Her mother gasped. “Of course, we’re your parents. We raised you. Your papa and I love you, Devy. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
We raised you. She looked at them both. “You’re right. I don’t believe it. Children who are loved aren’t abandoned. The chief would like to know where I was born. Where did we live before we came here? How did I break my pinky?”
Her mama’s eyes widened, her fingers fluttering up her neck to cover her mouth.
“What happened to me?” Devra asked. “What haven’t you told me? Who am I?”
“We raised you,” her papa repeated. “We tended you when you were sick, we pulled you into our bed at night when you were scared, we love you.”
“But are you my parents? Did you give birth to me? I need to know because it’s the only justification I can see as to why you dumped me off in a mental institution and never came back.”
An anguished moan ripped from her mama’s throat and her eyes filled with tears. Devra watched her, heard her, with an odd sense of detachment. A part of her knew she should back off, give her a chance to pull herself together, but she couldn’t. She’d lost too much of her life to give anymore, and now she’d lost Riley too. She sighed. “Please, tell me the truth.”
Her mama stood. “We need to tell her.”
“Lydia,” her papa warned.
“It’s time, William.” Lydia walked to the closet in the hall, opened it, and pulled a metal box off the top shelf way in the back.
“Don’t Lydia,” her papa said, fatigue etching heavy lines into his face.
Devra stared at him, then focused on the box in her mother’s hands. A strange trepidation kicked up her heartbeat. Her future was in that box, along with all the secrets from her past. It was the key to unlocking the nightmare that had been her life and, all this time, it’d been right there in the hall closet of her childhood home.
“I have to, William. I should have years ago. We both should have.” With a thud, her mama dropped the box on the yellow Formica table, then fished in the drawer next to the refrigerator for the small key. Her hands shook as she opened the lock and lifted the lid. Inside was a manila envelope that had discolored with time.
Suddenly, Devra was finding it difficult to breathe. Her mama sat in the chair next to her. “Your papa and I promised the Lord to love you and protect you each and every day of our lives, and we’ve tried to do that. That is why we chose not to tell you about what is in this envelope. It’s only because we feel—”
William grunted.
“—I feel it would serve you better to know the truth about your past that I’m telling you now. Because behind it all, Devra, it doesn’t matter where you came from or who your parents were. We are your family and you are loved.” Tears misted her eyes.
Devra didn’t respond, couldn’t. A lump had formed in her throat making it difficult for her to swallow. With trembling fingers, her mama dug into the envelope and pulled out a yellowed photograph of a smiling man standing with his hands on the shoulders of a young boy. Sitting next to them was a woman bouncing a toddler on her knee. Devra took the picture from her mama’s fingers.
As she looked at it, she thought she should feel something. Obviously, these people had some connection to her. But she didn’t feel anything but numb. “Who are they?”
“That’s my brother and his wife,” her papa said.
“You have a brother?” she asked, surprised.
“He was killed a long time ago,” her mama said softly. “So was his wife.”
Devra stared closely at the picture, at the little baby in the frilly white dress with a head full of tight yellow curls. “Is that me?”
Her mother’s eyes closed as pain filled her face. “Yes,” she said softly, so softly Devra almost didn’t hear her. She stared at the baby a moment longer, awed by the happy smile and chubby little legs. Then she perused the faces of her real mother and father. They looked like such nice people. They looked as if they loved her. They looked as if they would have fought for her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t my parents? Why didn’t you give me the chance, give them the chance to—” She’d meant for the words to come out strong, demanding, insistent, giving them no room to back down or retreat, but at the last moment, her throat tightened and tears filled her eyes.
As they cleared, she focused on the boy in the picture. Something quivered inside her. “Who is the boy?” she asked, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice. Because deep down, she knew who the boy was.
Her mama looked at her papa, who shook his head, his eyes imploring her to keep silent.
“Tell me, Mama. Is this boy my brother?”
She nodded, some secret pain aging her face and dulling her eyes.
Devra stopped breathing. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Where is he? What happened to him?”
Taking great pains, her mama opened an old newspaper article and smoothed it across the table.
“You shouldn’t have kept that Lydia,” William admonished.
Devra’s stomach turned and the room tilted as the bold, black headlines leaped off the page. Thirteen-year-old boy bludgeons mother and father to death. Baby survives.
“You are that baby,” Lydia whispered.
Chapter 26
Riley turned to the chief. “We have to find her.”
“Mandy, call Mrs. Hutchinson and see if she’s at the B&B. Call her parents, too, then put an APB out on Officer MacIntyre’s vehicle.”
Riley quickly wrote down the color, model, and plate number for her. A homicidal maniac was after Devra and if Riley didn’t act fast, he was going to lose her. An overwhelming sensation of helplessness overcame him.
Evil wouldn’t win. Not again.
Riley grabbed his jacket off the coat tree by the door and stopped. “Chief, she has my gun.”
“What?”
Riley’s cell phone rang from his pocket.
“Riley,” Tony’s voice was triumphant. “Don Miller’s last known residence is New Orleans, before that Miami, three years before that Portland, and before that Seattle. Every city where one of our murders took place.”
“She’s at her parents,” Mandy called.
“Tell them to keep her there,” the chief ordered. “We’re on our way.”
Riley and Chief Marshall both hurried out of the building to the chief’s car.
“Sorry, Tony,” Riley said into the phone. “And before that?”
“He lived in a mental institution in Idaho. They released him the year he turned twenty-three.”
Riley’s blood went cold. “How old was Devra when he was released.”
Riley could hear Tony doing a quick calculation. “Thirteen.”
“We’ve got your man,” he said to the chief. “Released from an Idaho mental institution the year your son died.”
“Riley, he killed his parents. And get this, there was a toddler in the house, but he didn’t touch her. It was Devra, Riley. She’s his sister.”
“Who was that on the phone?” Devra asked.
“Mandy down at headquarters. She wants you to stay here. The chief is on his way.”
“On his way to arrest me,” Devra muttered. “For murders I didn’t commit. He killed Tommy.” She poked the picture of her brother. “He has the same evil eyes as the man I saw in the woods that day. I told you it wasn’t me, but you didn’t believe me. No one believed me. You were all so quick to throw me into an institution, to tell me I was sick.”
“Devra,” her papa said. “We only wanted to protect you from whatever evil possessed this young man. He was a good boy, but he turned bad. He killed his parents, my brother, right after he turned thirteen. After what had happened to Tommy, we were afraid the same sickness had taken root in you. We were afraid the authorities would start poking around and everyone in town would know about the evil in your blood.”
Devra looked at her papa and felt nothing but cold fury. How could he have been so mis
guided?
“Where is my brother now?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow pass in front of the window. She turned, but it was gone.
“Where he’s always been. At Willoughby’s Mental Institution in Idaho.”
Devra frowned. “Are you sure he’s still there? When was the last time you checked?”
“The local police checked out your story that a man had killed Tommy, but you barely had a description,” her mama said. “You had Tommy’s blood all over you, and the rock used to kill him was in your hand.”
Devra blew her hair back from her face, grabbed the newspaper clipping, the pictures, and slipped them back into the envelope.
“Adopting you was the best thing that ever happened to your papa and me, even after everything that happened with Tommy. We love you now as much as we did the day we brought you home to us.”
“You abandoned me.” She stood. “You dumped me off in that torture chamber and left without a second glance. You never even came for a visit.”
“We did come,” her mama said softly. “We came every Saturday and watched you from outside the gate. We couldn’t bear to go through the week without seeing for ourselves that you were okay.”
Surprised, Devra stared into her mama’s red, swollen eyes. “But I don’t understand. I never saw you.”
“It was the doctors,” her papa said. “They were afraid our presence would disturb you. They said you hadn’t accepted your illness, and were trying to hide it from them. They said until you accepted you were sick, you wouldn’t get better.”
“You always looked so peaceful sitting under the trees, writing in your journal.”
Emotion swelled in Devra’s chest and rose in her throat, making it hard to speak. “I hated it inside the sanitarium—the smells, the noise. I stayed outside as often as I could.”
“We just wanted to help you. We were so afraid.” Her mother dropped her face into her hands and cried.
“One Saturday, we drove up there and you were gone.” Her papa’s eyes reddened and watered. He turned away.
Stunned, Devra sat back down. She’d never seen her papa cry. Not even the day he’d left her at the sanitarium. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. She’d been wrong about them. All these years, she’d been so wrong. They did love her, they had cared.
“We didn’t think we’d ever see you again,” her mama said sniffling. “But here you are, a woman with a life of your own.”
“It’s been a hard life, Mama. A life of always looking over my shoulder, always on the run.”
“How can we help you, Devra?” her papa asked.
“I have to disappear again. Go where no one can find me. Especially him.” She pointed to his picture once more. “What’s his name?”
“Donny. Donny Miller,” her papa said with a small shake of his head.
“Devra, you can’t leave,” her mama pleaded. “The chief is on his way.”
“I’m not going to let them lock me up again. Chief Marshall is convinced I killed his son. But now I know different, now I know it was my brother.”
“You can’t spend the rest of your life running and hiding,” her papa said. “You need to fight for your future.”
She stared at him, afraid to trust the strength flowing through her. They believed her. “You sound like Riley.”
Go back to the beginning and start from there, Riley’s words whispered through her mind. “I remember this house,” she said lifting the envelope. “The one in the picture. I dreamed about it earlier. I think it’s all coming back. I think I’m beginning to remember what happened.”
Her mama shook her head. “You were too young. Barely three.”
“I remember the floor, and the blood.” A shiver coursed through her. “I’m going back there.”
“Let me go with you,” her papa said.
She was tempted. But she knew what would happen if she did, and if she had to watch her papa die, she really would go insane. “I’m sorry, but this is something I have to do on my own. I’m going to find this brother of mine, and I’m going to stop him. I’m taking my life back.”
“Please, Devy, let the authorities handle this,” her mama pleaded.
“I wish I could, but I can’t trust them.”
“What about that young man of yours?”
“He doesn’t believe in me, either.” The words hurt, but she knew in her heart they were true. She opened the screen door. “But I’ll prove them all wrong.”
Without glancing back, Devra climbed into the truck, turned on the ignition, and buckled her seat belt. As she pulled down the drive, a movement behind one of the tall pines caught her eye. As she passed, she glanced behind it but nothing was there.
She was jumping at shadows, she thought as she settled further into her seat. She turned onto the main road, heading east away from Rosemont, away from the chief, and away from Riley.
Riley. He was probably furious at her. She pushed him out of her mind. The only chance she had of winning him back was to prove her innocence and for the first time in her life, she finally had something to go on.
She adjusted her rearview mirror. Eyes as black as a Washington night sky stared back through the mirror. Close enough to bore into her soul and burn her with those red glints of laughter.
She stared, frozen. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the steering wheel. Her vision shot back to the road, then back to the rearview mirror. He was gone. She imagined him. He wasn’t there. But still, she was afraid to look, afraid he was there, lying on the backseat. Waiting for her.
“What do you want?” she said, her voice quavering.
Silence filled the space.
He’s not there. She slowed, gathering the nerve to turn and look, to see for herself the backseat was empty.
“You can run, but you can’t hide. Not from me.”
Devra’s heart slammed into her chest.
She kept her eyes on the road, refusing to look into the mirror. He was in the backseat. God help her! Adrenaline surged through her. She hit the brakes hard. The Expedition lurched and spun onto the shoulder. Pain erupted across her chest as the seatbelt cut into her skin, and kept her from hitting the steering wheel.
She stayed like that for a long moment, afraid to move, afraid to see him. Fear quickened her blood and sent it roaring through her ears. She forced herself to lift her head, to turn and look into the backseat—into the face of her nightmares.
Into the face of her brother.
He smiled—his teeth gleaming and white and perfect. “Peekaboo, Devy.”
Chapter 27
Stunned, Riley stared at William. “What do you mean she’s gone?” Fury doused with fear surged through him. “There’s a serial killer stalking Devra and you let her leave?”
William Miller’s face hardened. “I’m sorry, Mr. MacIntyre, but she doesn’t trust you.”
“She said you don’t believe in her,” Lydia added.
Riley cringed. He’d had his doubts, but he hadn’t said a word. How had she known?
“Any idea where she could have gone?” the chief asked.
“You gonna lock her up again?” William asked. “I won’t be party to that. I can’t go through that again.”
The chief sighed. “No, William. Officer MacIntyre is right. Your daughter’s in danger. For Devra’s sake, tell us where she is.”
“She’s gone to find her brother,” Lydia said, her voice barely above a whisper. “She said she was going to track him down and take her life back.”
“Where was she headed?” Uneasiness churned through Riley. He couldn’t bear to think of Devra out there trying to track down a killer alone.
“Where it all began,” William said. “Jensen’s Peak, about an hour east of here."
Devra stared into the black depths of her brother’s eyes. Eyes that had tortured her for years, every time she’d lay down to sleep. Panic sliced through her. “What do you want?”
“I just want to play, Devy.” The tinny timbre of his v
oice scraped across her mind. There was a wild look to his eyes, an excitement, which caused fear to constrict her chest. What did he mean play?
He’d chased her through the forest that day he’d killed Tommy. He’d stood over her after she’d fallen to the ground, but had left her alive to face the wrath of a town. “Why didn’t you kill me? Why everyone but me?”
“I would never hurt you, Devy. I love you.”
Love me? The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Is it true? Are you my brother?” She knew it was true, as much as she tried to deny it; she’d seen the picture, she’d read the headlines. She knew better than anyone exactly what Donny Miller was capable of.
He smiled that perfect smile and, for a second, he looked normal. She could almost imagine what their lives could have been like, if only he were sane.
He touched her hair, pulling a lock of curls through his fingers. She cringed as she stared at the smooth skin of his hand. It wasn’t large, callused, or even dirty like she’d expected a killer’s hand to be. It was just an ordinary hand, yet it had stolen so much—her parents, Tommy, her life.
He’d ripped Michelle from Mac and Riley, and all those other women, those she knew about and those she didn’t. It’s her brother she had the psychic connection with, her brother who’d killed anyone who’d gotten close to her, anyone who’d reminded him of her.
“I told you that you couldn’t hide from me, Devy. Don’t you remember when we used to play Peekaboo? How you used to laugh. Laugh for me now, Devy.”
She couldn’t laugh. She wanted to laugh. Wanted to laugh with the maniacal glee of those poor sick souls she’d lived with in the sanitarium. But she couldn’t laugh any more than she could disappear into her head to better worlds, safer worlds.
Because she was sane.
The knowledge hit her with twisted irony. Of course, she was sane. She’d always known she was sane, no matter what everyone had said to convince her differently. They’d been wrong.
He touched her shoulder, softly running his finger down her arm. She cringed and closed her eyes.
Shiver: Psychic Romantic Suspense Page 17