by Julia Derek
“Sometimes.” He shrugged noncommittally.
“You know that that’s their job, don’t you? To ask a lot of questions, some of which might make the patient uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I know.” Shane shoved food onto his fork with the help of his knife. “But it’s not their job to get mixed up in stuff that’s really not their business.” He stuck the fork into his mouth at the same time as he held my gaze, daring me to challenge his statement.
“Why do you bring this up, Shane? Did this happen to you?”
As usual, he swallowed after only having chewed his food a few times. “Yes. But I took care of it, so no harm was done.” He gave a pleasant smile.
It was suddenly hard for me to breathe, my throat got so constricted. Something about this was not right, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. All I knew was that it was bothering me very much.
I licked my lips, then cleared my throat. “You took care of it. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That everything will be fine in the end. No one will get in trouble.”
I put down my own silverware, pushed my plate away, and placed my elbows on the table. “Please tell me exactly what you’re referring to, Shane.”
He smiled at me. “Don’t worry so much, Mom. I was only speaking in general terms. Can I be excused? I’m sorta tired. I wanna go lie down. I don’t have room for more dessert.” We had eaten double ice cream sundaes at McDonalds earlier, but I had also baked a cake for dinner. Shane loved sweet stuff and today I would allow him to eat as much of it as he wanted. “We can eat it tomorrow.”
I fixed him with my gaze, debating whether I should press him on what he’d said, demand more specifics. But I was suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion. It had been a long day and I wasn’t in the mood to discuss this any further. I was probably just overreacting like I so often did when it came to Shane and his sometime curious statements.
So I patted his arm and said, “Sure, honey. Go lie down and get some rest. Then we’ll watch a movie together. Your pick.”
20
I didn’t sleep well at all that night. I had strange dreams in which Peter visited me. He was telling me to stay strong for Shane, never to forget that it wasn’t Shane’s fault he was born with psychopathic tendencies. Nor was it our son’s fault that his uncle had sexually abused him, potentially unleashed dark forces within him. I needed to do everything in my power to ensure those forces never surfaced, quell the ones that had. Reverse them. Destroy and replace them with positive ones.
When I woke up in the morning, by myself several minutes before the alarm went off at seven, I was sweaty and shivering, I was so cold. Was I coming down with something? That would be annoying, as I really didn’t have time to be sick. I was behind in the editing and had already been given a warning by my boss that I had to do a better job meeting my deadlines. I placed a hand on my forehead to gauge if it was hot. It wasn’t, instead it felt cool and clammy.
Stretching my limbs in bed, I checked if my joints hurt or were sore. They weren’t. I swallowed and my throat didn’t hurt, either. Except for my left leg, which knee was still stiff in the mornings, nothing felt wrong with me. That knee felt especially stiff when it was rainy and very chilly outside like lately, atypical fall weather for this part of the country. Yes, I was fine.
I relaxed and allowed myself a moment to stare up into the ceiling while pondering my dreams. If nothing else they were timely, because, as I had gone to bed last night, thoughts of what Shane had brought up at dinner had continued to float around in my head. The more I considered what he’d said, the worse I’d felt. I couldn’t shake the sensation that Shane was hiding something from me. What I had no idea, but he was up to something and I didn’t like it.
Well, he is a teenager now, Jennifer, I reminded myself. Teenagers are by definition unpredictable and full of mischief. Very smart ones like my son would surely turn out to be more than a handful. Yes, I sighed. It’d be a rough few years, but somehow we’d get through them together. We’d just take one day at a time. I only wished that Peter was with us still to help me deal with what was to come. It would have been so much easier, and I wouldn’t have felt so lonely, not to mention stressed out at times. I missed him so.
I pushed myself out of bed before feelings of sadness took over, making me stay where I was and feel sorry for myself and how my life had ended up. I had to stay strong for Shane. Take care of him properly.
An hour later, he and I had had breakfast and he had gone off to school. I was seated at my desk in the home study, getting ready to read one of the manuscripts I had been sent and was overdue.
Another hour went by and I had only gotten to the sixth page. At that rate, I’d finish the book in a month instead of in four days, which was my usual pace. Not acceptable, especially not this week. I should be working twice as fast.
Even so, I decided that I could no longer put off what I had secretly wanted to do since I took a seat at the desk that morning and placed my cell phone next to the laptop. I reached for the cell and found Detective Morales’s number somewhere in the call log. Calling it, I placed the phone to my ear.
He answered on the second ring. “Ivan Morales.”
“Good morning, Detective, this is Jennifer Hanson. We spoke about a week ago in regard to Dr. Wilkins’s murder. I was one of his patients.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. How are you, Ms. Hanson?”
“I’m well, thank you. I was just calling to see how the investigation was going. Did you arrest anyone yet?”
“Unfortunately not. As a matter of fact, we’re struggling to come up with good leads. It’s not good. Do you have any for me?” He sounded like he expected I did.
“Um, no, I don’t think so. I just can’t stop thinking about how sad it is that he’s gone, and in such a brutal manner. He didn’t deserve to go that way. He was such a nice man. Such a good therapist. I miss him so. I think I mentioned that I had a session with him shortly before he was murdered?”
“Yes, you did mention that.” He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to answer this, Ms. Hanson, but if I may, why did you see Dr. Wilkins? What was your issue?”
“I...I was having some difficulties with my son. He’s been a handful lately.” The images of dead Alice in my son’s phone flashed through my mind, making my stomach twist with discomfort. I wasn’t about to bring up those to this detective. Part of me knew that I probably should, but another bigger part, knew that might get Shane in trouble. The last thing I wanted was for the authorities to take a closer look at my son, figure out what was going on with his brain, never mind all the trauma he’d been through in his formative years. The fact that he had shot his own father.
“So you went to see Dr. Wilkins to discuss your son then?” the detective asked.
“No, not exactly. More how to deal with my son.” I closed my eyes and cursed myself. I could tell that Detective Morales had perked up considerably, liking the way this conversation was going, and that he wasn’t about to let up anytime soon. What had I been thinking when I had called him this afternoon? I should have known this was how it would end up. At the very least, I should have hung up the second I found out they were still lacking leads and just thanked him for the update. I had craved an update.
“Tell me about your son, Ms. Hanson. How old is he?”
“Um, twelve. No, wait, he turned thirteen yesterday as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, a young teen then. What kind of problems are you having with him?”
“He, ah, he just does reckless stuff sometimes and I’m a widow, so I find it hard to deal with him sometimes. That’s all. Nothing that serious really.”
“I see. I have a meeting I have to attend to in a couple of minutes, so I’m afraid I have to get going. If you have anything else you want to talk about, you’re welcome to give me a call later. I’ll be available then.”
“Oh, of course. Thanks, I think I’m good. I just wanted to see how the investiga
tion was going. I’m so sorry you don’t have any leads and that I haven’t been able to give you any, either.”
“No worries. Goodbye, Ms. Hanson.”
“Goodbye.”
As soon as I had disconnected the call, I stuck my fist into my mouth and bit hard into the knuckles. Oh God, I was such a fucking idiot. What the hell was I doing, calling this detective over and over with questions about Wilkins’s murder? Why had it been so damned important for me to find out the status of the investigation? If he didn’t think so before, Detective Morales surely suspected now that I had something to do with the murder. I or, worse, Shane.
If he was a halfway decent detective, he would look into who I was and who my son was. He had my name and phone number, so that should be a piece of cake. And when he took a closer look at our history, he would find out that not only had my husband been shot to death, but the shooter had been our only child. It had been all over the news for over a week around the time it had happened, the media and gun control lobbyists making the most of it. Detective Morales had likely read and/or heard about it and would instantly remember details of the case. The fact that my son’s name hadn’t been mentioned due to him being a minor didn’t matter; Detective Morales no doubt had access to the police reports filed in the case. Combine that with the fact that I had just handed him fresh information regarding how hard it was for me to deal with my son—so hard I needed the advice and assistance of a shrink—he would be stupid not to consider me or Shane for Dr. Wilkins’s murder. He was in desperate need for leads, so even a farfetched lead such as this one would do. Because it had to be farfetched, right? I couldn’t imagine that anything at the crime scene suggested that a kid had killed Dr. Wilkins.
I highly doubted Morales had a meeting he had to go to. No, it had surely been an excuse so that he could get to the bottom of who this crazy woman with the difficult son was as quickly as possible.
I wanted to pace the room to release all the nervous energy building inside me, but it would be too hard with the cane I had recently graduated to. I contented myself with drumming my fingers on the desk. Damn it. What the hell should I do? If he wanted to, Detective Morales would be able to get access to Dr. Wilkins’s notes for our last session. He could subpoena them through a judge. I didn’t know if Wilkins kept detailed notes of his sessions, all I knew was that he liked to jot down basic stuff on his yellow legal pad during our conversations. This meant the detective would be able to figure out that I had worried about my son having killed yet another person. First his father, then Alice Tate. All that was needed to arrive at that conclusion was for there to be a note that said something along the lines of “pics of dead girl in son’s phone”. I doubted I would be able to keep it together was I forced to talk more about those pics; for sure the police would question me about them.
I didn’t want the detective to talk to Shane either. He didn’t need the trauma of police interrogating him about murder. Who knew how insensitive they’d be with him, even with me being present? He was just a boy and had been traumatized enough in his life. What if an interrogation would push him over the edge and be the straw that broke the camel’s back? Worse, what if Shane said something that incriminated him? I wouldn’t be able to control everything he said or did during the interrogation. We didn’t have the money to hire a great lawyer to be present, so it could very well happen. Then Shane might get arrested and placed in a cell overnight with hardcore criminals. I was pretty sure he’d get treated as an adult due to the seriousness of the crime even though he was only 13. Staying the night in a prison cell full of crooks would be very bad for him. Did I really want to risk that happening? No, I didn’t.
I ran a hand through my hair. What the hell should I do? I needed to make sure the cop didn’t get a chance to talk to Shane or me in depth. But how would I do that? The only way would be for us to be physically unavailable. Hide somewhere. Run away. But if we did that, wasn’t that the same as admitting guilt? If I were in the detective’s shoes, I would think so.
Well, maybe I could call Detective Morales from wherever we were and plead with him, explain to him why I needed to protect my son from additional trauma in his life. Explain to him that we were both innocent, that he was wasting his time focusing on us. I couldn’t risk putting Shane through more trauma. He was barely hanging on as it was. He needed space to heal. Shane needed lots of love, positivity, and a structured environment to heal. Or I could tell the detective all that in a letter. Yes, a letter was better. I’d explain everything to Detective Morales in a letter.
We’ll run away then, Shane and I. How much time did we have before the police showed up at our door and demanded to speak to me and Shane? I thought that we had at least another day. Detective Morales had no reason to believe I would be hard to get a hold of given that I had called him twice and freely offered information about myself and Shane. What normal person who’d done something bad—or had knowledge of someone else’s bad behavior—would do that? No one. That meant that I didn’t have to rush to Shane’s school and pull him out and take him with me somewhere. I could wait until he came home later.
I sighed heavily. Where should we go, though? Upstate, to my parents’ country house perhaps? No, that wasn’t good. Too many people knew us there. My parents and friends would likely cave under pressure and reveal potential hiding spots such as the country house.
We had to go somewhere no one could easily figure out. And once we were there, I would contact Detective Morales and explain why I had felt I’d had no choice but to run away. It really was the only way I could protect my son from more harm.
He didn’t deserve to experience more than he already had.
21
When Shane came home several hours later, I had already written the letter to Detective Morales in which I had thoroughly explained why I was taking Shane away. Why I saw no other choice. I would leave it with my mom and have her give it to him in person. If I mailed it to the police station, it might get lost and I didn’t feel like wasting more time digging up his home address. I had already tried and couldn’t find it. The NYPD had likely made it hard to find on purpose.
“Hi Mom, what are you doing?” my son asked, sticking his head into the home office.
I signed the letter and looked up. “I’m just writing a document, honey. How was school?”
He shrugged lightly. “Boring.”
I don’t know what it was, but as I was about to tell Shane what I had planned to say, that we were taking a trip somewhere, something made me pause. No matter how much I tried, my tongue refused to form the words. Maybe I was acting crazy here. Was it really the right thing to do to run away with Shane? It would never work, would it? Wouldn’t I just make everything worse for him? Being on the run wasn’t exactly the structured, stable environment he needed to develop into a good person. And I still hadn’t figured out where we would go. Where the hell would we go? And how long would we be gone? I couldn’t just count on the police finding the killer in the next week or so. What if they didn’t find him or her? That meant we would have to be on the run forever, and that was definitely not a good option.
What if Detective Morales was a crappy investigator? In that case, he wouldn’t put two and two together like I’d feared. That was just as likely, wasn’t it? Okay, fine, maybe not. I’d heard somewhere that the NYPD was a very good police force. They knew their stuff. Still, when—if— the detective did show up at our house, I could always act super cooperative and tell him I’d prefer to bring Shane to the station and talk there. But instead of going down there, we would escape. We didn’t have to take off before he approached us. It must take a while to get a subpoena for Dr. Wilkins’s notes, weeks maybe. Court orders and such didn’t move nearly as quickly in real life as they did on TV. That meant Morales would hardly show up here tomorrow if he did decide to come, and he could definitely not demand anything of us without a subpoena. Besides, it was likely that he’d find the real killer before the subpoena was ready anyw
ay. If he could even get a subpoena. Maybe it wasn’t as easy as I’d assumed.
I chuckled to myself. What had I been thinking? Not only did Shane and I have way more time than I had originally assumed, but we might not have to disappear at all.
Shane cocked his head to the side. “Mom? Are you all right?”
I made myself smile at him. “Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. I was just thinking of something in the book I’m editing. It’s very compelling and I’m having a hard time editing that portion.”
“Oh. Do you want me to help you?” He grinned at me. “Maybe I can figure it out. It’s a thriller, right? I love thrillers.”
I couldn’t help but smile wider. My son was definitely not a full-blown psychopath. What psychopath instinctively offered to help when someone was struggling?
I reached out and caressed his cheek. “No, honey. It’s okay. I’ll figure it out eventually. Thanks, though. I really appreciate the thought.”
I put away the letter I had written in a drawer and got to my feet. “You must be hungry. Let’s go make something to eat. Or how about we just order pizza?” Shane loved pizza.
He brightened. “Yay, pizza! Let’s order pizza!”
I realized I needed to use the bathroom. “Why don’t you call the usual place and order two pizzas? I have to go to the bathroom. You have the number in your phone, right? They should have my credit card on file.”
“Yeah. What kind do you want?”
“A small, thin-crust with pepperoni and mushrooms. What else?” I winked at him. I didn’t think I had ever ordered another type of pizza but that one from Pizza Hut, our preferred pizza baker. It was my favorite.
“Okay. I’ll order it right now.”
As Shane started dialing, I made my way out of the study and headed toward the bathroom at the other side of the hallway. I felt like I had made the right decision. It really was extremely unlikely that Detective Morales would come to our house in the next 24 hours and demand we talk to him. He probably would contact us, but it would take a few days at least. Several days.
