“You should have thought of your child when you started sticking your nose where it didn’t belong,” Ben snarled.
“No, please. I swear I won’t say anything. Please just let me go. My boy needs me.”
Tears rolled down Aaron’s cheeks as he watched, completely horrified. Horrified and terrified. The ache in his heart was indescribable.
“Yes, he probably does.”
“Ben, please. You have a son the same age as mine. All my boy has is me. All he has is me. Please, please. Have mercy. I promise I won’t say anything.”
Her words trailed away in his mind. All he could see was Ben’s reaction. Aaron watched him. Ben looked at Jackson and smiled, then he returned the focus to his mother.
“Rachel, I have too much at stake to just let you go. My family, yes indeed, and my job. You could destroy me with all that you know. I can’t take that risk.” Ben spoke as if he were talking about something as simple as the weather. “You know just a bit too much for my liking.”
When his mother looked over to where Aaron was hiding, bile rose into his throat and burned his heart. It was like he just knew what was going to happen next and felt that that split second was their last moment together.
The horror of the thought snapped him into action. Screw the promise, he had to do something.
He pushed against the hatch door at the same time that Jackson pulled back the revolver.
His mother saw him and screamed, “No!” It was a resounding, high-pitched sound that ripped through every fiber in his being and froze him in place at the same time that the gun went off.
She screamed again, even as the bullet pierced her heart and her eyes held him in place, begging him to go back in hiding.
“No! Don’t do it!” It was her final scream and warning to him as Jackson fired the gun again. This time shooting her straight in her head.
Her eyes never left Aaron’s. They pleaded with him, even as the life left her body, to stay back. To stay hidden. It was her last motherly act.
It highlighted the promise he made to her in his mind, and at that moment he abandoned the promise he made to his father. The promise to take care of her.
Aaron shook, his head feeling light as the air left his lungs. There was blood everywhere. Everywhere.
“Throw her into the sea,” Ben ordered and walked out.
The sea. That cruel place, that wilderness where she would be lost forever.
It must have been instinct that moved him as Jackson looked around and Aaron lowered back the hatch door. It must have been instinct and adrenaline that took over his body and mind because an intense grief and despair wracked him from deep within and all he wanted to do was scream and cry. Scream and cry. Scream until there was nothing left of him. Scream until his voice left, and dissolved in the wind.
They killed his mother. His mother who was his everything, his mother who meant more to him than life.
They killed his precious mother.
And he had to sit there and listen to Jackson gather her up and take her away.
She was never found, never laid to rest properly, just no more.
Through the screaming and crying, neither Ben nor Jackson noted that in those final moments she wasn’t talking to either of them. They’d stopped listening and indulged on the evil that drove them to kill for what they wanted.
Aaron waited until Jackson left, and for hours after, before he came out of hiding. Moonlight lit what it could of the barn inside. It bounced off one single object on the floor. His mother’s wedding band. It was just visible through the clumps of hay on the ground. That was all that was left of her.
They’d taken her car, so he had to walk.
Feeling like he could barely walk, Aaron went to the nearest police station that same night and tried to tell the officers what had happened. Cleverly, he never revealed who he was. He even tried to hide his appearance by pulling his hair forward into his face so that it just about covered his eyes. Then he just said he’d seen what happened and wanted to report it.
However, the minute they heard the name Vanderville, the police didn’t believe him. He was in that station for hours, the rest of the night. It was when he saw Ben Vanderville come into the station and exchange warm greetings with the same officer Aaron had reported him to that he knew that telling the police was fruitless. It was the first time that his eyes were opened to corruption. Much more than witnessing his mother’s murder. Aaron fled before either the officer or Ben could see him.
After that he headed to his grandmother’s and told her everything. While there, he looked in his mother’s handbag and saw all the evidence and copies of everything Ben had referred to when he questioned his mother. When Aaron read it all he saw the reason for her death. Everything in her bag could definitely destroy Ben, indeed, in a handful of seconds.
When his grandmother tried to report what happened and get an investigation underway, she was suddenly committed to a mental institution.
His grandmother had been sane, healthy, a complete health freak. Only one person could have put her there. Benjamin Vanderville.
Then Aaron found out Ben was looking for him. He didn’t know if Ben figured out that Aaron must have seen the incident or what, but he took off from there. Changed his name, changed his whole identity, and planned his revenge. He’d looked in on Ben and his family over the years as he played different roles in their lives, completely unknown to them. Sometimes he scared himself at how he’d developed the talent to conceal himself and manipulate people.
During his time of observing he’d come to know two things. The first was that Benjamin was greedy for power and would do anything to protect his interest and prospect for more power. Aaron’s mother was killed because she posed a threat to him.
The second thing was that Ben loved his children. His wife he used because of her status, and like a fool she stayed with him, so in Aaron’s eyes she was no different. His children, Wade and Taylor, were his everything, however. He might not have been a good father, but the love was there. Losing them, their love, their respect, their lives, would destroy Ben.
Aaron still had his mother’s handbag to this day, with everything intact, waiting to be unleashed to the world, along with everything else he’d gathered over the years. Ben Vanderville was afraid of being destroyed back then, but what he didn’t realize was that destruction was upon him the minute Jackson had cut off his mother’s finger.
Aaron. Yes, he would be Aaron again. It seemed fitting to deal this last act as Aaron. It was his birth name. The name his mother gave him, naming him after his grandfather.
He’d promised his mother the day she died that he’d stay hidden, that whatever happened he’d stay hidden. He had, over the years, but not to protect himself. He’d stayed hidden, waiting for the right moment to strike and bring down justice on Benjamin Vanderville.
Right now, he was exacting the promise he’d made to his father. He was going to take care of his mother. He’d felt like a failure to her in life, but he wouldn’t fail her in death.
He straightened up and looked over at Jackson sitting on the chair across from him. The man widened his eyes and looked at him as he moved to him. The missing finger on his hand looked like it was starting to fester and the man looked sick. Green and clammy, sweat was dripping from him as if it was Caribbean-hot in the room. He didn’t look like he’d have long left. Maybe another week or so. He’d lost a lot of blood when Aaron chopped off his finger.
Jackson mumbled something through the duct tape Aaron had placed over his mouth. Aaron laughed at the sight of him. Helplessly tied to a chair with his nine fingers.
“That hand of yours looks just terrible,” Aaron cooed, looking at it. It looked really gross. Perfect for sending to Ben.
The finger he’d sent to Regina was to scare her. He thought he’d repay the sentiment Jackson had delivered his mother, but Aaron was going to do much more than that.
Just like his mother, Jackson had been reported missing. Missing. That
was what everyone thought. That Rachel Dean had just gone missing. Look up missing persons now on the police database and that is all it would say, along with the date she was last seen.
There wasn’t really an investigation, no inquiry after he filled his report, just nothing. All corruption spreading from the state’s attorney’s office right through to the police.
Matters were in his hands now and he’d make every last one of them pay. It was so good he got to start with Jackson.
Aaron hummed to the tune of The Beach Boys “California Girls” and grabbed the meat cleaver from the kitchen counter. He’d sharpened it earlier.
Jackson struggled against the cords that bound him to the chair and tears ran down his cheeks.
It’s funny, Aaron thought he’d looked so much scarier all those years ago. With his gun and rough-edged attitude and personality. Aaron had nightmares of this man for years after the incident.
Every night he saw the whole scene unfold before him as if sleep was a doorway to the memory stored in his mind.
Weeks ago, when he found Jackson helping out at a support group for young women who were runaways, the image came to mind and he knew the whole helping thing had to be some kind of a farce. Of course, he couldn’t have been more right. The night Aaron got him, he’d found Jackson trying to force himself on a girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
He’d always been told that the wicked eventually did themselves in. That was exactly what happened there. But he was there to save the day, to some extent. He saved the girl, tackled Jackson, and brought him here.
Brought him here to kill him. Slowly and purposefully.
As he raised the meat clever, Jackson screamed against the tape. The sound was muffled but seemed to echo from him when Aaron brought it down and chopped off the blood-festered hand.
He watched Jackson writhe and squirm with the pain and agony and he felt nothing. In the background, the news reporter continued to talk about Wade’s arrest. They’d just released Merissa’s name.
Jackson squirmed until he passed out. It was probably from all the blood loss.
Aaron released a breath and rested against the wall, half watching him and the TV.
He was definitely going to enjoy this next phase.
It was time to finish this game. Time for revenge, time for justice.
When he was through, everyone would know the real Ben Vanderville, and he and his family would be more than destroyed.
He’d obliterate them.
Chapter 2
Wade
The coldness of his cell wall seeped into his skin. It was the only thing he could feel. Everything else felt numb, and not real.
Wade felt like he was floating around in a nightmare that he was struggling to wake up from. As if his soul was pressing on the backs of his eye lids and attempting to break free.
How could this have happened?
He didn’t even care that he was in jail. That didn’t matter. That part of this event didn’t register to him.
What mattered was Merissa was dead. She was dead, just like their son.
He’d seen them both dead and those were images he would never be able to get out of his mind. Wade had failed them both.
He and Merissa may not have been a couple now, but at one point they were. They were a family. A guy, a girl, and their baby. They were a little family he’d created, and lost. Just like that, they no longer existed.
How could this have happened?
Merissa’s hate for him connected her with this mad man who’d been terrorizing his family. Her intense hate for Wade and need for revenge had done that, and now she was dead.
She’d died in the worst way possible. Stabbed in her heart, stabbed multiple times. How many times he couldn’t remember. When the officer who brought him in spoke to him, Wade couldn’t process what he’d said. He could just about see that he was talking to him, but he couldn’t process what he was saying.
Wade had just receded into himself, into the chasm of despair that dwelled within the walls of his soul.
This was his fault. That was the bottom line. This was his fault. It all stemmed back to the day of the accident over five years ago when his baby died.
It stemmed back to that split second when he was at the beach party with Merissa and she’d tried to stop him from going off with George. If he could go back in time and change things, he’d go back to that point.
That was the point of decision. His right-or-left moment in life. He chose to go with George and everything went to hell. It meant that everything from that point was destined for disaster.
Even the good, like being with Chloe.
“Chloe,” he breathed. It was the first thing he’d said since the police took him in custody.
She was the essence of his soul. Not just his girlfriend, but his soulmate. She left him, just like he thought she would after finding out about his carelessness when he was with Merissa.
He prayed that wherever Chloe was she was safe. He prayed that she was on that plane to France. Miles away from here, miles away from him. He should have never been with her. He shouldn’t have put her in danger, or in the awkward position she’d been in with Merissa.
Chloe was outside of all of this craziness and Wade had no business being with a girl like that. Girl. Damn it, he still thought of her as a girl. It was habit. A result of growing up with her and seeing her as a girl for a large chunk of their lives.
She was a woman, now, and she deserved more, she deserved better than him. She always did. She was out of his league. Always too good for him, always out of his reach.
Chloe was right to leave him, and it was a good thing he let her go. That was perhaps the first right thing he’d done since getting back to L.A. Literally, the first right thing.
She was better off without him, and right about love not being enough. It wasn’t. He could see now, oh so clearly, that it wasn’t. How could love be enough if it meant that she could die?
Right now, Wade just wanted to die. He didn’t want to exist anymore, but if something happened to Chloe he’d want his soul to die, too. He’d never been particularly religious. Hadn’t come from any sort of religious background or anything, but he believed he had a soul and there had to be some sort of afterlife. If something happened to Chloe, he’d want to be erased. Completely erased.
He’d never thought that he could fall in love. It was so stupid that it had taken him his whole life to realize that Chloe had always been the keeper of his heart.
Instantly he recalled her mother telling him about his stupid attempts to use her stockings as a zip line when he was six, and poor Chloe trying to follow him. There wasn’t a single childhood memory he had that didn’t have her in it. She’d said he never chose her and she was right. He didn’t.
Wade wouldn’t sugar coat anything and pretend he wasn’t at fault. Just like with everything else.
When he was younger, he’d gone from one woman to the next, getting through them as fast as he changed his clothes. The girl who was too good for him was too much work. It meant changing too much of himself to try to be with her, and the idiot that he was hadn’t seen that his life would have been better if he’d gone down that route.
But he got what he deserved.
This.
This is what happened to people like him. Guys like him who ruined people’s lives.
The sound of a commotion drew his attention away from his thoughts. He thought he could hear his father’s voice down the hall. He looked over at the cell opposite him and saw a muscular, tattooed guy sitting in his cell staring at the wall opposite him. Pretty much doing the same thing Wade was doing.
The voices grew and Wade straightened up when he did, indeed, hear his father’s voice.
His father walked up to the cell door and glared at him with wide, extremely worried eyes. Next to him was the surly officer who guarded the jail cells. The man had led Wade in here earlier.
“Open the damn cell,” his fath
er balked at the guard who was actually already in the process of opening the cell.
Once it was opened, his father charged in and went straight over to him.
“Leave us,” he ordered the guard.
“I’m not really allowed to, Mr. Vanderville.”
“I am the state’s attorney; you will allow me,” his father snapped. Wade had only ever seen him look this enraged a handful of times in his life. All of those times were to do with Wade. A response to something he’d done.
Like now.
Wade just stared at him.
“I’ll just be here,” the officer said uneasily, but with a firmness that showed them both that he was just doing his job.
Never having been in jail before—which may have surprised most people—Wade wasn’t familiar with the procedures of how things worked. But he’d imagined that his father must have had some leeway with his position.
Wade continued to stare at his father and wondered how this whole thing would look on him and his plans to be governor. Having a son who’d just been arrested for murder couldn’t be a good look for him.
He’d managed to keep Wade’s previous drug addiction and reckless behavior out of the press, and it was obvious that he’d managed to keep Wade’s five-year absence out of the media’s eyes too. This, on the other hand, was different. Wade had seen reporters earlier and he’d caught a glimpse of himself on the news while he was being booked.
Hours had passed since, so he was sure the world would know soon enough. He hadn’t been questioned yet. That was to come and he wasn’t looking forward to it because he didn’t want to talk to anyone.
He didn’t want to talk about what happened and say he didn’t kill Merissa, because it was his fault why she died. He didn’t want to excuse his guilt, or make it seem like there was anything innocent about him.
He opened his mouth to tell his father to leave but his father held up his hand, silencing him. He shook his head and kneeled on the floor before Wade.
“Don’t you dare tell me to leave,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare do it, Wade. Don’t.” His father held his gaze with his steely gray eyes. His face stern and serious.
Into The Rabbit Hole Page 2