by Dale Mayer
She dropped his hand and clenched her fists in her lap, the knuckles white. Weaver wouldn’t want anything to do with her now. Knowing the truth, he’d know that she wasn’t worthy. She didn’t deserve him.
She lifted her gaze, her head was heavy with emotion, pain. “He was killing my brother, you know,” she said in a calm, reasonable voice. “Daring me to do something about it. A favorite game of his. He’d beat one and yell at the other to fight him. Then he could turn and beat the second one down. Sean had been trying to save me when our father turned on him. He beat us often. Once so badly, he damaged my insides so I can’t have children. In fact, surgery was required and I lost half my reproductive organs.” She heard the shocked gasps from the others.
“But I’d have survived the physical damage, survived the emotional damage, except for one cop who warned me about liking it too much. That he saw how much I’d enjoyed the killing. That there was something inside of me that I needed to keep an eye on.”
Delaney winced. Weaver moved forward, anger radiating from him.
“And you were right,” she said calmly, her eyes shadowed with memories. “I did enjoy it. I did love knowing that he was taking his last breath while I stabbed him over and over again. I saved my brother – and likely myself.”
She lifted her chin and stared defiantly at Delaney. “But you were the reason I lost sleep over and over again throughout the years. I enjoyed killing him because I’d been a beaten animal, desperate to live and to save the only other decent human being I knew in this world. I didn’t enjoy the killing – I enjoyed killing him. Stopping him from hurting my brother. Hurting me. Over and over again. He never stopped. He was never going to stop.”
Delaney nodded, an understanding on his face she hadn’t expected to see. But the dam had been broken.
“All these years, I was afraid that I’d kill again. I went into nursing to try and help people. To absolve myself of the guilt of my actions. I love babies because I can never have them, thanks to that man who called himself my father. But more than that, a part of me was glad because it meant his evil genes couldn’t be passed down through me. I was going to adopt, but that fear was always there in the back of my mind. What if I lost it and killed my own child? What if my father’s evil lives in me – which it does – right?” she added in a hard mocking tone. “Because I’ve already killed once.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
“And no,” she said, steamrolling right over him. “I have no regrets – not really. I’d kill the bastard a dozen times over to save my brother. I never did it to save myself. I did it to save him.”
Silence.
Then she added, “And I’d do it again.” Her smile was glacier sharp, her eyes bright, hard. “And I’d enjoy it each and every time.”
*
Weaver stared at her, feeling his chest lock down and his gut slammed with pain. This was what was behind all her fears. She had killed her father.
He’d spent his lifetime looking for his father’s murderer.
In stark contrast, she spent her lifetime looking at herself as her father’s murderer.
Oh Jesus.
He couldn’t imagine.
The room was silent. Paris stood up, tall and defiant, but he could see the thread of shivers continuously running through her. She was standing through guts alone. Then, that was Paris.
Waiting for a verdict, she stood silently. A judge and jury to take her away as she’d always suspected she deserved, or to be given a pass and would even then always wonder if she’d gotten off too lightly.
The defiance radiated from her, but not as an attitude. As a defense. She expected to be hauled out of here in handcuffs. All her life she really thought she’d done something wrong. That there was something wrong with her.
There wasn’t. And to have spent a lifetime, first because of her father, then by her actions and the words of this cop – terrified of being defective – now that was criminal.
Glancing at Jenna’s face, Weaver saw only compassion and maybe a hint of relief. He could relate. He was so proud of Paris.
A mixture of emotions crossed Delaney’s face. Pain, regret, guilt.
Good.
The tableau had frozen and Paris’s trembling increased. He knew she was heading for a complete breakdown. Calmly, steadily, he stepped to her side and hauled her up against his chest, his warmth slowing her shaking. In a voice loud enough for the rest to hear but especially so that there was no way she couldn’t, he said. “And I’m glad you did.”
Her back stiffened.
“Your father was a rabid animal out of control and had been for a long time. He was going to kill your brother and you eventually if you hadn’t stopped him.” Gently he massaged her hard, terrified muscles, hoping to find the right words to unlock a decade of fear and make it okay. “It’s called self-defense for a reason.”
Shaking her head, she tried twisting away from him. He grabbed her hand back. “Not the enjoyment. I’m sick. Inside. All I could ever think of was a life without him. A life where I didn’t have to be afraid. A life of peace.”
She broke off as her voice broke down. Then she pulled herself back slightly and regained control. “Other people kill in self-defense if they are attacked by a home invader or something similar. Not like I did.”
“No,” Jenna said, her tone oozing compassion, so gentle he thought surely it would bring Paris to tears. “They hadn’t spent a lifetime being beaten by the one person who was supposed to care for them. They didn’t spend hours and days watching those they loved getting beaten over and over again, and neither did they have the reason to do what you did. You know he wouldn’t have stopped. You knew someone would have to kill him to make him stop.”
“But why me?” she cried out brokenly. “It was the best thing to have happened yet I feel so guilty. Surely there was another way?” She turned slightly away.
“Maybe,” Jenna said. “But most likely not. It would have been you or Sean. You know that because no one else was there. No one else was ever there. You two fought with this man every single day, but you didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
When Paris shook her head, Jenna continued. “You did what you had to do to survive. You can say you did it to save Sean, and I believe you, but you also did it to save yourself. He’d have killed you next. Eventually he would have had to. He couldn’t let you live to tell anyone what he’d done, could he?”
Paris gazed at her. Weaver stood by her side, his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. He’d be damned if she was going to think she was all alone here. She wasn’t.
“I’m glad you had Sean all those years,” he said gently. “You helped each other survive.”
“I’d do anything for him,” she whispered.
“You already did. You need to let that go.”
She shook her head violently. “You can’t just let something go. It’s with me every single day. There isn’t a day when I don’t wonder if I’ll ever do it again. If I might abuse a child of my own. If I might kill again.”
“And that’s normal and healthy,” Jenna said. “We can’t live with major events in our life without wondering about scenarios like that. Any more than you could sit there and wonder ‘what if’ you hadn’t saved Sean that day? What if your mother hadn’t run away? How different would your life be?”
At an odd sound beside her, she turned to Delaney.
“Barry? Do you have something to add to that point?”
He hesitated, then plunged in. “I had no idea your mother was missing. I thought she was deceased.”
Paris stared at him. Weaver stared from her to him. “Do you know if she is?”
“No, I don’t know, but I thought there was something in the files.” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I’d have to look it up.”
“She’s missing,” Paris said. “That’s all I know. She walked away without warning.”
“And who told you that?” Delaney asked.
“He did. He
said she didn’t want to be a mother anymore and she’d left. Pulled out in the middle of the night so she wouldn’t have to face us and went back east.”
The pain in her voice made Weaver want to snatch her back into his arms and take her away. But she needed to stand there and do this on her own for as long as she could.
“Did you have any communication afterwards?” Delaney asked, his voice calm, professional.
Weaver looked at him sharply then switched his gaze to Jenna. Did they know something?
Paris shook her head. “No, my birthday was the following week, and I’d hoped she’d contact me for that. She’d made plans for a small celebration, just the three of us, but then she ran,” she said bitterly. “I never saw her again.”
“What kind of celebration?” Jenna asked curiously.
“I don’t really know. She said I couldn’t mention it ever, but that we’d have a wonderful celebration, just the three of us.”
There was a long silence.
“And did you see any of her stuff after she left?”
“I saw my father bagging up her clothes and personal belongings. He threw them into the truck and we hauled it away to the dump.” Now tears glistened. “I wanted to keep a few things and he laughed at me. Told me she was gone and I’d never see her again. To throw all that shit away and forget about it. And her.”
“He said that you’d never see her again?”
Paris nodded and wiped at the corner of her eyes. “Yes, he said it all the time as if to torment us. She’d hated us so much she couldn’t stand the thought of being around us. I figure she found her chance to run and took it. For whatever reason, she couldn’t take us or didn’t want to take us with her.”
And finally Weaver got it.
He winced. “You think her father killed her mother, don’t you?”
Chapter 33
Paris gasped, her gaze going from Weaver’s to lock onto Delaney’s face.
The constable shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but we certainly see that scenario over and over again in abuse situations. She might have been planning to leave with you – that might have been your birthday celebration – but he got wind of it. Tell me, were the beatings any worse afterwards?”
Paris found it hard to breathe. She remembered her mother as a gentle soul. She’d often fantasized that her mother had escaped the torture they’d all been through, but when there was never any contact, she’d lost that hope. Figured her mother had made a new life for herself. Maybe had more children.
And as the mind was wont to do, she’d considered her mother might have died, but she hadn’t had any reason to believe it either way. It was easier to think she’d died in an accident and couldn’t come back for them than to accept that she wouldn’t come back.
“Is there any way to find out?” she asked. “With my father dead, we aren’t likely to ever know for sure.”
“Unless she’s in our database as a Jane Doe.”
Automatically, she nodded. There were too many shocks to know how to respond. She could only react. It hurt so much to consider her mother might be lying in a cold drawer or buried in an unmarked grave, unloved and unidentified.
“I’d like to do whatever I can to make sure she’s not there.”
“It’s just a DNA test.” He splayed out his hands. “The labs are all overworked, so there won’t be any answers for a long time.”
“I haven’t had any answers up to now. If one day I get one, then that would bring closure.”
“It might, but it’s not the real issue here, Paris,” Jenna spoke up. “The issue is you right now. You know your father needed to be stopped…”
“I know,” Paris whispered, “But it’s not easy to look at yourself and realize that you are capable of killing.”
“We are all capable of killing,” Jenna said, her voice a steady beacon in the storm. “And it’s that much easier if you are trying to save loved ones. You aren’t guilty of murder. You know that in the eyes of the law. But you are still afraid, aren’t you.”
Paris nodded. “What if they made a mistake?”
“They didn’t,” Delaney said. “The law was very clear in your case. You weren’t let off the hook because you were never on the hook.”
“And the things you said,” she asked, getting more backbone into her voice. She glared at the man whose words had tormented her since forever. “You believed them.”
“I did at the time – at least, I worried that they might be true.” He hesitated then plunged in. “I’d just come off a particularly difficult case where a young man had murdered his entire family, including an eighteen-month-old sister. In that case, he had enjoyed it. He’d enjoyed killing each and every one of them.”
At her gasp, he nodded. “So when I saw you, having just killed your own father, I was afraid it was a similar situation, just that side of you hadn’t been developed as much as this other kid. I didn’t want it to be true. I could see something in there, inside of you, but didn’t know what I was seeing. I warned you to be careful and not let that feeling be something you chased. Because once you start killing for your highs in life, there’s no way to stop.”
She shook her head violently. “There was no high. I was sick for days. I couldn’t keep food down and I couldn’t stop shaking.”
“Shock,” Jenna said, “and to be expected. And before we gloss over this, it’s important to understand that at that moment in time when you were saving Sean, you did enjoy it. You enjoyed finally being able to take control. Finally, you could do something about the pain and torment.”
“I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was so damn glad that I’d done it. That I’d picked up that knife and stopped him. I didn’t think, honestly. I just reacted.” Tears started pouring down her cheeks. “I kept telling him to stop, that he was killing him. He answered, ‘Perfect. Good riddance to another one.’”
“Another?” asked Delaney. “Don’t you see? In all likelihood, he killed your mother before you. You’d have been dead next.”
She stared at him, hating the words, the concept, but realizing that he might be right. Relief bloomed ever so lightly inside. Like a tiny unfurling bit of hope. Maybe her mother hadn’t abandoned her. “Maybe that’s why she never came back for me.”
Weaver squeezed her shoulder, making her aware for the first time that she’d spoken out loud. “She’d have come back if she could, you know that.”
“I want to know that,” she corrected. “But chances are, we’ll never know for sure.”
“I’d have to check out the files back then. See if a missing person’s report was filed.”
“He wouldn’t have filed it,” Paris said. “He wanted her gone. At least, he often made comments afterwards.” Rubbing her pounding temple, she couldn’t remember anything clearly anymore.
“I always knew she was gone for good.” She was exhausted and worn out, but she realized what she’d always known inside. Her mother wasn’t ever coming back. She couldn’t. She was dead. Her childhood dreams of her mother escaping to a better life, maybe coming back to save her and Sean, were just that – dreams. Happier stories to help her get through the days.
“He killed her.” She crumpled into a chair, her legs too weak to let her stand. “I think I always knew inside.”
“Most likely he did. It would fit the pattern,” Delaney said. “And given that, knowing he killed your mother, do you still think you did wrong? That you’d kill heedlessly in the future?”
Dazed, she stared at him, trying to assimilate what she knew now to her life, her thoughts, and her pain. Her future.
She shook her head. “Never.” She held up a hand. “Unless someone was hurting those I love.”
Weaver, the constable, and Jenna all spoke up at the same time and said the same word.
“Exactly.”
Her gaze went from one to the other, hoping, searching, wanting to see the truth of their words.
And saw what she needed to see – her heart exploded wi
th relief.
And she burst into tears.
*
Weaver snagged her up and squeezed her tight. That she went into his arms so easily bruised his heart. She’d been through so much. Her and her brother. He closed his eyes and held her close, breathing deeply at all he had just learned. In the background, he could hear the cop speaking with Jenna. There was something about checking when the cop got back to the office. Weaver doubted that they’d find anything about Paris’s mother after all this time. After all, look at his father’s case. It was still open. However, she could now open a missing person’s file on her mother and they’d learn what there was to learn. It was something.
If it wasn’t enough, then he could help her deal with that.
That was a truth he’d been living for a long time.
If they did find out the truth, good or bad, he could help her deal with those issues too. In fact, he’d just like to be there to help her in whatever way he could. She’d helped him. He’d moved past many issues. Just from being around her, seeing her perspective.
And updating his own. That had been his problem – hanging onto the hurt. Paris had been badly hurt and had made it her goal to stuff it deep inside and go on in spite of it. In his case, he’d let the hurt stop him. He could have had relationships since his wife walked out. But he hadn’t. It was easier not to. He had a tough childhood, but even his mother had been working on cleaning up her act.
He hadn’t.
He didn’t know if he believed it or not, but that was his past conditioning judging her. It was time to release that. Let it go and let her go. She was trying – that was all anyone could wish for.
Maybe he could check in on her. See if she wanted to see him. See if she wanted the connection. See if there was a connection to build on.