by Kylie Brant
Raising her gaze to the woman, she asked, “When will that be?” When would Uncle Bill get over the knowledge of all his wife had done? When would Eryn, for that matter? When would Jaxson stop wandering around the strange home looking lost and afraid? It would be so easy for her to agree with the doctor and leave the stress of the last couple of weeks behind. It would also feel like running. “Real life is messy.”
The woman nodded her dark head. “It can be, yes.”
“But I have to learn to handle the messy parts too.” She gave a slight smile. “With your help, of course.” Eryn knew she didn’t have all the necessary tools to grapple with the suffocating weight the truth had brought. It still brought her awake, her heart squeezing so tightly it was a struggle to breathe.
“Besides, Jaxson needs me. So does Uncle Bill.” Mary Jane had moved with them to the new house. There wasn’t as much for her to do, but Eryn was glad she was there. Right now, the woman seemed like the only “normal” in the entire situation. And all of them were desperately searching for normal.
The doctor was wearing pink today. A pretty pastel sweater that contrasted with the dreary November day showcased in the windows. Eryn liked her far better than she had Dr. Steigel. Someday she might like her as well as she had Dr. Glassman.
“With all that’s happened, you have a lot to work through. What else do you want to discuss today?”
They’d talked frequently since Samuel Aldeen and David Sutton had tried to kill Eryn’s family. Eryn was seeing Dr. Ashland nearly every day now. They’d started to process some subjects. There were others Eryn wasn’t ready to broach.
Like dwelling on the specifics of how Mama had died. Dr. Glassman had always said that Eryn had suffered a psychotic break the night it happened, which explained why she’d never been able to remember a single detail. But now Dr. Ashland said the cause was more likely the trauma of what she’d seen. Eryn’s mind skittered away from the thought. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to deal with the topic yet. She wasn’t sure she ever would be.
Realizing the doctor was waiting patiently for an answer, Eryn cast around for one of the subjects she could handle. “I told you I followed Jaxson into the stable. The first time the man who took him spoke, I recognized his voice.” She still couldn’t wrap her mind around that. How a man she didn’t remember could have lived in her head while she was a child. How one of the voices in her mind back then sounded just like him.
“It’s complicated. Your childhood auditory hallucinations were a symptom of your mental illness. Bipolar disorder is a brain disorder. It may have existed even without the traumatic events you endured, although the trauma and associated PTSD could have triggered it.” The doctor’s eyes were as kind as her tone. “Your file says the voices went away once you were properly diagnosed and treated. It’s not unusual for a child not to remember events that occurred at ages two or three. But it doesn’t mean the incidents didn’t affect you psychologically. Your fear of small, dark spaces, for example.”
“Dr. Glassman always said the voices were really my thoughts.”
The woman nodded. “That’s true. You said the voice with the name of your abuser was the one telling you to hurt yourself and others. Perhaps you subconsciously made a correlation to him forcing you to do things you weren’t comfortable with.”
“If Uncle Arlo was a real person, what about Mr. Timmons?” She hated discussing the very things that were symptomatic of her illness. Despised knowing that there was no cure for it.
But there was treatment. And understanding her symptoms gave her some control over them.
“An interesting question.” And the doctor did look intrigued. “I’ve actually done some research on the issue myself. But I’m afraid there’s no way to be certain. It’s possible that you came in contact with someone by that name when you were very young and impressionable who was kind to you. Perhaps a policeman or medical worker. And then your mind equated that name with your more responsible thoughts.”
The veiled reference to the violent scene between her mother and David Sutton had Eryn wincing a little. She’d had enough for the day. What she’d learned about her past was almost too unwieldy to handle. But they’d take small bites at it. Like the baby steps Eryn was taking toward independence. Neither would be easy. But in the last couple of weeks, she’d learned she was stronger than she’d ever realized.
Ryder
Deputy Cal Patterson scrambled to his feet when Ryder walked toward his station outside Samuel Aldeen’s door in Asheville Memorial Hospital. “Ry. It was a quiet night.”
There was an Asheville cop stationed on the other side of the door, who rose more laconically from his chair. “Sheriff.”
Ryder inclined his head. “Officer. The other two inside the room?”
Cal nodded. “We’ve been trading off positions.”
“Why don’t the two of you go get some coffee. Your shift should change soon.” Not waiting for a second invitation, the men bolted down the hallway. Ryder mused that he should have asked for some himself before mentally dismissing the idea. He could do better hitting a drive-through on the way back to Waynesville.
He pushed open the door, noting the immediate attention of Deputies Logan Middleton and Kara French. They exchanged greetings and looked toward the bed. Aldeen was unmoving, his good eye closed. The other was swathed with bandages. Ryder knew the gunshot wounds would bear similar treatment. Both wrists were manacled and chained to the bed rails.
He jerked his head, and the two deputies followed him outside. “Any change?”
Aldeen had lost his eye after Eryn’s attack. Ryder took a moment to appreciate the irony. Rosalyn Pullman would stand trial for the murder of Aurora Pullman. Ryder didn’t need the guilty verdict to be convinced Eryn hadn’t been responsible for the knife attack that had killed her mother. But attacking her abuser with a similar weapon had a certain poetic justice.
“The doctors have already been by this morning. They say the surgery earlier this week for the gunshot wound in his leg went well. He’ll likely be transferred to Fristol’s infirmary within the week.”
With far more security during his stay there than in the past. Ryder had already had that conversation with Dr. Isaacson. “Okay. I have a few more questions for him.” He left the two deputies in the hall and reentered the room.
“Sheriff Talbot.” Aldeen was awake, but his voice was slurred. The effects of the sedation, maybe. Or from the medication for his mental illness. “Have you come for another chat?”
“Just a few more questions.” Ryder dragged a chair close to the man’s bedside. “Who started the fire at Pullman’s? We know you poured accelerant around it.”
“David, I presume.” Samuel looked amused. “He’d scouted the property beforehand and hidden the gas cans we’d use in the stable. After helping him with the owners, I was in too much of a hurry to get to the boy. And David was still inside at the time.”
The man has no reason to lie, Ryder reflected. He was going to remain locked up for the rest of his life. On the other hand, given his mental instability, anything he said was suspect.
“Sutton never got out of the house.”
“Which is a pity. A horrible death.”
There was zero compassion in the man’s voice. For his friend or the victims he’d meant to die in the fire.
“Your deputies have me to thank for their lives, by the way. David wanted to kill them. It was my idea to lie in wait until they made their hourly rounds and ambush them. I trust you found them bound and gagged in the trunk of their car?”
Anger flared. Five hundred acres was a large territory. They’d found the place where Sutton and Aldeen had entered it, driving the stolen pickup across the property until they abandoned it later to walk in behind the house, out of sight of the deputies.
“Tell me again about your plans after the escape.”
“Aruba maybe for the winters. Europe in the summer. I do so love Paris. Have you ever been?”
“Target,” the man mumbled. “Takers are wily, but incredibly dense. How do you think I got the accomplices I needed for my escape?”
“Money and coercion,” Ryder said bluntly.
“I prefer the term persuasion, but yes, of course.” The chains on his wrists jangled as he shifted position in the bed. “And how would I persuade David to help me if he wasn’t strongly motivated by money? God rest his soul, the man had his hand in all sorts of illicit enterprises.”
“Revenge,” Ryder guessed.
“Exactly. David never could ignore even the smallest slight. He might have been reluctant to get involved with my escape having so recently gotten out of prison.” A small satisfied smile crossed his face. “So I appealed to the side of him he couldn’t control. I was once quite fond of Aurora, you know. And when she started allowing me to babysit . . . well, I grew even fonder of her daughter.”
A slow burn ignited inside Ryder. His fist clenched. Fond. An enraging rationalization for sexual abuse.
Aldeen was obviously tiring. His words were getting harder to make out. “We kept in contact for a while. She told me what David had done to her. And also what her brother had done to David. Hiring a trio of thugs to beat him within an inch of his life. I never told David that. Back then.”
“But you used the information to elicit his cooperation,” Ryder said grimly. It fit. It matched Eryn, Rosalyn, and William’s accounting of that evening. Although he hadn’t pinned William down on the accuracy of the accusation, it was clear now that it was all too true. And Aldeen had known exactly what the revelation would do to David Sutton.
“He helps me, I help him.” Aldeen’s voice was little more than a murmur now. “He . . . gets me out. Genius, really. To force Preston’s . . . involvement. And plan to destroy her . . . afterwards.”
“I guess I’d use a different term.” Murderous. Callous. With complete disregard for anyone and anything that didn’t serve Aldeen’s purposes. Ryder rose. He’d require more information, but it needed to be in small doses, given the man’s condition.
Ryder strode for the door. Limited amounts of time with Samuel Aldeen was probably best for both of them.
The home William Pullman was renting was spacious, but it was a sliver of the size of the family estate. Of course, Ryder conceded as he rang the doorbell, almost anything would be.
He recognized the spare, unsmiling woman who opened the door from his interviews almost two weeks earlier. The housekeeper. Mary Jane.
“I’m here to see William.”
She held open the door. “His office is downstairs.” She surprised him by following him through the living room. “I should have said something the last time we spoke.” He turned around at her words.
“About what?”
Mary Jane smoothed her palms down the front of her crisp black slacks. “It might be nothing. But I saw Rosalyn in Eryn’s bathroom. Saw her nosing around in the medicine cabinet too. I asked what she was doing in there, but she said she was just checking that Eryn had everything she might need.” The woman shrugged her bony shoulders. “Might have been just that. Or she might have been messing with the girl’s medication.”
Her observation fit neatly with Rosalyn’s statement the night of the fire. The woman had admitted as much. Of course, from what Ryder had heard, the defense attorney was attempting to have her confession dismissed. But Mary Jane’s words would be damning. Lab results had already verified that Eryn Pullman’s medication had been switched. And he’d already scooped up Rosalyn’s accomplice. “Thank you for telling me that.” But he was speaking to Mary Jane’s back. Her duty done, the woman was already walking toward the kitchen.
Ryder descended the stairs to the basement. He’d been surprised to get a phone call from William asking for him to stop by. After what he’d been through, the man could be forgiven for wanting some time for him and his family to heal. And Ryder would surely have given him that space, had the man not contacted him.
The area was finished but sparsely furnished. An unused wet bar occupied one end of the space. Ryder found William in one of the two bedrooms, which contained only a desk and a couple of chairs, with a filing cabinet in the corner.
“Sheriff.” The man got up and grabbed a folding chair propped in the corner. Opened it in front of the desk and motioned Ryder to it. “Thank you for coming.”
“How are you, William?”
The man’s smile looked like a grimace. “Well, I have bad days and . . . bad days. My therapist says that’s to be expected.” He sat down at the desk again.
“I’m glad to hear you’re talking to someone,” Ryder said sincerely. He couldn’t imagine the emotional burden the man was carrying right now.
“It helps to talk things through with an objective observer. That’s why I called. There are gaps in my understanding of what happened.” The man raked through his hair, which didn’t look as though it’d been trimmed recently. “You told me before it was Rosalyn making those calls. Inciting the wackos at Bancroft’s church to protest. To upset Eryn, I suppose. Another way to sabotage her transition. But the girl told me about some lights she’d seen on the property. She caught Rosalyn in the boathouse with another man, she said. Did Eryn tell you all that?”
Ryder nodded. He was still impressed as hell at what the young woman had gone through. He knew plenty of people without her problems who wouldn’t have exhibited a fraction of the bravery she had. “Rosalyn confessed she was meeting another pharmacy tech she used to work with when she was employed there years ago. He’s admitted she was paying him cash to change Eryn’s meds. They were the same prescriptions, but lower dosages.”
An expression of grief crossed William’s face. “She asked so many questions the times we met with the doctors at Rolling Acres Resort. I thought she was just concerned that Eryn would suffer another psychotic break when she came home. But she must have been planning a way to disrupt the girl’s mental condition without bringing about a complete breakdown. Eryn’s earlier transitions were unsuccessful. She has a condition . . . her system gets used to the meds and they have to be changed . . .” He swallowed hard.
“Why?” Ryder asked bluntly. Once Rosalyn had retained a defense attorney, Ryder’s access to the woman was limited. “What would she get out of having Eryn returned to Rolling Acres?”
“That damn trust,” the man muttered, one hand going up to rub his forehead. “She and Henry. Both of them were obsessed with it. But she was wrong if she thought having Eryn declared mentally incompetent meant the girl would no longer get her share. It’s no secret that I’d like to sell the property. Move somewhere smaller. Less of a financial drain . . .” His gaze flicked around the room. It was obvious that this house wasn’t what he’d had in mind. “I suppose, if Eryn was back at Rolling Acres, I’d have guardianship over the entire trust. Which meant I could do whatever I wished with the property.” His voice choked.
And selling it would have vastly added to the family fortune, even if he would be recipient to only half the sale. Carefully, Ryder asked, “Was anyone in your household a smoker?” The arson investigators had found the remains of cigarette butts outside the back of the house. And more deeper in the yard. There’d been no cigarettes found on Aldeen or Sutton.
William started to shake his head, then stopped. “My older son smokes. Henry. He was visiting that night. I thought he’d left until I saw him outside after I managed to get Rosalyn out of the house.”
The man’s words just underscored Ryder’s interest in Henry Pullman. They’d caught him in several inconsistencies since the night of the fire. He’d told Cady that he’d rescued his father and stepmother. Their account disputed that fact.
His refusal to help Eryn rescue his half brother and his mention of them inheriting if th
e rest of the family perished were especially damning. Ryder’s office would be looking hard at the man’s possible involvement after the fact. “Rosalyn’s accomplice is facing charges as well.”
“How many times did she meet with him?” William asked.
Understanding dawned. “Have you talked to Rosalyn since the fire?” The man’s lack of response was its own answer. Ryder couldn’t blame him. The woman was accused of killing his sister, and she let his niece assume the blame for a horrendous crime. Although Rosalyn was now claiming that she’d merely concocted her admission to distract Sutton and keep him from hurting her husband, her initial story carried a lot of weight. Coupled with the actions she’d taken against Eryn, murdering Aurora fit a pattern of behavior. “Both she and her accessory say they met three times. He stole only a few pills a day, to avoid suspicion.”
William was silent for a moment. “But Eryn says she saw lights outside several times that week.”
“I think David Sutton was probably scouting the property even before we connected him to Aldeen.” Aldeen had been honest about the accelerants. They’d found empty cans in the yard and a couple more full ones in the stable. Forensic testing had identified the bones of the body found inside the Pullman house as belonging to Sutton. By the time the fire department had arrived, it’d been too late to get inside that part of the home. Ryder couldn’t find it in himself to regret that. Sheila Preston’s family wouldn’t have to live in fear anymore. And neither would the Pullmans.
“It’s my fault.” William’s words were tinged with self-recrimination. “I lied to the marshal twice when she asked me about knowing David Sutton. I’d never met him, but I hated the bastard. He beat my sister half to death, and he got a few months in jail. I wanted him to pay. I wanted him hurt as badly as he’d hurt Aurora. I hired someone. He rounded up a few others.”
He clasped his hands together on his desk so tightly his knuckles showed white. “I’m not proud of it. I’ve never done anything illegal in my life before. But I’m not sorry. At least I wasn’t.” His throat worked. “I’m responsible for everything that happened . . . Jaxson and Eryn in the grips of that madman . . . the fire . . . even Aurora’s death. It was my fault Rosalyn was in the house earlier that night. We were seeing each other, but my sister didn’t approve. That part of her story . . . it rang true. Aurora was making things . . . difficult for us. Rosalyn stayed with me in my room for a while and left after midnight. I never knew she’d come back. Never even considered . . .” He shook his head incredulously. “I didn’t mention it to the investigators. Why would I? It seemed so clear. I’d woken early in the morning and got up. I thought I heard voices, but . . .” He swallowed hard. “It was just Eryn. In Aurora’s room. Humming. And the blood . . .” He shuddered. “Eryn’s prints were on the knife. Hers and Mary Jane’s.”