Between the Lies (Book One - The Northern Lights Series) (22 page)

Michelle and Alan hosted us all for breakfast in their home the next morning. We’d received the invitation in a joint text. An immediate response was requested so the cook could prepare for us. Not sure what else to do, I hit “reply to all” and accepted.

Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and pastries waited for us on an extra-long, ornate antique buffet.

Feeling terribly out of place, I took a croissant, strawberry jam, and some eggs. When the server poured coffee from a silver pot into an almost translucent china cup, the contrast between where I’d come from and where I was caught me by surprise.

“Olivia, are you okay?” Michelle asked.

“Yes. I’m fine,” I assured her, reaching for the small knife I hoped was the appropriate one for putting jam on a croissant. My hand shook and I looked up to see if anyone noticed. Newman had. The question was annoying me, but they all seemed so concerned. So I was a little shaky. Seemed like my new norm.

When we were finished with our meal and the uncomfortable surface pleasantries the Lyons’s household demanded, we were invited to the library. There, over more coffee, Alan, Harper, and Newman began to reveal what they’d learned.

Alan began. “Lyons Shipping, the academy, and the house we live in all have secret passageways. I knew about some of them as a child. Another boy and I discovered them one day while playing in the nursery. We’d outgrown the toys and had read some book about false walls in castles. We started a systematic search and found one. My nanny, Aggie, caught us, and went to my father who had the passageway sealed by a contractor.”

Harper picked it up. “Last night Mr. Lyons showed us where that passageway is. We were all stunned to find out it had been unsealed and used recently.”

Michelle shuddered. I wasn’t the only one who’d been stalked and watched.

The three of them continued to talk, but I tuned them out the moment I noticed the painting above the huge brick fireplace. It was a portrait of Alan’s parents in formal attire.

I don’t remember standing up, but that’s what I did. I also pointed at the painting and said, “That’s him, only older. That’s the man who raped me!”

When they say the room spins as one faints, I can attest that it does. I didn’t feel my body slump to the floor, but I awoke to a terrible smell and Michelle fanning my face.

“Olivia! Thank goodness I found Mother’s smelling salts. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you need medical attention?” Alan asked while Newman and Lloyd helped me up.

“I don’t think so, but I’d prefer a chair to the floor if no one minds.”

“Please sit here; this was Mother’s chair in this room,” Alan said.

Newman held my elbow and walked with me to a wing-back chair like the ones that had recently been attacked in the apartment. I wanted to push off his assistance, but my shaking knees said I needed it.

“She couldn’t sit in any chair she wanted to?” I asked. I knew the question was illogical, but it distracted me from the reality of the moment.

“No,” Alan replied. “Father was very particular about where we sat. It was his way.”

“When did your father pass away?” Harper asked facing Alan.

“Twelve years ago.”

“So, he died before you met Olivia – is that correct?”

“Yes. He’d been gone a couple of years by then,” Alan said.

Harper turned to me. “Olivia, is this the man who raped you, or does he bear a strong resemblance to him?”

I returned my eyes to the man in the portrait. “He was younger, otherwise he is identical to him.”

“Mr. Lyons, do you have a relative that bears a resemblance to your father?” Harper asked turning our attention back to the portrait.

He turned to her and said sternly, “No. I have no siblings or cousins.”

“You mentioned a boy you played with in the nursery. Who was that?” Newman asked.

“He was the child of an employee.”

“Who would that be?” Harper asked opening her notebook and clicking her pen.

“I don’t recall,” Alan said. The way he flinched when he said it revealed he’d lied. His face reddened. “I think we’re finished here. The police have been given full access to the passageways. It’s been discovered that an underground tunnel leads to the boat house. This may mean my grandfather was involved in some kind of mysterious shipping activity. I’m sure it will all be revealed in time.”

As he spoke, his voice changed. He was excited about the prospect of fame and a little more fortune.

Michelle graciously escorted us to the door and she walked out to the driveway with us.

“Olivia, what was it that Mother Lyons said to you about Aggie before she died?”

I looked at her and said, “Ask Aggie.”

“Yes, that’s it,” she said. “Please do. I’ll call ahead and make sure you three are granted access. You should be cleared for a visit in a couple of hours. Detective, you know where she is. Please go before four o’clock. I know Alan is planning on seeing her then.”

“Michelle, what color were your father-in-laws eyes?” I asked.

“Ask Aggie,” she said as she turned and walked back into the house.

“That woman knows something,” Newman said once we were all in the car.

“Yes, something she wants us to know,” Harper responded, and turned to me. “Are you okay? You’re not going to throw up or anything?”

“No, Other than feeling a little dizzy, I’m fine. Of course that can change in an instant.”

“You’re okay going to see Aggie?” Newman asked.

“Yes. I want to know what she knows. I am wondering what we’re going to do for the next couple of hours. Have any ideas?”

“What if you draw whatever crosses your mind, and we watch?” Harper asked.

“I could do that. What do you want me to draw?”

“How about the Mickey you remember?” Newman asked. “I’d like to know the kid-side of my friend.”

“Great idea,” I said, my fingers and heart suddenly wanting very much to draw the kid with the great smile, wearing his baseball glove.

A slender nurse named Darla introduced us to Alan’s old nanny. “Good afternoon, Aggie. Your guests have arrived.”

We sat in a semi-circle in front of her wheelchair. She wore a beautiful lace shawl over her shoulders and had a quilt tucked around her legs. Her gray hair was pulled up, and there was enough of it that she looked like an aging Gibson girl.

“Welcome. Michelle called and told me you’d be coming.”

“Did she tell you why?” Harper asked gently.

“Yes.” She looked at me and said, “You must be Olivia. Jillian looked very much like you, my dear.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

She reached a thin, veined hand out to me. “We mothers have an understanding.”

I took her hand in both of mine as if I’d been doing it all my life. “You have children?” I asked.

From that point on, everyone else seemed to fade, and it was just Aggie and me.

“I have a son. The words Ida said to you at her death free me to reveal our lies.” She let go of my hands and reached into her sleeve, pulling out a lace-trimmed hankie.

“He was conceived in violence and was born with more than a vague resemblance to his father.” She took a deep breath and looked into my eyes.

“I’d been sent to the boat house through an old underground tunnel that ran there from the kitchen. The walls were dark and damp. I didn’t know why I was to go, only that Mr. Lyons would be waiting for me there. When I’d been introduced to him, I hadn’t liked him. Not a whit. My instincts were right. As I climbed the stairs into the boat house, he grabbed me by my hair, slammed me into a chair, tied a gag around my mouth, and then he threw me on a musty old bed. There he brutally raped me. Up until that moment I’d been untouched by any man. To this day, he’s the only man I’ve known in that way.”

Tears raced down her face and mine.

She took a deep breath as if inhaling courage and continued, “He left me locked in the boat house, promising to return later. He tied me to a commode-like chair that faced out one of the windows. He strode across the lawn. Not able to bear watching him, I glanced up at the house and saw Ida Lyons in an upstairs window, one hand pressed to the glass, the other across her mouth as if holding back a scream. In the next few days he returned often, bringing me enough food and water to survive so he could use me again and again. I was so bruised and dirty I didn’t know how he could stand me. The room smelled of my filth and still he didn’t stop.”

She wiped her eyes with her hankie, and I blew my nose into the one offered to me by Newman.

“When he was finally finished, he sent me back through the tunnel to the house. Cook was waiting for me. She had two black eyes and one arm in a sling. He’d beaten her into silence. I was told a hot bath waited for me upstairs and following that I was to go to my room and not come out until my bruises healed. She promised a pot of tea and bowl of soup would be served soon after I’d had time to clean up.

“In the bath, the dirt was easy to scrub off, but I knew I could never get rid of the damage. There is not enough water in all the world for that. Someone had added the scent of lavender to the water. Beside the sink were various creams and lotions to put on my injuries. I soaked until the water was cold then I applied them all.

In my room, a new nightgown was waiting for me on my opened bed. I put it on and slid under the covers just as someone knocked at the door. I was terrified. Ida’s voice asked if she could come in. I remember answering, ‘Yes, Mrs. Lyons.’ She came in with Cook who carried a tray with a pot of tea, two cups, sliced bread spread thick with butter, and two bowls of potato soup—my favorite. When Cook left, I was told, ‘Aggie, my name is Ida. Please, from now on when we’re alone, call me that.’ She sat down on my hard, wooden chair—the only one I had. No padding for a lady’s bottom. Ida ate with me, knowing it was the only way I’d eat.

“Then she apologized for her husband’s abuse and told me her secret. She held her hand over her slender stomach and said, ‘I’m pregnant. It is the only reason I am not fighting for you. I must protect my child. I say it is my child because although he believes otherwise, it is not his child. I’ve been a foolish woman and in my longing to be loved, I willingly had a tryst with Gerald. If you’d like a position in another household, I will help you make that happen. It is unlikely Walter will rape you again; he has done the damage he intended.’”

The old woman in front of me took a breath, squeezed my hand, and continued. “I asked her if he’d raped her too. She said no because her money and social position required a bit of sexual decorum on his part. That’s what she said. I could have been offended, but that’s just the way she was. Brutally honest in all her ways except one. She did tell me when he called for her his treatment was brutal. She was relieved when he demanded relations with her the day after her very short affair. If she was pregnant, she could claim the child was his. He didn’t touch her when he found out she was going to have a baby. He wanted an heir and showed restraint during the pregnancy.

“A month later when I missed my first period, I went to her and asked her to help find me a different home to work in. She explained it was too late; her friends wouldn’t hire an unwed woman with a child growing in her womb. Ida went to him for me. I was certain my child was dead and that he might not let me live either. She came back to me, surprised by his arrogance. He’d said, ‘Well, two women have been planted with my seed. One will be my heir, and I’ll have another bastard. What a man I am!’

“He was proud of his ability to get women pregnant. We’d both noted the use of the word ‘another’ bastard. I asked her if she knew about the others. She’d nodded and said simply, ‘I hate the boat house.’”

He left us both alone, and, in fact, insisted I use only the back stairs. I’d been hired to clean, but Ida remembered my training had been in child-care. I was a nanny at heart, and her pregnancy gave her the chance to give me a better position, pay grade, and place to raise my son.”

Until then, I’d been quiet.

“Your son?” I asked. “You said he bears a resemblance to his father?”

“Yes. He has his father’s eyes – one green and one hazel, indented chin, and evil heart. No matter what I did, I could not rid him of the last. When he abused a small girl who was visiting the family, I wanted him castrated. I know that sounds cruel, but it is nothing compared to what he did to others—to you. When his father took him to the boat house for training, I wanted to die.”

“You knew I was raped and who the rapist was?”

She nodded and seemed to fold in half, her face in her hands, and her tears coming from a place of deep sorrow. I rubbed her rounded shoulders and let my sobs mingle with hers. From somewhere I didn’t know existed inside me, I said, “Rape victims have an understanding too.”

A few minutes later she caught her breath, wiped her face, and blew her nose. “There’s more,” she said. “Although I couldn’t castrate him without his father’s notice, when he had a severe case of the mumps, Ida and I celebrated. We’d searched the libraries for potions that might eliminate his chances of impregnating his victims, and found only wives tales. We hoped mumps was the miracle we’d been hoping for.

He had his tonsils out when he was thirteen. Ida went with me to the clinic to secure payment since we didn’t have insurance, and I asked her to come into the consultation with us. The doctor asked about other illnesses and I told him about the mumps. He warned me in front of Alex that he might be unable to father children. I’m sure he saw what the doctor didn’t – my relief and Ida’s. Alex seemed to hate both of us more from that moment on. I wonder, could that motivate a man to kill?”

She ended her story with, “If he lives, he will succeed in ending my life. I’m terribly sorry for what he’s done to you. I wish I had given him up the day I saw his eyes. Instead, I hoped a mother’s love could undo his father’s violent streak. I was wrong.”

“Does Alan know he is not the rightful Lyons heir and that your son is?” Harper asked.

“No. I think he knows my son Alex was his father’s bastard child, but he has no idea he is not his father’s son. Walter Lyons died not knowing. Ida made a deal with the old man. She’d give him all her money and complete control of everything but the school if he’d promised to never take her boy to the boat house or anywhere else he tortured women. He agreed, although he taught Alan to disregard the female gender, to use them, and to throw them away easily. Alan never raped anyone as far as I know.”