Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1)

by Rachel Lucas

  “Logan, what’s this?” I pointed to the white rectangle.

  “It’s a dinner napkin,” he answered. He took a small magnifier out of his desk and took a closer look at the photo. “Wait a minute…”

  “You don’t think…?” I didn’t dare voice my thoughts.

  “That Barbara took Lisbeth’s knife after she left? That she wrapped it in a dinner napkin, stabbed herself with it so her own fingerprints wouldn’t be found on it? All to frame her own daughter?” Logan finished my unvoiced thoughts.

  “There’s no way she would have, could have, done that.” I insisted at a whisper. “What kind of mother would frame her daughter for her own murder? What possible reason could she have for doing such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Logan shook his head, “But I do know that I want another look at that dinner napkin. It’s in our evidence room. Let’s go see if Sgt. Whitman is still here. He’s the evidence officer and the only one who’s got a key to the room.”

  I followed Logan out of his office and down the hall. I was grateful it was getting late on Friday and most of the office staff had left early for the weekend. I didn’t want to generate any undo curiosity. The quiet halls echoed with our footsteps as we walked through the maze of offices and cubicles, past the front waiting area and the Police Chief’s office.

  I followed him off a side hall to the room marked Evidence Room. The door was shut and locked tight.

  “Whitman must have left already for the weekend.” Logan stopped in frustration. “I won’t be able to take a look at it until Monday now.” He started walking back to his office as I followed, still reeling at the possible implications to what we had discovered today. “I won’t be able to get the dragon picture over to forensics until then either. I’ll have to lock it up for now.”

  He was thinking out loud to himself as we reached his office again and he walked over to a locked closet in the corner. He opened it, put the canvas inside then relocked it. With a determined look, he sat back down at his desk, pulled up his computer files on the case, and continued looking through them.

  “I just can’t believe that Barbara would do something so deliberate,” I shook my head in wonder.

  “Weren’t you the one so convinced that Lisbeth was innocent?” Logan pressed. “You might have been right, and we might have the evidence to prove it.”

  “But not like this,” I never would have believed Barbara capable of such a thing. “I guess, in the back of my mind, I had always thought that if Lisbeth really were innocent, it must have been some stranger that came in and killed Barbara.”

  “Caitlyn, you know they didn’t get along. You know there was a very volatile relationship between them.”

  “But for Barbara to go to such extremes…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Look, we don’t know anything for certain yet. We’re just throwing out some theories here. Let me do some more investigating. We’ll see if Travis finds anything else on the hard drive. I’ll get the canvas to forensics on Monday to see if there’s anything more there. Why don’t you head home, get some studying done, and we’ll get together tomorrow and talk some more about it.”

  All I could really do was nod in agreement. He walked me out to my car. The sun was already going down and a cold front was coming in. It was several degrees colder than it had been earlier when we’d been at the trailer. With the gray skies, it seemed a lot later than it really was.

  He stopped me for a moment before I got into my car.

  “Are you going to be ok?” His handsome face showed his concern.

  I nodded, trying to appear brave. Inside, I was a mess of confusion. I felt like my entire world was turning upside down. He must have seen through my façade.

  He reached over and took me in his arms, holding me safe, close, secure. It hit me how long it had been since I had been held like this. It felt like forever. I allowed myself a few indulgent moments to soak up his masculine heat. It seemed to wrap all the way around me. It was such a relief, even for those few stolen moments, to have someone else to lean on in the world. He allowed me to stay in his arms until I pulled back.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised as he opened the car door for me and I got inside. “Promise me you won’t worry too much.”

  “I promise,” I reluctantly agreed as I shut the door and started the engine. It was easier said than done.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I was disappointed the next day when Logan called to cancel, but I understood. There was a SWAT standoff with a man holding his ex-wife hostage and he was needed on scene. It was probably just as well we couldn’t get together right away. I needed some time to process the new information about Barbara as well as my growing feelings for him.

  I hadn’t slept well the night before. I had tossed and turned with visions of Catholic priests and young girls with demonic eyes and spinning heads. I woke up restless and had a hard time concentrating on any studying. I decided to treat myself to a gourmet hot chocolate at a coffee shop down the street, but once I got through the drive-thru, instead of going back to my apartment, I found myself on the freeway instead.

  It wasn’t like me to do things on such a spur of the moment, but some force seemed to be driving me. The cold front had brought with it a few winter flurries, but the roads were still clear and the traffic light on a Saturday morning.

  Before I realized it, I was at the state hospital, signed in and heading for ward D. This was an unplanned visit, so I hoped they had a minimal staff for the weekend. Sure enough, when I stopped to pass the security check for the ward, I asked and was relieved to find out that Dr. Ross and most of the staff was off for the weekend.

  No cameras and one way mirrors for this visit. Dr. Ross might be angry when he found out I had been here unscheduled, but I was willing to risk it.

  I found Lisbeth in her private room. The walls were painted a soothing sky blue with her pictures taped here and there. A lone bed sat under the only window. It faced the east so the sunrises must have been nice. She sat in a cushioned chair next to her bed, wrapped in a quilt, legs pulled up around her, and a book open in her lap. I glanced at the cover and noticed a fantasy/science fiction picture and title. Her face lit up when she saw me.

  “Caitlyn! I wasn’t expecting you today.” She put a bookmark in her book then placed it on her bed, turning towards me with clear, bright green eyes. “I don’t usually get visitors on the weekends. This is a real treat.”

  “Hi Lisbeth,” I sat across from her on her bed. She looked healthier than I had seen her in a while. She seemed to be gaining just a little bit of weight, just enough to fill in the sharp angles and planes of her face and neck. The smile she gave me seemed genuine, especially since we didn’t have cameras watching us. “You’re really looking well. I can’t believe how healthy you’re looking.”

  “Well, no meds and three square meals a day tend to help.” She looked calm and relaxed. Being with her the way she was right now, I could really believe she was innocent of her mother’s murder. I could believe that she was an innocent woman framed for something she didn’t do.

  “How’s the investigation going?” She asked, almost as though reading my mind. Her tone was casual but I was still cautious. Her eyes seemed to reflect only a mild curiosity.

  “It’s going good,” I didn’t want to give her any false hope but tried to sound optimistic. “One of the detectives on the case has been willing to help me out. He’s been really patient with all my questions and concerns. We went back to the trailer to search it again. We’ve been going back over all the evidence to make sure nothing was missed.”

  I didn’t know how much “Lisbeth” knew about the Black Dragon and the information Slayer had given me on my last visit.

  “Did you find anything new?” She asked. Her head was tilted off to one side in question. This was the first time she had shown this much interest in the actual case. Usually she was just professing her innocence.

  �
�We’ve been looking through you mother’s computer,” I explained, hoping I was still in safe territory with her. I watched closely for any change in expression, any sign of anyone else being present with us. It was still Lisbeth’s clear green eyes looking up at me.

  “Her computer, huh? Did you find anything interesting?”

  “We haven’t found a lot, just a few things she was looking up on the internet.” I down-played the possible significance of what we found. “We’re still looking though. There’s an IT guy at the police department going through the hard drive, helping us search.”

  “He’ll probably find the downloads about exorcism then.” She said it so casually that it took me a moment to register what she’d said. She said it as blithely as though she were asking about the weather.

  “The exorcism downloads?” I echoed.

  “Don’t look so surprised, I knew they were there,” she confessed with a shrug. “They couldn’t have been that hard to find.”

  “So you knew your mother was researching exorcism?” I asked incredulously.

  “She’d been talking about it for the last few years. Something about getting back in touch with her religious roots.” She actually smiled as though the thought was amusing. “She’d been researching several different religions, picking through them, deciding which parts of which ones she liked the most. Kind of forming her own beliefs and ideas. The more she got into it, the more she became convinced that my problems weren’t psychological but spiritual.”

  She wrapped the quilt more closely around her as she spoke. It was a bit chilly in the room.

  “The last year or so, especially, she brought it up more frequently. She almost became obsessed with it. She even wanted me to go to a Catholic mass with her once. Can you believe that? She thought the Catholic rite of exorcism, especially the Latin version, was the most accurate and powerful. I thought it was all a joke. I hadn’t stepped into a church in my entire life and now she wanted me to start going to a Catholic church to see if I needed an exorcism.”

  She gave a small, sharp laugh at this point. I don’t know if I would have been able to laugh about my own mother thinking I was possessed. She was surprising light-hearted about it. Maybe this was a sign of her healing.

  “Didn’t it scare you that she was so convinced?” I questioned in disbelief.

  “Hey, Barbara always had a few screws loose,” she laughed again. “You know what they say; ‘The apple never falls far from the tree.’ Insanity is hereditary, you know. Where do you think I got it from?”

  I’d never heard her speak of Barbara like this. And I’d never heard her speak so openly about her own psychological disorder.

  “Do you really think she was sick?” I hesitantly asked. I’d always seen Barbara as being a little off, driven to be the parental figure one moment then eagerly seeking her daughter’s friendship and acceptance another. I’d never really thought of her in terms of having a true psychological disorder like Lisbeth. If the internet searches were any indication, though, Barbara may have been much more troubled than anyone had known.

  “She was as nutty as a fruitcake,” she grinned. “In fact, she should have had a room right next to mine. There’s an empty one just down the hall. It even has padded walls. Can you imagine that? Mother and daughter padded cells. Maybe the insurance companies would have given us a group rate. Who knows?”

  She pointed out the hall and a shiver went down my spine. I looked at Lisbeth very close, checking for any change in those bright green eyes. They looked clear and truthful. No change, no variations.

  “Besides,” she laughed a light-hearted laugh and a sparkle came into her eyes, “the bitch deserved to die. No matter how it happened, she deserved to die. In fact, do you know what I did as soon as I knew she was dead and I was in that hospital room with the hospital orderlies gone and no cameras were watching?”

  “No, what did you do?” I whispered.

  “I sang ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead!’” She grinned in delight. “Hallelujah, praise the Lord, the Dragon is no more!”

  I froze and stared at her. The face was the same, the voice exactly as I had always recognized Lisbeth’s to be. There was no way, no possible way….

  “Who have I been talking to?” I finally gasped out.

  She gave me an impish, wicked smile. Her face was aglow, her eyes lit up. She stood up. The quilt wrapped around her like a royal cape and she extended a delicate hand in introduction.

  “My name is Sophie. Nice to finally meet you, Caitlyn.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I was in unfamiliar territory. Taking a deep, startled breath, I took her hand in a brief grasp and unconsciously leaned a little further back on the bed. I was amazed. There was no change. I would have sworn it was Lisbeth looking right back at me. If it weren’t for the grin.

  “How long have you been here with us?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and in control.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” She gave me a playful wink.

  “Who are you, Sophie?” I asked then braced myself for the answer.

  “Well, let’s see,” she brought a hand up and tapped a finger against her temple in thought, “I guess you could say I was created by Barbara. As Dr. Ross would put it,” her voice changed to do a fair imitation of the doctor, “Sophie was created from Elizabeth’s need to deal with an unstable, controlling, combative mother. Sophie was born from the need to deal with Barbara’s increasing obsession with religious martyrdom. Barbara became convinced that her daughter was a punishment from God for turning her back on religion when she was a young girl. Her daughter needed to be purged of all the evil so Barbara could be saved. Someone had to be strong enough to deal with that. Someone had to be tough enough, intelligent enough, to fight Barbara’s religious fervor. Sophie was the answer. Sophie is a survivor, a fighter. She is probably the most complex of the many personalities.” Her whole face seemed to light up. She was enjoying the self-commentary.

  “So you’re aware of your disorder,” I cautiously guessed.

  “Honey, I could have written the book on Dissociative Identity Disorder,” she was grinning that grin again. “Next to me, Beth Ann is still in kindergarten. Who do you think keeps track of everyone? Who do you think really maintains control? It’s definitely not that poor Lisbeth. She can barely function. Who do you think goes head to head with that narcissistic Dr. Ross? Do you think just anyone can fool him into believing Lisbeth is a ‘model’ patient?”

  “Why are you here, Sophie?” I decided to be direct.

  The quilt fell to the floor and she started to casually wander around the room. She paused to look at the pictures on the wall, studied one or two, as though judging the artistic value of each.

  “I guess you could say I’ve grown tired of Lisbeth’s pathetic vows of innocence. ‘I didn’t do it’, ‘I’m innocent’,” she parroted her own voice, “’You must believe me. I would never kill Barbara!’ What a joke!”

  Her eyes were still such a clear, innocent green. She appeared bright, alert, intelligent. Maybe this was the most dangerous personality of them all. The one that mimicked Lisbeth so well that even I had a hard time telling them apart. Just when I was truly starting to believe in her innocence, just when the evidence started to point towards Barbara and away from Lisbeth, then Sophie appears.

  “Did you harm Barbara that night?” I had to ask.

  One side of her mouth came up in a smirk.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” This was a game to her, I realized, and she was enjoying it. “You mean did I leave her alive when I left that night?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Who knows,” she gave an elegant shrug, “maybe I did harm her, maybe I left her perfectly alive. And maybe,” she paused for effect, “I left then came back and finished the deed. Just me, just Sophie, and none of the others remember it because I blocked them out.”

  Was she playing with me or confessing? I was so hard to tell.

  “Did you, So
phie?” I pressed. “Did you come back and kill her?”

  “Maybe I came back and found that the deed was already done. Maybe someone else already beat me to the punch.” Her voice lowered a fraction as she walked towards me, her eyes alight with mischief. “Or maybe I did stab her all thirteen times, and I enjoyed every single moment of it.” She folded her arms across her chest, standing tall and defiant before me. “You decide, Caitlyn. Guilty or innocent. Sane or insane. Which will it be?”

  I was more afraid now than when I had dealt with Vesper. She was truly pathological. Fearless, defiant, intelligent. Her eyes sparkled with the challenge. What could I believe? What was the truth?

  “Excuse me, is everything ok in here?” The nurse at the door interrupted. She was the same nurse that had given Lisbeth the injection the first time I had visited. I could tell she was cautious of Lisbeth’s behavior. She paused for a moment, looking at Sophie suspiciously. Sophie just stood there, a blank look on her face. Was she acting?

  “We’re doing fine,” I reassured her when Sophie remained silent.

  The nurse nodded and continued down the hall, content with my answer. I looked back at Sophie as she quietly picked up the quilt off the floor, and wrapped herself back up in it. I moved off her bed as she headed towards it, almost as though she didn’t even see me. She pulled back her covers and climbed into bed, pulling her blankets and quilts up around her neck like a child.

  “Are you ok?” I cautiously asked, uncertain who I was talking to.

  “Oh, Caitlyn,” she spoke as though she was just remembering I was still here, “I’m sorry. I’m so tired all of a sudden and I hurt everywhere. I feel like I ache to my bones. And it’s so cold in here now. I can’t seem to get warm enough. I’m not sure where this came from.” Her voice sounded tiny, lost, confused. Sadly, I still wasn’t certain it was Lisbeth curled up in that bed or Sophie faking it to get rid of me.