Her Last Breath

by Hilary Davidson

  She stared into the mirror. “I am full of hidden horrors.”

  I shuddered in recognition when she said it. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “It’s a line from Medea.”

  “But why would you . . . ?”

  “It was a line from a play your mother was in. She kept repeating it.” She picked up the glass in front of her, only to discover it was empty.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He loved her—I can tell you that. As much as he is capable of loving anyone, which is not much in the greater scheme of things. But he wanted to control her, so he lied and played games with her mind. I am ashamed of my part in it. I was in the house to help with the kinder, and instead I slept with their father. No wonder Juliet hates me.” Ursula got up from the vanity slowly, with the painful self-awareness of the inebriated. “Of course, he did exactly the same things to me that he did to her. I started losing parts of myself until I didn’t even know who I was anymore.”

  She moved toward me unsteadily.

  “Now you understand,” she added. “Why I wanted to help Caroline escape. She needed a different life. She and Teddy both did.”

  What I understood was that Ursula had to be very drunk, and she didn’t make any sense. “What does that mean, Ursula?”

  “I tried to get away from your father, and I failed. This life is what I deserve. Your father is my penance. But Caroline never did the things I did. She didn’t deserve this. She wanted me to help her, but I can’t do what she wanted me to do.”

  “Which was what?”

  “She wanted me to reveal the Thraxton family secrets if anything happened to her,” Ursula said. “She wanted the truth to come out. But I can’t. It’s buried too deep, and I was involved in burying some of it. Teddy . . .” A sob rippled through her chest, but she stifled it. “Poor Teddy does not deserve this.”

  “Let me help you home.”

  She waved me away. “I’ve been doing this a long time, dear boy. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to see your father ever again.”

  She passed me and made her way down the hall, supported by the wall, then down the stairs, leaning heavily on the bannister. I shook my head and went to my room. I sat on the bed for a minute to take off my shoes. It was only two in the afternoon—eight o’clock in Berlin—but I hadn’t slept on the flight, and I passed out.

  I woke up an hour later, woolly headed and cotton mouthed. According to my watch, it was nine p.m., but the sun was streaming in through my window. It took me a minute to realize I’d forgotten to change it from Berlin time.

  I put my shoes on and splashed some water on my face. No one seemed to be home, but I heard the television in Gloria’s room. I knocked on the door.

  “Sorry to bother you, but where’s Teddy?”

  “Ursula took him across the street to play with the trains,” Gloria said.

  “Ah.” I didn’t want to have round two with my father just yet, but I wasn’t going to allow Teddy to be in his company for another minute. I hurried out the front door and across the street and rang the bell.

  The disapproving butler answered.

  “I’m here to pick up my son.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  “He came over with Ursula.”

  The butler shook his head. “She’s not home.”

  I was ready to push past him, but he seemed as surprised as I was.

  “She said she was going to your house,” he added.

  “She came over, but now she’s gone,” I said, panic rising inside me. “They’re both gone.”

  CHAPTER 43

  DEIRDRE

  I was lying in a strange bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Everything in my line of sight was wobbly, as if I was underwater and staring at ripples on the surface. As my brain shook me awake, the waters parted and my vision cleared.

  There was a man in a white coat who didn’t look any older than me. He had a scraggly neck-beard and a notable underbite. “It’s alive,” he said, like I was Frankenstein’s monster stirring under a tarp.

  I promised myself the first thing I’d do, when I was sure I wasn’t dead, was drop-kick this jerk. “Where am I?” I croaked.

  “You’re in the hospital,” he asked. “I’m Dr. Weiss. Do you remember how you got here?”

  “I was pushed out a window. Tased . . . twice. Ben Northcutt tried to kill me.”

  “You have no idea how lucky you are,” he said. “You fell three stories and landed on wire mesh. You’ve got serious lacerations, two Taser burns, a broken fifth metatarsal in your left foot, and a fractured wrist. Honestly, you should buy some lottery tickets when you walk out of here.”

  “Are you really a doctor?”

  He chuckled at that. “Your family’s waiting. Are you ready for a visit?”

  “Okay,” I said, hoping he meant Reagan but wondering if he meant my father. I struggled to sit up. Dr. Weiss put his hands on my shoulders, gently pressing me back, then pushed a button to raise the upper half of the bed. “Where are the cops?”

  “They’re waiting too.”

  “Get them in here.”

  A minute later, Reagan was rushing in and hugging me. “You scared us to death! Are you okay? Tiger Mom wanted to be here, but the hospital only lets two family members in.”

  Villaverde and Gorey were on her heels. Pulling up the rear was my father, looking pale and anxious.

  “You need to haul Ben Northcutt’s ass into jail,” I said. “He’s insane. He tried to kill me.”

  “Tell us what happened,” Villaverde said.

  I tried to explain as best I could without mentioning the Thraxton criminal enterprise and Caro’s role in it. “He thought he and Caro and Teddy were running away to start a new life, when my sister didn’t want anything to do with him,” I said at the end. “He admitted he had a fight with Caro the morning she died. He shook her, and she fell and hit her head. He insisted she was okay, that she got up after that, but I told him he killed her. That was when he tried to kill me.”

  “Which suggests you were onto something,” Villaverde said. “I wonder how Theo will take the news his wife was ditching him.”

  “Theo’s already having the worst day of his life,” Gorey added.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Teddy’s gone missing,” my father said.

  “His stepmother has vanished, and it looks like she took the little kid with her,” Villaverde explained. “You know anything about that?”

  I was stunned. “Ursula’s always been sweet . . . and very drunk. Are you sure she took him?”

  “Theo is certain she did. She told him the boy needed a different life.”

  The hospital wasn’t thrilled about uncaging me so early, but once I’d signed a bunch of forms saying they were off the hook if anything bad happened, they let me go. Dr. Weiss added his own warnings.

  “You need to come back in if you vomit or get dizzy,” he said. “You could have problems concentrating, or with balance. You might get angry easily . . .”

  “That’s normal for some people,” my father muttered.

  “Wonder where I got that from?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about having him around, but if Teddy really was missing, we were going to be spending time together.

  “Pot, meet kettle,” Reagan added.

  We piled into my father’s car. Our drive to Theo’s town house was tense but speedy, thanks to my father’s lead foot on the gas. When we got there, I banged on the door. It was just after seven in the evening. Theo opened it immediately.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” he said, touching my shoulder. “The police told me you were attacked.”

  “An old pal of Caro’s tried to throw me out a window,” I said. “Honestly, I’m more worried about Teddy.”

  “I’m anxious as well, but I know Ursula loves him,” Theo said. “She’d never do anything to hurt him. I think it’s just a matter of time until he’s found. Please come in—you can wait with me.
”

  I filed in, Reagan and my father following me. Gloria was pacing in the parlor. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “Ursula has nowhere to go and no money of her own. Where would she take Teddy?”

  “It was a good impulse gone awry,” Theo said. “I can understand her wanting to get him away from my family.”

  “Sit down, Deirdre,” Gloria said. “Tell us what happened to you.”

  “I want to hear Theo’s story first,” I said. “You emailed about wanting to talk. What did you want to say?”

  “The day of Caroline’s funeral, you accused me of killing another woman. For years, I’ve run away from that. I tried to pretend it didn’t happen. I went to Berlin to finally confront it, and I discovered my father has lied to me all these years.”

  “I’m confused,” I said. “Lied to you about . . . killing this woman?”

  “Yes,” Theo said. “The condensed version is this: During my second year at university in Berlin, I had a whirlwind fling with a woman I knew as Mirelle. I was a mess at the time, but I thought I was in love.” He cleared his throat. “One night, while I was . . . let’s just say high . . . this is so hard to talk about.”

  We were all quiet. Then my father said, “There’s nothing more painful than the truth. But it’s the only thing that cures you.”

  Theo nodded. “I don’t remember what happened, but Mirelle’s body was on the floor—stabbed to death—and my father told me I’d killed her. I believed this for years.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve discovered it was all a lie. The woman was an actress my father hired. He killed her—had her killed—because I married her. It was all a fiction to enable my father to control me.”

  “How did you get to the truth?” I asked.

  “I’ve been working with a doctor who helps people recover their memories,” Theo said. “I’ve been spending more time in New York because of it, but I didn’t want my family to know. The day Caroline died, I came by the house quickly to pick up something . . . the doctor believes objects can help activate your memory.” Theo looked sheepish. “I know this sounds like mumbo jumbo, but it’s helped me.”

  “Therapy is like that,” my father said. “Unless you’re involved, it can sound like nonsense.”

  “What do you know about therapy?” I demanded.

  “I go every week,” he answered.

  “You do?”

  “To group therapy,” he clarified. “I’ve done one-on-one as well. I felt foolish at first, talking so much about myself. I was raised never to do that. But you can’t change without understanding what’s wrong.”

  “You need to do something to break bad programming,” Reagan said.

  “You’ve done therapy?” I asked her.

  “Every so often,” she said. “I started a few years after my dad died. I do telemedicine appointments.”

  “My daughter is in school to be a therapist,” Gloria said. “I always said that’s just for crazy people, but she’s had me do a couple of sessions with a friend of hers. It really helps how you think.”

  I realized I was completely outnumbered. “Your father told me you’d been to the house in the middle of the night,” I said to Theo. “It only made me more suspicious of you.”

  “I already wanted Teddy far away from my father, but that’s imperative now. I think Ursula understands that, too, which is why she took him.” Theo paced anxiously. “I want to hear what happened to you, Deirdre.”

  “I went to see an old friend of my sister’s,” I said. “A journalist named Ben Northcutt. He was helping Caro extort money out of your family.”

  “He . . . she . . . what?” Theo blinked at me.

  “You know your family is into money laundering, right?” I asked.

  “That’s why I quit.”

  “Caro was giving him information, and he was cashing in on it. He thought he and my sister were going to leave with Teddy and make a new life together. I made him admit he shoved her the morning she died. Caro fell and hit her head because of him.”

  The doorbell rang. Theo went to answer it and returned with Jude Lazare in tow.

  “Your father called me when you were in the hospital, Dee,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re out already.” She looked around nervously. “Where’s Teddy?”

  “He’s gone. With Ursula—my stepmother—as far as we know,” Theo answered.

  “I came over because . . . Ben called me,” Jude said. “To be more specific, he threatened me.”

  “Ben was the one who tried to kill me,” I said, feeling a tidal wave of anger rising inside me. It had been weirdly absent in Ben’s apartment after he confessed, but it was back. “I’d love to know where he is.”

  “That’s the thing,” Jude said. “I knew he was conspiring with Caroline. She’d come to me first, asking me to help her get money out of her in-laws. She wanted to leave, and I wanted to support her, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. I know she approached Ben after that. She didn’t give me many details, but I knew he did what she wanted.” She wiped her eyes. “After she died, Ben started calling me. He told me Caroline wanted to save her son from Theo. Then, in the next breath, he’d say Theo had to be punished for what he did to Caroline.”

  “You didn’t tell the police?”

  “I thought he was venting. And I didn’t want to tell the police what Caroline had been up to,” she said. “But he called me twenty minutes ago. He swore that if I told the police about him, people he knew would kill me. I asked him if he’d hurt Theo, and he said . . .” She put her hand to her lips. “He said it was more important to save Teddy, and that’s what he was going to do.”

  CHAPTER 44

  DEIRDRE

  “I need to call the police,” Theo said.

  “Do you really think Ben took Teddy?” I asked Jude, not wanting to believe her. “What’s he going to do with a kid?”

  “Caroline thought her in-laws were an awful influence. She said they would twist Teddy up like they had done to Theo.” She glanced at my brother-in-law. “Sorry, Theo.”

  “Caroline had a point,” he answered.

  “My sister sent me a message. She sent one to my father, but he misplaced it.” I glared at him. “There was a third message.” I found it on my phone and read it aloud. “‘If I fail, you have to do it. I am putting all of my faith and trust in you. My son’s future depends on it.’ I showed it to Ben, and his reaction was weird, but he claimed she sent it to him. Maybe he really is doing what Caro wanted him to do.”

  “Everything depends on it,” Theo repeated. “When I came home this afternoon, Ursula was sitting in Caroline’s room and saying those words.”

  My phone started to slide out of my hand. Had my sister put her faith and trust in Ursula? Drunk Ursula? That seemed crazy. On the other hand, Caro had written the message just after five in the morning, right after she wrote mine. By all accounts, she was in a panic and not thinking straight.

  “Ursula really did like Ben,” Gloria said. “You don’t think she would . . .”

  “When did Ursula meet him?” Theo asked.

  “At the Central Park Zoo, at least a couple of times,” Gloria said. “Ursula said she had met him at a gala Caroline hosted.” Her face was miserable. “Teddy liked Ben. They talked about animals.”

  “We have to call the police,” Reagan said. “Even if Ursula’s not plotting with Ben, he’ll have no trouble getting Teddy to go with him. We need to think about where Ben would go.”

  “My sister sent me a photo of her and Ben—it mentioned a house in High Falls, New York.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Theo asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “Just High Falls.”

  “I know where it is,” my father said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I had to pick Caro up from there once.” He didn’t elaborate on why. “His family was well off. They had a vacation home in the Poconos too.”

  “I’ll give the police every lead we have,” Theo
said. “But if Caroline mentioned High Falls, I think we should head there.”

  We took separate cars, me in my father’s and Theo following us. We were mostly silent heading out of the city. It had been a decade since I’d driven anywhere with my father, and it felt uncomfortable because it was familiar and strange at the same time. It was like the adult me had been transported into the past, only instead of stressing about my parents’ fighting, we were united in our fears for Teddy.

  “What happened?” I asked finally. “The time you had to pick Caro up at Ben’s house, I mean.”

  “She didn’t come home for her birthday. Two weeks later, she still hadn’t stopped by. It wasn’t like her,” he said.

  “You talked on the phone?”

  “Aye, there were some short chats. But very much on the surface, about work and the like.” He was quiet for a moment. “She never said anything was amiss.”

  “What happened?”

  “I thought, ‘This is too strange.’ Your mother believed I was overreacting. She’d met Ben and liked him. But I didn’t think much of him, to be honest.”

  “Too macho?”

  “Too much of a show-off. All these tales of derring-do.”

  “What happened when you got to the house?”

  “Caro was fit to be tied. ‘That bastard stole my work,’ she told me.”

  “Ben stole her work? Wasn’t he a Pulitzer Prize finalist?”

  “Apparently that very story was one Caro reported on and wrote. She got no credit for it.” He shook his head. “I thought she might strangle him, but he wasn’t in the house. She told me to wait, packed up her things, and that was it. Didn’t even leave him a note.”

  “Stone cold.” I stared at the road. “She never told me anything.”

  “Crawleys are good at keeping secrets, bad at asking for help.”

  “What I don’t understand is why she would have anything to do with him again.”