The Silent Dolls: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Detective Ellie Reeves Book 1)
Page 26
Vera made a strangled sound, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Listen, El…” Her father gripped the bed rails to sit up but was so weak he collapsed against the pillow.
“Stop lying to me,” Ellie said through gritted teeth. “I found this, too.” She pulled out the picture of her mother and Hiram, then the photograph of Mae. “I know Hiram is your son, Mother. He said you gave him up for adoption. That you threw him away and nobody wanted him.” She pressed her hand over her heart, disbelief and hurt thickening her throat. “And Mae? You said she wasn’t real. You made me feel like I was crazy. You sent me to a therapist for years and gave me drugs to forget her, but she was real. How could you do that to me?”
“It’s not what you think,” her father rasped.
“Please, Ellie, everything I did was to protect you,” her mother choked out.
“Really?” Ellie cried. “Because it seems like you gave Hiram up as a baby, then when he started murdering little girls, you covered it up.”
Her mother shook her head in denial, tears flowing now. Her father cleared his throat. “Ellie, please, let us explain.”
“Explain why you lied to me my entire life? Why you allowed Hiram to murder nearly a dozen little girls? Why you told me Mae wasn’t real when she was?” She slapped the photograph. “Who was she? Was she my sister? My twin? Another sibling you gave away and didn’t tell me about?” Horror edged her voice. “Did Hiram kill Mae, too?”
Tension filled the air as her parents exchanged a silent look. “Vera, talk to her,” her father wheezed out.
“Tell me the truth about Mae,” Ellie demanded. “Is she dead? Was she Hiram’s first victim?”
Tears rained down her mother’s face. “She was,” her mother cried. “But… Mae survived. Your father saved her.”
Ellie stared at her mother in disbelief.
“Then where is she?”
95.
Anxiety pulled at every muscle in Ellie’s body. Her head throbbed. Exhaustion mingled with desperation to know the truth.
A sudden calmness seemed to wash over her mother, and she swiped at her eyes. Her lower lip trembled and she averted her gaze.
“Tell me, Mom,” Ellie demanded. “I need to know.”
A heartbeat of silence passed. Finally, her mother inhaled sharply and looked at her. “Mae is not dead, darling.”
Ellie remained still, waiting, her breath frozen in her chest. She was afraid to hear the truth. But she had to know.
“Then who was she?” Her voice rose an octave. “Was she my twin sister? Did Hiram take her?”
Vera shook her head slowly, sorrow darkening her eyes. “Hiram did take her, but not because she was your sister.” Her voice broke. “Ellie, Mae was you.”
Her mother’s words ping-ponged around in Ellie’s head. She had to have heard wrong.
“I… wh… what do you mean? I’m Mae?”
Her father moaned, then finally found his voice. It was thick with pain, medication and regret, but he began to talk. “It’s a long story, Ellie. Your mother gave birth to Hiram long before you were born.”
Confusion marred Ellie’s mind. What did Mae have to do with Hiram being her mother’s son?
Vera sniffed, staring at her hands. Her nails were chipped now, the polish peeling off. “You have to understand what it was like for me. I was only seventeen and my parents were so upset with me. Your grandfather threatened to disown me if I kept the baby. I didn’t see how I could raise a child on my own.”
“Where was Hiram’s father?” Ellie asked. “Who was he?”
Vera made a pained sound. “Just a boy I had a teenage crush on. He ran off once I told him I was pregnant.” Tears laced Vera’s words. “So, I gave Hiram up for adoption. I… thought it was better for him. That he’d have a better life.” She wiped at her tears. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Ellie. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and wondering where he was and if he was happy. A nurse took that photo for me, and it went with Hiram to the orphanage.”
Ellie shifted, struggling for understanding. But she was too shocked and hurt to think about anything other than the fact her parents had lied to her.
“A couple of times I thought about looking for him, but my father forbade it. Then… eventually I figured Dad was right, that Hiram was better off in a stable family with two parents who loved him. Mama kept saying that it was best for him, and best for me. That one day when I was old enough and married, I could have another child, a respectable family.” She dabbed at her eyes. “When we brought you home, Ellie, I tried to make up for what I’d done by being a good mother to you.”
Shame reddened her mother’s cheeks. “Later, Hiram somehow found us. You were five. He saw you playing outside near the woods, and he lured you away with those wooden dolls he was obsessed with making.”
Memories flooded Ellie, taking her back to that night she got lost. “He said he had more dolls, and a dollhouse,” she whispered. “I crawled into a tunnel with him to see it.”
Her father made a strangled sound. “When I realized you were gone, I looked for you for hours. Your mom was hysterical. I followed your tracks and finally found you in that cave the next morning.” He wheezed a breath. “You were traumatized when I carried you out, almost catatonic. You didn’t speak for days. Wouldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. But you kept saying the word Hiram.”
“The therapist said you repressed the memory, that it was your way of protecting yourself,” her mother said, filling in as her father dragged in a breath.
Vera laid her hand on the bed, and she and her father clasped hands. “After that, you were terrified of the dark,” her mother continued with a faraway look on her face. “You had nightmares and cried all the time. Then you kept talking about Mae, saying you saw her in the woods, that you played with her. That you built forts with her and chased fireflies with her and whispered secrets to her in your bed.” Her mother’s voice caught. “You talked about her as if she was someone else, as if she was your playmate.”
All those nightmares she’d had… they were memories, things that had really happened.
“We tried to convince you that you didn’t have a playmate named Mae, then one day we found you wandering the cemetery looking for her. That was… horrible,” her mother cried. “The counselor said you were so traumatized that you suffered from dissociation. After discussing the situation with her, we decided it was better if you didn’t remember. That’s when we—”
“Decided to go along with me and tell me Mae wasn’t real.” Ellie’s head swam. “That she was my imaginary friend.”
“We thought it was better than telling you that your brother tried to hurt you,” her mother said. “That if we hadn’t found you, he might have killed you because of what I’d done. We didn’t want you to have to live with that fact.”
“But that was unethical,” Ellie said. “A therapist is supposed to help you deal with the truth, not lie to you.”
“She did what we asked to protect you,” Vera insisted.
“I searched for Hiram that day he lured you into that cave,” her father said. “I chased him, but he got away.”
“We were terrified he’d come back to find you,” her mother said. “So we moved. Changed our names. Changed yours. That way if he came looking, he’d never know where you were.”
Ellie’s head hurt. Her heart hurt. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it all.
“The next year, when Kim Fox went missing, I wasn’t sure it was Hiram, but I did investigate,” her father said. “I hit a dead end, though, and the leads didn’t pan out. But I never gave up.”
Ellie’s anger was swiftly followed by pain. “You accused Derrick’s father, and then Derrick, of hurting Kim, when all along you suspected Hiram? How could you?”
“We didn’t know for sure,” her mother said. “Hiram had a way of disappearing, like a—”
“Ghost,” Ellie said. “Just like Angelica said.”
Her father
reached for her hand, but Ellie shook her head. She didn’t want to be near her parents and their deceit.
“I kept looking, all this time. That’s why I had that file,” her father continued. “Why I followed up with the detectives who worked the other girls’ disappearances.”
“You could have asked for help,” Ellie said. “Worked with the FBI. Told them about Hiram. Sent his picture around.”
“That’s the reason I became sheriff of Bluff County, Ellie,” her father went on. “I looked for a small town where we could blend in. I’d been a cop before, and when the sheriff suddenly died in Stony Gap, my superior recommended me as a replacement here. He had connections that helped me set up a new identity, and his sister was on the town council in Stony Gap. She convinced them I could run the county. I did it all to protect you and be privy to any information about cases that might be connected. I wanted to stop him.”
“It’s also the reason we didn’t want you to run for sheriff,” her mother said emphatically. “We were afraid if Hiram was looking for you that he’d recognize you in the press.”
“And he was looking for me all this time,” Ellie argued. “He replaced me with Kim Fox. And the others. He kept killing because he wanted to kill me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Vera laid her hand on her chest. “You were my daughter and I had to protect you. And he was my blood. I had to take care of him, too.”
Pain stabbed at Ellie, ripping at her composure, and she slowly backed away. She’d let the police, the FBI, deal with her parents. For now, she had to leave. Couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them. To listen to the justification for their lies.
To know that Derrick’s sister and all the others had died because of her. That so many families had suffered because her parents had chosen to protect her.
She had to make things right. But how could she? There was no way to bring back those children and give them the life that had been stolen from them.
Sick to her stomach, she jumped up, running from the room. But she bumped into Bryce in the hall. He caught her by the arm. “Ellie?”
She jerked away from him. “Leave me alone.”
“Talk to me.”
So he could run and tell everything to Angelica? No way. The past few hours had taken their toll. Too many secrets. Too many lies. “Fuck off.”
Tears blurred her eyes, and she turned and ran down the hall. She didn’t stop until she was outside the hospital.
Then she threw up in the bushes, and let the tears fall.
96.
Five days later
March 10, 4:00 p.m., near Atlanta
Derrick stood beside his mother, his arm around her shoulders as she leaned into him. Someone had placed purple wildflowers on his sister’s grave. Ellie’s comment about the meaning of the flowers at Hemlock Holler whispered through his mind. The angels were welcoming Kim home.
But who had put the flowers on the grave? Ellie?
Or the same person who’d buried the bones?
The flowers hadn’t been here yesterday, when he and his mother had the memorial for his sister. His parents’ friends had all shown up, but now it was just the two of them saying their final goodbyes.
His mother traced her fingers along the angel carving on the gray tombstone, engraved with Kim’s name, and the words Loving Daughter and Sister, Gone Too Soon. Wiping her damp cheeks with a tissue, she knelt and placed Kim’s locket on top of the cross.
When she finally turned back to Derrick, a smile softened her face. “Thank you so much for finding her, son. For bringing her back home.”
Anguish threatened to overcome him. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”
She cupped his face in her delicate hands. “Don’t do that. You loved your sister and Kim knew that. It’s time to let go of the guilt.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he admitted gruffly.
“You have to. Kim would want you to be happy, Derrick. To find peace and love in your life.”
He hadn’t thought about love, hadn’t thought he needed it. Or that he deserved it. Had been too focused on unearthing the truth about Kim. And then he’d stumbled on the connections and focused on tracking down a serial killer.
Hiram. He was in jail and would be for the rest of his life. Derrick had finally convinced him to draw a map showing where he’d left the other bodies. Recovery teams had gathered the remains and the families had been notified, hope extinguished—but they had answers, at least.
It was over.
He could leave Bluff County and the Appalachian Trail behind forever.
Just then, a shadowy figure caught his eye across the graveyard, a man in a long coat, his body hunched, a gray beard. He looked… familiar.
A frown pulled at his mouth. The man was watching Derrick’s mother. Watching him. An eerie sensation engulfed him, and he thought about the bones. The etchings on the grave markers. Hiram and Randall both denied digging the graves and carving the tombstones. Randall had dropped the watch while searching for Penny before the grave had been dug.
The man lifted a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes, and Randall’s suggestion that his father might have faked his death taunted Derrick. Was it possible? Had his father survived? Had he found the bodies and buried them?
If so, why wouldn’t he have come back to him and his mother?
He squeezed his mother’s arm, telling himself that his father would never abandon them when they needed him most. As he turned, the man disappeared into the shadows.
A brisk wind picked up, and Derrick glanced at the top of the hill to the left.
Ellie stood by a live oak, the wind swirling her hair around her face. She looked small and lost, and he had a sudden pang of longing to go to her and comfort her. He’d torn apart her family, and he couldn’t help feeling guilty about that, even though he wouldn’t change it.
Although her parents were facing charges, they insisted they hadn’t known for certain if Hiram was the Ghost. Randall claimed he’d suspected him and been tracking him for years. He’d almost caught him twice, but the man had managed to escape.
Derrick didn’t know whether he believed him or not. It didn’t matter. Their silence had cost so many lives.
He wondered how Ellie was dealing.
She met his gaze, and his breath stalled in his chest at the agony in her expression. A second later she turned and fled down the hill toward the parking lot.
The temptation to go to her seized him. But he remained rooted by his mother. Ellie probably hated him. He didn’t blame her. He’d given his own family closure, but he’d destroyed hers.
He’d done what he had to do. And if necessary, he’d do it all over again.
So, he watched her walk away. She’d go back to her mountain where she belonged. And he’d go back to his life in Decatur alone.
97.
Ellie was broken. Just watching Derrick and his mother at the graveyard hammered home the reality of how much they’d suffered.
That little girls—nearly a dozen—had died because of her.
She pressed the accelerator and sped on to the winding roads and hills that led her back home.
Although she found no solace in the scenery now. And she certainly didn’t feel as if she had a home.
Her boss had ordered her to take a leave of absence to heal. They were both dealing with the fallout from her parents’ involvement, and the press. Cord had left a message asking about her father, but his voice was terse, and she realized she’d hurt him when she’d questioned him at his house. Still, he’d saved her life.
Even if she wanted to and the public forgave her, how could she return to her job when her family had been embroiled in the worst serial killer case ever on the Appalachian Trail? When guilt suffused every cell in her body?
Who would trust her now?
She didn’t even trust herself.
She couldn’t bear to see her parents or talk to them. She might never be able to look them in the face again.
As she neared town, a Bryce Waters for Sheriff sign waved in the wind. With her father stepping down, Bryce had temporarily taken over the office, and would easily win the election.
Another blow to her gut.
Just as she headed toward a more deserted section where she could drive fast, her phone buzzed. Angelica again. She’d been having a field day with the story. Desperate to avoid her, Ellie let it go to voicemail, then like a glutton for punishment, listened to the message.
“Detective Reeves, you can’t run forever. When you’re ready to open up about your family, contact me. I’d like to do a tell-all from your perspective. Starting with, ‘How does it feel to know your brother was a serial killer?’”
Your brother, your brother, your brother… The words reverberated over and over in Ellie’s head at night when she closed her eyes.
Her phone rang again. This time Captain Hale.
Knowing she couldn’t avoid him, she answered. “Yeah?”
“Detective, you need to stop by my office. I just got the forensics report back, and I think you’re going to want to see it.”
“Can’t you just tell me what it says over the phone?”
“Trust me, you’ll want to look at it in person.”
His cryptic comment roused a foreboding feeling inside her. “I’ll be there ASAP.”
She turned back towards the highway leading to Crooked Creek.
Whatever it was, Captain Hale sounded disturbed. Neither her father nor Hiram had admitted to burying the girls.
What if Hiram had had an accomplice?
98.
Crooked Creek
Ellie entered the station with a softball-sized knot in her gut. Heath waved to her from the desk in the corner, where he was on the phone. With her gone, he was working double duty and had risen to the occasion.