5
The anger that welled up as his new “caregiver” left, followed closely by her ex-husband, made Dawson long to hit something. He hated to see Sadie give in to Officer Harris, to let him control and manipulate her. Just watching it happen, being a party to it, brought back the horrible feelings of helplessness he’d experienced over the past year—and with it a familiar rage. So much shit had happened to him, and he’d been powerless to stop it. When his parents were killed, he’d been swept into a vortex of pain, loss, confusion, accusation, distrust and resistance to the truth that had nearly destroyed everything in his life—not only his parents but all they’d left behind, including their life’s work, their home and their poor daughter.
He’d often lain awake at night on that cement jailhouse bed, feeling as if he’d fallen through the proverbial “rabbit hole.” That was how twisted his life had become, how distorted from what was fair, right and true. And the crazy thing was, no matter how hard he fought back, or how much he proclaimed his innocence, there was no escape. He remained at the mercy of strangers, completely subject to the rationale, judgments and will of people who had no idea who he really was or what’d happened that terrible night. They stripped him of his freedom and convicted him in the press, pointing to the anger and confusion he’d experienced as an unwanted child as the reason he’d risen up to destroy the only people who ever truly loved him.
If not for the slimmest of margins, he’d be sitting on death row right now. Only, he wasn’t. He was here. Home. Sure, he was starting over with very little. But at least he had the chance to reclaim his sister, save the farm and find the man who did murder his folks. He might even be able to bring that man to justice.
If he didn’t screw up.
In an effort to calm down, he walked to the table and poured himself another glass of wine. As he stood there drinking it, he couldn’t help feeling a measure of relief at the transformation that’d taken place around him. The kitchen had regained its former dignity, because of Sadie. Sure, that was a small step forward, but it made him feel as if something had finally been put right, which gave him a shred of normalcy to cling to. Then there was Sadie’s practicality in bringing groceries and supplies, her flexibility in being willing to front the money for them, so that the shopping wouldn’t turn out to be a big hassle on his part, and her diligence in seeing that he got fed. She’d worked hard today. He liked her, believed he’d found a good employee.
But what she said was true: he had enough problems. He’d hired her yesterday despite Officer Harris’s threats—maybe, at least partially, because of them. It felt good to fight back. But did he really want to get involved in a battle that had nothing to do with him when he had more than he could handle already?
No. He’d have to put off getting Angela out of Stanley DeWitt. He didn’t like that she’d be disappointed, but he could continue to advertise for a caregiver—in Santa Barbara this time—hoping to find someone who was willing to commute. Santa Barbara wasn’t that far. Surely, if he gave himself more time, he could find an alternative to hiring a woman connected to an abusive ex-husband who also happened to be an egotistical cop.
But if he chose that option, if he let Sadie go, what would happen to her?
He recalled the tears he’d seen streaming down her cheeks yesterday, the way she’d turned her face up to the sky as if she wished the rain would just wash her away. She seemed pretty desperate herself. Whether he knew her well or not, he hated the idea of abandoning her to be victimized, hated the thought that she had to be experiencing those same feelings of helplessness that’d cut him to the quick. If she wanted to get away from the guy she’d married, she should have that right. If she wanted to work for a man suspected of killing his parents, she should have that right, too. She was an adult. So why did Sly Harris get to dictate what she did—what either of them did?
You can’t hire me now. You have no idea what he’ll do. He’ll make your life so miserable you’ll wish you were still in jail.
He believed her, especially after Sly’s latest visit. Her ex would not back off simply because they’d gone ahead despite his disapproval. They’d have a real fight on their hands, a fight that Dawson was ill equipped to take on in his current situation. But ducking that would only make him feel like he’d felt while he was in jail—completely at the dictates of others. And he’d never been one to back down from a fight. Perhaps he’d screw up his only chance to get his life back, but at least he’d go down swinging for what he believed in.
“You can go to hell, Officer Harris,” he muttered and sent Sadie a text.
* * *
Sadie refused to speak to Sly. Her phone rang while she was driving, but she ignored his call, wouldn’t even get her phone out of her purse. If he wanted to follow her home, let him. She couldn’t stop him from using the same highway. But that didn’t mean she had to have a conversation while she was driving.
When she pulled up to Petra’s, he got out, too, and tried to intercept her. “We need to talk,” he told her. “You can’t keep working for that bastard.”
“I’m not breaking any laws,” she said.
Petra must’ve heard their voices, or she’d been watching for Sadie, because she came out.
“There you are,” she said before her gaze shifted to Sly.
If anyone understood the truth of what her relationship with Sly was like, it was Petra. Although Sadie had been careful not to say too much, Petra knew she wished she could be rid of him, and that he refused to leave her alone.
Using the distraction Jayden’s babysitter posed, Sadie circumvented Sly and continued to the door. “Sorry I’m later than originally planned.”
“You warned me it’d be seven or eight. Jayden’s fine, anyway. How’d it go?” Petra swung the door open to admit her but said nothing to Sly, and Sly said nothing to Petra. He hung back on the walkway, as if he was waiting for Sadie to get Jayden and come out again.
“I liked it,” Sadie admitted as she went in.
Petra hesitated as if she wasn’t sure whether to close the door, since Sly was outside. She settled for leaving it cracked open to suggest they’d only be a moment. “What’d you do?”
“Mommy!” Jayden came running as soon as he saw her.
She pulled him into her arms and hugged him tight as she answered. “I cleaned the kitchen while Dawson Reed worked on the farm.”
Petra lowered her voice. “So...why’s Sly with you? Nothing happened—nothing went wrong, did it?”
Sadie did her best to maintain a pleasant demeanor. “No. He was...worried when I stayed so late. That’s all.”
“I see. And now he’s...making sure you get home safely?”
“Apparently.”
Petra’s eyebrows knitted as if she understood that meant much more than Sadie was saying. “Divorce is so hard. Here’s hoping I never have to go through that.”
“You have no idea,” Sadie agreed.
Petra squeezed her arm for encouragement. “What time do you need me tomorrow?”
“Same time, if that’s okay. I have to be at Lolita’s by seven.”
“No problem. The kids have school, of course, so I get up early.”
“Thanks. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your flexibility.”
“We love Jayden. You know that.” She picked up a toy that’d been left on the floor. “So it’ll be another long day? You’ll be going out to the farm after the restaurant?”
Sadie let her son wiggle down. He was getting too big for her to carry for long, anyway. “Um...not sure, to be honest.”
She cocked her head. “Dawson doesn’t need you tomorrow?”
If he knew what was good for him, he’d find someone else to help him. But she couldn’t say where he stood on that decision. They’d left it sort of open-ended. “He told me he’ll let me know.”
“Okay. Text me when you find out. I’d like to take the kids on a nature walk, but if Jayden won’t be here, I’ll wait until he is so he doesn’t miss out.”
The gratitude Sadie felt for Petra brought a lump to her throat. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Of course!”
Jayden brought the bag Sadie sent with him whenever he came, but before Sadie could go, Petra caught her wrist. “I know Sly’s out there waiting for you, but... I’ve been dying of curiosity. What’s Dawson like?”
She thought for a moment. “He’s...determined.” Yes, she felt safe saying that, especially when she thought of the way he’d stuck it out in those fields.
“Somehow that isn’t what I was expecting you to say,” Petra said with a laugh.
Of course not. Everyone wanted to know if he was the killer he’d been portrayed as being. They were hoping for some small tidbit that might reveal more than what they’d seen on TV. The way he stares at me is so creepy... He sits around sharpening a knife all afternoon... He laughs about what happened... Something juicy and gossip-worthy like that. The good citizens of Silver Springs would be surprised to know all he did was work and work hard. “I think he’s innocent.”
Petra’s lips formed a surprised O. Sadie was surprised herself, especially by how committed she was to that belief, so soon. She had nothing more to judge by than anyone else. Not really. She’d worked with Dawson only one day, hadn’t even seen him much. But there was something about him that spoke of the kind of integrity a murderer would not possess. Maybe it was his devotion to his sister. Maybe it was the courage it must’ve taken to come back to this place. He could’ve sold the ranch and moved to friendlier climes, disappeared into the melting pot that was LA or some other urban center where he wouldn’t have to face the same recrimination.
Or maybe she believed he was innocent because he’d had the guts, even after all he’d been through, to hire her in spite of Sly. He’d stood up to her ex at the door, too, probably would’ve done more if she hadn’t intervened.
She admired him, and not only for his looks.
That was something she’d never expected...
“What makes you think so?” Petra asked, still eager for details.
“He’s a strong man,” she replied.
Petra grinned and began to fan herself. “No kidding. I’ve seen him on TV. What a hottie!”
“He has a nice body, but I mean he’s strong in his head and his heart. He doesn’t need to kill old people to get what he wants, doesn’t seem like he’d ever attack someone weaker.”
“Are you sure?”
She realized she was sounding like Aiyana, who’d proclaimed his innocence all along. “No. That’s just my opinion.”
“Well, it sounds like he’s managed to impress you.”
Sadie nodded. “And he wasn’t even trying.”
“I admit I sort of hope he’s guilty—or I would if you weren’t working out there. I’d hate to think of anyone going through what he’s been through as an innocent man.” Petra gave her a quick hug. “Good luck with Sly. Would you like me to walk you to your car?”
“No. I’ll manage on my own and deal with him at home.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Sadie slung Jayden’s bag over her shoulder and led him outside to find that Sly had gotten back into his patrol car. Jayden saw the car, too, had to know it was his father, and yet he didn’t run over to greet him.
Sly rolled down the passenger window. “Want to come ride with me, bud?” he yelled.
Jayden looked up at her for some cue as to what he should do. Sadie could tell he was reluctant to leave her, since they’d been apart all day.
“It won’t be for long,” she whispered to him. “We only live a few houses down.”
“Okay.” He spoke so softly that Sly couldn’t have heard him, but he let go of her hand and walked over.
“Is it really necessary to offer to drive him home when I live half a block away?” she muttered so that only Sly could hear as she unbuckled Jayden’s safety seat.
“It’s going to be more than half a block,” he announced, full-voiced. “We’re going for ice cream!”
Fun. Ice cream should make up for the fact that you haven’t stepped up as a parent since the day he was born, she thought but said nothing.
Sly’s hand covered hers as he took the car seat. “Care to join us?”
Sadie resisted the urge to recoil.
“Come, Mommy!” Jayden cried, but Sadie didn’t have it in her. She couldn’t sit around making small talk with Sly when she was so upset with him. He’d just shown up at her work, might’ve cost her her job, and now he wanted to take her and Jayden out for ice cream as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. That was the kind of stuff he did all the time—crossed certain boundaries and then pretended he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry, honey.” She slid her hand out from under Sly’s. “Mommy’s too exhausted. I worked really hard today.”
Fortunately, Jayden didn’t complain. The prospect of a treat had won him over.
“I’ll wait for you at home,” she added.
“Don’t sit around and stew,” Sly said to her retreating back. “You have no reason to be mad! I was only trying to look out for you.”
She pivoted and nearly gave him a piece of her mind right there on Petra’s front lawn. The desire to let loose was so strong she almost couldn’t rein herself in. But she knew from experience that causing a scene would only make the problem worse, and she had Jayden—and Petra and Petra’s family—to think about. “I’ll see you when you get back,” she said in a firm voice, to let him know she wasn’t willing to discuss it, and waved to Jayden as they drove off.
It wasn’t until she got home and was taking her phone out of her purse to charge it that she finally saw Dawson’s text.
Be here at one tomorrow, if possible. And this time, could you bring a six-pack of beer? That wine you bought was terrible.
She couldn’t help laughing at the wine statement. She’d never tried that brand before. It had been in the right price range, but it had been terrible.
You are a glutton for punishment, she wrote back.
When she didn’t get a response, she guessed he was already asleep.
* * *
By the time Sadie bathed Jayden, she was too exhausted to read to him. Promising she’d make it up to him tomorrow, she slid him over so she could climb into bed, kissed his forehead and turned out the light. But long after he went to sleep she couldn’t drop off herself, couldn’t get her mind to shut down. One question after another bombarded her. Why had Dawson Reed agreed to keep her on? Why would he risk his own well-being? He’d been through so much, and yet he was the one willing to take her side over Sly’s—when so many others had decided to protect their own interests.
She understood he was in a hurry to get a caregiver so his sister could come home, and that there wouldn’t be a lot of people in Silver Springs who’d trust him enough to take the job, but there were other places he could draw from. His sister had been in that institution for over a year. Why not take one or two more weeks to expand the search so that he wouldn’t have to deal with Sly?
Was it because he was a nice guy, as she thought? Or something else?
When Sly brought Jayden home, she’d told him she believed Dawson could never have hurt his parents, and he, in turn, had tried to convince her that Dawson was merely “grooming her,” setting her up to trust him and believe in him so that he’d be able to manipulate her. Sly said narcissists and psychopaths were experts at creating positive experiences designed to make their victims feel connected to them. Before he left, he even tried to persuade her to visit the police station in the next day or two so that he and the homicide detective who’d investigated the case could go over the details with her.
She wasn’t sure that would convince her of anything, though. If the facts of the investigation clearly indicated Dawson was guilty, why hadn’t he been convicted? There had to be some question, didn’t there?
Finally giving up on sleep, she slipped out of bed and went to the living room, where she’d left her laptop. She’d paid a fair amount of attention to the Reed murders, had listened to and read the various media reports as they came out. Like most everyone else in Silver Springs, she couldn’t believe something so terrible could happen in their little town.
But after going to work for Dawson, she had the desire to look at what’d transpired from a more objective vantage point—and not while she had several police officers at her elbow, trying to sway her opinion. She also hoped to see if she could determine whether the media, in their quest for shocking headlines, had helped create a bias that shouldn’t have existed, as Dawson’s defense lawyers claimed.
Putting her computer in her lap, she propped a couch pillow behind her back and logged onto the internet.
A search for “Dawson Reed” called up several links. She clicked one after the other and read, with fresh eyes, what she’d given only a cursory glance before.
Silver Springs Man Denies Killing Couple Who Adopted Him featured several quotes attributed to Dawson. “I would never hurt my parents. I loved them,” he said, and, “I didn’t need to kill anyone in order to inherit the farm. Time would’ve taken care of that whether I wanted it to or not.”
That made sense to her. Murder did seem like a drastic approach for a son who was set to inherit anyway. But the police claimed he wasn’t willing to wait. They said that after Dawson achieved a master’s in environmental science and management at UC Santa Barbara—quite an accomplishment, considering he’d spent his high school years at a boys ranch—he started working for a lighting conservation company, also in Santa Barbara, until he got into a disagreement with the owner and was fired after only eight months. Discouraged, since he couldn’t make a go of life even with a degree, he returned to Silver Springs to work for his parents.
Although that sounded plausible to Sadie, Dawson painted his personal history in a different light. From what she could piece together, he said that he argued with the owner of the lighting company because the guy was bilking the local utility out of thousands of dollars on various state-mandated rebate programs. And it wasn’t because he couldn’t get a job that he came back to Silver Springs. He’d barely started to apply when he realized that his parents could no longer manage the farm on their own. So he gave up the life he was going to pursue to come help them.
Devil...or saint?
With a frown, Sadie opened a Word document and began to write down the various points so that she could keep them straight. On the night in question, the police said Dawson went to The Blue Suede Shoe, a local bar that offered live entertainment on the weekends, where he watched a Lakers game on the big screen and played pool with Aiyana’s oldest two sons, Elijah and Gavin Turner. He left at eleven-thirty and stopped by the gas station to fill up before going home. The police admitted they couldn’t figure out if he planned the murders in advance, or if he decided to kill his parents on the spur of the moment, but while everyone was sleeping, he took the hatchet from the woodpile in back, attacked his parents in their bed and then called 9-1-1 to report that there’d been a break-in and he needed an ambulance.
Both Lonnie and Larry were dead by the time police arrived to find Dawson cradling his mother in his arms. “Although that might sound like a touching act, there were no tears in his eyes,” Detective John Garbo, whom Sadie had once met at a picnic, said. “His emotion felt fake to me.”
Had Dawson been insincere? Or was it the police who had it wrong? Everyone reacted differently to grief. Maybe he’d been in shock after seeing such a horrifying thing.
Dawson agreed with everything they claimed about the night of the murders up until he left the gas station. At that point, he said he was approached by a tall, wiry man with brown eyes, dark hair and a scraggly beard, who asked for a lift to Santa Barbara. Dawson told him he wasn’t going that far. The guy indicated a friend lived much closer and climbed in, but as Dawson drove, his passenger began to act more and more irrationally and wouldn’t name a place, other than Santa Barbara. Dawson said the hitchhiker kept showing him the map of where he wanted to go on his phone, saying he had to get to a friend’s place, so Dawson told him to call that friend and ask him to come, but the hitchhiker wouldn’t. They were at the edge of town when Dawson finally insisted he get out. The man refused and an argument ensued, followed by a scuffle, during which Dawson managed to pull the guy out of his truck so that he could take off.
Because of the difficulty of dragging a grown man from the passenger seat through the driver’s-side door, the police found that part of Dawson’s story highly suspect, but Dawson looked plenty strong to Sadie. She thought the police actually made a better point when they argued that it was too much of a coincidence that some hitchhiker would be able to find Dawson’s house. Dawson had an answer for that, too, though. He said he had various documents in his truck—a couple of work orders, even a bid for solar on the house—and one must’ve fallen out during the scuffle. His guess was that after he drove off, the hitchhiker simply used the address on that lost work order to find his house.
Sadie supposed that could’ve happened. Dawson drove a work truck, likely kept various things he thought he was going to need on the dash or seat, and loose papers could easily blow out or get dragged out amid a tussle.
Either way, he never changed his story. She felt that was important, even if the police didn’t give him much credit for that. As for the rest of Dawson’s explanation of the night’s events, he said he wasn’t far from home when that disagreement occurred. Once he got the guy out, to avoid leading him right to the farm—and because he didn’t realize something with his address had already fallen out—he went back to town, where he drove around listening to music while waiting for the stranger to get wherever he was going. He even stopped at Gavin’s house, but Gavin wasn’t back from the bar.
When Dawson drove home, he didn’t see the hitchhiker along the way, and he quit worrying—until he walked into the house and noticed the back door standing open. Once he saw that and his mother’s purse dumped out on the kitchen floor, he rushed upstairs to find Angela asleep in her bed, his parents bleeding in theirs. Although he felt as if his father was already dead, his mother was making a gurgling sound. He was cradling her in his arms, trying to comfort and encourage her, when she died.
“Heartbreaking either way,” Sadie mumbled, rubbing her eyes. She wanted to continue her research. There was so much left to read. But it was one o’clock and she’d had a long day, with another one to follow.
After saving her document, she set her computer on the coffee table and slipped back into her room but still didn’t rest well. Frightening images of opening that locked door at the top of the stairs at the farmhouse and finding two mangled bodies filled her dreams—along with the sound of Sly laughing at her.
Just before her alarm went off, she startled awake on her own. She’d been having a different nightmare by then, one in which Dawson was standing over her while she slept—lifting a hatchet.