Betraying Innocence (37 page)

Ana

Randy Dicen was sitting at a round table in the corner of a dull room full of shuffling, blank-faced men and women. Other tables were scattered throughout, some occupied by patients doing puzzles, but most were empty. Ana ignored everyone as she crossed to where Dicen sat, watching the room with a mute expression. His watery, bloodshot eyes found Ana and a bushy eyebrow lifted.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.

She stopped, keeping the table between them. “May I?”

He shrugged. “I’m crazy. I don’t think I have a say in where anyone sits.”

Ana drew out the chair and sat. “I don’t know if you’re crazy or not, but I need to know about Johnny Baits.”

Something flashed behind his eyes, something dark and angry. “What makes you think I know a thing about that?”

Ana sighed, rolling her eyes. “Please don’t play that game with me. I know the
him
you’re always talking about is Johnny. I also know that you, Peter Carrick and Philip Andrews were the ones who killed him on Halloween twenty-nine years ago. I want to know why and I want to know where you buried his body.”

Dicen
leaned back, unfurling his legs beneath the table. “You sure demand a lot for someone who has nothing to offer in exchange.”

Ana frowned. “You killed that boy in cold blood. Don’t you want to make, I don’t know, amend
s for that? Don’t you think he deserves a proper burial or for his family to finally get some answers?”

The look in
Dicen’s eyes was bored disinterest. “Sweetie, nothing in this world is for free. People live with the crap they’re dealt and move on. Besides, what’s it to you anyway?”

“Because I promised Johnny I would help him find those responsible.”

That seemed to spark something. Dicen’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean promised him?”

“Exactly what I said,” she replied evenly. “He’s still in that house. He’s been chasing away owners for years because they didn’t know how to help him, but I do.”

“And how do you plan on doing that? You have no proof.”

Ana slammed a hand down on the table, her frustration finally reaching its snapping point. “You’re a bastard!” she hissed. “A sick, evil bastard. You killed that boy, took his life and you don’t even have the decency to right the wrong you committed. Your life is already over. I mean, look at you.” She let her gaze roam over him in disgust. “You’re a mess, a drunk, worthless mess locked away in a nuthouse. What have you done with the life you stole, because this life you’re living isn’t
yours? It’s Johnny’s. You took it the minute you ended him and what do you have to show for it?” She shoved back her chair and got to her feet. “Peter may have been a coward, but at least he felt enough remorse to kill himself for what he did.”

Spinning on her heels, she started through the room towards the doors.

“Hey!” She ignored his shout. “Girl!”

She stopped and turned.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Come back. I’ll tell you.”

She had half a mind to just leave. Instead, her feet were moving back to the table and she
regained her seat.

“Everything!” she said.

Dicen nodded. He drummed his fingers along the table. “I haven’t told anyone this. That night feels like a horrible dream sometimes. Then I wake up and look around and … I realize it wasn’t. I don’t know how the others managed to cope with it. Peter went on to become a lawyer and, fuck, Philip became the fucking mayor.” He shook his head. “For weeks afterwards, I could scarcely get out of bed. I kept seeing Johnny’s body just lying there in this massive puddle of blood. I didn’t even know a person could bleed that badly from a few kicks and punches. It wasn’t until I bent down to check that I realized Philip had stabbed him with the hunting knife his dad had given him for his seventeenth birthday. Some kind of family heirloom. It was passed down through his family for generations. It probably went to Vincent on his seventeenth. Philip had bragged about the stupid thing for days after he got it.” His hand was shaking as he wiped the back across his mouth. He stared, unblinking across the table like he was seeing it all over again.

“What happened that night?” Ana murmured softly.

Dicen’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “It started with the party. Every kid in town knew that Johnny’s parents would be away for that Halloween weekend. It was supposed to be the party of the century.” He gave a snort. “I doubt any of us knew how true that would be. We all got dressed up and hit Philip’s dad’s liquor cabinet before making our way to the party. Sober-Philip was nothing compared to drunk-Philip. He was always mean, but when he drank, Lord help the fool who got in his path. That night, Johnny caught his line of vision.”

“Because of Kristen.”

Watery eyes rose up and met hers. A sad smile twisted his lips. “Every boy wanted Kristen, but no one was stupid enough to actually go for it, not when Philip had already set claim to her. She was supposed to be his, even if she didn’t know about it or agree. Kirsten wanted Johnny and Johnny wanted Kristen. Really, it should have ended there. It was a love story already in the making. But Philip was never taught how to lose and that night he had set out to win Krissie one way or another.”

“He wrote the letter for Johnny to meet him in the basement,” Ana remembered from her vision.

Dicen nodded. “Philip watched them all evening, watched them dancing and laughing and we knew it was only a matter of time before he hit the roof. We were pretty drunk from what we took from his dad’s cabinet plus whatever someone had poured into the punch bowl so we were feeling pretty rowdy and ready for a fight ourselves. When he wrote the letter and had some freshman take it to Johnny … we were all kind of excited about the prospect of a tussle. Things didn’t get out of control until the basement. We were all under the impression that Philip would kick his ass a little and we’d all return to the party. No big deal. We didn’t even know Philip had brought his knife until it was in his hand with Johnny’s blood on it.” He dropped his face into his hands.

“Where’s Johnny now?”

Breathing hard, Dicen raised his head. Tears washed down his face. “We freaked. None of us had ever seen a dead body. We were just a bunch of stupid kids. We had our whole lives ahead of us. It wasn’t supposed to go that far! We were all sure we’d be going to jail for the rest of our lives. Then Philip came up with the idea of hiding the body. We had to play it cool and wait for everyone to leave the party. One of us stood guard over the basement door the rest of the night, keeping people from going down there. Philip and Peter went up to Johnny’s room and grabbed a bunch of his clothes and things, put them into a suitcase. When we buried him, we buried the suitcase with him so it would look like he ran away. In the morning, when the sheriff started asking questions, Philip told them that Johnny had been wanting to leave for months and he decided to do it the night his parents weren’t home to stop him. When they searched his room and found his things missing, they believed it. No one ever questioned it. Why would they? Philip’s family had always been an upstanding pillar of society. His grandfather was the mayor of Chipawaha Creek at the time so no one blinked an eye.”

“
Vinny’s dead,” she murmured.

Dicen
nodded. “I saw.”

“He died in my basement. Johnny did it.”

He nodded again. “I know. I think because he looked so much like his father, or maybe it was payback.”

Ana shifted in her seat. “Can I ask you something?”

Dicen snorted. “Haven’t you been doing just that?”

She ignored that. “Did you ever seen Johnny? I mean after.”

He raked a hand back through his hair and rubbed the back of his head. “There were times I would find myself at the house and I could swear he was in one of the windows, just watching me. But I was always drunk so…”

“I saw you arguing with Peter a while back about telling the police.”

He nodded. “I don’t think any of them ever took me seriously. Every year around this time I always felt this weight on my chest, just waiting to crush me and every year I swore that this year I would finally tell someone. But I was too much of a coward. I didn’t want to get locked up.” He paused and glanced around. He laughed. “Too late for that I guess.”

“Mr.
Dicen, where’s Johnny’s body?”

Dicen
sighed. He slumped back in his chair and stared off into some unreachable distance. It was several minutes before he spoke again.

“That pond in the back, it hadn’t always been there. Johnny’s parents had just dug it up, hoping to turn it into a swimming pool. They had the foundation dug up but they moved before they could fill it. Over the years one of the other owners filled it and turned it into a pond.”

Ana’s jaw slackened. “He’s in the pond?”

Dicen
nodded. “It seemed like the perfect place. Philip was hoping they would concrete it up and no one would ever find out.”

That explained why the first time Ana had seen Johnny, he’d been standing by the pond, then again the night he’d shoved her in. As subtl
ety went, he clearly hadn’t mastered it, but it was obvious he’d been trying to tell her something.

Ana rose from her chair. “Thank you, Mr.
Dicen.”

His dull eyes met hers, his face drawn. “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“If you see him again, could you ask him? I know I don’t deserve it, but…”

“I will.” She started making her way to the front when another thought occurred to her. She turned. “Mr. Dicen?” She waited until she had his attention before asking, “There were four boys, you, Philip Andrews, and Peter Carrick. Who was the fourth?”

He blinked, seemingly surprised by her question. “Finnegan. Nathan Finnegan.”

Ana

Rafe was waiting for her when she rushed home. He pulled himself up off the front steps when she scrambled up the driveway and stood with his arms folded and his face a dark cloud of annoyance.

“You didn’t listen to me,” he said the moment she was close enough.

Too excited by her news, she ignored the waves of anger coming off him. She grabbed his arms. “You won’t believe what I found out!”

He shook her off. “And right now, I don’t care! Damn it, Ana. I asked you to wait.”

“Just listen! Please!”

He expelled a huff of air. “What?”

“Inside,” she said. “I want Johnny to hear, too.”

If he thought her request was completely off its hinges, he made no comment as he followed her inside.
Mom stuck her head out of the kitchen, motioned to the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder and disappeared once more around the corner. Ana waited until they were in her room with the door shut before launching into her story. She left nothing out, replaying everything Dicen had told her. She paced as she spoke, her voice pitched high as she fought between getting it all out and breathing.

When she finished, she turned to Rafe, her eyes wide and shining with delight. “So I know where he is. We can finally bury him properly and—”

Rafe rose off the bed and folded his arms. “I don’t care.”

Ana stilled. “What?”

“I said I don’t care.” His biceps flexed beneath the sleeves of his shirt. “You’re putting your life at risk for a guy who’s already dead. Does it look like he gives a shit what happens to you? He carved a guy up in your basement. He’s not a puppy you can mend and train to be nice, Ana. He’s a crazy, evil spirit who wants blood and he doesn’t care how he gets it. You running around putting your neck out for him is only encouraging him.”

“That isn’t—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” His arms dropped to his sides. “I care about you, Ana. I mean, I care about you like I’ve never cared about anyone and this whole thing scares the shit out of me. I seriously don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you. Then there you are, running around, deliberately putting yourself in danger and for what? The guy is dead, and truthfully, if he was this much of a prick in his real life as he is in his afterlife, I can see why they killed him.”

He pushed past her and out the door.

Ana stood staring at the empty doorway with her heart somewhere around her ankles. The mattress springs squeaked as she lowered herself down on the bed. She didn’t even look up when the door slowly shut on its own.

“Ana, could you get the door, please?”

Leaving the plates she was setting on the table, Ana hurried down the hall to the front door. The steady chop of her mother’s knife cutting through vegetables echoed after her from the kitchen. Part of her hoped it was Rafe coming back to fix the rift between them. So she was both surprised and a little afraid when she opened the door to find Mayor Andrews and Mr. Finnegan standing on her front porch.

Ana tensed. She kept one hand on the doorknob and the other on the doorframe, prepared to slam the door shut at a second’s notice.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, keeping her voice low.

“We came to talk to you, Ana,” Finnegan said in his best principal tone.

“I have nothing to say to you … either of you!” she hissed. “I know what you did all those years ago. I know about Johnny.”

The two exchanged glances. Their expressions were chillingly blank when they turned back to her.

“Are you having your episodes again, Ana?” Finnegan said calmly. “Seeing Demons? That’s exactly what people will think if you tell them.”

“Until they dig up the pond and find his body,” she challenged back. “That’s where you buried him, isn’t it? After you beat and stabbed him.” Her gaze shot to Andrews. “
How do you sleep?”

His smile was slow and dark. “Very comfortably.”

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

“We came to talk,” Andrew
s answered with a delicate shrug of his shoulders. “To maybe come to some kind of arrangement.”

Ana narrowed her eyes. “What kind of arrangement?”

“You keep your mouth shut and convince your parents to move and we make sure your house doesn’t burn to the ground while you’re sleeping.”

Ana gasped
, his words hitting her square in the chest. “It was you that night?”

“Me, actually,” the
mayor replied as though discussing the color of paint. “We really need you to leave Chipawaha Creek, Ana. Consider that a friendly warning.”

She couldn’t stomach the sight of them any longer.
“Get away from my family!”

S
he tried to slam the door shut. It was grabbed and shoved back, nearly smacking her in the face.

“Don’t be stupid, Ana,” Finnegan said
calmly. “This offer won’t be around forever.”

Her mother
’s heels hitting the hardwood stifled the four letter word Ana was about to hurl at the two. “Who is it, Ana?”

The door was jerked out of Ana’s grasp and swung fully open.

Her mother blinked in surprise. “Mr. Andrews? Mr. Finnegan? What a surprise. What brings you out this way so late at night?”

It wasn’t that late, but that was the least of Ana’s problems.

“Ana has a library book out that the school needs returned,” Finnegan said smoothly.

Her mother frowned. “
Do the mayor and principal usually make house calls for overdue library books?”

The two laughed as though she’d made a hilarious joke.

“I was already on my way over to see you and Richard,” Andrews said. “I spotted Nathan here while I was driving and decided to give him a lift home on my way back.”

“You couldn’t drop him off before coming over?” Ana voiced snidely, and earned cold glares from the pair.

“Nathan and I are good friends, have been since our diaper days,” Andrews said. “We’d both been so busy lately that the drive was a nice catch-up.”

“What
about Dicen and Carrick? Shouldn’t the four of you be digging up old skeletons together?”

“Who? What?” Her mother looked from the two on the doorstep to Ana and back. “What are you talking about, Ana?”

“Yes, Ana? Please explain.” There was nothing but genuine curiosity in Andrews’ voice, but it was the glint of silver against his hip when he casually tucked his hands inside his pockets that spoke the loudest.

Ana bit her tongue.
But she glared venomously at the two.

“Teenagers,” Finnegan said, chuckling.
“I have to deal with this on a daily basis.”

Her mother smiled, but it was strained and confused.
“Was there something I could help with you, Mr. Andrews?”

The
mayor’s shoulders drooped a little. “I thought we agreed you would call me Philip, Caroline.” When her mother said nothing, he stopped the pouty act and went on. “Krissie mentioned she came by the other day and how you were so kind to her. I just wanted to make sure you and Richard knew that I do not fault you for what happened to … Vinny.”

The man deserved an Emmy for the flawless pitch of emotion in his voice and features. For a moment, he looked like the perfect grieving father.

“I don’t believe for a moment that Ana had anything to do with what happened and I expressed my thoughts to the sheriff.”

Sure you did
, Ana thought bitterly.

“Well, thank you,” her mother said. “We appreciate that.” She glanced down at Ana before facing the two once more. “Would you like to come in for supper? Richard will be home in a few minutes and there’s enough for everyone.”

“Oh I would love to, but I have paperwork to finish,” Finnegan said at once. “A principal’s job is never done.”

Andrews nodded. “Unfortunately I promised Krissie I’d be home for supper. But thank you for the generous offer.”

They began to turn away, a perfectly oiled machine.

Finnegan paused and glanced back at Ana. “Don’t forget that book, Ana. I would hate to see any penalties
come against you.”

It took all her restraint not to flip him off.

Her mom closed the door behind them and exhaled. “Wow, that was weird.” She started for the kitchen as Ana stayed and watched the bob of taillights as their unwanted company rolled out of the driveway. “And what was going on with you? I understand Mr. Finnegan is responsible for your expulsion from school, but we raised you better. This will all blow over and if we’re still in this town, you might wind up back at Darcy. Do you really want to get on the principal’s bad side?”

Ana said nothing as she
let the sheer curtains drop back over the glass on either side of the door and turned. She stilled as she caught sight of the pale figure standing at the top of the stairs, watching her. Their eyes met and for a moment, they were both in agreement without a single word spoken between them. Finnegan and Andrews weren’t going to give up until they’d silenced Ana for good.

She called Rafe later that night. Mrs. Ramirez picked up on the third ring.

“Hello Ana!” she said. “I’m sorry. Rafe isn’t home. I thought he was with you.”

Ana tried not to let her disappointment show when she spoke. “We had a bit of a disagreement. He’s upset with me.”

“Aw, I’m sure he’ll come around. He’s never been one to hold a grudge for very long. I’ll let him know you called when he gets home.”

Thanking her, Ana hung up and paced her room.

What if he was done with her? What if he’d broken up with her and was out with another girl? The questions plagued her the longer she stewed on them. Her insides coiled and knotted with dread. Most of the skin on her lip was peeled away and bleeding by the time she’d made up her mind to find him and apologize. She didn’t know what she’d do if he was with another girl, but she’d deal with that when the time came.

“Mom,
can I borrow the car?”

Sitting curled up on the sofa, her mom looked up from the book open in her hands. She squinted at Ana. “The car?” She checked her watch. “It’s almost midnight. Where on earth are you going at this hour?”

Twisting a bit of string poking out from the end of her sleeve around her finger, Ana looked down. “Rafe and I had a fight. It was my fault. I want to find him and apologize before…”

Her mom closed her book and set it aside. “Before what?”

She shrugged. “Before he forgets about me and finds someone else.”

A look of amused sympathy crossed over her mother’s face as she rose to her feet and walked over to Ana. Her hands were gentle as they brushed back strands of hair
from Ana’s face and tucked them behind her ear.

“If he does find someone else after only one fight, then he’s clearly not the one for you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t blame him if he did,” she muttered. “I drove him to it by being a complete crazy person.”

Her mother chuckled.
“You’ll have a lot of those moments in the coming years. If we’re good at anything as women, it’s overacting.”

“Who’s overacting?” Her father walked into the room, unrolling the sleeves on his shirt.
“Dishes are done.”