by H. P. Bayne
Dez felt the blood drain from his face. “I… I didn’t—”
“You didn’t what? Want me to know?”
Dez couldn’t find the words, so he simply nodded.
“I had a right to know, man. It was something I did. To you. You should have told me.”
“You didn’t do anything to me, Sully. It wasn’t you, all right? It was Harry. You weren’t yourself.”
“You still should have told me.” Sully turned to face the windshield. “Jesus, Dez. I’m sorry.”
Dez grabbed Sully around the back of the neck and squeezed hard enough to make his upcoming point clearly heard. “Don’t you apologize for something you didn’t do. You weren’t the one in control, and I knew that, didn’t tell you because of that. You were already going through hell, and I didn’t want to make it worse. You couldn’t have done anything. I couldn’t protect you from much back then, but I could at least protect you from that.”
“I’d like to say it wouldn’t happen again, that I’d be strong enough to control it, but I don’t know. I really don’t.” Sully looked back at Dez. “If I need to go there again, to allow someone else to take over, I want you and everyone else I love far away from me. You hear me? I don’t want to take the chance I’ll hurt any of you. I’m stronger than I was, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough. Some of them, they’re more than I can handle. If they take over, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
“It’s not about giving myself credit. It’s giving them credit. They’re stronger than people realize, and some of them, when they want something bad enough, they’ll stop at nothing to get it. And they’ll cut through anyone they don’t care about to get there.” Sully stared down as his lap. “Harry showed me what happened in the bathroom that day. I had the feeling it was important to him for me to know he wasn’t trying to kill me, or you exactly.
“When he stepped into me that first time, it wasn’t just me who got lost. He did too. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see me but himself. Given the hell he was enduring at Lockwood, the only person he sometimes wanted to kill more than Lowell was himself. I think he thought if he was fully free of his body, he could go where he wanted anytime he wanted. And when he saw you, he thought for a moment you were Lowell. All he saw was a big guy with red hair and similar features. I didn’t know any of that before. I didn’t see any of it. I know you won’t accept my apology, but you can accept his. He’s sorry, too, to both of us.”
Dez sighed. “Guess I can’t exactly blame him, can I? Given what I saw you going through in Lockwood, I can’t fault him for wanting a way out. And he was there a hell of a lot longer than you were.”
Sully nodded. “I know. I feel the same way.”
Dez patted him on the shoulder. “But you can’t blame me for not telling you, Sull. Neither of us understood what was happening to you back then, or what it meant. You knowing, it wouldn’t have helped you, and it sure as hell wouldn’t have helped me. I was worried enough about you without adding another element to it. I wasn’t going to stick you with guilt on top of guilt—especially when none of it was your fault to begin with.”
Dez gave Sully one more solid thump, then pulled out his phone. “If we’re all done with the mushy stuff, I need to give Lachlan a call. Forbes would have called this in by now, and his C/O will be wanting Lachlan interviewed pretty damn quick. He won’t thank me for forcing him to think on his feet, no matter how good he is at it.”
Dez dialled and Lachlan picked up on the first ring.
“Braddock, good timing. Get your asses to my place. First off, I’ve been told there’s no coroner’s file on Harry Schuster. Whatever happened to him, it wasn’t deemed necessary at the time to open any sort of an inquiry. But I’ve got the file on Aiden. There’s some stuff we need to discuss.”
The drive felt too slow to Dez, every red light and slow driver conspiring against him.
Ever since Sully’s return had brought with it the revelation Aiden had been the victim of a homicide rather than an accidental drowning—and that he was not yet at peace, even after close to twenty years—Dez had been desperate to find a way to help. He liked the fact his baby brother’s ghost had protected him from time to time, but he knew enough about the world Sully saw to realize it wasn’t what he wanted for Aiden.
Or for their dad, for that matter. Dez suspected while Flynn, too, wanted justice for himself and his young son, the real reason he stayed was to take care of Aiden. As much as Dez missed his dad, and always would, it gave him some comfort to know Aiden no longer had reason to feel alone. If they were together and at peace, that would be even better.
“Dez, relax,” Sully said after Dez had sworn at his fifth slow-moving driver. “We’ll get there, all right? And we’ll get this dealt with. For both of them.”
Dez limited his reply to a tight nod and a conscious attempt to loosen his grip on the steering wheel.
As Sully promised, they did reach Lachlan’s. And as Dez could have expected, Lachlan was no more pleased with the time they had taken to get there than Dez was.
“What—did you take the scenic route?” Lachlan griped as they walked into the living room, Pax at Sully’s side. “Did you decide to come by way of McCoy Falls? And what’s that dog doing here?”
“He had to stay in the car while we were at the Schusters,” Sully said, peeling off his gloves and shoving them in the pockets of his coat before slipping out of it. “He’s really good, I promise. He doesn’t chew stuff or pee where he shouldn’t.”
“He’ll shed.”
“I’ll vacuum.”
Lachlan narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything further about it. Dez bit back his surprise. He’d warned Sully when they got out of the SUV Lachlan would send Pax straight back to the vehicle as soon as he saw him. It seemed Lachlan was learning to relax.
Either that, or his concussion from a few months ago had scrambled his brain worse than Dez had feared.
“By the way, I managed to fend Raynor off for a bit,” Lachlan said. “He’s busying himself with the tenant for now, so that gives us time for this.” He pointed to a closed file on his coffee table, the wear on the folder suggesting its age. Dez’s eyes held there, mind drifting to what it must contain.
He was vaguely aware of Sully and Lachlan speaking to each other, but he didn’t truly hear the words. The world around him had become muffled and clouded, everything else fading as that file and its contents leapt into the foreground.
He’d been just eight when Aiden drowned. His parents, he knew, had seen his body after, but they hadn’t allowed Dez the same opportunity. Just as well, because he hadn’t wanted it. Dez’s fear of death, and of the dead, had likely been born right there, the unwanted phoenix risen from the ashes of Aiden’s loss. His parents, he supposed, had wanted to protect him from having to see his brother like that. It was summer, and Aiden had been in the water a little while. Dez knew, given his policing experience, what that could to a body. He’d thought about it, about Aiden, every time he had to attend a river drowning, as police officers grumbled about the smell and the bloating.
Part of him had always seen Aiden in those fatalities, and his brain betrayed him by transposing on the corpses the image of a tiny, five-year-old body lying in the grass and mud.
That file wouldn’t just hold reports and conclusions. It would also hold photos. Pictures Lachlan would want to show them to demonstrate where Lowell might have pressed to hold Aiden under.
His view of the closed file was interrupted by a face appearing directly in front of his. Sully’s hands fisted up in Dez’s shirt and shook him gently, forcing him even further into the here and now.
“Hey,” Sully said. “Look at me. Look at me, Dez.”
Dez refocused, vision leaving behind the past to fully meet Sully’s eyes. He wanted to say something about being okay, but found he couldn’t get the words to form. Maybe the reason was because it would have been a
lie.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sully said. “I can go through it with Lachlan by myself. Take Pax into the backyard or for a walk or something. I’ll call when we’re done.”
Those words, at last, elicited a response. Dez shook his head. “No. I need to do this.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dez brought his hands up, grasping Sully’s wrists where his hands continued to hold onto his shirt front. “Yeah, I do. I’ve been afraid of this my whole life, of seeing him like this. That file contains answers, and I need them. I trust you to get them for me, okay? But it’s not the same as getting through it myself. I need to do this. I need to do this.”
Lachlan’s voice sounded from behind Sully, its tone unusually soft. “I’ve already turned over the pictures we don’t need to see. Full body and head and all that. It’s really just the chest I wanted the two of you to have a look at.”
Sully’s hands finally released. Dez gave him a smile, then looked down to see Pax had all but sealed himself to his leg. He gave the dog’s head a grateful pet, then led the way to the couch, lowering himself next to Lachlan and letting his breath out in a whoosh.
“What’ve we got?” he asked.
Sully moved toward them, indicating through hand movement for Lachlan to scoot over. Then he sandwiched himself into the space between Dez and Lachlan.
He answered Dez’s querying expression with his characteristic half-smile. “Hey, you’ve spent most of your life protecting me. Once in a while, you need to let me return the favour. At least let me vet this stuff for you first, okay?”
Dez managed a smile. “Deal.”
Lachlan glanced between the two of them, eyebrows raised in question. “We good?”
Dez nodded. “We good. What did you find?”
Lachlan first slid from the file what Dez recognized as an autopsy report. “First thing you’re going to want to look at is the name of the pathologist.”
He handed it over, allowing Dez and Sully to check it out for themselves. What it said made Dez’s stomach drop.
Kindra Abraham.
Lowell’s wife.
7
Dez stared down at the name, willing it to make sense.
Kindra. Auntie K.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not out to lunch on this,” Lachlan said. “But just so I’m clear, Kindra Abraham is Lowell Braddock’s wife, is she not?”
Dez nodded, head moving as slowly as it was taking this latest news to sink in. “Yeah.”
“When did they get married?”
“Uh….” Dez puzzled over the question. He was bad with dates. He had a hard enough time remembering his own anniversary, let along other people’s. “I don’t remember, but I know they were already together when Aiden died. I remember because Kindra was around a lot back then, trying to help.”
Lachlan raised an eyebrow. “Or making it look like she was trying to help.”
“What are you saying?”
“She provided her report to the coroner complete with conclusions. Her opinion was that Aiden died as the result of misadventure. An accident. Most of his injuries suffered at or around the time of death. Granted, it’s never been easy to slap a time on a bruise, given variations in people’s healing times. But since the coroner asked for and received a photo taken of Aiden shortly before this happened—no shirt and without any obvious injuries—it stands to reason many of the contusions and abrasions he suffered were the result of his death.”
“Do you have the photo?” Dez asked.
Lachlan opened the folder—cover held so Dez couldn’t easily see the contents—then removed a five-by-eight photograph. He handed it to Sully but Dez took it before he had a chance to study it. He needed to see it himself.
He didn’t remember the picture, but he recalled the circumstances. The last picture of him and Aiden together.
Mara had taken it the morning of the day Aiden had disappeared. Dez sat sulking on the end of his bed, controller for his video game console clutched in his hands and narrowed eyes fixed to the screen. Next to him, his mom had posed Aiden, impish grin wide, blondish-red hair in dire need of a comb. He’d dared to loop a freckled arm around his older brother, and Dez had a recollection of pushing Aiden away the moment after their mom had snapped the picture.
He stared into the face of this younger Dez, studying the frown, the glare, the way his body was angled away from Aiden’s. It was the look of a boy who wanted to be left alone, who wanted his little brother out of his hair. A boy who’d wanted more than anything to have a dog and felt put upon his allergic kid brother had ruined it for him. A boy who didn’t know how good he had it.
Who didn’t know how horrifically everything was about to fall apart.
Dez wanted more than anything to reach into that photo and smack his younger self upside the head. To hug the kid sitting next to him and keep him at his side every minute until their parents got home.
Sully’s voice cut into his dark thoughts. “You okay?”
“I was an idiot back then. This was taken a few hours before he went missing. Mom and Dad were going out, and I hadn’t been speaking to Aiden. Lowell was coming over to watch us, and Mom didn’t want me being a jerk when he got there. She took the photo thinking it would get a laugh out of me. If she and Aiden could get me to laugh, everything would be okay.” He took a breath, let it out in a sigh shaky with emotion. “I didn’t laugh. I pushed him away and told him to leave me alone.”
“Dez, he knows you don’t hate him. He knows how much he means to you. He really does. Brothers fight. I mean, we fight, right?”
“Never the way I fought with him. I used to go into one of my sulks with him, and I wouldn’t talk to him for days except to say shitty things to him. I never let things go that long with you, not even recently when things were really bad between us. It was because of him, you know. Because of how I left things. I was a jerk to him that day, and that’s the last memory I have of the two of us together: him wanting to play hide and seek and me letting him go off without any intention of looking. I’ve never left things like that again with someone I love.”
“Still doesn’t change the one thing that matters. He knows, Dez. He’s always known.”
“I wish I could see him.”
“I can see him, and I know how much he thinks of you. I’m pretty sure you do too. He’s proven it. He watches over you, D. He always has. There’s no way anyone who’s spent close to twenty years doing that wouldn’t know how much he means to you.”
“Is he here? Now?”
Sully nodded. “With Dad.”
Dez sighed. “I guess that’ll have to be good enough for me.”
He patted Sully’s knee, then snapped his attention to the man on his brother’s other side at the sound of a throat clearing. Locked in his own emotional torment, Dez had almost forgotten Lachlan was there.
Dez cleared his own throat in response. “Sorry, Lachlan.”
“Are we done with the mushy bromantic moment?” Lachlan’s question, the words reminiscent of his usual snark, was belied by the gentler tone in his voice and an accompanying smile—kind rather than mocking. Dez considered pulling himself further from his funk by chiding Lachlan on his soft side, but decided such a move would be risky to life and limb.
“Yeah,” Dez said. “Sorry.”
Sully stepped in with a question before Lachlan could continue. “If Kindra was with Lowell already, how was she able to do the autopsy? Isn’t that a conflict?”
“No one considered the death suspicious at the time, and the police didn’t notice anything on the body to indicate otherwise,” Lachlan said. “It’s there, when you look for it, but it isn’t the most noticeable of marks. The other issue was that, as I recall from my policing days, they were short on forensic pathologists for a couple of years back then. Kindra might have taken it as a matter of necessity. And it might also be worth asking how deep into their relationship she and Lowell really were. Do you have any recollection of Kindra i
n your lives prior to Aiden’s death?”
Dez considered it but wasn’t completely clear. “A lot from my life at that point is kind of fuzzy. Everything blurred out a bit around Aiden, I guess. I remember Kindra being there pretty much right after, but I’m not so sure I can say she was there before.”
“Can you find out?”
“I’ll ask Mom. She’ll remember.”
“Wait on that a minute,” Lachlan said. “Let me show you the reason for my concerns.” He paused, meeting Sully’s eye first, as if passing him a silent message. Only then did he look back at Dez. “I need to show you a photo of Aiden’s upper body. It’s just neck down.”
Dez stalled a moment, then nodded. This time, he allowed Sully to play the role of vetter, keeping his own eyes averted as he listened to the sound of a photo being slipped from the file.
“Dez?” Sully said a second later. “I think it’s okay.”
Dez rubbed at his face, then turned to look.
An image of a child’s chest rested on Sully’s knees. The deathly pallor and the bruises might have grabbed most people’s attention but, for Dez, it was the freckles. Aiden’s freckles. The ones Dez had so often bugged him about.
His eyes burned as tears built. Sully started to turn the photo over but Dez brought a hand down on his forearm, stopping him. “No. It’s okay.” He peered over at Lachlan. “What did you want to show us?”
“You sure, Braddock?”
“Yeah. Let’s just get this over with.”
Lachlan looked to Sully and continued after receiving a tight nod. “According to the report, lividity was toward the back of the body, which made sense as he was found lying on his back. That meant the skin on his front was less mottled, so we can read the bruising more easily. Now, Dr. Abraham said the bruising she found was almost entirely indicative of blunt-force trauma, such as from coming into contact with debris. She and the coroner used that, combined with knowledge of the river’s rather strong current, to determine the injuries Aiden suffered were the result of his impacting against rocks or fallen trees. What went ignored—possibly deliberately—were these.”