Chapter 16
Natalie
I’ve been here three and a half weeks, searching for the information I need to get justice for Granny Ellie.
I’ve been snooping around looking for evidence and found some pretty shocking tidbits, but nothing that would prove anything one way or another.
But this morning I put that on the back burner in favor of a bigger concern.
The fluorescent light in the bathroom flickers as I try to figure out the most important issue of my life.
Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet with my elbows braced on my knees, I stare at the white plastic stick on the counter.
No matter how long I stare at the little window there are still two lines—not faint, hard-to-see lines, but thick bright red lines because I am the most fertile woman on the face of the earth and Bear has Olympic-level swimmers.
My period was two weeks late. At first, I thought it was due to the stress, but then I realized it might be something else. Thankfully, the Elliots trusted me enough to go and pick up groceries without supervision, so I managed to buy a pregnancy test kit and sneak it into my bedroom.
Raking one hand through my hair, I take deep breaths and hold them to keep from hyperventilating or screaming the walls down. This is no place to be when carrying a child. The sooner I find what I’m looking for, the better.
My hand drifts to my stomach before I even realize it’s moving. The terrain there feels flat and ordinary. There is no baby bump yet, no sign that I’m physically pregnant. And I thank God for that.
I can’t help but think of Bear—not in that romantic way that I let myself think of him at night when I’m curled up on the burner phone talking about sexy things.
Right now, I’m picturing his face when I tell him he’s going to be a father.
I imagine his slack-jawed expression as he tries to get his head around this bit of unexpected news.
His mother died giving birth to him. I know without a shadow of a doubt that this pregnancy will stoke the fear that already lives in him and I hate that for him.
I think the best way to break it to him is with a picture of the pregnancy test rather than a call or text.
That would give him time to get his head around it before we talk.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the test strip with the two blazing red lines showing clearly in the viewing window. I hit send, and then press the phone to my forehead, praying that he doesn’t lose his ever-loving mind over this latest turn of events.
I think about all the nights I’ve spent in his arms before coming here.
I’d been wearing his cut for a couple of weeks, and we were having sex every single night.
Every time it just made me want him more.
I’m an intelligent woman, I know how babies are made.
I just got caught up in the moment with him and told myself that it wouldn’t happen right away—that I had time to get some birth control.
I slide off the toilet lid and wrap the test in toilet paper, tucking it into the small trash bin beneath the sink where no one ever looks.
I can’t get caught with evidence of being pregnant because I can’t trust that Jeremiah won’t try to arrange a marriage for me with a member of his congregation.
After washing and drying my hands, I lean closer to the mirror and study my reflection, searching for something different, some visible sign that I’m going to be someone’s mother. There is nothing but me. I press my palm flat against my stomach again as I think about my unborn child.
This is not some kind of mistake—not to my mind anyway. It’s a blessing because this child was made with the man I love. I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant and I know this will change my life, but I’m ready for it.
I decide that it’s now or never. I won’t risk my child by lingering here. I step out of the restroom and walk down the hall. The house is deadly quiet because it’s Sunday and they’ve gone to church.
They love dressing up, smiling at everyone, and playing the part of a family that by all outward appearances looks like it was blessed by God.
They left me behind to cook a special meal for my former foster father’s birthday.
I can’t say that I’m surprised. In their minds, I’ve slipped back into my old place without argument.
They’re used to seeing me with busy hands and a closed mouth, just grateful to be tolerated.
And I’ve given them no reason to think anything different.
In my pocket, the burner phone is resting silently. Either Bear is upset and doesn’t want to talk to me about it right now or he’s still processing.
I glance up at the clock on the wall. They’ll be gone at least another hour, maybe more.
My eyes drift down the hall towards Jeremiah’s office.
The door is always shut and locked, because he doesn’t like anyone in there without an engraved invitation.
I managed to sneak into David’s office last week.
Unlike his brother’s, his was unlocked, but I couldn’t find anything incriminating.
For three and a half weeks I’ve tried to worm my way into Jeremiah’s sanctuary and failed at every turn.
Today, I’m just going to smash the door open.
I quickly move down the hall, my heartbeat loud in my ears even though the house is empty. When I reach his door, I press my palm flat against the wood and feel the chill of it through my skin.
You need to do this, I tell myself. For you. For your baby.
I bend down and pull the crowbar from behind the hall closet where I hid it yesterday, wrapped in a towel so it wouldn’t clank.
It feels heavy enough to get the job done.
I know this is the final point. If I don’t find anything, then I have to get away from them as quickly as possible before they kill me.
I wedge it between the door and the frame and lean my weight into it.
I keep the pressure on until my arms are shaking.
The wood splinters with a crack that sounds like thunder in the quiet house.
I move the bar, digging into the splintered wood and give it a nice hard jerk.
My hands are starting to hurt when the latch finally gives way with a sharp, metallic ping.
I slam my shoulder into the door, and it flies open.
Victorious, I step into the room with the crowbar still in my hands.
Jeremiah’s office is the most well-furnished room in the entire house.
He keeps his heavy drapes drawn against the sunlight.
The man lives like a vampire. My spirits soar when I see the green light and realize he’s forgotten to turn off his computer.
I wiggle the mouse and immediately the screen bursts to life.
I toss the crowbar aside when I see what comes up.
Jeremiah has left his email open, which is a huge mistake to make for a man like him.
I step over and lower myself into his massive wooden desk chair.
Sitting there in plain sight is a message from a medical supply company with a receipt attached for potassium chloride.
I don’t know much about drugs, but in the few weeks I worked with Rick and Bear I learned a little.
One of our regulars was taking it for kidney failure and I remember Bear mentioning that it was the same drug that’s used in lethal injections. That it can stop the heart.
It can cause a heart attack.
Maximizing it to full screen, I look at the details. I realize it was ordered the week before Granny Ellie died. I know all her medications, and she wasn’t on potassium supplements.
Another email captures my attention. It’s dated a month and a half before Granny Ellie’s death.
This one is from an attorney, and the title is: Copy of Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Eleanor Elliot.
The subject makes my blood run cold because not only did Jeremiah know about the will, he knew about it all along, way before I left.
It confirms what I suspected. That he and his brother had been plotting to get their hands on the money for some time.
One of the shocking things that I’d discovered over the last three and a half weeks was a note from Granny Ellie.
I’d found it under her mattress when I searched her room.
It was written in her own handwriting, warning me to be careful of her sons.
She said Jeremiah had asked for money and she told him no.
She said if something happened to her to contact her attorney and get out of the house.
I wonder if she’d hoped to sneak me the note the night she was murdered.
Because that’s what I now know for sure.
I have the emails, and the drug order. Surely, this is enough to get the police to investigate?
My hands move automatically. I print everything, page after page spitting out of the machine, the printer whining like it is as nervous as I am.
I snap photos with the burner phone and upload copies to the cloud, one after another, until my fingers ache.
Just when I think that I’m finished, I find more.
There are documents buried in folders that I never knew existed, records that show the foster parents abusing funds meant for kids who had nowhere else to go, using their money like it was personal income.
I’m not sure what evidence CPS found when they investigated.
But as they were only investigating David and his wife, and not Jeremiah, I wonder if they’d seen the worst of it.
Then I have another thought. What if this is all Jeremiah’s doing? That he had plans to blackmail or manipulate his brother as well?
By the time I shove the last stack into a folder, my arms are full. I grab my duffel bag which I’d left by the front door, and head out to my car.
Halfway to my vehicle I hear the sound of someone approaching. Fear creeps up my spine. I take off in a sprint but I’m not fast enough.
“Where are you going?”
Panic hits me hard and fast. All I can think about is getting the hell out of this place with the incriminating records intact.
Suddenly, Jeremiah is standing between me and my car. He looks at the papers in my arms, and his face changes. I would have called it anger but truly it’s more of murderous rage.
He takes a step towards me. His voice is laced with menace as he commands, “Natalie. Put those down. You are not leaving.”
Instead of answering him, I run for all I’m worth.
He chases me and eventually his hand clamps around my upper arm and he jerks me back hard enough to make pain flare up my arm.
Papers spill across the ground and I scramble to twist out of his hold so I can grab them.
I manage to pull free and immediately feel his hand snag my hair and wrench my head back.
Pain explodes along my scalp and I gasp.
“Enough,” he growls. Gone is the preacher’s cadence, replaced by something raw and vicious. “You will submit.” I tear free again, sprint towards the back of the house, towards the storm cellar, the one place that has always been my refuge.
I throw myself inside, slam the metal door shut and slide the bolt into place just as his weight crashes against the other side. I can hear our mild-mannered preacher cursing under his breath, the demon he kept hidden, now finally unleashed.
He pounds on the door, his screamed demands barely carrying through the thick steel door.
“Natalie,” he roars, “open this door. You don’t get to defy me.
Not in my house. Not under God’s roof.” The cellar might be cold and damp, but it’s lit by a single bare bulb that flickers overhead, giving me just enough light to do what needs to be done to save myself and my unborn child.
I slide down the wall to the floor, with my back pressed to the brick.
My hands shake when I pull out the burner phone.
I type as fast as I can.
Me: He knows. I found it. Get me out. Now.
Above me, Jeremiah paces, his voice a distant snarl as he tries to figure out how to break through something that was designed to keep tornados and hurricanes out.
I press my free hand flat against my stomach.
“Daddy’s coming,” I whisper into the quiet room. Tears sting my eyes, even as my voice remains steady. “Hold on, baby. He won’t let us down.”
The bulb flickers again. The metal door shudders under his blows.
I wait for the man I love to come and rescue me, clutching proof that Jeremiah killed his mother in one hand, and my future in the other, as I listen for the distant roar of incoming motorcycles.
I only hope that Bear got the photo of the pregnancy test stick earlier and is already halfway to Sacramento.