Jack looked around the desktop and found a stack of pink message slips. All of them save one was from a vendor, but that one caught his attention. The callback number was familiar but he couldn’t place it. So he did the the obvious. Jack took out his cell and dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” he asked pleasantly.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Jack Kavanaugh and I—”
“Oh, thank God,” the woman gushed. “I’m Peggy Tillman. I work for Darby and I’m here at the clinic.”
“Why?”
“The alarm went off and I’m the secondary contact on the account. The police are here now.”
“I’ll be right over.”
After carefully locking up the restaurant, he drove to the clinic and found two deputies talking to a woman. Jack took one look at her and had a pretty good idea he’d seen her before. All of her. Peggy was the redhead with the mole. So if she was Darby’s close friend, why was she sending sexy emails to Sean?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Peggy escorted the deputies inside. She silenced the alarm and then she and Jack stayed behind while the police cleared the building. If there had been an intruder, he was long gone.
The authorities asked Peggy to take a quick look around the clinic to see if anything was missing. She went to the cash box beneath the counter and showed them where the lock had been jimmied.
“How much cash is normally on hand?” one of the deputies asked.
“A hundred dollars or less. Most of our clients pay by check or credit card. There’s a safe, too.”
Jack tagged along to Darby’s office and the safe under her desk was standing wide open. “That’s odd,” Peggy mused. “All Darby keeps in here are important papers. Deeds, bank statements, that kind of stuff, birth certificates. No cash.”
“But it’s always locked?”
Peggy nodded. “Always.”
“No one else has the combination?”
Peggy blushed. “Maybe her husband. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“We have a new vet on staff with Darby having the baby and all. Maybe she gave it to Carl for some reason.”
Jack asked, “But wouldn’t he know the alarm code?”
“Yes,” Peggy said. “But I can call him and see if he came by this evening.”
Jack met and held her gaze. “Then why don’t you give your friend Sean a call and see what he was doing an hour or so ago?”
Peggy blanched and there was a definite tremor in her hand as she dialed Carl. He hadn’t been to the clinic. Peggy made a production out of pretending to look Sean’s number up on the contact list. She explained the reason for her call, then said a few “um-hums,” and then she hung up. Smiling nervously at the deputies, she said, “Case solved. Sean needed to get Darby’s checkbook out of the safe.”
The deputies went on their way. Peggy and Jack lingered in the parking lot.
“Thank you for coming all the way out here,” Peggy said as she started to go to her car.
Jack blocked her. “Does Darby know?”
Peggy’s eyes closed and she let out a long breath. “No. And I’d like to keep it that way. My thing with Sean lasted about six weeks. It took me that long to realize he wasn’t interested in anything other than keeping tabs on Darby. He wasn’t interested in me; he’s obsessed with her.”
“She thinks you’re one of her best friends.”
“I am,” Peggy insisted. “You just don’t know Sean. When he turns on the charm, he’s practically impossible to resist.”
“Was he ever violent with you?” Jack asked.
Peggy’s pale skin blushed a dark crimson. “He can be pretty kinky in the bedroom.”
“Define kinky.”
“He’s into dominance and punishment. The last time we were together like that he ignored the safe word and kept whipping me, only instead of calling out my name, he was screaming for Darby. That was enough for me to realize that he had a dangerous side he couldn’t control.”
“Did you ever think he was hurting Darby?”
She shook her head. “Girls talk sometimes and Darby was pretty clear on the fact that she wasn’t into sex games. I think Sean is a sadist but if you won’t take my word for it, try chatting with his newest plaything.”
“Roxanne?”
She nodded. “I’ve only met her a couple of times but I think she’s just as kinky as he is.”
“Did Sean ever hit you? Slap you?”
“Only during role playing.”
“But you said he blew off your safe word. Isn’t that a huge no-no?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’s capable of hurting someone?”
She thought about it for a few seconds, “Maybe. If he got mad, I guess.”
“Would you be willing to testify to that?”
“Testify? You mean admit in court that I cheated with my best friend’s husband? Not a chance.”
“Darby doesn’t have much of a chance unless the people around her start circling the wagons. Darby will forgive you; you know that and so do I.”
“How is it you know her so well?” Peggy asked.
“I have experience with guys like Sean. And all I care about right now is making sure Darby doesn’t spend the rest of her life in jail.”
“But she killed little Mia,” Peggy said with compassion. “I know she had to be desperate or in the throes of some sort of psychotic break, but do you really think you can get her off with a slap on the wrist?” Peggy peered up at him. “Wait! You aren’t even her attorney. I was in the courtroom. David Greer was her counsel.”
“For the time being, yes. I’m afraid of what Sean might do if he knew Darby had contacted an attorney when she was still pregnant.”
“She was going to leave Sean?”
“I can’t comment,” Jack said. “But she could really use your help, Peggy. My legal strategy depends on being able to prove that Darby was desperate and Sean was dangerous. Can you do that?”
“On one condition,” she said.
“Name it.”
“Will you tell her about me and Sean and tell her how sorry I am? I don’t think I can face her and say those words.”
“Consider it done.”
* * *
Nights were long and lonely for Darby. Even though the handcuffs and shackles were gone, she felt more like a prisoner than she had at the county jail. Green Haven was a loud and scary place.
As required, she’d gone to the drug and alcohol aversion meeting and all that had come out of that was a stern lecture by the group leader that the first step to success was admitting you had a problem. Darby’s failure to acknowledge a problem with alcohol was considered an act of defiance.
But her surroundings had thrown her for a loop. One young woman sat in a chair with a blanket pulled over her head and rocked for the entire fifty minutes. Another guy was tasered halfway through because he jumped out of his seat and began ranting and threatening the counselor. The one she couldn’t figure out was the seemingly normal woman in her sixties who had voluntarily signed herself in, yet she didn’t seem to have any problem. Oh, and she was given a pass on the failure to admit drug and alcohol abuse.
The bathrooms were kept locked at all times and she had to go to the nurse’s desk for a key. There were special phones on one wall and at certain times of the day you could make an outgoing call to a local number. Darby had no way of checking on Mia. She longed to hear Mia coo. That could only happen if she had the disposable phone with her. Darby had purchased two throwaway phones so she could keep in touch with Lyssa but unfortunately, her phone had been in the pocket of the black dress she’d been wearing when she was arrested. She assumed the phone was in the jail’s property room and made a mental note to ask Jack if he could retrieve it for her. She just needed a good excuse, though, because she just wasn’t ready to admit that she had a possible way of locating her daughter. She knew he’d insist that she ret
urn the baby immediately in order to end her legal troubles. Doing so might help to do so, but it would also open up the possibility of Sean getting visitation rights. He’d already killed her parents; Darby had no doubts her sweet baby girl could suffer the same fate.
After breakfast, which was a bagel and cream cheese with real, freshly brewed coffee, Darby was scheduled to meet with first the psychologist and then with Dr. Radcliff. His was the opinion that mattered. As an added bonus, she was not required to participate in physical fitness, which this morning was a game of basketball.
Darby found room 110 and knocked gently on the door. A soft male voice ushered her inside.
“I’m Dr. Fisher,” he introduced himself.
He looked like a Dr. Fisher. He was short, with a full beard and hair in need of a trim in the back. His clothing was rumpled, so she immediately looked on his left ring finger and found it bare. All work and no ironing makes for a very wrinkled psychologist.
He was glancing through a rather thick folder. Darby couldn’t imagine what was in there, given that her life behind bars was only forty-eight hours long. She decided to sit quietly while he finished perusing the pages.
“You’ve been charged with a very serious crime,” he finally said.
“I understand that.”
“Did you understand what you were doing was wrong when you suffocated your daughter?”
“No,” she said without lying. “What I did was try to save my daughter.”
“You believed you were a threat?”
“I knew I couldn’t protect her.”
“I see here that you lost your parents two months ago,” he began. “Did that play a part in your decision making?”
Darby’s stomach clenched. Reliving the past six weeks was more than painful, it was cruel. “Only insomuch as I’d lost my support system.”
“How do you feel about what you did now?”
“I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my body but I know what I did was for the best. I don’t know any other way to explain it to you.”
“What about your husband?”
“My husband is a very angry man.”
“Because you killed his baby?”
“His anger predates what happened with the baby.”
“Are you saying you were abused?”
Darby took in two deep breaths. “I’ve been choked, kicked, slapped, punched and kneed. I think that qualifies.”
“But you never attempted to leave,” he said, as if the situation was her fault. “Nor did you tell your OB/GYN, your therapist or anyone else.”
“But they all knew,” Darby countered, her voice slightly raised. “They would see the bruises and give me referrals and names of shelters and other useless options.”
“Why do you think they were useless?”
“Because if I left him, he would have hunted me down and killed me. Those are his words.”
“Yet he got you an attorney to fight the charges. A very expensive attorney.”
Darby scoffed. “Money is no object to him because it’s all my money.”
“Did you argue about money?”
“Not really. I gave him what he needed. He just hated the fact that he had to ask.”
“Did you tell your parents about the abuse?”
Darby’s eyes filled with tears. “I called them after a particularly bad beating when I was eight months pregnant. The next morning, they were dead.”
“And you blame your husband?”
“Absolutely. Especially when I discovered that he had tapped the phones and wired the whole house for video. I don’t know how he did it and still managed an alibi. He admitted to me that he killed them. Then he told me it was my fault for involving them in our problems. So yes, my fear that I couldn’t protect a helpless six-week old was and is very valid.”
“Okay.” He snapped the binder closed. “Wait here, the doctors will be in to see you shortly.”
In the pit of Darby’s stomach churned a combination of frustration and fury. “Why did I think this stupid plan would work?” she muttered just as the door opened.
The first person to enter the room was a tall, thin guy in his early sixties wearing a silk suit and tie, followed by a friendly face that almost immediately put Darby at ease. It was Fran Pointer, the therapist she’d seen through those last dark days of her pregnancy. The last man in was her attorney, Mr. Greer.
The room was a bit cramped but they managed to cram in around the small conference table. Fran was to her left, Mr. Greer across from her, and the man who introduced himself as Dr. Radcliff was to her right. She could smell his cologne—Versace—and it was a nice change from the scent of the industrial cleaner that permeated Green Haven.
Dr. Radcliff took out a minirecorder and a pad, as did the other two. Darby was the only one without the ability to take notes, but then again, pens and pencils were off the list at the mental health facility—they were considered potential weapons.
“Mrs. Grisom,” he began, making the introductions. “My job is to evaluate you and let the court know if I think you can appreciate the consequences of your actions and/or assist your counsel in your defense. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, she said, twisting the hem of her scrubs around one finger. “But this is all unnecessary.”
One graying brow arched. “How so?”
“I’ve been lying since—”
“My client,” Greer interrupted, “will answer your questions, but please, Mrs. Grisom, don’t offer information unless specifically requested by the doctor.”
“But there’s been a terrible mistake,” Darby insisted.
“I think I mentioned that to you, David,” Fran said with conviction. “Darby was my patient for more than two months but it only took me two visits to see that she was being severely abused by her spouse. I’m not sure what will come out of her mouth next, but she’ll do anything to keep her husband at bay.”
“Even kill?” Greer asked.
“Sean is the killer,” Darby muttered. “He killed my parents.”
Dr. Radcliff thumbed through his notes. “The medical examiner determined that your parents died from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“Sean had the means—he knew the garage code. The motive—he was furious that I had told them about the beatings—and the opportunity. He must have taken the late flight to New York, killed them, and then flown in for his breakfast meeting.”
Greer practically scoffed. “That’s a very convoluted story, Mrs. Grisom. And we’re veering far off our stated purpose here. I need you to be more cooperative.”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Tears of frustration and tears of anger. She’d lost faith in her plan so she didn’t know what to do. Jack had warned her not to go into too much detail before he did whatever he was doing and even though it made no sense at all, she trusted his advice.
“May I speak to Dr. Pointer privately for a moment?” she asked.
“That’s not how this works, Mrs. Grisom. All I need from you is some basic information and then I’ll file my report with the judge.”
“As will I,” Fran interjected as she reached out and patted Darby on the leg.
Darby just surrendered to the inevitable, folded her hands in her lap and answered questions in fairly single-syllable answers. She confirmed everything she’d told the police to date—never claiming it was true, just that it was what she’d said and done at the time.
“How long prior to the birth of the minor child did you start planning the crime?”
“Mia,” Darby said softly.
“Excuse me?”
“You called her ‘the minor child.’ Her name is Mia.”
“Was,” the doctor corrected. “Is there some reason why you can’t refer to her in the past tense?”
“It’s too painful,” Darby replied honestly.
“Okay. But when did you start having homicidal thoughts?”
“When I was about eight months pregnant.”
“Can you think of what may have triggered those thoughts?”
Darby looked down at her lap. “Things at home weren’t good and I feared for her safety.”
“Did you reach out to anyone?”
“Dr. Pointer.”
“Did you tell her things at home were tense?”
“I didn’t have to,” Darby answered. “She saw the bruises for herself.”
“How did your husband feel about the mi—about Mia?”
“He was thrilled to be passing his genes along to another generation.”
“And that made you angry?”
Darby turned and looked at her attorney. “How much longer do I have to do this? All we’re doing is covering the same ground over and over and nothing has changed. Mia is still gone.”
CHAPTER NINE
All Darby really wanted to do was crawl into a nice comfy bed and cry herself to sleep. But that wasn’t a possibility. Green Haven’s strict schedule meant that after being grilled by the court appointed lawyer, then chastised by her own lawyer for what he felt was evasive behavior on her part, she was emotionally spent. Only Fran seemed realize that there was more to this than Darby suddenly having a psychotic break, but Darby didn’t tell her everything. Not until she spoke to Jack. And she hoped that was soon. She had learned a thing or two about mentally ill criminals. In order for her to walk out of Green Haven, she’d need a majority of three shrinks to find she was neither a danger to herself or others. She had Fran on her side and she’d meet tomorrow with the second staff psychologist, and if all went well she could change her plea and bail out.
But before that happened she needed to make sure it was safe to bring Mia back.
The next morning, Darby was in the middle of art therapy—she was weaving a placemat out of construction paper strips. It was slow going because a staff member had to cut the strips since she couldn’t be trusted with scissors.
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