William had a sick look on his face. The blow was already starting to wear off. Were they joking? Alana was always kidding around about all kinds of stuff. That was it. They were just kidding him, trying to get a reaction. It was a bad joke; that’s all it was. Suddenly, he was aware of the pounding in his head. He slowly got up out of bed, reached for his robe. “What did you do to Sarah?” he asked, half expecting them to confess they weren’t serious.
“Jess pushed her down the stairs.”
William staggered back against the wall.
“Yeah, but not before Lana here gave her a wicked right cross that sent her reeling. That gave me the chance to finish her off.”
“Hey, she was no match for me, petite little bitch.” Alana flexed her arms in a power stance that had William feeling like he was about to throw up. He took a step toward the bathroom, away from the faces of evil. He had to know, had to ask. “What about Luc?”
Jess tossed back her hair. “Oh, Luc was easy. We lured him back to Alana’s place, offered him a sample of our best disco biscuits—and boom! Next thing you know, he’s sprawled on the floor, dead as a doornail.”
“Okay, so I gave him a little too much shit.” Alana laughed wickedly. “Since we were on a roll, we went over to your house, paid a visit to your darling little Sarah. The little woman had the nerve to get all indignant, had the audacity to ask us to leave, threatened to call the police if you can believe that. Jess here took it personally.”
Stunned, William wanted to know all of it. “Where are they?”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re dead and buried. No one will ever find them. Trust me.”
William threw off the robe and started putting on his pants.
“Where do you think you’re going? We aren’t finished with you yet.”
“I need to go check on Baylee.”
But Jessica sensed something was up. She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even think about it, William.”
In the blink of an eye, Jess turned on her best friend. “You just had to open your big fucking mouth, didn’t you? He’s going to blab first chance he gets.”
Jessica whirled around to William. “You say anything to anyone, anything at all, you so much as breathe a word of what we said here tonight and I’ll make sure the police know it was your idea. They go really hard in this state on husbands who solicit murder for hire. Oh, yes, Alana and I will simply tell them you wanted your wife out of the picture. We’ll both testify against you.”
Alana grabbed Jess’s arm. “But he won’t do that, will you, William? We’re in this together. You’ll keep our little secret because if you don’t, you know you might be next. Isn’t that right, William, my love? You say anything to anyone and that daughter of yours might suffer a terrible, unfortunate accident.”
The memory came to him in clarifying detail how he’d run into the bathroom just in time to throw up.
“You say anything to anyone and that daughter of yours might suffer a terrible unfortunate accident.” For years those words had haunted him. It played over and over again like a bad movie, his worst.
Even now lying on his deathbed, William still heard those words, those shrill, harsh words he would never forget no matter how long he lived. It came to William then. He didn’t have all that much longer. Life for him was almost done.
Baylee touched her father’s cheek. His eyes flew open. “Daddy, I’m here now. It’s okay; don’t worry, I’m here now. Daddy, look at me. Do you hear me?”
When his eyes settled on his daughter’s face, it took him a few seconds to come back to the present. His body felt like he was still in that hotel bathroom after a night of drugs and booze. His gut burned; his chest hurt. He still remembered the way he’d thrown up. His eyes glanced around the room. He remembered then that he was hooked up to machines in a hospital room.
Things were as bad as they could get.
“Baylee,” he croaked out. He tried to remove the oxygen tube from around his nose. “There’s something I have to say, to tell you…before I leave. It’s hard to tell.” He wheezed, his air closing up. “But you need to know the truth about your mother, hear the truth from me.” The words were raspy. “Sarah never left, at least not the way I led you to believe.”
God help her, she knew what he was about to say and couldn’t hear this from him by herself. She started backing toward the door. Dylan had gone to find Tanya, tell her what was happening. But now, she had to find him. She couldn’t travel down this path without him.
“Dylan, get in here,” she yelled frantically, keeping her eyes glued to her father. She watched as William tried to sit up in bed. She went to him then, attempted to get him to lie back down. It wasn’t difficult to do. One push and he was flat on his back again.
Dylan came into the room on the run. He took one look at Baylee’s struggle and then stared at her father. Noting the alarm on William’s face, Dylan went to help. “Has he said anything?”
William motioned for them both to come closer. “I can’t…talk so loud.” His rheumy eyes searched Dylan’s. “She’s…upset with me. She has a right to be. I’ve been a lousy father. And I’m about to upset her even more. It’s about her mother, my lovely, gentle Sarah. She died, Baylee. Your mother never walked out on you.”
No matter how much she’d talked about it with Dylan and Kit and Jake, she wasn’t prepared to hear the words. Her knees locked. She felt weak and sick to her stomach. “What are you saying, Daddy? I want to know all of it.”
Whispering the worst of it now, he rasped on. “I’m saying…Alana and Jessica…they killed your mother. Alana wanted us to be together. She took it upon herself…” He saw the doubt in Baylee’s eyes. “You have to believe me. I had no idea she would hurt Sarah, let alone… It’s the last thing I wanted. It happened while I was out of town. While I was in San Francisco, Alana and Jessica went to the house…they confronted Sarah. There was a struggle. Jessica pushed her down the stairs. Before, before Sarah, they lured her friend, that tennis pro, back to their house, gave him enough drugs to make sure he OD’d. I’m not sure of all the details. All I know is they killed Sarah; they got rid of Luc. Sarah and Luc were never a couple. They’re both…dead.”
“Daddy, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you go to the police? Why did you allow them to get away with doing something like that? Why?”
Breathing labored, William winced, “They said if I told anyone, they’d see to it that the police would think I was in on it. They threatened you.” William started to sob. “If I said anything, Alana assured me she’d see to it that you had an accident. I made a mistake, Baylee, a big one. Alana and I had known each other for years, for years, Baylee; we had a history. After I married your mother, I kept the affair going with Alana.” If it were possible, the shame and guilt had William’s voice growing weaker. “The woman wouldn’t leave me alone. I’m not making excuses. But she was…relentless. Alana was my weakness. Alana and Jessica were my weaknesses. I’m sorry, Baylee. They took Sarah away from both of us.”
Baylee felt numb. She’d already known most everything he’d admitted. Thanks to Kit, thanks to Dylan, she’d been prepared for the fact that her mother was dead. But it didn’t make hearing the words out of her father’s own mouth any less horrendous. Validation after all these years seemed rather pointless, anti-climactic even.
As if he understood, it was Dylan who carefully framed his words. “Where are they, William? What did Alana and Jessica do with the bodies?”
“I…I…I’m not sure exactly, buried them…somewhere.”
Dylan knew he was lying. His disgust came out in his tone. “William, you were married to the woman; she was the mother of your only child and you didn’t bother to find out what those women did with Sarah’s body? I’m not buying it.”
“Don’t judge me. I…I…I was weak. I know that. I let Alana and Jessica get away with murder. They were evil. I didn’t want any harm to come to Baylee. Don’t you understand that?”
H
e turned his head to look at Baylee. “That’s why I never trusted her whenever you went down to Kit’s. Within the year, we stopped seeing each other. It was over, done. I stayed away from her; she stayed away from me. That was the deal.”
All of a sudden fury ran through Baylee like a blazing, out-of-control wildfire. “My God, all this and you could have just gotten a divorce. You bastard. I found her journals. She hid them away. She tried to make the marriage work from day one, but you never did. Her journals paint a very disgusting picture of what she endured during her marriage. You didn’t deserve her. You didn’t even want me.”
William’s eyes went wide with shock. Rasping he explained, “That was a gut reaction. After you…were born, after…I held you for the first time…I changed.”
“Obviously, you didn’t change…at all…you continued seeing that evil bitch the entire time you were married. She and Jessica killed my mother. I hope it was worth it, Daddy. I hope every time you fucked her it was worth my mother’s life.” With that, Baylee turned and flew out of the room, away from William’s bedside.
But Dylan stayed rooted to the spot, boring holes through the man until finally William felt his stare and reluctantly looked away. But Dylan was determined. He took William’s face and turned it back to force the man to look at him. Certain Dylan had his attention, he leaned in, and whispered, “Where are the bodies, William? What did Alana and Jessica do with Sarah and Luc?”
Dylan saw William swallow hard before the man started to sob again. But Dylan refused to be moved by the man’s display of emotion. He thought of Baylee. Another wave of disgust hit him. Making sure his tone was more forceful this time, Dylan met the old man’s eyes. “It’s just the two of us here now, William. Tell me where they buried the bodies.”
Dylan went in search of Baylee. There was no doubt in his mind it would fall to him to tell her what he’d learned from William. He needed to make a couple of calls first, one to Reese to make sure they had the legal aspects covered, and then he’d have to make the necessary calls to the authorities, make them aware of the situation. If that meant a phone call to Max St. John or to Dan Holloway, then maybe he’d have Reese take care of that chore as well.
What arrangements did one make in order to begin the process of digging up bodies buried on the sprawling grounds of a private residence in Malibu? How many acres did the Boyd compound cover anyway? Would they be able to rely on William’s description of where the bodies of Sarah Moreland and Luc Delaine had ended up? No, they’d probably use cadaver dogs for that job, thought Dylan, as he added another call to his mental checklist.
Dylan shook his head thinking about his conversation with William. He’d practically had to force the old man into spilling what he knew. As he walked toward the waiting room, hoping Baylee had sought out Tanya for comfort there and hadn’t gone farther, he realized it was a shame William couldn’t have been a little bit more specific. But so help him God, Dylan knew one thing, if it took days or weeks or months, he would not rest until he found the remains of Baylee’s mother. Sarah Moreland deserved a proper burial. Luc, too, for that matter. But more than that, Baylee deserved to find her mother, to know where she was once and for all, and if possible, put all of this behind her so they could move forward to a future together.
When Dylan spotted Baylee wrapped up in Tanya’s embrace in the waiting room, he breathed a sigh of relief. Approaching the two of them with caution, he waited for a sign that it was okay to intrude upon their moment. He didn’t have to wait long. The second Baylee spotted him, she all but melted into his arms.
“When do you think they did it, Dylan? When did it happen?”
But Tanya didn’t give him a chance to answer. Tired to the bone, she spoke up and said, “May, Mother’s Day. It was a Sunday. I had that day off. That’s when she disappeared, Baylee.”
Dylan held out his arms to take Sarah, and she grabbed on to his shirt. “Karen said the last time she talked to your mother it was Mother’s Day. So, I’m thinking it was sometime after she put you to bed that night.”
“I came to work the next morning at seven. You were distraught, upset. You thought you’d had a bad dream. You told me someone pushed your mama down the stairs. Child, I thought you’d had a bad dream. I swear I did.”
“My God, Tanya. Did you know? Did you know then what they’d done and didn’t say anything either?”
“How could you think that? Of course not. I suspected something bad had happened, yes, that’s true. Because I knew your mama. I knew she wouldn’t have just up and run off like they said she did. But I didn’t know what exactly had happened. I knew William had affairs. And I knew that Alana was one of the women he wouldn’t stop seeing because that woman called the house night and day sometimes. And I suspected Jessica Boyd was another one he saw frequently. But I didn’t have proof about anything, just my suspicions. I never thought your mama left with that Luc fellow. Not in a million years.
“For years I listened to that man rant and go on about what ‘those two women’ did to his Sarah. But it was always during times he’d been drowning himself in a bottle or two of whiskey. Then he’d get the shakes, pass out, and then the next day when I’d ask him about what he’d said, he’d claim he didn’t remember a thing about his ranting and raving. But I knew your father acted guilty about something. I just didn’t know what it was.
“But there’s something I want you to keep in mind about that night, the night those two women hurt your mother. They left a three-year-old child alone in that house all night long by herself. Those two women didn’t have the maternal instincts of an alley cat between them, if you ask me.”
Disgusted, Baylee stared at Tanya. “You got there that morning. I’d been hiding under the bed. And together we went looking for her all over the house. We searched the entire grounds for hours and hours. I remember how I cried and cried. Oh, Tanya. What kind of evil would make those two women kill her like that? They took my mother from me. And my father helped them lie about it.”
“I wasn’t sure what happened between your father and Alana. But I do know she stopped calling about six months after. That would have been around Christmastime. Your father’s drinking got worse then, Baylee. During those days he never brought women home with him, but he stayed away for weeks at a time, like he didn’t want to be in that house.
“I would have quit, Baylee-girl, if not for you. But I just couldn’t leave my baby for William to raise when I knew all the man would do is hire some stranger in off the street to take care of you. I couldn’t do that.”
Tanya broke down then and Baylee went to her, wrapped her up.
Dylan simply let them cry it out because he’d never seen a situation as sad as this one. And when she was ready, he made sure he held on to Baylee as if his life depended on it.
Because he was beginning to think it did.
Getting Reese involved was the best idea he’d had in days. Reese handled all the calls, all the details so that by noon the wheels were already in motion. While Dylan and Jake waited outside William’s room in the hallway Reese was inside with Max St. John and Dan Holloway taking the old guy’s statement. It was no surprise that William had hired Reese, especially since Tanya had mentioned he’d fired Taylor Geller.
When the door finally opened and Reese emerged with the two detectives, Reese motioned for his friends to follow them down the hall to the waiting room.
“I’m pretty sure you have enough to get a search warrant,” Reese said to Max.
Max nodded in agreement. “I’ll make the call to the DA. Getting a court order from a judge is the next step.”
“Lots of luck with that. You’ll have to find a judge that isn’t in their back pocket.”
“Cynicism there, Mr. Brennan?”
“Maybe. But I’ve been up against them in court; I know what they’re capable of. Where are you in the rest of this?”
Max bristled at the implication. “I’m doing my job, counselor. You let me take care of it. I�
�ll work on finding a judge if I have to go through a dozen to do it. If I can get the court order today, I’ll have the cadaver dogs in there first thing in the morning to search all sixty-five acres.”
“So William couldn’t be more specific than that?” Dylan asked.
Max shook his head. “No. And there’s the problem. He thinks Jessica told him the bodies were either buried next to the reflecting pool near the main cabana, or where the old pool house used to be. He isn’t exactly sure. To make matters worse, he claims he hasn’t been on the property for over twenty years. His memory isn’t all that good.”
“Do you think he’s lying?” Jake asked. “Trying to cover up his part in all of this?”
“That’s something that will have to be determined, to be checked out. Later. He’s agreed to talk to us again tomorrow. We’re taking advantage of that before…”
“If he’s able you mean. Do you think he has that long?” Reese asked. “The man looks like he’s on his last leg.”
Dan chimed in, “We’ll see. I’m headed now to talk to his doctors.”
“There’s always a chance that Jessica could have been lying about where they buried the bodies in the first place,” Dylan pointed out. He gave Reese and Jake a tight look. “Why do I get the feeling Jessica and Alana were probably lying to him?”
“From what I’ve discovered about the two women, I’d say that’s very likely,” Max agreed. “But we’ll start in the direction he gave us and spread out from there.”
Holloway threw in, “It really doesn’t matter if they were lying. We’ll know soon enough when the dogs go over every inch of the place. There are no less than seven main houses and four guest bungalows near the cliffs. We’ll leave no stone unturned.”
And Max added, “I hope you know this is going to take some time. Don’t expect miracles, people. This process is slow. Don’t expect answers any time soon. It’s a very large estate, a lot of ground to cover.”
Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2) Page 34
