CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Korine balled her hand into a fist. How was it possible that Cat had traced that Facebook Live post to this address?
Her mother didn’t even have a cell phone. Neither did Esme.
And the post had to do with the man the Keeper had thought was the Skull, which had nothing to do with her family or her father’s death.
Her mother’s cry rent the air. “Stop it! Your dad loves those dolls. He’s saving them for Korine.”
Esme snatched Korine’s hand and pulled her behind the door. “I’m so glad you’re here. Kenny is out of control.”
Korine touched Esme’s shoulder. “What happened to start the argument?”
“I don’t know,” Esme said. “Kenny just showed up and started talking crazy, and then your mama got upset.”
“Stay here. Let me talk to them.” Korine held her breath as she stepped into the doorway.
“Mom? Kenny?”
Her mother was sitting on the sofa, eyes glassy, rocking herself back and forth while Kenny paced in front of her. The broken pieces of the porcelain dolls lay scattered across the floor just as they had across her bed.
He raised the hammer and smashed another doll. Her mother screamed and covered her face with her hands as porcelain shards flew.
“Kenny?” Korine eased toward him. “Please put down the hammer and the gun.”
Kenny hesitated in front of the fireplace, his eyes wild and unfocused. He kept swinging the hammer back and forth, his body rigid.
“Please, let’s sit down and talk.”
“Why? All this family does is lie!” Kenny shouted.
“Stop it, son,” their mother cried. “Your daddy bought those dolls for Korine for her birthday and Christmas.”
Korine hated the pain in her mother’s voice, but at least she’d come out of her silent shell and was speaking.
“I know he did.” Kenny threw the hammer onto the floor, then grabbed the gun from his pants and waved it in the air. “It was always about Korine, his special, pretty little girl.”
“I’m sorry you felt left out,” Korine said. “Really. But Dad loved you—”
“I hated him!” Kenny said, venom in his tone. “I hated him and the things he did.”
“Because he gave me gifts?” Korine asked quietly. “You were jealous and wanted more of his attention.”
Kenny wiped sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. “How can you be an FBI agent and be so stupid?”
Korine gripped her weapon by her side and inched toward her mother. She had to get that gun away from her brother. “Okay, maybe I’m clueless, so why don’t we sit down and you can explain everything to me?”
Kenny rubbed his hand over his eyes as if he was debating what to do. Her mother was still rocking herself back and forth on the sofa, confusion clouding her eyes.
Korine patted her shoulder. “I’m here now, Mom, we’ll work things out. I promise.”
“The dolls, I know you loved them . . . ,” her mother said in a low whisper.
Korine gritted her teeth and glanced at Kenny, hoping he’d realize how much his behavior was upsetting their mother. Instead, he looked angry, distant, like a child reliving some horror.
“Kenny, please,” Korine said. “Put down the gun so we can talk.”
He paced in front of them, his movements jittery. “It’s too late to talk.”
“No, it’s not,” Korine said softly. “I love you, and I want to understand.”
He spun on her, eyes filled with bitterness. “No, you don’t.”
She gestured for him to put the gun on the table. “Tell me what upset you so badly that you left rehab. What happened in that therapy session?”
Kenny’s face contorted with pain. “They wanted me to tell them everything. But I couldn’t talk about it, not with strangers.” His body shook as a sob was wrenched from his gut.
Korine took advantage of the moment and eased the gun from him. Carefully, she placed it on the table, then stowed her weapon in her holster. “Tell me, Kenny. What can’t you talk about?”
“That night,” Kenny shouted. “The doll. And that fucking music . . .”
“You mean the night Dad was shot,” Korine asked.
Tears streamed down her brother’s face. “I heard the music, and I remembered the other time.”
“What other time?” Korine asked, desperately trying to follow the conversation.
“The time with the little girl,” Kenny said in a faraway voice. “He gave her a doll just like yours.”
Korine struggled to understand. Was he confused? “Dad gave another little girl a doll like mine?”
Kenny nodded, choking on a sob. “He gave a lot of dolls away, to his patients.”
Her father had loved children . . . he helped them in therapy. “He gave them to the girls when they were ready to move on from therapy?”
“No, no . . .” Kenny’s face contorted in rage. “I saw where he kept them in his office. It was the day fathers were supposed to take their sons to work.”
“You were at Daddy’s office?”
Kenny nodded, his movements jerky. “He told me to stay in the break room. Even gave me doughnuts. I guess he thought I’d pig out and wouldn’t bother him.”
A sense of foreboding washed over Korine. Kenny was finally opening up. Although, so far, he wasn’t making much sense. “What happened then?”
“I wanted a soda, but there weren’t any in the refrigerator so I was going to ask Daddy for money for the vending machine.”
Korine nodded. “Go on.”
He pulled at his hair, a nervous habit he’d started in his preteens. “I heard the music box playing, and I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Dad was supposed to spend the day with me.” His voice cracked. “I was so mad at him. The secretary had gone to lunch, so I found the key to Dad’s office in her desk and unlocked the door. I was going to make Dad pay attention to me.”
The agony in Kenny’s voice tore at Korine.
“I peeked inside. She was sitting on his lap.”
A chill shot through Korine. “Who was sitting on his lap?”
Kenny wiped at his eyes. “A little girl,” Kenny said, his voice breaking. “He gave her a doll and danced with her, and then . . . then . . .”
Korine glanced at her mother for a reaction, but her mother was staring at her hands, a million miles away.
“He took off her dress,” Kenny said, disgust in his voice. “She was crying, but he told her he loved her, and then he touched her all over . . .”
Shock slammed into Korine. “What? No . . . Daddy would never have molested a patient.”
Kenny backed up, rage slashing his face. “He did,” he said sharply. “I saw him.”
Denial stabbed at Korine.
“Then that Christmas Eve, he gave you that doll and the music box was playing, and I looked in and saw you dancing, and I knew what he was going to do—”
Korine shook her head. “Daddy wouldn’t—”
“He did.” Kenny pulled at his hair again. “He did it with that girl, and then I saw a bunch more dolls and music boxes stacked in the closet in the break room, and I realized he was doing it to other girls.”
Nausea flooded Korine. Her father gave music boxes and dolls to other little girls . . .
Kenny picked up the music box and stared at the twirling ballerina. The melody “I Feel Pretty” filled the room. Except this time the music made Korine feel sick inside.
Heart breaking, she took the music box and slammed the top shut, then set it on the coffee table.
“He was going to molest you,” Kenny cried. “Don’t you see? You were my little sister, and I was supposed to protect you. I had to stop him.”
Korine’s chest ached with the need to breathe. “Kenny,” she said in a raw whisper. “What do you mean, you had to stop him?”
He glanced at the gun, his eyes glazed as if he was reliving that night.
Disbelief and denial made Korine want to run.
But reality held her immobile as she put the pieces together.
The moment Hatcher stepped off the hospital elevator, the alarms were ringing. Nurses and doctors raced into the hallway, shouting orders, and a nurse pushed a crash cart toward a room down the hall.
His gut instincts roared to life.
He picked up his pace, then spotted Officer Leeks.
“What happened?” Hatcher asked.
“I don’t know.” Leeks jammed his hands in his pants’ pockets. “The nurse was in there with him, so I went to take a piss. When I got back, machines were beeping, and nurses and doctors were scrambling around like crazy.”
Frustration gnawed at Hatcher. He wanted Bellamy alive and awake so he could identify his attacker—or attackers. Kendall James had probably stayed up all night planning her strategy to get the charges against the four women dropped.
He needed proof, dammit.
“Go get some coffee,” Hatcher told the officer. “I’ll stay here and find out what’s going on.”
The officer gave a quick nod. He had been first on the scene when the judge’s body was found, and now he was here when Bellamy was crashing.
Suspicion took root in Hatcher’s mind. In the briefing meeting, they’d discussed the possibility that someone involved in the case could be the unsub. That they should consider members of law enforcement as possible persons of interest.
Leeks had opportunity.
He stepped into the waiting room, texted Wyatt, and asked him to run a background check on Officer Leeks. Then he made his way down the hall.
A nurse was exiting Bellamy’s room.
“Is he going to be all right?” Hatcher asked.
“You’ll have to speak to the doctor,” the nurse said.
“What happened?”
“It appears that he had an allergic reaction to some medication. The doctor is running a tox screen to find out exactly what substance triggered the reaction.”
“Were you aware that he had allergies?” Hatcher asked.
She shook her head. “He was unconscious when he was brought in. There was no family to call, and we didn’t find a medical history.”
Hatcher thanked her, then knocked on the door to Bellamy’s room and stepped inside. A female doctor, probably midforties, stood by Bellamy’s bed.
He quickly introduced himself. “How is he?”
“We’ve stabilized him, but we want to get to the bottom of what caused him to crash.”
“You think it was a drug you gave him?”
The doctor pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s possible, although nothing I prescribed should have triggered this type of reaction.”
Hatcher’s mind raced. Bellamy was waking up, and he might have been able to ID his attacker.
Maybe the unsub knew that and wanted to quiet him. That person could have snuck in and injected him. Yet Leeks was standing guard . . . Unless it was Leeks.
Or someone dressed like hospital staff. Someone Leeks wouldn’t have suspected was a threat.
“Let me know what you find out.” He studied Bellamy’s ashen face. “And alert me as soon as he regains consciousness.”
If someone had intentionally dosed Bellamy with a drug to trigger a heart attack or an allergic reaction, that was attempted murder. The four women they’d arrested couldn’t be responsible.
Meaning they were innocent. And that the unsub was still on the loose.
Korine couldn’t believe this was happening. All these years, she’d been determined, driven, to find her father’s murderer. Had thought it would give her peace.
But it had never occurred to her that her search would lead to her brother. Kenny had only been nine at the time, a child.
A child who’d witnessed his father do the unthinkable.
No wonder her mother had tried to get her to stop asking questions.
Kenny slumped in the wing chair, his head buried in his hands. From the sofa, her mother twisted her hands in her lap, seemingly lost as tears streamed down her face.
Korine had a sudden urge to run. To forget this conversation and live in denial.
But that was impossible now.
Kenny had been in turmoil for years. Now she understood the reason he’d started drinking.
He’d been plagued by what had happened that night.
But . . . she still couldn’t believe that her father, the man she adored and loved so much, would have hurt a child.
Or her.
Slowly, she approached her brother and gently touched his back. “Kenny, you must have been mistaken and misunderstood what you saw. Dad would never—”
“Dad molested that little girl, Korine,” Kenny said matter-of-factly. “I saw it. She was naked and crying, but he kept touching her and telling her it was okay, that he was loving her.”
Tears burned the backs of Korine’s eyelids, fighting to come out. “No, Kenny . . .”
“Yes,” he said, his voice resigned now as if he’d finally unleashed a heavy burden. “I never told you because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Denial and shock battled inside Korine. “You said you had to stop him?”
Pain streaked his face. “I had to protect you. I . . . ran upstairs and found his gun and . . .”
“And you shot him?” Korine said. “Mom was asleep and you shot Daddy.”
“That’s not the way it happened!” Their mother lurched up from the sofa and grabbed Korine’s arm. “Your brother didn’t shoot your father.”
Korine was shocked at her mother’s tone. “But he said—”
“He was going to, but I woke up and saw him with the gun.” Korine’s mother’s eyes were filled with anguish. “He told me what was happening, but I didn’t believe him.”
Kenny crossed to their mother, knelt in front of her, and cradled her hand in his. “It’s okay, Mom—I saw what he was doing. I wanted him dead. I was supposed to protect Korine.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you first came to me,” their mother said in a haunted voice. “But I didn’t want to believe it.”
Because it was too horrible to believe. Parents had trusted him to help their children in their most vulnerable state.
Yet he had preyed on them.
Her mother pressed her hand against Kenny’s cheek. “I was supposed to protect you and Korine, and I failed.”
Kenny shook his head, but their mother continued. “I couldn’t let you shoot your daddy.” She angled her head toward Korine. “So I took the gun, and I ran downstairs.”
Korine stared at her mother in shock.
“Then I heard that song.” Korine’s mother pulled away from him, stood, and picked up the music box.
Raw pain streaked her mother’s face as she opened the lid and the music began to play. “I heard the music and your daddy singing, ‘You’re so pretty, oh, so pretty, so pretty and witty and . . .’”
The song catapulted Korine back in time.
“When I looked in and saw the doll and the two of you dancing, I knew . . . Kenny was right.” Her mother’s voice broke. “I saw the way your daddy was looking at you, and I remembered one of your daddy’s patients. The mother, she came in one day and said he touched her daughter.” Korine’s mother paused, her body stiffening. “I didn’t want to believe it, but later I found more dolls and another music box, and I remembered hearing the music playing one day when I stopped by his office. I was going to surprise him and take him to lunch, but he had the door locked and was in there with that child.” Tears rained down her face. “He got so mad at me that day. He told me never to come to the office again.”
Korine pressed her hands to her head, willing this to be a bad dream.
But her mother continued, “When I saw him looking at you like that, I . . . realized it was true.”
Kenny put his arm around their mother’s shoulder. “Mom, don’t. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right. It hasn’t been for years. You’ve suffered long enough. It’s time for the truth to come out.” She gave Kenny a hug, then faced Korine. “Your brother didn’t shoot your father, Korine. I did.”