by H. P. Bayne
Dez scanned the backyard with eyes that wouldn’t see anything beyond trees, bushes and ruin. “So you don’t see him anywhere back here, then?”
Sully shook his head. “No. Could mean his ghost is somewhere else, maybe wherever he died. But it might be something else too.”
He met Dez’s eye before providing his other theory, one that might, if true, be enough to help Eloise find the peace she so desperately needed.
“I think it means David is still alive.”
19
No warning shots sounded, which suited Dez fine.
He'd kept his fingers wrapped around the butt of the gun the entire time they’d been in the house, mind repeatedly drifting back to the incident the day before. The sight of those men entering the living room, shouting the gang name as they swung their weapons, was unlikely to leave his memory anytime soon.
He and Sully made their way back to Ravenwood, waving at the occupied shrub outside the Waterses’ squat on the way. Dez didn't see Terrence wave back, but he did notice the barrel of a gun withdraw from between the branches.
Dez didn't allow himself to relax until he and Sully reached the safety of the opposite shore. It was typical, the gun in his pocket the equivalent of an umbrella; as long as you were prepared enough to have it with you, you never seemed to have to use it.
Sully was quiet, which was nothing unusual for him. Even so, Dez had questions coming out of the visit to the Gerhardt house, ones he didn't think Sully had received answers to either.
“We’re not much further ahead, are we?” Dez asked as he helped Sully tug the rowboat into the bushes.
“Not really. I'd hoped Eloise would give us the answers we needed. Now I don't know what to do.”
“Maybe this isn't the way to get Gerhardt onside. I mean, if David’s still alive, we couldn't tell Gerhardt anyway. It wouldn't be right.”
“No, but I think Eloise has a right to know what happened to her son, especially if she was involved as a way to protect him.”
Dez thought about Sully’s own birth mother who, at just sixteen, had risked everything, including her own life, to keep her newborn son safe. She'd handed him to Emily, allowing the Lockwood nurse to escape with the baby while she'd stayed behind to fight Gerhardt. The psychiatrist still carried a noticeable limp, a lifelong injury he'd sustained thanks to a solid kick by Lucienne “Lucky” Dule. She had found Sully soon after her death at the hands of her own family, and she’d remained a nearby presence in his life ever since. But the same could not, it seemed, be said about Eloise.
Dez agreed with his brother; Eloise deserved to know.
But it would have to take a back seat for now. With the Lockwood reunion beginning in just a couple of hours, they’d have their hands full enough.
“We’ll figure out the David thing,” Dez told Sully. “For now, we have to get our heads in the game.”
Sully’s ringing phone set them off course once again.
“It’s Forbes,” Sully said after a glance at his screen.
“Shit,” Dez said. “Now?”
Sully answered, he and Dez staying close to the bushes to ensure privacy—not that there were many people around to overhear anyway. “Forbes?”
“Where are you? I stopped by the apartment but no one was around. Your neighbour across the hall said you were out.”
“I didn’t think I needed to check in with you.”
“Whether or not your name is on record, you’re part of an active investigation,” Forbes said. “I need to know where you’re at if I’ve got questions.”
“So you have questions?”
“I want to know where you’re at on your side of things. Have you figured anything out?”
“No. Only that it’s looking more and more like David wasn’t taken by a stranger. We think it was someone who knew him and was trying to protect him from Gerhardt.”
“Who?”
Dez met Sully’s eye. It was clear Sully didn’t know what to say—not wanting to betray Marc’s trust—so Dez took over. He was plenty okay with lying to Forbes. “We’re working on that part.”
“You realize how big a deal this is, don’t you? Solving a forty-year-old missing persons case like that, it would be huge.”
Now Sully’s expression was something next door to panic.
Dez chose his words as carefully as he could. “I hear you. But it would probably be a good idea for you to sit on this one for now. Don't tell anyone else what we’re working on. If it starts getting out, we’re going to lose our sources, and that gets us nowhere.” No point telling him one of their sources was a dead woman.
“You’ll keep me in the loop?”
“We know it’s technically still an open police investigation,” Dez said. “So, yeah, if we get to the bottom of it, we’ll let you know. Then you can do what you figure you need to do.”
“You said you think it was an attempt to protect the kid from his father,” Forbes said. “Why? Is there info the guy was abusive?”
“Not that exactly,” Sully said. “There’s this prophesy, one we think might link into Aiden’s murder as well.”
Sully provided a brief explanation, and Dez wasn’t surprised when Forbes snorted at the end of it.
“That’s crazy.”
“Maybe so,” Sully said. “But whether it was true or not doesn't really matter. All that matters is people believed it—enough to cause them to justify the murder of children.”
“Children? Plural?”
“We’re thinking that’s why David was taken from his father, to keep him safe from anything Gerhardt or others in the Circle might try to do.”
“Do we have a list of people who were members of this Circle at the time of the kid’s disappearance?” Forbes asked. “Maybe you’ve got it backward. Maybe Gerhardt refused to follow orders so someone within the Circle took his kid.”
“I don’t think that’s it, but we’ll keep an open mind,” Sully said.
“Where are you going with that next?”
“Nowhere exactly,” Dez replied. “But Mom and I are going to ask some questions today if we can get close to Gerhardt at the Lockwood reunion today.”
“You’re going? You’re not supposed to be there.”
“Hey, the gates will be open and it’s expected to be busy. I can’t imagine they’d grill everyone who’s coming and going. In a sense, it’ll be kind of an open house.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly it,” Forbes said. “They sent out invitations.”
“How do you know?”
“We got one. Well, Greta did. She used to volunteer there.”
Dez had forgotten. Greta had been volunteering with senior residents—her birth grandmother, Lorinda, among them—when everything happened with Sully at Lockwood.
“Is she planning on going?” Sully asked.
“She’s still doing an inpatient rehab program,” Forbes said. “She’s not going anywhere for a while yet. But since we’ve got the invitation and all, I thought I might take advantage.”
Dez turned wide eyes on his brother even as he responded to Forbes. “You’re going?”
“Why not? If you’re going, even more reason for me to be there.”
“If there was any sort of plan by Gerhardt to kill his son, he definitely won’t say anything if there’s a cop around.”
“That’s the only reason you’re going?” Forbes asked. “Seems pretty weak. I mean, why go all the way out there if all you end up getting out of it is a pissed-off psychiatrist who kicks you off the property?”
Dez hadn’t been planning on sharing the other reason for the visit, but it seemed Sully didn’t have similar reservations.
“That’s not the only reason,” Sully said. “It’s also a way to get me in.”
“You? For what?”
“We were thinking, Gerhardt’s got some secrets he’s had to bury, and what better place to keep them than inside Lockwood?”
“You can’t be planning on breaking into hi
s office,” Forbes said, voice low in warning.
“Not his office,” Sully said. “There’s an old wing they shut down years back, one he was using to conduct the drug experiments. If there’s anything in Lockwood we can use against Gerhardt, any evidence of wrongdoing, it’ll probably be there. I found a set of keys at his old house in The Forks. I think they belong to Lockwood. While Dez and Mom are talking to him, I’m planning on finding a way into the old wing.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“None of our other ideas have gotten us remotely close to nailing Lowell. I’m willing to try anything.”
Forbes was silent a few moments, and Dez and Sully waited him out. It was possible, of course, he’d tell them to stay the hell out of it, that he wouldn’t allow them to commit what was essentially an offence and risk contaminating any evidence they found they might be able to use against either Gerhardt or Lowell.
So Dez was surprised by Forbes’s eventual response.
“If you’re planning on going in there, there’s not much I can do to dissuade you,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this much. If you’re going in there, so am I.”
A part of Dez—a part buried so deep he could deny its very existence—was relieved by the idea of Forbes going in there with Sully. Forbes was a lot of things, few of which Dez had much use for. But he was also a cop, one with definite career aspirations. Dez didn’t trust Forbes with much, but he knew the man wouldn’t let anything truly bad happen to Sully—if not out of some moral code shared by every decent human being, then because he could kiss his career goals goodbye if he gave in to fear or spite and turned his back on a civilian in need.
As it turned out, there was one more reason to rest assured Forbes would toe the line: Lachlan would be there to make sure of it.
Dez called him shortly after returning to his and Eva’s Gladstone-area home, intending to make sure Lachlan was still up for going to Lockwood. No sense driving out of their way to pick him up if he wasn’t.
“Of course I’m going,” he said. “Even got us a minivan.”
“A minivan?” Dez said. “What for?”
“How are we going to get your brother in there, otherwise? Smuggle him in a trunk?”
Actually, that was exactly what Dez had been thinking, but he left the thought unspoken, given the derision with which Lachlan had said it.
“We can cover him up on the floor,” Lachlan said. “They shouldn't be searching vehicles either way, but it will look pretty damn awkward, us opening someone’s trunk or hatch and letting some guy out. With a minivan, all he’s got to do is sit up and get out with the rest of us.”
Lachlan’s suggestion put Dez’s barely considered plan to shame. Dez, though, had an idea of his own. “I’m thinking we should head over in two vehicles. Mom’s coming along now, too, and if I get the boot, I’ll need a way to get Mom and me home.” He gave it a little more thought. “Do you think you’re okay to drive?”
“Hell, yeah,” Lachlan said. “But why is your mother going?”
“She was thinking she could talk to Gerhardt parent-to-parent, maybe get him to say something useful to her.”
Lachlan chuckled. “I like your mom. Good idea. Here’s another one: If you and Mara are planning on tackling that, you can surreptitiously record it for me. That will free me up to go with your brother into the old wing. Not that I don’t trust his judgment, but I’d love a look around there myself. There are things only a seasoned investigator will recognize as evidence, and there might be some stuff I’ll have to keep him from putting his mitts all over. I’d like to have a look without letting the whole world know I was there.”
“As it happens, he’ll already have a cop in there with him.”
“Who?”
“Forbes Raynor.”
Lachlan’s response was as expected. “Bloody hell. Who invited that schmuck?”
“No choice. He called asking for an update. We couldn’t put him off. Anyway, he got his own invite. His wife volunteered at Lockwood for a while.”
“Great,” Lachlan grumbled, but he left it at that.
Dez found his mom getting ready in the upstairs bathroom, putting on her makeup while Kayleigh watched, riveted, from atop the closed toilet. The little girl turned her gaze on her father.
“When can I wear makeup?” she asked.
“When you’re older,” he said. “Like twenty-five.”
Kayleigh sighed impatiently. “You’re so not funny.”
Dez and Mara shared a laugh before Dez invented a reason to speak to his mother alone. “Kay-bee, could you go set the table for lunch, please?”
Kayleigh took one more long look at her grandma before returning her attention to Dez. She rolled her eyes, uttering her response through a heavy sigh “O-kay.”
Dez waited until his daughter's footsteps faded away on the stairs before addressing his mom. “Are you sure about this?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“I’m not even sure I want to go through with it. Too much can go wrong. If we don't play our cards exactly right, it'll raise his suspicions. Hell, he'll be suspicious enough to begin with. The first place he'll go is where he keeps his secrets buried. And if we’re correct about that being the old wing, he could run into Sully.”
“So we'll play our cards right and make sure that doesn't happen.”
“It’s not just Sully I'm worried about. It’s you too. As of now, you're not on anyone’s radar. You're no threat to Gerhardt or to Lowell. You going in there asking questions could change everything. Not only will Gerhardt know you’ve been asking about his past, you can bank on it he'll tell Lowell. The more I think about this, the less I want you involved.”
“And like I’ve told you, I am involved. Lowell and Gerhardt, they’ve hurt my family in unimaginable ways. I won't let that go, and you can't make me sit it out. We’re doing this together, Dez, all of us, and that's all there is to it.”
The statement wasn't completely true, as Eva reminded Dez before he, Sully and Mara left to pick up Emily and Lachlan. Sully and Mara had already headed out to Mara’s car, giving Dez a moment to say goodbye to his wife.
“I wish I were going with you,” she said. “I hate not knowing what's happening.”
Dez scanned the living room. Kayleigh was busy with Pax, giggling uproariously as the dog reacted with predictable confusion to her pretending to throw a ball for him. Dez folded Eva into his embrace, pulling from it every last ounce of warmth he could.
“We need to keep Kayleigh in our sights until this is over,” he said.
“I know. That’s why I’m not leaving her next door and coming with you. But it doesn’t make me less worried about you. Be careful, all right? Keep your cool. And if you need to get out without Sully, you do it. He’s got Lachlan and Forbes at his back. You need to trust they won’t let anything happen to him.”
As much as Dez’s instincts ran to protecting his little brother, his wife and daughter came first. If Gerhardt reacted with suspicion—or worse—to questioning about David, Dez knew his place was at Eva and Kayleigh’s side. The moment the Circle was alerted to the danger of exposure, there was every chance they would lash out. They’d done it before; Dez knew they’d do it again.
“If this goes sideways, you can count on me being here,” he said.
Giving her one last squeeze, Dez left Eva, Kayleigh and Pax and joined Sully and Mara.
20
They timed their arrival at Lockwood so Dez, Mara and Emily arrived first in Mara’s car. If someone was checking vehicles at the front gate, Dez reasoned he could call back to Lachlan and tell them not to come.
They passed through easily enough, no one on site so much as positioned to check invitations. There was a camera there, of course, which was no doubt transmitting video to a security office, but Sully, concealed as he was beneath a pile of clothes and bedding, would be fine if he stayed down.
Dez turned to Emily in the back seat. “You were right. They’re pret
ty lax about this whole thing.”
“They’ll have security watching the crowds, but as I recall from the last reunion, they didn't have much to do,” she said.
Mara was behind the wheel, allowing Dez—crammed into the front passenger seat of the mid-size sedan—to send a quick text to Sully: No security at front gate. Just camera.
Sully responded within seconds with a thumbs-up.
Lockwood was reachable only after driving up a long, treed lane, which then opened to reveal a parking area and a wide expanse of lawn and gardens. The fact vehicles were parked on the edges of the lane told Dez the place was already packed with visitors—a good sign for a group of people aiming to blend into a crowd.
“Maybe we can drop Emily off up on the grounds and come back here to park,” Dez suggested.
Emily leaned forward, ensuring her response was clearly heard. “Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly capable of walking. Anyway, I think Sullivan, your boss and I will be best served going through the woods at the edge of the grounds rather than cutting across the gardens.”
Dez glanced back at Emily. She looked tinier than usual, swimming as she was inside a too-large jacket. “You’re sure about going with the others into the old wing?”
“Of course. Out of all of us, Sullivan and I are the only ones who have ever been inside that part of the institution, and he was drugged at the time. They’ll need me as a guide. Anyway” —she tapped her purse—“I’ve got a surefire way to get us out of there if need be.”
Mara peered into the rearview mirror at the older lady. “What way is that?”
Uh-oh, Dez thought. One thing about his mom: She wasn’t a fan of guns. He was struggling to come up with a satisfactory answer when Emily provided an honest one.
“My revolver.”
Mara’s eyebrows lifted. “A gun?”