by H. P. Bayne
“I think you’re overthinking things,” Dez said. “If he’s as close to you as I think he is, he won’t give up on you just like that. He’ll be upset, no question, but you didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, you didn’t even lie to him. You didn’t know either.”
“But I suspected, and did nothing. That’s bad enough.” Charles sighed. “My God. What am I going to do?”
Dez exchanged a look with Lachlan. He knew how miserable he must look when Lachlan took up the baton once again. “Leave it with us for now, all right? It might be there’s a way to do this so no one ever needs to know. I mean, there’s little use now, is there? Val’s gone, and Gerhardt is as good as. The people left behind don’t deserve to be burned over this.”
Charles met his eye, gently raised brows and a slight lift at the corners of his mouth suggesting hope had dawned at Lachlan’s words. “Thank you. Thank you both. I’ll do what I can to help.”
Dez and Lachlan took their leave, standing and heading for the exit. Lachlan turned back before opening the office door.
“Forbes is investigating the Lockwood case. We might have to tell him something so as to avoid a conflict. Should it come out about his relationship to Gerhardt, it could affect the admissibility of any evidence he’s gathering.”
Charles nodded tightly. “I understand. I’ll try to figure out how to break it to him.”
Dez smiled. “One thing I’ve learned about Forbes. He’s a tough bastard, and he stands by his family even when things aren’t so good. Maybe you’re not giving him enough credit.”
Charles returned the smile. “Maybe you’re right. Thank you, both of you.”
Lachlan gave the mayor a lazy parting salute and led the way from the room.
28
The sound of a car pulling up outside had Sully peering out the window of Dez’s Riverview-area apartment.
He’d called Forbes and asked to meet with him. He hadn’t said about what. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could say over the phone.
Having buzzed the man in, Sully took the few moments he had to steel his nerves for the upcoming conversation. He’d been in this same room when he’d learned Gerhardt was his father. It was about to play host to a repeat.
Sully had insisted on coming alone. Although Dez and Forbes didn’t hate each other as much as they once had, the old tensions hadn’t completely eased. The last thing Sully wanted was Forbes on edge before he’d even broken the news.
A knock on the door signalled it was time to get this rolling. Sully answered, and the Major Crimes detective swept into the room.
“I haven’t got a lot of time. We’ve got a lot on the go with the Lockwood investigation. As you can imagine, we’ve got piles of people to talk to, so—”
“I won’t take up much of your time, but I’m thinking you might have to shelve your role in the investigation once I’m done.”
“Why would I do that? It’s the case of a lifetime.”
“I thought Lowell Braddock was the case of a lifetime.”
“This could lead us to him. That’s what I’m hoping anyway.”
No sense delaying the inevitable. “Sit down, okay?”
Now Forbes appeared suspicious, head angled away, narrowed eyes fixed on Sully. “Why?”
“Humour me.”
Forbes sat on the pullout. Sully had made it back up into a couch for the meeting, and he lowered himself into a spot on the other end, giving himself one last moment for thought.
“You asked me once if I ever wondered about my birth family, remember?”
Forbes pondered the question, as if trying to recollect when he’d asked the question. “I think so. Why?”
“I said I thought you were curious because you were adopted yourself.”
“What’s your point?”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Adopted? Yeah. So? My dad is my dad.”
“I know. I get that. The Braddocks are my family. I never questioned that. Thing is, when I found out about my birth family, it made me wish even more the Braddocks were my blood.”
Forbes gave a slight shrug. “Blood doesn’t always matter. Not about the important things.”
“I know. I guess what I’m trying to ask is whether you’re interested in knowing more about your birth family. I mean, do you remember them?”
Forbes shifted in his seat. “Why are you asking me this? It’s none of your business.”
“You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you it kind of is. Please. I promise I have a point.”
Forbes heaved a suffering sigh. “I remember my birth mother a little. I don’t think I could even describe her in any great detail anymore, though. It’s been a lot of years and I don’t even have a photo of her.”
“Do you know her name?”
“I remember people calling her Ella. I don’t know more than that. My parents never gave me a last name, and I never asked for one. I was happy where I was. I didn’t need more.”
“But you still wondered. You wondered enough to ask me about my experience.”
“Of course I wondered. Who wouldn’t? Doesn’t mean finding out is a good idea. I mean, if you had the chance, wouldn’t you want to unlearn the shit you know now about your own birth family?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. Sometimes knowing is hard, but it gives you the chance to make choices you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Knowing about them, it’s helped me know myself better—not the good side, but the other part. I think we have to understand the darker parts of ourselves too. Meeting the Dules let me do that. I could see where that part of me came from, so maybe I can figure out how to control it.”
Forbes crossed his arms. “You’re working around to telling me you know who my birth parents are, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am, yeah. But I won’t say anything more about it if you really don’t want to know.”
Forbes uncrossed his arms, started to cross them again, then used them to lean forward, into his lap. He remained silent a while. A long while.
Sully waited.
At last Forbes spoke. “I have good memories of Ella, nothing but good. But there’s this other thing. It’s always felt like a dream kind of, a nightmare, this feeling of suffocating, of knowing I’m about to die. Her voice, it saved me. I kind of remember her voice, I guess. That’s all I’ve got. Blonde hair and a voice.” He sat up, meeting Sully’s eye. “I have no memory of my father. I know I had one, but I have the impression he wasn’t around much. She was a good person, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Sully said. “She was.”
“Do you know why?”
“Why what?”
“Why she gave me up. My parents always told me she wasn’t in a good place in her life, that she was in a situation that made raising a child impossible. They never said what that meant, and I never asked. I always assumed she was a drug addict or something.”
“She wasn’t,” Sully said. “She was with a horrible man who made life impossible. She tried to escape the situation with you, but he found the two of you and made you go back. Then something happened that made her realize she couldn’t protect you anymore. The only thing she could do was find someone else to raise you, someone who could give you a better life, a safe and happy life.”
Forbes hadn’t moved, body still angled forward, toward Sully. He’d lost some colour, and Sully questioned whether Forbes could handle what he was no doubt about to ask. “This something that happened. What was it?”
Sully took a breath, let it out slowly before answering, holding Forbes’s eye as he did so. “Your birth father, he tried to suffocate you with a pillow. Ella returned home unexpectedly and interrupted without knowing it. She only found out about it later because you told her.”
Forbes blanched, gaze redirecting to the wall. “It wasn’t a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought maybe I’d almost drowned or something, but it was—Jesus Christ.” Forbes returned his eye
s to Sully’s. “How do you know all this?”
“She showed me.”
“Ella.”
Sully nodded.
“That means she was murdered.”
Sully nodded again.
“How? Was it my biological father?”
Sully had considered this moment, this question. The truth, he knew, would shatter Forbes, might destroy every positive feeling he still carried for Val Raynor. She was a killer, yes. But she’d also been a severely mentally ill woman who’d snapped only because she believed the child she’d come to love as her own was about to be taken from her forever. It was unlikely Mara or Flynn would have reacted violently to Sully’s birth family showing up and trying to take him, but maybe they would have. Either way, they wouldn’t have let him go peacefully.
Val’s reaction had been her brain’s way of dealing with it. Horrible and as wrong as you could go wrong, yes, but the result of mental illness, a part of herself she couldn’t control. Sully didn’t have DID, but he knew what it was to lose control to a dark part of himself, to nearly kill while in that state. How could he blame Val when he wasn’t so different?
Had it not been for Gerhardt, Eloise wouldn’t have been in the position to have to give up her child in the first place. And Val wouldn’t have been placed in the position of needing to defend the chance at motherhood that had been so unexpectedly granted to her.
Maybe it was Sully’s loathing for the man doing his thinking for him, but right now, he had no problem making Gerhardt out as the architect of Eloise’s brutal fate.
“I’m not really sure,” Sully said in answer to Forbes’s question. “I think it was.”
Forbes’s head lowered, brows settling over his eyes. “Who is he? I want to see to it he’s dealt with.”
“He has been dealt with,” Sully said. “There’s no easy way to say this. Forbes, you mother’s full name was Eloise. You were born David Gerhardt, and you’ve been the subject of a missing person file since you were six years old. Your father is—”
Forbes fired off the couch, backed away a couple of steps. “No.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. The book you have in your shelf, the Dr. Seuss one from your birth mother. She showed me that. And she showed me her memories of you as a child. It all came together at your house, when I saw the book and the photo of you as a kid.”
Forbes shook his head. “I’m not that man’s kid. I can’t be. Not him.”
“I’ve been saying the same thing since I found out about my own past. I debated telling you because I know what it makes me feel about myself, coming from someone like that. But I also know you’re in a conflict situation with this case, and you have the right to know, to make some choices about what you do going forward.”
Sully stood, facing Forbes fully. “I know it probably doesn’t help much, especially coming from me, but I really do know what you’re going through. And I know you’re not big on talking, but if you ever want to, you can talk to me.” He smirked. “I’m dead anyway, right? I’m as silent as the grave.”
The heat and the panic hadn’t left Forbes’s expression, and Sully had to struggle to hold his ground as Forbes took a quick step forward, closing the distance between them. Forbes stared into Sully’s face as if looking for something there.
“You’re telling me…. You’re telling me we’re brothers?”
It was Sully’s turn to pale. It felt stupid now, but in all this time, he hadn’t even considered this other very real truth. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are.” His lips quirked.
Forbes reached out slowly, fingers touching and then bunching up the front of Sully’s hoodie. Sully waited, uncertain whether he was about to get shoved to the ground or hit.
Instead, Forbes only shook him gently, letting his breath out in a little “huh” sound. His lips turned up at the corners.
“I don’t fucking believe it. I’ve got a brother.”
The Forks was quiet, a chill in the air promising winter on the horizon. Sully pulled his jacket tighter around him.
A cold breeze had proven enough to keep most people off the streets today, allowing Dez and Sully to move unhindered as they made the trek between Ravenwood and the Gerhardts’ old house.
Just as well, because they had some anxious company this time: Forbes Raynor.
They paused in the bushes outside a house within view of the Gerhardt place. Sully had led them in a different direction this time, ensuring they wouldn’t easily be within sight of the house where Snowy and Terrence were staying. Not that it would do much good. Snowy would know he was here, regardless.
He paused to rub at his middle. A dull ache had formed with the exertion of the hike. It was annoying, but he didn’t dwell. He knew it could have been—should have been—far worse.
Dez hadn’t missed the movement. “You okay?”
“Yeah. All good.”
Dez wasn’t likely sold, but he dropped it anyway. “Any chance of us avoiding Snowy? I’d rather not see that little traitor again if I can help it.”
“If she’s around here, she’ll know where I am. I don’t know if her gift has any sort of radius or whatever, but we’ll be too close no matter which way we go.”
“So we’d better make this quick.”
“Gerhardt’s basically gone, Dez. Whatever risk she posed is gone too.” Sully scanned the street one last time, relieved to find it still quiet. “Ready?”
“Yeah, let’s get this done.”
Sully started to push through the trees but was drawn up short by the realization Forbes had yet to say a word. He’d been quiet on the boat ride over, and he’d muttered a few curse words as he was briefly assailed by Noisy Ned inside Ravenwood. But he’d kept to himself after that.
It hadn’t initially struck Sully as unusual; Forbes wasn’t much for conversation at the best of times. But this silence possessed a different quality, one built more of tension than introversion.
Sully halted Dez with a hand on his arm before returning his attention to Forbes. “You okay, man?”
“I never believed in ghosts,” he said. “I think even after everything I saw you do, I never really bought into it somehow. But, God, man, you’re telling me she’s really still there? In that house?”
Sully nodded. “Yeah. And I think seeing you will help her.”
“I know that’s what you told me, and that’s why I came. But holy hell.”
Sully gave Forbes a minute, watching as the thoughts played out across the man’s face. Dez’s tree trunk arms folded over his chest, the picture of impatience. Sully didn’t blame him, the realization things could go way wrong in The Forks all too obvious after their past visits. But Forbes was who this was about today. Forbes and Eloise. They’d do this on their terms or not at all.
But when Forbes showed no immediate sign of emerging from his thoughts, Sully decided some gentle pressure was in order. “I know this isn’t easy, but staying in one place for too long around here isn’t a good idea. The sooner we can get in and out, the better.”
Forbes acknowledged Sully with a stiff nod. “Right. Right, let’s do this, then.”
This time, Dez led the way, pushing through the trees before Forbes could again delay things. Sully followed, keeping Forbes next to him as they approached the street. Sully tugged Forbes into a jog as they crossed the road.
They stepped onto the Gerhardt property, keeping quiet, waiting on conversation until they were inside. Sully led them into the sitting room where he’d first set eyes on Eloise, wondering if she’d sense her son’s return. When he didn’t see her within the first minute or so, he tried calling out.
“Eloise? Are you here?”
He was met by silence.
“Nothing?” Dez asked.
Sully shook his head, then turned to see Forbes heading for the staircase leading to the upper floor. “Hey, Forbes, watch it. The stairs aren’t in great shape, and neither is the upper floor.”
Forbes didn’t answer but stalled at the base of
the stairway. Sully joined him, peering into the older man’s face to try to get a read of what was playing out within his mind. He’d gone pale, eyes wide as he stared into the shadows above.
“You okay?”
“I used to dream about this house. As I got older, I thought I must have made it up.”
“You remember it?”
“Kind of. Not really. I don’t know.” He looked away from the stairs, focusing on Sully. “I think my bedroom was up there.”
Sully gazed from Forbes to the stairs and back again. “You want to go have a look?”
“I don’t know.” Forbes paused another long moment, then, without further conversation, started gingerly up the steps.
Sully glanced back at Dez. “You’re okay staying here?”
Dez patted his coat pocket. “I’ve got Emily’s gun this time. I’m plenty okay. I’ll keep an eye out and call if something comes up.”
Sully nodded and followed Forbes.
Having reached the second floor, Sully had intended to tell Forbes where the room was. He discovered there was no need; Forbes drifted straight there as if in a daze, no instructions necessary.
By the time Sully reached David’s bedroom, Forbes was in the midst of it, arms hugged across his chest, back to Sully.
“Forbes?”
A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob came from the older man, and Sully took a couple of steps forward, gaining Forbes’s side while hoping the floor would accommodate them both. It creaked, but held. Just as well, because the broken-down state of the building was the least of Sully’s concerns at the moment.
Forbes’s eyes had covered over in a sheen of unshed tears. He brushed at them and trained his gaze from the bookshelf to the opened closet to the toys on the shelf.
“Forbes?”
“I remember this,” he said. Then his eyes settled on the bed, and awe changed to dread. “I remember all of it.”
Sully sensed her before he saw her, a presence at the doorway leading to the hall. He turned to find her there, wide eyes fixated on the greying blond hair of the newcomer.