Chapter 16
She’d wondered how long it would take him to realize what she’d been through. Not that he knew everything, but at least he knew something now. He’d get up and walk away. And he’d never come back.
She watched him take the first few steps, sorrow clearly delineated on his features. His hands fisted, his arms and back rigid. She knew how he felt. But she always had anger for her family. When he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into his arms, damn near crushing her against him, she was slow to react. She wasn’t sure why he was even still in the room. She felt his chest shake, his shoulders sagging, his chin dropping on top of her head. She knew she was feeling something she didn’t understand and couldn’t really expect to understand. It was so foreign to her. She slowly raised her arms and wrapped them around him. That’s when she realized his chest, his whole body shook. She squeezed her arms tight around him and held him close. “It’s okay. It’s all right.”
He stepped back ever-so-slightly so he could look at her.
She saw the moistness in his eyes, which astonished, shocked and deeply touched her. She reached up to touch a tear just sitting and ready to drop. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
He shook his head. “This will never be a long time ago. This is something you live and breathe every day.”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, precisely. This was my torture. This was my world. It was my shame.”
Her voice fell, and she cast her eyes to the floor. The child in her knew she was to blame for this. Her parents had told her often enough. As an adult, she tried to rationalize it away, but she’d thought that, if she’d done better, they wouldn’t have done this. If she’d just given them the answers they wanted, the various times they’d asked, they would have let her go.
They said they would. It had taken their deaths for her to realize they never planned to let her go—ever.
London grabbed her chin, tilting it up. “This is not your fault. You were not to blame for this. You are not to be ashamed of this. The people who did this to you are the ones to blame. They are the ones who didn’t deserve to have you. They should be ashamed for having done this to a child. To their child.” He twisted his head to look at the corner where her bed was. “How long were you here?”
“Years.”
He stared at her in shock. “Did you go to school?”
She nodded. “College. I went to college.”
“Primary school, secondary school or high school?”
She shook her head. “I was homeschooled here in this room. I finished all my schooling before I was twelve. I did my first degree online. I started my second degree and finished it in person.”
“Did they let you out? Did they take you to restaurants or parks or to attend plays or anything?”
She gave a half smile. “Yes, occasionally. When I needed new clothes, new books or schooling supplies, I would travel with them once or twice a year. But here, this was my room. As I grew bigger, I was allowed in the rest of the basement some of the time. And when I was bad, I was locked in here. That bathroom has a two-way lock. It was mine to use, but I could never leave.”
She no longer saw sadness or grief in his voice, no longer saw moistness in his eyes. His hard chin said retribution was at hand. She wished. Because there was nothing anybody could do now.
“How long were you locked in here?”
“Sometimes a week, a month, six months, sometimes longer.” She gave him a half smile. “It all depended on how good I was apparently.”
“How did you get out? When did this stop?”
She gave a twisted smile and said, “I’m not even sure how I got out. I remember talking to somebody. I was probably delirious when they found me. The police told me that my parents were dead. I was taken to the hospital and checked out. Malnourished and dehydrated but aware. I was sixteen—smart enough to know my life would change forever. And that I needed to keep my mouth shut.” She shook her head, wishing she could shake off her memories.
“I needed a family member to take me in, or I’d end up in foster care. I contacted my uncle and told him that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, that I already had one college degree and was finishing my second one. All I needed him to do was sign off on the paperwork.”
“And he did?” London asked incredulously.
“He asked for one hundred thousand dollars. I gave it to him, and he signed.” Her voice was clear. “I paid gladly. I understood the value of money back then, but more so I really understood the value of freedom.”
“So, you have been here alone in this house since you were sixteen?”
“Yes. Slowly but surely trying to integrate into society, trying not to be the weird one. The Internet was a fascinating place for me. I always had computers because I needed schooling. I probably could’ve contacted somebody for help and asked them to save me. But the fear of retribution stopped me. My father was also a computer geek. He monitored my Internet use.” She shook her head. “If they hadn’t died, I don’t know where I would have ended up. Because, if they had let me out, I’d tell the world what they’d done. They were eminent experts in their field. They had respect. They had good jobs at that point. They had reputations to consider. Very few people even knew I existed.”
“I’m glad they’re dead,” he snapped. “Otherwise I’d commit murder now myself.”
She stared, then dropped her gaze.
Silence hung in the air.
He took a step toward her, his hands out. “How did your parents die?” he asked, his tone soft, gentle. But a thread of steel ran through it.
She took a half step backward and came up against the wall. He took a full step forward, his breath warming her face. She tried to ignore the memories of the last time she’d been this close to him. He was so overwhelming, and all she wanted to do was curl up in his arms and believe a normal life with him was possible.
“Fern, how did your parents die?”
“In a car accident.” She shrugged. “It’s a matter of public record.”
He turned her to face him, stooping to see her expression.
She gave him a lopsided smile. “What did you think? That I poisoned them?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think you killed anyone.”
“But you can’t be sure, can you?” She stepped to the side and backed away from the proximity of the memories closing in around her. “After all, I am Dr. Death. That’s what I specialize in.”
“And the police made good use of your services before you were charged,” he acknowledged.
She snorted. “Yeah, they did. For a couple years, I consulted on poison cases. But they turned on me as soon as they had a chance.”
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But, once they turned, they turned in a big way.”
She walked to the child’s bed where she’d spent many a year and stood at the end, staring at it. “They didn’t always treat me this way. It started because I was bad.”
She heard his breath, his footsteps so soft as he came up behind her; she should’ve realized he had followed her.
“Bad? A child so bad they should be poisoned?”
“I snuck in here one day without their permission.” She shook her head. “What they didn’t understand was I had this affinity for the plants. This urge to be near them. I didn’t understand that. They didn’t understand that. The first time it happened I was only two.”
His voice dropped to a deadly tone as he asked, “First time what happened?”
“The first time I helped myself to the pretty flowers down here.”
He closed his eyes, and sweat broke out on his forehead. “Are you saying you ate some of the toxic plants?”
She nodded. “My parents freaked. I don’t know the full story as they wouldn’t talk about it.” Her smile turned sad. “I think honestly the scientist in them was triggered. Not only did they want to see what happened to me but they didn’t understand why I wasn’t hurt by the poison.”
“What did you take?”
She chuckled. “I was fascinated with the flowers. They said, when they found me, I was completely covered in the belladonna spore. I had been sitting, nibbling on the flowers, my skin covered in the petals.”
He stepped around her slightly so he could look at her. “And are those poisonous?”
She nodded. “But I wasn’t terribly discerning. I had leaves in my pockets. I was eating the berries, which are deadly.” She shook her head. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I should’ve died. But that’s when it started.”
Walking over to the long counter, she added, “When they found me, I was sound asleep under this counter. I had half a dozen plants all around me. They thought I was dead, I lay so still.”
“Of course they rushed you to the hospital and had your stomach pumped.” But his tone said he didn’t believe it; it would be the truth that he so did not want to hear.
She walked toward the empty tables. “Not at all. Because then, of course, they’d have to explain how their daughter got loose in a roomful of poisonous plants.”
Half under his breath but loud enough for her to hear, he said, “Right, of course not. That would be way too simple for proper parents. And they blamed you for that?”
“They both did. But, like I said, they were scientists. I should’ve been dead a dozen times over. Not only did I survive, I flourished.” She held out her hands. “Essentially I haven’t found a plant yet that hurts me. My body has an affinity for poisonous plants. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I know Stefan is certainly intrigued by the concept but for a whole different reason. But whatever this affinity is, when people give me poison, my body accepts it with joy instead.”
She turned and walked out the door, leaving him standing in shock. She walked upstairs to the kitchen. When she turned around, she watched him standing in the doorway, his hand on the frame as if for support. She walked closer and asked, “You okay?”
She reached out a hand for him, but he grabbed it, making sure she stayed right here. “Did you just say, when people give you poison?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “My parents fed me poisons all the time. All different kinds. And they documented every symptom—every itch, rash, sniffle. They took samples of blood, skin, mucus, tissue, hair and checked it under the microscopes.”
“Was it just your parents giving you poison?” he snapped. “Or has somebody else tried to kill you?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “There have been other attempts.”
His hands went immediately to cover his eyes. When he pulled them away, he asked, “How many attempts?”
She nodded slowly. “Once at the beginning of the court case and once at the end.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“Who was I to tell? Who gave a shit? If I was dead, the whole trial, everything would just go away. It would have saved our taxpayers thousands of dollars. So who cared?” she added.
“Do you know who did it?”
She lifted her face with a shuttered look, wondering what could be achieved by telling him the truth. Could he handle it? She shrugged. “I have a good idea of at least one person.”
“How could you know who poisoned you and do nothing about it?”
“Because he poisoned himself at the same time,” she said.
His eyes grew wide; then he glared at her. But in the back of his mind was that click of knowledge. As if he suddenly understood whom and what she was talking about. He held out a hand toward her as if reaching for support. She grasped his hand. He asked in a low voice, “Was it Derek?”
She gave a decisive nod. “Of course it was. I thought you knew.”
He stared at her. “You thought I knew he tried to kill you?”
She shrugged. “Sure. He said he would tell you. It was his answer when I questioned him about trying to poison me. I knew he would tell you that I poisoned him instead. But in truth he poisoned my coffee. I told him how I saw the poison in it, and he said that was a lie and dared me to have some.” She shrugged. “I didn’t care one way or another. I picked it up and drank it. Then I held it out to him and told him I would survive, but I didn’t know about him.” She paused. “That’s when he said it didn’t matter if he survived or not because the police would find his dead body and that would lead them back to me as the killer. And he drank his too.”
She could tell from London’s face that he knew an exchange like that was all too possible.
“Why would you drink the poisoned coffee?”
“Because, like I said, I have an affinity for it. My body likes the stuff. It’s like getting a shot of nectar from the flower. His body, on the other hand—of course, as you well know—has been in a decline since.”
“Weren’t you terrified he’d die and you’d be blamed?”
She pulled out her phone, went back to some videos she had kept and hit Play. Derek’s voice filled the air. London listened to the conversation she’d recorded. Derek shouted at the end, saying she’d be charged for his murder.
“That’s my proof. If I was ever charged or asked about his death, I would’ve just played this.”
He stared at her phone as if it was poisonous itself.
She turned and walked to the coffeemaker. She had considered Derek might be the one after her now, but she doubted he had the strength. Had he searched for a treatment? Or was he suffering on his own? Had he even connected his current condition to his attempt to poison her?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She hit the coffee button to start the brew dripping and turned, leaning against the counter. She stared at him. “Why would I? You lived in your perfect little world. You love your brother, thought the world of him, and you’d never believe he’d kill me.”
“You hit Stop on the video. What else happened after that?”
She gave him a flat stare. “I’m not telling you.”
He took two strident steps forward. “Why not?”
“Because it’s personal.”
“I’d like to hear it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and she had to admit he was handling everything decently.
When someone finds out their brother was an attempted murderer and suicidal, it did tend to rock the boat. She’d had months to deal with Derek’s betrayal, whereas London was just now hearing about it. She wondered if she should tell him the rest, then decided what the hell. She pulled up the video and hit Play, letting it resume.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked Derek on the video.
“Because that’s what you deserve.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Maybe you haven’t, until now. Maybe I’ll be your first. But, if I can keep London away from you, I don’t care.”
“You don’t want London to be happy?”
“He can go find his own girlfriend.”
“But you didn’t want me anymore. When I broke up with you, you were relieved.”
“Because there’s something off about you. We never got to bed. Who does that? Currently everybody has sex first.”
“We didn’t go to bed because you never had a sex drive that would get us there,” she said softly. “You kept coming up with excuses.”
London watched the two of them in the video as Derek shoved his face closer to hers and said, “Because I can’t sleep with a freak.”
Fern winced, watching her reflection take the emotional hit in a stony manner. “Then why did you ask me to marry you?”
“I wanted to be engaged to you. I thought the thrill would add to the excitement. But instead it terrified me. I was afraid I wouldn’t survive the night.”
In the video, she shook her head. “So then you tried to kill me and even yourself.”
“I hate myself. I wanted to take you to bed. I wanted to show all the guys I was strong enough, brave enough to sleep with Dr. Death. They all thought I was. But I knew I wasn’t. I was a fraud. So, as much as I hate you, I hate myself even more.”
“And yet you won’t let London have a relationship with me.”
“No. Because London is strong enough. He won’t give a shit about what anybody else says. If he wants to take Dr. Death to bed, he’ll take her to bed and handle the consequences.”
Fern hit the button on the video. Then she pocketed her phone.
London stared at her and then at the pocket where the phone was. “You never slept with him?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure he could perform at all.”
“So why were you engaged?” His voice dropped, his gaze deepened, heat warmed the deep dark depths.
“Because I was tired of being alone.”
*
London closed his eyes. The shock waves kept slamming into him. They hurt on so many levels. When he opened his eyes again, he studied her bent head, wondering what the last admission had cost her. He couldn’t believe his brother had tried to murder her, and she accepted that as if it were a just punishment. To be so lonely that she would get engaged to somebody she didn’t love and who didn’t love her in return? What the hell was wrong with his goddamned brother? He shook his head. “My brother is a fool.”
She snorted and turned her back on him. She reached for the coffeepot and poured two cups. He watched her go through the motions, seeing the tremor running through her fingers. She wasn’t unaffected, but she’d spent so long trying to appear as if nothing mattered that she was doing a damn decent job of it. He had to admit he was ecstatic she had never gone to bed with his brother. That part had always bothered him. He’d have gotten over it, but there would always be that little bit of jealousy. That his brother had gotten to spend special time with her, when London wanted every single minute of her day, every single moment of her time. To hear the videotape she had … “Is he dying?”
“Most likely.”
He took a deep breath at that. His brother had been in a steady decline. But to think he’d brought it on himself … “You said someone tried to poison you after the court case. Was it him too?”
“I can’t be sure about that. But it’s possible.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was alone in a room, waiting for the lawyer to return. I’d been acquitted and would be released from the courthouse, but we were waiting for the crowds to die down. The media circus was outside, and my attorney wanted to go over the media statement we would give. He carried a tray with coffee and a couple doughnuts from one of the rooms. He was excited, talking a mile a minute. He took the coffee cups off the tray and put them on the table. I looked at him. I knew that one of the coffees had poison in it. I saw a hint of green around it. I studied it and then asked, “Where did you get the coffee?”
“At the courtroom cafeteria,” he said. “The guys were handing them out.”
“Did you see who handed them to you?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He shook his head and said, “I didn’t recognize the man who gave it to me. But I got one with double cream for me, and yours is black.”
I nodded and asked, “Did you tell him it was for me?”
He grinned and said, “I did, indeed.” The smile fell off his face as he studied mine. “Why? What’s wrong?”
I gave him a half smile and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
She turned back to London, her expression cleared of the long-ago memory and said, “I drank the entire cupful. Like I said, my body likes it.”
For London, it was like the world had fallen out from under him. He just couldn’t comprehend her body could handle so much poison or that she could be so nonchalant about people trying to kill her. What if they used a gun next time?
“Was my brother there at the time?”
“He certainly was. Where he went afterward, I didn’t see. Why would I give a shit about that?”
“Did you tell the lawyer?”
“No,” she said in a soft voice. “I kept that to myself.”
He stepped to the side so he saw her face. “Please tell me you still have the cup.”
She glanced at him in surprise and then nodded at the closet. She walked to the front hallway and pulled out a box. He hadn’t seen this one before. She took it to the kitchen table and dropped it there. “This is everything I have from the trial. The cup is in here.”
He opened the lid. Inside were files and court documents. Several disposable cups in plastic bags. He turned to study her and asked, “Are all these poisoned?”
“No, not at all. I didn’t think about it. I threw it all in the box just in case and walked away.”
He glanced at the contents and asked, “Is it safe for me to touch?”
“Don’t open any of the bags.”
He reached forward hesitantly and lifted a bag with a small take-out cup inside of it. “Is this the poisoned one?”
Her face hardened. “Yes. For all the good it will do.”
“We might find fingerprints on it.”
“You might,” she said cheerfully. “If you can, thank you.”
She grabbed her coffee cup, pushed open the kitchen door and stepped into the backyard.
He came behind her and said, “How can you be so calm about the whole thing?”
“Because I’ve had a long time to deal with this,” she snapped. “Look at all those stupid threatening letters you took to the police. I lived with that. Day in, day out, it was shoved down my throat, filled my dreams. Every waking moment was filled with hatred from people I didn’t know, directed at me.” She shook her head. “When I went to England, I walked away from it all. Over there I could start fresh. And they welcomed me. They didn’t treat me like I was dirt or something to be taken out back to put in the trash. My knowledge was respected, not violated, and I made new friends. But it was always there in the background.”
He couldn’t imagine. He bent his head, pinched the bridge of his nose and whispered, “Jesus Christ, how did you survive?”
“I survived the way I always have. By pulling inside and existing alone. I’ve been alone one way or another most of my life. Do you think being in that basement was fun while my parents plied me with poisons, knowing I wouldn’t die, but I would possibly show reactions they could document and further research? But I did it. I went through it. I loved them anyway. Even in spite of my hate for them. When they died, it freed me from a life in their prison.”
“Do you wish they were still alive?” he murmured. “If they were, I would kill them myself.”
“I think someone beat you to it.” Her voice dropped as she added, “Honestly the official verdict is that they died in a car crash, but I’m pretty sure they were murdered.”