Too Close to Home

by Alison Stone

  He stepped onto the porch, mud-caked shoes and all. He brushed past Kathryn, her floral scent tickling his nose. He cut her a sideways gaze and smiled. “You and I need to talk when this is all over.”

  Kathryn lowered her gaze and pink colored her cheeks.

  He turned and unlocked the door. Slowly, he pushed it open, sensing something was off. The shadows in the darkened rooms played tricks on his mind. As far as he could tell, there were no lights on in the house. The living room on his left was empty, save for a lonely white stuffed rabbit.

  Abby’s favorite toy.

  He poked his head around the door. The dining room on the right also sat empty. He grabbed Kathryn’s hand. She squeezed it tightly in response. Their eyes locked for the briefest of moments. A connection. He pulled her into the foyer. He knew she wouldn’t stay outside, so he decided he’d better keep an eye on her.

  The house seemed quiet. Eerily quiet. Deathly quiet. He tried to dismiss the unease pumping through his veins. “Maybe they aren’t here,” he whispered over his shoulder. “Maybe they packed up and went to her mother’s.”

  She shook her head. “Meg,” she called out. “Meg.”

  There was no answer.

  “I’d hate to wake Abby if she’s sleeping,” Kathryn said. “But I’d hate to frighten Meg by sneaking up on her.”

  “Let’s go upstairs. Check in the bedrooms,” Benjamin suggested. He led the way. He stopped dead in his tracks outside Abby’s door. All the shades were drawn.

  Peter sat in a rocking chair. Eyes closed. Shock spiked Benjamin’s pulse. He heard Kathryn suck in a quick breath. “Oh, no.”

  An afghan covered his lap and hands. What is he doing here? The thought of Peter’s suicide note came to mind. Is he dead?

  “Wait here,” Benjamin whispered. He entered Abby’s room, decorated in a Winnie the Pooh theme. He crouched down in front of his uncle and touched his wrist. A steady pulse thrummed through the older man’s veins. He glanced briefly over his shoulder at Kathryn standing in the doorway. He couldn’t read the expression in her shadowed features before she stepped away.

  Peter’s head twitched and he opened his heavy eyelids. “What are you doing here, Benny?” he asked, his tongue thick around the words.

  “Peter?” Benjamin couldn’t form a coherent thought. Hadn’t the police found his car in Niagara Falls? A suicide note?

  “We’re all going to be together again. Even Amy.” He moved back and forth slowly in the rocking chair. “Amy died ten years ago today. Did you know that? Kind of ironic, huh?” Peter didn’t wait for a response. “I’ve always hated this time of year. Every time the leaves start to change, I can’t help but think of Amy wasting away.” He seemed to shudder, his eyes glazing over. “I figured today would be a good day for a reunion.”

  “Where’s Abby?” Benjamin barked, not wanting to hear anymore.

  The mention of his daughter seemed to rouse Peter from his haze. His attention drifted to the twin bed across the room. Benjamin rose to his feet, his senses heightened. Moving toward the bed, he held his breath. Little Abby lay quiet. Not moving. “What have you done?” Benjamin asked, turning his glare on his uncle. “What evil, selfish thing have you done?”

  Kathryn ran into the room directly toward Abby’s bed. The toddler lay still. A cry escaped Kathryn’s lips. She scooped up the girl. Abby uttered a small wail. A wave of relief crashed over him. Kathryn hugged the child tight and closed her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek. She rocked back and forth. Benjamin planted a kiss on the child’s head, then Kathryn’s forehead. The sight of Kathryn with a child tugged at his heart.

  “I called the police,” she whispered so Peter couldn’t hear. “I told them to send an ambulance. Meg’s in her bed, but she must be drugged because I can’t wake her up. She is breathing, thank God.”

  Benjamin nodded and turned his attention back to his uncle, only to find his lips twisted into a grimace. Peter lowered his eyes to his lap. Benjamin’s gaze followed. The man sat fingering a gun he had hidden under the blanket.

  Icy dread pulsed through his veins. Kathryn took in a sharp breath. Benjamin reached up and instinctively touched his wounded arm.

  As if reading his mind, Peter said, “I didn’t want to hurt you, Benjamin. But…” He lifted the gun to his own forehead then lowered it. “I really didn’t.”

  “Peter, put the gun away, please,” Kathryn whispered.

  Peter’s eyes locked on Kathryn, as if seeing her for the first time. She was still holding his daughter. “Abby,” he said, stretching out his free hand but making no attempt to stand. “If the drugs didn’t kill me and I woke up tomorrow, I wanted to know I had a plan B.” His lips formed a straight line and he waved the gun. “Meet plan B.”

  Benjamin held his hand out. “This has gone on long enough. Give me the gun.” He took a step forward and Peter lifted the weapon.

  “Benjamin, stop,” Kathryn demanded, turning her back to Peter, placing herself between Peter and his child. However, if Peter decided to shoot them, there would be little either of them could do for Abby.

  “We can help you,” Benjamin blurted, stalling for time. He needed to keep Peter talking. Distract him until the police arrived.

  “How?” he gestured toward them, waving the gun with a limp wrist.

  “We’ll get you the best lawyer. Psychiatric help.” Anything. Anything to get us out of this mess.

  Peter smiled a wicked smile. “I’m not crazy.” He lowered the gun to his lap, his finger still on the trigger. With his left hand, he traced the barrel of the gun. “I knew exactly what I was doing. I just couldn’t stop.”

  “You can stop it now.” Kathryn glanced over her shoulder, her back still to him. “Do it for Abby.” The child snuggled contentedly.

  Peter shook his head. A chuckle bubbled up. His eyes seemed fixated as if in a trance and unable to follow the conversation.

  “Amy was only seventeen when she got sick. I’ll never forget that moment,” Peter said. He seemed to go somewhere right then, perhaps reliving it. “I was downstairs eating breakfast. Her bedroom was directly above the kitchen.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I heard a horrible thumping noise. When I reached her, she was convulsing on her bed. The bed’s metal frame went bam-bam-bam against the hardwood floor. Amy’s eyes rolled back into her head.”

  Peter tapped the gun against his temple. “Brain tumor. That’s what they said. Stage four. They treated it for a while. Then told us to go home and make her comfortable.” Peter sobbed. Abby lifted her head and Kathryn put her hand on the child’s hair to settle her back in.

  “Peter, please, give me the gun,” Benjamin pleaded. He felt a growing sense of urgency to get Kathryn and Abby out of the room before his uncle’s desperation morphed into more tragedy. Peter lifted the gun again and Benjamin jumped back.

  Peter clenched his jaw. “I hope you never experience the pain of losing a child.” He looked past Benjamin to Kathryn. “You want to know why? Why I started dealing drugs? The stupid health insurance wouldn’t pay for additional treatment.” He hiccupped on a sob. “How do you tell your baby girl you’re giving up on her?”

  Peter laughed, an awkward sound. Almost painful. “Funny thing. All this trouble and it was still too late for Amy.”

  “Amy died ten years ago. Why now?” Kathryn asked, her voice gentle. “Why are you still dealing drugs?”

  “You think these bigwig dealers are going to let me stop a good thing? Stuff the drugs in the AC units going to the Canadian assembly plants. Easy trip over the border. No one’s the wiser.” He shook his head. “No way. Trust me, I tried. The drugs may change over the years. The need never does.”

  “That’s how the units got cracked. When they tried to stuff the drugs in,” Benjamin said, shaking his head.

  “Idiots. They’d pry the units apart. The cracked units gave me away. Made people wonder how they got damaged.” Peter moved back and forth rhythmically in the rocker.

  “Your father started
asking questions, Kathryn. He didn’t know the extent of my dealings, but he was on to me. Even brought his concerns to George. But George, your dear old dad—” he lifted his forlorn face to Benjamin, “—stood by me the whole time. He had no idea.” Peter snorted, running a shaky hand under his nose. “He couldn’t believe Frank had the audacity to accuse me of doing anything underhanded, especially when I was dealing with a dying child.”

  Heat crept up Benjamin’s cheeks as a thought took root. “That’s why my father and Frank had a falling out. Frank figured you were up to something and George didn’t believe him.” His eyes moved to Kathryn, locking on her horrified expression.

  Peter tapped his nose with the barrel of the gun.

  “Frank was such a naïve guy. He took a while to give me an ultimatum. When he did, he told me I had one week to shape up or he’d call the police.” Peter’s rueful smile sent a shudder coursing through her. “Six days later I killed him.”

  Kathryn stood silent. Little white dots floated in her vision. The room spun. She tucked Abby’s head against her neck. The sweet smell of baby shampoo reached her nose as the truth rocked her.

  Peter Hill had killed her father. He hadn’t committed suicide.

  “How could you?” Dark emotions compressed her chest. “You killed my father.”

  Abby let out a loud cry. Kathryn pressed her lips to the child’s temple as tears clouded her vision. “It’s okay,” she whispered, immediately sorry she’d upset the child.

  Peter lifted the gun with a shaky hand, blinking his lids slowly, his gaze locking on Kathryn and his daughter. Benjamin made a quick movement and struck his uncle’s hand. The gun fell, landing on the floor with a clatter. Kathryn braced herself for an explosion that never came. The gun slid across the floor and disappeared under the bed skirt.

  On what Kathryn could only imagine was pure instinct and adrenaline, Benjamin yanked Peter out of the rocker and threw him on the floor. With his good arm, he pulled one of Peter’s arms behind him and jammed a knee into his back. Peter’s breath whooshed out of him.

  “Enough, Peter. Enough.”

  “Daddy. Daddy,” Abby screamed, high-pitched and desperate. Kathryn struggled to hold the frantic child as she crouched to retrieve the gun. Its cold weight in her hand sent a chill down her spine. She passed it to Benjamin as she ran toward the door.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” she cooed to the little girl. “Everything’s okay now.” She ran down the stairs to get out of harm’s way.

  How would anything ever be okay?

  “Amy!” Peter’s hoarse scream floated down the stairs. “Amy, honey. It’s okay. Daddy’s here. Daddy’s here. Daddy won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll be together. I promise.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Kathryn fought the emotions clawing at her throat. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she repeated, hoping the child was too young to recognize a lie.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Hi, Dad.” Kathryn tossed her tote by the side door. Her beach towel spilled onto the wood deck. She jogged to where her father worked in the garden and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He smelled of hair tonic and earth.

  “Hi, honey,” Dad said, touching her cheek with a muddy hand. “Want to help me with the planting?”

  She jerked back, swiping at the dirt on her face. “Yuck. I have to get ready to go out.” She tried not to notice the hint of disappointment in her father’s eyes and turned to walk toward the house.

  “I remember a girl who used to love gardening with me,” Frank said in his usual playful manner.

  Kathryn didn’t slow her pace. “Maybe another time.”

  The dream always started out the same.

  In her dream, Kathryn bent to pick up her tote bag then turned back around. Today, the dream shifted. “No time like the present.” She strolled over to her father and plopped down next to him.

  “Here, you can plant the marigolds.”

  She took the gardening tool from her father. He returned her smile. He lifted his hand to touch her face. “I love you, Kathryn.”

  “I love you too, Dad.” He patted her face in a playful gesture.

  Kathryn reached up to touch her cheek. The sudden motion jerked her awake. She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to get her bearings. She ran a hand along her cheek in an effort to recapture the glow of the dream. The warm touch of her father’s hand.

  “I love you, Dad,” she whispered into the silent room lit by the pink of dawn. “I love you.”

  She had a feeling she wouldn’t be meeting her father in her dreams anymore.

  Slowly, she sat and rubbed a hand across her eyes. Five days had passed since Peter was arrested. Five days since Meg and Abby had been rushed to the emergency room. Meg had been drugged but was expected to make a full recovery.

  Thank goodness Abby had not been hurt. Apparently Peter had not yet worked up the nerve to drug his child. The deep love he had for his child had short-circuited his diabolical plan.

  Both Meg and Abby were resting at Meg’s parents’ house in Buffalo. No matter how Kathryn framed the story, she couldn’t help but feel sad for Abby. She was going to grow up without a father in her life.

  Without a father.

  Peter Hill had killed her father. Tears burned the back of her eyes as she struggled to suppress the grief. She still had trouble wrapping her mind around this new information. At least justice would finally be served.

  Her thoughts shifted to Benjamin, whom she hadn’t seen since the incident at the Hill home. She needed space to figure things out. Rewriting history had a tendency to do that to a person. Especially life-defining moments. For ten years she had thought her father had committed suicide. All these years, guilt had haunted her because she’d thought she should have seen the signs. Thought she should have been able to stop him if only she hadn’t run out on him that night.

  Yet he had been murdered, not making him any less dead, but the circumstances of his death had defined her. Her family. Now she had to rebuild her life with a new foundation. She had to reconsider what she had been running away from all these years.

  Kathryn rolled her shoulders then stretched her arms. She threw her legs over the side of the bed. After pulling on a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt and gathering her hair in a ponytail, she went to the kitchen. While filling the kettle with water, she glanced out the back window to find her mother kneeling by the shed. Her father’s shed. She had returned from her visit with her sister a few days ago.

  Kathryn dropped the kettle on the stove, shoved her feet in her shoes and crossed the dew-covered grass to meet her mother. She pulled her hands inside her sweatshirt and tucked them under her arms. The sun rose like a halo around the shed. It was a chilly but gorgeous morning. Probably one of the last before winter set in.

  Her mother chopped at the hard soil in the long-forgotten beds bordering the shed.

  “What are you doing, Mom?”

  Sandy looked up, a smile in her eyes. “Something I should have done years ago. Your father loved gardening. When he died, I let it go.”

  Just like Dad let us go. But he hadn’t. He was taken from us. The realization Peter had murdered her father—albeit bittersweet—allowed them both to let go of the anger and guilt.

  Kathryn knelt next to her mother, the wet grass soaking through the knees of her sweats. “Not much you can plant in late autumn.”

  “I’ll plant some bulbs.”

  Sandy leaned back and sat on her feet, pointing a gloved hand at the uprooted weeds sitting on the garbage can lid next to her. “I need a different tool. This wide shovel doesn’t cut it.”

  Kathryn stood and ran back to the house. She returned with a key. Without hesitation, for fear she’d lose her nerve, she inserted the key and pushed the door of the shed open. Ten years of stale air, dust and memories came rushing out. The floor and walls had long ago been scrubbed clean, but her father’s workbench had remained untouched.

  She took a tentative step into the she
d, then another. Glancing over her shoulder, she half expected her mom to be standing there, but was not surprised she wasn’t. Her mother was probably still pulling weeds, not quite ready to enter the sanctuary where her husband had been killed.

  Kathryn crossed over to Dad’s workbench. She picked up a clay pot and turned it over in her hands. Her father had touched this.

  “Sorry I doubted you, Dad,” she whispered into the quiet morning. “I think I know how to make things right.”

  “Kathryn?” She spun around at the sound of Betsy’s voice. “What are you doing in here?” Her sister stood in the doorway and glanced around the shed as if seeing it for the first time. She rested a shoulder against the doorframe.

  “Getting something for Mom.”

  “I just saw Mom go into the house,” Betsy said, angling her head to get a better view of the back door. “You know, when I was a kid, I always thought this would make a great club house for me and my friends. Mom wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “I think we all thought if we kept this place locked up tight we could lock away the memories. The hurt.” Kathryn placed the clay pot on a shelf. “But sometimes you have to face the pain to move past it.”

  Betsy looked down. “It helps to know Dad didn’t commit suicide. I can stop being mad at him for leaving us.”

  Kathryn drew her sister into her arms. “I know what you mean.” She wiped away a tear then stepped back. “I often wondered if Officer Gavin hadn’t moved Dad…well…if his death would have still been ruled a suicide. Maybe they would have discovered the truth sooner.”

  “Who knows?” Betsy voice was soft. “I imagine Peter did everything possible to make it look like a suicide. Think about it. Officer Gavin was a rookie at the time. He must have freaked when he saw Dad. Made the mistake of moving him.”

  Her sister had a point. But she had spent the past ten years resenting Officer Gavin’s involvement in the investigation of her father’s death. His presence triggered such a visceral response that Kathryn feared she’d never be able to see him without thinking of that horrible day.