The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  Sully focused on ensuring he didn’t feel the same helplessness, and he felt his Harry-strengthened torso lifting from the floor in defiance of both his uncle and gravity.

  “Hackman, come on!”

  Hackman knelt on the floor, setting the syringe down to give him two free hands to restrain Sully.

  The words ran through Sully’s brain like the nightmarish mantra Dez had described, “blue room” repeated over and over in an internal voice Sully did not recognize as his own. The words grew louder, matching the strength that funnelled itself into the fist Sully wrenched away from Lowell, into the delivery of the backhand he delivered to Hackman’s jaw.

  It should have hurt, but Sully felt little pain, distributed as it was between the two spirits currently residing inside his body. Hackman, on the other hand, appeared to feel all of it, the blow knocking him sideways and allowing Sully a few seconds to turn his attention to Lowell. A swift backward thrust of Sully’s head met Lowell’s nose, sending blood spurting and pushing the man off balance far enough that Sully was able to put him the rest of the way over with a heavy shove.

  The weight gone from his torso, Sully squirmed free of Lowell’s legs. The door to the apartment in his sights, he hurdled Hackman’s form. Even Harry, adamant as he was about confronting Lowell, had decided flight probably carried a happier outcome than fight.

  A hand closing around his ankle ended the run before it began, bringing Sully back down, the top of his head colliding hard with the wall. Once again, the pain was divided and tempered, but it wasn’t easy to draw himself from the uncomfortable purgatory between waking and unconsciousness that also resulted.

  It was into that momentary shock that Hackman and Lowell stepped, the weight of the two large men pushing him against the floor as Sully worked to shove himself up. Facedown beneath the two, there could be no further fight to freedom.

  Harry knew it. Sully felt it the moment the spirit fled his body, leaving him alone with the two men, with the ghost of his fear-stricken father standing in the corner. With the dispersal of that power, energy and strength, Sully gave up as surely as Harry had just done, sinking into the floor, barely fighting as he felt someone work the boot and sock off his restrained left foot, as he felt the needle bite painfully into a spot between his toes.

  All Sully could do was stare into Flynn’s eyes as he waited for the inevitable, for that feeling of floating on a rapidly sinking raft in an open sea.

  27

  For all that Dez despised about Forbes Raynor, it was a phone call from the major crimes cop that ultimately alerted Dez that something was wrong.

  But it was Flynn Braddock who saved them.

  Having made one of the hardest decisions of his life—letting Sully go alone to an interview with a cop intent on charging him with murder—Dez returned home to Eva and Kayleigh.

  Kayleigh was young, but she was bright, and she’d already grasped the heartbreaking fact her grandpa would no longer be a solid presence in her life.

  So when Dez came through the door, fragile in a way he hadn’t felt since Aiden’s death seventeen years ago, Kayleigh was waiting with a hug and words that left Dez struggling to contain the swell of emotion.

  “I’m sorry about your daddy, Daddy.”

  Dez, holding the little girl against his chest so he could feel her tiny heart beating near to his own, couldn’t bring himself to set her down for a solid minute. And, to her great credit as a daughter and a human being, she didn’t protest.

  Eventually, she went upstairs to her room, leaving Dez with Eva on the living room sofa. Her arms encircled him immediately, allowing him the opportunity and the safe haven for the breakdown he’d held in check.

  “How are you doing?” she asked, once he’d rid himself of another pound or two of tears and was sniffling back a few more that were threatening. One of her hands stroked his spine as the other covered his nearest hand, thumb running back and forth across lightly freckled skin.

  Dez used his free hand to squeeze at the inner corners of his eyes, both wiping away moisture and discouraging any more. “I feel like my whole family’s fallen apart, and there’s nothing I can do to put it back together.”

  “Maybe it’s not your job to do that, Snowman. Everyone has their own path in life. You can’t walk it for them.”

  He didn’t respond to what he knew to be a wise observation. He recognized the truth in it, but he also came equipped with a bit of his own. “No, but sometimes people need to be carried a bit.”

  “You ever stop and think maybe you need to let people carry you sometimes?”

  Dez gifted her with a grin. “You gonna try carrying me, babe? How good’s your chiropractor?”

  “Shut up. Listen, before you ask, your mom and her sister headed out to your parents’ place to get some more of her stuff. She’s going to be alternating between our place and her sister’s a while, until she’s had some time to deal with things. I knew you wouldn’t mind. How about Sully? Everything okay between you two?”

  “Yeah, we’re good. What isn’t good is what he’s doing right now. He’s not going to be at his best in an interview situation, and Raynor knows it. If Raynor butts up against something Sully isn’t answering the way he wants, all he’s got to do is steer away for a minute and bring up Dad. That’ll send Sully off-course pretty damn fast.”

  Eva’s touch moved to the back of Dez’s neck, where it squeezed gently, equally massaging and demanding his attention. “I know you don’t like the man, but he’s not completely inhuman. Anyway, let’s not forget, he’ll have someone monitoring the interview who isn’t going to have the same hang-ups. Could be that person will reign Raynor in if he goes too far off-course. Don't forget, if he pushes so hard a court views it as intimidation or a threat, anything Sully says will get tossed. And, Dez, let’s not lose sight of the most important thing here: he can’t get Sully to admit to something he didn’t do.”

  Dez had a response ready when his phone interrupted him. He pulled it from his jacket pocket, and his heart thudded against his ribs when he saw Raynor’s number come up. “I can’t answer this.”

  He knew Eva’s mind had gone to the same place when her words came with a tone intended more to sooth than to question. “You want me to?”

  “Not really.”

  Both of them, he knew, were expecting this was what Raynor would define as a courtesy call. With no further suspects or evidence having been located, Sully’s fingerprints on the gun and his clothes covered in blowback, with no physical injuries to back up his story about a struggle for the gun, Raynor had finally decided enough was enough and placed Sully under arrest. It might be there wasn’t enough to lay charges just yet, but he could detain Sully at least overnight while he worked on breaking him down, piece by piece. With Flynn gone, the most significant barrier for Raynor had been removed, but a key incentive—impressing his own embittered father—remained firmly in place.

  Dez didn’t think he had the strength to deal with that right now.

  Eva didn’t have the same concerns, taking the phone and pressing the button to talk. “What do you want, Forbes? Now’s not a good time. I’m sure you’re aware of that …. Dez isn’t up to talking right now. You’ve got me. What do you want?”

  Eva listened for a moment, then held the phone away, her hand over the base to muffle their conversation. “Dez, didn’t you say Sully was heading over to see Raynor?”

  “Yeah, he was. Why?”

  “He never showed up.”

  Dez pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to hurt. “Damn it, Sull … Tell Raynor we don’t know where he is, but I’m heading out to look.”

  Eva passed along the message and, judging by the muffled sounds of speech coming from the earpiece, ended the call while Raynor was mid-tirade. She passed the phone back. “He’s not happy.”

  Dez slipped the device back into his pocket, grabbing his vehicle keys at the same time. “That makes two of us.”

  That left the question o
f where to look first. There were other questions, of course, and big ones—namely why Sully had seen fit to go off on his own—but those would have to be answered later, once Dez had found his brother.

  His biggest concern right now had to do with the confrontation he’d learned had occurred at the hospital between Sully and Lowell after Flynn’s death. If Sully had lied to him about his plans for the day, there had to be a reason, and Dez suspected it had something to do with his brother wanting to spare him any additional family drama. That Sully and Lowell weren’t fond of each other was clear to anyone with the most base knowledge of either. With Sully having more or less blamed Lowell for Flynn’s death, and having been interrupted at the hospital, that left the very real possibility he’d gone off to continue the confrontation.

  The obvious first call was to Lowell, and Dez’s concern rose a couple notches when no one picked up the phone.

  Dez didn’t wait for a callback, stepping on the gas and making for the thoroughfare that would take him into the city centre. If something bad was happening between the two right now, it had to be happening in the city rather than at Lowell and Kindra’s country home. Mara’s sister had come to pick up the car Sully had borrowed overnight, leaving him with no way to easily get out of town. That meant Dez’s first stop would be Lowell and Kindra’s downtown penthouse.

  “Black Fox.”

  Dez’s foot slammed down on the brakes, his body shooting forward and then back with the sudden movement. The voice—his dad’s—had sounded directly in his ear, not a whisper or a yell, but a tone tinged with the controlled urgency more characteristic of Flynn’s response to a situation demanding immediate action.

  “Dad?” Dez’s reply was hushed, and even he was uncertain whether it was from embarrassment in addressing what appeared, at a pivoting glance to be an empty vehicle, or if it was because he was scared he’d receive no answer. He knew the grief-stricken often reported seeing and hearing their deceased loved ones after their deaths. Part of the process, he’d been told, after he reported having seen Aiden in their house while searchers were still out looking for what would turn out to be the child’s dead body.

  Now, Dez wasn’t so sure. He knew his Dad’s voice. More than that, he knew that tone.

  The vehicle’s interior was silent, so still that Dez jumped at the blare of a horn from behind. He pulled to the curb, allowing the car to pass as he gave himself a needed minute to get a grip on himself. He needed to find Sully. There was no time to fall to grief.

  “Now, son.”

  The words, same voice, same tone, sent Dez’s head and shoulders swivelling; still, he saw nothing. After performing a quick shoulder check, he jammed his foot on the gas and peeled away, back toward the thoroughfare.

  The utterance of the second command had erased any doubt. Dez entered the freeway, breaking the one-hundred-and-ten kilometre per hour speed limit as he raced toward the Riverview neighbourhood. Unlike his brother, Dez didn’t know much about this spiritual stuff, but he did know his father.

  And if his father was reaching out from beyond the grave to get Dez to the Black Fox, there was a reason.

  Having punched in the back door’s keypad code, Dez found no one in the Black Fox bar. Stepping over the dried pool of blood on the floor, he did a quick search, but found nothing in the shadowed stillness.

  The answer, he suspected, lay upstairs, and it was to Sully’s apartment he went next.

  The door was locked from the inside, and no one responded to Dez’s knock. He’d tried calling Sully’s phone several times during the drive over, but received the message reporting the person he was calling could not be reached. Sully’s phone was either turned off or dead.

  His father’s words held in his memory close enough he could almost physically hear them, Dez wasted no more time in the hall, kicking twice at the door near the lock until it gave under the weight of his leg.

  The bedroom to the right was empty.

  The bathroom wasn’t.

  Sully sat, fully clothed, in the tub, surrounded by reddened water. Next to him, on the rim of the tub, was an empty bottle of his sleeping pills. On the floor, a jagged-edged steak knife, blood still fresh on the blade.

  The world went silent. Dez thought it likely he screamed Sully’s name or a curse word, and repeatedly because his throat felt raw. He knew he dialled 9-1-1 because it showed on his phone’s call history, and an EMS crew and a couple police officers showed up.

  All Dez was fully aware of was the person in front of him, the pale and still form of Sully Gray, seated in a tub full of water dyed red by the blood from his opened wrists.

  28

  The ER doctor met the family in one of the department’s soft rooms, providing a rundown of Sully’s injuries.

  The words ghosted around Dez, some sticking around to haunt him, others drifting past and disappearing into the ether. There was mention of self-inflicted wounds, overdose, blood loss, amnesia pertaining to the time leading to the attempted suicide.

  They’d heard much of it before, the last time Dez had found his brother slicing through his wrists in a bathroom.

  This time, Lowell Braddock—sitting with them—had taken matters into his own hands, summoning Dr. Roman Gerhardt to speak to Sully. Although he’d regained consciousness, he was still dopey from the overdose, and they hadn’t let the family in to see him yet. Gerhardt was another story, and the hospital and Lowell viewed his presence as essential medical treatment.

  Perhaps it was exhaustion over the number of tragedies they’d all had to endure. Perhaps it was fear about having to experience another. More than likely, it was both. Whatever the reason, Dez wasn’t going to argue Gerhardt’s presence in that room. Not anymore.

  Some might see the suicide attempt as a decision resulting from loss of a loved one, compounded by the trauma of witnessing a friend’s murder and being considered a suspect in that homicide.

  Dez suspected otherwise. A man who spent his days staring out a window in Lockwood Psychiatric Hospital had answers he wasn’t ever going to provide.

  Dez’s aunt Lyndsey had gone to stay with Kayleigh, allowing Eva to take Mara to the hospital. Had it not been for the presence of the two women, Dez thought he might have ended up in a position requiring a bed next to Sully’s and a conversation of his own with Dr. Gerhardt.

  As it stood, he had support in the form of Eva’s soothing hand rubbing circles on his back, and each of his hands—since washed free of Sully’s blood for the second time in a week—held by Eva and his mother.

  It wasn’t, it turned out, enough.

  Gerhardt limped into the soft room, leaning into his cane as he sat in the chair nearest the door, fixing each of them in turn with a gaze Dez read as more scrutinizing than sympathetic. First he reported the good news: Sully would make a full physical recovery thanks to Dez’s timely arrival in that bathroom. However, Gerhardt wasn’t so ready to lift their spirits when it came to his psychological assessment of Sully.

  “I’ve had a talk with Sullivan, and I’m very concerned about him. Although Lowell has informed me that Sullivan has spoken of seeing spirits, he hasn’t said as much to me. In fact, he hasn’t said much of anything to me. What is clear is that he’s in a very vulnerable state. Within the past few days, he has made two suicide attempts. Given the trauma he’s had to deal with lately, I’m concerned he’s in the midst of a serious mental breakdown. I know this isn’t the news any of you want to hear, but my recommendation is that you, as his family, speak to him about a voluntary stay at Lockwood Psychiatric Hospital. That way, I could assess him properly.”

  “No.” Until all eyes turned to Dez, he hadn’t realized he’d said the word out loud.

  “Desmond, you came to me not long ago expressing your concerns for your brother. Now I see how right you were to worry. I know you have concerns about him staying at Lockwood but—”

  “There’s no ‘but’ here. He’s not going.”

  “Even after what happened?” Lowell sai
d. “Dez, if you care about Sullivan—”

  Dez turned on Lowell, feeling the heat of the fire in his own eyes. “Don’t you question how I feel about my brother. You’ve been trying to get him into that place ever since the last time we were here. Why?”

  “Because I care about him, too, Dez. I know things haven’t always been easy between him and me, but he’s still my brother’s son, and I want to do right by all of you. You need to see that.”

  Gerhardt stepped into the argument. “It’s clear Sullivan is intent on ending his own life. If I’m not given a chance to help him, I’m not sure anyone can. You can look into my record if you need to. My staff and I have earned awards for helping people in this community. I can assure you, Sullivan will receive the best care imaginable. And don’t forget what I told you. I can help him with more than just traditional mental health concerns. Maybe what your brother needs is simply some peace. I can give him that, keep him calm and safe so when he’s ready to leave, he’ll also be ready to cope with the stressors that are unique to him.”

  Mara spoke up for the first time since they’d been told about Sully’s physical injuries. “Could we have a few minutes alone to discuss this, please?”

  Gerhardt nodded his agreement with a smile, then leaned once again on his cane as he rose to his feet and left the room.

  Mara turned to Lowell. “You too. This decision needs to be ours and Sully’s.”

  “Mara, I don’t think Sullivan can be trusted to make the correct decision right now. You know what—”

  “Lowell, please. We need a few minutes.”

  It was her no-nonsense voice, one Dez had heard often while growing up. You didn’t argue with Mara Braddock when she took that tone, and Lowell knew it, bowing his head in deference before following the doctor from the room and closing the door behind himself.