Tangled Blood Lines

by Deborah Noel

  My camera fell from my hands. I couldn’t move to catch it. I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t…

  “DECLAN? NO!” I bellowed and began to shake uncontrollably. “NOOOOOOO! OH MY GOD, DECLAN, NOOOOOOO!”

  Chapter Two

  Once again I woke up screaming. I started to shake the visions out of my head. Then I froze.

  I looked around the room. Was Declan here? The scent of him was strong. I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes tight. I inhaled to keep hold of the scent of my daughter’s father, my heart’s only love.

  I shook my head again to clear out the horror of that last crime scene. I wanted to get back the feeling from the daydream of the night our daughter, Matilda, had been conceived, yet it left me with a familiar ache deep inside: I needed Declan’s comforting love to soothe away the fear that was haunting me.

  But I was alone.

  My choice, I reminded myself, again. It needn’t be this way. Without missing a beat in time he would be here with me, at my beck and call, if only I would let him.

  I shook my head no, as if arguing with someone in the room. I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t want the family history to plague my daughter–to stalk her, too. I made my choice. Right or wrong, good or bad, I had to stand strong with my decision.

  I sighed. I rolled over and closed my eyes but flashes of the nightmare that woke me began to replay. I threw the covers off and sat up in bed. The nightmare had been a replay of the last of the six murder scenes I had investigated before retiring. This last one had taken place in the back yard of the family of Declan’s twin brother’s fiancé. I didn’t know that when I arrived on the scene. I held myself tighter. The little girl in the house was Declan’s three-year-old niece, Tessa.

  Since my family member was a victim, I was no longer allowed to investigate the crime. This was protocol. Anytime a family member or friend is involved in an investigation, the related detective is not allowed to be involved. That meant both Declan and I were off the case. Sam, being my uncle, excused himself from the case without prejudice and called in a neighboring district to handle the investigation, although he did keep tabs on what was happening with it.

  It was determined that Tessa hadn’t witnessed the actual murders happen. From what officers could tell, Tessa’s mother had put her to sleep and the little girl woke up when the dogs started howling and she stumbled upon the bloodbath. She had just been taught how to call 911, which she did, but the tape only recorded the dogs howling. We caught a hint of a whisper on the tape, but it was inaudible.

  Her mother had been one of the victims in the back yard carnage.

  Tessa was eight now and living with Declan’s other sister in Hawaii.

  I pushed the memories deep down, back into their prison in my mind. But they continued to push back. At the end of that horrible night, I was so relieved when Sam had told me Declan, a detective on Sam’s force, was on his way to the scene. He arrived long after I stopped screaming.

  The morning after the scene was secured and the cleaning process had begun, Declan had dropped me off at home to clean up while he went to meet his sister at the hospital to discuss what would be best for Tess.

  The case went cold and remained unsolved.

  Now, lying back down in bed staring at the ceiling, I thought about my decision to leave Declan. It made me whimper. My choice! At the time I did what I did because I had to protect the baby growing inside of me. I clenched the sheets in my fists.

  With little renewed stubborn strength, I crawled out of my bed. My day was beginning once again with soaked sheets. I stripped the bed, as well as myself, and headed to the bathroom.

  The sheets went into the hamper. As routine had it, I lit my calming scented candles of vanilla and eucalyptus, and drew the hottest bath I could stand. I eased myself into the tub and tried to allow the hot water melt my tension away.

  My muscles barely eased their tightly twisted fibers.

  Bullet, always at my side, turned in his three circles to lie down on the plush rug in front of the tub.

  The scent of the lavender and chamomile oils I always used intertwined with the rising steam and filled the bathroom. I turned my head from side to side in the tub and surveyed the room. The bathroom was large, roomy and airy. Condensation gathered on the skylights, creating a filter through which the moonlight shone in.

  I could almost see the plants hanging off the exposed beams drinking in the steam. The wall behind the claw-foot tub was mirrored, making the bathroom seem endless. In the corner sat tiered shelving crowded with both plants and half-melted candles. The walls beside the tub were lined with pictures of waterfalls. The floor tiles were earthy rustic colors. My eyes scanned the room slowly: The simple toilet with a rug in front of it; Mattie’s little step stool propped up alongside the bowl; the simple pedestal sink with its old-fashion fixtures; both the sink and the toilet were bone-colored.

  I had a wrought iron shelving system close to the sink; all of Mattie’s toiletries were on the lower shelves, of course, mine on the top. It was a “get-away” bathroom. A small bookshelf sat under the window, which faced the front of the house, and candles sat across its top.

  This was the place where I took refuge from all that troubled me, especially the nightmares.

  The blast of the phone made me jump out of my skin. I quickly climbed out of the tub and grabbed my robe from the wooden coat rack near the door.

  I got to the phone before the answering machine, thinking it was Declan calling to tell me something went wrong on their trip.

  “Hello…” I gushed, out of breath.

  “If the mountain won’t come to Mohamed, then Mohamed will come to the mountain. Open the door.”

  It was Sam. He was relentless. I hung up the receiver and went downstairs. Bullet followed me down. He ran to the door first and sniffed at the threshold. What a smart dog.

  I opened the door with a look of disgust. It didn’t matter. He had one too.

  “Happy now?” I asked.

  “Will be when I get inside and out of this chill,” he barked back at me.

  Bullet was excited to see Sam again. It had been awhile.

  “I’ve been driving all frigging day to get here,” Sam informed me.

  “Who told you to?” I replied.

  He walked through the door. “Okay, okay.”

  He had been here to help me move in, and again for the “thank you” dinner I prepared when I was settled in. Maybe once or twice since then. But he still felt right at home. He hung his jacket on the coat rack and took off his boots and gave my little Jack-Russell dog a big hello, rubbing his tiny body so vigorously the poor dog ran away to escape the bouncing of his brain back and forth.

  Sam went right to the kitchen and helped himself to a beer. Popping the top and taking a swig, he sat down at the breakfast bar. He took off his loosened necktie, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it in his pocket.

  He looked over at me, “Sorry I interrupted your bath.”

  “No worries, I was beginning to prune anyway. Since you already helped yourself, I’ll go get dressed.”

  He just winked. “Another nightmare, huh?”

  I ignored him.

  I ran upstairs and threw on a pair of sweats and an old sweatshirt. I ran a brush through my hair. It was getting longer. Finally, it was to the middle of my back, and at this length, it was prone to knots. When I got here it was just above my shoulders. There was no need to get all pretty for my uncle’s surprise visit. He was here to talk business. I knew I would only end up arguing with him, and there was no need to dress to do that. Sweats were appropriate attire for this battle.

  Silently rehearsing my rebuttals to what I thought would be Sam’s pleas, I came back downstairs slowly. Sam had moved from the kitchen down the small set of steps to the family room. The TV was on, and he was kicked back in the recliner. His 6’4” body made the oversized chair seem smaller. Bullet was curled up on his lap.

&
nbsp; “Place looks good, Kid,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Thanks, Uncle.”

  He threw me a look.

  “Business at hand, Sam, please. No nice talk, you know that I see through it and it only irritates me.”

  He said nothing. He pointed to the chair next to him, ordering me to sit without uttering a word. I obeyed. This was going to be a long night. And just when my nerves were beginning to calm down from the nightmares…

  Sam got right to business, like I asked of him. He explained to me that the murders I revisited nightly, it seemed, were still unsolved. Just to update me, he explained three recent murders that had troubled Sam’s territory had been what were considered to be normal killings, such as gun shootings, gang wars, and accidents, not the kind we had encountered just prior to my move, five years ago.

  The agency had hired a new crime scene investigator to replace me, of course, but she wasn’t as good. Wasn’t as detail oriented as me, didn’t have the eye I did to see what was hidden in plain view. Neither did the four after her. Sam settled for the last. It didn’t matter anymore--the horrid murderer seemed to be gone. Things quieted down some.

  Two days ago, Sam had gotten a call from one of his closest associates a few towns away crippled with the same type of m.o. as in his cold cases. Sam sent Declan to take a look at the evidence. Declan had thought it could be the same murderer. Not quite as severe as the ones we investigated, but similarities on details, or call signs, were the same. And again, the murders stopped abruptly and quiet returned.

  Unbeknownst to Sam, Declan had explained all that to me earlier. Declan finally admitted he was happy that when I decided to leave him, I moved here to this small town which was a three-hour drive north from Bristol. It was far enough away to be out of the epicenter of the murders. Declan had thought that Sam’s jurisdiction wouldn’t stretch this far either. I was okay with that. That fact that I was away from anyone who knew me was my favorite part of the deal. I understood Declan’s feeling of not being able to protect us if he wasn’t in the same house as Mattie and I, but I couldn’t stay where we were in Bristol, and Declan understood that. It was another one of our compromises.

  Declan also let the cat out of the bag when he told me that my name surfaced a few times in conversations he had overheard around town. Someone had been asking about my whereabouts.

  If Sam knew these details, he wasn’t letting on. They were completely overlooked in his account. If he was hiding them, it was because he didn’t want to scare me more than he knew he would by asking me what he had come here to ask.

  “Listen,” my uncle continued. “These cold cases are eating my brain. I can’t take my mind off of them. I’ve seen some bad stuff and been able to solve it all. Except these. You have been able to find clues that have closed 10-year-old cases. Yet you exhausted everything in those six cases. You are the best at what you do…”

  “Did,” I corrected him.

  He continued, ignoring me, “There was no match to the DNA of the hair from the fire pit, nothing in the ashes. The murders stopped after that. Until now.”

  He rolled his eyes while stroking Bullet’s fur. I got up from the recliner next to him and took a seat on the edge of the wooden coffee table in front of the overstuffed chair he had parked himself in.

  “Sam…”

  “Listen Kid, I need you to look into these new cases. Just go through what was gathered. Give me your opinion. The newbie is good, but just not you. I don’t trust anyone like I do you.” He looked me in the eye. The sincerity was there.

  “Just look, Annie… Cianna,” he corrected himself. “Just go through the reports. Look at the pictures. Investigating is in your blood; it’s a part of you; you can’t tell me that you don’t miss it.”

  “You’re right, I do miss it.”

  Sam smiled. He knew he had me. I did miss the challenges of answering questions no one else could. I missed keeping my mind sharp and busy. I couldn’t deny what I was meant to do, even if I had convinced myself I shouldn’t. I was miserable here in the country. I really did yearn for more. My mind full of rebuttals suddenly turned into a heart full of reasons to return to my passion, and I didn’t know why. I felt so wishy-washy.

  “If you want to go back to a scene, I’ll arrange it. I’ll hire you on as a consultant to me. No one will object.”

  I sighed, “Declan will.”

  He grinned, “I’ll suggest he take some vacation time and take Mattie to Hawaii to check on Tessa.”

  “He’ll see through it.”

  Sam was getting aggravated, “Then I will assign him to you as your partner. I know you have an idea as to who was behind the cases you left behind. I need you to look at these new ones to see if they are the same. It’s all I ask. Please?”

  He asked in a tone that was not only as a desperate investigator, but as a family member begging for a lone piece of bread to pacify hunger pains.

  “You are going to make me deal with Declan?” I asked in a hurt voice.

  “Your choice kid,” he corrected me. “I can make him go on mandatory vacation. Having him take Mattie with him will get both of them away to free you up.”

  He thought of all the angles, as usual.

  I relaxed my glare and looked at him. There was more.

  “And?”

  “And,” he hesitated. “You and I both know your sister has the answers we don’t.”

  He drew in a breath and slightly turned his face as if waiting for me to reach out and slap him. He knew my instincts well, although I strained to keep my hands in place.

  “It’s time we stop pretending I am clueless of the whole story,” Sam snapped at me.

  I knew he knew the truth. I tried so hard to keep it hidden. I did my job of that. It was Declan who told him.

  It was during a rare fishing trip that Declan agreed to go on with Sam shortly after the move. Sam prodded and poked, knowing Declan was vulnerable. Sam took everything in stride. He swore himself to secrecy. Declan trusted him. Although, until this day, I hadn’t known just how much my uncle really did know.

  “Uncle Sam,” I began. “I know you know, but to what extent do you know, how much?”

  We spent the next two hours in a confession of sorts. He told me what he knew and I finally filled in the gaps for him.

  I told him about my telepathic abilities. That Declan had them too. Declan and I could hear each other’s voices within the confines of our minds without saying a word audibly.

  I explained what my grandmother told me when I was younger about my telepathy. She told me that I had Irish pixie heritage, which is where my powers came from. Grannie Sheehan also told me that when I grew up I would probably learn more powers, but we just had to wait and see. So far, telepathy was all I seemed to have inherited from my Irish bloodline. And I truly didn’t want any more powers.

  I confessed that I had gotten scared after Declan’s brother’s murder, thinking that someone had found out about my abilities and somehow found out I was pregnant and wanted to harm the baby I was carrying, so I thought it best to move away--disappear. My sister, of course, knew of our heritage and I was scared she was going to expose us during a drunken binge, so I vowed to never have contact with her again.

  I also had it in my mind that if I left Declan he would be safe and not end up like his brother. Declan wanted to keep me close to protect me. He also wanted to keep his job with the detectives so he could support me, and our baby. It broke his heart, but I insisted that I had to get away. So he agreed against his better judgment. A decision that left both of our hearts in pieces.

  I couldn’t believe I told Sam. I came clean with everything. Everything. It felt good to finally be free of the secret that was eating away at my soul.

  Sam’s eyes softened. “Your Grandmom Sheehan was a wonderful woman and she certainly was not one to mess with.” He chuckled on a memory, “She’d smack ya upside the back of the head if you spoke out of turn with a smile on her face.”

 
“I was on the receiving end of that too, once or twice,” I confessed.

  “She helped me hone my telepathy skills. She was the one who told me Declan had the same ability. Then she helped Declan with his gift. He can do more than me. He can read someone’s thoughts, while I have always only been able to communicate with Grannie, Declan and my sisters without uttering a word out loud.”

  Sam smiled warmly at me. He was so understanding.

  He surprised me when he told me that there were other family members in the same shoes as me. Others who actually knew and understood the life I was living. Declan’s family was riddled with the good, the bad and the ugly. That was why they were so divided as a unit. So different from how my own family once was.

  I understood now why Declan accepted the paths I chose to travel with such grace. Although my choices broke his heart, he remained forever dedicated to me. Back then I had been so obsessed with my own worries I hadn’t given any thought as to why Declan had agreed to go along with all I had wanted. Now, after talking with Sam, I understood why.

  Sam softened his voice, “Declan loves you so much that he would agree to almost anything to make you happy.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, “I know.”

  I tried to push him away, to protect him. I thought it was me who was carrying the curse. I realized now that I let the curse take away what was right by allowing it to prey on my most valuable love. Like the villain who goes after the wife to get to the husband, I allowed the curse to separate Declan and me by thinking it was going after Mattie.