Healing Sands (49 page)

“What?”
I said.

“He said it was an accident—he only meant to scare the kid.”

“
He.
Not Jake.”

“I was so stressed out, I don't know what I heard, okay?”

“But you heard something, and you never came forward.”

“I had to protect my son!”

“And now I'm protecting mine.”

I could hear the menace in my own voice. It was one thing to let Jake stand up for himself, but this part of the battle belonged to me.

Ginger groped backward until she found Dan. “She's scaring me,” she said.

Dan swatted her hand away, his eyes on me. “You should be scared, Ginger,” he said. “You deserve whatever she hits you with.”

His nod to me was as subtle as a breath. He was giving me permission—to be who I no longer wanted to be.

Anger still pumped in my temples, but I shook my head. “You aren't worth it, Ginger,” I said. “I'm going to my son.”

I turned away from her and headed toward the conference room. The deputy's eyes startled wide and, inexplicably, he lurched toward me. Something slammed into my back and clenched me like a vise.

Before the deputy could get to us, Ginger's body was yanked from mine, and I stumbled to catch my balance. When I turned, she was clawing Dan's chest with her talons.

“Just go back to Ryan now!” she screamed at him. “Go back and let her beat you down again!”

Dan caught one of her wrists, then the other. She dissolved into wails.

“Dan—I'm sorry. Please, I can't handle this alone. I need help!” Dan observed her the way I'd seen him observe a piece of artisan stone he was seeing for the first time. “I can't help you, Ginger,” he said. “You need a professional.”

I steeled myself for more shrieking and fingernail clawing as she pulled away from him, but she thrust her hands into the hair on the sides of her head and closed her eyes.

“I know,” she said. “I know I do.”

“Good,” Dan said. “I really hope you find it.”

Baranovic was at her elbow by then, showing even less pity than Dan. It was the first time I'd ever liked him.

“Let's go, ma'am,” he said.

Ginger collapsed against him, face buried in her hands so that the detective had to half carry her down the steps. Ian's face, on the other hand, was a mask of pure contempt—broken only when he looked back over his shoulder and gave Dan one last longing look.

I wanted to spit in disgust, until I saw Dan's face. Until then he'd maintained more composure than I had achieved in a lifetime. Now that they were gone, he sagged against the wall.

“You okay?” he said to the floor.

“I'm fine.” I waited for the
I could have told you that was going to happen
to rise to my lips. It didn't come.

“I'm sorry,” I heard myself whisper.

“Don't be.” Dan smeared his forehead with the heel of his hand. “It was over before this.”

“I'm talking about Ian.”

He looked up, face flickering surprise. “Our son almost went to prison because of him.”

“I know.” I closed my eyes—and the words were there, like a God-image. Words I never thought I'd say.

“Look, Ryan,” Dan said. “Go ahead and blame me. It
is
my fault—”

“No.” I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “No. I just think it would have been different if Ian had had a father like you.”

Sully had the phone open and up to his ear before it stopped ringing.

“I have some more information,” Martha said.

“Tell me.”

“Hayley Neering slit her wrists, evidently right after Kyle left for work one morning. He found her when he got home that night.”

Sully's stomach turned over.

“I can't even imagine how horrible that was for him,” Martha said. “No wonder he's afraid every patient is going to meet the same fate.”

“Were you able to find out why?” Sully put up a hand she couldn't see. “I don't even want to know how you found out this much.”

“It's not as hard as you'd think. And yes, I did get something on that. The poor girl had just delivered a dead baby two months before the suicide. Full-term stillbirth. I can't imagine much that's more heartbreaking for a mother—or a father.”

Sully stopped breathing.

“She
was
getting help, though,” Martha said.

“They let you get into her medical records?”

“I got it from their online church newsletter. They did a little memorial to Hayley, and the church counselor was quoted in there as saying she did everything she could for her, and the congregation now had to pray for Kyle and for Hayley's family.” Martha made a huffing sound into the phone. “You know, if she was suffering from that kind of loss, I can't understand why Kyle didn't have her seeing someone with more expertise in that area. Maybe that's why he's so—”

“Martha, did it give the counselor's name?”

“Yes—let me look it up again.”

Sully pressed the phone to his forehead. Dread pressed down on him like a hand holding him in place, making him listen.

“Oh, by the way,” Martha said. “While that's loading, I forwarded you an e-mail I sent Rusty this morning, before you even called me.”

Sully pulled the phone back to his ear and clicked into his mail on his laptop.

“It says Carla Korman in the subject line,” she said.

“Got it.” Sully opened it and moved his lips soundlessly as he read.
Dear Mr. Huff
, blah blah blah,
after researching this matter,
blah blah blah
, the only complainant whose contact information did not lead to a disconnected phone number or defunct e-mail account was—Kyle Neering. Who was never a client of Carla Korman's.

Sully ran his hand down the back of his head. “Martha.”

“Here it is. The counselor's name is Belinda Cox.”

The air went dead.

“Isn't that the name of the woman who was murdered?” Martha said.

“Yeah. It is.” His mind raced toward panic, but he got up to walk it off. “Okay, if Kyle has any clients scheduled, cancel them. All of them.”

“Got it.”

“Don't tell him about anything we've talked about.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Or Rusty Huff either. I want to go over this with him myself when I've had a chance to sort it out.”

“You have my word.”

She was silent for a moment, long enough for Sully to picture Kyle standing over Belinda Cox's bleeding body, watching the life ebb from her the way it had from Hayley. And from Lynn. And from baby Hannah. Sully had never thought of murdering her. But as he felt Kyle Neering's pain course through his veins with his own, he knew why Kyle had.

“I never thought you murdered that woman, Sullivan.” Martha's voice was thick. “And if there's anything else I can do to help prove your innocence, I want you to call me.”

“You've given me a lot already,” Sully said.

More than he wanted to believe. When they hung up, he stared at the e-mail. Kyle must have known about Sully's quest before he applied for the job at Healing Choice—a job he created by driving Carla Korman out with bogus complaints. If he killed Belinda Cox, it wasn't in a moment of rage. He'd planned for months, at least— and not only to murder her, but to set Sully up to take the fall.

Sully pressed his hand to his head and tried to think what to do. Call Snow. Enough with the extreme emotional distress. He could use that to defend Kyle.

Sully punched in the attorney's number and listened to it ring until his voice mail picked up. He didn't leave a message. Snow had little enough faith in his innocence as it was. If he heard Sully babbling about somebody's plot to frame him, he'd probably go for an insanity plea.

It occurred to Sully as he tossed his phone that it was Kyle who'd recommended Harlan Snow in the first place. Paranoid as it seemed, he could picture Kyle and Snow shaking their heads over their crab dip at what a shame it was that a guy like Sullivan Crisp was going down. If
he
couldn't control his emotions, what hope was there for the rest of us?

The anxiety stopped racing. Hope for the rest of us. Wasn't that what this whole quest had been about? His drive to keep a person like Belinda Cox from hurting anyone else, from letting another agonized client plunge to her death? Kyle Neering was a therapist, too, a therapist who had played God—just like the woman he'd killed.

Sully snagged the phone from the edge of the table where it teetered. There was one more number he could call.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I
like what you've done with the place,” Kyle said. He looked up at Sully, the glow of the fire in the outdoor kiva playing across his cheekbones. “I guess this isn't the time for humor.”

Sully shrugged and lowered himself to the edge of the other chaise lounge. “Maybe it is. The whole thing is ludicrous.”

“You're handling it better than I would be.”

The irony of that sank its teeth into Sully, and he tried not to grit his own. He was depending on acting skills to get through this. Too bad he didn't have any.

Kyle, on the other hand, was giving an Oscar-worthy performance.

He'd accepted Sully's invitation to come over with tears in his voice. At the front door, he'd grasped Sully's shoulder and shaken his head—done everything but say, “I love ya, man.” Sully had studied him as he opened the Frappuccinos Kyle brought and showed him out to the patio, where a breeze was blowing the stars around. There was nothing telling in his face. The concerned pinch between Kyle's eyebrows only etched deeper as he listened to Sully talk about gangbangers spitting into his cell and reporters staked out in his driveway. If there was murder tucked under his nods, Sully still couldn't see it.

Not until he looked at Kyle's hands. He had set the untouched Frappuccino on the table and sat with his palms on the arms of the chaise. Even as he watched softly with his eyes, his hands tightened and opened, the knuckles whitened and released, the muscles pulled and let go. Kyle hadn't killed Belinda Cox with his face. He'd taken her life with his hands. Sully kept his eyes on them as he spoke.

“I know, Kyle.”

The hands squeezed shut until they were bloodless. “You know—what?”

“I know it wasn't fate that brought you to Healing Choice.”

The relief was visible. “Since when do we believe in fate? That was all God.”

“What about Carla Korman? Was that all God?”

Kyle formed the name silently on his lips and shook his head. “Who's Carla Korman?”

“You took her place.”

“Oh.” Kyle tilted his head. “You okay, Sully? I mean, of course you're not okay—but you're looking—”

“And evidently you were a client of hers.”

“Now
that
I would remember.”

“You don't recall filing a complaint about her to the main office?”

Kyle pulled himself up in the chair. “I'm not following you.”

“I'm probably not going anywhere. Forget it—I guess I got some bad information.” Sully inhaled noisily. “I think this whole thing is messing with my head. Like, I thought you told me Hayley died in an accident.”

“Okay. I still don't know where we're going with this.”

“But then I found out she committed suicide. Did I hear you wrong that night at the restaurant? I mean, I think I would have remembered that.”

Once again relief relaxed Kyle's mouth. Relief where there should have been shame. At the very least, embarrassment.

“You didn't hear wrong, Sully. I should have told you straight out. I just thought you'd think I was a lousy therapist if I couldn't even keep my own wife alive.”

That sliced at Sully, but he didn't have time to determine whether the swipe had been deliberate.

“I told you about
my
wife,” Sully said. “Seems like that would have been the perfect opening for you.”

“All right—bad judgment on my part. I'm sorry.”

Kyle looked slightly less than contrite. The act was slipping. Sully put his hand in the pouch of his sweatshirt and flicked the switch on the mini-recorder.

“Look, Sully.” Kyle swung his legs over the side of the chaise lounge and sat facing him. “It has to be hard to sit here with a murder charge hanging over your head. I think it's natural that you'd want to focus on somebody else's mistakes, distract yourself. So—we can talk about anything you want to. I'll take a hit for the team.”

He didn't blink. Didn't look away. That was how he'd gotten Sully to trust him in the first place. And that was the only chance Sully had now.

“Then let me ask you something,” Sully said, “because this has been niggling at me. I just want the air cleared if I'm going to count on you for support through this thing.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me that you didn't tell me Belinda Cox was a counselor at the church you went to in Little Rock.”

Kyle hesitated no longer than a nanosecond before he widened his eyes at Sully. “I didn't tell you because I didn't know. Are you serious?”

Sully nodded. “Small world, huh?”

“No doubt! But I don't get why all of this is coming up now.”

“Rusty Huff. He's main office, you know. I guess he doesn't have enough to do here, so he's going through everybody's files.”

Sully took a long draw from the Frap bottle. He'd never been a good liar.

Kyle watched him, his eyes now sharper. “Belinda Cox must have come after . . . I didn't go back to that church after Hayley died.”

“How did she kill herself?”

Kyle's face hardened almost imperceptibly. Sully might not have seen it if he hadn't been waiting for it.

“I take it back,” Kyle said. “We can't talk about anything you want to.”