I wasn’t a police officer. I was a very new private investigator. I didn’t have handcuffs. I didn’t even own a gun yet. So, even if I could find him, how on earth could I convince him to come home with me? I pushed that question aside to focus on the bigger problem. How was I going to find a mentally unstable man, who was living completely off the grid, and who was on the run for his life? Where could he possibly go? He couldn’t go back to Pleasant Valley. Not unless he wanted to be recommitted, maybe this time for the rest of his life. He had no resources that I was aware of and no one knew where his mother might be…if she even still existed.
I’ve had ideas hit me out of nowhere before. Sometimes it feels like pin pricks in my brain. Other times, it’s like a sledgehammer coming down on me. This time, it was like a flash of lightning that had struck ground only a few inches away from where I stood. I felt it in my entire body.
The Larsons. He might go to his grandparents’ house. They were the only other living relatives he had, that I was aware of. He just might see them as his only option.
I looked at the clock on my dashboard. It was almost nine o’clock. If I left right that minute and headed to Irvine, it would be nine thirty before I got there. If Brian wasn’t there, I’d be waking up an old couple who probably went to bed at seven p.m. But if Brian was there, there was no telling what he might do out of desperation. No, it couldn’t wait.
I pulled out of the parking lot of the police station and headed south to Irvine.
Chapter 20
The winding roads of Estill County were hard to navigate in the dark. I kept expecting a possum to run out, or deer to jump out in front of me, causing me to careen off the road into a ditch. But I miraculously managed to keep my car between the white lines.
As soon as I rounded the final corner at the end of Sand Hill, my heart dropped into my stomach. There in the driveway, pulled up behind the Larsons’ old Cadillac, was Brian’s beat-up old red truck. For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had only taken a guess at where he might have gone, after all. Yes, I was a private investigator, but let’s be honest. I’d only changed careers from paralegal to investigator a couple of months prior, so it’s not like I could say it was all my years of experience that led me to the house at the end of Sand Hill. I guess you could say it was just a gut instinct. Or women’s intuition.
Regardless of how I’d known, he was there. I turned my headlights off before I pulled in behind him and shut my engine down at the end of the driveway. The lights in the living room in the front of the house were on, which was odd for an elderly couple at that hour. When I climbed out of my car, I shut the car door behind me as slowly and quietly as possible. I began walking up the gravel driveway, but realized I was making too much noise, so I hopped over to the grass and approached the front of the house that way.
When I finally made it to the porch, I gingerly stepped over the first couple of steps, afraid the old wood would creak and give me away. Luckily, there was no sound besides the crickets chirping in the woods that surrounded the house and then the bone-chilling cry of a wolf, not all that far away. Or maybe it was just a dog. I could never tell the difference.
Suddenly, I heard the muffled shouts of a man. I tiptoed up to the window and peeked inside. Through a crack in the blinds, I could see Brian pacing back and forth across the rug in the middle of the living room floor. Behind him on the old blue couch sat Harold and Betty Sue Larson. They seemed to be unharmed, but frightened. Harold had his arm around Betty Sue, who was crying into her wrinkled and spotted hands, which were trembling. Harold looked scared too, but I could tell he was trying to be strong for Betty Sue.
Without thinking about it for another second, I opened the front door and pushed my way in over the threshold. Brian spun around with a look of pure shock on his face. Harold and Betty Sue looked at me with the tiniest bit of relief in their eyes.
“What are you doing here, Libby?” Brian growled.
At first, I expected to see a gun or knife in his hands, but when I looked at them, they too were trembling, and empty. When I looked him over and then settled my gaze on his face, I saw instantly that he was just as afraid as the Larsons were. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He was a good foot taller than I was and even though he was a bit scrawny, I reckoned that he could best me in a physical struggle. So I stood my ground and put my hands out in front of myself, palms up, to show that I was unarmed and posed no physical threat to him.
“Brian, calm down,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Neither are they.”
“Maybe you aren’t going to hurt me,” he said as he ran his hands nervously through his hair. “But they have been hurting me for years. And they hurt Mommy!”
Mommy? He was referring to his mother, Annie Larson, I knew. But the way he said Mommy made my skin crawl. Norman Bates immediately came to mind.
“Listen to me, Brian,” I said as I took one cautious step in his direction.
“Stay back!” he screamed. “You stay right where you are!”
I pulled my foot back to its original position and looked at Brian more closely. He was wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing earlier—jeans, a grey t-shirt, and a red flannel overshirt—but he looked disheveled now. His hair was all mussed up and he had sweat pouring from his temples down the sides of his cheeks. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot and he was shaking like the leaves on a magnolia tree during a strong spring breeze.
“All right,” I said with my hands now held up in a defensive manner. “I’ll stay right here. But Brian, I need you to talk to me. Why are you so upset?”
“Why? Why? You really don’t know? These…people…are liars! Do you know what they did?”
I thought briefly on how to answer. Should I play ignorant and let him explain it from his point of view, or should I tell him I already knew? Since I wanted to establish trust with him, I decided to tell him the truth.
“Yes, Brian. I know what they did.”
“Do you really? I don’t think you do. You probably heard their side of the story. Well, it’s time that they, and you, heard the truth!” When he shouted this, spittle went flying from his mouth and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. His face was red and veins were throbbing in his neck.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Tell me what they did. I’m on your side, Brian. Remember? I’m your sister.”
“You didn’t know about me until recently,” he said with a sad look on his face. Then he turned to face the Larsons. “But they knew everything! The whole time! And they did nothing!”
“Brian,” I said as calmly as I could. “Why don’t you tell me what they did? Maybe we can work this out somehow. I’m sure they didn’t mean to…”
“Stop it!” he yelled. “Stop defending them!”
“I’m not defending them. I barely know them.” I looked at Harold and Betty Sue, who were trembling violently and looking at me curiously. They were probably wondering whether I was going to help them, or join Brian in the torment. I felt awful for them, but I knew the only way I could help them was to try to talk Brian through his rage and hopefully get him to calm down. “Brian, why don’t you tell me what has you so upset? Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help me. No one can help me. I’m totally fucked up and it’s all their fault!” When he said this, he pounded his fists against his head repeatedly.
“Brian, stop that!” I shouted.
He lowered his hands and looked at me. His eyes were like those of a wounded animal, caught in a trap. He wanted me to help him, but I had no idea how to do that.
“Just…talk to me, Brian. Tell me what they did to you.”
He paced back and forth a couple of times before he stopped and pointed right at the scared old couple. “When they found out Mommy was pregnant with me, they just tossed her away, like trash! They sent her away and they were going to force her to give me up for adoption!”
“Brian, that’s not exactly what…” Harold�
�s voice was feeble and quavering.
“Shut up! Don’t you say another word!”
Harold sunk back into the couch and Betty Sue began to cry quietly into Harold’s shoulder.
“What happened, Brian?” I asked him as I took another cautious step forward. This time, he either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because he didn’t force me to step back.
“Mommy outsmarted them, though,” he said with a distant gaze and a somewhat creepy smile. “She ran away with me right before the horrible people were going to take me away from her forever. Mommy’s always been smart like that.”
My skin was crawling with every mention of Annie Larson. He spoke of her with an almost oedipal fondness. It was unsettling, to say the least. But I said nothing and let him continue his story.
“What happened next, Brian?”
“Mommy took me away. She hid me from the horrible people and she took me far, far away.”
“Where did you go, Brian?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I just know we lived in a cabin out in the woods, so no one could find us. We stayed there for years until Mommy said I was a grown man and she said I had a purpose in life. She said we would get revenge on everyone who had wronged us. So she sent me out into the world, all by myself. But I was a man, you see. I could handle it.”
No, he couldn’t. He was no more a man now than he likely was at whatever age Annie had sent him out into the world on his own. And I knew that he’d spent most of those adult years in and out of jail and institutions. I felt a sudden sense of sadness for the life he might have had if Randy had been in his life. Better yet, if Annie Larson wasn’t his mother.
“Brian, what was your purpose in life?”
“To make everyone pay.”
“Pay for what, Brian? Who is everyone?”
He began pacing again. “Everyone who ever hurt us. My father, mainly. Mommy said that he knew all along that I was his son, but he chose to turn his back on both of us. So he had to pay.”
“Brian,” I said. I had to be careful with what I was about to say, but it had to be said. “Randy didn’t know you were even alive until you were nearly twenty years old. He didn’t abandon you.”
“Shut up! Yes, he did!” He spun on his heel and pointed directly at Harold. “He told Randy I was dead! He lied! And because of him, I never had a father.”
“Brian, I was only trying to—”
Brian lunged forward toward Harold and reared his arm back as if he were going to backslap the old man. I jumped between them and put my hands gently on Brian’s shoulders. For the first time, I looked him directly in the eyes. They were red-rimmed and full of tears.
“Listen to me, Brian. They made a mistake. They weren’t trying to hurt you or your mother. They did what they thought was best at the time. Many years ago, it wasn’t okay for a teenage girl to have a child out of wedlock. They were just trying to do the right thing. They didn’t know any better. Please. Don’t hurt him.”
Brian’s arm dropped to his side and he looked down into my eyes. “I won’t hurt them. I just wanted them to see me. To know that I’m alive and that they ruined my life. Them and my father. Your father too. Randy turned his back on me.”
“No,” I said with my hands still on Brian’s shoulders. “Brian, that’s not true. Trust me, I know what it’s like to hold in all that anger toward your own father. God knows I have done it for the last twenty years. But I learned a lot recently that has shown me I was wrong. Randy’s not a bad man, Brian.”
He pushed me back, but not roughly, looking very angry again. “Yes he is! He turned his back on his own son! He denied me! He must pay for his sins.”
“You’re wrong,” I said cautiously. “Annie, I mean, your mother, found Randy over twenty years ago at a truck stop. She told Randy about you and he offered to help take care of you. He wanted to be a part of your life, Brian. He always wanted a son. But your mother turned him down flat. She was so angry with him for rebuffing her romantic advances that she swore he’d never see you and that she’d make him pay. Don’t you see? Your mother is the real reason for all your troubles. She kept you from your grandparents, who happen to be very nice and caring people, by the way. And she kept you from your father, who wanted nothing more than to be a part of your life.”
“Lies,” he said quietly. But I could tell the gears in his brain were working overtime. Something I had said had gotten to him. “He abandoned me. That’s why he had to pay.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked in as gentle a voice as I could muster.
“She said…” he stumbled backward as if he had just been punched in the gut. “But Mommy said…”
“I know what your mother told you, Brian. But it was all lies. She made you hate your family. Your grandparents and your own father. Tell me what you mean by making Randy pay?”
“Oh God!” he said as he grabbed the sides of his head and crouched down low. He began rocking back and forth on his heels and crying loudly. “Oh, God!”
“Brian,” I said as I bent down slowly and put my hand on his heaving back. “What did you do? Did you kill all those women and blame it on Randy? Was that how you made him pay? You can tell me. I can help you.”
He looked up at me with tears and snot covering his face and his eyes wide with fear. “Mommy said he had to pay. She said…he deserved it. She said he should rot in prison for the rest of his life. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”
“There, there,” I said as I wrapped my arms around the stranger that was my brother. It was an awkward sensation, but in some small way, it felt almost natural to be comforting my own flesh and blood. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he continued to sway back and forth on the heel of his steel toed work boots. As I held him, I looked up at Harold and Betty Sue. They were still clinging to one another in fear. “He’s okay now,” I told them. “I’m going to take him with me. Will you guys be okay?”
Betty Sue looked up at Harold, and then nodded slightly. Harold eventually spoke. “We’ll be fine. Just get him out of here before I call the cops.”
“Please don’t do that,” I pled with him. “Brian’s sick. He’s not well at all. I’m going to take him with me and see if I can get some help for him.”
“But he killed all those women!” Betty Sue said.
“I know,” I said. “But just please let me take him out of here and don’t call the police. I’d like to take him in myself. I want to make sure he’s unharmed. I have a detective friend that I trust. I’ll go to him. He’ll know what to do.”
Harold seemed to contemplate this for some time. Eventually, he nodded his head tersely and said, “Okay, fine. Just get him out of here and make sure he never comes back.”
To be honest, I was a little put off by Harold’s reaction to his own grandson. Yes, Brian had broken into their house and essentially held them hostage while he ranted and raved like a lunatic. But I felt sorry for him in a way, and I guess I hoped his grandparents would understand that he was mentally unwell.
“Come on, Brian,” I said as I gently guided him up off the ground. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Where are we going?” he asked in a quivering voice.
“I don’t know. But I’m going to make sure no one hurts you. I’m your sister, aren’t I? That’s what family does. We take care of each other.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. He sounded like a child who’d done something very naughty and was now afraid of the coming punishment.
Without another word to the Larsons, I guided Brian out the door, down the porch steps, and out to my waiting Sorento. I helped him into the passenger side, buckled him in, and shut the car door. He never said a word while I did this. He just sat there staring through the windshield out into the night. I wondered what was going through his mind.
When I got in my side of the car, buckled, and turned over the ignition, Brian looked over at me and said, “Thanks, Libb
y. You’re a good little sister.”
I smiled, not knowing exactly what to say, and put the car in reverse.
Chapter 21
We drove in silence for the first ten minutes or so. Brian just sat there staring out the window, almost as if he was in a trance. His hands were folded and tucked in between his knees and his head was resting against the passenger side window. I drove with my hands at ten and two and my back straight, which I only did when I was uptight or nervous about something. Finally, I couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“Brian,” I said.
He looked at me, but said nothing.
I really didn’t have anything important to say. I just wanted to break the silence, but thought that turning on the radio seemed a bit strange, given the mood in the car.
“Never mind,” I said, turning my eyes back to the road ahead.
“You think I’m a monster, don’t you?” Brian said after a few more moments of awkward silence.
“What? No,” I said without thinking. “I mean, you’ve done some bad things, Brian. But I don’t believe you are completely responsible for your actions. Do you know what the doctors say you suffer from?”
“They say I’m a paranoid schizophrenic,” he said, looking down at his hands, which were wringing each other tightly. “I don’t believe them. I think I’m just crazy.”
“Brian, the doctors know what they’re doing. And just because you have that diagnosis doesn’t mean you’re crazy. I think most of your problems stem from your mother.”
“Don’t talk about Mommy like that,” he snapped.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just that your mother lied to you, Brian. Surely you see that now.”
Family Ties (Flesh & Blood Trilogy Book 2) Page 18