by D. J. Palmer
“How are we doing on orders?” Grace asked.
She scanned the tables covered with checkered tablecloths and realized there weren’t enough people eating to make payroll.
“We need salads prepped,” Ryan said as he ladled sauce onto pizza dough with the care of an artist applying the first bits of color to a blank canvas. He layered the pie with mushrooms and peppers as quickly as if he’d grown an extra set of limbs. It was in these moments, watching Ryan work with supreme confidence, that Grace paused to think that while Arthur might not have wanted this life for his son, he’d have been damn proud of the pizza maker he’d become.
“On it,” Grace responded. She was good with a knife, but not as good as Annie, who could dice and slice veggies faster than any Earp brother could draw his gun.
“Where’s Annie?” Grace scanned the kitchen but saw only Sarah and Dylan, two young people from town who made twelve bucks an hour serving customers. That alone would have given Arthur a coronary if he hadn’t already had one.
“She’s in the back, building boxes. I call it wishful thinking. Where have you been, Mom?”
“You know where I’ve been.”
Grace did not elaborate. She gave no details of the day or Penny’s surprise appearance. Ryan didn’t like to talk about his sister, because of his dad. Arthur died not far from the new oven Ryan had purchased. Penny was sitting on the floor near his lifeless body, the cordless phone used to take orders clutched in her hand, busy signal sounding like an alarm—beep, beep, beep. Her expression was a blank, her eyes glassy, as if she were sleeping while awake.
An hour or so before that, everything was fine—relatively speaking, for it had been an extremely difficult and stressful day. Shortly after Penny and Maria were arrested for writing those horrid murder fantasies, Arthur began looking at inpatient treatment options. He and Grace had been away overnight, having made a six-hour drive north to visit a residential treatment facility in Maine and returned home numb and heartbroken.
“If you think this is easy for me, you’re wrong,” Arthur had said to Grace in bed the night before the tour. “I love that girl so much.” His voice broke with grief, and it shattered Grace to hear him so distraught. “But we’re in over our heads here, honey. We have our other children to think about.” There were tears in his eyes. “What happens if it gets worse? Grace, you have to admit it. We can’t control her.”
It was true. Penny was on a variety of medications, but none suppressed her alters, and nothing dissuaded Eve from making thinly (or not so thinly) veiled threats. Honestly, life would have been manageable with any combination of Penny, Ruby, or Chloe, but with Eve in the mix, it was too volatile for everyone’s comfort.
The thought of locking Penny away someplace was absolutely crushing. When Grace closed her eyes, she didn’t see a troubled and angry teen, but rather a sweet little girl in a rain-soaked yellow dress, shivering and alone in the park.
Grace would never forget the guilt that consumed her on the drive north to tour the facility. Annie had agreed to stay at the house to look after the kids, because Penny, who grew up working with Auntie Anne, wasn’t a problem for her, which meant Eve wasn’t either.
There were no programs that specialized in DID, but Moose Creek was ranked near the top of treatment centers for teens with bipolar disorders. They seemed best equipped to take on Penny’s unique case, though at a price that would put quite a strain on them financially.
“There are varying levels of care here,” Arthur had said, trying to sound encouraging as Grace reviewed the intake forms. “As Penny gets better, we can visit her more frequently.”
Arthur had just sunk an arrow into what troubled Grace the most. It could take more than a year for Penny to be deemed well enough to return home for a two-week stay. Grace’s fear and shame about abandoning her daughter came barreling at her in one great rush.
There was no delaying the inevitable when they got back from Maine. “We’ll tell her together in the morning,” Arthur said as he pulled into the driveway. Grace didn’t contradict him. Annie reported perfectly behaved children, which meant no sign of Eve—making tomorrow’s announcement about the treatment center all the more painful.
The manager had already closed Big Frank’s for the night, but Arthur wanted to go to the restaurant to review the receipts and place some orders for the morning. Penny asked to go along. She was hungry and craving an Italian sub, but wanted to make it for herself just the way she liked it. Given all that was going to happen, Arthur couldn’t say no.
When they didn’t return at the hour expected, and phone calls went unanswered, Grace went looking for them. It was ten o’clock at night when she pulled into the parking lot. There were lights on inside, and Arthur’s was the only car there. Ryan and Jack had accompanied Grace because they, too, were worried about their sister and father. It was Ryan who found his dad sprawled on the floor next to the oven, dead from what the medical examiner would later determine was a heart attack. Then he saw Penny was slumped on the floor nearby, a blank stare on her face, the phone clutched in her hand.
Grace screamed Arthur’s name as she fell to her knees beside him and started CPR, even though she knew it was a wasted effort. Jack went to Penny.
“What happened?” he asked her, distraught. But like that day in the park, she wouldn’t speak.
Ryan went ballistic. He started screaming at his sister. “Why didn’t you call for help? Why didn’t you call nine-one-one? Dad might still be alive if you did! You killed him!”
The medical examiner had made it clear that Arthur was probably dead before he hit the ground, but Ryan refused to accept that explanation, and his resentment toward his sister never left him. Now, without Arthur’s support and encouragement, Grace’s willingness to send Penny away to Maine left her.
* * *
Annie emerged from the back storeroom carrying a load of boxes in her outstretched arms. She was pixie-small, but full of wiry muscle from years of reeling in bluegills and tommy cods on the Cape, where she still fished the spots she’d once fished with her father, holding his blessed memory in her heart.
Showing her sun-loving tendencies, she had a weather-beaten and salt-scrubbed face, but the elements had not worn away her pleasant aspect and cheery smile. Her eyes were big and expressive, lips thin, and for a hairstyle, she went with something short and low maintenance.
Annie dressed oddly for someone who loved the ocean, preferring cowboy shirts and dark jeans. She was also a collector of unique belt buckles. Today’s showpiece was a horseshoe-shaped rhinestone buckle that looked like a million bucks and probably cost eight fifty at TJ Maxx. Annie could be as frugal as Arthur, but they were both lightweights compared to Big Frank.
“What gives, sis?” Annie said, sending Grace a friendly smile after depositing the boxes she carried onto a stainless steel table. “How was the visit?”
Grace always warmed when Annie referred to her as her sister. The death of her mother from a stroke years ago had left Grace in need of female family. Her one brother, who lived in California, never came to visit. Grace called her dad in Florida once a week, but she didn’t discuss Penny’s case, fearing his weakened heart couldn’t take the stress.
Grace reviewed the day for Annie, who had no trouble talking about the case. She listened with quiet attentiveness, and held Grace’s hand when she became teary about seeing Penny again.
“Dr. McHugh thinks the person Penny saw in the apartment is one of her alters.”
Ryan called out for a Mediterranean calzone (spinach, olives, feta cheese, onions, and tomatoes). Annie grabbed some pre-balled dough from a plastic bin and began flattening it out on a floured pizza peel. Grace cued in on the strain in Annie’s face.
“What’s up?” Grace asked as she set about prepping a garden salad for a phone order.
“Nothing. It’s great that Penny showed up.” Annie, who had baked enough calzones in her day to make one in the dark, locked eyes with Grace as she added i
ngredients to her creation. “I’m just wondering.”
Ryan was flittering about the kitchen, so Grace kept her voice low to avoid upsetting him. “Wondering what?”
“What if … what if it wasn’t one of her alters?”
“What do you mean?” Grace raised her knife, using it as a pointer, but lowered it when the implications occurred to her: knife, Rachel Boyd, the slice to Rachel’s throat, blood all over her daughter’s body.
“I mean,” Annie went on, “what if there was somebody else in that apartment that night?”
“Like a witness?” Grace leaned over the prep table, her gaze burning bright.
Annie leaned closer. There was a glimmer in her eyes, too, a sense of excitement dancing there.
“Maybe that … or … maybe … an accomplice.”
Grace let out a slight gasp.
“Penny’s vulnerable,” Annie continued. “Could be she was manipulated, maybe someone was playing around with her, playing head games, who knows? Or it could be Penny was the accomplice, not the killer.” Annie rattled off the potential implications like she was reading from a grocery list. While the notions were intriguing, Grace didn’t know what the legal consequences would be.
She’d find out soon enough. Tomorrow she’d call Greg Navarro and ask for a meeting. Then she’d call Dr. Mitchell McHugh to see if he could join her, because some journeys were best not taken alone.
CHAPTER 15
IT TOOK A SPECIAL request for Mitch to have a copy of the medical examiner’s report of Rachel Boyd’s autopsy sent to the records room at Edgewater. He was on his way to his office to give a review when he sent a friendly wave to a woman named Amanda, a patient of his, whom he passed in the hallway. Amanda had the haunted look of a castaway, and her frail body didn’t appear to have a violent bone in it. But Mitch knew she’d taken a hammer to her husband’s head as he slept because she was certain that aliens had abducted him and left a doppelgänger in his place. Edgewater was full of stories like that.
Seeing the lost look in Amanda’s eyes felt like gazing into a mirror of sorts, reminding Mitch of his own sadness. He knew that the hollow sensation entering his chest was a precursor to the start of a deepening depression. And he knew exactly what had set him off: his ex-wife Caitlyn had called last night with the news that Adam had relapsed and was back in rehab. The protocols were all too familiar. It would be days before Mitch would be allowed to visit his son.
Damn drugs. Damn them all to hell.
Adam, a boy with every opportunity to succeed, chose a dark path over a bright future. How could he do this to me? Mitch thought, paraphrasing a line from a familiar Beatles song. What a waste, what a crying shame. Mitch took four deep breaths using a technique he’d picked up from a nascent meditation practice, and soon he calmed. Anger so often got in the way of his being able to support his son, as did the guilt that he could have done more to prevent Adam’s descent into addiction.
Mitch knew the brain science behind his son’s struggles, but that wasn’t enough to make him entirely forgiving. And it wasn’t just Adam he needed to forgive—it had taken Mitch’s divorce for him to realize he needed more help than the Celexa could provide, but he didn’t start seeing a therapist until Physician Health Services mandated it as part of his contract with them. The shame and stigma he felt in helping patients overcome their depression, while he struggled with his own, continued to weigh on him.
He’d given Caitlyn fifteen years and plenty of reasons for wanting out of the marriage. In return she gave him plenty of opportunities to change his ways. Instead, he had stonewalled her about his depression, as if not acknowledging it would make it go away. Then came Adam’s addiction. The marital foundation wasn’t nearly sturdy enough to withstand a hurricane of such force.
Mitch had suspected his son was still using. They’d fought just the other day, when he brought up meditation as a potential tool for Adam’s addiction management toolkit. In response, Adam gave his father a dismissive wave before pronouncing he wasn’t at all interested in any of that “New Age crap,” as he put it.
“Meditation and yoga have been around for thousands of years,” Mitch countered, “so it’s hardly new.”
He launched into a detailed explanation of the bidirectional link between substance abuse and depression, how those with the illness were more prone to addiction and those with addiction more likely to become depressed, but Adam refused to consider it.
That was when Mitch lost his temper.
“You know people are trying to help you here, but you’re just committed to flushing your life right down the toilet, aren’t you, Adam?”
Adam threw up his hands before walking away from Mitch, out the apartment door, and into his car, without a word of good-bye.
Those were, in fact, the last words he’d spoken to Adam before getting the news from Caitlyn, giving Mitch more reason to feel anger and guilt. When he raised his voice to his son, demanding better of him—more effort, more conviction, more fight in his fight—he knew he was really castigating himself for not having intervened sooner.
Some doctor.
Some father.
All thoughts of Adam and regret faded when he got to his office and could settle in to study the ME’s report. The images in the file were gruesome. There were photos of Rachel on the floor, propped up against an unmade bed in an untidy bedroom. Behind her a table and lamp had been tipped over, indicating a struggle. Her dark blond hair was matted together in sticky clumps, limp and lifeless as the rest of her, and blood covered her shirt. She sat with her legs splayed out in front of her, head tilted back to reveal a long gash running from one side of her throat to the other in the shape of a gruesome smile. A cordless phone was clutched in her lifeless hand.
Mitch scanned through the report, keying in on certain passages that made him take special interest.
The deceased was a Caucasian female stated to be forty years old. The body weighed 134 pounds, measuring 65 inches from crown to sole.
Not a body, he thought, a person, a woman, a mother, someone with a past but now no future. Rachel.
There were pictures of Rachel’s eyes, milky with death, but he knew from the report that their true color was hazel. The pupils were fixed and dilated. The sclerae and surrounding tissue were unremarkable, with no evidence of petechial hemorrhages due to trauma on either. The ME observed no injuries to the gums or cheeks. Mitch read on.
Sharp force injury of the neck, left side, transecting left internal jugular vein. It appears to be a combination of a stabbing and cutting wound. The wound path is through the subcutaneous tissue and the sternocleidomastoid muscle, with transection of the left internal jugular vein. The coloring below the subcutaneous fat that was observed bulging from the open wound to the neck area was pale yellow and with significant blood collection around the edges, indicating this wound was most likely delivered while the victim was alive.
The image of Penny slicing open Rachel’s throat while she was alive was too much for him to process. Could it be? He visualized Penny clutching a large kitchen knife in her hand, dragging it across Rachel’s throat, severing the carotid artery, sending a spray of blood that soaked her like a fire hose. Mitch read on.
Seven stab wounds appear on the left side of the abdomen, about 35 inches above the left heel, measuring three-quarters of an inch in length. The wound path is through the skin, the subcutaneous tissue, and through the retroperitoneal tissue, terminating in the abdominal aorta, approximately one and one quarter inches proximal to the bifurcation.
In those wounds Mitch saw a dark, profound rage, a pure hatred, as though the cuts themselves projected the emotions preceding them. What else could have driven someone to such violence?
In his reading, he found what appeared to be the fatal wound, one of them at least.
The ninth stab wound, measuring 2.0 centimeters in length, went through the right side of the thorax between the sixth and seventh rib, puncturing the pericardial sac, allowing blo
od to flow freely into the thoracic cavity. This wound appears to have interrupted the normal action of the heart.
Final cause of death was listed as a homicide involving twenty-five sharp injuries: two wounds to the neck, eighteen to the chest and the abdomen, and five to the upper extremities. Two of the wounds—the one to the abdominal aorta and one to the chambers of the heart—were determined to be rapidly fatal. There were no slicing wounds to the hand, no effort made to grab the blade, suggesting the attack had come as a surprise.
Not an attack. A vicious, ruthless, bloodthirsty murder.
The question running through Mitch’s head was how a girl as thin and lacking in muscle as Penny could deliver so many devastating blows. The wound to the neck alone would have required tremendous force. Adrenaline was what the ME had cited. Could be possible. But he was thinking, too, of her odd claim: I wasn’t alone. Could someone else have been in the room with her at the time of the killing? Mitch didn’t see how. The only other DNA found at the crime scene belonged to Vincent Rapino, the secret lover, and he had an alibi.
The forensic report documenting the blood splatter found on Penny’s body and the accompanying images suggested that, indeed, Penny was a monster. The blood came not only from arterial spray, but was “painted on”—those were the exact words used in the report—after the fact, meaning Penny had dipped her hands into the victim’s blood, then smeared it in her own hair, on her face, her clothes, like she was applying war paint.
The only marks to Penny’s person were shown in a photograph of her upper extremities, taken after the blood was rinsed off, which revealed quite clearly two oblique, incomplete rings around her wrists, dark brown in color and accompanied by a red band on both sides. The marks were roughly several millimeters in diameter and in the same general location as handcuffs would be applied, so Mitch assumed they were the result of Penny’s arrest.