by Willow Rose
“I think I am coming in anyway,” I say, and push my way in.
I am armed and not afraid to use it.
“Mary…don’t.”
But it’s too late. I am already inside the hallway. My phone rings and I look at the display. It’s Chloe.
“I can’t talk right now,” I say. “I’m at Steven’s. I’ll call you back.”
“But…”
I hang up and silence the phone before I put it in my pocket, while looking around me. No sign of her anywhere.
“Mary…I am kind of in the middle of something.”
“Moom?”
The voice breaks through the air.
The voice of a child.
I turn and look into the face of a boy, about the same age as Salter. “Who are you?” he asks.
“Phillip, your mother is in the back smoking a cigarette. I am in the middle of something here,” Steven says.
The boy sighs and turns away. I stare at Steven.
What the heck is going on here?
“What is this, Steven?” I ask. “Who is the boy? And who is his mother? Are you married or something?”
Steven laughs. “Divorced. You know that.”
“Is the kid your son? He looks a lot like you.”
The boy carries all the answers.
Steven walks to me and grabs my shoulders. “Mary. I only want the best for you. I really like you, I do. But if you keep asking all these questions, you’ll get yourself in a lot of trouble, do you understand me? I say you leave now and forget you ever met me, all right?”
That’s got to be the weirdest way anyone ever broke up with someone.
“But…Steven…I’m here to warn you. I know who killed your brothers and sister. And I am afraid she’s coming for you.”
Steven looks at me, and stares into my eyes.
“Your hands are kind of hurting my shoulders, Steven,” I say.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out. It’s a text from Chloe. Steven’s hands are still holding on to my shoulders while I read it.
STEVEN ELINGSTON WAS KILLED IN 2010. GET OUT NOW!
Chapter Ninety-One
February 2016
I try to act casual, but Steven sees it in my eyes, sees the shift from confident, to fearful. I can’t hide it. He lets go of my shoulders, then shuts the front door behind him and locks it. My hand is on the gun in my purse, but I am shaking. I have no idea what is going on.
The boy carries all the answers.
Another voice approaches. It is her. It’s Kristin Martin.
“What’s going on in here?”
“Mary knows,” Steven—or whatever his name really is—says.
Kristin looks at me. “Ah, that’s too bad. I had hoped we could keep you out of this. I really liked you, Mary.” As she speaks, she lifts a gun and points it at me. I pull mine and point it at her.
Kristin laughs. “Do you even know how to shoot one of these?”
“I’m a Florida girl; you figure it out.”
It’s a lie; I am not the type of Florida girl whose dad taught her to shoot. But I can tell it works.
Kristin’s smile stiffens. “All right, but I really don’t have time for this. Would you, Daniel?”
Daniel?
Daniel walks towards me and reaches out to grab the gun, when I fire it at him and hit his arm.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t be a wimp,” I say. “It’s only a scratch. I told you I know how to shoot one of these. As a matter of fact, I have spent a lot of time on the shooting range the past three months, since I had another run-in with a murderer. Now, you two tell me what the heck is going on here before I get really mad. Who is the boy?”
The boy carries all the answers. That’s what Chloe’s mother told me. I have no idea how she would know, but I am going with it.
“He’s mine,” Kristin says. “Phillip is mine and…Peter’s. Daniel’s younger brother.”
“The disabled one?” I ask, suddenly remembering reading that she was pregnant at the time of the trial. “You had the child in prison?”
“Yes. Well, I was taken to the hospital, and that’s when they took him away from me. I didn’t get to see him for four years. I never saw him learn how to crawl or even walk. They even took away my rights to be with him when I got out.”
“My brother took him in,” Daniel says. “My brother Steven took him in. But when Kristin got out, he didn’t want her to see him. He kept her away from her own son.”
“So, you killed him?” I ask.
Kristin looks at Daniel, then chuckles. “Daniel shot him in his own home. In anger.”
I look at Daniel with disgust. “Your own brother? You shot him in cold blood?”
“He only got what was coming to him. It was the only way I could get custody of Phillip and Kristin could be with him again. But that wasn’t all. We wanted justice for both Phillip and Peter. Peter had been suffering in the most inhumane way at the home my siblings put him in, and when Kristin and I visited him after she was released, he was so sick, so miserable that all he wanted was to die. As a matter of fact, he asked us to kill him.”
“So, you killed him?” I ask.
Kristin makes a flipping sound with her lips that’s barely a raspberry. “No. I love him. We love him. No, we decided to help him. To give him what he deserved, what he should have had many years ago.”
“Freedom,” Daniel says. “We wanted him to be free, and not only that. We wanted him to be able to have a family, to be with his son and the woman he loves.”
I nod as the pieces suddenly fit. “So, you killed the other siblings so that you’d be the only one with custody of your brother, so you could decide where he lives and who he lives with, am I right?”
“It’s as simple as that,” Daniel says. “We’re actually on our way to go and get him now. He is being discharged at my request at three o’clock today. Then we’ll get as far away from here as possible. No one will look for us, since they’ve already caught the killer.”
“Marcia,” I say. “You framed her.”
“If it helps anything, then I am really sorry for her, that it had to end this way. But, yes, she was perfect for our plan,” Kristin says. “After getting rid of Steven in 2010, we almost got caught. The police in Denver where he lived kept asking us questions, and we realized we had to be a lot more careful. Daniel was even arrested, but luckily they didn’t have enough evidence for a trial. We knew we had to find another way to make sure we wouldn’t be suspects. Being a professor in psychology, I know more than anyone how fragile people with mental illnesses are, and I got the idea to find someone to take the fall for us. We took the next six years planning this, looking for the right person in all the places that you’d expect to find someone that unstable, like AA. And along came Marcia. She was perfect. I became her sponsor, and soon realized she had no idea what was reality and what was in her head. She drank way too much and had many black holes in her memory. It was perfect. So I became close with her and she stayed the night at my place a lot of times, and that’s when I started showing her the pictures.”
“You kept pictures?”
“Of all of them. How else would I show Peter what I have done for him, what I have done for our love? I showed them to Marcia again and again. Starting with the ones of Jack Elingston and his family. I told her how they screamed for help, how scared they were, and then told her she had done it. I told her details about them, and soon she believed she had done it. It was…”
“Perfect, I think we have established that, thank you,” I say. “I can’t believe you’d exploit her like this.”
“Oh, it was so easy. Steven killed Shannon Fergusson in my condo. She had been fighting with her husband and called Daniel. She was crying and asking him if he would come. Since Daniel had moved back here to Winter Park, after Steven died, the two of them had gotten close.”
“That explains why you knew what kind of couch she had in her home,” I say. “I
was wondering about that. You told me you weren’t very close with her.”
“We didn’t used to be,” he says. “I was just getting her to trust me. The fight with her husband made it perfect. He wasn’t there. He had taken off, probably to be with the woman they were fighting over, the secretary. I told her I was going to visit a friend and asked her if she wanted to come with us, get something to eat. I took her to Kristin’s place. I sat her on the couch and started to explain to her what was going to happen. I told her we would kill her and the rest of our siblings, so that Peter could be freed. I showed her pictures of our poor brother, so she would understand what she had done to him. Then I showed her the knife. She didn’t even try and fight me. I guess we took her by surprise. I stabbed her thirteen times. Kristin took her to the bridge and dumped her. We needed to make sure they would look for a woman.”
I have a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like throwing up. How could anyone be this calculated, this coldblooded?
“Wait. How did you get her to be in the house in Melbourne Beach, in Andrew Elingston’s house?” I ask.
“That’s the beauty of it. I had no idea she was there. I had shown her pictures of the house and of the family to prepare her to take the blame for what happened, but I had never imagined she would actually be there when I entered the house. It cost me a shot to the shoulder, but it was so worth it. I couldn’t have orchestrated it better myself. When she jumped out from behind the door as I was trying to strangle the mother, I knew for the first time that we were going to get away with this. I ran out of there as fast as I could and left her there, then called for the police. She was trying to save them, but instead she incriminated herself. I knew they would never believe her, even if she were capable of telling the truth. Nothing she says makes any sense. I knew she would be sentenced to undergo psychiatric treatment, and to be frank, she is better off there than out here in the world. She is sick, Mary.”
I am so mad now I want to shoot her right here, but I can’t. I need her to stay alive to tell all this to the police. Instead, I lower the gun so fast she doesn’t react, and I shoot her in the foot. She screams and blood gushes out onto the wooden floor.
“You’re the one who is sick here,” I say.
Kristin lifts her gun swiftly and angrily, while humping on one leg towards me. When the shot is fired, it drowns out everything in my mind. I lose my sense of direction and have no idea what is up or down. It feels like I am falling until all I see is darkness.
Chapter Ninety-Two
February 2016
“Mary? Mary? Goddammit, Mary, wake up!”
The voice yelling is distant, but insisting. I am floating in a sea of stars when I realize it’s me it’s calling for. I blink my eyes and make the darkness go away. Then I smile.
“Joey?”
“Oh, thank God, Mary. You’re alright!”
“Where am I?”
Another face is above me now, looking down. “Hey, Chloe. What are you doing here?”
“I came to check on you and see what you were up to this time,” she says. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
“You look fine,” Joey says. “No holes in your body, no blood.”
“But I heard a shot. Right before I passed out,” I say. “I thought I had been hit.”
“Well, Joey kicked the door in, and when we entered, Kristin over there was about to shoot you, so Joey shot her and we believe you slipped and hit your head on the tiles.”
I feel my head and find the bump. I look at Joey while trying to sit up. I am still very dizzy.
“You saved me?” I ask.
He nods. I can tell he feels pretty good about himself. “It was nothing. Just glad I always have a gun in my truck.”
“You have a gun in your truck? That’s not very safe when you drive around with a nine-year-old kid.”
“Maybe it’s not the time or the place to discuss this,” Chloe says. “We need to have a paramedic look at your head and see if they need you to go in for observation.” Chloe signals one of the uniformed men, and I realize the place is swarming with them.
“What happened to Kristin Martin and Daniel Elingston?” I ask with a groan. My head is starting to really hurt now.
“They have both been taken away. Kristin in an ambulance,” Joey says. “Your beloved Steven or Daniel or Harry, or whatever he calls himself these days threw himself on the floor and surrendered as soon as Kristin hit the ground.”
“I am so glad you came. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Joey says.
“Why were you here anyway?”
“Chloe has tried to tell you about Steven all day, but you refused to listen,” Joey says. “When you picked up the phone and told her where you were, she called me immediately afterwards. She knew he wasn’t who he said he was, that the real Steven Elingston was killed in his home back in 2010.”
“Ah. Okay. Wait. How did she know?”
He shrugs. “She looked into him. Researched him online. Who knows why Chloe does what she does?”
I look at him as Chloe hands me an icepack. “Tell me the truth, Joey,” I say.
“Yeah tell her the truth, Joey,” Chloe says with a sly grin.
Joey rolls his eyes. “All right. All right. I was jealous. I told Chloe to look into him, to find out who he was, and rightfully so, I might add. Who knows what could have happened to you? You really should pick your men better.”
I chuckle, but it hurts my head, so I stop.
Chloe helps me get to my feet. I close my eyes to try and get the dizziness to go away, and when I open them again, I look into the eyes of Phillip Elingston.
Suddenly, I don’t feel so great about myself any longer. What will become of him after this? There is no family left for him anymore. Everyone else is dead, or going to jail.
Well…maybe not quite everyone.
Epilogue
March 2016
“Thank you for bringing Phillip to us.”
Kelly Elingston looks at me. She is out of her bed for the first time since the attack in her home that killed her husband and put her in a coma. She is expected to fully recover. Phillip has been staying with Salter, my dad, and me for the past several weeks until his aunt woke up and DCF could ask her if she’d be willing to take the boy.
“I figured he needed to be with family,” I say. “He is, after all, your nephew.”
“It’ll be so good for Lindsey to have someone to play with. She still hardly speaks, but words are starting to come out of her recently. Small steps, I guess.”
“I guess.”
“Thank you for everything, Mary.”
“It’s nothing, really. I brought someone with me who wants to see you.”
I open the door and ask Marcia to come in. She has been home for two weeks now and is getting better. I have found a good doctor for her and the medication is beginning to do its job. I believe I can see improvement in her every day. Meanwhile, her sister has come down from Jacksonville and has been taking care of her. Mark has moved home, and after much negotiation on my part, Carl has finally agreed to let the rest of them come back in a few months as well, if Marcia shows continuing signs of improvement. I take it as my job to help her with that.
Marcia waves awkwardly. “Hi.”
“Come here,” Kelly says. “I want to give you a hug.”
Cautiously, Marcia moves closer, and Kelly soon grabs her in her arms. She has tears in her eyes as she holds Marcia. “You have no idea how thankful I am to you. No idea.”
Marcia doesn’t speak. I can sense she is tearing up as well. Lately, she has been tormented badly about how she acted when she was sick, and for her to hear that she actually did something good for someone must be a great relief. It’s just what she needs right now to get back on her feet. People who love her.
“If you ever need anything, Marcia. And I do mean anything, you let me know
, all right? You saved my baby’s life. And mine. There is no way I can ever pay you back.” Kelly lets go of Marcia and looks into her eyes.
“You’re a wonderful person, you do know that, right?”
Now I am crying too.
Kelly hugs her one last time, then lets go of her, and Marcia walks over to me. I grab her hand in mine as the nurse walks in and lets us know Kelly needs her rest. Her mom has promised to come later and take both of the children with her until Kelly gets well enough to come home. Our job is done. We say goodbye and walk to the car…Marcia looking a little taller than when we came.
And rightfully so, I think to myself.
I am just so thrilled that Kristin Martin and Daniel Elingston didn’t get away with any of it. The last I heard, Kristin is going to survive Joey’s shot, and they’ll both face prosecution for all the murders. I am working closely with Detective Brown on the case. They expect the FBI to take over sometime soon because of the murder in Denver. I don’t know what my role will be yet, how much they’ll need my testimony, but I am going to give them everything they need to make sure these two will get what they deserve.
The week after the shootout in Daniel Elingston’s house, I went to visit their youngest brother, Peter, at the home in Rockledge. It killed me to see him, and I told Kelly Elingston everything when I came to visit her the next day. She promised me she would look into getting him to a better place. I know she even toys with the idea of letting him move into her house and be with Phillip. It’s a big decision to make and requires a lot from her, but somehow, I have a feeling that she can do it.
As for Joey and me? Well, I guess time will show what happens. I am grateful that he saved me, but I still don’t feel like I can trust him with my heart. Besides, he is with Jackie now, and as painful as it is, I accept it and try to move on.
I hold the door for Marcia as she gets into my car. I barely make it into my own seat before my phone rings. It’s Chloe.
“I have news.”
“What?”
“Your brother.”
“Really?” I say, slightly skeptical. We were so certain we had traced him to Arizona, but it turned out to be a dead end. I am so glad we didn’t go there, as originally planned, and make fools of ourselves.
