Virna DePaul - It Started That Night

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it wasn’t relevant.” He’d thought about it a lot. It was a gray issue, but not a true conflict. Lily, after all, wasn’t a suspect in the case. “Chris Hardesty has already been convicted for Tina’s murder. To the extent he’s challenging that conviction, it’s just a last-ditch effort to stop the execution. I’m only looking into the case to eliminate the notion that someone else killed Tina and is now killing these girls.”

“But what if Hardesty’s exonerated? What if the investigation begins to focus on Lily’s father? Or Lily herself?”

Laughing, John shook his head. “You can’t be serious. The father, maybe. Even though he was a cop, he and Tina were estranged, so he’s still a P.O.I. in my opinion. Lily? Ridiculous. If you saw her, you’d see what I mean. And even if some evidence turns up to implicate her, we weren’t lovers. She was a kid who had a crush on me. Thorn would handle questioning her, not me.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” But Murdoch, his disapproval self-evident, still didn’t leave.

Scowling, John growled, “You got something to say to me, Murdoch?”

“It just seems like you’re working really hard to justify working on this case.”

“Justify? I’ve been working The Razor murders for almost a year. I’m not letting him get away from me now.”

“I can take over—”

“Don’t piss me off, Murdoch. I have a job to do, and I’ll do it. I want this guy. I want him bad. And I’m gonna get him. There’s no evidence The Razor killed Tina. But if I find something indicating otherwise, I won’t ignore it.”

“You’re a good cop. I’m not saying otherwise. But—”

“Look, I’ve got to call Thorn. Keep me posted, okay?” He looked down at the file, deliberately dismissing the other man. After a second, Murdoch stiffly said, “Sure,” then left.

John looked at the phone and thought about calling Thorn, but he wanted to talk to Lily before he did. He also wanted to follow up with some witnesses. The cops who’d reported to the murder scene. And the man who’d been dating Lily’s mother fifteen years ago, the man Lily had often referred to as “the gym rat.” Park, he reminded himself.

The guy’s name had been Mason Park.

He wouldn’t want to mess up and call him “gym rat” to his face, even if Lily could appreciate it.

Remembering Murdoch’s concerns about a conflict, John snorted. There was no chance in hell Lily had anything to do with her mother’s death. Anyone who said otherwise was just plain stupid.

Lily was running.

Running from her mother, who’d slapped her.

Running from John, who’d hurt her.

Running but going nowhere.

Suddenly, she stopped. She saw two figures wrestling, each trying to gain control over the other but neither succeeding. The dance continued for minutes. Hours. Days. The entire time, she watched, unable to move, unable to scream. Although she couldn’t distinguish one from the other, couldn’t see more than shadows, she knew who the figures were. A dark-haired woman, dressed in blue silk and heels. And a grizzled dirty man with tangled white hair and vacant blue eyes. The homeless man she’d talked with at the park.

Her mother and Hardesty. Dancing. Yelling. Fighting.

She saw a sharp steel blade, already stained red, sink into flesh, then make a wet, sucking sound as it retracted. Again and again the motion repeated itself, the sucking sounds becoming shrill screams that ended each time the knife withdrew and began once more when it hit its mark.

Then things quieted. The knife and the blood disappeared. Two figures became three. Then four. Then five.

She clearly saw her mother, huddled on the ground. A tall shadow of a man—somehow she knew it was a man—lifted her mother into his arms and carried her away. Her mother reached out to her, pleading with her. “You don’t know, Lily. You don’t understand. He’s not the man you think he is.”

Light flashed and Lily tried to run, but her feet were glued to the ground with blood. Her stomach heaved and she fought the urge to throw up.

A man grabbed her arm on each side.

The first was Hardesty.

The second was her father.

“You’ll be rewarded for your kindness,” Hardesty said. “You’ll be rewarded.”

“It’s all your fault, Lily,” her father moaned. “Remember. It’s all your fault.”

Lily jerked awake, stifling the scream climbing her throat. Sweat drenched her clothes, chilling her. She immediately raised her hand to her face. It was flushed but dry. She turned onto her side and curled back into a ball.

Even in sleep she couldn’t cry. Couldn’t let out the grief inside her. Like a malignant growth that had become a part of its host, excising it would bring death as surely as the disease itself. She needed to hold on to the grief to survive. To keep her from making the same mistakes.

Only why were her dreams back, worse than before? What did Hardesty’s words mean? And was her father’s presence alongside Hardesty a twisted form of self-punishment or a hint of something else? Some repressed memory?

But that was ridiculous.

Seeing John was playing with her head, that was all. How could it not? The guy was threatening the closure she and her family needed. The closure her mother deserved. And as powerful as her attraction had been to him in the past, she couldn’t ignore the way her body had responded to his closeness. When he’d caged her in and towered over her, every nerve in her body had gone ballistic.

It was some kind of chemical reaction, and she wasn’t a young girl to be carried away by hormones. Not anymore. Hardesty was guilty and she’d fight John and the D.A. and the governor himself if they tried arguing otherwise.

Forcing herself to her feet, Lily walked to the kitchen and filled a glass of water from the sink. She drank in desperate swallows, even as she caught sight of the blinking red light on her answering machine. Needing to compose herself, she’d turned the ringer off after John had left. Slowly, she walked over to it, and pushed the Play button.

Her brother-in-law’s voice came on and she sighed with relief that the message wasn’t from John or one of Hardesty’s attorneys.

“Hey, Lily, this is Aaron. Damn. I was hoping you’d be home. Listen, Ivy and Ashley have been fighting like crazy and I’m getting frustrated.”

Frowning, Lily put down her glass. Aaron sounded frantic even though Lily’s sister, Ivy, had always tended to butt heads with her daughter, fourteen-year-old Ashley. Even Lily’s father and stepmother, Barb, had stepped in, spending more time with the girl in an effort to give her and Ivy breathing room.

“I know you two—I mean, I know you’re busy, but I thought you could come over for dinner tomorrow night? Ashley’s going to a dance and I’m driving her, so you’d have time to talk alone. Ivy could really use someone right now and I know you’d want to help her. You have such a big heart, Lily.”

You’ll be rewarded for your kindness , Hardesty’s voice whispered in her mind.

Lily instinctively covered her ears. She bit her lip but heard her panicked whimper anyway. Slowly, she lowered her hands.

“—can call me at work. The number’s—”

Lily lunged and pressed the Stop button. She knew the number and she wasn’t a fool. Aaron’s message had to be some kind of sign. Despite how her sister had pulled away from her after their mother’s death, Ivy needed her. And Lily needed her, too.