Virtue Falls (40 page)

Elizabeth blinked to push back the tears. “Misty must have been a wonderful woman.”

“The most wonderful woman in the world,” Charles said.

Garik found himself aching for Charles, for the loneliness of so many years, and the knowledge he would die bewildered and alone, unable even to remember the people who surrounded him. “I don’t understand.
Wasn’t
Elizabeth beautiful?”

Elizabeth elbowed him again.

Charles made a disgusted sound. “She looked like she’d been stewed in a hot bath for too long. She was all wrinkled and covered with white wax, and she screamed. My God! That child had lungs on her. But Misty didn’t care. She bonded … they bonded right away.”

“Did you not bond with me?” Elizabeth asked.

Charles looked at her uncertainly.

He had forgotten who she was again.

Elizabeth rephrased it. “Did you not bond with the baby?”

“It took me a few more minutes.” Charles smiled. “I’ll never forget how I felt when I looked at the two of them, sweaty and bloody and both of them crying. I felt as if I’d been created for that moment, for those women. I knew I would keep my promise, and I would do anything for my daughter.” With the suddenness of a winter storm, he dropped his head into his hands and wept, terrible, painful tears. “But I failed her. I failed them both, and I will never forgive myself.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

“Here’s my professional opinion.” Garik stared straight ahead, intently watching the road to the hospital. “I agree with the medical staff. I don’t think your father killed your mother.”

Elizabeth swallowed a lump of hope that gathered in her throat. “Why not?”

“I thought maybe he had. I mean, in my job, I’ve seen everything. And he’s always talking about how beautiful she was—”

“Is,” she said.

“What?” Garik glanced at her.

“How beautiful she
is
. He thinks she’s still alive.”

“He doesn’t think she’s still alive. He knows she’s dead. But he sees her. It sounds as if she comes around quite often.” A tall, slender Douglas fir was down across the road, and Garik slowed the truck.

“Do you believe my mother is a ghost, too?” Elizabeth asked in exasperation.

“I don’t believe she’s a ghost. But she certainly gave him good advice when she told him to move out from underneath the ceiling that was going to fall.” Garik braked to a halt. “Hold on.” Getting out, he dragged the tree into the ditch.

Elizabeth didn’t understand it at all. How did her father manage to convince sensible, practical people like Yvonne and Garik that Misty was visiting the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility?

Garik got back into the truck, seemingly unaware that he’d wandered into the land of delusion. In that factual, no-nonsense tone Elizabeth thought of as his FBI voice, he continued, “Before today, Charles was always talking about how beautiful your mother was, and I thought the way she looked was the big deal to him. Which makes sense. This none-too-attractive guy manages to snag a gorgeous babe, knowing all the time she was using him to escape a bad family situation. When she bops off and has an affair, proving she doesn’t value him as anything but a way to get away from her mother, the reality of the situation sends him into an uncharacteristic rage and he murders her. So all the time he’s been talking, I’m thinking he sounds like a great guy and he’s telling the story in a way that tugs at your heart, but my money is still on him as the killer.”

Elizabeth turned in the seat to face Garik, fascinated to hear his thoughts so coolly stated.

Garik continued, “Then today he said your mother gained weight with her pregnancy. And you showed us the photos. She really did. A lot of weight.” Briefly, he lifted both hands from the steering wheel to indicate a broad beam. “He was laughing about it, talking about how she glowed and he was so proud when he massaged her back and rubbed her belly. That’s not a man who owns a possession, who has a trophy wife. That’s a man in love.”

“So you’re saying men in love don’t kill their wives?” Elizabeth had once known the answer; now she was not so sure.

Garik also hesitated. “What I’m saying is, if a man in love can kill his wife—that’s not my definition of love.”

“Okay.” Elizabeth contemplated everything Garik had said, everything she had heard from her father, and her own thoughts, and put them together as coherently as she knew how. “I keep thinking that Charles might believe what he’s saying. But memory is a tricky thing. Is he remembering it the way he wants to? To lose his memories after a savage murder like this is so convenient.”

Garik got that shit-eating half-smile on his face. “I know of a child who after viewing a horrific tragedy lost her power of speech, and was unable to tell anyone what she witnessed until that moment when she managed to forget it all.”

Indignant, Elizabeth said, “But I really did lose my power of speech!”

“Then maybe it was convenient. But it was real.”

She chewed her lip, seeking a way out of this well-planned maze.

“Wanting to forget a tragedy is not a shame. It’s a blessing. His mind rejects it. Your mind discarded it.” Garik took her hand and squeezed it. “It’s normal. If you hadn’t forgotten, you would be forever in pain. Your young mind chose life. Your father’s older mind couldn’t discard the memories so easily. I find it fascinating that he still recalls the important parts of his life.”

“You’ve really thought about this.”

Garik glanced at her in surprise. “I was in the FBI. We’re taught to think about it. Our mission is to catch the bad guys, and to do that, we have to understand them, walk in their shoes, then outsmart them. Did you really think it was all gun battles and testosterone?”

“If I were to try and understand you when we were married, I would say the distance that I felt from you was the wall you set up to prevent me from experiencing the ugliness of the rapists and the killers.”

“And the child abusers.”

“Why would you shut me out like that?”

He pulled over to the side of the road. “You had suffered the kind of trauma no child should ever have to face. On some level, you remembered it. I mean, yes, people faint at the sight of blood. But look at you. The color’s draining from your face at the mere mention. And after that time in the hospital, when I was shot and you fell so hard you got a concussion—do you remember your nightmares? You woke up screaming night after night, terrified of some man who stalked you with bloody scissors.”

He was right. Even now, she felt suffocated, unable to catch a breath.

He continued, “There’s something there in your mind, and you’re afraid to see it.”

“I’m not…” But she couldn’t deny she was afraid. She was. So afraid of the darkness that hid, shivering, in her subconscious. “I think sometimes I would rather face the truth than be such a coward. Then I push toward the memories, and I unravel like an old sweater in the dryer. I think I can’t be whole until I know, and then I think I’m fine with a piece taken out of me.”

“You are fine, and not a coward at all. You’re one of the bravest women I know. Why do you think I didn’t ask your father to go on and recall the scene of the murder? I can’t do that while you’re in the room.” He caressed her shoulder. “You don’t need another concussion.”

“We should go back and I’ll remain outside the room.”

“How about if I drive you back to the resort and let you lie down, and I’ll do a little research?”

She wished she didn’t feel sick … but she did. Sick with terror and anticipation, and all from talking about the blood. Her mother’s blood, all over the carpet, and her father reaching for her, crooning her name, a pair of bloody scissors in his hand …

“Or we can go on and talk to Yvonne about the attack on her?” Garik suggested.

Elizabeth nodded, and closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest.

From the power panel on his side of the truck, Garik rolled down her window, put the car into gear, and drove.

She breathed deeply. The wind came through the window, cool enough to dry the sick sweat off her forehead and upper lip.

When she sighed, opened her eyes, and pushed her hair out of her eyes, he said, “I do want you to remember something. Your father hasn’t told one single story that you haven’t had the photo to verify. He might be making it all up—but he’s making it up to fit the photos you have. The photos he didn’t know that you had, and that he hasn’t seen in twenty-three years.”

“So now we’re back to it again … if my father didn’t kill my mother, who did?”

“Someone had better find out, huh?” He shot her a smile. “Good thing your former husband is a former FBI agent. He’s got contacts on the force.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Garik and Elizabeth stepped quietly through the door of Yvonne’s hospital room; they had been warned, and warned sternly, that they were not to disturb her if she was sleeping.

But she wasn’t. Or rather, one moment she rested on the stack of pillows with her eyes closed, and the next she sat straight up, staring at them in a wild panic.

Elizabeth halted in her tracks. “Yvonne? Are you okay?”

A white bandage covered half of Yvonne’s head: one eye, one cheekbone, most of her scalp and forehead. Bruising extended below the bandage into her lips and down to her chin. She looked wild, fierce—and terrified.

Garik stepped back and put up his hands to show he had nothing in them.

“Oh. It’s you two.” Yvonne withered back onto the pillows. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know you’re not killers. But they’ve got me on painkillers and the meds make me loopy. Whenever I drop off and someone comes into the room, I think it’s … him again, come to finish the job.”

“Yvonne, don’t worry. We completely understand.” Garik’s voice was almost operatic in its warm, slow sincerity.

“I know you do. Better than anyone, you understand.” She wasn’t looking at Elizabeth, but at Garik, and she nodded in timid, nervous little dips, the kind that made Elizabeth’s heart bleed for her.

Elizabeth went to the bed and took her hand. “The medical staff weren’t going to let us in because we’re not family, so Garik told them he was your cousin. I don’t think they believed him, but they must have decided we were harmless.”

Yvonne tried to smile. “Probably. They know I need somebody. I haven’t had many visitors. I don’t have family here. John is still gone. My friends at Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility are all working. I was just wishing I had someone to sit with me.” She squeezed Elizabeth’s fingers.

Garik moved at the foot of the bed. “How many stitches did it take to close the wound?”

“Quite a few.” Yvonne touched the bandage self-consciously. “Because he … when he twisted the knife, he did a lot of damage. Shredded the skin.”

“Oh, God,” Elizabeth whispered.

Garik pushed a chair under Elizabeth’s bottom.

Thankfully, Elizabeth sank down.

Yvonne continued, “Since the cut’s on my face, putting it back together was delicate work. I really should have had a plastic surgeon, but the one who visits this hospital is stuck in Denver and can’t get home.”

Garik walked to the other side of the bed. “Can you tell me anything about your assailant?”

“No.” Yvonne closed her eye. “I didn’t see him. His face was covered by a ski mask.”

“I know you don’t want to remember.” Garik leaned over Yvonne, his voice warm, slow, kind. “But it’s important. What did you see? What color was his skin? Was he thin? Fat? Broad-shouldered? You smelled his breath—did he smoke cigarettes or weed? Did he smell like frying grease, or a hospital, or wet paint? What did his voice sound like?”

Yvonne’s hand trembled in Elizabeth’s. She turned her head and looked at Garik. “Last night, I answered all these questions for Sheriff Foster. Can’t you get the information from him?”

“Sheriff Foster and I are not the best of friends.” Garik smiled with such charm Yvonne visibly relaxed onto her pillows. “Add to that I think he’s a crappy law enforcement officer and I told him so—”

“You didn’t.” Yvonne laughed a little.

“I did.” Garik waggled his hands back and forth. “Imagine my surprise when he didn’t take it too well. Anyway, I want to hear it all from you.” Garik got very serious again, and very quickly. “I want to catch this guy, for you and for whoever else he might attack.”

Yvonne’s one eye filled with tears.

Elizabeth leaped to the side table and pulled a tissue out of the box, and handed it to her.

Yvonne dabbed at her tears, and her voice wobbled. “I don’t want to remember it again. But I can’t … I can’t forget it anyway. I wish I could. God. I wish I could.”

“I know. I don’t blame you. If there was any other way I could find all this out, I would. But it’s got to come from you. I have to hear it from you. I promise, if you tell me, you’ll be helping immensely.”

Elizabeth stared at Garik. She had never before seen him use his voice, his stance, his words to cajole a witness. This was a side of his job she had never imagined, one that took every gentle skill and dexterity. He understood what it was to be a victim, and he used that understanding to get what he needed.

It seemed every time she turned around, she was learning more and more about Garik … and falling more and more in love with the man who commanded her body, and her heart.

“We’ll start with just one thing,” Garik said. “You can do that, can’t you, Yvonne? Just one. Tell me about his voice.”

Yvonne answered obediently, “His voice was hoarse, but I think he was doing that deliberately to disguise it.”

“Any accent? Foreign? Southern? New York or Boston?”

“No. He sounded like he grew up here.”

Garik nodded encouragingly. “That’s important.”

“He smelled clean, like soap. Maybe a little smoky…” Yvonne frowned as she tried to remember. “Smoky, and like some kind of fuel.”

“Fuel.” Garik seemed in doubt.

“My husband’s a trucker,” Yvonne insisted. “He almost smelled like diesel. But not quite. Something else.”

“Okay. That’s good. Very helpful.” Garik hovered protectively over the bed. He used that soft, slow, hypnotic voice, and he kept eye contact with Yvonne. “Is it possible it was a woman?”