The secrets they keep, p.9
The Secrets They Keep, page 9
Madigan shook her head and continued to stab at the pasta. “I went to see my parents today. The Holdens came over. I guess Doreen and Kurt aren’t taking their honeymoon.”
“No, and it’s probably for the best. We’ll get to talk to them if we need to. They can help support their friend through this difficult time and honeymoon when some of the dust has settled. Then it can be a memory created apart from all this.”
“Sounds nice when you put it that way,” Madigan said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
“Mhmm, so you finally visited your parents?”
“Yeah. It was… intense.”
“I’m not surprised. After all these years…” Grace sipped the last of her wine and debated pouring herself another glass.
“They’re considering selling their homes and moving—probably to Florida full-time for retirement.” Madigan kept her head hung, studying her dinner. “We got into it because now, after all these years, like you said, they wanted to have a straight talk with me.”
Grace picked up her fork and scooped up a piece of pasta she’d been eyeing the whole time. “So?”
“So,” Madigan sighed, “I indulged them. It got real bad, real quick, and my mom admitted she wanted to get away from me when they finally left that winter. Specifically, me.”
“She did?”
Grace had always assumed that the Knoxes’ grief had clouded their judgement over the years after Drew’s passing, but she couldn’t quite believe Madigan’s claim that they didn’t want to be with her. That they didn’t care about her anymore, or they flat out blamed her for Drew’s death.
“She admitted it, but she wouldn’t tell me why,” Madigan huffed. “I mean, she said the stuff we’ve both assumed. She was consumed with grief; she was in a deep, dark, depression, and she was pretty much just in survival mode for herself—but then she actually said she wanted to get away from me.”
“Wow.” Grace shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mad. She’s got to have some sort of explanation, though.”
And I bet you didn’t hear her out.
“She said she didn’t want to hurt me, and my dad put an end to it, so I left. I wasn’t going to find out any more about it.” Madigan let out a loud huff and set her fork down on her napkin.
“There’s not much left to say to them, really. I guess I’m never going to get what I want from it.”
“Which is?”
Madigan swallowed audibly and rested her elbows on the counter.
“Tell me,” Grace said.
Madigan cleared her throat and avoided eye contact. “There’s not really an excuse for leaving me like they did. I don’t think anything can change the way I feel.”
“But you want…what?”
“I want to know what I’ve been hanging on for,” Madigan mumbled. “Is it that I want a family so bad that I’m just holding on to what we used to be? What I thought we were? Or is there really hope for things to get better?”
Grace poured a little more wine into her glass, and they both sipped at their drinks, sitting silently at the counter. Grace’s heart broke for her sister. It always had. Not pity—but from the hope for her that things could get better and the disappointment they would both face when they didn’t.
“You can’t let this torture you anymore,” Grace said in a soft voice. “It’s affecting you in ways we probably don’t even understand, but it’s eating at you. Hell, it eats at me too.”
Madigan looked up at her with wide eyes and a bit of a smirk.
“What?” Grace asked.
“You never swear.”
“Yeah, well…”
“I know you’re right,” Madigan said. “It’s just, if they tell me the truth—if I hear it from them—I don’t know if we can come back from it. Things could be worse between us, as crazy as that sounds. I know that for sure, but I don’t know if they could get better.”
“Mad, you know you’ve got to find out once and for all.”
Madigan twisted around one of the rings on her finger with her thumb.
This is part of what’s going on with her, but it’s not all of it.
“They’re going to make a big life change, and maybe you will too,” Grace said. “You better figure it out with them soon.”
Madigan stood with her glass and rounded the counter, squeezing Grace’s shoulder before shuffling toward the hall. “Come on, Buster.”
“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about…how you’ve been doing lately.”
“Oh-kay.” Madigan swiveled around. “I’m good.”
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
She nodded, fussing with her ring again. “I’m just tired.”
If she won’t tell me, I’ll just have to do my best to help her with what I think I know.
“I really feel like the self-defence classes will be great for you—”
“Grace?”
“Yes?”
“I got it. Thank you. Come on, Bust.” She turned on her heel, and he followed right behind her, wagging his tail, shaking hair all over the floor.
“Quite the pair,” Grace huffed and began the clean up.
I can’t nag her about it. If she doesn’t want to talk, then I have to respect it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
Before getting to bed, she checked her email, and Tarek had sent her and Mac an attached file of all the wedding photos along with a short message.
Nothing out of the ordinary. No photos taken outside after the reception started but before the send off at the time of the crime.
Grace snuggled up in bed with her laptop and clicked through each of the pictures one by one, sipping at the last of her wine.
I’ll have to send these to Doreen and Kurt so they can tell me if anyone here doesn’t belong. If anything is odd to them.
I should give them the note Cory left them in the limo, too.
She stopped at the picture of Marie and Todd, then set her wine glass down on her nightstand. Just two people from the wedding party, standing by the table together.
I want to talk to Todd again. There’s something about him and his eagerness to help. Something off here, but what?
She fell asleep studying the picture.
Chapter Twelve
Madigan fidgeted in her seat, leaning her arms against the cold metal table and studying the large room around her where a few other visitors sat at the surrounding tables. A woman and her young daughter in the corner seemed to be just as nervous as she was. An older man tapped his foot against the concrete floor, echoing through the cold room until a large metal door creaked open behind her.
Men in orange jumpsuits walked in a neat line from the hallway behind the door into the open room and dispersed between the tables. A few guards came into the room and stood by the doorways.
Just behind them, John Talbot shuffled out, and a smile spread across his face as he made eye contact with Madigan. She grinned nervously as he shuffled across the room and settled into the seat across from her.
“I’d have hugged you just then, but they won’t allow us to touch,” he said, keeping his cuffed hands under the table on his lap.
“No, I understand. It’s great to finally see you. You look good.”
His eyes brightened at the compliment.
It hadn’t been since the trials that she’d seen him in the courtrooms. Although a tie and suit had been replaced by a prison jumpsuit, he looked just as good as he had that last day he was taken away, charged as an accomplice to her old foster father, Eli, in the cover-up of the murder of Valerie Hall.
The murder her foster mother Evette had committed.
“How’re you holding up?”
“Good.” He made eye contact with her, and when she broke it, he kept staring.
“What?” she laughed in a whisper.
The smile disappeared from his face. “Is there something wrong?”
“Huh? No.”
“I was trying to think of a nice way to put this, but you look downright exhausted,” he said.
“Gee, thanks.”
I’m getting criticized by the guy in the orange jumpsuit.
And he’s right.
“You know I don’t mean it as a dig. I’m concerned about you.”
“I’m fine,” Madigan said, sitting up straight. “Still living with Grace. Work’s good and…”
And I can’t think of anything else that is. And I’m slightly exaggerating about work.
“Please tell me you’re not upset about me being in here.”
She shook her head. “Well, yes, but no. When you told me you’d made peace with it, I did too.”
“Good,” he said, “because I deserve this. I’m finally paying for what I did. This is how it’s supposed to be.”
“If you say so, but you were threatened by Eli. You thought you’d be in trouble or dead if you didn’t do as he asked. You were trying to protect Evette.” I guess I did too, from Grace, in my own way. “She had us both fooled, John.”
“That’s why I’ve only got ten years here instead of life.” He sighed and leaned his elbows up on the table. “Will you just tell me what’s going on with you? Is it the dreams still, about your attack?”
“No, I don’t have them as often anymore,” Madigan said.
“But it’s about that, isn’t it?”
She hadn’t told Grace for fear of worrying her, or the usual, stopping her from chasing down the man who assaulted her and got away. John couldn’t do anything about stopping her, and he had no contact with Grace.
And it would feel good to get it off my chest.
“Fine, yes.”
He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “You’ve been looking for him.”
How does he do that?
“How did you know?”
“It’s what I’d be doing if I were in your shoes,” he said. “We think alike, remember?”
They shared many of the same thoughts about their upbringing and the self-worth they lacked even as adults. They also shared a love for an adrenaline rush, as proven by the time she helped him escape from police custody, taking him to the location he’d buried Valerie’s body.
“You haven’t found him yet,” he said, again, assuming right. “I think you’re playing with fire, here. It’s a dangerous—”
“Please, John, spare me the lecture. I told you because I thought maybe you’d understand. Maybe you’d just let me talk.”
“Oh, I think the time for talking is over,” he said, hushing his voice. “It’s time to get serious about finding this bastard.”
She raised her brows and found herself leaning in slightly.
“I have a good buddy, Luke, and I want you to meet with him. Tonight. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
“Wait, no. I’m not getting anyone else involved in this.”
“And I’m not letting you work on this alone. If I were out, I’d be able to help, but I can’t. Luke’s the next best thing. He owes me. You can trust that he’ll be on your side.”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust people that easy. I can’t just take your word for it.”
“You don’t have a choice.” His eyes scanned the room before making eye contact with her again. “You don’t want him to hurt anyone else. You don’t want him free out there.”
Using my weakness against me again, and it’s true. The possibility of him doing the same or worse to someone else is just as disturbing as what he did to me. But I can’t take help from a stranger.
“I work alone,” Madigan said.
“And how’s that working for ya?”
Almost got into an altercation with a man whose face I nearly slammed with a door. Otherwise, not terrible.
Madigan pursed her lips and pushed herself back with the edge of the table, crossing her arms across her stomach.
“Wild Card. Tonight at eleven,” he said. “He kinda looks like me, a little taller. Brown eyes. Dark brown hair. Wear a blue top.”
“I can’t do this,” she said, but her voice wavered.
“Course you can. You’re badass. After what you did in South Bend?” He grinned. “But you had help then, remember? Anything you need, Luke’ll help ya out.”
He ran his fingers over his beard again, revealing a white tattoo on his forearm, just north of his scorpion tattoo. A lily.
He turned his arm toward him and stared down at it as a guard by the door hollered that visits were over. “When I get out, I’m having the scorpion covered,” he said. “I just want this one here.” He grazed his thumb over the flower and looked up at Madigan.
“It’s nice,” she whispered, her voice lost amongst the shuffles and clinking of the metal cuffs.
He nodded to her and stood. “Watch your back, alright?” he said.
She nodded, and he turned around, shuffling toward the door.
“You too,” she called after him, but he didn’t turn around.
As she grabbed her bag and dug around for her phone, it vibrated in her hand. A missed call notification from her Dad’s cell. She tossed it back into her bag, and as she rode her bike out of the visitor parking toward the main road, she thought about the promises she made to Grace.
Talk to my parents.
Or sign up for self-defence classes.
She turned right out of the gate toward Tall Pines Gym.
Whoever Luke is and whatever he owes to John, I can’t bring him into this.
Taking off down the road, the engine’s rumble and the rock song playing in her ears drowned out her thoughts, easing her heartbeat back to normal.
Chapter Thirteen
“Sheppard, nice to see you.” Chief Medical Examiner Raven Lockwood waved Grace in through the open door to the autopsy room.
“You too,” Grace said, her gaze lingering on the only metal gurney covered with a sheet. “How’ve you been?”
“Doing well, thanks,” she said, leading Grace over to the body. “I’m actually seeing someone new. I don’t know why I just blurted that out. I think I’m nervous.”
Lockwood beamed, and Grace noted the goosebumps on her arms as a juxtaposition of a happy woman in such a sad, cold, clinical place.
“Gone on many dates?”
“Third one’s tonight,” she said, sliding on a pair of blue latex gloves. “Before him, I hadn’t had a date in two years.”
“I can relate. I can’t remember the last time I was on a date.” The truth slipped out, a reaction to Lockwood’s candor.
“Tall Pines doesn’t exactly give the widest selection of people to date though. Anyway, I’m finally back in the saddle. My last relationship wasn’t a good one. I was kind of put off for a while.”
“I see.” Grace folded her arms in front of her. “Well, I’m happy you’ve found someone.”
“How about you? Seeing anyone since you’ve moved here?”
Grace laughed, shaking her head.
“See? Not much selection,” Lockwood said.
“Well, it’s not all bad.”
Mac’s not all bad.
“They say it happens when you’re not looking, you know,” Lockwood said as Mac walked in.
Grace pressed her lips together, nodding, hoping to end their talk before Mac caught wind of it.
“How does Sheppard always beat you here when you live closer?” Lockwood asked.
“Kenzie’s coming tonight,” Mac said, smiling, “so I had to do some last minute stuff. Today’s packed as it is, so let’s get started.”
“Right.” Lockwood pinched both corners of the sheet and pulled it off the vic, past his face and torso. A hazy purple line ran along his neck.
That’s odd. I’ve seen that in vics who have hung themselves.
Three puncture wounds, all located in a concentrated area just beneath his rib cage stood out against his pale chest.
“The puncture wounds to the chest and abdomen came before the throat,” Lockwood said. “This one hit a lung.” Lockwood pointed to the top wound. “It entered at an upwards angle. The lung filled with blood. Then, this next one just missed his gall bladder, entering the liver. The last one here punctured the ascending colon.”
“Ugh.” Mac shook his head. “Okay, so what’s with the throat?”
“I’ve determined ultimate C.O.D. was strangulation.”
“Wouldn’t he have died without that?”
“I received his clothing,” she said, taking a clear baggie from the metal side table, “including his tie, which was used to strangulate the vic.”
“So someone brought a sharp object to stab him with,” Grace said, “but then what? He wasn’t dying fast enough? Or maybe he was putting up too much of a fight, so the killer used what they had right there. His tie to choke him to death?”
“Speaking of sharp objects.” Lockwood handed Grace the file, and Mac moved beside her, looking over his shoulder as his cologne wafted toward her. A welcome reprieve from the stale scent of the refrigerated body, yet with sharp notes of alcohol and bleach. “See there? Each stab wound ran roughly seven inches deep, indicating there was a level of precision and control there, or, more likely, that was the length of the weapon.”
“Looks like a knife,” Mac said.
Lockwood pointed to the diagram in front of Grace. “Based on the stab wounds, I’d say his attacker came from directly in front of him, and the way the tie was pulled to the right, and the way the blood pooled, he was sitting in the car at the time of death and afterwards for not long after he died.”
“Time of death?” Grace asked.
“I have it listed at ten PM.”
“Fifteen minutes before the guests left to send off the bride and groom,” Grace muttered.
“And based on the time your sister called you, witnessing the fight, he was outside for about forty-five minutes after they left him, but before he was found.”
“Not a narrow time frame.” Grace shook her head.
“The killer might have been watching,” Mac said. “Knew once everyone left the vic out alone, they had their chance. If someone came, they would’ve silenced him by choking him.”
“Or the killer knew when the send off was,” Grace said. “They might have known how much time they had and escaped with minutes to spare.”
