by D. J. Palmer
The other assailant placed his knees on her chest, pressing into Grace’s ribs, putting pressure on her heart. He leaned toward her, close enough so the corner of his bandana tickled her face. His light skin and those blue eyes, so familiar to her, glowed in the dim light of the house. Someone reeked of cigarette smoke. She had a flash of the men smoking outside Vince Rapino’s auto shop.
She thrashed and bucked to free herself from the man on top before he could crack her rib. “Get off me!” she screamed.
The man with the ice blue eyes placed a gloved hand on Grace’s throat as he reached behind his back with his other arm and brought forward a massive knife. Pressing his knees hard against Grace’s side to keep himself stabilized, he removed his hand from her throat to set the blade there. He used his free hand to cover her mouth. The other attacker, still holding Grace’s arms above her head, dug his fingers into the bones of her wrists, sending sharp, shooting pain down her arms.
“You bite me, I’ll slice you,” said Blue Eyes. “Stop screaming.”
She thought: I’m going to be raped. Paralyzing fear hollowed her out. Try as she did, Grace couldn’t move a muscle.
How many times had she watched a movie, or read a book and thought: If it were me, I would have … But it was her, on the floor of her own house, no longer fighting her attackers because the knife to her throat had changed everything. She saw Rachel Boyd’s throat slashed open, reimagined the gruesome wounds Rachel had suffered to her body. She went numb, all sensation blocked as she waited for a tug on her pants that didn’t come.
The man on top leaned in close. She knew those eyes. They had watched her once, hadn’t they?
Rapino. He works for Vince Rapino.
“You stop now,” the man said in a whispered voice. “Stop looking in places you don’t belong.”
“Keep going and it gets ugly for you fast,” the man holding her arms warned as Blue Eyes removed the hand covering her mouth. “Next time, we don’t leave you breathing. Do you understand what we’re telling you?”
“Yes … I understand…” Grace croaked out the words.
With each hitched exhale, her throat pushed against the meaty part of the knife’s blade. “Please … don’t … hurt me,” she pleaded.
“Say it,” said the man holding her wrists.
“Yes … I’ll stop. No more.”
“You don’t know us,” said Blue Eyes. “One cop stops by—and we mean one—and we’ll be back here to finish you off. That clear?”
“Please, just go,” pleaded Grace. “I won’t cause any more trouble, I promise.”
Blue Eyes pressed the full weight of his body against Grace, still keeping the blade to her throat. He whispered, “If you do it, I’ll have fun with you first.”
At last, he got off her and she could breathe again. The pressure on her wrists let up, and she could move her arms freely.
“Call the cops, and we’ll know,” said Blue Eyes. “And we’ll be back. Stay on the floor for ten minutes. We’ll set a kitchen timer. Don’t be a hero.”
She heard them in the kitchen, heard them set a spring-wound timer. They left through the front door, and Grace waited a few minutes, not ten, unable to move even if she wanted to. Finally, she got up, her legs supporting her like stretched rubber bands. She staggered to the front door and secured the deadbolt. Her shaky hand managed to push the correct buttons on the alarm, setting it to Stay mode. Anyone coming in or going out would alert the police.
You call the cops, we’ll know.
They had gloves. They had masks. She had Detective Jay Allio. He might help her. Probably not. She went to the kitchen and picked up her phone. The timer went off. She sank to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She keyed in a number from memory.
Annie answered. “Hello?”
Grace couldn’t speak.
“Hello? Grace, are you there?”
A sob escaped Grace’s throat as tears of relief came pouring out.
“Grace?”
“Come … here … now…”
Three words, the only words she could manage between choking sobs, but it was enough. Family understood.
“I’ll be right there,” Annie said. “I’m calling the police.”
Grace got out one more word.
“Don’t.”
CHAPTER 44
ANNIE AND GRACE SAT together at the kitchen table with an open bottle of wine, now half gone. They’d exhausted talk about Grace going to the hospital for an exam (not going to happen) and getting the police involved (also not going to happen). The feeling of dissociation that Penny knew so well, that Grace had experienced during the attack, persisted as if she were in a dream—or a nightmare—from which she couldn’t awaken.
“So, what do you want to do now?” asked Annie.
Grace paused. What to do?
“Now I want to drink the rest of this wine and take a long, hot bath and cry,” Grace said.
Annie went to inspect the patio door for a second time. She ran her hand over the cracked glass with concern in her eyes. “What are you going to tell Ryan?” she asked.
“That I tripped and fell,” Grace said. Her head hurt something awful, but she didn’t have any signs of concussion, and her ribs were bruised, but she didn’t think any were broken. “He doesn’t need to know … he shouldn’t know.”
Annie returned to the table to retrieve her wineglass. “I suppose he’ll have no trouble believing you’re extremely clumsy.” Her quip was meant to defuse some tension. “You’ll stay with me tonight.” Annie’s suggestion came out as an order. “Ryan too.”
“No, I’m going to stay here,” Grace said with authority.
“What? You can’t!” Annie sounded utterly aghast. “What if they come back?”
“They won’t come back,” Grace answered assuredly. “Not unless I do something stupid.”
“How can you be so sure?” asked Annie. “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”
It was a favorite saying of hers, but never before had it been so applicable. They had been careless, reckless even, and it had cost them dearly. Going after Vince Rapino without support, without so much as a plan, had been utterly foolish, and now Grace had a choice to make. She could pursue Rapino at risk to her own life, find evidence tying Vince directly to Rachel’s murder, prove that he was the one who bound Penny’s wrists, or she could let it go—and with it, her daughter’s best chance at change of plea and full acquittal.
“They don’t want me dead, or I would be,” said Grace. “Tonight was a warning, nothing more.”
“I’d call it a pretty effective one,” Annie noted.
It had not been easy for Grace to relive those terrifying moments of her attack for Annie’s benefit, but she pushed through her reluctance, and talking it out dampened her lingering terror. When it came time to sleep tonight, though, Grace had no doubt those ice blue eyes would be there, waiting in the dark, peering out from above a black bandana.
“So what now?” Annie asked again, pouring more wine into her glass.
“We can’t let Ryan or Jack know what’s going on,” Grace said in a way that left no room for debate.
“Are you going to tell Ryan that you’re taking one of my guns and keeping it in your bedside dresser?”
“I don’t want a gun,” Grace said, hoping Annie wouldn’t press her on it.
“These are dangerous people and you have to protect yourself.”
“It’s nonnegotiable.” Grace said it forcefully, knowing Annie wouldn’t back down.
“It’ll be a small gun,” Annie insisted, proving her right. “I’ve got a Glock 19, it’s a compact model, easy to handle … we’ll go to the range tomorrow, practice with it.”
“No,” Grace said, raising her voice.
“May I ask why you’re so against it?”
Grace could lie, of course, but Annie might keep pressuring, and the only surefire way she knew to shoot down the idea (pun intended) was to tell the truth.
“Ryan?” Annie sounded perplexed.
Grace took a deep breath but couldn’t quite settle herself. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” He was her heart as much as Penny and Jack were. “He’s not well. Something … there’s something off with him and—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, but Annie said them for her.
“Do you think he’d hurt himself?”
Grace’s eyes sank to the floor. “I think it’s possible,” she admitted. “He hasn’t been right, not since Penny’s arrest, and I’ve no idea why. He was going to become a lawyer, acing all his pre-law classes at Northeastern. Now that’s gone, or at least put on hold. I’ve asked him time and time again what happened, why the sudden change, but he won’t open up to me about it. You know what can happen if people keep their feelings bottled up.”
“He’s old enough to buy a gun,” Annie said, not ready to let it go. “If he wanted to.”
“Annie, please,” Grace said sharply, interrupting her. “I can’t take the chance. He might go looking for something, anything, and he could find a gun and … and then get an idea.”
Annie puckered her lips. “No gun, no hospital, no police, no telling anyone about tonight—that doesn’t give us a lot of options here.”
Grace sighed before cradling her face in her hands. When she closed her eyes, she saw the man on top of her, could feel his hot breath brush against her face, the weight of him pressing down on her. Her wrists ached with a phantom pain as if the other man were there, squeezing the bones. Grace took a deep breath to purge the feelings, and when she opened her eyes, the attackers were gone.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Annie asked, reaching across the table to give Grace’s hand a gentle squeeze.
“I’m fine. It’s been a real hell of a day.” Grace managed a weak smile.
“It’s Vince,” Annie said. “Tonight just proved to me he’s Rachel’s killer … someone with that kind of violence in him. His alibi worked great because he sent his goons to do it for him.”
“Tonight wasn’t their first rodeo, I can tell you that,” Grace concurred. She rubbed her temples. The wine was giving her a headache. “And you do realize we don’t have enough to go after Rapino,” she added, feeling dispirited. “Penny knows what really happened that night, and we can’t reach her. It’s all scattered, dissociated thoughts that are not going to help in the slightest.”
Grace needed to decompress, and for that she thought a hot bath might do the trick.
“Annie—”
“Do you want to take a bath and need me to stick around?”
“Hmmm…” said Grace suspiciously. “I’ve got one family member with DID and another with ESP.” Grace’s slight chuckle felt like a major release.
“Sorry, nothing supernatural. I would want the same, is all,” Annie explained. “Anyway, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll spend the night. I’ll spend the week. Hell, I’ll move in. No weapon, I promise.”
Grace got up to give Annie a long, hard hug. “Thank you … thank you for everything,” she said, feeling the sadness in her chest bloom in her eyes. “I couldn’t ask for a better sister.”
“Arthur couldn’t have had a better wife,” said Annie. “I miss my brother so much, but I know he’s looking after us. We’re going to win in court, Grace. It’s going to happen, I feel it in my bones.”
“I hope more than anything you’re right,” Grace said.
Some minutes later, Grace found her way upstairs and filled the tub halfway with warm water. She got undressed, letting the faucet run while she climbed in to begin her soak. Annie was in the bedroom just outside, reading a book on the bed, but Grace had no doubt that her purse with some sort of firearm inside was within reach.
Stretching out her legs, Grace flicked her toes in and out of the warm water spilling from the faucet. Feeling more at peace, she let her arms drift to her sides as she closed her eyes. She was safe here; no memories came at her in the dark. Grace could feel herself drifting off … letting it go … letting everything go …
Tomorrow she’d see her daughter. Would Penny be frightened to take the stand in her own defense? What if she refused? There’d be no way to help her then. Grace’s thoughts went to Annie—specifically, to the gun she wanted her to have. A frightful vision of Ryan came to her, his skull caved in by a bullet.
What was wrong with him? Why did he suddenly go off the rails after Penny’s arrest?
Another question came to her, the same one Jack had raised at the restaurant before the big fight, this one quite possibly the most troubling of all: What secrets might he be keeping?
CHAPTER 45
IT HAD BEEN A long time since I visited you at Edgewater, two months, maybe three. I was a bit anxious, to be honest. It’s the not nicest place for a get-together, but I was there to support Mom, who was more nervous than anybody. Would you be willing to take the stand in your own defense? That’s what we came to find out. We couldn’t force you, and my bet was no, but Mom was counting on a yes, so I had my fingers crossed. Even so, a good filmmaker always has a backup plan in the event a particular shot can’t work out, so I had mine.
I wasn’t done looking into your life, or into Rachel’s past for that matter. There were questions that still needed answers. Did Rachel abuse you? Is she the reason you developed DID? Did an avenging alter of yours (that fourth alter theory)—did he or she do in Rachel because of something monstrous she’d done to you?
At least I had one question now firmly in the answered column.
You are not evil, Penny.
You have a full-blown, true case of DID. This wasn’t a game for you. But DID and dissociative states don’t make you a killer, so if you did in fact murder Rachel, you did it during some kind of a psychotic episode you suffered. Too bad a jury probably won’t see it that way. They’ll see the mountain of evidence against you, the hit list with Rachel’s name on it, pictures of Rachel’s cut-up body, and other photos of you bathed in her blood.
Guilty on all charges. That’s what they’ll say, I’m sure of it.
Can we change that outcome by putting you on the stand? Mom is counting on it. Navarro isn’t so sure. He couldn’t be here today. Had to be in court, but said he’d be available by phone for questions. Questions are not something we have in short supply, but I’m not sure there’s any that he can answer better than we can.
Mom took the lead, guiding us through the prescreening process before armed security ushered first Annie, then Mom, then me past a massive steel door. Beyond that door stood Dr. Mitch, awaiting our arrival. The guard exchanged handshakes and paperwork with Mitch before stepping off to the side so we could all meet and greet. I hadn’t met Mitch before, but I liked him right away. Seemed like a nice guy to me. Think: Tom Hanks worked for PBS. I got good vibes from him. For sure, he was someone you’d want on your team.
I’d decided to forgo my usual flannel attire and came dressed in khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt, which I wore under a tailored blazer Mom didn’t realize I owned. I also had with me a road atlas with pages marked to places you’d listed off in your dissociative state.
I was curious if you’d have any reaction to seeing those places in map form. I wasn’t yet done with my drug mule theory—that somehow these were locations Rachel took you to when you were young. All I knew was that they were important to you, but I didn’t know why. I was worried I wouldn’t be allowed to bring the atlas inside, but Mom had some pull here, so if there were a rule against it, someone bent it in our favor.
No surprise, Ryan didn’t come. He opted for the restaurant instead. Don’t take it personally. He’s got issues.
I can’t imagine how you’ve adjusted to living here, Penny. The pervasive dull hum and incoherent announcements over the loudspeakers, the strange smells pervading the hallways, t
he starkness of the concrete walls—it was sensory deprivation and overload all at the same time.
“Eve’s waiting for us in one of the visiting rooms,” Mitch told us. Annie’s cowboy boots clomped like horse’s feet on the concrete floor.
We came to a stop in front of a steel door painted the color of a battleship. When Dr. Mitch opened the door, I saw not you, Penny, but Eve seated at the table. A lone guard stood off in a corner, as animated as a houseplant.
You noticed me right away and looked sort of pleased.
“Jack,” you exclaimed, a bit loudly, but that’s typical for Eve. “It’s been ages. And Aunt Annie—really, really glad you could come.” Your honey-drenched voice came out quite caustic. “So the gang’s all here.” You clapped your hands together, looking past Dr. Mitch and Mom to the open door behind us. “What? No Ryan?” You made a tsk-tsk sound with your tongue. “Such a surprise. He’s been so supportive.” Your mouth crinkled into a tight smile.
“Hello, Eve,” I said, trying to ignore the grand, regal persona you exuded.
“So what brings you all here today?” You cocked your head sideways.
“We need to ask you an important question,” Annie said, coming around to give you a quick hug and a peck on the check, which coaxed out a grimace. Mom bent over to hug and kiss you as well and received an equally chilly reception.
“Fine, then,” said Eve. “Let’s get it over with. Tuesdays we get to do arts and crafts in the rec room, and I’d hate to miss it for … well … this.” You gestured to us, your family.
“Damn,” I said. “You’re cold as ever.”
“You’ve always looked after me, Jack, even when I was sugar or spice.”
We had a code, you and I, and I knew you meant no disrespect. You were telling us, in your special Eve style, that it hurt to be together because we couldn’t do it in the way that you remembered and missed.
“Let’s get on with it then,” said Annie.
“We think there’s a chance you didn’t kill anybody,” I said. You eyed me coolly.