“You were right,” she said abruptly.
“I was right about what?”
“What you said as we were walking down here. I have been expecting something like this to happen. I’ve been expecting it since the day the McTerrells arrived.”
“Was there ever even a hope that they might learn to get along?” Adam asked.
Ella scoffed. “No,” she said. “There was never any hope of that. I did hope they might manage to avoid coming to blows. But even that was always a slim chance.”
“Why?”
“Because of the way they all are,” Ella said. “But especially the way the Birkins are, I think. And particularly the way Rhett is.”
“And the McTerrells?”
“They’re not as bad, I don’t think,” Ella said. “I think if you’d put them here with another family, they might have been able to figure out a way to live harmoniously. The Birkins…they tell themselves the problem is that the McTerrells are new money, and that they work in pharmaceuticals, but the real problem is that Richard Birkin is being forced to compromise for what might be the first time in his life.”
Adam had so many questions about this that he couldn’t think what to ask first. He could only wait and hope that she would clarify.
She did. “The Birkins are incredibly self-righteous,” she said. “I think it might be too much to ask that Richard would ever admit he was wrong about anything. God knows I’ve never seen him do it before, and I’ve been with the family for years. And for Richard, admitting that his family was in the wrong would be tantamount to being wrong himself.”
That did sound like the Richard Adam knew. Even tonight, caught in the lie he had told everyone about the murder his son had committed, he had refused to admit that he’d done anything wrong. “Maybe you’re right,” he agreed. “In fact, I think you probably are. But why were you so sure that that quality in Richard would lead to violence?”
“Because of Rhett,” Ella said. “Richard will always defend his son, no matter what. And Rhett…Rhett was always going to turn violent eventually. It was only a matter of time.”
“How do you know?” Adam asked.
“Because I’ve seen him do it before,” she said. “Adam, there’s something you need to know.”
“What?”
“You know the tortured deer Richard mentioned having seen?”
“Yes.”
“Have you noticed that he hasn’t brought it up since?”
“I just assumed there was nothing more to say about it,” Adam said.
“Well, I think there’s more to it than that,” Ella said. “I think that Richard really thought about it and realized he knew who had done it.”
Adam connected the dots. “You think it was Rhett?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that,” Ella said.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s tortured animals before,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen him do it.”
“When?” Adam was sickened.
“Before the virus took hold,” she said. “Back when the world was normal.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Rhett was never normal. I used to be in charge of mowing the Birkins’ lawn, and I’d find things…”
She broke off with a little shudder.
“What kind of things?” Adam asked. He knew the answer, he thought, but he needed to hear it all the same.
“Animals,” she said. “A bird with a broken wing. That was the first one. I didn’t understand the pattern yet, then. I just thought the poor thing had been unlucky. I picked it up and walked it to the local veterinarian. I thought that was best.”
“Were they able to help?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I never went back. I didn’t want responsibility for the bird. I just wanted it to be okay.”
“How did you find out it was Rhett?” Adam asked.
“It kept happening,” she said. “When I found a live chipmunk with its tail nailed to the fencepost, I knew something was wrong. After that, I started to watch the boys. But it was obvious who was responsible. Rhett was always the one who spent hours outside. Langley liked to read, and to work on his computer. The only time he came out of the house was if he had somewhere to be.”
“Did you tell Richard or Kathryn what you knew?” Adam asked.
“No,” Ella said. “By the time I was certain of what was going on, I was ready to leave their employ and start applying for colleges. I didn’t want to make them angry right before I asked them to write me recommendations.” She looked down at the ground. “I should have been braver, maybe. I should have told them. Rhett needed psychiatric help. His parents should have known there was something wrong. But I just wanted to wash my hands of the whole family.”
“It’s not your fault,” Adam said.
“If I’d said something back then, the man you found in the boat today might have lived,” Ella said.
Adam shook his head. “You can’t question every move you make like that,” he said. “I’ve spent weeks wondering if I could have prevented the deaths of people I’ve known. People I’ve loved. Even people I’ve just encountered in passing. But there’s no way to know. You have to do the best you can in the moment, and then you have to let yourself go on living. It’s all you can do.”
She looked up at him. “You’re right,” she said. “I know you’re right.”
“So what do we do?” Adam asked. “If Rhett was responsible for what happened to that animal…I mean, I don’t think we can tell anybody, right? It’ll just be a repeat of what happened today, and we’ll get ourselves into even more trouble than we’re in already.”
“No,” Ella said quietly. “We can’t tell them.”
“If you’re right, then Richard probably already knows anyway.”
She nodded. “And I’m sure Langley and Kathryn do as well. Maybe that’s even why they were trying so hard to cast suspicion on the McTerrells. Maybe they wanted us to think the McTerrells were the ones behind it. Maybe they even want to make the McTerrells think that one of them might have done it.”
“Do you think that worked?”
Ella shook her head. “Definitely not,” she said. “There’s no way the McTerrells would believe anything the Birkins told them about each other. They know how much the Birkins hate them.”
“But if we can’t talk to anyone about what you suspect about Rhett,” Adam said slowly, “how can we stop him from doing it again?”
“We can’t,” she said quietly.
“So we just have to live with the possibility that there’s a violent sociopath in our midst.” Adam sighed heavily. “At least we know who it is. I mean, probably.”
“We don’t have to just live with it at all,” Ella countered.
“What do you mean?”
“We can leave,” she said. “There’s a boat. We could take it.”
“Ella, the boat that came ashore today…it’s completely totaled. We can’t take it anywhere. It’ll start shipping water as soon as we get off the beach.”
“The other boat, then,” she said. “The one at the yacht club. The one they use for fishing.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You said you’d never take that boat,” he reminded her. “You said it was their only boat, and that taking it and leaving them here was too cruel.”
“I know what I said,” she snapped. “Things change. Circumstances change. If Rhett Birkin has reached the point where he’s killing people—if the rest of the Birkins are protecting him—then it’s come down to my life or theirs. I’m not willing to die for these people. Are you?”
“No,” Adam said. “Of course not.”
“Then we should go,” she said. “We can leave tonight. We’ll get the boat when the rest of them are sleeping, and they won’t even know we’ve gone until tomorrow morning.”
“What about the McTerrells?” Adam asked. “Would we just leave them here? None of them are murderers, that we kn
ow of.”
Ella sighed. “I know,” she agreed. “But you’ve got to admit, they’re not exactly innocent in all this either.”
Adam thought about Chase McTerrell stealing drugs from the Birkins. Was it possible, he wondered again, that having their drugs stolen was responsible for some or all of the Birkins’ erratic behavior? Surely they would have said something if they realized someone was stealing from them…
But maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe Richard Birkin would have been too proud to admit that he and his family needed pharmaceutical help.
There was no way to know. There was no way to be sure how much of the Birkins’ behavior was their own responsibility and how much of it might be due to psychological issues.
And in a way, it didn’t matter. Whether it had been the cause of the Birkins’ issues or not, Chase had been stealing their medications to take recreationally. Regardless of the outcome, that was a pretty unforgivable thing to do.
But did that mean they could justify leaving the McTerrell family on the island? Stranded with the Birkins? With no way of getting off?
Adam didn’t know.
What he did know was that he was reluctant to return to the sea after everything that had happened to him on Cody’s yacht.
“I don’t know about this,” he said.
“You don’t want to leave?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know,” he said again. “It’s safe here, Ella.”
“Like hell.”
“Okay, so maybe it’s not. But it’s probably safer here than it is on the water. We’ve got tons of food. We won’t have that if we go out to sea. And that boat doesn’t have a renewable water source. If we leave the island, we’ll eventually have to go to the mainland, and…” he shook his head. “We’ve got one murderer here. On the mainland, it’s bound to be much more dangerous.”
She sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I am right.”
“I just can’t stand it,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug, shivering as the wind kicked up around them. “Sitting down to dinner with them every night feels like walking through a minefield. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before something happens that pushes them past the point of no return.”
“We just need to follow your advice,” Adam said. “We need to stay out of it. We can’t get between them or appear to take sides at all. As long as we stay neutral, if the day comes when they eventually go at each other, we should be able to keep clear.”
“I hope so,” Ella said quietly.
Adam’s shoulders tensed. “I hope so, too.”
Chapter 17
“Everybody into the kitchen. Now!”
The shout was so thunderous that it jerked Adam out of his sleep. He had fallen into bed fully dressed the night before, exhausted from everything the day had thrown at him. It might have been his mind’s way of avoiding thinking about the things Ella had told him out on the golf course. If he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that he wasn’t ready to face the prospect of leaving the island. The yacht might have been hell, and this place was even worse, but he still knew how incredibly lucky he was to have a place to sleep, a roof over his head, and renewable sources of food and water.
The fight between the Birkins and the McTerrells appeared to have resolved itself by the time he and Ella had returned to the house. Only Marsden McTerrell had been in the kitchen, and he’d informed them that the two families had retreated to their separate corners to lick their wounds. “No one was hurt,” he’d said, “but after the way that brat of theirs jumped Chase, they’d all just better watch their backs.”
Adam, of course, had said nothing.
Now he bolted out of bed and into the hall. What was going on?
He nearly collided with Langley Birkin as he rounded a corner. Langley looked disheveled and angry. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“In bed?”
“Not now. Last night. You disappeared.”
“I went for a walk,” Adam said. “I didn’t want to be a part of that fight.”
Langley’s expression twisted in disgust. “So you’ll sell out my brother to those bastards, but you won’t get his back when they attack him?”
“He attacked Chase, Langley.”
“He was outmuscled and you know it.” Langley shook his head, as if Adam was beneath contempt. “Dad wants everyone to meet in the kitchen.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I’d just get down there if I were you,” Langley said. “And if you see those McTerrells on your way, tell them to get in the kitchen, too.”
Confused and alarmed, Adam made his way down to the kitchen. He was almost sure the shout he’d heard had come from Richard. What on earth was going to happen now?
Ella had emerged from her pantry bedroom, her dark hair tangled and matted down on one side, dressed in flannel pants and a tank top. “What’s going on? It sounds like a stampede up there.”
“Richard’s upset about something,” Adam said. “He wants everyone in here.”
“Oh, God,” Ella said. “This can’t be anything good.”
“Don’t think so,” Adam agreed. “Did you hear him shouting?”
“No. I just woke up.” She sighed. “Great.”
“Just stand back,” Adam said. “It’s like you always say, right? Stay out of it. If they start to go at the McTerrells, we’ll just keep quiet and make the earliest exit we can, the way we did last night. It’ll be fine.”
“We should go now,” she argued. “We can’t stick around for this. It’s bound to get ugly.”
Adam shook his head. “Give them a chance,” he said. “Maybe we can help.”
“Why would we be able to help?”
“Because…” he hesitated. “Because I think I might know what it’s all about.”
“What?”
Before Adam could answer, the McTerrells piled into the kitchen. Charles had an arm around his daughter, who looked frightened.
“What’s all the commotion?” Marsden asked. “Langley just came hammering on our door and told us to get in here. Is everybody okay?”
“So far,” Ella said darkly.
The Birkins came in, single file, none of them speaking. They lined up along the far counter and surveyed the rest of the room. Richard’s eyes were narrowed in dislike. Kathryn looked upset. Rhett, though, looked almost gleeful.
“Well?” Marsden asked after a long silence.
“Someone has been stealing from my family,” Richard said.
“What was stolen?” Charles asked.
“My wife’s pills.”
“What kind of pills are we talking about here?” Charles asked.
“Pain medication,” Richard said tightly.
Not some kind of antipsychotic, then, Adam thought. I guess the lack of the pills wasn’t to blame for anyone’s bad behavior. But then again, that might be oversimplifying the issue. If you were used to managing severe pain with medication, and then that medication was taken away, he could see how you might act pretty badly in response.
Which was no excuse for murder, of course. But by the sound of things, they hadn’t been Rhett’s pills anyway.
“What medications?” he asked Richard now, wondering how severe Kathryn’s pain was.
Richard sneered. “As if you don’t know.”
“Excuse me?”
Richard turned to Olivia McTerrell. “You read about him in magazines, didn’t you?”
She nodded, eyes wide.
“And what did it say?”
“That…that he was a child star, until—”
“Until?”
“Until he became a drug addict,” she said softly. “And he had to give it up.”
“And tell me,” Richard said, “did he recover from his addiction? Did he ever get clean?”
“Yes, I did!” Adam said hotly.
Richard held up a hand to silence him.
“According to the magazines, he did,”
Olivia said slowly. “But he kept falling off the wagon. They’d keep getting pictures of him out looking hungover and trashy, and the article would say something about how he couldn’t stay off the drugs.”
Richard shook his head. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him,” he said. “I knew we shouldn’t have brought him in. We gave him the clothes off our backs and the food off our table. And look how he repays us! He steals from us. My wife is in pain because of this—this addict.”
“Adam,” Charles said. “Is all of this true?”
“Hardly any of it is true!” Adam couldn’t believe what he was being accused of. After all the time he’d spent working to get sober, after all the years he’d stayed committed to his sober life, he was going to be thrown under the bus for this now?
He pulled himself together. He was going to have to communicate calmly if he wanted to be believed.
“I am an addict,” he confessed. “Richard and Olivia have that right. And Olivia is telling the truth about what the magazines reported.” He managed to smile at her. He didn’t want her to think he was angry with her. All she’d done was answer questions about the things she’d read, after all. This wasn’t her fault.
“But the magazines were wrong,” he went on. “They were trying to create a sensationalized story. They were trying to sell copies. I went out of the house looking like a mess because sometimes I’m just a mess. Sometimes we all go to the grocery store in our pajamas, right? And I got my picture taken doing it because I used to be famous. And that’s the whole story.”
“What about Kathryn’s pain pills, then?” Marsden asked. “Did you take them?”
“Of course I didn’t take them,” Adam said. “Don’t you think you’d have noticed if I was on pills? Don’t you think you’d have seen some kind of change in my behavior?”
“Not if you’d been on drugs since you arrived,” Richard said.
“How could I have been on drugs since I arrived?” Adam demanded. “My ship was wrecked after a storm. Your sons marched me right up to the house at gunpoint, and then I was quarantined in a room for twenty-four hours. When do you think I was taking all these drugs, exactly?”
“Okay, so maybe you weren’t taking anything when you first arrived,” Richard allowed. “But once we let you out of the room, you could have gone down to the yacht and—”
Escape The Dark (Book 2): Fearful World Page 13