The River and the Roses (Veronica Barry Book 1)

by Sophia Martin

With the noise of water she couldn’t hear them, but there they were—Grant and Angie. Grant had Angie’s arm pinned behind her back and he was force-walking her up the bank, toward the area in front of Veronica. As Veronica watched, a gleam of light flashed near Angie’s neck. Veronica caught her breath. A knife?

  Angie yanked herself free. Veronica could hear her cry out. Angie ran ahead of him, coming closer to Veronica. He lunged at her and took her down in a tackle. Veronica clasped her right hand over her mouth—Angie’s head had hit a rock. Blood seeped out black in the moonlight—Angie wasn’t moving. Grant stood up, and loomed over Angie, holding a large hunting knife, a grin spreading across his face.

  Veronica stepped out into the glow.

  ~~~

  “Don’t!” Veronica shouted to Grant. His face whipped around. His eyes widened—their color was so pale—he looked crazed. “Let her go.”

  He took in the sight of her. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m a friend of your mother’s,” Veronica called over the noise of the river.

  He sneered and lifted the knife a little. “My mother’s dead!”

  “Yes,” Veronica agreed. “She is.” Each time she projected her voice the tensing of her muscles jerked her arm and she wanted to sob.

  Grant glared at Veronica, and then looked down at Angie, who was still lying motionless at his feet.

  “Why are you doing this?” Veronica called.

  Grant looked down at Angie, his face twisting into a mask of hatred. “She’s getting what she deserves.”

  “What do you mean?” Veronica answered. Maybe if she got him to talk—maybe she could find a way to lure him away from Angie.

  “What the fuck do you care?” Grant spat. His free hand made a fist at his side and he raised his eyes, locking them on Veronica. “Stupid bitch! Why are you even here?”

  I love him, came Sylvia’s mournful voice.

  “Your mother loved you, Grant,” Veronica called.

  That surprised him. “No she didn’t! What the fuck do you know?”

  “She told me,” Veronica answered. “She loved you, and she still does, even after what you did.”

  His mouth turned to a snarl. “You’re lying!”

  “I’m sure you must have felt like she betrayed you,” Veronica said, taking a tentative step toward him.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “A lot of people have betrayed you.” Another step.

  “None of this would have happened if this little bitch hadn’t ratted on me!” He kicked Angie, whose body slowly contorted into a fetal position. “You hear me, you little bitch?” Grant shrieked, grabbing Angie’s arm with his free hand and trying to drag her up. “Wake up! I want to see your eyes when you drown!” He raised the knife and the moonlight caught it again.

  Shots exploded in the night. Veronica gasped as Grant’s body jerked and he stumbled forward, his feet getting caught against Angie’s body. Then he turned his pale eyes to Veronica, locking her gaze for a moment. All around her she could feel Sylvia’s anguish, her horror at seeing her son die. And Veronica realized that Sylvia had always known that this was how it would have to end. Veronica reached out to Grant but he crumpled over Angie’s body and the knife clattered as it hit the rocks. Veronica’s knees gave way at Angie’s side.

  Chapter 27

  Veronica was five. She knew this because there was a big red number five next to her name on the picture in front of her. There was a lot of red on the picture, and a truck, and a car. And a lady on the ground, but also in the sky, with angel wings. Her angel.

  Someone yanked the picture away. She looked up. It was Daddy.

  “What is this, Very Bear?” he asked, frowning at the picture.

  “It’s Mommy,” Veronica said. Mommy, her mind echoed. Oh god.

  He looked from the picture to her. “What? Veronica, this is—what kind of—”

  He balled the picture up in his hands.

  “You can’t draw things like this!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t right!”

  She felt so awful. Daddy’s face was pale. She reached for the balled up paper and he knocked her hand away. It stung. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes. He grabbed her crayons, stuffing them in his pockets.

  “It’s wrong, Veronica! You’re wrong!”

  “I saw her, Daddy, in my head. She was driving, and there was a truck, a bad truck—”

  “Shut up!” he bellowed. It was so loud and he was so angry, everything shook. She shook. She started to really cry then. “Shut up,” he repeated more quietly. “She’s fine. She’s coming home.”

  Veronica could smell gin. She never knew what it was—but all her life she’d hated gin. Always hated the smell and the taste. He was sweating it. Daddy was a drunk.

  “You’re wrong,” he muttered. “She’s coming home.”

  Veronica snuffled, rubbing her nose on her sleeve. “She’s not coming home, Daddy,” she said through her tears. “She went away and the bad truck—”

  “Shut up!” he shouted and stuck her across the face. Veronica screamed and tried to crawl away from him. “Liar!” he crouched down so he was level with her. “You’re a liar! She’s fine! You can’t know! You didn’t see anything!” Then Daddy started to cry. Big, racking sobs that shook his whole frame. Veronica watched him in horror, her own pain forgotten. She had done this. She had made Daddy cry.

  He lurched to his feet and rushed out of the room, upstairs. She waited, and then heard the door slam, hard. She sat on the floor and cried until she couldn’t sit up anymore. She lay down on the floor and slept.

  ~~~

  Veronica woke up in a clean hospital room. There were green walls, and a curtain hung on her right. Probably another bed on the other side, with another patient. She had an IV, and the machine that ran it made a small beep from time to time. She could also hear voices drifting in from the hall. She couldn’t hear anyone next to her. Maybe no one was there.

  She looked down at herself. A cast covered her arm, which they had also bound to her chest. An IV fed into her other arm, the needle inserted just below her thumb. Her hand was taped to a foam board to immobilize it, so she wouldn’t pull the IV out in her sleep, she supposed.

  She heard someone’s footsteps and the curtain pulled back a bit. Cybele’s face appeared.

  “Oh my god,” Veronica said.

  “Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling?” Cybele asked. She looked the same as ever: short, brown pixie cut, heavy eye make-up, and tight-fitting leotard top with flowy draw-string black pants.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Veronica said. “How long was I out? What happened?”

  “Melanie called me,” Cybele said. She sat down and put a hand on the wrist bound to the board. “You’ve been asleep for about seventeen hours. They gave you pain medication.”

  “I don’t remember passing out.”

  “They say you went into shock. Do you remember going to the river?”

  Veronica closed her eyes. “Yes. They shot Grant.”

  “That was the boy’s name,” Cybele said. “I couldn’t remember. Yes. He’s dead, I’m afraid. So sad, he was young, wasn’t he?”

  Veronica nodded, her eyes still closed.

  “As I understand it, you passed out right about then. You were in a great deal of pain, sweetie.”

  Veronica’s eyes opened. “Is Angie okay?”

  Cybele patted her wrist. “She’ll be fine. They had to induce a coma, because of her head injury.”

  “Oh my god!” Veronica tried to sit up.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Cybele admonished her, putting her hands on her shoulders. Veronica felt woozy and weak. She yielded to Cybele’s touch. “She’s fine. Melanie’s with her. She’s going to be in the hospital a little longer than you, that’s all.”

  Veronica nodded, and then stopped moving, her eyes closed again. She wanted the wooziness to pass, and lying still seemed to help.

  “You want a drink of water?” Cybele offered
.

  “Okay,” Veronica said, opening her eyes again. Cybele poured water from a plastic pitcher into a cup, and put a straw in it. She brought it to Veronica’s lips. Veronica drank a few sips. The water helped settle her stomach. “Thanks,” she said.

  “So,” Cybele said. “Melanie told me… she said you’ve been… I don’t know whether to start with the fact you’ve been involved in a murder investigation or with the whole psychic thing.”

  Veronica looked at her. “Did you know, Cybele?”

  “Well, not about the murder investigation! I had to learn about that from your best friend! You could have called, you know.”

  “Did you know about ‘the whole psychic thing’?”

  Cybele pursed her lips, and then nodded. “How could I not?”

  Veronica made a choked sound and raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  “Sweetie, you didn’t want to deal with it,” Cybele said. “I knew from the moment I took you in that I couldn’t talk to you about it. You were a mess, and with good reason. I just—I just thought I should wait for you to come to me. But you never did.”

  “I was five years old.”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew all along?”

  “Yes.”

  It felt so strange, talking about it after all this time. It felt surreal. Was she really lying here in a hospital? Was she really talking to Cybele under this awful fluorescent light? With this smell of disinfectants in her nose? Her stomach rolled again.

  Cybele, who had been silent for some time, took her hand away from Veronica’s wrist and put it in her own lap.

  “I did know,” she said. “I just—I was afraid that if we talked about it—”

  “What?”

  Cybele gave her a pained look. “Oh, baby, don’t you think you’ve been through enough lately? I’m so sorry I never let you know that I knew. You must have felt so alone, all these years.”

  Veronica felt tears come to her eyes and she fought them back.

  Cybele put her hand back on Veronica’s wrist. “I’m so sorry, Veronica.”

  “I’m tired,” Veronica said.

  Cybele nodded. “Of course. You should get your rest.”

  Veronica closed her eyes, and listened as Cybele stood and her shoes clicked on the floor. Then Veronica thought of her most recent dream, and her eyes popped open.

  “Cybele,” she said.

  Cybele stopped at the foot of the bed and turned back to her.

  “I dreamt of my father,” Veronica said. “He’s the one who made me feel bad about it, isn’t he? About my—my second sight?”

  Cybele frowned. “You could say that.”

  “I drew a picture. My mother—” Veronica’s eyes widened as the full implications of her dream dawned on her. “Oh my god. You told me she left!”

  “She did,” Cybele said.

  “But—I drew a picture—it was of her death!”

  “I found that picture,” Cybele said. She stood very still, at the end of the bed, the tips of her fingers resting on the bar at the foot.

  “How could you lie to me? I thought she was still alive!”

  “Oh, Veronica, no, you didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cybele sighed. “Sweetheart, you’re tired, you’ve been through a terrible ordeal—”

  “Stop it. Just tell me.”

  Cybele pursed her lips and looked around the room, as if hoping to find a hidden escape hatch. Veronica wanted to launch herself out of the bed and shake her. But she could barely move. It must be the drugs. She felt so weak and helpless, and she just wanted to know the truth. How could she make Cybele tell it to her?

  “Please,” she said. “Please, don’t you think it’s been long enough? Why didn’t you tell me she’d died?”

  “Because I was sure you already knew. You only ever drew pictures of her. And as an angel. I was sure you were in—in contact with her, Veronica. I was sure you knew she was—she wasn’t alive anymore.”

  My angel.

  “I started drawing her after that day? After that drawing I made of the accident?”

  Cybele nodded.

  Veronica frowned. “There’s more. There’s something else. Daddy… he was an alcoholic.”

  Cybele stared at her. “Yes,” she said.

  “Is that why he had the stroke? The alcohol?”

  “It wasn’t a stroke, Veronica.”

  The slamming of the door. It had been too loud. Too loud to be a door.

  “Oh god,” Veronica gasped.

  Cybele hurried over to her side. She stroked Veronica’s forehead, her hand shaking. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. That’s why I never wanted to push it with you. I was too afraid. I thought you’d blame yourself. You already did. But you didn’t remember. You just accepted what I told you, about the stroke. I just thought it was better. You didn’t need to know what he did.”

  “Why?” Veronica said. “Why would he do that? Why would he shoot himself?”

  Cybele’s eyes welled up. “Claude was just a troubled man, baby. He always was. Things were so hard after your mother left. He couldn’t bear it. And the news of Alcina’s death—which he would have gotten sooner or later without your drawing—it just put him over the edge.”

  “Did she know he was like that? That he drank?”

  “Alcina? I don’t think he was drinking when she left. I mean, he had, before. He never really went into recovery. You know what they call it. A ‘dry drunk.’ I imagine Claude was very hard to live with.”

  “How could she leave me with him?”

  Cybele sighed. “She was selfish. I’ve always hated her for it. Claude was my brother, Veronica. I loved him. I blamed her for what happened, and for leaving you with him, because I love you too. But I think… well, she’s with you now. I think she’s been with you ever since the day she passed away. She’s your guardian angel.”

  Veronica looked around the room, as if she might see her again. It was just bright hospital lights and green walls. Totally stark and ordinary.

  “How can you be so sure about that? Just because of my paintings?”

  “Oh, Veronica, no, of course not,” Cybele said. “I know, because the gift you have—your psychic ability… it runs in my family. It usually affects the women, you know, although I was told a great-grandfather had it as well. I’ve had it all my life—although nothing like you, honey. You’re a Mozart to my… I don’t know. Saying Salieri would be giving myself a bit too much credit, I think. But you get the point.”

  Veronica stared at her. Cybele had it too?

  “You never let on!”

  Cybele smiled. “No,” she said. “All part of the decision not to say or do anything that might bring up painful memories. I hope you’ll find a way to forgive me for that one day.”

  Veronica looked at her, wanting to tell her that she forgave her already, but something stopped her. It would be too easy to say that, and she wasn’t sure it was true. It was all too much to process all at once.

  “I need some time,” Veronica said. “I just need to… to think everything through. It’s a lot.”

  “Of course,” Cybele said. “How about I go talk to the doctors and find out if it’s okay for me to go buy you a smoothie? I’ll be back in a while.”

  As she exited Veronica wondered if Cybele expected her to declare that she’d forgiven her when she returned bearing Jamba Juice. Then she decided that wasn’t what Cybele meant. She was just letting Veronica know she wasn’t leaving. She would stick around until Veronica was strong enough to be on her own again. That was typical of Cybele. She’d always taken good care of Veronica.

  “Hey,” came a male voice a few minutes later. Daniel walked in. “Look who I brought with me,” he added. Melanie appeared from around the curtain.

  “Hey guys,” Veronica said. She felt so tired. So much had happened, in so short a time. She felt like everything she’d ever known was turned on its head.

  “Hey, my hero
,” Melanie said, coming to the side of the bed Cybele had stood on, and resting her hand on Veronica’s, careful not to touch the IV. “How you feeling?”

  “Okay,” Veronica said. “Do you know how long I’m going to be in here for?”

  “I think they’re keeping you for a while longer,” Melanie said.

  “Probably overnight,” said Daniel. “You went into a pretty severe shock and they like to keep people under observation for a while after that happens.”

  “How’s Angie?” Veronica asked Melanie.

  “She’s going to be fine,” Melanie said, but her voice shook. Veronica couldn’t imagine what it must be like for her.

  “Melanie’s been by her side this whole time. I couldn’t convince her to go home for a while, but she agreed to come pay you a visit,” Daniel said.

  “I wanted to thank you, Veronica,” Melanie said, her voice breaking.

  Veronica shook her head. “No.”

  “Yes,” Melanie insisted. “I don’t know what I would have done if we didn’t get there in time.”

  “Me neither,” Veronica said.

  “Well, we did,” Daniel said.

  Melanie nodded and smiled at him. Then she turned her worried gaze back to Veronica. “I’m sorry, hon. I have to get back.”

  “Of course,” Veronica said, wishing she could give her a hug, or at least grip her hand. “Give her a kiss from me.”

  Melanie smiled at her and squeezed her fingers, and Veronica did her best to squeeze back. Then Melanie left.

  Veronica took a deep breath and looked at Daniel. “Was it you? Did you shoot him?”

  Daniel looked down and then nodded. “I know you must have been relieved, but doing that is pretty awful no matter what the situation is, so I’d rather not be thanked.”

  Veronica shook her head slightly. “No, I wasn’t going to,” she said. His eyes flicked to meet hers. “It’s not that I blame you. You had to do it, and I would have done anything to protect Angie. But I felt all of Sylvia’s grief. She loved him. He was her son.”

  Daniel frowned and then nodded. “That’s quite a gift you have.”

  “Not a skeptic anymore, huh?”

  “Not when it comes to you.”