All the Beautiful Brides

by Rita Herron

  “Your mother killed three teenagers thirty years ago,” Cal said. “She’ll have to answer to that.”

  “They deserved it,” Charlene screeched, suddenly stirring back to life. “Those girls acted like Goody Two-shoes, but they were nothing but liars and whores. They made a pact that all of them were going to sleep with Johnny before prom. And they all had dates with him, but he ignored me.”

  Anna gasped. “That’s why you framed him.” She faced Billy. “Your mother killed those girls and then stole their jewelry. Is that why you took Gwyneth’s and Constance’s jewelry, too? So you could give it to your mother?”

  “Mama likes pretty things,” Billy said in a childlike voice.

  “Release Mona and you can meet your father,” Cal said, trying to distract Billy. “In fact, I just talked to him.”

  “You did?” Billy’s voice held almost a hint of wonder.

  Josie looked at her mother. “You talked to Johnny Pike?”

  “Yes. I thought you might have gone to see him.” Anna gave Josie an imploring look. “I’m sorry, honey, that you read my diary. But Johnny is not your father.”

  Cal crept forward. “Billy, listen to me. Your mother sent your father to jail when he was an innocent man. She kept him from you.”

  “No!” Billy shouted. But he turned to his mother with an angry glint in his eyes. “That’s not true, is it, Mama?”

  “He didn’t deserve to be with you!” Charlene cried. “Not the way he treated me.”

  “See, your mother is the liar, Billy. She lied and murdered those girls, and now she’s turned you into a killer just like her.”

  “Shut up!” Billy released Mona and lunged toward Cal.

  Billy was a big guy and full of rage, but Cal fired and the bullet struck him in the stomach. He bellowed in pain and shock, then rocked back and collapsed.

  Mona stumbled and fell to the floor, gasping for air. Anna ran toward Josie and dragged her into her arms, rocking her back and forth. “I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  “No, Mama,” Josie whispered. “It’s all right.”

  Anna looked into her daughter’s eyes and saw the man who’d fathered her. But it wasn’t Johnny. She hadn’t lied about that.

  “It’s time I told you everything, Josie.”

  Even though Billy was bleeding, Cal unchained Josie, then dragged Billy over to the bed and handcuffed him to the metal frame. Then he raced over to Mona while Charlene collapsed into hysterical tears in her wheelchair.

  “Are you okay?” Cal searched Mona’s face and ran his hands over her arms and shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m all right,” Mona said. “Call an ambulance for Billy and his mother.”

  Cal checked Billy’s pulse as he made the call. Cell phone service was spotty in the mountains, but he got a connection.

  Anna lifted a chain from around her neck, indicating a charm of a baby bootie on the end. “Josie, honey, I did have a baby by Johnny,” Anna said. “Another little girl. Not you, Josie, but you do have a sister.”

  “What happened to her?” Josie asked.

  “I gave her up for adoption.”

  Mona frowned, Anna’s words sinking in as her head began to clear.

  “Daddy was sure Johnny was the Thorn Ripper, and he insisted I give the baby up for adoption. He made me leave town until the baby was born.”

  “That’s the reason you and my granddaddy don’t get along,” Josie said.

  Anna nodded. “I hated him for making me give her up.” She rubbed her fingers over the charm. “I was so distraught that a few weeks after that, I met this other man, your father. I got pregnant right away . . . I guess I felt so guilty I had to replace one child with another.”

  “So my father really did die?” Josie said.

  “Yes, honey, I’m afraid so.”

  Mona made another sound in her throat. “Anna, you gave up a baby . . .” Her gaze latched onto the baby bootie charm.

  “Yes, a few months after Johnny’s arrest,” she said. “Daddy said my baby would be better off with a stable married couple, that if I kept her everyone would know she was a serial killer’s child.”

  Mona’s heart pounded. “What happened to that baby?”

  Josie frowned. “Yes, Mom, where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. “My father arranged for her to be adopted. He used the lawyer in town.” Anna’s voice cracked, and she stroked the charm frantically. “I held her for a minute after she was born, and I gave her a charm just like this one, so she’d have something from me, something so she’d know I loved her.”

  Mona’s chest ached with unshed tears as she lifted her own chain from beneath the wedding gown.

  It was the same baby bootie charm Anna was wearing.

  “My God,” Anna gasped.

  “My parents died, but they left a letter for me with their lawyer explaining that I was adopted, and that I was from Graveyard Falls. I’ve been looking for you for months.”

  Emotions wrenched Anna’s face as she reached out for Mona.

  Mona embraced Anna, tears clogging her throat. She had been looking for her mother, and now she’d finally found her.

  Deputy Kimball arrived with an ambulance a few minutes later. Cal made sure the medics examined Josie, then he ushered Mona, Anna, and Josie outside while the CSI team entered the cabin to process it for evidence.

  He instructed the deputy to drive the women to the police station to give statements, and to phone Sheriff Buckley to meet them there. “After that, pick up Felicity Hacker. We still have some details to clear up.”

  Deputy Kimball agreed, and Cal phoned Agent Hamrick, filled him in, and told him he could stop the surveillance on Yonkers.

  The similarities between Yonkers and Billy were eerie, but Cal had learned a long time ago that sometimes the most obvious suspect wasn’t the killer. He knew one man who would agree wholeheartedly with that statement—Johnny Pike. Cal still wondered if Yonkers was dangerous, though.

  Hamrick drove over to escort Billy and his mother via ambulance to the hospital, where they would be placed under strict guard and psychiatric care. Billy would also be treated for the gunshot wound, and his mother would receive medical care.

  Before the deputy left, though, Cal stepped out to talk to Mona and Anna. “I don’t want to go back to my father’s,” Anna said. “Not now.”

  “Come to my house,” Mona said. “You and Josie.”

  Cal heard the emotion in Mona’s voice and knew she had a lot to deal with. She had been searching for her mother for a long time, and now she’d found her and a half sister. She even knew her birth father’s name and hopefully could meet him.

  Anna folded her arms. “We have to talk to the judge and free Johnny, Agent Coulter.”

  “We will. The jewelry was the missing link before, and now we have it,” Cal said. “And the crime team will search this place thoroughly. Charlene may have kept more evidence than we know. I’ll also have those notes Johnny supposedly wrote analyzed. The handwriting should prove that Charlene wrote them.”

  “Billy took pictures of me,” Mona said. “He probably took them of the other victims.”

  “Okay. We’ll look for them.” His eyes searched Mona’s. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, although she averted her gaze. More than anything he wanted to hold her in his arms and console her.

  But this wasn’t the time or place to confess his feelings.

  Anna wrapped her arm around Josie and then Mona. “Come on, girls. Let’s ride with the deputy and give our statements, then we can go home together.”

  Deputy Kimball escorted the three of them to his squad car. As they left, Cal went to confer with the investigators.

  One of the techs stepped from the mother’s bedroom carrying a wooden box. “Th
ere are dozens of letters in here,” he said. “Love letters written from Charlene to Johnny that she never sent.” With a gloved hand, he dangled one of the letters in the air. “In this one, she writes about how she enticed the girls one by one to go to the falls with a rose and a fake love note from Johnny. The note claimed that he had chosen her over the others for his prom date. The girls went expecting a romantic rendezvous but fell to their death instead.” He removed another letter and showed it to Cal. “This one has a list of the victims—she titled it ‘All the Little Liars.’”

  Cal sighed. “That and the victims’ jewelry should be enough to get Pike’s conviction overturned.”

  Anna would be thrilled. She obviously still loved the man.

  And now Mona would get a chance to know both of her birth parents.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Cal made certain the crime scene investigators searched every inch of the Linder house and roped it off as a crime scene before he drove to the station.

  He carried the bagged evidence of the jewelry, the Bride Book, and Charlene’s letters to present to Sheriff Buckley, but more importantly, to a judge.

  By the time he arrived, Mona, Anna, and Josie were waiting in the back. “I had each of them write down their statements,” Deputy Kimball said. “And I took them coffee.”

  “Thanks.”

  Felicity Hacker, a woman Anna’s age, looked worried as she paced the front office.

  “Thank you for coming,” Cal said.

  “I didn’t think I had a choice,” Felicity said, her voice cracking.

  “It’s important, Felicity.” He started to explain, but Sheriff Buckley burst through the door.

  He looked frazzled and confused. “What’s going on? Is Anna okay?”

  “Yes, Sheriff,” Cal said.

  Odd that he didn’t ask about his granddaughter.

  “I’ve made an arrest in the Bride Killer case and I wanted to fill you in.”

  Felicity looked panicked at the sight of the sheriff. Sheriff Buckley hitched his pants up and scowled, though, as if he didn’t know her.

  “I told Anna you didn’t belong here. I don’t want Johnny Pike’s bastard kid in my town.”

  Cal frowned, but Felicity curved her arms around her waist as if she wanted to disappear.

  Deputy Kimball hissed between his teeth. “Sheriff, this is Felicity Hacker, not your granddaughter.”

  Now Cal was beginning to understand the reason the man had retired. The brain tumor must be causing dementia.

  “Let’s all sit down in one of the rooms in back, and I’ll explain.”

  Felicity glanced at the door as if she wanted to run, but the sheriff shrugged and followed the deputy to the back. When he opened the door and Buckley saw his daughter and granddaughter, his face paled.

  Then he looked at Mona and an odd look crossed his face. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just sit down, Daddy,” Anna said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  Buckley dragged out a wooden chair and straddled it. Felicity looked at Anna, then Mona, and started to tremble.

  “Take a seat, Felicity,” Cal said gently. Although he didn’t know why he was being gentle. Her statement about Pike, which he now suspected was false, had helped send an innocent man to prison for half his life.

  Felicity practically fell into the seat, then shut down.

  Cal took the lead. “All right, Sheriff Buckley, Felicity, I’ll tell you what we know so far, and then you can fill in the blanks or make any corrections that need to be made.”

  Felicity glanced at the sheriff for support, but he had a faraway look in his eyes.

  Cal explained about tracking down and arresting Charlene Linder and her son, and the revelations he’d uncovered in Charlene’s letters detailing her motive for the murders.

  “So Johnny Pike was innocent,” Felicity said, her expression stricken.

  Anna gave her a look mixed with anger and grief. “Yes. Why did you lie about him attacking you?”

  Felicity wiped at tears. “I was so shy and didn’t have many friends, and I wanted to be in that group with Tiffany and Brittany and Candy. I thought if they liked me, everyone else would.” She hesitated, twisting her hands together.

  “Go on,” Cal said.

  She sighed. “I heard them talking about that pact, that they were all going to sleep with Johnny. Then he went out with each of them, but he paid no attention to me.”

  “So you claimed he attacked you?” Cal asked.

  She glanced at the sheriff, but he looked at her as if she were a stranger.

  “Felicity, it’s time to tell the truth,” Cal said. “About everything.”

  She nodded, then looked down at her hands. “I was so upset about everything that I slept with this other guy one night, my cousin’s friend, and I got pregnant. My father threw me out and I ran away. I was living in an old abandoned place and one night I . . . started bleeding and the baby came, but it was stillborn.”

  She gulped back tears. “I was all alone and scared, and then the sheriff showed up, and I thought he was going to arrest me and say I killed my baby.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sheriff Buckley said.

  Anna stood, her angry gaze on her father. “Dad, let her talk.”

  “He said I did something to the baby, and he was going to tell everyone and I’d go to jail for the rest of my life. Then he asked me who the father was, and I said Johnny, because I was just so mad and upset and I wanted it to be Johnny.”

  Anna whispered a soft sound of denial, and Josie and Mona each clasped her hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” Felicity said. “I didn’t mean to get him in so much trouble, but when I said Johnny was the father—” She faced the former sheriff, who was glowering at her now like she was a madwoman. “The sheriff told me not to worry, that he’d help me take care of things. He helped me bury my baby.” Tears streaked Felicity’s face, an agonized cry escaping.

  “So when the first murder occurred, the sheriff assumed it was Johnny,” Cal said. “That he’d attacked the girl. Then Charlene framed Johnny and claimed he tried to strangle her, and the sheriff believed her because of your story.”

  Felicity nodded, her face tormented.

  Sheriff Buckley’s face contorted. “Who are you? What are you saying about me?”

  Anna crossed her arms. “Dad, you turned on Johnny based on a lie, and then you railroaded him into jail.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Felicity cried. “I . . . I’ll testify to the truth if you need me to free Johnny.”

  “I think we have enough evidence to exonerate him,” Cal said.

  Mona stood and went to the woman. “I’m sorry for what you went through, Felicity, but thank you for telling us the truth now.”

  Sheriff Buckley made a blustery sound. “I got to go arrest that Pike boy. He’s nothing but trouble.”

  Anna hugged Josie to her as her father shoved his chair away and strode from the room.

  Cal gestured to the deputy to let him handle the situation. “Drive the ladies home. I’ll take care of the sheriff.”

  “He needs to be hospitalized,” Anna said, her voice bitter.

  Cal nodded. Buckley had memory issues now that would play in his favor, but he had definitely run roughshod over a young man’s life, and by focusing all his efforts on putting Pike away instead of finding the truth, he’d failed to do his job. Worse, he’d allowed his own personal feelings to cloud his judgment.

  Because of that, Charlene Linder had escaped prison and raised a serial killer, who had started a murder spree of his own.

  Mona was still in shock as the deputy dropped off Anna, Josie, and her at her house. She’d stripped off that hideous wedding gown and dressed in her own clothes before they’d left. But she still felt dirty.

  Anna had asked th
em to make a quick stop at her father’s house, where she and Josie packed an overnight bag.

  They had all just found each other, and none of them wanted to part. They had missed so much of each other’s lives that they had to make up for it.

  Still, Mona was worried about Josie and the trauma, but Josie insisted she didn’t want to go to the hospital or see a psychiatrist.

  “I have to shower,” Mona said, still feeling the touch of Billy’s hands on her.

  Josie shuddered. “Me too.”

  Mona showed Anna and Josie to the guest room and bath, and she disappeared into her own bathroom.

  She closed her eyes as she stepped into the shower, hoping to erase the memory as the dirty stench from Billy’s house swirled down the drain.

  But the dead girls’ faces would haunt her for a long time.

  So would Billy’s. He was related to her—she still didn’t know how to wrap her head around that fact.

  They shared a father—Johnny Pike.

  Yet Billy was psychotic.

  Because of his mother, she reminded herself. An abusive mother, not because of their father.

  Their father was an innocent man who’d served the majority of his life in prison because he’d been framed.

  She scrubbed herself, washed and dried her hair, and yanked on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, then went downstairs. Suddenly jittery with excitement and relief that she’d finally found her birth mother, and that she had a half sister, she hurried to join them.

  A minute later, Anna and Josie both appeared, also showered and dressed in pajamas, and looking as shell-shocked as she felt.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Mona said as she looked at Anna. “I dreamed about finding you for so long.”

  Tears filled Anna’s eyes. “No more than I dreamed about finding you.”

  Mona glanced at Josie. She could understand if Josie had reservations—she had been an only child all her life. But understanding and excitement glittered in Josie’s eyes.

  “I always wanted a sister,” Josie whispered.

  The three of them hugged and cried for several minutes, emotions overwhelming them.