Dreadful

by Jana DeLeon

  “But the call never came.”

  Marisa shook her head. “I think I always knew that he was lying, but I never understood why he needed to, so I never pressed the point.”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but I have a guess. My guess is that when Rick went into the alley to check, Cody Reynolds walked out and saw him standing there over Caitlyn’s body and accused him of killing her. Rick probably denied doing it and told Cody the sisters had fought over a guy. But if Cody told the cops what he saw, then Rick could have been arrested.”

  “I don’t understand why he didn’t tell. Cody didn’t know Rick. Why would he help him?”

  “Caitlyn had treated Cody pretty shabby, and he might have seen Caitlyn kiss Sam and figure she’d done it in front of his place of employment just to get to him. If she turned up dead there, he would have been the number one suspect.”

  “So they hid the body. It seems so foolish.”

  “Yes, but they were both young and I doubt either was completely sober. Cody was looking at a murder rap once the police went to digging. And Rick was caught standing over the body while Jenny couldn’t even remember being in the alley. And then there was you.”

  “Me? I didn’t help. I didn’t even know. I swear.”

  “Rick loved you, and you loved Jenny. You’ve spent your entire life protecting her, and if she realized that she’d killed her sister, she might not have recovered from that.”

  “You’re saying he did it for me?”

  “You and Jenny. And himself.”

  “Jenny never remembered,” Marisa said. “The next morning, she got up asking where Caitlyn was like nothing had ever happened. I thought Caitlyn was gone, just like Rick said.” She shook her head. “At least that’s what I wanted to believe.”

  “So you never told Jenny the truth and you called the police and reported Caitlyn missing.”

  “Yes.”

  “And either Rick or Cody sent a text from her cell phone and withdrew some money from her account the next day to make it seem like she’d left on her own accord.”

  Marisa’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even think about that, but if Caitlyn was really dead in the alley then one of them must have. Rick could have guessed her PIN. She used the same lucky numbers for everything. But why would Rick kill Cody? They were both in on it.”

  “You said Rick couldn’t let Cody ruin everything. My guess is the guilt had continued to build over the years and when I questioned Cody, he decided he wanted to tell the truth. It would have cost Rick everything.”

  “Oh my God. What have we done? So many lies.” Marisa looked Shaye directly in the eyes. “But if Rick and Cody got rid of Caitlyn’s body, then she’s really dead. So who’s doing this?”

  Shaye shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  But she had a bad feeling. Everything she’d speculated with Marisa fit with what Marisa had admitted and with Rick’s confession, but it wasn’t quite right. They were still missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

  The barn door flew open, and Shaye whirled around as Jenny walked inside holding a rifle.

  “Jenny, thank God!” Marisa jumped up to run over to her friend, but Jenny leveled the gun at Marisa.

  “I’d stay put if I were you. I’m a good shot. Just ask Officer Dupree.”

  Shaye stared at Jenny, her blond hair and pink dress marred only by the cruel smile she wore, and suddenly that last piece fell into place.

  “Jenny? What’s wrong with you?” Marisa asked. “It’s me. Your friend.”

  Jenny smiled at Shaye, and she felt a chill run down her neck. “You figured it out. I can tell by the look on your face. Do you want to tell her or shall I?”

  “Tell me what?” Marisa asked.

  “That’s not Jenny,” Shaye said. “That’s Caitlyn.”

  27

  MARISA’S EYES widened in horror. “No. That’s not possible. Caitlyn is dead.”

  “That’s what you were supposed to think,” Shaye said. “But she fooled everyone. It wasn’t Caitlyn who died in that alley. It was Jenny.”

  Marisa’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. “No! It can’t be. I know them both. That was Jenny that I pulled out of the alley.”

  Caitlyn smiled. “I was always a great actress and fooling a couple of drunks wasn’t all that hard. Just swap the masks and cell phones and act completely incapable of handling life, and that’s all that was required.”

  “But why?” Marisa asked.

  Caitlyn let out a single laugh. “Because if poor, pitiful Jenny claimed I’d tripped and fallen then the police wouldn’t have done a thing. But if Jenny had been the one who turned up dead, then everyone would have blamed me. The amnesia act was just a stroke of genius on my part. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be totally unnecessary because the body had disappeared, but I’d already picked my poison. I just had to ride it out, then graduate, get the hell out of Ponchatoula, and be whoever I wanted to be.”

  “But you couldn’t handle it, could you?” Shaye asked. “Your mind locked away what you’d done and at some point, you started believing you were Jenny as well.”

  “It must have been when that car hit me,” Caitlyn said. “I woke up and everyone was calling me Jenny. It didn’t seem quite right, but the truth was gone. It was the weakest moment of my life, really. I still can’t fathom it. I mean, for so long, I actually thought I was her…that sniveling deadweight that I was forced to drag around my entire life.”

  Marisa choked back a cry. “How can you say that?”

  “Don’t give me your heartfelt crap,” Caitlyn said. “Jenny held all of us back. Everything we did had to be modified to accommodate her. Always sucking the life out of a room with her maladies. Always garnering all the attention because she wasn’t healthy. I endured watching her play the sickly princess for so long that it must have been easy to become her. But then, how hard could it be to sit around and have people wait on you?”

  “When did you start to remember?” Shaye asked.

  “I think I had flashes over the years, but then they went away, and everything got foggy again. When the dreams started, I still thought I was Jenny and that my memory was returning, but I think it was my real self trying to push through the facade. Then the day someone shot at me in the woods, it broke something loose. I woke up that evening and it all flooded back to me. Every detail. Every lie.”

  She glared at Marisa. “Including the fact that my ‘friend’ covered up my murder to protect my sister.”

  Marisa gasped. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who cut my brake line. You killed Rick.”

  Caitlyn shrugged. “Even before I heard you tell Shaye about Rick’s deathbed confession, I figured he was involved up to his eyeballs. I knew for certain you were lying because you were there and had seen the body. But Rick was always hanging around, taking care of everything you needed. I’m not surprised he tried to fix this too, nor does it surprise me that idiot Cody Reynolds helped. So forgive me if I find it hard to mourn his death or Cody’s. Just like I’ll find it hard to mourn yours.”

  “And Garrett Trahan?” Shaye asked. “That was your work as well, wasn’t it?”

  Caitlyn laughed. “He got exactly what he deserved. He beat me, you know. The day I broke up with him, he raped me afterward, then dared me to call the police. Who were they going to believe, right? The nobody girl from the nowhere town or the privileged son of a connected family? But I still won. It took me six years, but he paid for everything he did to me.”

  She leveled the rifle at Marisa. “I just have this one last piece of business before I leave this place and become someone else all over again. Someone fabulous. Someone who can accomplish anything she wants.”

  Her finger moved to the trigger, and Shaye grabbed Marisa’s arm and yanked her behind an old engine. The rifle went off, and a bullet ricocheted off the metal and flew right by her head. She dived for the ground, pulling Marisa with her, then looked around, trying to find some sort
of weapon, even though nothing in her hand could compete with a rifle. She felt around on the ground and her fingers finally wrapped around a pipe. She pulled it out and motioned to Marisa to stay still and quiet.

  The storm had picked up again outside, and the roar of the rain on the metal roof made it hard to hear any movement inside the barn. Another disadvantage. Caitlyn knew exactly where they were, but they couldn’t hear where she was moving. Shaye strained to pick up the shuffle of feet or an intake of breath, but it was all drowned out in the storm.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the signal. Still nothing, but she sent another short text to Jackson, telling him that Jenny was Caitlyn and was the murderer. Then she shoved the phone behind a framing stud. Worst case, if they didn’t make it out of here, and Caitlyn didn’t find the phone and destroy it, someone would know what happened and who to look for.

  Something dropped to the right of them and Shaye crawled farther around the other side of the engine, Marisa right behind. She realized her mistake immediately. The light hit her right in the eyes and she put her hand up to block it. Caitlyn was standing about ten feet away. She put the flashlight on a crate beside her and lifted the shotgun. Shaye and Marisa both launched backward, but it was too late.

  The shot rang out, echoing through the barn. Shaye dived for the ground, her face slamming into the dirt so hard she inhaled some of it. Fighting off the urge to cough, she twisted her head back expecting to find Marisa dead. Instead, she saw Marisa struggling to get up and Virginia Taylor standing over her dead daughter’s body, clutching a pistol.

  “And so it is done,” Virginia said.

  Shaye rose from the ground and looked at Virginia. “You knew.”

  Virginia looked up at her and nodded. “From the moment I saw her in that hotel in New Orleans.”

  Marisa stared at Virginia, clearly distraught. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I’d already lost one daughter, and given that the one I had left was claiming to be her sister, I figured I knew the score. Caitlyn always resented Jenny. I thought she was faking for the attention, but after that car accident, I realized she had truly forgotten who she was. Would have been no point in saying something then.”

  Shaye moved next to Marisa and placed her arm around the distraught woman’s shoulders. “But she started to remember,” Shaye said.

  “From time to time, she did,” Virginia said. “The drugs helped erase most of it. When I saw that look creep back in her eye, I gave her a dose in her soda or her breakfast cereal. Sometimes I’d lock her in her room until I was certain she was Jenny again.”

  “Did her father know?” Marisa asked.

  “He never said, but I figure he knew the score. Put him in an early grave.”

  “I can’t believe she fooled me,” Marisa said. “How is that possible?”

  “Because you explained away any differences in behavior as shock from Caitlyn’s disappearance,” Shaye said. “It wasn’t an illogical conclusion to make. Caitlyn did such a good job acting like Jenny that she fooled everyone except Virginia.”

  “She even fooled herself.” Marisa sank onto the ground and started to cry. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Taylor. I should have been there. I should have been in that alley and none of this would have happened.”

  Virginia shook her head. “You were always a good girl, Marisa, but you couldn’t have done nothing to prevent this. Caitlyn was on a path to destruction her entire life. Started in the womb and just got worse. And my poor Jenny never really stood a chance. Not from the beginning.”

  “What happened to you?” Shaye asked. “I figured Caitlyn had killed you.”

  “She drugged me and stuffed me in my bedroom closet. Took me a long time to wake up and even longer to kick the door down. I’ll be paying for it tomorrow. I figure she was going to come back and handle me later. Or maybe she was going to leave me be. After all, I’d kept her secret this long. Guess I’m free from that burden now.”

  “The New Orleans police are probably going to arrest you,” Shaye said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Virginia said. “They can’t do nothing worse to me than what’s already coming. Doc gave me six months.”

  Realization flooded through Shaye. “You stopped drugging her. You let her memory return.”

  “It was going to happen sooner or later. I figured we was all better off if I was here to try to head off the worst of the fallout when she realized who she was. But I overestimated my own strength. Or underestimated hers. Same result. Either way, it’s over.”

  Marisa turned to Shaye and buried her head in Shaye’s shoulder, sobbing. Shaye wrapped her arms around the other woman as Virginia’s words echoed through her head.

  Either way, it’s over.

  Except it wasn’t. For Marisa, it never would be.

  28

  One week later

  French Quarter, New Orleans

  JACKSON GRABBED two beers from the refrigerator and carried them onto his patio, handing one to Shaye. Then he moved to the grill and checked the steaks he’d thrown on a minute earlier. Shaye sat in one of the bistro chairs and stared over the garden his patio overlooked.

  “It’s nice outside today,” she said. “Maybe we’ll have an early summer.”

  “I don’t think one unexpected warm day is indicative of a whole movement of season,” Jackson said, “but I wouldn’t turn it down.”

  “Me either. I’m tired of the rain. Tired of the gloom.”

  He nodded. Shaye had bad memories associated with thunderstorms and although she’d figured out how to deal with them, she still wasn’t a big fan. To be honest, he preferred sunnier days himself, but winter in New Orleans often meant rain. At least they weren’t shoveling their cars out from under snowdrifts. He wasn’t sure how people coped with that every day.

  “Did you see Marisa today?” he asked.

  She nodded. “We had a long talk and, I’m not ashamed to admit it, a long cry. I feel so bad for her. Her entire life was undone in a matter of days. Her husband and the father of her child is dead, and he’d been lying to her for years.”

  “Then there was that whole murder thing.”

  “Yeah. I think that’s what bothers her the most. That Maya will eventually find out what her father did. And she’s terrified she’ll be arrested. Any word on that?”

  “Grayson and I talked to the DA today to lay it all out for him. It was a lot to cover, and with crimes happening here and Ponchatoula, we had jurisdiction issues, especially with them losing a cop over this mess. Then there’s the fact that the primary guilty parties are all dead. Garrett Trahan’s family is screaming for justice, but we don’t have anything to give them but a name and a grave site. The crowbar Caitlyn used to kill him was in the truck she stole, and her prints and DNA are all over everything, so there’s no doubt as to who did it even without her confession.”

  “What about Marisa and Virginia?”

  “The DA isn’t going to pursue anything against Marisa. The only thing she’s guilty of is lying to the police about what she saw in the alley when they reported Caitlyn missing. And her defense will be that Rick told her Caitlyn/Jenny was gone when he checked. We have nothing to connect her with Cody Reynolds, but we got Rick on camera at a gas station on the highway to the cemetery just before the scheduled meeting time.”

  “That will be a huge relief for her that the DA isn’t pursuing charges.”

  Jackson nodded. “He could have gone for obstruction of justice or accessory to murder, but what was the point? It would have been hard to make it stick and in the end, Marisa is also a victim. The DA doesn’t want to mar his record with a loss, and a jury would have a hard time orphaning a toddler with only circumstantial evidence.”

  “And Virginia?”

  “That one is a little more difficult. She knew the person living with her was Caitlyn and not Jenny, but that in itself is not a crime. And she could only guess what had happened in New Orleans. She had no proof other tha
n an innate knowledge of her daughters.”

  “But when Cody Reynolds was killed, she must have known that things were going south. She should have taken her suspicions to the New Orleans police then.”

  “I agree. But what would have happened if they’d arrested Caitlyn? At that point, she still thought she was Jenny. And once her true identity returned, she would have simply continued to pretend she had no memory of that night and swear she was Jenny, like she believed herself for years. A psychiatrist would have made the argument of a psychological break as a result of the shock. Eleonore’s already verified that was probably what happened.”

  Shaye nodded. Her friend and therapist had been fascinated with Shaye’s latest case, particularly Caitlyn’s psyche. She had taken copious notes and intended to interview everyone who had come in contact with Caitlyn after that night to try to pin down some indicators that might help doctors identify similar cases in the future. Not that she anticipated it happening often. The circumstances surrounding the entire case were very specific. Shaye figured Eleonore was simply interested in figuring out the why of it for her own knowledge. She was like that—always pushing to understand things about the human mind that defied explanation.

  “I guess you’re right,” Shaye said. “I suppose the most that would have come out of it is that Caitlyn might have been committed. But then she couldn’t have killed anyone.”

  “And that’s exactly what Garrett Trahan’s father is saying. But the reality is Virginia Taylor won’t live long enough to see the inside of a courtroom.”

  “I went by to see her after I left Marisa’s.”

  Jackson’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  Shaye nodded. “I know she might have been able to prevent some of this if she’d told the truth long ago, but I feel sorry for her. One daughter murdered by the other. Her husband’s heart attack. Then she had to kill her own child. I can’t imagine how that felt.”

  “How did she seem?”