Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) (4 page)

(
S
eptember
; Christopher Tate’s House, Dayton, Ohio)

AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD,
everything about myself and my environment is changing. I’m now in middle school, where we get up two hours earlier to catch the bus. All of these new, complicated emotions are stirring in me—Mom calls them hormones, but it seems like they are more than that. When I imagine these emotions as sentient beings, they remind me of a movie I watched when I was six years old that had monsters that looked like shadows except they had long, sharp nails on each of their fingers. Girls look different to me—I watch them the same way I used to watch butterflies, except I can’t catch the girls in a net and the girls flee away from me more than the butterflies ever did. The other boys in my classes are becoming more muscular and they have these cocky grins like they understand everything that’s happening. I have no idea what’s happening. It’s like life is rushing past me and I could never run fast enough to catch up.

I feel lost in a world that demands that I know all of its secrets.

Dad has been angry with me all day. He’s the PE teacher at school and my ability to play sports is nonexistent. I was eliminated from dodgeball today within two seconds after he blew his whistle. For the second game, I lasted a total of six seconds. I’m fairly certain that this kid, Jeffrey Dowry, was aiming for me.

Dad bounces a dodgeball against the asphalt of our driveway a few feet away from me. A mesh bag full of more rubber balls lies beside his feet. Mom sits on the porch stairs, watching us with quiet approval.

“You need to catch the ball,” he tells me, anger making his words come out like bullets. I nod. Without a moment’s notice, he throws the ball straight at me. It hits me square in the chest. I stumble back as the ball rolls down the driveway. Dad takes a step toward me. “Get the ball, moron!”

I race down the driveway, chasing the ball. I manage to get in front of it before it rolls into the road. I run back to Dad with the ball in my hands. He jerks it out of my grasp.

“Get back where you were,” he spits out. As I step back into place, he throws the ball again. It slams into my eye. I don’t see where it goes because I’m clutching my face, pain pulsing around my eye. “Come on, Francis! Get the damn ball!”

But I can’t. I begin to cry, my shoulders shaking and my hands catching my tears.

“Jesus H. Christ, Danielle, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this kid?” Dad asks Mom. I quiet myself, waiting for her to defend me or at least tell him to calm down.

“Just keep going,” she says. “He won’t stop acting like a baby if he thinks the world will stop for him because he’s crying. At some point, he’ll learn how to act like a man.”

I lower my hands to see her walking back into the house. Hatred swirls inside my stomach. Even as Dad walks toward me and grabs me by my shirt collar, yelling about retrieving the ball, all I can feel is an anger and fury toward Mom. I know at this moment that these emotions, which are unknown and uncontrollable, will only grow stronger until they engulf me. And, for once, I have no problem with letting them take over.

(
T
hursday Night
; Neabsco Creek, Pearland, Virginia)

DR. BRIDGET CARTER,
the director of the forensic biology lab, has rustic red hair that’s tied into a tight ponytail and bright-green eyes that always remind me of moss. Half a dozen other people from the forensics laboratory are combing over the crime scene while Dr. Carter and I look over the body. The tow truck driver hangs around, waiting to be given further instructions or told to leave the car and go home. He doesn’t seem to mind much, but I have a feeling it’s because he's billing by the hour, and the county cops always pay their bills.

“I would agree that the killer seemed to specifically destroy aspects of this man that would identify him,” she says. She lifts up his fingers with her gloved hands and flips his palm up. The fingertips are scraped off. “No teeth or fingerprints to check, so we’re going to have to rely on there being a DNA record somewhere. We might be able to reconstruct his face and we could attempt to identify him by that.”

“But if it was a serial killer, then he wouldn’t have known his victim,” I say.

“Probably not,” she says. “But then why would the killer go through such great lengths to hide this man’s identity? The only reason I could think of is that the killer knew the man and the man would lead back to the killer.”

“Dr. Meadows!” Officer Ty Halloran rushes up to me. “I just got the call. The owner of the car…his name is Michael Rafters, but he reported the car stolen on April sixteenth. He doesn’t have a criminal record and he has a pretty good alibi for the time the victim could have been killed. He was on an Alaskan cruise three weeks ago. He doesn’t know anyone who’s missing or who would be in his car.”

“Do you think this could have been the car thief?” I ask Officer Halloran.

He shrugs. “I have no idea. Michael Rafters is from Ohio, so I don’t know why the hell a thief would drive here. At the very least, you would think he would head down south to Mexico.”

“Ohio?” I ask. I vaguely remember Halloran telling me the car’s plates were from Ohio, but I had been too distracted by the gore of the victim to think too much about it. Now, my thoughts jump to Grace. She grew up in Byhalia, Ohio.

“Yeah,” Officer Halloran says. “Weird, right? Who steals a car and stops in Pearland, Virginia?”

“Someone crazy,” I say, shrugging. I turn back to Dr. Carter and the body. For a moment, all I notice is the slash mark around the body’s throat. Why would someone go from Ohio to Pearland, Virginia? Maybe the killer had relatives here. Maybe he was just passing through. Please, let him just be passing through.

“I have something here,” Dr. Carter says. Her hand has lifted up the body’s arm and she pulls something out from behind his back. “It’s smudged all to hell, but maybe it was something left behind by the killer.”

I take the piece of paper that she’s holding out. It’s actually a pamphlet drenched from the water and the ink is seeping down the paper. It takes me a couple of minutes to make out the title of the pamphlet:

Dealing with Addiction: Therapy, Medication, and a Good Support System

As my eyes trail down the page, a logo at the bottom catches my attention. It has the state of Ohio with the letters
DRC
inside it. Beside the logo, it states,
Southeastern Correctional Institute.

My heart skips a beat. It can’t be. Francis Tate was supposed to be in Southeastern Correctional Institute for another eight years. There’s no way he would be out by now.

“Hey!” I call out to one of Dr. Carter’s forensic team members. “Can you put this in an evidence bag?”

I hand him the pamphlet and take off my gloves. I walk away from the group as I pull out my phone. I get onto the Internet and search Southeastern Correctional Institute.

I scan through the news section of the search engine. There’s nothing about a prisoner breaking out. Still, what are the odds that someone who was killed by a knife that has connections to Southeastern Correctional Institute comes so close to Murray?

Well, there has to be a fair number of murderers from the prison, so maybe it’s not impossible and Francis Tate didn’t seem
this
capable of calculated destruction when I heard about him from Grace and old news reports.

I get a new pair of gloves and walk back to Dr. Carter.

“Dr. Carter, once you get a DNA sample, can you check it against the records for a particular state?” I ask.

"Yeah, I can do a search filtered by agency identifier,” she replies without looking up.

“Could you check Ohio?”

"Why Ohio?"

"The car is from Ohio. The pamphlet says
Southeastern Correctional Institute, which is in Ohio…”

“Maybe the owner has a relative in prison,” she says. “Of course, I will look, but it seems like the killer was going through different states unless this victim is the car thief. The killer could have come from anywhere.”

“Just please check it and do it as quickly as possible,” I say. “I…I just have a hunch…”

"You okay, Dr. Meadows?" she asks, glancing back at me. Blood is all over her plastic gloves from where she has touched the victim.

"No." I swallow.

"It's all right. I'd like to say that seeing these murder victims gets easier, but they don't. But not many of them are this bad. You should head home. I’ll call you when I know something."

I nod. I need to see Grace. I need some reassurance that she’s safe and that this whole idea of mine is crazy. He couldn’t have escaped. He couldn’t be free and stalking Grace. I can’t risk almost losing her again.

(
T
hanksgiving
; Sam’s House, Murray, Virginia)

GRACE’S MOTHER, LOUISE,
and my parents come over to my house for Thanksgiving. Louise insisted on cooking the turkey because she has a special recipe that includes Dijon mustard and soy sauce, which was fortunate because neither Grace nor I knew how to cook turkey. Grace always had Thanksgiving with her mother’s side of the family, and I was always so busy on Thanksgiving that I just ate Chinese takeout or bought a ready-made turkey. This is something new and, honestly, I like it.

“The turkey is ready!” Louise yells out from the kitchen. Mom peeks out from the kitchen with a glass of wine dangling from her hand.

“Can you carve it, Rupert?” she asks. “I always end up hitting the bone and Louise says that she always has trouble doing it as well.”

Dad sighs, lifting himself off his chair. I offer him my hand, but he only smirks at me.

“I’m fine, Sam,” he says. “I think my heart is stronger than it has been in years.”

“Maybe,” I say. It’s medically impossible, but he seems happier and more energetic than he was back when I was a teenager. As Dad walks into the kitchen, Grace scurries out. Her cheeks turn red when she sees me raising my eyebrow.

“I’m not quite ready to be in the same room as a carving knife,” she says. “Don’t judge me too harshly; that thing looks like a hatchet.”

“I wouldn’t ever judge you,” I tell her. She walks over to me and slides onto my lap. We kiss. “Except maybe for the fact that you like spinach dip. That’s a bit weird. And chicken on your pizza. Chicken was never meant to be on pizza.”

“Both of those are delicious. Don’t hate buffalo chicken pizza until you’ve had it,” she says, as I run my finger along her clavicle. “I’m glad everyone could be here.”

“Me, too,” I say. “I hope it’s not too weird without your dad here. I wish I could have met him.”

“He would have loved you,” she says. “He was always interested in the medical field. You two would have had a lot to talk about.”

I nod. I hear her mother’s infectious laugh from the kitchen. “How did you tell your mom that we had moved in already?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t have to explain anything. I’m pretty sure she’s expecting a wedding and a child any minute now,” she says. She flushes, avoiding my gaze. “That’s a joke. Nobody is expecting anything.”

“I got it,” I say, kissing her cheek. “You don’t need to explain to me. I know how mothers are…or at least I’ve heard how they can be.”

She leans against me and presses her lips against the side of my neck.

“I love you,” she says, her warm breath billowing against my skin.

“I love you, too.”

Mom and Louise walk in with stuffing and mashed potatoes. Grace gets off my lap as they set the dishes on the table, but the two mothers are already grinning and exchanging looks as if they caught us making out.

“Do you need help?” Grace asks. “I’m sorry that I left the kitchen—”

“Grace, we understand,” Mom says. “After what you’ve been through, we’re all proud that you’re still a good woman with her head on her shoulders.”

“Thank you,” Grace murmurs. The two women disappear back into the kitchen. Grace turns to me.

“I thought you said your Mom was callous?” she whispers.

“She was,” I say. “I think the holiday spirit, my Dad’s successive heart attacks, and the fact that my brother is expecting twins helped her realize that life was passing her by. It is truly a holiday miracle.”

Our mothers return with green bean casserole and dinner rolls. They set them on the table.

“Are we supposed to be able to sit anywhere at the table, Mom?” I ask. She pretends to glare at me.

“There is enough room to eat, Samuel Jacob Meadows,” she says. “Why don’t you help your father in the kitchen, so the three women here can talk about you pesky men?”

“Fine,” I say with mock exasperation. I give Grace another quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t say anything too bad about me.”

“I’ll try not to make you sound too bad,” she teases. I step into the kitchen. Dad is the polar opposite of Mom. He’s overweight, she’s slim. His hair is sparse and gray, whereas Mom has dyed dirty-blond hair that seems thicker than ever. Their biggest difference is their eyes. Dad has the same dark-brown eyes that I do—I’ve been told that the color almost has a soft texture to it—but Mom has blue eyes that appear as cold and hard as ice. They used to match her temperament, but lately it’s simply off-putting when contrasted to her personality.

My father has already expertly cut up half the turkey. Layers of white meat are piled up on a plate. “Do you need some help? Mom says that you do.”

“I’m handling this bird just fine,” he says. “But why don’t you pull up a stool, so we can talk?”

This whole talking thing is new for my family. It makes me wonder if my parents suddenly took a seminar on personal relationships or if all of their time at the hospital and physical therapy taught them how to react in more intimate social settings.

I pull up my beechwood barstool to the left of Dad and sit down.

“What’s up?” I ask. “Have you been taking your medication? Have you had any difficulties breathing while doing anything strenuous?”

He waves away my words with the carver knife still in his hand. It probably is best that Grace isn’t in the room.

“I don’t want to talk to you as my doctor, I want to talk to you as my son,” he says. “How’s your relationship with Grace?”

“It’s great,” I say. “I’m happy. I’m pretty sure she’s happy. It’s…I don’t know, it’s good. It feels right…like this where I was meant to end up.”

“That’s my boy,” he says, smiling. “So, are you going to ask her the big question?”

“Big question?”

He rolls his eyes.

“The do-you-know-where-the-TV-remote-is question,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Come on, Sam. The will-you-spend-the-rest-of-your-life-with-me question. Are you going to ask her to marry you?”

“We’ve only known each other for a few months,” I tell him.

“Well, maybe you’re not going to ask her right now, but do you see it heading that way? At this point in your life, you shouldn’t be dating someone you don’t see yourself marrying. Remember when we were talking in the hospital and you mentioned that girl who threw her shoe at you?”

“Alicia. Yes, I remember. It was a stiletto heel, which is a lot more dangerous than your average shoe.”

“Yes, well, she wasn’t long-term material. But this one? I think this one seems to be good for you.”

“I think she’s good for me, too.”

“So…would you ask her to marry you?” he asks. I smile, leaning against the counter.

“I know it’s really soon…but I have thought about it.”

Dad sets the knife down and claps me against the back. “I’m proud of you, son. I can see the two of you being happy together for a long time.”

He picks up the plate of turkey and I follow him out to the dining room. Mom, Louise, and Grace are huddled around the end of the table, whispering about something. When they all turn to look at Dad setting down the plate of turkey, Grace catches my eyes. There’s a sparkle in her celadon eyes and, at that moment, all I want to do is put something that sparkles on her ring finger as well.