Confidentiality

by Jessica Aiken-Hall

  I let go of the tension I had been holding and let my shoulders fall as the weight lifted off. "Gram? It's Val."

  "Hi, dear. How did you know I was here?" Her voice was just loud enough for me to make out the words.

  "I just had a feeling… are you okay?"

  "Oh, I'm going to be fine. I just had a fall."

  "A fall?"

  "Yes, I must have tripped over something in the night."

  "When do you get to go home? I want to come see you."

  "I'm not sure yet… your mother thinks I need to go into a home."

  "That's ridiculous. You're not going, are you?"

  "I'm not sure I have a choice, dear. I don't think it's safe for me at home alone anymore. And… your mom found out about you."

  My hair on my neck stood up again, and my breathing increased as the heat of pent up anger released inside me. "Was she…"

  "She was surprised. She said she didn't want me talking with you, but I told her it wasn't up to her."

  "Gram… was this before or after your fall?"

  "Oh, I don't remember… hmm… it might have been before. The nurse is coming back to wash me up, call me later if you want."

  "I love you, Gram." I clicked off the phone and handed it back to Norma. My teeth clenched as my pulse played a beat against my neck. The heat from the fury burned as it flared out my nostrils.

  "Is everything alright, Val? Is she okay?"

  "I hate her." My fists balled at my sides. "I absolutely fucking hate her."

  Norma inhaled deeply through her nose and released it through her mouth. "Come on, do it with me."

  I tried to match my breathing with hers, but the rage inside me wouldn't budge. "I can't relax this away." I cracked my knuckles and stared straight ahead. "She told Gram to stop talking to me." Tears from my childhood found their way out of my eyes. My heart open and bleeding.

  Norma pulled me close to her and started rocking me. "Hush. Hush. Let it out, honey. Let go of that pain."

  I gave in and let Norma love the broken child yearning to be released. Her love was the only thing strong enough to quiet the rage. Norma's soft touch on my hair made me remember the times Gram did the same when I was a little girl.

  "There, there, sweet, Valerie. Let it all out."

  My head burrowed into Norma's arms. "I'd kill the bitch… but I can't, not while her mother is alive. I couldn't watch Gram suffer."

  "It's a nice thought, though, isn't it?" Her body vibrated with laughter. "Get that evil woman out of your mind. Don't let her hurt you any longer. You’re in control now, Val. You're powerful. And strong. She can't hurt you anymore."

  I nodded and sat up. "You're right. I am in control. She can't keep Gram from me. She is powerless."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I planned it so my first day back to work would be a group day. I knew it would be just what I needed to get back into the swing of things. After hours of catching up on emails and messages, it was a nice break. The dying didn't have as much appeal to me as they once did. Death wasn't something I chased any longer, it seemed to be something I ran from now. Having people I loved now made me understand the pain of losing people on a level I never understood before. The finality of death was not something I wanted a reminder of.

  I sat in the conference room as I waited for the ladies to arrive. The buzz of laughter alerted me Norma, Maggie, and Lily had arrived. "Hey, everybody. I'm so happy to see you."

  "Maggie was just telling us a joke… go on, tell her." Lily jabbed Maggie in the side with her elbow.

  "Okay… okay… What's the difference between a porcupine and a Corvette?"

  "I have no idea?" I titled my head as I waited for the punchline.

  "The porcupine has pricks on the outside." Maggie snorted.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Oh, my word. Where did you hear that?"

  "I saw it on a me-me."

  "It's meme." Sonya corrected her as she joined us.

  "Oh, good, we're all here. I couldn't wait for you all to get here… today has been brutal." I wiped my forehead with my sleeve. "I really only come here to see you."

  "Same." Sonya smiled. "I have some good news."

  "What is it?" Maggie sat forward in her seat.

  "Andrew and I found out what the baby is."

  "And?" Maggie and I asked in unison.

  "And, you'll have to wait until we announce it."

  "Ugh… you're killing me. I just want to go buy some baby clothes." I crossed my arms and pressed my back against my chair.

  "Oh, I'm teasing… it's a… girl!"

  "Oh, how sweet." Norma put her hand to her cheek.

  "Best of luck." Maggie giggled. "Girls are the hardest."

  "I'm excited… I wanted a girl."

  "I knew it was a girl. You're too girly to have a boy." Lily nodded and paused. "No offense… I mean, you're beautiful and…"

  "None taken, I know… I was kind of scared if it was a boy."

  "Looks like a shopping trip is in our future." I rubbed my hands together.

  "You want to hear something funny?" Sonya pulled out her phone and started scrolling through it. "I met this girl in a domestic violence support group online. And we got to talking about things… and get this…" She put the phone down. "Her boyfriend was found murdered, too… the same way. A bullet in the head."

  "Oh, my." Norma turned to look at Sonya.

  "And… she said she goes to a support group, too, and she said there was this old lady in it. So I told her we have one of those, too."

  Norma raised her eyebrows and laughed. "Thanks a lot."

  "She said her name was Martha… but she sounded so much like you." Sonya turned to look at Norma and picked up her phone. "When she friended me on Facebook, she was looking through my pictures and saw the picture of all of us in our matching dresses… and she said you look just like Martha."

  "All of us old ladies look alike. If you've seen one, you've seen them all."

  "But… she said Martha was this super awesome person. Always helping the other girls out. She said Martha went missing, and they still haven’t found her. Then she said Martha hadn’t shared her story before she disappeared. They never knew why she was there … and then I got to thinking… you've never shared your story."

  Norma's rosy cheeks went white and she squinted her eyes. "Not everyone likes to share."

  "Sonya, I think you need to drop it," Maggie spoke up.

  "One of the group rules is no one has to share. We have to be respectful of that…"

  Sonya cut me off. "Yeah, I get it, but don't you think it's strange? Do you have a sister, Norma? I mean, we don't know anything about you."

  "Sonya, Maggie was right. Drop it." I looked at Norma and saw she was fidgeting in her seat. "Norma, it's okay, you don't have to share, you never do. We love you just the same."

  "Why do you have my picture on Facebook anyway? And, why are you sharing personal information with somebody you don't even know? What else did you tell her? Did you share what these girls told you, too?" Norma stood up and grabbed her purse. "I want you to take my picture down this instant. I didn't give you permission to share it." The door slammed behind her.

  "Way to go, Sonya." Maggie got up and chased after Norma.

  "Did you… share our stories with that girl?" Lily turned her head to look at Sonya.

  "No, I swear. Just the picture. I said we had a cool group, that we became a family. She saw the picture and she assumed it was of our group. That's all."

  "It's essential we can all trust each other. I think you should apologize to Norma."

  "But what's the big deal? I mean, she hasn't shared… I just think it's strange she knows all of our secrets, but we don't know anything about her. And, why did she get so upset? What's that all about?"

  "People react to things differently, just like they heal differently. Maybe Norma doesn't need to talk about her trauma, because being with people who understand what she's been through is healin
g enough. It's not our place to judge."

  "I'm not judging… I was simply asking a question. She's the one who freaked out." Sonya shrugged her shoulders.

  "I can see where she's coming from," Lily said. "I never would have shared if I thought it would leave this group. It's scary. Some of our lives are at risk every day, and the not knowing is enough to drive you mad… and then to think the people you thought were safe ended up being unsafe… well, it's a lot."

  Sonya's voice increased. "But, I'm not unsafe. I had a question. That's all." She crossed her arms.

  "Where is your friend from? Maybe if Norma knew she wasn't going to see her in the grocery store, it might make it better."

  "She lives in Maine… Bar Harbor, I think she said." She focused her attention on her phone. "There… the photo is down."

  "Thank you. I'm sure she'll appreciate knowing you removed it."

  "I didn't do it to be a jerk. I was excited to share it… it was a fun day, I just wanted people to know how awesome you all are." She hung her head.

  "It's okay, I know you weren't trying to upset anyone." Norma's reaction was alarming. It was not a side of her I had ever witnessed. Her story was one of those mysteries I wanted to solve, but I didn't want to pry. I figured she may share as time went on, but now, I knew that chance was gone.

  "The other part I thought was odd was… her boyfriend was believed to be killed by a serial killer, too. She said this one didn't go after sex offenders… but get this… he went after the guys from the group."

  "I'm not following you." I squinted my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose to chase away the migraine.

  "The guys who had messed with the girls in the group. So, this girl's boyfriend, another lady's husband… the ladies would share, and then the guy would die… there were four in total."

  "So, like a genie granting wishes?" Lily wrinkled her nose.

  "Kind of. I guess it didn't happen that seamlessly. It wasn't like they mentioned the guy, and then he dropped dead… it just happened over time." Sonya’s foot bounced.

  "And, did she say if anyone was ever caught?" I asked.

  "She said no one ever was. It just kind of dropped out of the news."

  "Did she say if anything was linking these guys together… aside from the group?"

  "Hmm … she didn't say. I guess she just assumed it was connection enough."

  I shook my head as the new information percolated in my head. "You said she was from Bar Harbor?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  "No reason."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  At home, I took out my iPad and typed in serial killer in Bar Harbor, Maine, and waited for the results to populate. Nothing matching my search appeared. There were titles of murder mysteries and a few news stories, but nothing fit what I was looking for. I tried again, this time using murders in Bar Harbor, Maine.

  This search netted better results. The first link I clicked on was a news story about a man that was found shot in the head. There was no mention of him being on the sex offender registry or any other crime for that matter. It said he was found by a neighbor after they noticed an odor. I thought back to the guys killed in Lawrenceville and didn't remember that being the case with any of them. All of the men here were found right away, at least before they started to stink.

  The next article was about another guy, found shot in the head at his apartment. Again, there was no mention of this man being a menace to society. I tried to remember the details Sonya shared, to pull up a name or time frame. I'm not sure she mentioned either. I figured all I needed was the town, and I would have been able to Google the rest. No such luck.

  I did find the two other murders Sonya's friend had talked about, but they didn't have any more details than the first two. The only name I did remember was Martha. The woman who looked like Norma. I typed Martha, Bar Harbor, Maine, to see if I could find a picture of the woman. Without a last name, I wasn’t sure what I would find.

  On top of the search results, Martha Newell, 63, of Bar Harbor, Maine, is still missing got my attention. When I clicked on the story, it brought me to a news article. It said Martha had been missing for three years and was presumed dead. The photo of Martha did resemble Norma. I wondered if maybe she did have a sister she didn’t want to talk about. Was that the reason she got so upset?

  "What are you doing?" Tim stood behind me before I noticed he was home.

  "You scared the crap out of me." I stood up and gave him a kiss. "You're home early, where's Gabe?"

  "He's in the car, we wanted to see if you wanted to join us for pizza. We thought we'd go out tonight."

  The last time I'd been in that building was when I was with Jane. Somehow, I managed to always get Tim to pick up our orders. "Ah, sure. Let me grab my sweatshirt."

  "It's the middle of summer, Val."

  "I know… but that place is like the morgue."

  "Yum… what a pleasant thought."

  I tapped his chest as I walked past him. "You know what I mean."

  Gabe was getting out of the car to let me have the front when he saw I was coming.

  "Hey, get back in there. You don't have to move for me." I got into the backseat and put my sweatshirt on as the air conditioning gave me goosebumps. "How was your day, guys?"

  "I actually got to see Tim in action… we got to go on a high-speed pursuit."

  "That sounds dangerous."

  "You sound like a mom." Tim looked at me in the rearview mirror.

  "It was so much fun. This guy ran a red light, so Tim put his lights and sirens on, but the guy kept on going. We chased the guy through half the town."

  "Did you end up catching him?"

  "Yeah, the guy ran into a mailbox… you know… one of those big blue things?" Gabe dropped his head, laughed, and slapped his knee. "You should have seen his face.”

  "Who's? Tim's or the guy?"

  "Funny, Val." Tim shook his head. I reached over and ruffled up his hair.

  "The guy… he wasn't expecting that mailbox to jump out in front of him." He stopped to laugh. "You know why he was running?"

  "Hmm… was he drinking?"

  "Nope… he didn't have any pants on."

  "What? Why wouldn't he have any pants on?"

  "He didn't say… but we had to give him a napkin to get him into the cruiser." Gabe hit his leg again. "A napkin… a fucking napkin."

  "Gross… so you had his bare ass in the back of your cruiser?" I stuck out my tongue.

  "Yeah… tell me about it… I'm going to have to get the thing detailed now. You never know what you'll see in this town." Tim shook his head. "And now we get to enjoy a pizza that looked like his ass."

  "Yuck… I don't think I'm hungry anymore." I shook the image out of my mind and walked into the building with my two guys. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when Tim led us to the booth Jane and I shared. I pulled on his sleeve. "Let's go over there by the window."

  They followed me without question. "We haven't been here in ages." Tim picked up the menu.

  "Nope, it's been a while." I pulled the menu out of his hands. "Why do you need that thing?"

  "Good point. I'll just order our regular. That good for you, Gabe?"

  "Yeah, the mushrooms are growing on me… not on my ass yet, though." He slapped the table and started laughing again.

  "It sounds like you guys had a lot of fun with that one." I took a drink of water. "I had an interesting day, too."

  "Yeah? What happened?" Tim asked.

  "Sonya and Norma got into a fight because of a picture Sonya posted on Facebook… and then told Norma she reminded one of her online friends of some woman who disappeared."

  "Ah, old people drama." Tim nodded. "See, Gabe, aren't you glad you didn't want to shadow Val? No offense."

  "Don't be a smartass." I elbowed him. "The weird thing was this lady said her boyfriend was murdered, the same way Jimmy was… she said like three other guys were killed the same way."

  "Hmm… where are th
ey from?" Tim rolled up the paper from his straw wrapper and flung it at Gabe.

  "Bar Harbor, Maine. She said they never found out who did it. Isn't that weird?"

  "Yeah… but lots of guys get shot in the head… guys are assholes… they piss a lot of people off… I'm actually surprised more guys don't get shot in the head."

  "Come on. It doesn't make you wonder that maybe it's the same guy?"

  Tim shook his head. "Nah. The FBI checked its database. They said there were no other cases out there matching ours. It looks like our guy is a one-time killer… well, five-time… but one location."

  "Really? You're not curious at all? Four guys shot in the head… all in the same town… and the killer hasn't been caught?"

  Tim shook his head. "No. Not at all. There would have been a hit on their database. We're pretty confident our serial killer's trademark would have been used if they were responsible for other murders… and when the Feds did their search, nothing came up."

  Gabe scratched his head. "But… it could be the same guy. Maybe these were the first time they started using their calling card."

  "Nah. Maybe the Maine cases are drug related. There are thousands of unsolved gang-related crimes."

  "And, you guys are confident the Lawrenceville murders aren't drug related?" I squinted my eyes, waiting for him to say what I already knew.

  "Nope. We really think it's personal…" Tim wiped his hands on his napkin. "The vigilante theory is the one that makes the most sense."

  "I guess we'll just have to wait and see if he strikes again." I drank the rest of my water and pushed my plate away. I couldn't figure out how the two situations were different, but I couldn't figure out how they were the same, either. And now, it seemed like there were more questions than answers.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  "Can you meet me at Norma's? It's important. Lily." The message was how I started my day. When I tried calling her back, it went straight to voice mail. This was the first time Lily had called me, and I wasn't sure what I was going to walk into. The tone of her voice didn't sound like this was going to be good.