The Dark Heart

by Julie Cave

“Louise,” he gasped. “What —?”

  “Do you have any idea what you have done to me and this family?” she demanded, advancing upon him. Angus had never seen such raw, naked rage. It emanated from Louise like waves shimmering from the blacktop at the zenith of a summer’s day. More surprising, it was coming from a woman who had never raised her voice to him in her life.

  “I —” he began.

  “You have no idea!” Louise informed him. “Your life — this life you’ve built with me — was founded on lies!”

  “I —”

  “You couldn’t trust me with the truth of your life,” she continued. “I fell in love with the man that I met, not the man that you once were. How many of us can lay claim to a perfect life? It might have surprised you to learn that I’d have been able to deal with the truth!”

  Angus got the sense that he wasn’t supposed to say anything.

  “Not once during the last 20 years has it crossed your mind to tell me the truth, has it? Despite the fact that you’ve been secretly meeting with Malia and Lola every single week for those past 20 years, you never even tried to tell me the truth. It’s nice to find out that I’m worth less to you than friends of yours. I am your wife!” She was shouting, tendons standing out on her neck with the sheer effort of channeling her anger.

  “You —”

  “I only find out when you are about to be arrested for murder! I mean, you were backed into a corner, and suddenly you needed my support. Suddenly, you needed me. Guess there’s a first time for everything, right?” Louise gave a strangled laugh that contained no humor. “I don’t even know your real name. I mean, can you believe that your wife of 20 years doesn’t even know your real name? You want me to tell you some truth now? I’ve been on the receiving end, and now I have some truth for you. I don’t want you to come home!”

  “Louise, I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “How could I possibly tell you what I’d done? You were a beautiful woman from a Christian home —”

  He was interrupted by the phone. With a jerking movement, Louise picked it up. “Hello?” she said, her voice shaky.

  Even Angus, across the kitchen, heard the reply. “Mommy!” shrieked Grace, her voice hysterical. Angus felt fear shudder through him, bright and painful and quick. Louise gripped the phone with a clenched fist.

  “What?” she asked, sharply. “What?”

  “You have to come here! You have to come here now!” Grace was sobbing, almost unable to catch her breath. Then he heard her make an awful, keening noise that reminded him of a severely injured animal.

  The fear grew teeth that bit into him.

  “Where are you?” she shouted.

  “Chloe’s! Chloe’s house!” There was a crash that indicated his daughter had dropped the phone, and he heard Grace crying out, almost screaming.

  Louise looked at Angus, shaking all over, indecision on her face.

  “Chloe’s house,” replied Angus, already moving toward the front door and their car. “Get Marcus, get Marcus!”

  Louise dashed upstairs and came down again, dragging Marcus behind her. Once they’d all climbed into the car, Angus drove as fast as he dared, the two blocks to where Chloe Jones lived. They rocketed around corners, tires screeching, and it still felt entirely too slow.

  Angus glimpsed Grace standing at the front of the Jones’ house, and for a brief moment he was relieved to see she was standing, seemingly unhurt. But then he saw the wild fear on her face, and realized that she was indeed hurting.

  He’d barely parked the car before he and Louise flew from the car.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Grace was trembling violently, pointing toward the house. “Chloe. It’s Chloe.” Then she collapsed in her mother’s arms, sobs convulsing her body.

  Angus raced through the front door, urgency eventually giving way to trepidation. “Chloe!” he called out. “Chloe, are you okay?”

  The lower floor of the house seemed untroubled and quiet. He then walked up the stairs and instinctively knew to check Chloe’s room first. The door was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open, unsure what would be facing him.

  The horror was almost too much to understand at first. He saw her feet first, dangling six inches above the floor. His eyes traveled upward, hoping that his gut instinct was wrong. When he digested the entire situation, a choked sound burst from his throat. He rushed forward to undo the belt that Chloe had used to hang herself.

  In the distance, he heard the wail of an ambulance.

  He lay the still, pale girl down on the ground, took one of her cool hands, and placing his mouth over her blue lips began trying to breathe life back into her.

  Chapter 17

  The case all but over, Dinah had spent lunch with Elise and Lewis, thinking about going home, about seeing Aaron again, and about returning to her church.

  After lunch, Lewis drove them home. He was a steady and methodical driver, and Dinah felt much safer in the car with Lewis behind the wheel.

  Lewis turned the car into their street. The strange flickering of light made Dinah look up. Because she’d seen them so many times in her work, she knew that they were the strafing lights of an ambulance, and it sent an electrical shiver of intuition up her spine.

  As Lewis drew closer to his home, and she saw the ambulance parked in the driveway, Dinah realized with sudden, cold clarity that whatever was happening was happening to her friend. She saw a crowd of people, all looking at Elise’s house, with the titillation disguised as sympathy she’d seen at so many crime scenes.

  Then she saw the stretcher leaving the house via the front door. The still figure upon it was clearly Chloe. Wild instinct seemed to overtake Elise. She opened the car door and fell out, the car not quite at a standstill.

  “Elise!” shouted Lewis. “Wait!”

  Dinah jumped out, following Elise. Stumbling on her hands and knees, she looked up and saw Angus Whitehall alongside Chloe as the paramedics reached the ambulance. The only thought she could formulate was what on earth is he doing here?

  Then she saw Elise. Fury that was perfect in its heat had consumed her. Elise pushed through the crowd of bystanders, shoving them aside with the strength of a mother desperate to get to her child. She ran as fast as she could toward Angus. Dinah followed her.

  “What have you done?” Elise shrieked. “What have you done to my daughter!”

  He turned, saw her and put his hands up in a protective gesture. It didn’t help. Once she was upon him, Elise used her fists and feet, punching and kicking wildly. “What have you done?” she shouted. “If you’ve hurt my child I swear I’ll kill you! I’ll make you hurt! I’ll —!”

  “Chloe —!” Angus tried to speak.

  “Elise!” Dinah tried to interject.

  “You stay away from my family!” Elise shrieked. It was so raw and terrible that everyone fell silent.

  Angus retreated, trying to protect himself. The paramedics loaded Chloe into the back of the ambulance as Lewis arrived, the only voice of reason amid the flooding wash of Elise’s panic. He folded his arms around his wife. “It’s okay,” he said. “Let’s find out what happened. Elise. Take a few deep breaths.”

  Elise’s knees buckled, and she allowed Lewis’s embrace to support her. Dinah took a step back, and only then she did see Louise, who stood with her arm around Marcus, her face white and shocked.

  One of the paramedics put his hand on Elise’s arm; an empathic gesture, but one to get her attention. “Are you Mrs. Jones?” he asked. His face was grave.

  “Detective. I’m Detective Jones,” Elise said, her voice weak. “What happened? What happened?”

  “I believe your daughter has attempted to take her own life, Mrs. Jones,” said the paramedic. “She was discovered by a young lady named Grace, who called her parents and 911.”

  His words tinkled around them like delicate glass. “Take her own life? What? Are you telling me she tried to commit suicide?”

  “Detective Jones
,” he said. “Please get in the ambulance. We need to get her to the hospital urgently.”

  Elise didn’t seem to comprehend his words. She turned toward Dinah. “This cannot be happening. This is not happening. Am I dreaming?”

  Dinah didn’t know what to do. Her feet felt stuck fast to the grass. “Elise, I’m so sorry, I —”

  “Come on,” said Lewis, gently. He guided Elise into the back of the ambulance, where the other paramedic was performing chest compressions on Chloe. Her whole body leaped with the force of the paramedic’s ministrations. When Dinah saw this, her stomach twisted with a violent heave.

  Elise moaned. “I can’t, I can’t,” she cried. “Don’t make me get in there. I can’t watch that!”

  Dinah knew how her friend was feeling. Despite being police, despite seeing death as part of their jobs, it was very different when it was your own child whose life was slipping away. She remembered the doctors working on her son, wondering how she could just sit there while the life of her son leaked out slowly, while the doctor cracked his ribs in an effort to keep his heart beating. She knew too much, she’d seen too much. She’d seen it happen to countless people she didn’t know. When it was her own child, she couldn’t bear it.

  Lewis understood. “I’ll go with you,” he told the paramedic. “Someone, please drive Elise to the hospital.” As quick as a flash, the ambulance doors closed, Lewis and Chloe inside, and it wailed off down the street. They all watched it go.

  Elise looked like she was moving through a different world, thick and soupy as a dream. She walked jerkily five steps away and then back again.

  “I’ll take her to the hospital,” said Louise.

  Angus said, “Sorry . . . I . . .”

  “What?” Dinah asked.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Detective,” he said. “I . . . I cut her down. I tried to . . . ”

  Elise simply stared at him dumbly.

  Louise touched her shoulder. “Detective, I’ll —”

  She was interrupted by a loud wail. Grace, who’d been standing near the flowerbed hugging herself, had turned an alarming shade of old bone-gray. She turned and threw up violently into the flowerbed, her entire body a convulsion. She took a few steps toward them, looking like a jittery newborn giraffe, unable to find its feet. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed into a limp heap upon the lawn.

  “What is going on? What is going on?” Elise demanded of no one in particular. “I need to get to the hospital! I need to —” She banged at her chest, as though something was clogging her airways.

  Dinah stepped into the middle. Nearby, Louise and Angus picked up Grace, who had regained consciousness but was groggy and confused.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” declared Dinah, taking charge. “Louise, take Detective Jones and Grace to the hospital. I’ll drive Angus and Marcus home. Call me and I’ll bring down anything you need, okay?”

  Louise tried to pick up Grace, who had regained consciousness and was moaning. “Come on, honey,” she said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “You don’t understand!” the girl sobbed. “It’s my fault! It’s all my fault.”

  Dinah sensed that Grace wasn’t being melodramatic, but since she had completely lost the ability to understand what was happening around her, she said, “Please. You need to go to the hospital.”

  “It’s my . . . my fault,” hiccupped Grace, blonde hair covering her face. She struggled to stand up. “The others were so . . . horrible to her. I used to be her friend. I used to stand up . . . for her.”

  Louise supported her daughter toward the car and helped her in. Elise sat beside the girl while Louise climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to start the car with shaking hands.

  “What happened?” Dinah heard Elise ask.

  Grace cried, shuddering for several moments. “Y-y-you,” she said, finally. “You were trying to put my dad in jail! How could I be friends with her after that?”

  Dinah saw the force of the girl’s words slam into Elise as if they were a physical blow.

  Elise gasped as if she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  “I stopped being her friend,” Grace was saying. “The others started . . . bullying her even worse. She begged me to make them stop, but I was so . . . angry with her I ignored her. I knew the girls were being really horrible to her. But I just didn’t do anything!”

  Elise tried to get some air into her lungs.

  “After Dad made bail at the courthouse, I came home and found that she left her gold necklace here in an envelope.”

  “Yes,” agreed Louise. Her voice was high-pitched and she spoke too fast. “She came by the house a few days ago, and asked me to give it to you.”

  “It was the necklace with a C on it,” said Grace. “I . . . I gave it to her for her birthday and it was really special to her. I thought it was a mistake . . . but she was . . . she was . . . she gave it to me to say goodbye!”

  Her last word was almost a shriek; so desolate it made Dinah’s bones go cold.

  Elise bent over double, hugging herself. Dinah could hear her struggling to breathe.

  “If I’d just . . . if I’d been quicker . . . if I hadn’t —”

  Louise glanced in the rearview mirror, then put her foot down on the accelerator. She drove, erratic and jerky, down the street. Dinah stared after them, numbly unable to do anything except pray.

  Please don’t let today be the day Chloe dies. Not like this, Lord. Please.

  ****

  Angus Whitehall found himself in a state of anxiety that was so bad he felt like throwing up. On one hand, he was still a suspect in two murders. On the other hand, he had just seen a beautiful 15-year-old girl, the best friend of his daughter, attempt suicide, and perhaps successfully so. Every part of his body trembled with fear and uncertainty. He sat in the passenger seat, his hands dancing all over his lap. He couldn’t keep them still.

  Dinah drove. She was quiet, concentrating on her task. He couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking.

  He looked around to the back seat and saw Marcus staring out of the window. He didn’t look good either. His face was pale. “You okay, buddy?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” mumbled Marcus. “Can I go over to Jett’s place?”

  “Well, sure, if that’s okay with Jett’s mom. Do you want to talk about anything?”

  Marcus hesitated. “Not yet, Dad. I just want to be with my friend.”

  He probably needed some normality, reflected Angus. A reminder of a place where he could just be a kid, without the burden of a father who had possibly murdered people and a mother and sister who were at the hospital with a suicide victim.

  “Would you mind dropping Marcus off at his friend’s house?” he asked. “I don’t trust myself behind the wheel right now.”

  “No trouble at all,” said Dinah.

  They dropped Marcus off at Jett’s house, where Jett’s mother greeted him with a big hug. Marcus seemed relieved to be away from his father’s company. It felt like a stab in the heart to Angus as he watched his son go gladly into someone else’s house. Is this just another of my failures? Failure as a father?

  At home, the house was quiet and empty. Dinah fixed them both a cup of coffee, and Angus sat down in the living room to try to make sense of what was happening.

  Dinah entered the room and stood awkwardly. “I’m going to get some clothes and toiletries together for Louise and Grace,” she said. “Is it all right with you to go into their rooms?”

  “Sure,” said Angus. He was numb, he was tired, he wanted to sleep through this entire nightmare.

  She seemed to hesitate, then she said, “When things are tough for me, I usually go to the Psalms. It reminds me I’m not alone in my suffering and that God hears our cries.”

  Angus felt the onslaught of tears rush up his throat. “I’m . . . I’m not sure I deserve God at the moment,” he whispered.

  Dinah smiled. “I understand. Thankfully God doesn’t feel
the same way. When we are weak, he is our strength.”

  The bones in his body seemed to have turned to limp spaghetti. He could not hold himself up. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and left the room. Angus took a deep, shuddering breath. He tried to pray, to corral his thoughts the way a farmer tries to calm a jittery horse. But his sense of failure seemed too great. I am so inadequate, Lord, was all he could think to say. So full of sin and so unworthy of You. He could only repeat the same prayer over and over in his mind. Then he heard the front door close softly. I didn’t hear the car, he thought, but I’m glad they’re home. He wondered if Chloe was okay.

  Strangely, he didn’t hear the usual noise of Grace thumping toward the stairs or Louise dropping her belongings in the entry. He waited a few more moments, then got up with a frown. He had taken only a couple of steps when he saw the figure silhouetted in the living room doorway.

  “Hello, Robert,” the figure said, his face in shadow. “Or should I call you Angus?”

  Angus gripped his coffee mug, his hands at once slippery with sweat. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

  The figure stepped forward, revealing a tall, thin man with a seamed face the shade of coffee, and grizzled white hair cropped close to his head. He had to be in his sixties, at least. He looked vaguely familiar.

  “Don’t know who I am, Robert?” He stood in a relaxed way, his weight on the balls of his feet.

  “No,” said Angus. His voice sounded weak. He cleared his throat and tried to speak with authority. “You have three seconds to get out before I call the police.”

  The man laughed. “The police are your friends now, huh? Guess things have changed.”

  Angus stared at him, trying to place his face. It took a few minutes for his fear-filtered brain to make the connection. “You’re the guy from the pawnbrokers across the street!” he said. “I saw you there, near Malia’s house!”

  “Blake Watson,” said the old man. “That’s me. Guilty as charged.”

  “What are you doing here?” asked Angus.

  Watson smiled. “I’m here to finish the job.”

  “What do you mean?”