Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  I turned on my voice recorder and as Alan Thibodeaux had done the moment Deputy Atkins entered his interview room, Donovan started talking without any prompt from me.

  “Everyone received my gifts, yes? You know how much joy it gives me to work with ceramics. I have to say, I underestimated you, sis. I’ve been planning this for quite a while, and you caught me before the finale. That was a little disappointing.” He frowned and let his shoulders drop. “And before you can ask, yes, I intended to follow through with all of those implied manners of death, starting with Laurel.” He paused and drew a finger across his own throat. “If you’re wondering, there’s no real reason I chose strangulation for her. It simply came to me, almost like a premonition, as I was making the harlequin. Then I planned to do Honey and Sugar. Next, Briar.” He swiveled his head slowly toward a rock-solid Reed. “Aunt Reeva would be second to last.” He turned back to me. “Dear Ol’ Dad’s death would round out the Pack.”

  He was trying to get a response from me. Since he was talking, though, I remained silent. This appeared to agitate Dear Ol’ Bro.

  “I’m not sure,” he said with a bored sigh, “if I would have been able to stop after him. No one seems to know where Gabe and Rae are, but I know they’re still alive and kicking somewhere. Banishment is far too simple a punishment for them. Either Jola or Lily Grace should be able to tell me where to find them. After that, I might have moved on to Rosalyn. Then Tripp. Maybe Mom, but she’s already suffered so much because of me.”

  With an equally bored inflection, and an internal wince as to what Reed would think, I asked, “Where would Flavia fall in your lineup? I understand she’s been helpful to you all along. Feeding you with all sorts of valuable information about your victims and brainstorming murder methods with you.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “One would think,” I continued, “that by this time, you’d be able to plan your evil deeds all on your own.” I inhaled sharply. “Oh, wait. You need a mommy at your side, don’t you? Is that what Flavia has been for you? A fill-in mommy? Got no mommy or grandmommies of your own so you have to use replacements, don’t you?”

  The muscles in his jaw bulged as he clenched and unclenched, seething. It was more satisfying than it probably should have been to poke at him this way. But I knew Donovan Page’s weak spots. I knew all about his abandonment issues and was more than happy to use them to my advantage.

  I narrowed my eyes as though thinking and then shook my head. “Turns out, I don’t have any questions for you. You admitted you made the dolls and planned to carry through with murdering the victims. Even if you hadn’t said a word, we’ve got a longstanding warrant for your arrest.” I shrugged. “Don’t really need more than that.” I slid to the edge of my chair, ready to get up and leave the room. “We’re done. Unless there was anything else you wanted to ask.”

  I knew there was one thing in particular he wanted. Would he ask for it? Would his desperate need for acceptance override his stubborn pride?

  “Anything at all, Donovan?” I offered one last time. “No? Okay. Deputy Atkins—”

  “Fine,” Donovan blurted. “I’d like to meet with my father.”

  For the first time, to me at least, he appeared deflated. Gone was the vibrato. Sitting before me was a broken man. So broken he appeared almost childlike.

  “I’ll call over to the B&B,” I told him. “I can’t promise he’ll come.”

  “I want to meet with him alone,” Donovan demanded. Now that it seemed he was getting his way, his swagger was back. “You and your deputies can wait outside the door.”

  I burst out laughing. “Not gonna happen. If he agrees to see you, I will be in this room with you every second. That’s your only offer. Take it or head to prison right now.”

  For him, his internal debate probably stretched on for an hour. In reality, his response came in seconds. “Fine. I agree to your terms.”

  Atkins stayed in the interview room as I went to my office to call Dad. I paused next to Reed. “Sorry for the comments about your mom.”

  He shrugged it off. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t likely true. I told you the first time we talked about this, if my mother has done something wrong, as in something illegal, she has to pay for it. You know how the concept of karma works. If the law doesn’t catch her, the Universe will.”

  Sometimes Reed’s level of mellow amazed me. “Could be fun to see the Universe deal with a criminal. We might learn a few things.”

  Tripp answered the phone at Pine Time and needed a few minutes to track down Dad. No sooner had the question left my mouth than Dad responded, “No, not interested.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” I began gently, “but I think you should take a minute to think this through. You might not get another chance to close this circle.”

  I remained silent while he thought.

  A good ninety seconds later, he said, “I’m supposed to come to the station?”

  “I’m not bringing him to Pine Time, if that’s what you’re thinking. His next stop is a jail cell.”

  While I waited for him to get here, I tidied my office. Since both cases were wrapped up, I cleared both sides of the whiteboard. I boxed up the creepy dolls so Atkins could take them with him. By then, my choices were to pace circles around the room or go through emails. Since I was more than a little distracted by this impending meeting, I was worried I’d delete something important. I opted instead for pacing.

  Minutes later, Reed knocked on my door and poked his head in. “Walking off the nerves?”

  “Yep. Is Dad here?”

  He held the door wide, and my father entered.

  “You obviously don’t have to do this,” I told him. “If it was me, I’d want to meet him, though. Not for his benefit, but for my own.”

  Dad sat in one of my guest chairs and let out a long sigh. The desert-sun wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead that had smoothed at the coven gathering the other night looked deeper than ever now.

  “One of the big reasons I’ve stayed away from the village for so long is because of him. The memories connected to him have been very painful. I cared a lot about Priscilla, and while I can’t say I would have married her, I would have been right there to parent him with her. Then there’s all that my mother did to keep us apart from the start. There’s also Flavia and all that she’s done.”

  “I get it, Dad. The more I’ve learned about the village’s past, the more I’ve come to understand how messed up things were. I understand why you stayed away.” I waited for him to look at me. “I think this is your opportunity to put all that behind you.”

  “I’ve been running from it, no doubt about that.” He waited another minute and then rubbed his hands over his jeans. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  “You’ve got all the time you want. If that means two minutes, so be it. If it means two hours, you can have that too. I will be in the room with you the whole time.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  He was trying to protect me. It was my turn to protect him.

  “Actually, I do. I won’t be in there as your daughter. I’ll be in there as the sheriff.”

  I entered the room first, closing the door behind me to address Donovan. “You will not get up from that chair. If you make one move toward him, we’re done. Dad is running this meeting.” I cringed internally at how calling him “Dad” fit for both of us. “When he says time’s up, time’s up no matter what you may have left to say. So I recommend getting everything off your chest as quickly as possible because you may not get the chance otherwise.”

  I opened the door and moved directly to the side where I could see both of them at the same time. Dad remained neutral. Donovan, naturally, tried to take charge right away.

  “Hello, father. How nice to finally meet you.”

  Dad didn’t take the bait, though. “Jayne has told me quite a bit about you. I wish I could say it was a good report, but that wouldn�
�t exactly be truthful.”

  “Perhaps, if I’d had stronger parental guidance growing up, things would have been different.”

  Dad stared him in the eye with the expression that always made me want to run to my room as a kid. I always thought it was a firm don’t mess with your father, but now I saw it also said allow me to teach you something.

  “Since the lack of ‘parental guidance’ appears to be a large hole in your life, let me try to fill some of it with the limited time we have.”

  Dad paused, waiting for him to comment like a rebellious teenager. Instead, Donovan remained mute and almost looked eager for words of wisdom from his father.

  “I’ve met plenty of people in my life,” Dad began, “men and women both who have grown up with either single parents or with someone who wasn’t a blood relative. I was, effectively, one of those people. My father was gone more often than he was here. I was raised almost exclusively by my mother. Unfortunately, I did the same thing with my daughters.”

  I pressed the nail of my thumb into the knuckle of my ring finger, the pain keeping my emotions under control. This speech was as much for me as it was for Donovan.

  “When my secret was revealed,” he continued, “I reacted by running away. My mother, your grandmother, had a great deal of power in this community. She dictated people’s futures by deciding if they got to stay or had to leave. For others, myself and some of the Pack members, in particular, she dictated what they were and weren’t allowed to do. I admit, I had a hard time standing up to her. I should have claimed you from the start, but I let her tell me what to do.”

  “You admit, then”—Donovan’s voice was a low rumble—“that you were a bad father.”

  “I do. I was a bad father.” Donovan opened his mouth to comment, but Dad cut him off. “Here’s the thing, though, circling back to my point about people being raised in different kinds of households. My daughters were raised by not only an absent father but a fairly absent mother as well. She was physically there in the house with them most of the time. She made sure they were fed, clothed, and got to school, but she wasn’t there for them emotionally.” He flashed an apologetic look at me and then asked Donovan, “You grew up with your Grandma Velma’s niece, is that right?”

  Donovan nodded.

  “She had a happy marriage and kids of her own. Right?”

  Another nod.

  “They accepted you into their home without question and made you feel like a member of the family. They made sure you came to Whispering Pines every summer so you could spend time with your grandmother.”

  “But never Grandma Lucy.”

  “And I’m sorry about that. I can’t explain why she never welcomed you, but that isn’t my fault. I take responsibility for not being here for you because I could have been.” Again, Donovan tried to speak, and Dad spoke over him. “You were raised with more love around you than Jayne and Rosalyn were. They grew up with anger and resentment and secrets. The difference is, they didn’t let that hold them back.” When Dad looked at me then, I couldn’t stop a few tears from spilling. “They are smart, strong, wonderful young women. They didn’t let their circumstances define them. They showed admirable strength of character and rose above the negativity in their lives.” He turned back to Donovan. “Unfortunate that I can’t say the same about my son.”

  For nearly a minute, neither of them said a word.

  “Anything else?” I asked. “From either of you?”

  Dad inhaled and seemed to become taller as he blew the breath out. The wrinkles around his eyes smoothed again. Holding all that guilt and regret inside for so long was sure to suck some life out of a person. I was thrilled to see it flowing back in. Donovan, on the other hand, looked as shriveled as the Yasmine doll I’d found that day.

  “I’ve got nothing else.” Dad stood. “Best of luck to you, Donovan.”

  He left before Donovan could open his mouth. And it was obvious there was plenty Donovan still wanted to say.

  “I warned you to speak your piece quickly.” I fought with a satisfied smile, trying to remain professional. “Maybe you can write him a letter from prison.”

  In the main room, I gave Atkins and his men the all clear to take the prisoner away. Dad was already gone. If I had to guess, he went to the Barlow cottage to talk with Briar. She was excellent at helping a person get their head on straight.

  Reed and I watched as the man who had so greatly affected both of our lives was loaded into the back of the county sheriff’s van. He was still handcuffed and shackled. They hooked the chain at his feet to a loop in the floor of the van. They attached a chain to his handcuffs and connected both ends to the sides of his seat, pulling it snug so he could only move enough to bend forward and scratch his nose. Two armed officers joined him in the back, and Atkins shut them in.

  “You all right?” he asked me.

  All I could do was nod and hum, “Mm-hmm.”

  “I’ll call as soon as he’s in the cell. Don’t worry, he won’t get away this time.”

  When the county cars were out of sight, Reed and I went back inside the station. I burst into tears, releasing the emotion that had been building since the day my family had left Whispering Pines so many years ago. Reed guided me to a chair and stood behind me with his hand on my shoulder. Meeka sat in front of me with her little body pressed against my legs. We stayed like that until my tears dried up and Reed had stopped sniffling.

  Chapter 31

  Reed volunteered to take care of the Donovan paperwork for me. It felt like closure to do it myself, though. He said the same thing, so we compromised. He did the initial draft, and I did the second pass for any additions or corrections. It was late in the afternoon by the time we finished.

  “Are you celebrating Christmas?” I asked him.

  “Not really. I’m sort of in a middle ground. I was raised Wiccan and sort of follow it but don’t actively practice. Maybe someday I’ll think about it again.”

  “Tomorrow is like any other Tuesday then?”

  “Pretty much. I’ll play some video games. Maybe watch a movie.”

  “It’ll be just the four of us—me, Tripp, Rosalyn, and Dad. Tripp mentioned something about a standing rib roast. You’re welcome to join us.” I couldn’t believe those words had come out of my mouth. Inexplicably, I added, “I think Rosalyn would like that.”

  “I would too.” Then, having turned a charming shade of pink, he said, “Rib roast sounds way better than the frozen burger I planned to heat up.”

  “Way better. See you around two?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I got home to find Tripp in the kitchen working on bacon-wrapped meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. He turned when he heard me enter, hands in the bowl full of meat, diced vegetables, and whatever else went into a meatloaf. “Hey. How’d it go?”

  I waited for him to wash his hands and melted into the comfort of a hug. “We got him. He was hiding in a priest hole at the un-church.”

  He paused before saying, “If we lived anywhere else, that would be a very strange statement.”

  “Stranger still, you know what a priest hole is?”

  “Sure do. My aunt grew up on the east coast in an old colonial house. She used to talk about hiding in the priest hole with a book and flashlight.” He held me for another minute, helping me forget about everything bad that had happened today. “Your dad wants to have a talk with you and Rosalyn. He told me to wait until the discussion started before putting the meatloaf in.”

  “Okay. Give me ten minutes to change clothes first.”

  Once enveloped by the comfort of a new pair of flannel pajama pants covered in gingerbread men and a fluffy fleece sweatshirt, I joined my dad and sister in front of the fire in the great room.

  “There she is,” Dad said as though they’d been talking about me and pointed at Rosalyn. “Sit next to your sister so I can see both of my girls at the same time.”

  “Cute pants.” Rosalyn plucked at my flannel a
s I squished her into the corner of the sofa.

  Glad she liked them. There was a pair under the tree for her. “What are we talking about?”

  Dad blew out a long, slow breath. “The thing we haven’t talked about yet. The fact that I’ve been gone for so long and so often.”

  Rosalyn switched positions with me, so her back was to my front. I wrapped my arms and legs around her like a protective shield. We used to sit like this when we’d watch scary movies. Except Rozzie usually had a pillow in her hands to cover her eyes at the really scary parts. I hid my face behind her head.

  “You both know what happened,” he began, “all those years ago when we left here. I should have been honest with your mother from the start. I deeply regret that. The problem was, the longer things went unsaid, the fissure between us grew until we couldn’t reach each other anymore. I loved my job and decided that since a man’s primary responsibility is to provide for his family, I’d bury myself in my work.”

  “Not literally, I hope.” Rosalyn laughed weakly, trying to break the tension suddenly filling the room.

  “That happened once,” Dad recalled. “There was a cave-in at a site. I only got buried to my knees, so it wasn’t that big a deal.” He grew quiet, and Roz and I barely breathed, waiting to hear what he’d say next. “It’s really easy to let things like work take over your world. Especially if it’s work you love. I missed out on a lot of your lives. Big things . . . good and bad things that I should have been here for. And not just with you girls but with your mother too.” He smiled sadly. “Georgia has been so successful with her day spa. I should have been here to celebrate the opening with her. I never told her how proud I was of her.”

  “You still can,” I suggested. “You’re here now. You can’t do anything about the past. Briar would say if you focus too long on the past, you’ll get stuck back there. She’d also say that everything that has happened to us in our lives has gotten us to exactly where we’re supposed to be.”