
And with her on his heart, he bid the arson investigator goodbye, trudged toward his truck, and went back to the hospital to chat with Julie.
“I don’t understand,” Derek said as Julie cried.
“I was mad and drunk and jealous and—”
“Julie,” Derek said, his voice sweet, but confused. “We haven’t even talked for six months.”
“It was seeing you at Botticelli’s. Laughing and—”
“Julie,” he repeated.
“I’ll help you repay for what the fire took. My whole family, we’ll…”
Derek waved his hand away. Insurance was his friend and he hadn’t lost much in the trailer fire.
It was the chess set that pained him.
“You lucked out, honestly. Most of my shit is at a storage unit. And, as much as it hurts me, I can remake the chess set—”
Julie shifted. “The chess set?”
He noticed the quick flash of misunderstanding and lack of recognition in Julie’s eyes and he leaned forward on his chair.
“You didn’t set the chess set on fire?”
“No,” she breathed. “I’d never.” She gasped a little for breath and tried to sit up in her hospital bed to face him more fully, and she repeated, “I’d never do that.”
He’d imagined her lurking, watching them kiss on top of the marbled wood, fueling her desires to wreck him.
“It was set on fire the same night.”
“Oh, no,” Julie took in a gasp of air.
Then, a dawning, and she turned and blinked.
“Derek. Wait. There was…there was someone else who pulled in that night. I hid because I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t think anything of it, because the car pulled in, saw my car, waited a few minutes, then left. A man was driving. He walked around the property, hung out, left.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Derek said, trying to get a handle on the information. “You didn’t set fire to the chess set?”
“I didn’t, Derek. I swear. The car, it was a Lyft or an Uber or something. I don’t remember, it was dark. But, oh yeah.” She swallowed. “When it pulled away, it had a weird bumper sticker, though.”
He waited, leaning forward.
“I don’t remember, something…it
’ll come to me, about calculus. Something nerdy. Calculus is fun.”
Derek was on the phone with Maeve by the time he hit the lobby of the hospital.
“Julie Devereax set the fire to my trailer. But my chess set was torched by someone else. Someone who went to my house that night, too. Someone we’ve met before.”
Maeve struggled to catch up.
“Hello, I’m Maeve, and why are we talking on the phone right now?”
“Hello, my name is Derek and Julie Devereax set fire to my trailer…but she didn’t set fire to the chess set. That was someone else.”
“That’s the same driver that picked me up. Holy shit,” Maeve said. She sounded like she’d been crying. “Are we really having this conversation? Did you call me about the case? Or are you calling me…”
His heart was thumping and he paused, keys in hand. “If that driver picked you up then you’re in danger…” he trailed off, thinking.
“Head to Holly’s,” she instructed, impatient on the other end, and her voice seemed strained. He wondered if she’d heard him.
“Julie might have seen the Woodstock Killer at my house, and you know that means it’s the same—”
“I know what it means,” Maeve interrupted.
He was walking to his car at a clip, pulling his keys out as he walked.
“Text me Holly’s address and I’ll be there.”
“Derek,” Maeve hesitated and he could hear the tears in her voice, the pain, and the soft breathing, waiting. “It’s hard for me to see you right now if you’re just going to steamroll right over everything that’s happened and now just focus on solving this with us…”
“Text me the address,” he said.
“Derek. Please,” Maeve said, softer. “My heart can’t take it.”
If he really wanted Maeve, then he had to understand that she wasn’t there because of him. She was there for him.
He was finally starting to understand the difference.
“Just text me the address,” he said again, softer, too. “I’ll be right there.”
Forgotten Obsessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 1) Page 22
