“Mrs. Harrison, can you hear me? Please wake up,” he kept saying over and over.
Jo moved toward the window, pearl-gray light slanting through the blinds. She backed up against the wall, staring at the slender, white arm hanging over the daybed. She looked above her, at stars painted on the ceiling, and her hand went to her mouth as a wave of nausea struck. She closed her eyes as her vision turned fuzzy and her ears begin to ring, buzzing like a siren, so noisy she could hardly bear it. She raised her hands to her ears to make it stop.
She wasn’t sure how long it was before the room filled with people, and Hank was touching her elbow, drawing her aside as a pair of EMTs removed Alana on a stretcher and Kevin Harrison stood in the doorway, screaming, “What the hell did you do to her? What the hell have you done?”
That was when Jo lost it.
“What the hell did you do to Finn?” she said, the anger in her own voice shaking her to the core. “What the hell did you do that killed him, because he damned sure didn’t fall out of a tree house!”
Harrison stared at her, like she’d lost her mind.
“Jo,” Hank reached for her, but she couldn’t stop.
“Jenny was right!” Jo pointed a finger and shook it. “You were responsible. You lied. She had the evidence to get your son’s body exhumed. If you had just told the truth, she’d still be alive, and your pregnant wife wouldn’t have involved herself in Jenny’s murder!”
The doctor fell back against the door as if Jo had pushed him. “Alana didn’t do anything—”
“Oh, yes,” Jo said. “Yes, she did, and it’s your fault. If she loses this baby, you can blame yourself for that, too.”
“It was an accident.” He shuddered and grabbed hold of the jamb to steady himself. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. But he wouldn’t listen. I just wanted him to settle down.” Harrison sobbed. “He wouldn’t settle down.”
Hank saw that Jo could barely stand, and he caught her arm.
She heard his phone ringing, but he ignored it.
“You okay?”
She shook her head, pulling away.
She made it to the hallway and found a bathroom. She got to the sink before she bowed her head to vomit, retching until it was only dry heaves, and her head banged with the effort. Tears sprang to her eyes as she turned on the tap and washed the bile down the drain, took some water in a shaky hand, drank it, then spit it out.
When she finally emerged, Hank was standing there, waiting.
“Harrison?” she said.
“He went to the hospital, and I didn’t stop him. We’ll haul his ass down to the station once his wife’s stable. He’s not going anywhere. We’ll get his confession on paper.”
“Lisa Barton,” she croaked.
“That was Cap calling,” he told her, and he patted the pocket with his phone. “A patrol car caught up with her at a car wash on the edge of Plainfield. We’ve got her, Jo, and she’s not going to worm her way out. Trust me on this. You do trust me?”
“Yes.”
She really did.
He squeezed her shoulders gently. “Haven’t you had enough crap knocked out of you lately? Let’s go pick your cat up from the station, and I’ll take you both home to Adam, okay?”
She whispered back, “Okay.”
“C’mon, Sister Christian, I’ve got your back.”
And he had her elbow, too, as he led her from the bathroom, out of the house, and into fresh air and hazy sunlight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SUNDAY
Jo walked slowly through the still-green grass toward the plot that Adam had marked on the memorial park map, skirting the etched headstones, marble angels, and crosses bathed in rings of mums long dead or wilted flowers still wrapped in cellophane.
She looked at the yellow roses in her hands, swathed in tissue and tied with a ribbon as bright as the petals. She found herself hoping Jenny would like them. They reminded her of the walls in the room where Jenny had escaped: sunny and vibrant, far removed from the gray of the quarry.
“We’re almost there,” Adam said from behind her. “Up ahead, near the maple.”
Jo glanced ahead to the tree, red leaves scattered over the ground like a carpet. Two granite headstones seemed to rise from the roots beneath.
One for Finn, she knew, the other, polished and new, for Jenny, her grave still fresh, the earth still turned. Jo approached warily, afraid to get too close. She hugged the roses to her breasts, grateful for the sun that warmed her face and Adam’s touch on her arm.
“I’ll wait somewhere else if you’d like to be alone,” he said.
But she shook her head. “Please, stay.”
She took a breath, drawing in air that tasted springlike, not laced with the chill of the days before. She stepped forward to the edge of Finn’s plot and withdrew several roses from the bunch in her arms, placing them beneath the words BELOVED SON carved into the stone.
Rest in peace, Finn, she thought, because now he could, couldn’t he?
He had his mother beside him, and his broken body could remain where it was. There had been no exhumation. Kevin Harrison had given a formal confession that he’d caused his son’s death. He had taken a phone call from Alana, leaving the boy undressing for his bath. Finn had “misbehaved,” running about the house naked and shrieking. Harrison had caught his son and had shaken him fiercely before shoving him into the bathroom. He hadn’t realized until Finn pitched backward, falling to the tiled floor, that his son wasn’t breathing.
Jenny had been right. Finn hadn’t fallen from a tree. Her ex-husband was to blame.
Harrison claimed that he’d loved the boy and had never meant to harm him, that it was just a horrible accident. His expensive lawyers would probably plea down the charge of negligent homicide to child endangerment, though Jo hoped a jury would have the chance to weigh a charge of manslaughter at the very least. She wanted to see the man suffer as he’d made Jenny suffer. He deserved as much and more.
Alana was recovering from her overdose, under twenty-four-hour watch at Presbyterian Hospital. She was conscious and alert, the baby okay. She was talking, blaming Lisa for everything: the eerie phone calls to Jenny, the plot to abduct her as well as murder her. Alana’s daddy’s slick defense attorneys were already canoodling with the DA, trying to get her a plea.
Lisa Barton would not get off so easily.
Her not-so-expensive lawyer was advising her to keep her mouth shut. So far, she had. But it didn’t matter. They needed only one of them to cooperate. And they had that already.
Another bright spot: Lisa would never have Patrick. The man had avoided visiting Lisa in jail, situating himself firmly in the ICU waiting room at Plainfield Memorial Hospital, not leaving the place—so Jo had heard—until Jenny’s sister had opened her eyes. Though Kim seemed confused, the doctors reported normal speech and reflexes. She didn’t remember what had happened the day of the funeral, which Jo decided was probably a good thing.
Patrick Dielman had made arrangements to fly in Kim’s kids and the babysitter so they could see their mom while she recovered. Though he might not have been the best husband for Jenny, he wasn’t an ogre.
“Take care of your mom, Finn,” Jo whispered, patting the boy’s headstone.
She got up from her knees, but didn’t bother to brush off her jeans before she stepped over to Jenny’s grave, still a soft mound of loam. She crouched beside it, setting the rest of the roses down at the base of her marker. BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER, AND SISTER, it read, and Jo knew Jenny would like that, even if she hadn’t believed in that love or believed in herself.
You were those things, Jenny, all of them.
Jo put her hand on the soil and dug her fingers in, leaving an imprint.
Tears blurred her eyes, and she lowered her head, not wanting Adam to see them. It was too late. He came behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and sighed into her hair. “Oh, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
It was time to tell Adam eve
rything.
God, it’s time.
She leaned into his chest and said softly, “Let’s go home.”
They didn’t speak all the way back to Jo’s condo. Adam didn’t even try to fill the void. Jo knew he understood what she was feeling. The silence was necessary, like a pause between pain and good intentions.
As soon as she unlocked the door, Ernie appeared out of nowhere, a black flash darting toward her ankles, wending about them.
She was afraid at first that he’d try to escape through Adam’s legs as he came in behind her. But he didn’t. Instead, he mewed and arched against her, begging for her to pick him up. So she did, and the cat tucked his head beneath her chin as he’d done in that photo with Jenny.
Jo felt a lump in her throat.
“Looks like he was busy while we were gone,” Adam said, nudging the white box with the papers from Mama’s house that Jo had left in the tiny foyer.
Jo rubbed Ernie’s head and surveyed the damage. He’d managed to get into the box despite the tape, tipping the lid askew so he could wiggle his way inside. He’d nearly pushed a couple of old letters out, making a nest for himself.
“What’s that about anyway?” Adam asked as he took off his coat.
“Stuff from my mom’s house,” Jo said and put Ernie down. She shoved the letters into the box and replaced the lid as the cat bounded off toward the kitchen. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Is it your story?”
She sighed heavily. “Yes.”
“Then I want to hear it.” Adam reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You want to tell me now or later?”
This time, Jo didn’t pause.
“Now,” she said.
He eased her coat from her shoulders and drew her toward the sofa.
Jo settled next to him, thinking of Jenny. She couldn’t help it. She recalled the last words written in the journal:
I will get Ernie his favorite Fancy Feast to celebrate.
I will free Finn from my nightmares.
And free myself.
Jenny Dielman had grown up with abuse, had wed a man who’d treated her badly, who had killed her only son, and still she hadn’t given up. She had fought for Finn to the very end . . . for Finn and for herself.
Jo drew courage from her.
“It started when Daddy left us,” she began, not sure how to do this. “I was almost five. It was just me and Mama, at first, only it didn’t stay that way for long.” She wet her lips, not able to look at Adam. “She was drinking a lot . . . she’d stay out late and leave me all alone. And then one night she brought him home, and he never left.” Jo’s throat closed up, but she kept going, her voice raw. “Oh, God, how I prayed he would go, that she would see what kind of man he was and kick him out. But instead, she married him.”
Adam laced his fingers through hers, tightly, like he would never release her.
Go on, Jo heard a voice in her head. Free the child from your nightmares. Free yourself. Adam’s not going anywhere.
She kept talking, slowly. Quietly. Adam listened, and when she was done, she let the tears fall, overwhelmed by grief for a woman she’d never met but understood all too well.
For what she herself had lost.
For the little girl she’d never been and a child she’d never known.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thank you to Christina Hogrebe and Jessica Errera for believing in Walk Into Silence and for finding it such a good home! I am so grateful to Kjersti Egerdahl and Jacque Ben-Zekry for loving this story and wanting to get it into readers’ hands. And it wouldn’t be the book that it is now without the amazing guidance I received from Caitlin Alexander, who cracked the editorial whip until Walk was in peak form. Even after seventeen years in this business, it still amazes me how a story I thought was strong to begin with can become so much more.
Last but hardly least, thank you to my husband, my daughter, and my mother for making my life more entertaining and emotional than any fiction I could write. I love you madly!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Sarah Crowder
Susan McBride is the USA Today bestselling author of the Debutante Dropout Mysteries and the River Road Mysteries. She has won a Lefty Award, been twice nominated for the Anthony Award, and received the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Amateur Sleuth. She lives in St. Louis with her husband and daughter.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CONTENTS
MONDAY
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
PART TWO
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walk Into Silence Page 30
