by Marlie May
While my aunt was occupied with her purse, I reached toward Manuel. He tapped his lips and gave a slight shake of his head before taking my hand. Leaning forward, he whispered, “It’s okay. I know you didn’t do it.”
That eased my heart rate a bit.
But it jacked up again in seconds.
Cutting brake lines was bad enough.
But this…Someone was determined to kill me.
After quizzing me for what felt like five hours, the psychologist deemed me safe. For now. In exchange for my release from the hospital, I agreed to continue my counseling sessions with Frances on an increased basis and participate in Grief Group.
Manuel followed us home in his car and came inside, taking a seat beside me on the sofa.
“You’ll stay here with her?” my aunt asked from the doorway. “I can sit with her once you leave.”
The realization that she thought I’d try to harm myself again if she left me alone for even a second chilled me.
“I’ll be glad to stay all night with her if you want,” he said.
Aunt Kristy’s lips thinned. “Until bedtime.”
As if I was a toddler who couldn’t be trusted.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I promised the psychologist I wouldn’t…” I couldn’t say I wouldn’t try to harm myself again because I hadn’t done it the first time. It wasn’t just about lying. I was pissed off at whoever had done this to me.
My aunt gnawed on her knuckle, then dropped her hand. “The accident. Did you—” A sob rose in her throat. “Did you drive into the telephone pole on purpose?”
“I didn’t! My brakes—”
“Shhh.” Manuel squeezed my hand and said to my aunt, “I’ll stay with Janie for as long as you need me.”
“You won’t get up and step out of the room for even a second, will you?” she asked at the doorway.
“Not without letting you know.”
“I appreciate it. Because I have a few things I need to take care of.” Her eyes lingered on me until I squirmed. With a sigh, she strode into the hall. The door to Dad’s study opened. His office chair squeaked, telling me she’d sat at his desk. A drawer banged.
“Hell, Janie,” Manuel said, hugging me. “When I saw you lying so silent, barely breathing, I was scared out of my mind. I could barely think.”
“I didn’t do it.” My tension came through in my voice. “You know I wouldn’t try to kill myself.”
“I know you. Of course, you wouldn’t.”
“Who did it, then?”
“Tell me everything that happened. We’ll break it down and figure this out together.”
I told him about Alex visiting—and bringing me an iced coffee. Then Sean coming by with my homework. My aunt making me ham soup and Sean feeding it to me. How I’d started to get sleepy after they left and Aunt Kristy helped me upstairs. That she’d left the house soon after.
“Did you see the note on your desk?” he asked. “The empty pill bottle?” He wasn’t taking notes, but I could tell he was mentally cataloging everything I said.
I frowned, thinking, and shook my head. “I can’t remember.”
“Someone took your pills and somehow fed them to you. When did you last touch that pill bottle?”
“Last week? The week before? I’m not sure. I haven’t wanted to take them.”
He rubbed his chin. “Do you remember anyone entering your room after you texted me?”
“I barely remember sending you the text.” Hoping I’d sent the text, that is. I shook, realizing how close I’d come to being murdered. “We assume it was my sleeping pills.”
“They tested you and confirmed it was the same medication as in the bottle.”
“But a lot of drugs don’t show up on a test, right?”
“Depends on the drug, but yeah.” He grunted. “Probably.”
“So, unless Mr. Somerfield found a way to slip me some drugs, it was Alex, Sean or my aunt. I had to eat or drink the drug because we know I didn’t take it myself. The last things I ate were the coffee and the soup.”
“Who do you suspect the most?”
We said it together. “Aunt Kristy.”
“For whatever reason,” I said. “I don’t think Alex or Sean is involved. What motive would either of them have to kill me?”
“At this point, there isn’t one. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t overlooked something.”
There were too many unknown factors in this equation.
“I only recently met Alex. I can’t imagine she would want me dead. And Sean has been my friend since elementary school. Through the years, he’s protected me from playground bullies, helped me pass more of my classes than I care to admit, and he stuck by me when I was burned. When no one else did.” None of that sounded like someone who wanted me dead.
“Let’s look at your aunt’s motives.”
I hated thinking she was involved. Not only because she was my guardian and my sole living relative, but because I’d started to care for her. I knew she cared for me. Or, I assumed she did.
Was she that good an actress?
“Hold on.” Manuel rose and poked his head into the front hall before returning to sit beside me. “Let’s keep this down. We don’t need her overhearing.”
“My aunt would benefit from my death but I can’t believe she’d be willing to kill me. Although, people do stuff like that all the time.” Mostly on TV crime shows but not as often in real life. “But she refused to take a salary for managing my estate. Sure, she’s had problems in the past. She’s been drinking a lot lately, and then, there’s the gambling—”
“Gambling?”
“That’s why she was a patient at Journey to Recovery. They called her after I snooped.” I shook my head. “But she laid it all out for me, told me she’d had a problem in the past, that Dad had bailed her out, but that she hadn’t gambled in over a year. I believe her. Dad must’ve, too, or he and Mom would’ve set up a provision to keep her from being able to petition to be my guardian. It can’t be her.”
“Then we’re back to Alex or Sean.”
“Wait. I just remembered something.” I told him about my aunt’s home invasion comment and how she’d thought she heard someone at the back door and investigated, only to find it unlocked. “Do you think someone came into the house while she was with me here? Because I’m now wondering about the bowl of soup she’d set out to cool. The one I finished.”
“How would anyone know the soup was for you?”
Good question. I shrugged. “All this assumes someone slipped inside my house and drugged my soup. You said the sleeping pill bottle was empty when you found me?”
“It was laying on the rug with the cap off. Hold on. Let me go look around in your room.” He took the stairs two at a time and returned within a few minutes. “No pills under your bed or in any obvious place in your room. How many did you have left?”
“Twenty? Thirty? I don’t know. I only took them a couple of times. They made me feel groggy, and I didn’t like it. I know that’s the point of sleeping pills, but I’d drag around for half the day after I took them.”
“Someone was in your room either before you went upstairs with your aunt or not long after, once you’d passed out. They planted the empty bottle and note.”
“Do you know if my drug test showed any other substances?” Maybe someone dumped my pills or flushed them down the toilet to make it look like I’d taken them, only after slipping something more potent into my soup.
“Your blood only showed the sleeping pills. But other drugs don’t always show up on tests. Bath salts. Shit like that.”
Something he must’ve learned from his cop father.
“So, we’re back to square one. All we really know is that someone drugged me then planted evidence to make it look like a suicide.”
“We need to find out who wants you dead.”
“Before they succeed.”
26
There was nothing like being a prisoner in your own
home.
My aunt kept me on a tight leash, only letting me leave the house that week for Grief Group and only then because I’d promised the psychologist I’d attend. I had a feeling she’d prefer to keep me tied to a chair in the living room and wrap me in thick layers of cotton.
Solely to keep me safe, that is.
From myself.
She refused to let me take Mom’s car, insisting she’d drive me, escort me inside, and wait in the parking lot until the session finished.
While I wanted to growl at her tight control, I did appreciate that she wanted to provide protection. Although, she couldn’t know her presence might actually keep someone from trying to kill me rather than keep me from killing myself.
Manuel and I were no closer to figuring out who had killed Brianna and my parents, let alone who was trying to keep me from discovering the final evidence that would convict them.
Aunt Kristy had let Sean and Manuel and Alex come by to visit, one at a time, but when they weren’t in the room with me, she hovered three times more than she had after the yacht ‘accident’. And she refused to let me return to school, stating my ‘fragile state of mind’ needed a slower transition.
As if I’d crack upon exposure to real life.
Unfortunately, real life—in the form of a murderer—was out to get me. Someone drugging me only made me more determined than ever to discover who they were and make them pay for their crimes.
“Do not go anywhere by yourself,” my aunt said as I popped open the car door outside the church where Grief Group was held.
I sighed. “I’m safe. I promise.”
She sniffed. “I thought you were safe when I tucked you into your bed that night but we know that wasn’t the case.”
I’d told her over and over that I hadn’t tried to take my own life, but she brushed off my statements as if I said it would snow mid-July. But then, I hadn’t told her that someone was trying to kill me. Partly because I had no true evidence. Mostly because I knew she wouldn’t believe me.
And because there was that tiny detail I was refused to reveal: Manuel and I suspected her. While she was no longer our top suspect, she was still in the running.
My aunt got out of the car and came around to meet me in front. She pressed a wide smile on her face but her eyes remained solemn. “Ready?”
I grumbled but nodded.
Flanking me, she escorted with me up the front steps and inside, down the hall, and then she stood in the doorway, hands crimped together against her chest while I crossed the room and took the chair beside Frances.
Frances greeted me with a soft smile, saying, “Lovely you could make it today, Janie. We’ve got a lot of work to get done.”
Lovely was right.
None of this was fair, but I did appreciate the fact that everyone valued me enough to keep me from taking my own life.
Alex didn’t show, even after telling me earlier in the week that she would. Had she gotten sick? I sent a text asking, where are you? but she didn’t reply.
Charles spoke first, telling us in his deep, raspy voice how much he still missed his wife. “I don’t think this is a loss you ever truly get over, but I’ve discovered I can think of her sometimes without wanting to sit on the sofa and cry.” His bushy gray eyebrows lifted. “Sometimes, I can even smile.”
While Frances couldn’t force me to share, I knew that speaking up was not only expected as a condition for my release from the hospital but that baring my soul would give everyone the impression I was coming to terms with my loss. Like a fragile flower who’d dropped all its petals, they needed a verbal demonstration to show I was processing my grief and learning constructive ways to move past it.
“Losing my parents and best friend at the same time almost broke me,” I said. This wasn’t a lie. It hurt to say it, as if the words raked furrows in my throat as they came out. “But I’ve found that talking about them helps, especially sharing some of the fun things we did together, instead of focusing on the fact that I’ll never see them again.”
Like when Sean told me how he’d planned to ask Brianna to the prom. Thinking about how sweet that was made me smile right now, even if my heart wasn’t fully in it. I wanted more moments like this because remembering my family and Brianna should be a good thing, not something that made me feel bad.
“Uh-huh,” one of the old ladies said. She reached over and patted my arm.
The other lady’s dark eyes watered, and she said, “Don’t ya know it.”
“I don’t know how I’d feel if I didn’t have my aunt,” I said. “She moved in and has cared for me since the accident.” I left out the fact that I feared she might be trying to murder me.
“The holidays will come faster than you expect,” Frances said. “Those times are especially hard when you’ve lost someone. Do any of you have suggestions for how you’ll handle birthdays, Christmas, or other significant milestones?” Her soft smile lit up her lined face. “It’s important to remember that our emotions are valid and that having sad or uncomfortable feelings doesn’t mean you don’t have positive ones, too.”
Charles mentioned that his daughters were coming over on to help him fix Thanksgiving dinner this year, stepping in to do something his wife had always done. That one of his daughters was going to make his favorite pie, using her mother’s recipe.
When Grief Group ended, I didn’t linger like the others did to chat, scooting instead for the door. Baring my soul, while cathartic, was also painful. It left me feeling raw, exposed. Vulnerable.
Frances caught up and walked with me down the hall. “The hospital psychologist sent me a copy of your record.”
She’d always been one to get right to the point.
“Oh?” I studied her face, which showed nothing but sympathy. It made a nice change from my aunt’s expression that suggested she was waiting for me to spontaneously combust in front of her eyes.
She paused in the hall and held me back with a pinch of my sleeve. “I don’t think you tried to kill yourself.”
Wow. Outside of Manuel, Alex, and Sean, everyone else had no problem believing the overwhelming evidence. My aunt, plus the staff at the hospital, acted like I was lying about everything.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
Tiny lines appeared on her brow. “That’s where I lose track. While everything suggests you took those pills to end your life, I’m not fully convinced. Even the note doesn’t clinch it for me.” Her eyes brightened. “Maybe I watch too much TV or it’s just me, your counselor speaking. Because I’m a trained professional, I don’t like thinking I misjudged someone. But I don’t believe you’re depressed enough to end your life. Sure, you’re sad. Appropriately sad. But you’ve been working through your loss in our private sessions. Not exactly moving on because that’s impossible. I’d say you’re finding peace with it, and that tells me you’re going to be okay.”
Knowing an adult believed me despite evidence to the contrary, humbled me. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Stepping forward, she hugged me, wrapping me up in her warm scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. She leaned back and stroked my hair. “Hang in there, Janie. I know they said you need to attend Grief Group and have additional counseling, but I think you’re going to be all right, regardless.”
Funny how her support meant so much to me. Maybe because it was something my aunt had been unable to offer.
“I guess my only question is how those drugs ended up in your system.” She frowned. “You’ve been in touch with the police, I assume.”
How astute. She saw right to the crux of the matter. “I have.”
“Perfect. I imagine the truth will come out. It always does.” She clutched my forearm. “Please, stay safe.”
“I will.” Assuming I had any say in the matter.
We exited the church. While I expected to find my aunt sitting on the front steps, waiting to escort me to her car, I found Alex’s mother instead.
“You have a minute?” She
nudged her chin toward the parking lot where my aunt’s SUV still sat. “I told your aunt I’d make sure to bring you to her car once we’d finished talking.”
“Sure,” I said, dropping down onto the step beside her.
“Bye, Janie,” Frances said. I waved as she strolled down the walk toward her car.
“I actually only have one thing to say.” Alex’s mom’s chest rose and fell with a long breath. “I wanted to thank you for being there for my Alex. Some of her friends have stuck with her throughout all this but others have not. Kids can be cruel.”
As I’d learned myself. “Where is she tonight? I thought she’d be here.”
“Home.” She smiled. “We finally have a new home! It’s not the same, of course, without Trevor and my poor boys.” Her pause went on so long, I wasn’t sure she’d speak again. “But it’s a place Alex and I can share going forward.”
“I missed her tonight.” Knowing I’d have to bare my soul had sounded easier when I thought Alex would be there with me. We shared more than just our internal scars. We were both trying to move on with scars on the outside, too. Without Alex here tonight, I’d felt scared. Alone.
“She’ll come next week. I know she wanted to be here tonight but she was in pain and I suggested she take one of her pills and lie down. I told her I’d wake her in time for the Group but I didn’t have the heart to do it. She needs the rest.”
“She’s grateful to have you in her life.”
“I’m doubly grateful to have her. I don’t know if I could’ve gone on after the fire without my Alex. I lost Trevor. My little boys.” The break in her voice was echoed by a stab in my heart. “Gone. And then, in the hospital, I nearly lost Alex, as well. It was touch and go for over a week. She may not have told you, but she sustained nearly thirty-percent burns on her body. Statistics say she should’ve died, but my baby is strong.” She tapped her chest with her closed fist. “She wasn’t ready to give up.”
“She’s stronger than me.”
She patted my hand resting on my knee. “That’s not what she’s told me.”
From what I could remember, I’d done nothing. The yacht had burned and I’d jumped ship and swam for shore, leaving my family and Brianna behind to die. “Not many people could’ve gone into a burning house and pulled out their mother.”