by H. P. Bayne
“Lowell?” Dez said. “What the hell are you—?”
But Sully’s thoughts were stuck on the other part of Hackman’s statement. “The guy in the mask. Who is he?”
“Don’t know. Never saw him. All I know is he’s helping to fund the experiment.”
Sully’s heart pounded with the arrival of answers. “Gerhardt’s work with psychic patients?”
“Lowell’s drug tests. He developed something that’s supposed to open the mind, allow people to see things they ordinarily don’t. Some sort of—” He broke off, took a raspy breath, as if the act of speaking was taking a round out of what was left of him. “Psychoactive drug.”
“Why us?” Sully asked. “Why psychics?”
“Your minds are more open. They figured the risk would be decreased. It might be too much for a normal person, but with people like you, they could do things, experiment with dosages without worrying they’d break your mind.”
“They were breaking my mind,” Sully said. “Or didn’t you notice?”
“I noticed. But I didn’t care. Not then.”
“You do now?”
“I don’t want to die with this on my conscience.”
“That last day, before I went into Lockwood. You and Lowell—”
“He wanted you dead. He blackmailed me into helping him. He’s terrified of you.”
“Jesus, what—” Dez started. But Sully, acutely aware of the limited time, cut in.
“He’s terrified of me?”
“Some sort of prophesy. He pretends he doesn’t believe, but he does. He’s the most superstitious man I’ve ever met. When you didn’t die that day, we knew we’d have to make sure you never had the chance to tell anyone. He insisted on higher doses, thinking it would eventually be too much for you, that it would destroy your brain. But it didn’t.”
“I need someone to tell me—” Dez said, but Sully shushed him as Hackman continued.
“Anyone else, it would have killed. Not you. I don’t know how, but you kept coming. You weren’t supposed to leave that place alive. I was relieved when I heard you’d been killed.”
The sound of a siren had been drawing closer as Hackman spoke. It was now likely just down the block, closing in. Sully would have to leave quickly if he didn’t want to be found here.
Hackman drew in a ragged breath, then flailed around with a hand until it caught Sully’s. He grasped it, squeezing Sully’s fingers as if a lifeline. “Is there a Hell? Am I going there?”
“I don’t know what comes after this,” Sully said. “I don’t have the answers.”
“I’m sorry. For my part in what happened to you. I was wrong. I should have done something. And I’m sorry for what I did to the woman and her baby. I didn’t mean for anyone to die that night. You need to believe me.”
What Sully believed was he was looking down at a man about to die who was seeking absolution. Sully had taken the place of a minister, offering Hackman his own version of last rites, helping him make his peace with a life of sin.
He had every right to refuse Hackman his forgiveness. But he didn’t have the heart. He’d once feared this man, had dreaded seeing him come into his room at Lockwood, had looked up into his sneering face as he’d restrained him for the shot of what he now knew was Lowell’s drug.
This was no longer that man.
“I believe you,” Sully said. “And, for what it’s worth, I forgive you.”
Hackman managed a weak smile and a slight nod. He took another raspy breath and refocused his gaze upward. The light of recognition settled in his face. “I see my mother.”
Once more, his chest rose with breath. Then it released, rattling from his throat.
No more breaths followed.
27
Sully waited in the park down the street, hood pulled up and head bent down as he sat, hunched, on a bench.
A cold wind blew, shaking the remaining leaves from trees and causing him to zip his hoodie up to the throat and draw his outer jacket more tightly around himself.
But it wasn’t completely the wind at fault for the chill that ran through him. He’d just done something he’d never known possible: he’d effectively possessed a ghost. He’d overpowered her, pulled her into himself.
He’d started to become the hangman.
But he had other problems, at least one of which was driving down the block toward him now. Hackman had revealed his secrets, had provided a deathbed confession. But he’d also confessed Lowell’s secrets and Sully’s. Dez, now pulling to a stop across from the park, would demand an explanation.
Sully could no longer avoid giving him one.
He stood and made his way to the SUV.
“Not here,” Dez said as soon as Sully was inside. “Don’t talk to me yet.”
He was upset. That much was clear. Exactly how upset remained to be seen.
Sully didn’t have long to wait. The drive back to their apartment was less than fifteen minutes. Dez bypassed Emily’s, foregoing a reunion with Pax in favour of towing Sully inside their suite.
Pax would have to wait. Dez, it seemed, wasn’t about to put this off for another second.
The door barely had a chance to slam shut behind Dez when he launched into an interrogation. “What the hell was he talking about?”
“Which part?”
“You know damn well which part. The part about Lowell.”
Sully took a breath, then moved to sit at the kitchen table, using the few seconds to think through how best to start. But there wasn’t a best way, so he simply launched into it. He told Dez everything: how Lowell had drugged him before his admission to Lockwood, leaving him more vulnerable to the possessions by Harry Schuster; how Lowell and Hackman had tried to kill him; how Lowell had been there and watched as Sully was tortured inside the Blue Room. He left out the other parts—for now. Dez would sense something missing. Sully knew that as well as he knew his brother.
He also knew the look on his face now. He’d gone red, a kettle about to boil. Dez could yell, and Sully had been at the receiving end more than once.
Only what he got was worse. The more dangerous, deceptively calm growl. “Why the hell didn’t you bother to tell me about this before?”
“I told you I was trying to protect you.”
“From Lowell? I don’t get this, Sully. I really don’t get this. Why would he do this? I know him. He’s no killer.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you. But I don’t understand. Why? Why would he do it? Someone like him, he wouldn’t take a step like that without some sort of warped reason.”
There it was. A call to provide the rest of the story. Sully briefly considered lying, but thought better of it. He’d already held back far too much, had kept things from Dez he had every right to know.
So he told him the rest. About how Lowell was responsible for the deaths of Harry and Betty Schuster—and quite possibly their son. How he’d killed Aiden. How he’d killed their father.
As Sully spoke, the red left Dez’s face, leaving it so white Sully had to pause midway to allow Dez to sit heavily in a chair next to him.
Now finished, Sully waited, watching his brother’s face as he struggled to process. It was all there in his expression—the confusion, the anger, the grief. Most of all, the disbelief.
“I don’t…. No. He wouldn’t….” Another few seconds passed before Dez’s eyes drifted up to meet Sully’s. “He wouldn’t.”
Sully gave him the only answer he could. “He did.”
Another long pause. More processing. Then, “Why?”
“I don’t know, Dez. I know why he killed Dad, and I know why he killed Harry and Betty, and possibly Thackeray. And I know why he tried to kill me. It was all about Aiden, about us figuring out what he did. But that’s the part I don’t understand, that I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of. Aiden was just a little kid.”
“And you’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Dad didn�
�t die of a simple heart attack. I’ve seen him. Lowell didn’t shoot Dad full of epinephrine to try to save him. He did it to cause his heart to fail. And Aiden, he showed me what happened to him. He showed me Lowell holding him under the water at the creek behind the house.”
“And you didn’t think I had the right to know this?”
“That’s not why I didn’t tell you.”
Dez’s moods had always been interchangeable, rising and falling like waves. Within his last question, he’d left stunned behind, had moved back into anger.
He stood, shoving the chair back so that it rocked a little on its back legs. It managed to stay standing, which was more than Sully thought he was capable of at the moment. The admission had left him drained, and he knew he was going to face more grief before this was over.
Dez paced several times, a feat made difficult by the combination of long legs and small space. He was burning off energy, trying to hold his anger in check, to avoid saying or doing something he’d regret.
Then he started to go for the door.
Sully leapt up, grabbed his arm just as he reached for the handle. “Where are you going?”
“To see Lowell.”
“No.”
“Get off me.”
“No. Not now. Not while you’re like this. You’ll do something you’ll regret.”
“What, you think me beating Lowell to death with my bare hands is something I’d regret? Fuck off. Let go of me. Now!”
Sully had a choice to make. He could let Dez go, could let him find Lowell while taking with him every bit of rage he was now experiencing. Or he could try to draw some of that rage back on himself. It wouldn’t solve everything, but it might take enough wind from Dez’s sails to lessen the risk.
“Dez,” Sully said. “Your problem right now is with me. Just let me have it.”
He’d said the not-so-magic words. Dez spun on him, towering over him as he barked out his fury. “I had a right to know about this! And I didn’t need your fucking protection! I needed the truth, and you kept it from me. They were my family! All this time, I’ve been seeing Lowell’s face, trying to be polite, when I should have been smashing it in.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Shut up! Shut up, Sullivan. I’m not done.”
The use of his full first name had Sully looking up, eyes snapping onto Dez’s. He didn’t use that name, not unless things were really bad between them.
“You lied to me. You lied to me. Not about some stupid thing you did that you knew I wouldn’t like. You lied to me about our family. Our family. That’s sacred. You don’t lie about that ever. I had a right to know about Dad and Aiden. You knew how desperate I was to know what happened to my brother, how and why you were seeing him. Now I find out you had the answer all this time, and didn’t tell me. What the hell am I supposed to do with that, huh?”
“I found out just before Lockwood. I couldn’t tell you then.”
“No, you chose to fake your own death and put me through an even greater hell. And you’ve been back a while now. Not once, not once in all that time did you bother saying something about this.”
“I wasn’t sure you could handle knowing the truth.”
The words, for some reason, proved a tipping point. Dez came at him, seizing handfuls of his jacket and slamming him back into the wall. The impact rattled his lungs, Dez’s fists pressed hard enough into his chest to leave bruises.
“I couldn’t handle knowing? Newsflash, you moron. I couldn’t handle what you put me through. All these years, I trusted you, I relied on the fact you’d never lie to me.”
“I didn’t lie, Dez. I just didn’t tell you everything.”
“Which is the same thing. Every day, every goddamn day, I think about them.” Tears formed in Dez’s eyes, and he let them fall, making no effort to release Sully to wipe them away. Sully felt his own emotion rise to meet Dez’s, answering tears gathering along his lower lashes as he held Dez’s watery glare. “I miss them. I miss them so damn much. And I missed you. Or I missed the person I thought you were. But you…. I don’t know you. I don’t know who the hell you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Sully Gray I knew would never have held back something like that. He wouldn’t have lied to me.”
He released Sully, so abruptly he nearly lost his balance. “I’m done with this. All of this. I miss Eva and Kayleigh. I’m going home. You can do what you want.”
“Don’t go like this, okay? Can’t we talk about it?”
“I’m done talking. And I’m done with you. Leave me the hell alone.”
Dez moved back toward the door. Sully rushed after him, grabbing for his arm again. They needed to discuss this, to fix what Sully had inadvertently broken.
He didn’t see the fist coming, felt it before he knew what was happening. The impact sent him across the room, his body landing hard against the coffee table. The rickety legs gave way beneath his weight, and he laid there a moment, mentally scanning himself for significant injury. Dez had punched him before, but never this hard. He’d always pulled his punches for Sully.
Not this time.
Then came a second blow, verbal this time.
“Roman Gerhardt is your father. Ask Emily.”
Then Dez was gone.
“What was all th—oh, dear.”
Emily’s question stopped midway, and Sully knew his appearance was likely the cause. His jaw hurt, was probably already starting to bruise and swell. And he’d given up trying to control the tears.
She pulled him into a warm hug right there, in the doorway to her little apartment, while Pax nudged and then pressed against his leg. She held him until he’d regained a little control, until the shaking stopped. Then she led him inside.
Settling into a spot at her kitchen table, he waited while she poured the requisite tea. She didn’t fill the space, letting him filter through his thoughts. He had a lot of them. None of them good.
She held her silence until she was sitting across from him. Then she placed a hand over his. “You and your brother had a fight.”
He nodded, taking a moment to stroke Pax’s head. The dog had yet to leave his side, rooted there like the big, furry guardian he was. “A bad one.”
“You told him, didn’t you?”
“About Lowell? Yeah.”
“And he didn’t take it well.”
“He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s angry. That’s understandable. But he’ll get past it. You’re family, after all.”
“I don’t think that’s enough this time. He thinks I betrayed him. And he’s right. He had a right to know, and I didn’t tell him.”
Emily patted his hand. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it will pass. He’ll come back to you. You’ll see.”
“I don’t think so. Not this time. He said he’s done with me. And he punched me. Hard. He’s never hit me like that before. That means something.”
The statement seemed to form a reminder for Emily, and she levered herself up from the table to shuffle over to her freezer. “It means he’s angry. He needs to stew a little, that’s all.”
Sully watched as Emily pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables and wrapped them in a tea towel. “He wasn’t stewing. He was boiling.”
Emily returned to the table, pressing the makeshift cold pack against Sully’s jaw. “So he’s boiling. Eventually, water boils dry. He’ll run out of anger soon enough, and he’ll be back.”
Sully shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was different this time.”
“It feels that way because you’re directly involved, and you’re hurting. But you did the right thing, Sullivan, and you’ll see that soon enough. I’m sure of it.”
Sully heaved a sigh, and moved on. There was something else on his mind. “Dez said something right before he left. He told me Roman Gerhardt is my father, and that I should ask you. What was he talking about?”
“Oh d
ear.”
“What? It’s not true, is it?”
Her hand reached out to him, and he had to switch the hand he was using to hold the peas on his face so he could meet her request. Her fingers wrapped around his, their warmth slowly dissipating the chill within his.
“I told you how you were born inside Lockwood, how your mother was a patient there. But I didn’t tell you how you were conceived. Your mother was abused by Dr. Gerhardt. He sexually assaulted her.”
“No.”
“It happened a number of times. From what I could tell, he targeted her.”
“You mean, I’m only here because my mother was raped? And he’s…. No. Oh, God, no. He can’t be. He can’t be my father.”
“He’s not a father, not in any way. He’s a monster. You might be biologically tied to him, but it’s nothing more than that. Your father is Flynn Braddock. Always remember that.”
“I know, but…. God, what does that make me?”
“It makes you the same person you have always been. You are Lucky’s son. She loved you, Sullivan. Not in spite of how you came to be, but because of who you were to her. She loved you fiercely, and she was prepared to die to protect you. That’s who you are. You are her child. Hers.”
“I guess I can’t blame anyone for not telling me, huh?”
“Desmond wanted to protect you, the same way you tried to protect him from the pain of the truth. And I had to honour his wishes. But I nonetheless share the blame in keeping this from you, so I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I understand. I can even understand why Dez didn’t tell me. I can’t blame him for keeping secrets when I kept my own from him, can I?”
She smiled, shook her head. He smiled back.
“What are you planning to do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I need to think. A lot’s come to light today, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I meant about your brother.”
Sully nodded. Of course she’d meant that. “I need to give him some space. I’m hoping it won’t be long, but it might be. In the meantime, I’m going to have to accept being on my own again.”