Chapter 66
66
TEGAN
Jackson has to explain it to me five times, and I still can’t wrap my head around it.
“I’m so sorry, Tegan,” he keeps saying. “I know this is the last thing you need right now.”
I have allowed the police to enter my room. Well, one police officer. A detective named Maxwell is here, and he has been the one investigating my car accident. And it turns out he has also been investigating Simon Lamar.
“We found a man that Lamar paid off to make a small cut in your brake hose the night before your accident,” Detective Maxwell tells me. “The fluid was continuously leaking, and by the time you crashed, your car was unable to slow down or stop. That’s why your brother suggested driving out to see him.”
“But why would Dennis…” I can barely say the words. My brother was my whole universe for a long time. Why would he do something like this to me?
“Your brother and Lamar were business partners,” Maxwell explains. “Lamar was financing a bunch of new ski resorts with your brother. This was a huge deal for him. And Lamar was very clear that if you went to the police, the deal would not happen.”
It was actually when I was visiting my brother at the resort where he works that I met Simon Lamar at a bar. Apparently, he had just finished a meeting with Dennis.
I always thought of my brother as a laid-back guy who was happy with his career as a ski instructor, but as it turned out, he had more in common with our father than I thought. When he realized the deal he’d been arranging was slipping through his fingers, he was willing to do whatever it took to make it work.
It turns out Dennis was never as okay as I thought he was with losing his chance to go pro. I never realized he blamed me for the car accident that took him out of commission. It pains me to think of the simmering resentment he’d felt for years.
Jackson puts his hand on my shoulder. “I was trying to tell you about it, but then that bastard came back. I didn’t think there was any chance he’d be bold enough to try anything while you were in the hospital, or else I never would have left you alone.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I never should have left. I’m so sorry, Tegan.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him, and I mean it. I was the one who sent him away.
“I meant what I said before,” Jackson says. “I’m so ashamed and sorry for my reaction when you told me what Simon did to you. I…I couldn’t believe I said all that stuff to you. After I left your apartment, I contacted another woman who I knew Simon paid off, and I discovered it was the same story. He drugged her too, but she took the money to keep her mouth shut.” He flinches. “When I called you right before your accident, when we had that bad connection, I was trying to tell you that I wanted to help you, and I was going to the police to tell them what I knew about Simon. I wanted to back you up when you came forward and make sure he would never do anything like that ever again.”
“Well,” Detective Maxwell says, “he definitely won’t be doing that again. We have Lamar in custody, and we intend to hold him accountable for everything he has done.”
I look at the detective. “What was in that syringe?”
“We think it was morphine.” Maxwell pauses. “You were already getting morphine, so the lethal dose could have been chalked up to a nursing error.”
Lethal dose? Jackson looks about as rattled as I feel. I can’t believe my own brother would do something like that to me. I have never felt so alone in my entire life.
I’m still here, Mama. You’ve got me!
I do still have my daughter. The one blessing is that she made it through this, still okay.
“We’re trying to figure out who that nurse was who stopped him,” Detective Maxwell says. “She was at your door and kept your brother from giving you the morphine. But she was wearing a mask, and the other staff members didn’t recognize her.”
I flash back to the moment I woke up. To the woman standing at the door to my room and those green eyes staring back at me over the top of the mask.
Polly.
Polly showed up here tonight. I don’t know what her motivation for coming was, but she stopped Dennis from killing me and my baby. I hate her for what she did to me, but I also realize that if it weren’t for her and Hank, I would be dead right now. They have saved me twice over. I am only here right now because of her. I owe her.
But I’m still not sure it’s enough.