Southern California

 

Wren stared out the window, a headache pounding behind her eyes. She watched the clouds float past the plane’s wings, fear dancing like icicles in her blood stream, bobbing and bouncing as they floated through her veins. She’d visited Wilde three times in the past six months or so, but this time would be different. This time, she knew the truth about their relationship, a truth he’d known and chosen not to share with her. He’d been playing games, and now she wanted to know why.

“I talked to the warden,” Cormac told her. “They’re making the arrangements as we speak. He should be waiting for you when we arrive.”

“I want to go in there alone.”

“Wren, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“He won’t talk in front of you. But he might talk to me.”

She looked at him, hoping he wasn’t going to make her plead with him. But she could see understanding on his face under the fear that he was feeling for her. That touched her heart, reminding her of the bond they’d somehow developed over these past few strange days.

She turned back to the window, thinking about the phone calls Wilde had made to her cell phone—a number he shouldn’t have had access to—and the warnings he’d given her about her operatives. She thought about the things he’d said about her mother, the warnings he’d given her about her father:

“How did you know what Spencer White was up to?”

He tilted his head, a small smile on his thin lips. “Is that really what you want to know?”

“I want to know who you are, how you knew my mother! I want to know who killed her, but I’ll start with that.”

“I told you, I have sources inside and outside the prison. I like to keep an ear to the ground when it concerns you, Little Wren.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“It’s what she called you.”

“You were with her in the park that night. What did you talk about? Where did you go when you left?”

She sat on the hard stool across from him, watching him closely. Cormac would be angry when he learned she’d come back here alone, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, would it? She needed answers, and she was tired of waiting on Cormac to help her find them.

“We talked about you, about your father, about the life she wanted for herself. We talked about what she wanted for your future. She never wanted you to be raised by that bohemian, but my hands were tied after she died.”

“You know she had family, right?”

“Her family was ugly.” He made a strange face, a twisted sort of pained face. “You wouldn’t have wanted them in your life.”

“Did they know about her? Did they know she was killed?”

“They knew.”

“They never tried to see me.”

“Your father wouldn’t have allowed it had they tried.”

Wren dragged her fingers through her hair. He sat back and watched, another dreamy smile on his face. “She used to do that. The same exact gesture.”

Wren stopped, staring at him. “I don’t understand how she could be your friend.”

“We weren’t just friends, Little Wren.”

He’d told her what she wanted to know; she just hadn’t listened closely enough. She hadn’t pursued it the way she should have. She should have asked more, should have pushed him to tell her more. She should have seen the resemblance, should have realized that they were related.

Her stupid brain had assumed they were lovers. She thought her mother had left her father for a serial killer. How awful was that? But then again, was it any worse than the reality that her mother’s brother was a serial killer?

“He’ll tell me the truth now,” she said softly, more to herself than Cormac. “He’ll want to gloat because he’ll think it was his games that brought me to the truth.”

“Maybe.”

Tears welled in Wren’s eyes for reasons she couldn’t even begin to understand. She brushed them away, trying not to think about anything more than the answers she was about to get from Wilde. But there was a part of her that understood that her whole life had been based on lies. Her father had begun lying to her from the moment she was old enough to ask questions, censoring the truth and outright holding back crucial information. Even after she was an adult, mature enough to handle the truth, he’d kept it from her.

The foundations of her life were a joke. A story with no plot, no backbone. How could the man who raised her, the man who claimed to love her more than his own life, do that to her?

Cormac quietly held her hand until they landed. He didn’t try to push her to talk, didn’t tell her things that were empty comfort. He just held her hand and let her stay lost in her own thoughts. She appreciated that.

When they were on the ground, he walked her to a rental car that was waiting on the tarmac. It was strange being back in Los Angeles after everything that had happened. She found herself looking at landmarks she’d known since she was a small child and feeling almost as if she were an alien visiting from a distant planet. What was this place? It was so familiar, but so foreign all at the same time.

The prison was just a collection of buildings behind a razor-wire-topped fence. She’d been before, but even this seemed foreign to her today. Her heart was in her throat as they pulled into the visitor’s parking area, her hands moving to automatically remove things from her person that she couldn’t take into the prison. However, her cell phone was still missing, and she didn’t really have much else on her.

“I should call the office now that we’re back in town, make sure everything’s okay.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Cormac assured her.

She nodded, the office low on her list of priorities at the moment.

The guard at the front desk recognized her as she walked up to the security window. He shoved the paperwork she had to sign through the slit at the bottom without saying a word, curiosity moving his eyes over her face with a new interest. She signed, refusing to acknowledge that curiosity.

“They’ll come get you in a minute.”

Cormac pulled her back, sliding his arms around her as they moved to stand near a side wall. He kissed her temple and whispered near her ear, “Are you sure you want to do this alone?”

“Positive.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

“I know.” She twisted around, reaching up to kiss him gently. “Thank you.”

They stood together like that for the few minutes it took for the guard to come get her. She forced a little smile as they parted, looking into the concern in his eyes and feeling a spark of pleasure at the knowledge that whatever happened to her meant something to him. In a time when it felt like she no longer knew whom she could trust, no longer knew who really cared and who’d just been obligated to care, it was good to know that this man genuinely gave a damn.

And then she was walking down that stark, depressing corridor that led to the visitor’s room.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to say. She wasn’t even sure it would be necessary for her to say anything. Wilde seemed to have spies everywhere, watching her. He’d known about the hit put on Jason Stine during the Colt Murphy fiasco. He’d known about the things going on at Spencer White’s law firm while Stevie Wayne was undercover there. He clearly knew how to find out what was happening in her life, sometimes before she could.

He probably knew she’d been to Gabriel Mitchell’s home. Probably knew before she did that she’d meet with Stephen Thomas.

“Little Wren,” he said, with pleasure dripping from his tone as she walked into the visitor’s room. He was already seated at the table, shackled around the ankles and the wrists despite the fact this was a minimum security prison. For some reason, they felt the need to be overly cautious with Devin Wilde. Go figure.

“How are you, Mr. Wilde?”

“Hmm, so formal today. Why’s that?”

She shrugged as she took a seat across from him. “It’s been a long few days.”

“I heard you were missing. I’m glad to see you’ve been found.”

“I’m missing?”

He lowered his head slightly, even as his eyes moved over her face, perhaps looking for marks of violence. He wouldn’t see any, unless he happened to catch the healing abrasions on her wrists.

“A friend of mine said that your roommates had raised the alarm and that Durango Masters had the entire security firm out looking for you. They even searched the homes of your friend, Cormac Delaney.”

“Is that right?”

“You don’t believe me.”

Wren rolled her shoulders, not really a shrug but more of a stretching movement. “How do you get all this information, Wilde? You seem more informed inside these walls than I am outside of them.”

“Part of being a success is knowing when and how to keep your ear to the ground.”

She nodded, too exhausted to argue with him. Now that they were face to face, she just felt this overwhelming exhaustion. She was tired of his games, tired of her own questions, tired of the investigation and all the questions it generated rather than the answers she had hoped for. Did she really want the truth? Or was it the search that had fueled her all this time?

“I met Gabriel Mitchell.”

“Oh? How is he?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and studied him. “Living quite well in Florida.”

“Really? I thought he’d forever stay on the West Coast.”

“He seemed content. Married. Has a couple of kids.”

“Good for him.”

“He told me how he met Elizabeth all those years ago, about the bar she worked in and their courtship. Told me he married her within weeks of meeting her.”

“Yeah. They were one of those couples, love at first sight and all that. But Elizabeth was one of those people you just fell in love with the moment you saw her.”

“Was she?”

“Oh, yeah. So beautiful and kind, and the happiest girl you could want to have around you.”

“How could she be so happy after everything that happened to her as a child?”

A dark cloud came into Wilde’s eyes. “What did Mitchell tell you about her childhood?”

“That her father was a distant jackass who liked to slip into her bedroom at night.”

Wilde’s jaw tightened, a dangerous light filling his eyes as he slammed his hands on the top of the metal table, the resulting ring of sound almost deafening. A guard came to the door and peeked in, but Wren waved him away.

“Does that upset you, Wilde?”

“He shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Why not? It explained a few things about her.”

“Like what?”

“Like why she would spend time with a guy like you.”

Instead of pissing him off, those words just made him laugh. “You think you have it all figured out now, don’t you, Little Wren?”

She slowly nodded. “I know her father was distant. Uncaring, except of course during those late night visits. And I know her mother was an alcoholic. A violent one, too, I’d guess. And it probably wouldn’t be a leap of logic to assume that she hated Elizabeth because she was young and beautiful, and she was on the receiving end of all her father’s attention. Poor Mom probably had to wait in line for him to come visit her at night, and by then she was probably too drunk, or too passed out, to appreciate it.”

Once again, his anger flared. He jerked at his restraints, leaning across the table to move closer to her.

“You don’t know shit!” he said, his spittle flying.

“Yeah?” She tilted her head as she studied him with a nonchalance that was completely feigned. “I know the only person in her life that mattered to her was her brother. Until she met Mitchell, of course. And I know her brother went searching for her and found her before she married him. I know he called her often, showing a certain level of hostility toward her husband even as he made her laugh. I know they loved each other. A lot.”

He turned his head away, refusing to look at her.

“And I suspect the reason she left Mitchell wasn’t because she didn’t want to be married, but because her brother convinced her he needed her.”

“You don’t know shit!” he repeated.

“I think Elizabeth was the oldest, so she felt responsible for her little brother. I bet she used to protect him when their mother’s drinking was at its worst. I bet she would step between them when the mother wanted to hurt the little brother. I bet she drew most of that anger on herself because she knew she could handle it, but he couldn’t. And I bet she carried around a lot of guilt after she left, knowing she’d left him at home, unprotected.”

He didn’t respond, but she could see the tension growing in his shoulders.

“I bet she felt responsible for everything that happened to him after she left. I bet she tried to make it up to him by leaving her marriage, by coming to California and putting herself in harm’s way. And I bet he knew that, and he used it to manipulate her.”

“It wasn’t his idea that she go live on that fucking farm!” he suddenly exploded. “He wanted her to live with him in the city, wanted her to let him help her raise that baby! He wanted them to be a family again, to be what they couldn’t be in their parents’ home. But she had to go live with that man with all those heathen children running around barefoot. She said it was better for her little Wren, that she needed siblings. It was the only thing she ever denied him, but it was everything!”

“She left her husband for him. Wasn’t that enough?”

Wilde jerked at the restraints, tugging so hard that she could almost feel the pain it must have caused him. “She promised that they’d be together! But then, after just a few weeks, she went to that farm and refused to leave. She wanted him to live there, too, but those kids and that man…he couldn’t do it! He needed to be alone, needed the space to think!”

“Did she love him? Is that why her brother was so angry?”

He scoffed at the thought. “She was using him. That artist…he was just a sucker who let her live in his house. They didn’t even share a bedroom.”

Wren bit her lip, her heart sinking in her chest. “He wasn’t the father of her baby.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“She was already a couple of months along when she left Washington. If she’d told that husband of hers, he never would have let her leave.”

“Why would she leave him? Didn’t she love him?”

“Oh, yes. But he was coming between her and her brother. That couldn’t happen.”

Wren lowered her head slightly, the picture becoming more and more clear. Elizabeth would do anything to make things better for her little brother because he’d always been her responsibility, even giving up the man she loved. But then her child came, and she had to protect her, too. What a difficult position that must have put her in.

“Her brother let her live on the farm for a while, though.”

Wilde rolled his head before he slowly nodded. “He lived in the town there, working as a handyman. He liked it, liked being close to her, liked the single women who hired him to fix their plumbing, their siding, their landscaping. It kept the darkness at bay for a while.”

“What changed?”

He was quiet for a long time. She watched his jaw work, watched the way he tugged at his restraints, jerking them against his wrists in a way that would leave bruises after a time. He was hurting himself to keep his thoughts straight, to use the pain to concentrate. It was something she’d seen other criminals she’d interrogated use, a sort of self-mutilation that a psychologist had once told her was a coping mechanism. She’d gotten under his skin.

Good.

“He met a woman he really liked. She was pretty and kind and happy, a lot like his sister. They went to the movies and on a picnic near the farm. He thought she liked him, too, and he imagined that maybe he could actually have a normal life, like his sister always insisted he could. But then…she didn’t like him, and he couldn’t be in that town anymore.”

“He moved to Santa Monica.”

He nodded. “He had to start over, to go somewhere where she wasn’t. But his sister wouldn’t come with him. She wouldn’t bring the baby and move into his apartment like he begged her to do.”

“Why was that important?”

“Because she kept him out of the darkness!” He jerked the restraints, causing the table to scrape the concrete floor just slightly. “Because she was his anchor. Without her, he floated free!”

“And that was bad?”

“That was very bad.”

“What did he do?”

“He begged her, but she kept saying the baby was happy on the farm. She needed to be on the farm, needed to be safe.”

“Did that make him mad?”

“It made him fall into the darkness!” He shook his head as his hands gripped the side of the table, his fingers turning a pale white. “He couldn’t help what he did next. But it wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault!” He looked up, this round innocence in his eyes that was almost disturbing. “She said it was her fault, but it wasn’t. It was the darkness. It was all the times their mother came into his bedroom and lay with him, all the times she made him touch her, and then she’d hurt him, shame forcing her to do things that would make him responsible for what she’d done. It was the shame.”

Wren looked away, the image he’d just created in her mind churning in her stomach, threatening to bring up the liquid dinner she’d had the night before. She bit her lip, tears filling her eyes for the children her mother and her mother’s brother had been. How could a parent be so cruel? How could a parent so blatantly destroy the innocence she’d brought into the world?

“He found that girl, the one he’d thought loved him, the one who destroyed everything, and he poured the shame out on her. And then he called his sister, met her in the park she liked to go to whenever she came to visit him, and asked her if she’d still love him if he’d let the darkness take over for a while. Only a while. Once the shame was gone, he walked back into the light, and it would have been okay, if she’d said it was okay. But she didn’t.”

Their witness had said Wilde was with Elizabeth Thomas the night she died. They’d been in the park, sitting on a bench, talking with their heads close together. And then they’d left. She didn’t say that they looked upset or like they’d been arguing. But she did say she hadn’t seen them there before that night.

Was he lying about her liking that park, or was the witness just not around the other times she’d been there? Sierra Madre was a good forty-minute drive from Santa Monica on a good day. How often would she have gone out there?

But then again, she’d left the farm more than a week before her murder.

“Did she come to live with her brother after he told her about the shame, about the girl?”

He nodded. “She wouldn’t bring the baby, but she came to Santa Monica. She said they could be a family, that she’d do anything to keep him from falling into the darkness again.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “She said she wanted him to be happy.”

“Was he?”

“Oh, yeah. For a while, everything was perfect.”

“Then what happened?”

Once again, he grew silent.  He sat back in his chair and stared at the floor like a petulant child. “You know,” he finally said, “it took him a while to figure it out, but he finally realized why the child was so important to her. She was a new start, a new beginning. She was outside of the darkness, and Elizabeth wanted to make sure that the darkness never touched her life. He finally realized that and decided to find her, to watch over her. He wanted to make sure Elizabeth’s hope for her came true.”

“Is that right?”

Wilde looked up at her. “When you first walked in here, I couldn’t believe how much you looked like her. He’d told me, but I still couldn’t believe it. Her second chance, walking and talking and living the life she’d wanted for her.”

Wren crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you think she’d be proud of me?”

Wilde’s eyes filled with tears. “Definitely.”

That hit Wren harder than she’d expected it to. She brushed her fingers through her hair, trying to get control over her emotions. The last thing she wanted to do was to cry in front of this insane killer, even if he was her uncle.

“She loved her brother. She wanted the best for him, too.”

“The darkness was just too strong.”

She nodded. “Did she know that? Did she come to understand that?”

He sighed. “Her brother thought she’d come to accept that part of him. The darkness. They talked about it often, and he thought she understood that he couldn’t always walk in the light. That night, he told her that he’d picked another woman he wanted to pour the shame onto. He told her how it had helped him the first time, and how he thought it would help him again. He told her that he could control it if only he could let go of the shame from time to time. She said she understood. She said she would help him. But then…”

“What happened? Did he pour the shame on his sister?”

Anger filled his eyes, hatred flashing like sparks. “Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut up, shut up! He’d never hurt her! He’d never do to her what they did to her! Shut up!”

“Wilde, calm down!”

But he was on his feet, jerking at the table until it scraped the floor over and over, the sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. She raised her hands to her ears, needing to get out of there, needing to get away from the reality of her mother’s legacy. She jumped out of her chair and backed up, pressed herself against the cold wall. The guards came in, chaos ruling the moment as they tried to get control over him. They pulled a Taser, and Wren could feel the volts going through her own body even as she watched them go through his. Instantly he stiffened, falling to his knees. He didn’t lose consciousness as she had done, but he was stunned.

“Ask him where she got the gun,” he mumbled, his words almost incoherent. “Ask that hippie artist where she got the gun. Ask him what he did when he found her body, when he read the note she’d left behind. Ask him what he did to his sister!”

And then he was gone, and Cormac was there, his hands on her face, pulling her back to the world she’d left outside the doors. He whispered her name over and over again, bringing her back.

“It’s done now,” he whispered near her ear. “It’s all over.”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”