Secrets of Redemption Box Set

by Michele Pariza Wacek

  Chapter 33

  “You are one lucky lady,” the doctor said. He had a shock of white hair and thick, dark glasses that he adjusted before making a few notes on a pad.

  I nodded, shivering a little in the ice-cold, air-conditioned hospital room. The doctor, whose name I couldn’t remember, noticed. “Your body is going to need some time to recover,” he said. “Get plenty of rest, good food, and fluids.”

  “I will.”

  He made a few more notes. “We’re going to keep an eye on you for a couple more hours, and if everything checks out, you should be good to go home.”

  Even though the EMTs had already examined me at the house, and even though I told Daniel I was fine, he had insisted on taking me to the hospital for a second opinion. I couldn’t really blame him. I had JD’s blood streaked all over my arms and chest, my neck was red and sore from where the noose had tightened, and I had a lump on my head and a mild concussion from when JD had first knocked me out. Plus, my fingers were swollen.

  Back in Mia’s room, after it finally sunk in that JD was incapacitated (at least for the moment) and I was safe, I got myself in gear. I found more of the rope he had used to bind my hands, and I quickly tied him up. I didn’t want to touch him, but I would also have no way of restraining him if he woke up before the cops arrived.

  Then I went off in search of my phone. I found it in The Studio, lying on the floor where I had apparently dropped it after JD hit me. I called Daniel and the cops, and then went down to the first floor to wait for them.

  JD was immediately taken to the hospital. According to the doctors, he was stable and expected to recover fully.

  “Now it all makes sense,” Daniel said to me in the car as he drove me to the hospital. “I couldn’t find any record of Jesse’s secret girlfriend having a baby, so I started investigating Jonathan’s children. I was in the process of tracing Darrel, I mean JD, when I got your call.”

  I leaned my head back against the car seat. Exhaustion was settling in like an old friend, thick and heavy in my veins. “Darrel?”

  “That’s his real name. And it’s one of the reasons no one figured out who he was sooner.”

  “JD,” I mused. “J for Jonathan and D for Darrel.”

  Daniel glanced at me. “That was my thought, as well.” He went back to focusing on driving, and I noticed his fingers were white where they clutched the steering wheel. “I still can’t believe I missed all the signs.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “He was good.”

  He pressed his lips together. “I should have known,” he said. “If anything had happened to you ...”

  “Hey.” I reached over to put my hand on his thigh. “I’m fine. The EMT said so. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

  Daniel didn’t look at me.

  Outside my room, I could hear light, quick footsteps before the privacy curtain was drawn back with a rattle. “I came as soon as I could,” Mia said. Chrissy was right behind her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, as both of them ran into the room to hug me. “Truly. Everything is okay.”

  “But what about the blood?” Chrissy asked.

  “Was it really JD?” Mia asked.

  “The blood isn’t mine,” I said. “It’s JD’s. And, yes, it really was him.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Mia said. “So he was Jonathan’s son. I gotta say, I now understand Charlie’s affair more, if Jonanthan looked like his boy.”

  “Seriously, Mia.”

  “Well, I’m just saying,” she said, turning a little red. “You have to admit he’s pretty hot.”

  “He is super-hot,” Chrissy chimed in.

  I was getting the sense that neither of them had fully grasped what had just happened. Of course, they didn’t see the transformation as I had. They still remembered the JD with mask firmly in place. And, maybe a part of them didn’t really want to believe. Even though I had seen the transformation with my own eyes, there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe it either.

  Again, I found myself wondering, how could we have all missed the monster living among us?

  “Well, he is also a psychopath,” I said. “And a little old for you.” The last part was directed at Chrissy, who at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

  “It’s just such a shock,” Mia said. “We worked with him, even flirted a little.” Now, Mia really turned red. “I actually considered ... well, never mind. How could we have been so wrong about him?”

  “You weren’t alone. He fooled all of us,” I said.

  “What happened?” Chrissy asked. “And how is it that JD bled all over the place, but you didn’t at all?”

  I smiled a tiny smile. “Oscar got him.”

  Mia’s mouth dropped open. “Oscar?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it either.”

  “I didn’t think cats protect their owners,” Mia said. “Dogs, sure. But cats?”

  I thought about how Oscar had seemed to grow in size when he went after JD, looking more like a panther or black mountain lion than a cat. I thought about how Oscar seemed so similar to the cat my aunt had owned all those years ago. Of course, there was no way he could be the same cat.

  But maybe Oscar was more than a normal cat.

  “I hear you,” I said. “All I can tell you is Oscar attacked JD.”

  “Maybe start at the beginning,” Mia suggested.

  So I did. I told them everything, starting from the moment Chrissy had left for work. Her face noticeably paled when she realized the timing of the attack. “Do you think he was in the house when I was?” she asked.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered, if he was,” I said, squeezing her suddenly cold-and-clammy hand. “He wasn’t interested in you. Only me.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look overly reassured.

  When I got to the end of the account, Mia’s eyes were as round as her mouth. “You hit him with a bat,” she marveled. “I can’t believe you did that. I don’t know if I could ever hit anyone with a bat.”

  “You were the one who was holding the bat when we searched the house,” I said. “You don’t think you could have used it?”

  “That was different,” she said. “I wasn’t sure then if anyone was even in the house.”

  “Well, it was a good thing you kept the bat in your closet,” I said. “I don’t know if I would have had time to find it in the office.”

  Mia looked puzzled. “I didn’t put it in my closet,” she said. “I remember distinctly putting it back in the office closet.”

  “But ...” I was confused. “Who would have put it in your closet? No one went into your room other than you.”

  “I don’t know, but it wasn’t me,” Mia said. “JD, maybe.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “He wanted to hang me, remember? He wouldn’t have any use for the bat.”

  “What did he use to knock you out?” Daniel asked. He was standing at the edge of the room. I hadn’t even noticed him appear. In the harsh fluorescent light, his face looked tired and drawn.

  Mia shifted to sit in one of the chairs, patting the bed. “Come sit with us,” she invited.

  He came forward, perching himself awkwardly on the side of the bed as I answered, “I don’t know what he used.”

  “Maybe it was the bat,” Daniel suggested.

  I tried to think back to when JD attacked me. The heavy, excited breathing. The dark shape that seemed to fly at me. It didn’t feel like he had used something as big as a bat to hit me, but my memory was pretty fuzzy. “Why wouldn’t he have left it in The Studio?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Who knows? What I want to know is how you managed to untie yourself.”

  “Oh. I almost forgot about that. It’s a good thing you guys didn’t take the jade.”

  Daniel b
linked. “I’m sorry?”

  “Well, not you,” I amended. “The cops, I mean.”

  “I’m still not following.”

  “I was down in the basement today when I saw it,” I said. “The jade. You know, that was in the crack, marking the location of Jonathan’s body. I would have thought the cops would have taken it as part of their investigation, but there it was today, behind some boxes.”

  Daniel’s face had flattened into a neutral expression, which I had come to think of as his “cop face.” “Where did you find it, exactly?”

  “It was in the corner,” I said. “Like it had been pushed aside. I almost missed it, behind the boxes.”

  “That wasn’t the same jade then,” Daniel said slowly. “I’m almost sure I saw it taken into evidence that night.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You think there were two pieces of jade in the basement?”

  “Maybe,” Daniel said. “What did it look like?”

  “It was shaped like a triangle or an arrowhead,” I said. “Really sharp on one end. That’s how I was able to cut myself free.”

  “Then it couldn’t have been the same stone,” Daniel said. “The one buried with the body was round and smooth. You couldn’t have cut anything with it.”

  “Who would have thought Charlie would have liked jade so much,” Mia said lightly. I smiled, but inside, I was remembering the sound of the door slamming after I found the jade, even though I couldn’t find anyone in the house.

  Well, maybe that was when JD snuck in, another voice said, and he was hiding from you.

  Maybe. But it was so loud. JD didn’t strike me as someone who would make that kind of mistake—slamming the door to the house he was sneaking into.

  Not to mention the fact that it was the sound of the door slamming that prompted me to put the jade in my pocket. Otherwise, I likely would have left it down there.

  And, now that I thought about it, what distracted JD was the sound of the door slamming, buying me precious seconds to cut myself loose. It’s what caused JD to open the door, which gave Oscar his chance to attack.

  And the bat. Where did that bat come from? Did JD really put it in Mia’s closet?

  Or was there something else going on?

  Maybe Aunt Charlie was helping me.

  My phone buzzed with a text notification, and I glanced down at it. It was my mother. “I have to take this,” I said. “It’s my mom.” I started to slide out of bed.

  “Where are you going?” Mia asked.

  “Just somewhere to talk,” I said. “A little privacy.”

  “You won’t find any out there,” Daniel gestured with his head. “The press are swarming already.”

  Oh. I hadn’t even considered that there would be journalists interested in my story.

  “You’re famous,” Chrissy said.

  “Great,” I said.

  Daniel smiled faintly at me. “What did you expect, when you find a dead body in your basement and then apprehend a killer?”

  “Oh, well, when you put it like that,” I said. I glanced uneasily at my phone. “No wonder my mother wants me to call.”

  Mia got up abruptly. “We’ll give you a break,” she said. “We’ll go down to the cafeteria. I could use a drink.”

  “You do realize there’s no alcohol in hospitals,” Daniel said.

  Mia groaned and rolled her eyes. “I guess I’ll have to make do with coffee.”

  “Can you bring me something?” I asked. “Maybe a sandwich? I’m starving.” I felt like I hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  Mia gave me a thumbs up as they trooped out. I waited a few minutes, listening as their footsteps and voices grew fainter before hitting the button to call my mother back.

  “Rebecca, what is going on out there? I have been worried sick.” My mother’s voice was frantic, and I could feel shame worming its way inside me. I had been selfish. I had avoided talking to my mother because of my own discomfort. I hadn’t given a thought to her worry.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Everything is fine. They caught the killer and I’m in the clear.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” my mother said, her voice relaxing. “I can’t tell you how concerned we’ve been. But what is this about a body being found in the basement?”

  I was about to ask her how she knew about that when I remembered the news media. “Yeah, it looks like Aunt Charlie killed Jonathan, her lover, and buried him in the basement.”

  “What?”

  “Jonathan’s son was out for revenge. He’s the one who killed those two women and made it look like it was me.”

  “My sister did what?” My mother’s voice grew louder. “She killed her lover? And buried him ... Rebecca, you must come home. Now. Don’t worry about that house. I doubt you’ll even be able to sell it at this point. What the hell was my sister thinking? It is just like her to leave a mess like this for everyone else to clean up.”

  I paused for a moment to take a breath and steady myself. “I’m not coming home.”

  “What are you talking about, Rebecca? Of course you are. Why would you want to stay a minute longer than you have to in that house? Or is there another legal issue you need to deal with?”

  For a moment, my brain scrambled, wanting to grab that lifeline. A legal issue. I could tell her that yes, I had to stay a few more days or even weeks to sort things out ...

  But I knew that wasn’t fair. Not to her or me. I needed to tell her the truth. We both needed closure.

  “No legal issues.”

  “Medical then?” I could hear the desperation in her voice. She doesn’t want to have this conversation either, I thought. She wants the excuse as well, so we can keep on pretending.

  “No medical issues either.”

  “Then, I don’t understand. Why aren’t you coming home?”

  “Because I already am home,” I said as gently as I could. “This is my home. Redemption. I’m staying here.”

  My mother didn’t say anything for a moment, and I started to feel a tiny bit of hope that maybe she would finally understand. But the next words out of her mouth dashed that hope.

  “You do understand,” she said, her tone icy, “that this means we’re cutting you off. For good.”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes.”

  “Rebecca, I mean it,” her tone grew even frostier. “You can never come back. Not next year. Not five years from now. You are on your own. Period.”

  “I understand,” I said quietly. “I hope you realize this doesn’t mean I don’t love you. And I hope to still see you. But this is something I have to do. I have to stand on my own. Here.”

  “Well you’re going to, that’s for sure. You’re on your own now,” my mother repeated. “Once I hang up, there’s no going back. There’s no changing your mind. Even if you call me five minutes from now, as soon as I hang up, it is done. You will be cut off.”

  I swallowed. “I understand.”

  My mother paused, and in the silence, I could sense her hope that I would break the silence and stop this. But I remained stubbornly silent.

  “Goodbye, Rebecca.” I heard a tiny click and silence.

  I lowered the phone to my lap. Fear and panic crashed over me, and I had a sudden urge to hit redial and beg for forgiveness. What had I done? Had I lost my mind?

  No. Underneath the worry and the doubt, I knew this was what I was supposed to do.

  I was in exactly the right place doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Yes, there would be challenges and difficulties ahead of me, but this was the right choice.

  And, I thought as I gazed sadly at my phone, hopefully one day, my mother would come to understand that too.

  Chapter 34

  “So, tell me more about this evidence,” Mia said. We had just gotten home from the hospital. Mia got me settled at the kitchen table while Chr
issy fussed in the kitchen making tea, soup, and sandwiches. Oscar had greeted me at the door, and then made himself comfortable in the chair next to me.

  “Supposedly, somewhere in this house is evidence proving that Jonathan killed Jesse,” I said.

  “What kind of evidence?”

  I lifted my hands up. “I haven’t a clue. A taped confession? A murder weapon with both Jonathan and Jesse’s DNA on it? A map to Jesse’s body?”

  “I wonder where Charlie could have hidden something so well that you haven’t stumbled upon it already,” Mia mused. “It must be something that wouldn’t degrade over time, either.”

  “That is an excellent point,” I said as Chrissy placed a bowl of chicken noodle soup, a cup of tea, and a tuna melt in front of me. “Eat,” she said.

  “Where haven’t you looked?” Mia asked, sipping the tea Chrissy handed her.

  “I haven’t looked in your room,” I said. “Or Chrissy’s. I wanted to wait until I asked you first.”

  “Well, then, let’s start searching,” Mia said, glancing pointedly at my plate. “After you eat.”

  “You can search my room too,” Chrissy called from the kitchen, where she stood by the counter eating a sandwich and scrolling through her phone.

  “Thanks Chrissy,” I said, picking up my sandwich. “Your room is probably going to be a mess,” I said to Mia. “I don’t know how the cops left it.”

  “Well, I guess it will be a search-and-clean party, then,” she said, a note of false cheer in her tone. “We’ll play some tunes. It will be fun.”

  I half-smiled. “You know,” I said, dropping my voice even though I knew Chrissy could hear everything anyway. “After everything that’s happened, if you don’t want to stay ...”

  Mia shook her head. “Let’s not talk about it now. Right now, I’m relieved they caught JD. I don’t know how I’ll feel once I see my room. It does ... well, I’m not going to lie. It kind of freaks me out that he wanted to kill you in my room, specifically. But I’m not going anywhere for at least a few days, until I know you’re okay.”

  I nodded, trying to keep the expression on my face pleasant as the soup and sandwich turned to ash in my mouth. I had been counting on Mia chipping in on the bills and food costs to help me get my business off the ground. If she left, I wasn’t sure what I would do.