by Greta Boris
As she neared the shed, Crackers shot past her. She lost her footing, stumbling on a loose rock, but righted herself and ran on. She heard Crackers bark before she saw the dark form lying on the tracks. The dog stood over a soft bundle, whining and prodding it with his nose. “Brian!” She screamed her son’s name over the sound of the approaching train.
She leaped across the gravel divide and kneeled by her son. Davy dropped to his knees next to her a split second later. Brian lay, as if asleep, with his head on a rail. His body stretched across the tracks.
The grinding noise of steel on steel filled her ears. The train appeared in the distance. Davy slipped his arms under his son’s torso and lifted. His progress stopped short, only inches above the ground.
“His shoelace,” Olivia said.
The bright lights of the seven o’clock to Los Angeles illuminated the problem. Brian’s shoelace had been wedged under one of the rails—a possible reason for the coroner to assume her son had been foolishly playing on the tracks, gotten snagged and was unable to jump out of the way. She yanked on the lace, but it wouldn’t come loose. Crackers ran between them and the gravel sanctuary nearby, crying like child. The warning clang of the safety arm dropping across the road ahead bounced through Olivia’s brain like a pinball.
“Take his shoe off.” Davy had to raise his voice to be heard.
Olivia yanked the heel of the sneaker she’d bought a size too large, and Brian’s foot popped out. Thank God she was cheap. They dove off the tracks, falling in a heap on the gravel.
A moment later the seven o’clock barreled past them. It slowed as it drew closer to the station, but still, its blast blew the hair from Olivia’s face and dried the tears streaking her cheeks. The reality of its crushing force staggered her. She sat, motionless, until the last car receded up the tracks, and she heard the screech of brakes.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
OLIVIA SAT ON the floor in Brian’s hospital room and leaned her head against Davy’s knee. Once they knew Brian was okay, that the drug used to tranquilize him wouldn’t cause any lasting damage, she’d dozed off. Relief and exhaustion doped her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She woke when a nurse came in to check her son. “Sorry. I was out,” she said.
“No problem.” Davy smiled at her.
“How does he look?” Olivia addressed the nurse.
“Fine. He’s sleeping it off. Probably have a heck of a hangover.”
“Do we know what it is yet?” Davy said.
“Not yet, but the doc is pretty sure it’s diphenhydramine—Benadryl. His vitals are good, so keeping him hydrated and letting him rest are the plan for now.”
“I’ve given him Benadryl before. It helped him sleep, but it never knocked him out like this,” Olivia said.
“You probably didn’t give him as much.” The nurse made a note on a tablet and left the room. Her words hit Olivia like a punch in the gut. She had trusted Tom, trusted a man who would give a child an overdose of medication then put him on a train track. Rage and guilt barreled down on her with the force of the seven o’clock to Los Angeles.
Hands gripped her shoulders. “Stop it,” Davy said.
“Stop what?”
“You’re punishing yourself again. He’s okay. He’s going to be fine. You saved him, Livvie. You did that.”
“He wouldn’t have needed saving if I hadn’t been such an idiot.”
“Yeah, well. You wouldn’t have the chance to act like an idiot if I hadn’t gone on a two-year drunken binge and left you both to fend for yourselves. We can’t change the past. It’s done.”
Olivia inhaled the truth of his words, but she knew it would take time for them to permeate the thick barriers in her soul. Time for them to make their way to the cellular level that changes who you are. Grace and forgiveness weren’t qualities that came easily to her. She didn’t extend them to others, or to herself. For now, she would sit with the knowledge that her son was safe.
Mike and Sarah peeked through the partially opened door. “Okay to come in?” Mike asked.
“Sure. He’s still sleeping,” Olivia said.
“I have news.”
“They found Tom?” Davy said.
“No. Not him, but the boys finally got a judge to sign a search warrant for Tom’s place. They found some interesting things. Namely a bottle of liquid Benadryl, berries from a plant they’re trying to identify now, and a Ball jar full of some herbal tea stuff. Looks like he had his own pharmacy in the kitchen.”
Olivia sat up straighter when she heard about the jar. “I was giving Brian a medicine Tom’s mother made. She gave it to me in a Ball jar.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “Did he ever do the delivering? Drop it off for you?”
“Only once. Right before I broke up with him.”
“Isn’t that when Brian started having problems again?” Davy said.
Olivia covered her mouth with her hand. She couldn’t speak.
“You have any of that stuff left at home?” Mike asked.
She nodded.
Sarah sat on the end of Brian’s bed and put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “We do our best, sweetheart.”
Tears swelled in Olivia’s eyes.
“I blamed myself for a long time for what happened to you, but it didn’t change anything. Beating yourself up won’t fix the past.”
“Mom,” Olivia said, then stopped. She was having a hard time getting the words past the tightness in her throat. “I blamed you too.”
“I know.”
“I get it now, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I know that too.”
Olivia’s head dropped onto her mother’s knee. Sarah stroked her hair just as she used to when Olivia was small. They sat that way for a long time.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
TWO DAYS AFTER Christmas, Sage sat on Olivia’s green couch, sunlight glinting off the salt in her salt and pepper hair. Her face was wreathed in sadness. “It was angel’s trumpet,” Olivia said.
“Angel’s trumpet? The flower?” Sage said.
“Yes, the crime lab identified the berries.”
“I have a plant in my backyard. Tomas must have gathered some when he came to see me. Tea made from the berries will cause hallucinations. If someone is given enough of it, particularly if they are already on certain medications, they can die.”
“He gave Brian a soda whenever he went for tutoring. Tom must have added some to that. The doctor believes that’s why Brian was acting so strangely.”
“I’m sorry,” Sage spoke in the hushed tones used in a funeral parlor.
“They tested the tincture you made. The jar he dropped off. It was fine, no poison. But the jar they found in Tom’s kitchen was full of the stuff.”
“I should have known. Should have seen.” Sage looked stricken.
Olivia hesitated, two voices in her mind were fighting for dominance. The first wanted justice, wanted to punish Sage for her blindness. The second was more circumspect. It understood the heart of a mother, the raw, aching desire for a healthy, whole child. “But you didn’t know,” she said, and the words cost her.
“I suspected.” Tears filled Sage’s eyes and splashed onto her cheeks. She wiped her face with her hands.
“Why?” Olivia said. “Why innocent children?”
Sage didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she said, “I have a plant hospital on the far side of the house. It’s a sheltered area that gets morning sun but no harsh weather. I start seedlings there and sometimes, if a plant gets a disease or a parasite, I cut it back and stick it on a shelf in the hospital. Try to save it, you know?”
Olivia nodded, but didn’t think Sage noticed. Her eyes were on the past.
“One day when Tomas was sixteen, I went out to check on my patients, but they were all gone. I found what was left of them in the trash, roots mangled, pots broken. I thought maybe Tomas was playing ball and knocked down the shelf by accident. I didn’t say anything. But then a
few weeks later, I found aphids on a potted rose. I cut it back, sprayed it, put it on the shelf. Next morning—gone. Lily had gone to live with my sister by then, so I knew it had to be him. I asked him about it.”
She paused for so long this time Olivia finally said, “What did he say?”
Sage met her eyes. “I don’t like damaged things. That’s it. That’s all he said.”
A ripple of nausea coursed through Olivia. “Are you saying Tom got rid of those boys in Idaho and Arizona because they were damaged?”
“I think in his own confused way he was trying to help their mothers.”
“Why did he kill Scottie then? Scottie wasn’t damaged.”
“Scottie’s death was an accident.” Sage’s face showed genuine confusion.
“Abby thinks Tom vandalized the jump and that’s why it collapsed.”
Sage shook her head slowly. “Molly thought that’s what Doug did, but I never believed it. What are the chances of the jump breaking at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right way for Scottie to fall across the tracks and hit his head just as a train was coming? It isn’t possible. No one could plan that. Not an adult. Certainly not a child. It was an accident. Tomas grieved for his friend.”
Sage grabbed Olivia’s hand. “You didn’t know him before Doug’s accident. He was a wonderful boy. I tried to protect him from his father’s influence, but I’m afraid I was too late.”
“Too late?”
Sage gave her a sad smile. “I’ve done unthinkable things for the people I love. I think Tomas loved you, Olivia.”
Olivia yanked her hand away. “No. You don’t show love by destroying the one thing that gives that person a reason for living. If Brian had died, I would have been right behind him.”
“I think he wanted to rescue you.”
“From what? From my own child?”
“From a life of pain—a life of watching the person you love leave you by inches, turn into a monster before your eyes.”
A deep chill settled into Olivia’s bones. That wasn’t Brian’s story. What was Sage trying to tell her? “I think you should leave,” Olivia said. She couldn’t listen, didn’t want to know. Sage didn’t move.
“Hear me, Olivia. I’m not excusing him any more than I’m excusing myself for the wrongs I’ve done. I just want you to understand.”
“Brian was getting better. Tom made him worse by giving him a hallucinogenic. Tom wasn’t trying to save me from something. He wanted me all to himself. Brian was competition.”
Sage stared at her hands for a long moment, then stood. She reached into her purse, and handed Olivia a slip of paper. “The recipe,” she said. “For the tincture. It’s not hard to make when you have the ingredients.” She moved toward the door.
Olivia let the paper flutter to the floor. “Do you know where he is?”
“He’s gone.” Sage never turned.
“He’s dangerous, Sage. He needs to be in custody. He’s killed two children. Tried to kill Brian.”
“He won’t kill again.” Sage put her hand on the knob.
“Who’s going to stop him?” Olivia’s voice was edged with hysteria.
“I will.” The door closed behind Sage.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
AUGUST 8TH, 1997
I HEARD A crash. It came from the direction of the living room. I ran toward the sound. Lily cowered on the floor by the couch. Tomas stood over her, something glinted silver in his upraised hand. His face was as red as Lily’s was pale. “Tomas,” I shouted.
His eyes met mine, but I don’t think he saw me. Not at first. Several long seconds passed. He dropped his arm. My garden shears hit the wood floorboards with a clatter. Lily scrambled away from him and wrapped herself around my legs, sobbing.
“What are you doing?” The words, aimed at my son, shot from my lips.
Tomas stared at his shoes. “She was an hour and a half late. I know how worried you get when she’s late.”
“You don’t threaten someone with shears because they’re late.”
Tomas looked at me. “She’s always upsetting you, Mama.”
Lily had turned thirteen six months ago, and it was as if a switch had flipped inside her. She’d always been my easy child, but no longer. She was now defiant, disobedient, and disrespectful. I’d grounded her, taken away television, issued all the usual parental threats, with very little results. A month ago Tomas decided to take matters into his own hands.
The first time he meted out discipline, he’d slapped her with an open hand after she’d spoken disrespectfully to me. The next, I found her locked in the garden shed. She’d sneaked out of the house after I’d grounded her. Today was the first time Tomas had picked up a weapon.
“You cannot touch your sister.” My voice trembled. “I’m her mother. It’s my job to raise her.”
“You’re not doing it very well.” Tomas spun on his heel and walked out. A moment later I heard his bedroom door slam.
I sank onto the couch and pulled Lily into my lap. She buried her face in my neck and cried as if her heart would break. She loved her brother and didn’t understand his cruelty. But I did.
When Doug was in college, he’d studied psychology. He’d planned to become a psychiatrist. By his junior year he realized he didn’t have a burning desire to help people. He wanted to understand his father, and he learned everything he needed to know in his undergraduate courses. Clyde Hartman was a psychopath. Doug also learned psychopathy was influenced by genetics.
One day when Tomas was five or six, Doug found him watching a moth that had flown too close to a citronella candle in the yard. His small face was serene as he watched the moth struggle on the table top. After a moment, he picked up the glass jar that contained the candle and smashed the insect.
“That was kind of you,” Doug said.
Tomas looked at him without understanding.
“To put the moth out of its misery.”
“I don’t like broken things,” Tomas said.
After that, Doug kept a close eye on Tomas. And, he read. He read every new study, every new report that came out on abnormal human behavior. He learned not all psychopaths were the mass murderers of movies and television. Most were CEOs and CFOs of large corporations, politicians, and highly paid salesmen. Most never resorted to violence. So what was the deciding factor? Why did one man become ruthless on the golf course and another torture and kill his family?
Most researchers believed it had to do with the environment the person was raised in. If he was loved, protected, sheltered from violence, it was unlikely the child would grow up to be a monster. On the other hand, if he was abused or often threatened, he would learn to strike back. In a fight or flight situation, the psychopath tends to fight. If he fights often enough, he might learn to enjoy it.
I rocked my daughter now, who was almost as tall as I was, and whispered comforting endearments into her hair. She would have to go away. She wasn’t safe here anymore. “Let’s call Tia,” I said.
“Why?” Lily raised her damp face.
“Let’s ask her if you can stay with her for a while.”
“You’re sending me away?” Her mouth turned down and her chin trembled.
“No. No, mijita. It’s Tomas. He’s having a hard time right now. I can’t take a chance that he’ll hurt you. You’re too precious to me.”
Lily wiped her nose with her hand like a little girl, the red nail polish on her fingers a contradiction. “Why don’t you send him away?”
“Who’s going to help him get better if I do that? You’re the strong one, corazon.”
Lily’s face crumpled. “I don’t want to leave you, Mama.”
“It’s only for a little while,” I said, but it wasn’t true. Clarice’s house had always been like a second home to Lily. She would be happy there. She would go to school, make friends, and by the time Tomas was better—if he got better—she wouldn’t want to come home. Taking Lily to Clarice’s was for the best, and I’d become quit
e proficient at doing what was best, no matter how painful it was.
I sent Lily to her room to pack and knocked on Tomas’s door. He was on his bed reading a book. His feet reached the end of his mattress; he’d grown so tall. I stepped into his room. It was spotless. I could bounce a quarter off his spread, the bed was made so tightly. I knew without looking, the clothes in his closet were arranged by color. Even the books on his shelves were lined up according to size in perfect rows. It had been this way since the week I brought Doug home from the hospital.
“Tomas,” I said. He didn’t answer, but kept his eyes on his book. “I’m taking Lily to Tia’s.” Still no response. I sat on the edge of his bed. “I can’t bring her back until I know you won’t hurt her.”
He set his book aside and looked at me without expression.
“Don’t you care?” My voice broke a little.
“It’ll be better without her.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said.
He scooted into a seated position. “I do. Lily has been causing a lot of problems for you. This is a good solution.”
I picked up his hand and held it in both of mine. “I’m afraid the last few months of your father’s life, he wasn’t a very good example.”
Tomas rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Why are we talking about Papa?”
“Just listen to what I’m saying. Before the accident, Papa was a gentle man. He never hit anyone, hurt anyone.”
“I know.” His voice filled with impatience. “You’ve told me this, like, a hundred times.”
“Yes but,” I squeezed his hand. “I never said I’m sorry. I should never have let him touch you. I couldn’t stop him from fighting with Mr. Travers, or poisoning Pepe, but I could have stopped him from hitting you.” Doug and I had made a pact after the moth incident to shield Tomas from violence to the best of our ability. I’d let both of us down the day Doug took a belt to his son.
Tomas smiled, his right cheek dimpling. “Papa didn’t poison Pepe.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“Papa didn’t poison Pepe. I did.”
