Dark Truth

by Mariah Stewart

  “Don’t, Nina. Don’t second guess yourself.”

  “It’s difficult not to, when I go upstairs into my old room and find that she still kept flowers in there, apparently in the hopes that I’d come to visit. Or when I realize that all the years I’d brushed her off as my father’s wife and nothing more than that, she’d really tried to be there for me, and would have been if I’d let her.” She blew out a long breath. “I was very immature and self-centered to have treated her the way I did, to not have seen how she had tried to help me through that time.”

  “You were very young, and you had your own burdens to bear.”

  “That doesn’t excuse the way—”

  He held up one hand, and said, “She was all right with it, Nina. I think she understood how difficult it had been for you, with your mother dying and you having to move here immediately after. She knew how hard that was. She knew that you had a lot to deal with. I think you’re right, she wanted to help you, but she understood why you didn’t let her.” His smile was sad. “It happens that way sometimes. She didn’t hold it against you.”

  “Well, it was my loss, not hers.”

  “I think maybe you both lost a little something.”

  “In any event, the house and everything in it is yours—will be yours—and you can sell it or move into it or do whatever you like with it.”

  “I don’t feel right about this.”

  “I’m sorry, but I feel very right about it.” She patted his right hand and he covered hers with his left.

  “We’ll split it.”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head.

  “I’ll send you the money for the furniture, then . . .”

  “You’re not following me, Kyle. I want nada. Zero. Zilch. It’s yours.” She squeezed his hands, then extracted her own. “You said you and Marcie were separating. Live here if you like. Or sell it and buy something else. Or sell it and put the money in trust for your kids. Start or add to their college funds. Whatever makes you happy.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything. Particularly, don’t argue with me anymore. There is absolutely nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

  “How ’bout if I tell you how much the houses in this neighborhood are selling for, would that do it?”

  “Sorry, no. I don’t care.”

  “You must be doing very well if you can afford to brush off that much money. Even half would be several hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Tempting, but no. Frankly, I wouldn’t feel right about taking any money from this house. It never felt like mine. It still doesn’t. I have no attachment to it whatsoever. Those were not happy years for me, the years I lived here. I’d just as soon walk away, Kyle. I’m hoping you understand.”

  “I guess I do. I was just thinking it’s a lot of money to just give away.”

  “I don’t feel as if I’m giving anything away. I don’t feel entitled to it in the first place. You’re Olivia’s heir. The house was hers. Let’s just look at it that way, and talk about something else.”

  He was just about to say something when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ve no idea who that could be.” Kyle shook his head and went to answer it. “Unless it’s the mailman . . .”

  Nina remained in the kitchen, and was rinsing her glass in the sink, looking out the window and thinking how Olivia had done such a lovely job in the backyard. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to tell Kyle how much she admired his mother’s green thumb, when she realized Kyle was not alone.

  “Father Whelan,” she said, surprised to see the priest.

  “Nina, good to see you again.” He extended both hands in greeting and took both of her hands in his. “I was hoping to get a few minutes with you yesterday, but you disappeared on us. Welcome home.”

  Not my home, she bit back the words. Never my home.

  “Thank you, Father.” She smiled at the tall, good-looking priest, whose white hair only made him appear more distinguished than he had as a young man.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you since we buried your father,” he was saying.

  “That’s probably correct.” She nodded. “I haven’t been back to Stone River until now.”

  “Olivia missed you, she was very fond of you.” He squeezed her hands before letting them go.

  “We were just having that discussion, Father,” Kyle told the priest. “Nina knows that Mom understood why she didn’t come back.”

  “Good, good.” Father Whelan’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I can see in your eyes that you have. Olivia was the last person in the world who’d have wanted to make you feel guilty. She sensed that you had to live your life away from here. Just let it go. You made your peace with her by coming now.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  “How long will you be staying with us? I imagine you’ll want to settle things here, with the house.”

  “Kyle’s taking care of all that,” Nina replied, not bothering to go into detail about the arrangements she’d already made to pass the house into her stepbrother’s name.

  “Good. That’s good of you, Kyle.” The priest turned back to Nina. “There is something I need to talk to you about, though, Nina. Would you rather we chatted alone?”

  “Hey, I can go upstairs and get started on . . .” Kyle began to back toward the doorway.

  “Not at all.” Nina shook her head. “I can’t think of anything we couldn’t discuss in front of Kyle. Please, Father, have a seat here at the table. Could I get you something to drink?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks, Nina.” Father Whelan pulled out a chair and sat in it. “Nina, as you know, I was Olivia’s friend. We’d been friends for many years, since Kyle started kindergarten at the parish school.”

  “That’s about thirty-five years, in case you’re trying to figure that out, Nina.” Kyle smiled and took the seat across from the priest. “I’m five years older than you.”

  “I remembered.” She turned to Father Whelan with curiosity. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “As you know, I spent a great deal of time with Olivia the past few years, even more so these past months when we knew her time was short. Her cancer had been in remission for so long, we’d assumed it was gone forever. Then, sadly, it very suddenly came back with a vengeance. There was no stopping it this time.” He patted her hand. “But I’m sure you know all this.”

  “Kyle told me.” She nodded, still waiting for him to get to the point.

  “A week or so ago, she told me she’d remembered something she’d been meaning to take care of and just hadn’t gotten around to it. It seems that after your father’s death, the prison gathered his belongings and mailed them to Olivia. She said there wasn’t much in the box, some clothes, his watch, his wedding ring, some photographs. She wanted to make sure the box was given to you.”

  “I don’t want it, thank you, Father. I’m not interested in any of his belongings. You can toss it, if you don’t mind.”

  “You may do that, if it suits you. But I’ll honor my promise, Nina. The box is in the trunk of my car. You may do with it what you will, but I suggest you take a look inside.” His face flushed with color. “I admit to having glanced at the contents as I taped it up the other day. I was thinking I’d have to mail it to you in New York. There’s a letter in there from your father to Olivia, and one to you. Neither appears to have been opened.”

  “And they won’t be opened now,” she assured him.

  “That’s up to you, I suppose. But maybe before you toss them aside you’ll give it some serious thought. It’s the last you’ll ever know of your father, Nina. Perhaps there was something he wanted you to know, possibly about the . . . the things he’d been accused of.”

  “He wasn’t merely accused, Father. He’d been convicted.”

  “That conviction was, if I recall correctly, on appeal. For what it’s worth, Olivia was adamant that Stephen was not guilty. She was
convinced he’d not committed any of those crimes. She was positive he had not.”

  “Where was the evidence, then?” Nina asked flatly. “She didn’t testify at his trial, and there was nothing produced by the defense to cast doubt on his guilt. He admitted having had affairs with all of the victims. He admitted having had sex with them on the nights they were killed. Are we supposed to believe that someone else came into these girls’ bedrooms, raped and murdered them, after he left? That really stretches the imagination, doesn’t it? Does that sound logical to you?”

  “All I can tell you is that Olivia believed in his innocence. She didn’t believe he killed anyone.”

  “Maybe she had to believe in him, Father. She was married to him. Surely it would have been easier for her to have believed he was innocent than to admit she’d married a serial killer.”

  “Perhaps. In any event, whatever your father did—or did not do—he was in fact still your father. Whatever lies unresolved between you may be aided somehow by his last words to you. I understand your predicament, Nina, and I sympathize. But keep in mind that if you throw away his last attempt to communicate with you, you can never bring it back.”

  The priest rose.

  “If you’ll come outside with me, I’ll give you the box. When—or if—you decide to open it is entirely up to you. For my part, I’ll have done what I’d been asked to do.”

  Nina continued to lean against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. Finally, she nodded. “Fine, Father. Give me the box. Fulfill your duty.”

  “You have my number, Kyle,” the priest said. “Don’t ever hesitate to use it.”

  “Thank you, Father Tim. I’ll be in touch,” Kyle replied, but remained seated.

  Nina jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and followed the cleric through the quiet house and out through the front door. He walked directly to the trunk of his car and opened it.

  “Here you go.”

  The box he placed in her hands was the size of a medium packing box and weighed but a few pounds. She dug the keys to the rental car out of her pocket as she walked to the driveway. Once there, she opened the trunk and dropped the box in. The soft thud it made when it landed gave no indication of its contents.

  “Thank you, Father Whelan,” she said as she closed the trunk lid. “Thanks for being so loyal to Olivia. I’m sure she appreciated your friendship.”

  “As I appreciated hers.” The priest leaned in to kiss Nina’s cheek lightly. “I’ll say to you what I said to Kyle. Anytime you feel you’d like to talk, please, call me. I’ll always be available to you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” She walked him to his car, and stood on the sidewalk while he walked around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and got behind the wheel.

  “Father,” she called to him as he was about to pull away from the curb.

  He stopped and lowered the passenger-side window.

  “Yes, Nina?”

  “If Olivia was so convinced of my father’s innocence, why didn’t she visit him in prison? And why didn’t she open the letter he’d sent her? The one you said was in the box?”

  “Olivia believed he was innocent of murder, but he’d openly, and very publicly, admitted to his infidelity. And that, she could not—would not—forgive.”

  He smiled sadly. “Your father apparently was unfaithful to her within months of their marriage. To Olivia, that was the ultimate betrayal. She stood by him when he was arrested, she stood by him through the preliminary hearings. But I’m afraid once he’d admitted to his affairs, she closed the door on Stephen Madden, and she never looked back. Whatever his last words to her might have been, she never read them as far as I know.” He paused before rolling up the window. “Perhaps you will . . .”

  Five

  Nina paused in the lobby of the stone building that housed her apartment, and turned on the switch that controlled the overhead light on the second-floor landing. The building consisted of three floors, three apartments on each. She couldn’t believe that neither of her second-floor neighbors had arrived home yet. It was well after seven-thirty on a cold, rainy night. Who would want to stay out if they didn’t have to?

  She unlocked her mailbox and removed the assortment of catalogs and the few business envelopes and dropped the mail into the brown leather tote that hung over her shoulder. She climbed the steps to the second floor, grateful—not for the first time—that she’d wisely chosen the smaller apartment on floor number two over the larger one on floor number three. There were some nights when she just didn’t think she’d make it.

  Tonight was one of those nights. She stopped in front of her door, unlocked the locks, and pushed it open with her foot. Once inside, she reset the locks and dropped the tote on the hardwood floor of the small entry. Kicking off her shoes, she removed her jacket and hung it in the closet just inside the door. She grabbed the tote and took it into the room that served as living room and dining room. She removed the manuscript she’d brought home to work on and dropped it on the coffee table on her way into the bedroom, where she changed from her favorite black wool suit into a pair of soft knit yoga-style pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. In bare feet, she went into the tiny kitchen and opened the refrigerator to forage for dinner. She’d meant to do some on-line grocery shopping today, but knew she wouldn’t be home in time to take delivery by six, the cut-off time imposed by her favorite store. Perhaps it was time to find another favorite market, she was thinking as she decided upon reheated Chinese takeout.

  She’d planned on a quick trip to the gym tonight, but that was before she’d gotten stuck on the phone with a needy author just before six. Some writers were more high maintenance than others, she’d been warned early on in her career. Jess Witherspoon was one of those who needed her hand held pretty much on a weekly basis when she was writing. Jess had been working on her new book nonstop for the past four weeks, which meant that at least once a week, usually on Tuesday or Wednesday and always at the end of the work day, Jess called and cried on Nina’s shoulder. The book was too hard, it wasn’t shaping up the way she’d wanted it to. The characters weren’t cooperating, the book was falling apart. The book was doomed, her career was over.

  Yada, yada, yada.

  Nina smiled to herself, recalling Carlos’s often-quoted comment that it was better to be the editor, with an all-seeing eye, than the author, with limited vision.

  It had taken longer than usual to get Jess back on track, which resulted in her late arrival home. Which meant the trip she’d wanted to make to the gym wasn’t going to happen tonight. It was already late; she was hungry and tired and still had several hours’ worth of work to do.

  She had just settled down on the sofa with a plate of General Tso’s chicken and a bottle of water when she noticed the light blinking on her answering machine. She leaned over and tapped the play button, and sat back against the sofa cushions. She stabbed a water chestnut and listened to the first message. Charles, whom she’d gone out with twice last month, had tickets for the Jets game on Sunday. Was she interested?

  Was she? She shrugged. Not really.

  Next, a call from her upstairs neighbor apologizing if her new pup’s nightly crying was disturbing. They were trying to figure out a way to make it stop.

  Nina hadn’t realized there was a dog in the building.

  Finally, the last message and a familiar voice.

  “Hey, Nina, Kyle here. Hey, listen, I’m thinking I might want to stay in the house for a while after all. I mean, with Marcie and me splitting up, and her staying in our house with the kids, it just makes sense for me to stay here, at least until I can get the furniture sold. I think some of the pieces in your dad’s study might be antiques. I think you should take another look at the desk and that map chest he had in there. And some of the books look like they might be worth some serious money. I don’t feel right keeping the money from things like that. So you should rethink what you want to do with those items. I’m happy to sell
them for you, but I won’t keep the money from the sale. And that’s not negotiable.” He paused, then added, as if it had just occurred to him, “Oh, and say, I was just wondering if you’d gotten around to opening the letter Stephen wrote to my mom. I guess I’m just curious to know what he’d had to say to her. Well, sorry I missed you. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

  The machine clicked to signal the message had ended, and she was glad she’d set it to run until the caller had completed saying whatever he or she had called to say. Few things were more irritating than voice mail that cut you off after an invariably short amount of time.

  Well, Kyle was welcome to the letter. She had no intention of reading it. She debated for a minute, then got up and went to the closet and took down the box, which remained unopened. She set it on the coffee table and went to the kitchen for a paring knife with which to cut the tape. She’d done her best to get rid of the damned thing, had gone so far as to deliberately leave it in the trunk of the rental car when she’d returned the vehicle. But some well-meaning, conscientious soul at the rental agency had forwarded it to her at her apartment, and she’d arrived home last Thursday night to find it waiting for her. She’d brought it upstairs and tucked it away, refusing to give it any consideration whatsoever.

  She slipped the knife through the tape and opened the box, ignoring the envelope addressed to her in her father’s small, precise script, and looking for the one with Olivia’s name on it. She found what she was looking for, dropped it on the table, and closed up the box, refusing to look upon the photographs that peeked out from under the pair of men’s dark brown leather shoes. Probably the shoes he was wearing when he was arrested, she thought as she returned the box to the shelf.

  She sat back on the sofa, pretending not to see the letter on the table that was formally addressed to MRS. STEPHEN J. MADDEN, 117 OAK DRIVE, STONE RIVER, MARYLAND.

  Nina picked up the manuscript and went back to work. Forty minutes later, she finally admitted she’d been staring at Olivia’s letter for at least the past ten minutes.