The Family Tree: a psychological thriller
Page 28
At the end of my rant, Noah squeezed my hand and said, “You’ve done a great thing, Jolene. When you gave me the envelopes with leaves, you handed me the lead to Jackson’s killer.”
A heaviness lifted, and my body, though exhausted, felt lighter, free. This was vindication. I’d actually done something right. “But wait,” I said. “What about my stalker? Melissa said she’d never stalked me, and strange as it sounds, I believe her. So, if she wasn’t stalking me all these years, who was? Maybe she was in cahoots with someone else?”
Noah wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “You shouldn’t believe a word she says. She’s a psychopath. A liar.”
Noah was right. Melissa had been lying to me almost my whole life. She had to have been the person who’d been stalking me. Who could ever really know her twisted mind?
None of that mattered anymore. Melissa would pay for her crime just like I’d paid for mine. At least I could now rebuild my life.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Springtime, two years later…
The sun had just set, and Noah threw another log into the backyard firepit. The fire crackled, and the sweet, smoky scent of pinewood tinged my nostrils. Jennifer, Eric and our Golden Labrador, Benny, ran around playing catch on the lawn in the lingering daylight.
Noah sat back in the Adirondack chair next to me. “Another perfect day, eh?”
“I won’t complain.” I released a satisfied sigh as my shoulders slackened. We’d become friends, Noah and I, but nothing more. We were both too fucked up to make any promises. All that mattered was that I had never felt this content in my life. Perhaps when I’d been a child, before my mother had died, and when my future had been a bright and shiny fantasy.
I’d done things in my life I wasn’t proud of, but I realized now that I was more—that people loved me regardless of my missteps, and because I brought joy and love to their lives. My children. My real friends, like Noah. I didn’t spend any more time on regret. Everything that had happened had changed me for the better. I was enough.
Sometimes I still sensed the stalker nearby. A shadow or glimpse from the corner of my eye. But Melissa was in jail, and I easily brushed it off as lingering paranoia.
I still visited Katie from time to time. She’d explained how the dissociative episodes were provoked by trauma to protect myself. A defense mechanism. I had always thought the OCD had made me crazy. But no. I only had a mild case which could be managed with medication. My thinking had always been clear.
The obsessive thinking, the unwanted thoughts, the rituals which I’d believed warded off bad luck… all of that was normal for my condition.
Normal. Ephemeral. I’d never been crazy or insane to begin with.
Melissa, on the other hand, was a full-blown psychopath. An expert at manipulation and murder. She could easily adapt her personality to her needs at any moment to get exactly what she wanted.
If I hadn’t been so desperate to be accepted, I would have figured out Melissa was my terrorizer. But I wouldn’t waste my time ruminating over what-ifs. She’d been given a forty-year sentence for my attempted murder and two life-time sentences for the murders of Patsy and Jackson. She would rot in jail.
It had taken me a long time to learn that I’d been my own worst enemy. In my youth, I hadn’t trusted my gut instincts. I’d looked to others for approval and validation. I’d wasted so much time not trusting myself to make good decisions. I could have lived a more authentic life if I hadn’t been afraid to chase away my fears. Letting go of that need had given me the new life I’d always craved. Finally, I loved myself, too.
Noah pulled me close. “I have something for you.” He handed me a brown envelope.
A log sizzled and popped in the firepit as I opened the envelope. Inside was a handful of dry oak leaves. My pulse quickened. “What’s this about?”
“When I turned in the envelopes and waxed paper for fingerprints, I didn’t include the leaves.”
“Why not?”
“A voice inside told me to keep them. I didn’t know why at the time. But I kept them.” He took the envelope from me, pulled out the leaves, and placed the dry foliage in my hands. “I want you to burn these. Watch the last of that tree burn to ash. Disappear forever.”
No emotion hit me—just a readiness to get rid of the leaves. Without ceremony, I stood and dropped the leaves into the fire. A whirl of smoke rose as I watched the leaves shrivel to ash.
Noah rested his arm around my shoulder. “Everything to do with that tree is now gone.”
“No. That’s not true. We can burn the leaves, but some things in this world refuse to die.”
“What are you talking about?”
I took his hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” I led him to the slump in the earth where the tree had been removed. A green shoot sprouted from the ground like an arm reaching for the sky.
Noah’s mouth gaped, and then he turned to me. “What the fuck is that?”
“When the forensics team removed Mike’s body, they left the taproot untouched and refilled the hole with the soil they’d dug out. The taproot is the lifeblood of a tree. It will fight for survival.”
He stared at the ground for a moment. “What are you going to do with it?”
Inhaling a deep breath, I let the warmth of satisfaction roll through me. Patsy had entrusted me to care for everything she’d loved about this property. “Let it grow,” I finally answered.
I’d honored her wish because the family tree lived on.
Epilogue
July, thirty-four years later
I relaxed my old bones on a bench in the shade of the fifty-foot-high family tree. The cicadas in the forest rattled and hissed while I watched my grandsons take turns on the swing hanging from one of the tree’s sturdy branches.
Several years earlier, a loophole had been found in Patsy’s will, and I’d sold most of the twenty-five acres. I’d kept the two acres the house was on, and a quarter-acre-deep of forest surrounding the house so that I’d have plenty of privacy from the over-populated neighborhood. Sitting in the backyard, I could be proud that I’d kept Patsy’s wish and lived in this house with my own family.
At the edge of the forest, I saw the shadow. I smiled at my friend. The darkness didn’t come too close to me anymore, and the visits had become fewer and fewer over the years. When I did have a sighting, like now, it was away at a distance, watching me for a moment. Never for long.
Psychologists had explained how the hallucination had been imprinted on my mind. When I’d seen Melissa run across the lawn on that fateful night, I’d poured all my guilt, remorse, regret, pain, and anxiety into that image. The dark impression had become a stain on my brain.
After all the years which had passed, I still lived with the stalker—a remnant of the dark energy that had once kept me in a chokehold.
The image had embedded deep in my memory. So deep that it had become real. A shadow I’d now accepted. I had to; it always followed me. But now I could face the darkness, and the darkness would turn away.
Looking up to the blue sky, I saw everything clear now. Crystal clear.
Then, I narrowed my vision, blurred it all together. The top of the tree and the blue sky with clouds.
Children did this. Blurred their own vision. Crossed their eyes and skewed the world. It separated one from the present. It had taken a long time for me to admit that, after I killed and buried Mike, I’d skewed my own vision. For years, I’d wavered between the hazy, cross-eyed world of forgetting, and the absolute present. The two forces in constant opposition.
Laughter from my grandsons broke my introspection. My focus returned, and I looked ahead. The shadow was still at the tree line, but when I smiled, it turned and disappeared into the forest.
Gone.
At least for now.
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read The Family Tree: a psychological thriller. I can’t express how much it means to me. This is
my first psychological thriller, and I hope you enjoyed Jolene’s story.
If you want to know more about the inspiration for this novel, read excerpts of my upcoming work, and receive a FREE prequel short story, join my reader group. My newsletter goes out about six times a year, so don’t worry about your inbox getting bombarded.
Indie authors have a challenge getting the word about our novels out to readers. May I kindly ask you to help me spread the word by leaving a review for other readers considering this book?
Peace and love,
Sheila Koerner Grice
About the Author
S.K. Grice is an American author living in Australia with her husband, daughter, three demanding dogs, and a backyard full of noisy birds and frogs.
The Family Tree: a psychological thriller, is her debut novel in the thriller genre. She also writes contemporary romance under Sheila Grice.
When she’s not in her writing cave or reading a book, she likes to spend time in nature and with family and friends laughing, drinking good wine, and being goofy.
Contact S.K. Grice
www.skgrice.com
skgrice@outlook.com
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The Family Tree: a psychological thriller
To learn more about the contemporary romance novels by Sheila Grice visit www.sheilagrice.com