by Pamela Crane
I loved you, Harper, but love isn’t enough to vanquish the cruelty of life. Death is, though.
Your ghost for eternity,
Ben
It was believable because it was true. The investigation would end quickly. Recently lost a child to a horrible accident. Mentally ill wife. Suicide from depression was written all over this. With everything cleaned up and staged as best as I knew how, I headed toward the back door where I would disappear forever. Start over, me and my unborn baby.
Glass crunched beneath my feet. Shoot. The hole in the window – a dead giveaway of a break-in. Where would they have kept the broom? I opened a closet door in the hallway as a car headlight passed over me. Was the car turning up the driveway? I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. I had already spent too much time here; I needed to leave before his wife returned. I couldn’t worry about the broken window. I’d let someone else deal with the aftermath.
A wicker box of toys sat against one wall so, careful to keep my hand covered, I lifted the lid and grabbed the first hard toy I found. A metal truck. Perfect. Closing the lid, I set it beneath the broken window. Kids threw toys through windows all the time, didn’t they? It sounded believable enough to me.
On my way out, I bumped a small table next to the back door with a framed picture on it. The picture tipped over, and covering my hand with my shirt, I picked it up. Two adults surrounded by palm trees and white sand, arms around each other, huge hopeful smiles often found on the faces of the rich and entitled.
I recognized Harper with her red hair, standing next to a good-looking shirtless man in swimming trunks. I clucked at his muscled stomach – nice – then felt a familiarity about him. No, it couldn’t be. I held the picture closer to my eyes, examining the man’s facial features. Yes, it was him! It was my savior the day I arrived in Durham, North Carolina. How did Ben’s wife know this man? Was this fate acting on my behalf yet again? The man’s name slipped around in my skull until I caught it.
Lane Flynn. His genuine kindness to me back then gave me hope for a better future. He had been sweet, gentle, and seemed interested in me. Lane Flynn. The one that got away.
I’m coming for you.
Chapter 37
Candace
The morning after Ben’s death, I had expected to find Benjamin Paris’s name in the obituaries, but not in the news. And not like this. After all, suicides didn’t usually make the front page. But murder did.
Durham Police are looking for multiple suspects in an armed robbery and murder investigation, the police department announced earlier today. Benjamin Paris, 39, was fatally stabbed following a home invasion on Hendricks Way late last night. Paramedics arrived on the scene to find Paris already dead, the perpetrators having stolen thousands of dollars in valuables and artwork. The police believe two suspects are involved in the murder, and ask that anyone with any information please come forward.
How the heck had the cops figured it out so quickly that it wasn’t a suicide? What had happened to the note? To the staging? And what’s this about multiple suspects stealing stuff? What was going on?
As the significance of the article sunk in, I knew I was in it deep. A murder meant a lengthy investigation. It meant forensics and DNA and looking into Ben’s extracurriculars and phone call logs and credit card charges. The risk was high that I would end up dragged into this. Someone would recognize me. Or had seen my car parked down the street. Or caught a glimpse of me wandering through their backyard. A new hairstyle and dye job could take care of some of that, but I needed more. With a baby growing inside me, I couldn’t risk going on the run. I needed healthcare and security. I needed to stay just inside the outskirts of the investigation so that I knew how to protect myself and the baby.
It was possible Harper had restaged all my efforts. After all, she had the most to gain from a murder. A suicide meant no insurance payout, and family men like Ben – no matter how much a cheating jerk he was – always provided for their family. Men like Ben were prepared. Men who lived in mini-mansions with six-figure incomes bought the best death benefits. That, at least, could be to my advantage. Harper would be suspect number one. It was only fair that if I didn’t get a dime for my child’s future that Harper didn’t get one either. I refused to be left with nothing while Harper buried her husband and got rich doing it.
My brain rumbled through every step, every touch, every action at the crime scene. What had I missed? I had been so careful, thoughtful. I didn’t know what the investigators had found that would suggest anything but suicide – the window I had broken, most likely – but I would find out. Lane Flynn was my inside source.
I could never forget the day I met Lane, the first day I arrived in Durham, North Carolina, after a grueling bus ride. After leaving Pennsylvania, I had bled the entire trip, until finally arriving in the town described as having the best medical facilities in the South, and being ‘culturally dynamic while holding on to its historical significance’. The town had good medical care and was small and clean and modern and cute. It was the perfect mix of youthful innovation and mature taste. Welcome home!
My first night at the cheapest motel I could find ended with a night in the hospital when the spotting gushed into bleeding. That day I lost Noah’s baby, but gained a friend. The miscarriage made me a wreck, but my attending nurse, Lane Flynn, was kind, compassionate, and sincere. He helped me through the loss.
We exchanged small talk and deep talk. He liked to unwind with karaoke, and I liked to unwind with swimming. He shared his desire for a family, and I confessed my knack for screwing such things up. He told me I was perfect, and I told him he would make someone a lucky wife one day. He stood by my side as I prayed for the life of my baby, then wept as I lost her. He hugged me when the loneliness crushed me, and brought me flowers before I was discharged with empty arms that should have held my child.
I hadn’t thought much about Lane in the following months, only that he was the perfect example of what a man should be, but I was stupid back then. I hadn’t yet figured out that there were only two types of men – the Noahs who crushed you, and the Lanes who built you up. I was still stuck on adventure and bad boys. I hadn’t yet been awakened to security and love. My stupidity had instead led me to Ben. But now that Ben was dead and I was pregnant with Ben’s baby, I needed someone with no baggage. Someone ripe for love and a family.
The answer to all of my problems had been right in front of me on the day I arrived to this town, and he lived inside the four walls of the quaint, suburban, three-bedroom house with its promise of better things. Lane Flynn wasn’t bad-looking either. And he made decent money as a nurse. And he wanted a family as desperately as I wanted to give my unborn child a father. He was perfect.
Months had passed since we had met, and I doubted he would remember me with my new hairstyle. If anything, it was better that way, starting fresh. All it took was a ‘chance’ meeting at the karaoke bar that he often frequented, a lot of flirting, two chocolate martinis, and a little destiny to bring two lost souls together …
Chapter 38
Lane
The crack of the front door being thrust open, and the subsequent swarm of emergency workers storming a house is something you’d expect to see in a movie. You never expect it to happen in your own home.
It didn’t happen exactly like that, but it felt pretty damn close in the moment, minus the guns blazing and the SWAT team breaking down my door.
After Candace went down, I ran for my cell phone to call 9-1-1. I didn’t know how long she’d stay unconscious, but hopefully long enough until the cops arrived. Most of what I relayed to the emergency operator was lost in the recesses of my brain. I was in work mode, delivering facts: Sister stabbed multiple times, at least one abdominal laceration. Wife attacked her. Wife unconscious. Possible skull fracture. Please send EMTs soon.
Pressing a balled-up shirt against Harper’s stomach, I carried her to the bathroom, where I stockpiled gauze and bandaging. While tending to th
e gaping hole in her abdomen – the most pressing of her injuries – the tread of boots rumbled into the entryway.
‘Paramedics!’ a voice called out.
‘We’re upstairs!’ I yelled. ‘Hurry!’
Harper faded in and out, then winced awake as I pressed a bandage to her wound. The footsteps trudged up the stairwell, two paramedics appearing at the bathroom door, ready to attend to her. I handed her off to them, assured Jackson and Elise that their mom would be fine as I led them out of the way into their bedroom, then went to search for the cops. Just as I descended the stairs, Detective Meltzer walked through the front door, wearing jeans and aviator sunglasses, his badge clipped to his belt. His bulk filled the entryway, at odds with the warmth of the sunlight that spilled in around him. I waved him over to follow me upstairs. He flipped his sunglasses on top of his head, and I talked while we walked.
‘I … I don’t even know where to begin. I just found out that my wife killed my sister’s husband.’ The shock hadn’t yet settled.
‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ Detective Meltzer replied. ‘I’ve been looking into Candace Wilkes for a while now.’
I stopped and turned around. ‘Was that you who was watching my house?’
‘Yep, and you almost caught me that day in the rain – the day of Michelle Hudson’s murder when you approached my car.’ Detective Meltzer aimed his finger at me like he was pointing a gun. ‘It’s a damn shame, too. If I had followed Candace instead of watching your house, Michelle Hudson would still be alive.’
‘You think Candace killed Michelle?’
‘I bet I’ll find evidence in her belongings that proves she did.’
‘How did you figure out she was involved?’ I asked as the detective trailed behind me up the stairwell.
‘Of course I started looking into you and Harper when Ben was first killed. It was only recently that I came across your marriage certificate to Candace Moriarty though, and when I looked into it I found a dead woman’s records. That was enough to start watching her.’
‘And you never said a damn word to us about it?’
‘I never said a lot of things to you. It was an ongoing investigation, Lane. You know the rules. So where’s our suspect?’ We arrived in the upstairs hallway, and he glanced around, looking for her.
‘In my bedroom.’
‘And what exactly happened?’
‘She attacked my sister with a pair of scissors. I knocked her out with an urn.’
He hmphed. ‘An urn, huh? That’s a new one,’ he said as we reached the doorway.
We both stopped short when we entered the empty room. No Candace. Just a smear of blood on the floor.
‘What the—?’ I rushed to the other side of the bed. Where could she have gone? I checked the window, but the screen was intact, and there was no way she could have slipped past me in the hallway without anyone noticing. At least I didn’t think so.
‘Check the bedrooms!’ the detective yelled to another uniformed officer who joined us in the hallway.
While the detective pulled out his radio, using code words I didn’t understand, I pondered how she could have escaped, and where she would have gone.
A couple minutes later the officer called back, ‘All clear!’
No, no, no!
The detective left me with my confusion while he consulted with another officer who had arrived. With his gun steadily aimed, he stooped to look under the bed, then muttered something as he stood up. From his pocket he slipped a latex glove on his hand, then reached under the bed. What on earth had he found? When he pulled out a Nordstrom bag, I recognized it from the night Candace went ‘shopping’ for a gift for Harper. The same night Michelle Hudson was killed. Detective Meltzer lifted a blood-stained shirt from within.
‘Get forensics up here!’ he yelled.
How had I been duped so badly? Nothing that I thought I knew was real. Not Candace, not our feelings, not our future. It had all been lies from the start. How could I have fallen so easily for her? I had forgiven the lies she fed me, but this was beyond anything I could have anticipated. My thoughts whirred at a wild pace, and I felt sick, like a hand had reached inside my stomach and was rummaging around in it.
I had married a killer. How strange it felt to become one flesh with a person I’ve never met.
Except I did know Candace. I had spent two months with her, learning her ways and diving into her mind. I recalled the first day I’d brought her into my home. She had been fascinated with it, its history, the hidey holes and nooks. She explored it like it was a lost treasure. And her favorite feature – the attic.
Of course.
I opened the closet door and shoved the hanging clothes aside. The waist-high door was cracked open just a sliver, enough to allow a thin stream of imprisoned hot air to escape. I crouched down and pushed against the wood, and it swung open. Crawling through cobwebs and a cloud of dust, I entered the cavity. Dusty boxes climbed one wall, and scattered across the wide-planked floor were generations of previous owners’ forlorn possessions. Piles of hardcover books created a makeshift fort in one corner around a collection of toys and doll clothes, presumably belonging to the Frankie doll the kids had found up here. It was apparent that Jackson and Elise had spent some time secretly exploring and playing.
Although it was dank and dark, I could see Candace pressed against the far wall where a tiny circular window, covered in an inch of grime, allowed in hazy light.
‘I knew you’d find me.’ She was so casual as she wiped her hands on her legs, then walked toward me, the soft pad of her bare footsteps barely audible. Then she stopped and stood in front of me. My body stiffened as she grasped my hand. I let go. I didn’t want her touch. She had killed Ben and an innocent old lady, and nearly killed my sister.
‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, Lane. I know I’m messed up in my head. I don’t know what snapped inside me …’
‘Ben, I sorta get, because he hurt you. But Michelle Hudson? What kind of monster are you?’
She wiped a tear that strolled down her cheek. ‘One that doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. One that’s really damaged, Lane. I wanted so badly for us to be together, and when I thought Michelle was going to get in the way of that, I went too far. I can’t explain what I was thinking, because I wasn’t thinking. I was only feeling panic.’
‘You know I have to turn you in, right? And you’re going to rot in jail for what you’ve done.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m at peace with that. It’s what I deserve. Honestly, I’m tired of running anyway.’ She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek, and part of me wanted to hold her, but the bigger part of me needed to let go.
When she stepped away, she held me captive with her blue eyes.
‘My biggest regret was hurting you,’ she whispered. ‘I really did end up falling for you. You’re the first person who made me the victor, not the victim. I’ll always love you for that.’
Her voice was rich with conviction, the rhythm of our breath quiet and insistent as a pulse. I only had one last question for her: ‘Why?’
Why me? Why frame my mother? Why attack Harper? So many why’s.
‘I just wanted love, Lane. That’s all. Why is it so hard to find?’
If only I knew the answer to that.
‘It’s time to go,’ she said. ‘I’m ready to face the consequences. Just promise me one thing.’
‘Okay,’ I whispered.
She placed my hand on her belly. ‘Take care of the baby for me. Raise her to have a pure heart like yours. Show her what family should look like – what you and Harper have.’
That was the Candace I longed for, the one who loved deeply. Too deeply in the end though.
I let her hand graze mine, then led her down the attic stairs and out of the door into the bedroom. Our parting was as quiet as a falling snowflake. Then the flurry began. Detective Meltzer stormed in, another officer following him while reading Candace her rights:
‘Cand
ace Wilkes, you are under arrest for the murder of Benjamin Paris and Michelle Hudson. You have the right to remain silent …’
The rest of the words were a blur as they grabbed my wife by the shoulders, turned her around, and handcuffed her. She didn’t say a word, didn’t fight back, simply let them. I had fallen in love with not just a liar, but a murderer too. Even in knowing this horrific, gruesome truth, I still loved her. I hurt for all the pain she had suffered in life. As Harper had explained it to me, Noah had taken the biggest part of her, then Ben took what remained. It left the spot empty where her heart should have been. She had only wanted the same happily ever after that everyone else wanted, I guess even more so. She was willing to kill for it.
As I watched them haul her down the stairs, out the door, and down the walkway to Detective Meltzer’s waiting black sedan, I realized that she wore her darkness so well that all I saw was light.
Epilogue
Harper
Today was a hopeful day, stuck in the middle of two less important days. It wasn’t the beginning or the end, but a happy middle. It was the day Lane got custody of Mercy Kira Flynn.
The newborn baby was swaddled in a pink hospital blanket, resting in the crook of my arm while I sat by the fire in my new house. When Candace announced her name – Mercy Kira – I wept. A tribute to the daughter I lost, a remembrance that she was alive within us. I liked to think that Kira was smiling down from heaven, approving of the name. I would live in a way that would make my daughter happy as she watched on from her heavenly perch, and help raise Mercy to live up to Kira’s name. Holding her against my chest, I gave the baby the sum of all my parts – my life, my soul, my word to always protect her as best as I could.
Maybe Candace wasn’t so evil after all. Candace had vowed to give Lane the family he deserved. And for once she hadn’t been lying.
