Poison

by Jordyn Redwood

Night was coming fast, even though it was early evening. Dark clouds threatened snow. The car was cold despite the tepid air spewing from the vents. Keelyn huddled in her thin sweater that reeked of charred wood and shivered. Her teeth chattered like an annoying child’s toy. She tried not to keep checking the knife Raven held against her leg.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “A place where Lee can find you.”

  Her heart leapt with hope and fear at the same time; then the sneer of Raven’s lip froze over the good feeling of Lee coming for her.

  The house was a small, run-down hovel at the end of a long, rutted dirt road. Keelyn knew they’d driven south of the metro for a couple of hours. But once thin country road led to a thinner country road, which dead-ended into a grove of anemic, dried forest desiccated by pine beetles, she’d given up trying to determine their location.

  How could Lee possibly find her?

  Raven pulled up to the front and parked the car. After she climbed out, she pulled a heavy coat from the backseat and threw it onto Keelyn’s lap. Lazy white flakes drifted onto the car and clung before their last gasps drizzled like tears down the windshield. Was it snowing in the city? Did Lee wonder if she was warm enough? Was he warm enough?

  Keelyn opened the door and climbed out. “You couldn’t have given this to me earlier?” Keelyn pulled the coat on. It reeked of cigarette smoke.

  “Sometimes suffering builds strength. Isn’t that something you wanted me to believe?”

  Keelyn mulled over the statement. What was Raven’s ultimate goal in bringing her here? She’d seemingly confessed to two goals already. To make her suffer. To draw Lee.

  “Help me carry these.”

  Raven tossed a grocery sack her way, and Keelyn caught it on the fly. A few apples made a suicidal leap to the ground and rolled toward the front stoop. “Where are we?”

  “Mom’s childhood home.”

  Keelyn stood stock-still before the tilted structure.

  One thing tied them together. Their mother’s DNA.

  But why here?

  “Are you coming?”

  As Keelyn followed Raven up the path to the small home, she reminded herself how young Raven was, yet how old she portrayed herself. Regardless of age, wasn’t there always a longing to be cared for?

  Raven allowed Keelyn to enter first. The interior reminded Keelyn of an old miner’s haunt. The wood floors were shredded. The kitchen and living room one combined place. The two offshoots of the main area included a small bathroom and a bedroom with metal cots and thin mattresses for slumber.

  The door banged behind Keelyn, and her shoulders crunched into her neck at the sound.

  “You never knew about this place?” Raven asked.

  Keelyn set the groceries on the table. “How did you find it?”

  “John Samuals has a lot of secrets.”

  Raven set a heavy duffel bag on the floor with a resonant thud and kneeled next to it. As the zipper opened, the high-pitched whine of metal against metal caused Keelyn’s spine to tingle and set her teeth on edge.

  Raven brandished her knife as she stood up, dried blood on the blade. “I’m going to need you to sit down.”

  Chapter 40

  THE STARS TWINKLED MERRILY, mocking Lee’s panic as the two men sped back to the hospital. He arrived a little over an hour and a half after the phone call. On his way, he scrutinized every car he passed, wondering if Keelyn were captive inside.

  When they reached the medical center, they left the vehicle running in the loading zone and took the stairs up to the third floor. Keelyn’s nurse shook as she explained her last moments with her patient. That Keelyn had asked how they removed chest tubes. That Keelyn had apparently yanked that plastic hose from her side, dressed the wound, and left the hospital with ease until the security guard found her being held hostage at the ER entrance.

  Lee wanted to run and view the security tapes but it was better to start at ground zero. It seemed clear that Keelyn had made the decision to leave on her own accord before whatever had transpired outside. That reason could lead them in the right direction of finding her.

  Most of Keelyn’s personal items were missing. She’d dressed and taken her purse with her. Her phone was found on the floor next to the bed. Dropped in the haste of her leaving? Lee scrolled through the text messages. One instructed Keelyn to be by the ER entrance of the hospital in one hour. He dialed it back. Nothing.

  Nathan mirrored his growing concern. “We’re going to find her.”

  “She’s not safe with Raven. She has a major injury.”

  Nathan rubbed his hands across the back of his neck and took a deep breath. “We’ll work fast. We’ll find her.”

  Security tapes showed Keelyn speaking to someone in a navy-blue Camaro that had been sitting in the drive for a couple minutes before she emerged. Keelyn’s uncertainty reflected in the patchy screen.

  The remainder of the scene was surreal. A man came from the hospital entrance behind Keelyn and grabbed her, pulling her back, presumably to the truck that remained unclaimed at the front. They were running plates now. Nathan identified Raven as the woman who popped from the Camaro and came to Keelyn’s aid. Taser fired by security. Keelyn dropped from the surge of electricity. Raven stabbed the man in the neck and then reached for Keelyn, grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her toward the car. Keelyn’s eyes in the surveillance camera as Raven pulled her back.

  Silent words mouthed with emphasis.

  Lee peered closer. “Play it back. What is she saying?”

  Nathan spoke to another officer. “The plates are registered to an Evan Richter. They match the partial plates Keelyn gave to police about the man who dropped Rebecca off at the park. He’s currently in surgery for the knife wound to his neck.”

  Lee pointed at the video screen. “Back it up again.” He motioned for Nathan. “You read lips?”

  “Not that well.”

  “I know who can,” the security guard offered, and he picked up the phone.

  “Who’s that?” Lee asked.

  “My wife. She works in ICU. Has to read lips all the time. She’ll be down in two minutes.”

  Lee stood. “I think these two events are likely unrelated.”

  “I agree. Raven sent the text and then did pick her up.”

  “The other is happenstance. This guy’s vendetta against Keelyn catching up with her on the wrong day.”

  The security guard walked to the door and in came a slight woman with platinum blond hair cut in a pixie style. “Honey, the police are here. A patient’s been taken from the hospital. Can you tell what she’s saying?”

  The woman sat in front of the screen as her husband played the footage several times.

  “I can clearly see the word sick. That’s easy. Someone is sick.”

  Lee remembered the string of texts and the mention of Sophia being ill. “Could it be Sophia?”

  After a few more playbacks, the woman nodded her head. “Yes, that could definitely be it.”

  “What else?” Lee asked.

  She neared the screen, mimicking with her lips what Keelyn said to the camera. “It’s like she’s saying men. Then i-n-g. Like men-ing with a hard g.”

  “Could something like that make a child sick?” Lee asked.

  She leaned her head into her palm, her eyes vacant in thought. “Meningitis? There’s a bacteria that causes meningitis and blood-borne sepsis that can be very scary—meningococcus.”

  Lee turned to Nathan. “Is Lilly here today? Can she check on Sophia?”

  Nathan nodded. “Yeah, I’ll see if she can run up there.” He grabbed a nearby phone.

  The woman’s voice brought Lee’s focus back to the screen. “Rice and Sa . . . something.”

  Lee straightened. “The two missing kids. She’s saying Bryce and Sadie?”

  The woman paled. “Are dead. She’s saying they’re dead!”

  Lee laid a supportive hand on her shoulder. “Anything else?”

 
; “Becca?” She bit her lip and peered back at the screen. “Last part is—don’t come after me. I’m sorry. That’s all I can make out.”

  Lee pulled her to a standing position. “I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped. I’m really grateful. How’d you get so good at that?”

  “From watching people trying to talk to me when they’re on the ventilator. I’ve been in ICU for twenty years. I’ve got to get back to the unit now.”

  Her husband gave her a quick hug. “Told you lipreading would come in handy someday.”

  Lee waved as she exited the office.

  Nathan turned to a fellow detective. “We need to issue a warrant for Rebecca Hanson’s arrest. If that man makes it, we need to question him immediately.” He turned back to Lee. “You’re right. I think they’re unrelated but transpired on the same day.”

  “We need to find Keelyn first,” Lee said.

  Nathan smoothed his hand over his face. “Trouble is—we don’t know where to look. Where would Raven take her?”

  “I don’t know.” Lee leaned with both hands on the desk. The still image of Keelyn being dragged by the scruff fueled his anger. “I can’t just stay here!” He slammed his fist on the desk.

  Nathan crossed his arms over his chest. “We have to be smart about this. We don’t know what Raven intends to do with her. We have to start from the inciting incident, even before John Samuals took his family hostage. The death of Lucent Donnely and the boy he left behind. It’s time to bring Gavin in and get this thing figured out.”

  The good doctor wasn’t hard to find. He’d been lapping up liquor for several hours at his home.

  While Gavin sat in the drunk tank sobering up, Nathan and Lee went back to the doctor’s office, searching for clues in a not so genteel fashion. They’d moved furniture aside and were ripping up the carpet looking for hidden compartments. Lee yanked drawers open and shattered the thin wood of the doctor’s locked cabinet. But it was ultimately the cases that housed Lee’s nemesis that hid what they were looking for. Lee’s heart quickened as he moved the cases aside.

  Behind the shelving was a compartment holding fifty or so disks.

  Video of Gavin’s sessions with Raven and Connor.

  Lee and Nathan found a player in the conference room and sat to watch video. After two hours, Lee’s eyes were burning, and he rubbed at them when he felt a subtle nudge at his shoulder. Bringing his head up, he glanced to his right where Nathan offered a witch’s brew of microwave-heated coffee dregs. Lee accepted the cup but pointed to Nathan’s jacket where he knew he hid his antacids.

  Nathan shook a few into his hand.

  They’d distributed disks to a few more officers who helped flag material for them to review. Vanhise had joined them and scratched copious notes onto his yellow legal pad. Lee looked several times to the stacked cases to make sure the sound was not eight tiny legs as they escaped. Disgust shadowed Vanhise’s face as Gavin toyed with Raven.

  At first, the seduction Donnely used to erode Raven’s foundation was subtle but obvious to the three of them. It was clear Gavin had a physical attraction toward Raven. At first, it was flirtatious comments about her hair, her dress, her naïveté. Then it progressed to simple touching. A shoulder caress. A gentle hug. A finger brushing away a tear instead of offering a tissue.

  Then a kiss on her lips.

  Vanhise squirmed in his seat. “This is outright criminal. My blood is boiling.”

  At first, there were constant questions about her belief system. Why God? Why Christ? Did she really believe in all that personal-relationship mumbo jumbo?

  Then slowly, session after session, never with more than a hint, he introduced the idea of revenge. Of assuming a character. Of exacting justice against those who had abandoned her and left her to raise herself.

  Of murder.

  Vanhise flipped through his notes. “You know, he never outright says the words. There’s the undertone that taking revenge will help her overcome her depression and anxiety, but he could merely say these were therapeutic strategies and not a call to arms per se.”

  Lee tossed his crushed Styrofoam cup into the trash. “We’re going to need more. Isn’t there something you see you think we could use?”

  “Trust me; there is plenty to get Gavin on. What these tapes show is his interest in an underage girl and obvious crossing of ethical boundaries. I imagine this alone could carry legal penalties. I’m sure the police could come up with all sorts of things. How about conspiring to commit murder?”

  “One thing strikes me as funny as we’ve watched these tapes,” Lee said.

  “What’s that?” Nathan asked.

  “Gavin isn’t a smoker. Nothing in this office reeks of smoke.”

  “What does that matter?” Nathan asked.

  “Before the fire, Keelyn had been having some strange things happen to her—things being left at her home for Sophia. Four separate instances. A package of diapers. A basket of toys with a strange note. A bag with diaper cream someone handed to her in a drugstore. In one case, this rabbit showed up. She threw it away because it reeked of smoke. Cigarette smoke.”

  “So?”

  “The next time she saw it was the night of the fire. Same rabbit. It terrified her because someone dragged that thing out of her trash and kept it, then tormented her by leaving it there for her to find after they broke in.”

  Vanhise began to flip back through his notes. “That would be unusual unless someone had an emotional connection to the object.”

  “Like a parent?” Lee asked.

  “Someone who was holding onto it to make sure Sophia got it back because it was a cherished toy,” Nathan offered as an alternative.

  “But the note left on the rabbit was threatening. When it was left at the house, someone tried to kill them.”

  “I reviewed a few of these sessions while the two of you stepped out to get food.” Vanhise scoured through the cases and inserted a disk. “Three gifts—the diapers, cream, and the toys—would have been left by someone who cared about Sophia’s welfare. What did the note in the basket say?”

  “Something like, ‘your friend is really your enemy.’”

  Images popped up. Vanhise fast forwarded through several scenes. “Here.”

  It was an interaction between Gavin and Raven.

  “How long ago was this?” Lee asked.

  “Early in her visits. Over two years ago.”

  There was no sound for this particular session. That was inconsistent with the other tapes, a deviation from his pattern. Did Gavin know what was going to be said and wanted to hide it? Did he still want the memory but no proof to hold any charge against him?

  “We seriously need to start bringing lipreaders with us,” Nathan said.

  Lee leaned toward the screen. The teen kept a protective hand over her abdomen. Guarding? Protective?

  Gavin reached to his side, placed his palm over his heart, and pulled a stuffed rabbit from a bag that sat next to his chair.

  “That’s it,” Lee confirmed. “The same animal.”

  “So we know where it came from,” Nathan verified.

  Lee motioned for Vanhise to stop the scene. “I think two people were leaving things for Keelyn. There is a distinct difference in the items that were left. Some were helpful—toys and diapers. Then there are the instances of this smoky stuffed animal that creeped Keelyn out.”

  Vanhise followed Lee’s logic. “Each parent is leaving something for the child.”

  “Yes, exactly. I think this session is their first meeting after Raven has told Gavin of her pregnancy. Why else would he have this stuffed animal unless he already knew?”

  “Okay,” Vanhise agreed.

  “But there’s no evidence Gavin is a smoker. Whoever has been holding onto that rabbit is a smoker. That’s fact.”

  “Where is all this going, Lee?” Nathan asked.

  There was a puzzle here and a few pieces left to put back in place. Was his suspicion of Raven clouding his judgme
nt? Was Gavin really the only guilty one who’d influenced Raven to do all these horrible acts?

  “I want to know if Gavin is Sophia’s father.”

  Nathan turned the screen off. “Okay, fine. But what will that accomplish?”

  “The night Keelyn was attacked, she said someone was ready to shoot her when she came down off the roof, but her attacker was then chased off by another individual. Keelyn even thinks that individual may have injured her assailant in the arm. The police on scene state it wasn’t any of them who fired.” Lee pressed his palms together. “If Gavin is the father, I think he’s been trying to keep tabs on Sophia by offering these gifts.”

  “What makes you think it wouldn’t be Raven, her mother?”

  Lee closed his eyes at visions of Keelyn caring for Sophia. “Because to me, Raven hasn’t done one motherly thing. My gut says the child became a pawn for her to get what she wants.”

  “So your feeling is Gavin is the victim? That a teenage girl persuaded an older man to do . . . what?” Nathan asked.

  Lee shook his head. “I don’t know. Something is not fitting right. We need to find out who Sophia’s father is.”

  “And if it’s Gavin?” Vanhise asked.

  “He could be brought up on a whole other level of charges,” Nathan offered.

  Lee’s phone vibrated. “What I’m suggesting is that possibly Raven caught wind of what Gavin planned to do to her, and played the gullible victim to carry out what she really desired.”

  “And blame Gavin in the end?”

  “Exactly.”

  “In the morning, we’ll interrogate the good doctor.” Nathan checked his watch. “He should be sobered up by then.”

  Lee scrolled through the text message, and then froze as fear cascaded through his body.

  Keelyn dies in 48 hours. Come find me. Raven.

  Chapter 41

  KEELYN SAT MESMERIZED IN an old rocker as she watched the embers of tobacco burn at the end of Raven’s cigarette. Keelyn’s leg was secured at the ankle and chained around the base of an old metal stove. A butcher knife sat poised on the table. One easy move and it could be in Raven’s hand.

  The lit tobacco was the only item that provided any illumination in the decrepit home, and the hypnotic motion of Raven drawing poisoned breath culled at the edges of Keelyn’s mind. A gentle nudge at something she should remember. Piece together. The gleam from Raven’s phone faded.