When Houses Burn

by Laurèn Lee

  When Houses Burn

  Laurèn Lee

  Copyright © 2017 Laurèn Lee All Rights Reserved.

  Laurèn Lee asserts the moral and legal right to be identified as the author of this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the owner. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding other than that which it is published and without similar condition including being imposed on the subsequent purchases.

  This book is a work of fiction, but any similarity to other persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-10:1545585474

  ISBN-13: 978-1545585474

  Created with Vellum

  For Mike, the man who taught me about finding light amidst the darkness

  Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  3. Evening Herald

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  6. Evening Herald

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  9. Evening Herald

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  12. Evening Herald

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  15. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  18. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  21. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  24. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  27. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  30. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  33. EVENING HERALD

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  36. EVENING HERALD

  PART II

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  55. Evening Herald

  Epilogue

  Charlotte’s Pact

  Charlotte’s Pact

  Cranberry Lane

  Cranberry Lane

  Running in Circles

  Running in Circles

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Laurèn Lee

  Part I

  1

  Present

  “Dr. Hedley, your next patient is here to see you.”

  “Thank you, Jennifer. You may let him in.”

  Jennifer smiled and gently closed the door to retrieve my next appointment. Trying to calm my nerves, I carefully gathered my handwritten notes regarding my previous patient and put them in my desk drawer, securely turning the key in the lock.

  A short and steady knock rapped upon my door.

  “Come in,” I instructed.

  A handsome man strolled into my office with a purpose. He appeared even more attractive than in the newspaper photographs. He wore an Armani suit and seemed built like an athlete, an unyielding athlete. Standing up to shake his hand, I realized just how tall he stood; he towered over me. His emerald eyes surprised me; I had never seen any quite so brilliantly striking.

  “Dr. Hedley, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “You may call me Delilah if you’d like. Please, make yourself comfortable, Mr. Finch.”

  “You may call me Lucas,” he said charmingly.

  He sat down across from me, in the black leather chair used by all of my clients. I tried to ensure my office operated as a soothing environment for those I counseled. Luscious fichus plants stood in all four corners, the curtains separated to allow the natural light to flow in and I covered the walls with tasteful artwork. My office is my safe space and a sanctuary for my patients; at least I hoped it was.

  “Well, Delilah, shall we begin?”

  “Absolutely, do you want to start by telling me why you’re here?”

  “Surely, you have read the newspapers, Dr. Hedley?”

  I had been following Lucas’ story with a curious fixation. His face and story had been plastered all over the news. It would’ve been more difficult not to have heard about the case against him.

  “Yes, I am subtly familiar,” I lied.

  “Then, you know why I’m here.”

  “I’d like to hear it directly from you, Lucas.”

  He smiled patiently, but I sensed he felt it unnecessary to explain his current predicament.

  Lucas sighed, “I’m here because I have to be.”

  “I understand, Lucas. However, please tell me what brings you here, even though you are here involuntarily.”

  “You see, the court mandated I seek professional counsel for thirty, one hour sessions.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m here because I am mentally unstable, so they say.” He leaned back in the chair with his nose up to me. Casually, he massaged his refined chestnut beard with an air of nonchalance.

  I gazed into his piercing eyes, and he merely smiled back, glowing with anticipation. His jawline was perfectly constructed. He could’ve been a Greek God in a past life, no questions about it.

  “I’m here because my parents are dead.”

  “I am sorry for your loss,” I said softly.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes, of course. To lose one’s parents is a horrific tragedy.”

  “Are you parents still alive?”

  “Lucas, I’d like to focus on you,” I said.

  “All right, fair enough. We can always chat about you another time,” he began. “Well, I suppose I may have had a hand in my sweet parents’ demise.”

  “It’s natural to blame ourselves when horrible things happen to people we love.”

  Lucas broke out in hysterical laughter, taking me aback. “I didn’t love them.”

  I sat quietly, unsure of what to say or do next. I’ve dealt with a variety of patients throughout my professional career. I’ve had pedophiles, people with schizophrenia, and people seeking counsel for depression. But, in all my times as a psychiatrist, I’ve never met anyone quite like Lucas. He frightened me and intrigued me.

  He seemed to pick up on my lack of desire to make the next move and so he continued his dramatic soliloquy. However, before he began speaking again, he rose from the patient’s chair and walked over to the open window, gazing outside. His sudden movement allowed me to smell his cologne which I breathed in deeply, trying to grasp it tightly in my memory.

  “It was a dark and cold night.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully, “I decided the house needed a new look and so I poured gasoline on the floors, splashed it upon the walls and made sure to cover every inch of the house. And then, I lit a match and watched as the flames devoured the kitchen, the living room and dashed up the stairs to greet my sweet, loving parents in their bed.”

  He turned around to look at me; his face lit up with enchantment. It was as though a child was describing their very first trip to Disney World.

  “I walked out of the house and watched from a distance as the house became enveloped in flames. Luckily, I heard my parents wake up. I heard their desperate shri
eks and calls for help. I stood outside for some time and watched as they burned alive.”

  This wasn’t the story I had been following so closely; in fact, this wasn’t even close to what journalists reported. I had been led to believe Lucas had a mental breakdown and confessed to killing his parents due to a psychosis. The evidence had proven, though, he wasn’t guilty of killing his parents; someone else had killed them, and they were never apprehended. I had agreed to take Lucas as a client because I thought he needed help to repair his mental stability, I didn’t agree to take on a lying murderer!

  “Lucas, I’m here to help you, but I need to know you’re telling me the truth.”

  “The truth,” he began. “What does truth mean, anyway? Don’t we all lie to ourselves?”

  “Sometimes, we wish to disassociate from the truth. In self-preservation, we can dismiss certain memories or events from our conscious lives. The pain of remembering can be too much for us to cope with.”

  “Interesting,” he said as he massaged his five o’clock shadow.

  “In other circumstances, our minds are even capable of creating memories of events which may have never happened. Do you think maybe that’s what could be happening with your memories of killing your parents?”

  “You think it’s possible my memories of killing my parents are completely fictionalized?”

  “I’m not exactly sure, but that’s what I’d like to find out.”

  “I guess it’s possible. But, the images inside my head are so vibrant and real,” he glowed.

  “It can be difficult to distinguish from real memories to manufactured ones.”

  “I’m not sure what is real and what isn’t, but I think I really did kill them,” he said.

  “If your memories are legitimate, how did you feel while watching your parents die?” I asked as I stuttered, not knowing how he’d respond.

  “I felt alive.”

  2

  Past- Two Years Ago

  “Damn it, Delilah!”

  Here we go again.

  “You said you would scale back your practice.”

  “I can’t just stop seeing patients. They rely on me for help.”

  “Yeah, well while you’re busy working with the crazies and the wackos, my mother is closer to dying every single day!”

  And there it is.

  Last year, my husband’s mother began cancer treatment. She suffered from stage three breast cancer. He wanted to move to California to be with her and take care of her; He wanted us to move.

  Initially, I agreed to minimize my practice and refuse new patients slowly. However, when it came time to do so, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop helping people even if that meant choosing not to help my mother-in-law.

  James blamed me every day for his cowardice to stay. For some reason, he couldn’t face his sick mother on his own. He couldn’t live with me, but he couldn’t leave without me either.

  Heat rose to my cheeks, and my hands shook. I looked over toward the kitchen counter and noticed a bottle of gin stood opened, and half empty.

  “You can go help your mother at any time. You don’t need my permission, and you don’t need me to hold your hand!”

  “Oh, yeah. Smart, helpful, Delilah,” he slurred, running his hands through his sandy blonde hair.

  “Stop patronizing me! Why are we even arguing about this for the hundredth time?”

  “Because!” he roared, “You need to stop working so much so I can go to my mother!”

  “No one is stopping you. I am not stopping you. Go!”

  He charged toward me with an unspeakable rage. His eyes bulged and the vein in his temple nearly erupted, but I stood my ground, unflinching. “Don’t you dare, Delilah,” he warned. James’ heaving chest rose and fell, and I took a moment to look my husband over; he’d gained weight the past few months. While we were almost the same height, around five feet then or so, he’d grown surprisingly outward since we’d married. Something as simple as a tantrum now caused him to fall short of breath.

  “I cannot stop seeing my patients or deny any new ones simply because you are unable to take a plane across the country by yourself. I don’t understand where this is even coming from, James. You never had a problem traveling without me before,” I pointed out.

  “Well, I’ve never had to deal with a dying mother before, either.”

  “I am not abandoning my practice for you, James. I’ve worked too hard to give it all up now.”

  “Fuck you,” he spat.

  I stood there waiting for him to say or do something else. Instead of trying to continue battling, he poured himself another helpful serving of gin and left the kitchen. Presumably, he would be taking his drink upstairs to the guest bedroom. Relief washed over me once I heard the guest room’s door slam shut. He’d be asleep in less than ten minutes, as soon as he finished his gin.

  We’d been fighting more and more lately about going to stay with his mother. Some days he’d beg me to go with him. Others he’d yell and scream about my unwillingness to submit to him. And some days, he even broke down and cried.

  So, why wouldn’t I go with him? Shouldn’t a wife want to help her husband in his time of need? After all, we did make several vows to each other; through sickness and in health, through the good times and the bad.

  To be honest, I didn’t go to California because I just didn’t want to. James’ mother was nearly unbearable. I despised her, and she’d never been fond of me, either. We mainly pretended to like each other, but deep down, both of us knew we’d be better off if we weren’t in each other’s lives.

  She always thought her son was too good for me and she didn’t hold back reminding me every chance she got. James’ father died when he was very young, so he was all his mother had left. She clung to him like glue. He was the light of her life, the only man who mattered. The only person she’d ever love as much as James would be a grandchild. And unfortunately, she’ll probably never become a grandmother.

  My doctors have nearly confirmed my infertility. They said I have a two percent chance of ever having a child. My uterus might as well be a baron wasteland. After several miscarriages and one stillborn, I’ve lost all hope. And with every loss, James grew colder, angrier. He blamed me, of course, as if it was my intentions to sabotage our future together. In his mind, I willed our unborn children to perish; there wasn’t any other explanation. We’d always done the right things; I took prenatal vitamins, discontinued drinking and dining on fish. I even stopped working out in fear the jostling from my spinning class would harm the growing child.

  Once we told his mother about our most recent miscarriage, she couldn’t help but loathe me even more. Her hatred was poisonous, and she infected James with her rage. Her venom leached into James’ mind, allowing him to feel even more betrayed than before. He may have even regretted marrying me, but who knows? It’s not like he confided much in me anymore. The miscarriages broke him in ways I couldn’t repair.

  Adoption had been brought up, but I refused. It’s not that I didn’t want a baby, I just wanted a child of my own. I still held out hope, that one day, I’d be able to conceive a healthy baby who’d survive pregnancy and bring back a little joy to our lives. We kept trying to have a baby. However, James merely participated out of habit and not because he believed we could conceive. James knew in his heart he’d never be a father. So instead of having a baby or adopting a child, James adopted a hobby, drinking.

  It was the same show nearly every night. I’d come home around seven or eight o’clock depending on when I finished up with my last patient, and James would already be home, half in the bag.

  He almost always made dinner for the two of us. Seeing as how he worked a nine to five job and my hours drastically varied day by day. He said he didn’t mind cooking and cleaning, but I knew he wanted to use these activities as additional leverage to hold over my head. ‘Poor James. His wife couldn’t have children, and he was stuck cooking every single night. What a horrible life he lived
.’

  Oh, but it hadn’t always been so miserable between us. At one time, a long time ago, we were euphoric. We met in college, as the cliché goes, and fell instantly in love. James, a business major, and I, a psychiatry major, were each other’s yin and yang. They say opposites attract, and we attracted.

  I thought we’d be together forever. You know when you’re a little girl and you imagine what your future will look like, I always imagined I’d be with a man like James. He was my fairy tale, my prince charming, my ever after.

  However, sometimes we had trouble relating to each other. We each had completely different upbringings. Growing up, I lived with my father. My mother left us a few weeks after I was born, so my dad was essentially my mom, too. We were the two amigos, two peas in a pod, partners in crime. We were all each other had. I’d been raised to be thoughtful and respectful. My dad taught me how to listen to understand instead of to reply. Maybe he paved the way for me to become a psychiatrist; he taught me to be an excellent listener.

  While James grew up with a single parent, too, his mother was controlling and manipulative. It was almost as if she were his boss and he was her employee or student. Their bond was volatile and not always very healthy.