Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

“Honey, you weren’t there,” Karen said. “I mean, just consider this. How much money did you have on you last night?”

“I don’t know, about twelve dollars. Why?”

“It’s-what-a hundred and fifty miles to Lake Wenatchee? That’s at least three hundred miles round-trip, even longer if you took I-90. You’d have had to stop for gas. Do you remember going to a gas station?”

Biting her lip, Amelia shook her head again.

“Of course not,” Karen said. She felt like she was starting to get through to her. “You didn’t have enough money for gas, and you couldn’t have used your credit card, because you told me during your session on Thursday that you maxed out your Visa. You were talking about how you had to control your spending. Check your purse. I’ll bet that twelve bucks is still there.” Karen reached for Amelia’s purse on the floor between them. “Can I look through this?

Amelia nodded. “Go ahead.”

Karen rummaged through the purse. She found a loose dollar bill, some change, and then in Amelia’s wallet, two fives and a single. “I have exactly twelve dollars and sixty-two cents here, Amelia. You didn’t buy any gas.”

“Maybe not,” Amelia said. “But-well, I’ve driven to Wenatchee and back on one tank of gas before.”

“Then call Shane. Find out when he last filled up the car. Have him look at the fuel gauge now. That’ll give us an idea how far you drove. You may have headed off to Wenatchee last night, but I’ll bet you never got there.” She tucked the money back in Amelia’s wallet, and dropped it in her purse. Then she fished out Amelia’s cell phone. “It’s bad enough this horrible thing even happened. Please, Amelia, don’t make it worse by blaming yourself for it. You couldn’t have done it. So here-call Shane. Ask him about the gas.”

Amelia hesitated, and then took the cell phone from her.

Karen heard something outside. She got up, parted the curtain and peeked out the window. A white sedan and a police car both pulled in to the McMillans’ driveway-one after the other. “It’s the police,” she murmured almost to herself.

“Oh, my God.” Amelia switched off the cell phone. A look of panic swept across her face. “They’ll want to talk to me. Karen, please help me. What am I going to say to them?”

Karen turned toward her. “You won’t have to say anything.” She grabbed her own purse on the bed and found the bottle of diazepam. “You’re in no condition. I want you to take another one of these pills. I’ll tell the police you’re sleeping and can’t be disturbed. And you will be asleep, honey, if you just lie back and relax and let the pill take effect. Go ahead and call Shane, just be quiet about it. I’ll get you some water.”

Karen slipped out of the guest room and found the bathroom next door. She could hear someone in the foyer upstairs. She quickly rinsed out the tumbler, then filled it with cold water. She paused in front of the mirror, then pulled it open to inspect the medicine chest. There it was: a bottle of aspirin in cylindrical tablets, like the diazepam. They weren’t light blue, but in the dark bedroom, Amelia probably wouldn’t notice. Karen didn’t really want her taking another diazepam; she just needed Amelia to think she should be relaxed and sleepy.

As Karen stepped out of the bathroom, she heard them talking upstairs.

“I think she’s asleep right now,” George was saying. “Her therapist is looking after her downstairs in the guest room. Could you let her rest for a while longer, and question me first?”

Someone-whoever he was talking to-muttered a response.

“Thanks,” George said. “We can talk in here….”

Karen ducked back into the bedroom, then quietly closed the door.

“I’ve really got to go,” Amelia was whispering into her cell phone. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise. Love you, too. Bye.” She clicked off the line and gazed up at Karen, a tiny look of hope in her eyes. “He just picked up the car at your place. The gas is just under a quarter of a tank. He said it was about three-quarters full when we went to the party last night.”

Switching off the light, Karen sat down next to her. She handed her the aspirin and the tumbler of water. “That’s about right, isn’t it? Approximately a hundred and sixty miles to and from Easton, that’s around half a tank. You couldn’t have made it to Wenatchee and back without refueling.”

Amelia nodded. She swallowed the aspirin with some water, then handed the tumbler back to her. Tears welled in her eyes, and she winced. “It still doesn’t make sense. If I didn’t do it, how come I have these images in my head?”

“I don’t know yet, but we’ll find out. I promise.” Karen stroked her arm. “Just because you have certain images in your head, it doesn’t mean they’re true. We don’t even know how it happened yet, Amelia.”

Pulling away, Amelia laid back and wrapped her arms around her pillow. “Why don’t you talk to the police, Karen? Then we’ll know whether or not I’m wrong.”

Karen sat in the dark while Amelia tossed and turned in the bed across from her. The muffled sobs emitting through the vent from Jody’s room upstairs had ceased. Karen guessed the police had been grilling George McMillan for about an hour now, and they were probably getting warmed up for Amelia.

She heard someone coming down the stairs. Karen climbed off the bed just as a knock came on the door.

Amelia sat up, suddenly awake.

Karen opened the door to find Jessie, her face in the shadows. “They sent me down here to fetch Amelia,” she whispered. “They’d like a statement, which means they’ll be asking her all sorts of rude, tactless, personal questions for the next two hours.”

“Well, that’s just too much for her right now,” Karen said under her breath.

“It’s the treatment they’ve been giving her uncle.”

Karen glanced over her shoulder at Amelia, who stared back at them, visibly trembling. Karen couldn’t let the police interrogate her, not when Amelia was so distraught and disoriented. “Go back to sleep, honey,” she whispered to her. “And if you can’t nod off, just lie there quietly until they go.”

She stepped out of the guest room and gently closed the door.

“They want her uncle to go to Wenatchee tonight to identify the bodies,” Jessie whispered. “He might not be back until very late. I promised him we’d stick around and hold down the fort.”

“Yes, of course,” Karen said.

“I told you we wouldn’t be in the way, but you never listen to me.” Jessie tapped her shoulder. “And if we hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t have met George. Talk about a sweetheart. Oh, and the way he is with his little girl. He’s just the kind of man I’ve always wanted to see you with.”

Karen frowned at her. “For God’s sake, Jessie, his wife was just murdered last night.”

“Well, I know that,” she whispered. “Doesn’t mean you can’t call him in a couple of months and find out how he’s doing.” Jessie sighed. “I put the little one down for a nap. The poor lamb cried herself to sleep.”

They headed up the stairs. Karen could hear George talking as she approached the study.

She knocked, and then opened the door. A handsome, mustached, gray-haired man in his fifties was pacing in front of George, who sat in an easy chair. The man wore a blue suit that looked slept in, and he stopped to glance at her.

George got to his feet as Karen stepped inside the room. He was wearing glasses, the Clark Kent type, which made him look even more handsome-and gentle.

A young, beefy, uniformed cop was also in the room. He sat in a swivel chair by the computer desk. He also stood up long enough to lean over and switch off a small recording device on the coffee table. The three men seemed slightly cramped in the close quarters. There was a small window above the desk, and two walls of shelves packed with books and framed photos of the McMillan clan.