“Shit, that’s Remy,” Evan said. “Oh, God. After what he’s been through, what’s happened…”
“He couldn’t tell us what happened to him. Totally nonresponsive. His friend tried to fill in some blanks, but…”
“Remy is on the autism spectrum. When he has a meltdown, he gets that way. I can only imagine what happened while he was being held against his will. Was…was Sam helpful?”
“As much as he could be. Some things, like the large bruises on his friend’s arms, he couldn’t explain.”
“Sam couldn’t see Remy’s bastard uncle trying to drag him bodily out of that place. Or those men literally fighting over the poor kid.” The angular face grew thoughtful. “What did he mean by ‘his inheritance’?”
The doctor shrugged. “I have no idea. I…” The swirl of red hair caught her eye, and she turned to see a young woman running down the hall, not bothering to stop at the nurse’s station. “Evan!” the newcomer cried, halting only when she saw the doctor move to one side. “Oh, my God, Evan!”
Evan’s head sunk. He wouldn’t look at his visitor. “It’s…it’s…” His words melted into a barrage of sobs, and the woman pulled him into a giant hug. “It’s Josh,” he managed to eke out. “Rachel, I…”
Rachel stepped back, her face stricken. “No,” she breathed. “No!”
“Babe, it’s all my fault.”
“NO!” Red hair whirled as a porcelain face exploded into tears. “Oh, God, no!”
A soft knock permeated the sounds of grief. “Evan?” the tall young man asked, his clouded eyes reflecting the bright light badly. “Miss Rachel?”
“Sam,” Rachel half-choked, pulling the skinny youth into a giant hug. Green eyes scanned his figure closely. “You’re…you’re okay?”
“Sore, but okay. What’s wrong? Remy’s having one of his spells, and you’re both crying.”
Rachel sniffled. She locked eyes with Evan for a moment, but he soon turned away. The doctor saw shame flood his face.
“Miss Rachel? Why are you crying?”
“It’s…it…”
“It’s Josh, Sam,” Evan said gruffly, his own emotions evident. “He…he’s…”
A look of understanding dawned on Sam’s face. “Oh,” he said, very quietly, and then began reaching for something. He made a small noise, and then turned toward his left where a hard plastic chair sat unused. Sam pulled it toward him and sat, curling into a ball. “Oh, no.”
“Sam, Josh…he saved your life,” Evan said brokenly as new tears glistened down his cheeks. “He jumped in front of the bullet…he’s what knocked you down, before…”
More realization dawned on the youth. “The weight,” he whispered. “It was…?”
“Yeah, Sam.” A sob crept out of Evan’s throat. “It was so fast…my hands were tied, behind me…I couldn’t…I…”
The doctor watched as her patient and his companions mourned. “I’ll leave you alone,” she said, taking care to close the door behind her. She saw her nonresponsive patient—Remy, Mr. Dyer had called him—being wheeled into the room, and her heart broke.
Chapter 41
A knock on the front door broke Rachel out of her brooding trance. The house had grown quiet in the week since her tenants were found, and now the short rap against weather-beaten wood sounded like thunder. She opened it to find Penny Long standing on the front porch.
“Penny,” the young woman said, a lump forming in her throat. A deep breath caught in her lungs. “What can I do for you?”
“I came for…for Josh’s things.” Tears were pricking in the corners of the older woman’s eyes. “It’s been so hectic…”
Long red hair wobbled as Rachel nodded. “I understand.” She stepped back and allowed the grieving mother into her front hall. Penny hung her thick white coat on the hook where Josh’s beloved blue parka had hung, and the image made Rachel weep. “I…I could have brought them by, but…”
A hand showing its age rested on Rachel’s shoulder. “I don’t blame you, Rachel.”
“If Josh hadn’t been here…”
Penny shook her head. “His room?”
“Oh. Yes. This way.” Rachel led Penny up the stairs, taking care to stay quiet as she passed the rooms of her other tenants. As they passed Remy’s room, the sounds of popular music spilled forth from the slight crack between the movable barrier and the floor. Sam’s room was open, and a wandering eye saw the young man staring into space with eyes that saw no color or shape.
“How have they been?” Penny asked.
Rachel shrugged. “Sam’s taking it hard. I think he blames himself for being in the way when the…when it happened. I think a part of him wonders why Josh did it.”
“And Remy?”
“We haven’t gotten anything out of him. On Tuesday we found him in Josh’s room, looking at the photos, and the music you heard just now is from Josh’s CD collection.” Rachel frowned sadly. “He’s moving around, but he’s not talking. I can barely get him to eat.”
Penny stepped inside the small room her son had rented. Rachel followed, noticing the scores of photographs hanging from one pale blue wall in neat frames. A single bed lay just as it had been left, half made. Aside from a couple of missing CDs, the space was in the same state it had been left in by its former inhabitant, everything neatly ordered and in its place. The older woman sat down on the bed, brushing a hand against the exposed fitted sheet. It was a dark green, and made of soft flannel. She looked up near the window to find a large poster-sized photograph hanging to the left of the glassed opening. It was the photo Josh had gotten for Christmas, the one showing Remy, Sam, and Josh sitting on the porch in various states of laughter.
“Josh loved that photo,” Rachel said quietly. “We have a smaller version in our living room.” Tears were running down the grieving mother’s face, and the young woman turned to leave her to her thoughts.
“Please, stay,” Penny said, her voice choked with sadness.
“I… I can’t imagine…”
“He was my son, our little boy, even with all his shortcomings.” The words came out as broken gulps. Rachel cautiously sat down next to the woman and put an arm around her, feeling like an inadequate comfort for her pains. “It broke my heart, to send him away…”
“I…I…”
“…but he loved living here.” A smile washed across a tear-stained face. “What we said that night was true. He loved living here. He loved you and Evan. He was convinced he had real brothers in Remy and Sam. I was losing him, but he was gaining his independence. Thank you.”
At Penny’s last statement Rachel couldn’t hold back her own grief. “I’m…so sorry. You sent him here to learn how to live. And now look…”
“Those other people—Lavelle, the Masons and that man Spaulding—they were responsible for my son’s death. Not you. Not the boys. And not Evan.” Penny faced her host. “Where is Evan, Rachel?”
Green eyes stared nervously at the silver band that still sat on Rachel’s finger. “Evan left three days ago. I think he headed up north somewhere to clear his head.”
“He’s…he’s not leaving?”
Rachel shrugged. “I know Eric Ingham came in just before he left and got in the truck. I believe his exact words were, ‘Where we going, Evan? ’Cause I know you weren’t thinking of going alone.’ Next thing I knew Evan got in the truck too and they left.” She blinked away a tear. “He blames himself. ‘Too many secrets,’ he said. ‘Too many secrets caused this.’”
“They didn’t help, certainly. But Josh didn’t die because of secrets. He died because he loved too well.”
“Come again?”
Penny stood up and walked down the hall toward Sam’s room. She entered silently, but the blind man turned at the sound of her feet against the area rug on wooden floorboards. “Sam?”
“Mrs. Long?”
“It’s all right, Sam. You can call me Penny.”
A long face nodded. “Penny.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.�
��
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is.” Sam swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple sticking a little. “They…they were going to shoot me. I heard the gun click. Josh…” A breath rasped, and then another. “Why, Mrs. Long? Why did he do that? Didn’t he realize…?”
Penny placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and the young man accepted the touch. “Josh loved you, Sam. That was why. We’ll never know for sure,” she added, her own throat swelling with tears, “but if I had to guess, that was why. He didn’t want to see you hurt.”
“But…he saw what was happening. Didn’t he realize…didn’t he realize he was going to…?”
The weathered hand patted the thin shoulder. “We’ll never know. But I know, or at least I’m pretty sure, that he did. And he didn’t care.” The tears were flowing now, soaking the front of the older woman’s pale yellow shirt. “He loved you. And Remy. I think he would have done it regardless.”
“It’s still my fault. I should have…I should have ducked, or…or tried to get away, or…” Sam’s face was wet, and his words were coming out in heaving gulps.
“You didn’t put him in that place, Sam. You didn’t pull the trigger. You didn’t make that decision. Those men are going to pay for that, but in the end Josh is still gone. What I do know is, he loved you. And he would have done it for Remy,” she said between sobs. “Or Evan. Josh had his faults, but he did know how to do one thing well: he knew how to love.”
Rachel stood just outside the door, listening to every word. She slid downward until she met the floor, curling into a ball as she quietly cried.
“I’m…I’m still sorry, Mrs. Long. I…I liked Josh. Even if he got on my nerves sometimes.” He smiled a half smile. “I miss him.”
“Me too.” The woman struggled to compose herself. “I was coming for Josh’s things,” she explained. “I thought you and Rachel could help me go through them.”
Sam shrugged. “I know Remy took some CDs. He’s been playing them almost nonstop.”
“Do…do you think he’d like them? Something to remember Josh?”
“I guess. Maybe we should…”
Penny got up and walked across the hall, tapping at the closed door. “Remy? Remy, it’s Penny Long, Josh’s mom? Can I come in?”
Rachel watched as the older woman carefully turned the doorknob. The door opened and she entered, closing it but for a crack. The past week Remy had kept the entrance locked. The sound of voices carried just underneath the sound of the music that had emanated from the room, and it was hard to make out what was being said. Heaving a deep breath, Rachel struggled to her feet and crept toward the cracked door.
“…my fault. If the…the bastard…”
Remy’s talking, she thought. He hasn’t put together full sentences since he’s been back.
“You aren’t to blame, Remy. That wretched uncle of yours, and his friends, and that other fellow—they are the ones who killed Josh.” Rachel heard a sound, half chuckle, half sob, leave Penny’s lips. “The people Josh loved think they’re to blame for his death, and those responsible are claiming they had nothing to do with it. Will wonders never cease?”
The pair talked a little more, but Rachel’s mind was elsewhere. Oh, Evan, she thought. If you could hear this.
Chapter 42
“Give me the axe.”
Eric heard a sigh snort out of his friend’s nose. “Eric, I’m not that unhinged. I think I’m capable of chopping wood without taking off my own leg.”
“Chopping wood? Yeah, that you can do. Remarkably well, given the hours you’ve been at it.” Evan’s friend gazed around at the dozens of neat piles of firewood stacked all around the old cabin. “But I think it’s time you took a rest.”
Evan shook his head violently. “No.”
Eric sighed. “You need to stop, Evan.”
A short bark escaped the man’s throat. “Evan,” he said. “That’s me. Or is it? I mean, next week I could decide to be Harold or Harvey or Jehosephat. Doesn’t really matter, does it?” He lowered the axe head to the ground, leaning against the long wooden handle like a cane. The metal head was buried in an inch of new snow. “Same shit is gonna follow me, always.”
It was days like this that Eric was grateful he’d gone into counseling as a profession. “Normally, I’d tell my clients that they are a sum of what their experiences are, but you already know that.”
Thin hands grabbed another log and put it on the worn stump that doubled as a chopping block. “You’d also tell me to work out some of my aggression.” The axe head swung, burying itself into the heart of the log. “I close my eyes, and imagine I’m taking a swing at Dayton, or Cooper, or those other assholes.” Evan raised the axe and wood together and swung the implement against the hardwood stump, finishing the log into two pieces.
“It’s a start. But Evan…” Eric shivered in the still cold of the afternoon. “You can’t just hide out here forever.”
The axe dropped to the snowy ground. “Why not? I could become a hermit. Stay here, keep things running, maybe garden a little.”
“Running from the problem doesn’t solve it.”
“Don’t you think I know that?!” the native Carolinian shouted, his lightly accented voice carrying through the thick stand of willows and pines. “Don’t you think I know that everything that happened, absolutely everything, was because of a colossally stupid mistake on my part?”
“Everything, huh?” Eric dusted off a battered deck chair and sat, ignoring the wet seeping into his trousers. “So, you chose to terrorize those kids. You chose to use them as bait, and then as what I can only assume to be collateral in a twisted vendetta. You picked up the gun and fired those shots.”
“I might as well have.” Eric looked up and saw his friend staring at a giant white pine tree, standing so close the needles brushed against his face. “Josh, he…he wanted a prickly tree.”
“Huh?”
“At Christmas. I took Remy and Josh to get the tree. Josh, he…he picked out this ten foot tall fir tree, all hard and prickly. He…” Eric heard the emotion fighting to escape Evan’s throat. “He liked it because it was tall.”
“So, you got the tree?”
“No. Remy picked out a white pine, like this one.” Evan reached out and held one of the pine boughs hanging near his face. “He liked it because the needles were soft. Sam wouldn’t get hurt if he ran into it.” He laughed, a strangled laugh. “They fought over it. Remy won out.”
“I’m not following.”
“Josh was a pain in the ass sometimes—well, a lot---but he was simple. He didn’t care about all the other stuff. He wanted his tree because it was tall.” Evan paused. “And he…he could say he picked it out. The rest didn’t matter.”
“That sounds like what I know of Josh.”
“Eric, he had no idea why all of that crap was happening to them. None. Not a clue whatsoever. But when I…when I got dragged in there, I saw this little look on his face. Like, he knew things were gonna be all right, because I was there.” Evan’s head sunk. “And look what happened.”
Eric let his friend stare at the tree in silence a moment. “What happened?”
“Bastard Dayton tells Cooper Lavelle he’s through with the kids, and Lavelle starts dragging Remy with him like he was some prize turkey. Remy says he’s not going anywhere—a first for him, considering what usually happens when Cooper shows up.” Evan turned. “Then Cooper tells his lackeys to shoot one of the others—Sam or Josh, it didn’t matter.” The words grew thick. “It all happened so fast. I could see that fat asshole smirking as he raised his arm to shoot Sam. The funny thing is, I think Josh saw it too. Next thing I knew, Josh kicks the guy holding him, wriggles free, and leaps on top of Sam just as the shot is fired.” The thin man leaned against the chopping block, resting against it as a makeshift seat. “What the hell was he thinking?”
Eric shrugged. “It sounds like he was trying to save his friend.”
“And, as usual, he
didn’t think it through.” Evan shook his head. “In the end, it’s still my fault. I should have gotten my ass up off the floor, or told him to stay still, or…”
“And then we’d be mourning Sam, or you, or both. How is that any better, Evan?”
Evan went on as if he hadn’t heard. “Seconds. Literally, it was seconds. And then he laid there, dead…o-on top o-of Sam…” He turned away. “L-later, Sam kept asking what was on top of him. I…I didn’t…I didn’t know h-how to tell h-him that i-it was Josh, or wh-what was l-left of h-him…” The tears came, and Evan let them fall.
“Evan, there wasn’t anything you could have done. Not without getting yourself or Sam killed. You didn’t pull the trigger.”
A few deep breaths echoed into the chilled air, and Evan wrapped the paint-splattered arms of his overcoat tightly around his torso, more to calm himself than to keep warm. “I might as well have, Eric,” he cried, straining to compose himself. “He was looking for me.”
“Who was?”
“Dayton, that selfish, self-centered asshole!” A worn black leather boot kicked out at the chopping block. “Ow.” Evan held his foot and sat on top of the abused stump. “Most people like him, you’d think they’d try to get back to whatever it was they were doing before they went in, but not him. No. He wants to play cat-and-mouse.” The sound of the cold breeze wafting through the thick stands of trees surrounded both men. “Did you know he was watching us, for weeks?”
“How do you know?”
“He told me. Crowed about it when I went to the house to meet him. Said he’d been watching since before the holidays.” Eric saw his friend shiver visibly, and while it wasn’t particularly warm for an early February day, it wasn’t that cold outside. “I just keep thinking, it could have been Rachel. He could have thought she was…”
“But he didn’t. He took the kids.” Eric sighed. “I’m a counselor, not a psychoanalyst. That said, it seems obvious to me he knew exactly where to strike.” He stepped closer to his friend, who was struggling to keep it together. “You love them. All of them.”
In the House On Lakeside Drive Page 20
