Mrs. Gordon took the knife from Elle’s now steady fingers and then ambled back to the kitchen. She placed it in the dishwasher, added some detergent, along with a little bleach and turned it on. “The heat and bleach will destroy any possible evidence left behind.”
“That fire looks enormous,” Elle whispered, unable to erase the image from her mind. “I hope it doesn’t spread to the other homes on that street.”
“Me too, girl. Now, I want you to listen to me, and listen good. You and Sarah both stayed the night over here because you weren’t feeling well. Understood?”
Elle didn’t need to be a genius to figure out Ida Mae’s motives. The elderly woman was giving her an alibi. “I understand. Thank you, Mrs. Gordon.”
Ida Mae blew out a weary-sounding breath. “Don’t thank me yet. Now, go take a shower to rid yourself of any evidence that you were at that house tonight and then get into bed. I’ll hang a nightgown on the bathroom doorknob for you to wear. Leave your clothes out in the hall, and I’ll throw them in the washing machine.”
With a quick nod, Elle hurried off down the hall to do Ida Mae’s bidding. Everything would be all right in the morning. She would get up and walk Sarah to school as if nothing had ever happened.
Chapter Seventeen
A black sedan sat in Elle’s drive the following morning after she arrived home from taking Sarah to school.
Elle slowed her steps, anxiety arriving full force.
Two men wearing suits and serious expressions suddenly climbed from the car.
“Mrs. Ramirez?” the tallest of the two asked, closing the distance.
At her slight nod, he presented his credentials and extended his hand. “I’m SSA Rollins and this is SA Taggert. We’re with the FBI. Do you have a moment to answer some questions?”
Elle ignored his offer of a handshake, instead wrapping her arms around her middle. “What’s this about?” But she knew. Evan had already forewarned her of it.
“It’s about Elijah Griffin,” Rollins admitted, letting his hand fall away. “May we come inside?”
She didn’t want them to go inside, but she couldn’t very well tell them that.
“Of course.” She stepped around them and led the way to the kitchen door.
Pulling the key from her pocket, she let herself in, leaving the door open for them to enter.
“You can sit if you’d like.” She indicated the bar.
Both agents filed past her to take a seat on the available barstools there.
Elle stood in the kitchen, facing them from the opposite side of said bar. She kept her expression as blank as she possibly could. Which was no easy feat, considering her insides were cramping with anxiety. “I’ve already told the police everything I know about my father.”
Rollins pierced her with a penetrating stare. “I know, and I’m sorry to put you through another round of questioning. But there were six bodies found on your farm, Mrs. Ramirez. Did you know anything about that?”
Elle’s heart pounded hard enough she could hear it thumping in her ears.
Careful of what she said at this point, Elle swallowed her fear and held the agent’s gaze. “Yes. My husband told me about it. And you think my father killed those people?”
“We don’t know who is responsible as of yet,” Rollins amended. “But Mr. Griffin is definitely a person of interest in the case.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. And then Rollins continued. “Were you aware of the room beneath your barn, Mrs. Ramirez?”
Elle shook her head. “Daddy never mentioned it to me. But he wouldn’t have. I wasn’t even allowed in his shed.”
“But you were allowed in the barn,” Taggert pointed out, sitting as still as a statue. “In fact, Deputy Taylor with the Haverty County Sheriff’s Department told us that he took care of your animals for a time while you were in the hospital. The milk cow was housed in the stall directly above the room the bodies were found in.”
Elle slapped a trembling hand over her mouth. Though her fear was a very real thing, it had nothing to do with hearing about the bodies that had been discovered, and everything to do with the FBI sitting across from her. One wrong move, and they’d see right through her.
They stared at her without blinking, causing a surge of panic to flare. She swallowed it back, realizing it was Elenore’s fear she felt, Elenore hovering deep inside her, terrified and not knowing how to respond. Well, Elle was stronger than that. Far stronger.
She took a calming breath, forcing tears to spring to her eyes.
Removing her hand from her mouth, she whispered, “Oh God…”
Taggert quickly tore off a paper towel from a holder nearby and handed it to her. “Take your time, Mrs. Ramirez.”
“Thank you.” She accepted the paper towel and wiped at her watery eyes. “I milked the cow in that stall for many years. I never saw a room there. How is that possible?”
Rollins continued to study her without blinking. “I’m not sure, Mrs. Ramirez. Maybe because you weren’t looking for it. You wouldn’t have noticed it, had you not known it was there.”
“Back to your father,” Taggert piped in. “Did he ever mention anyone outside Wexler? Family…a friend, perhaps?”
Elle shook her head. “The only friend he ever mentioned was Alice Hastings. We had no family other than my mother, and she ran off when I was a little girl.”
“What’s your mother’s name?” Taggert persisted.
“Mary. Mary Griffin.”
Taggert pulled a small pad from his breast pocket and wrote that down. “Did she and your father keep in touch?”
“No. My father hates my mother.” Elle was careful not to say hated. That would imply that her father no longer lived.
Rollins continued with that intense stare. “When is the last time you spoke with your mother?”
Elle held his gaze. “Like I said, she left when I was very young. I haven’t heard from her since.”
And on it went, with both agents questioning Elle about her past, her parents, and finally, her relationship with the corpses beneath that barn.
“You knew several of the deceased,” Taggert began, flipping through his notepad. “According to Sheriff King, you had dealings with Judge Martin Powell and Detective William Burnham on more than one occasion.”
The mere mention of Bill’s name sent Elle’s skin crawling. But she remained calm. “Judge Powell was the judge in my father’s custody case with the state.”
Rollins hadn’t moved. He only assessed her from his position across the bar. “And Powell ruled in Elijah Griffin’s favor.”
“He did,” Elle whispered, some of her brave façade slipping a bit.
“And how did that make you feel?” Rollins persisted.
Elle fought through Elenore’s panic as she always did, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. “I don’t remember how it made me feel. I was only eight years old at the time.”
The next question came from Taggert. “How well did you know Detective Burnham?”
Fighting nausea, Elle shrugged. “I didn’t know him. He came by the house a few times to question Daddy. I have no idea about what.”
Elle endured another twenty minutes of questions before the agents finally got to their feet.
Taggert offered her a card. “If you hear from your father, or you can think of anything that might help us locate him, give me a call.”
Elle accepted the card and followed them to the door. “I will.”
She stood there, shoulders erect, watching them get into their vehicle. It wasn’t until they backed out of the drive and disappeared down the street that Elle drew her first full breath. And then the trembling set in.
Chapter Eighteen
Elle stumbled to the den, dropping heavily onto the sofa there. She had been questioned by the FBI.
She thought about Rollins, and the way he’d studied her like a bug under a microscope. He didn’t trust her, that much had been obvious.
The sound of the kitchen
door opening sent Elle surging to her feet. Had the FBI returned?
Ida Mae stepped around the corner, holding that blessed bottle of whiskey in her hand.
She meandered into the room and handed the offering to Elle. “I figured you could use this.”
Elle didn’t hesitate. She took the bottle and brought it to her lips. After several long pulls, she blew out a breath and lowered herself back to the couch cushions.
Ida Mae followed suit. “I saw the feds leaving. Figured you would be a mess.”
Elle held onto that bottle of whiskey, letting it dangle between her knees. “How did you know they were feds?”
“I saw them flash their credentials. And since the police don’t dress in suits and drive dark-colored sedans, it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
Elle simply nodded and took another drink of that whiskey.
“Easy,” Ida Mae gently scolded, reaching over to take the bottle from Elle’s numb fingers. “We want it to take the edge off, not have you falling down drunk. Now, why were the feds here? Was it about the man who shot Evan?”
Feeling the warmth of the alcohol settling in her gut, Elle met Mrs. Gordon’s gaze. “No. They were looking for my daddy.”
“I see.”
Elle couldn’t tell Mrs. Gordon about the Wexler murders. She just couldn’t. It was bad enough that Ida Mae knew about the killings in Atlanta.
Then a thought struck her. Why was the elderly neighbor so accepting of the things Elle had done? She opened her mouth to ask her, but Ida Mae’s next words stopped her.
“I have a confession to make.”
When Elle remained quiet, Ida continued. “I lied to you about my stepfather.”
Elle’s heart began to pound anew. “Lied about what?” He’d definitely abused Ida Mae; Elle had seen the scars.
A faraway look entered Mrs. Gordon’s eyes. “The story I told you of how he moved on and married again… Wasn’t true. He’s buried in the woods behind the house he and my mama lived in before she died.”
Stunned and more than a little confused, Elle whispered, “Your mother killed him?”
“No… I did.”
Elle knew her eyes were probably the size of golf balls. “You.”
“Like I said before, he’d been beating me for years. Mama turned a blind eye, always defending him. I reckon she thought she loved him. One day, he came home early from work while Mama was in town running errands. He’d been drinking. I could tell the minute he got out of his boss’s truck. You see, back then, we only had one car. My stepfather rode to work with the man who’d hired him.”
Elle couldn’t look away from the elderly woman’s eyes. “What happened?”
“At first, I thought he would go on inside and pass out. I stayed in the barn, not wanting to be noticed by him. He eventually came looking for me and found me cowering behind a hay bale. He started into me about Mama. Questioning me about how long she’d been gone, and who she was seeing in town.”
Elle wanted to say something, but she held her tongue. Besides, Ida Mae’s mind was held prisoner by her past.
“He removed his belt and started beating me with it,” Ida softly confessed, staring at something across the room. “All the while screaming at me about Mama and some other things that made no sense. My dog Winston ran inside the barn and put himself between me and that swinging belt…”
Ida’s eyes grew misty. “He turned the belt on Winston, hitting him repeatedly with the buckle. Something happened inside me in that moment. A strength, or maybe it was fear—I can’t really remember—took over. I jumped to my feet and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on. It happened to be an ax. I lifted it above my head and brought it down with everything I had, burying it into that maniac’s back.”
Taking a shuddering breath, Ida Mae met Elle’s stunned gaze. “I don’t recall how many times I hit him. But it was a lot.”
“What did you do then?” Elle asked, caught up in the grisly scene Ida painted.
“I tied a rope around his body and saddled our mare. I then walked the horse as far into the woods as I could and buried my stepfather there. Cleaning up the blood from the barn was an even bigger chore, but I managed somehow. Once the cleanup was done, I drove his truck a couple miles away and parked it on the side of the road. I walked home through the woods, so no one would see me.”
Elle thought about how she herself had ditched a few vehicles in the same fashion. “No one ever found out what you did?”
Ida Mae shook her head. “I’ve never told a soul until now.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because I want you to know that I understand why you did what you did. I also want you to stop. Enough is enough, girl. If you continue down the road you’re now on, you’ll lose what’s left of your humanity.”
Elle glanced away and then met Ida’s gaze once more. “What little humanity I had died with my unborn child. There is nothing left but a shell of who I should have been. My life was taken from me long ago. And I can never get it back.”
Ida’s expression softened. “I’m sorry that you lost your baby. But you can’t allow your pain to define who you are. You can rise above it. I know you can. You have a purpose now. You have Evan and Sarah. You have me. You can learn to live again.”
Tears filled Elle’s eyes. Tears of regret, of loss and pain. “It’s too late for me, Ida Mae. I do care for you, Evan, and Sarah. But I’m not whole. And I never will be. Because of monsters like my father, William Burnham, Waylon Redding and so many more, I am damaged beyond repair. I can only make sure it never happens to other children.”
“So you’re going to spend the rest of your life as a vigilante, not truly living and loving as you were meant to?”
“This is what I was meant to do, Ida Mae.”
The elderly neighbor looked down at the bottle of whiskey she’d taken from Elle and took a long drink. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood. “Okay then. I reckon that’s between you and God. You won’t get no judgment from me.”
Elle had never known acceptance from anyone like she did from her elderly neighbor. Not even from Evan.
She stood as well. “You’re a good person, Ida Mae. If you ever need me, no matter where I am, I will come to you. I swear it.”
Ida shuffled forward and opened her arms. “Same goes for me, girl.”
Human contact was still extremely difficult for Elle, but Ida Mae offered more than her friendship… She offered her trust.
Elle stepped into her embrace.
Chapter Nineteen
A week had passed since the FBI’s visit to question Elle, and Evan had been moved to rehab for therapy on his legs.
Though Elle had seen Clyde Arlington’s house fire covered on the news, nothing had been mentioned about a homicide. The Atlanta PD had ruled his death an accident.
Relieved that apparently no one saw her enter or exit Clyde’s home the night of the fire, Elle had moved on to her next victim. Ray Dodson.
She hadn’t found much information on Dodson, other than the fact that he’d been arrested for the rape of a minor ten years earlier.
Printing out his picture and address, Elle thought it odd he didn’t look like the usual pedophiles she’d seen online.
Of course, what were predators supposed to look like? she wondered, folding up the paper and sticking into in her pocket next to the pistol resting there. She figured they would all resemble the monsters from her past, but apparently, she was wrong.
After dropping Sarah over at Ida Mae’s for the night, Elle drove to the rehab center to see Evan before visiting hours were over at eight.
She entered the double doors, noticing the clock said seven thirty-five. She had a little more than twenty minutes to visit.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Evan blurted the instant she stepped into his room.
Elle cleared her throat. “I wanted to come last night, but Sarah had a project to do for school, and it—”
&nbs
p; “It’s okay.” Evan chuckled, motioning for her to have a seat in the chair next to his bed. “I’m just glad you’re here now.”
Elle sat, placing her hands in her lap. “How are you feeling? I heard they had you up today.”
“I’m good. Yeah, my right leg is definitely getting stronger.”
She glanced at his sheet-covered limbs. “And the left one? Still no progress?”
A shadow passed through his eyes. “Not much. But I’m not giving up hope. I’ve been told that it takes time for the nerves to heal.”
“I’m sure you’ll be walking in no time.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Anything more from the FBI?”
Elle shook her head. “And I hope they don’t come back. They scare me.”
Evan’s gaze softened. “I know. I’m sorry you had to do that alone. The FBI is a different breed than the average police officer or detective. They’re trained to intimidate. It’s a tactic they use to get to the truth. It usually makes the one they’re interrogating nervous enough to slip up if they are guilty of something. I really wanted to be there when they spoke with you.”
“I handled it,” Elle confessed without thinking.
Evan stared back at her for long moments. “That you did. You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
Elle wasn’t sure she believed that, but she let it go. “Any idea how long you’ll have to stay here?”
“A month. After that, I will resume therapy with the in-home health care available to me. Which, I have to say, I’m looking forward to. I’ve never been so restless in all my life. Not to mention, I miss you and Sarah. I hate leaving you alone. We’re newly married, and it feels like we’re becoming strangers all over again.”
Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, Elle pushed to her feet. “Visiting hours are almost over. I better get going.”
“You have a few more minutes,” Evan pointed out, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I’m sure they—”
“Sarah has school in the morning. I need to get her ready for bed.” Elle left out the part about Sarah staying the night with Ida Mae.
Elle Unleashed: A Gripping Psychological Thriller with a Twist Page 6