35. Chapter 35
July 7, 2011
10:36 pm
Hailey was speechless. David had truly thought he had killed Morgan and that’s why he had worked so hard to cover it up. But if he didn’t do it, there was still a killer on the loose.
Panicking, Trey asked, “David, who wanted to kill Morgan? Was anyone there with you or were you expecting someone later?”
David quickly shook his head. The steady beeps of the monitor increased as the rhythmic beating of his heart accelerated. For the first time in his sorry life, he was scared.
“No, no one else was there except Sara. And I don’t know of anyone who would want to hurt Morgan.”
“Or you’re lying. One last ditch effort to save your sorry ass,” Sara said.
Sara was right. David was lying again but Hailey didn't know why, though she suspected it was to control what little narrative he had left.
Trey intervened, “We know there were people who wanted to hurt Morgan. Or maybe even hurt you. So, who are they?”
“I don’t-”
“You can either tell me the truth or our deal goes away.”
Fire burned behind David’s eyes. He didn’t like being cornered and he hated that Trey was fully in control. The once passive teenager was now a fearless man, hellbent on protecting his family; something David should have done from the beginning.
Sara looked directly at David and pulled out her phone. “Why don’t I make a phone call to my journalist friend. I think she’ll find all of this quite fascinating.” Hailey and Trey exchanged glances as David ignored his daughter.
After a moment, she said, “Fine.” Sara punched in the number and waited for the woman to answer.
Before the line connected, David quietly said, “Hang up the damn phone.”
She smiled slyly at him. “What’s the matter, Dad ? You don’t want her knowing your dirty little secret?”
David’s jaw twitched and he clenched his fists. His hate for Sara burned deep within his soul. Hailey found herself terrified for her sister, though Sara didn’t even flinch.
Trey said, “Could Ryan have killed Morgan?”
Instead of looking at Trey, David looked at Hailey. “Ryan hated you and your mother.”
“No shit,” Sara snapped. “An idea you perpetuated. He tried to kill Hailey, and you did nothing.”
Hailey never forgave her father for what he’d done the night her mother died, or rather what he hadn’t done. He had seen the stitches, had watched her cover the bruises. He had handed her towels as she had washed the blood from her body, praying her baby would make it. He had heard her screams as nightmares plagued her sleep.
David had known what Ryan did and he still protected him.
“ Could he have killed Morgan ?” Trey demanded. It was clear that everyone in the room was losing control of their emotions. The tension was mounting, and time was running out. This killer had an end game that was likely already in play, and he was still a ghost.
David snapped, “I don’t know! Ryan’s the one that's been killing people.” He finally looked at Trey. “I told him if he helped me, I would give him a million dollars so he could disappear. He was only supposed to scare people so they wouldn’t talk, unless I told him otherwise. Murder complicates things.”
“Wow, aren’t you just a fucking saint?” Sara said dryly.
“What about Hannah?” Trey asked.
David looked away.
“Answer me.”
He shook his head, furious with Trey. “She was definitely crazy enough. But how would she have done it without me knowing?”
Hailey’s wheels were spinning. If Hannah was stalking Morgan or David, she would have known about David pushing Morgan down the stairs. She could have come in after David left and finished the job, wanting to make sure Morgan was dead. No one saw any other cars around the estate but there were plenty of places to park on the main road and walk onto the property and never be detected. Not to mention all of the places on the property that offered cover in the nighttime.
And since David thought he was guilty, he would still ask Eli to cover it up and make it look like Sara was guilty, never knowing he didn’t actually kill his wife.
“Would Nicole kill her?” Trey asked.
David vehemently shook his head. “Nicole may have hated her, but she wouldn’t actually hurt Morgan. She loved me too much to do that.”
Hailey wasn’t completely convinced. Love was blinding. And it was clear that David Gallagher loved his mistress far more than he did his late wife.
David sighed and shook his head. “Talk to Hannah first. But you need to find Ryan. He went AWOL and won’t return my calls. He’s spiraling and I no longer have control over that situation so there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
Trey nodded, then put his hand on Hailey’s back. “Let’s talk outside for a minute.”
David narrowed his eyes at them, suspicious.
Good. Maybe it will keep him unnerved.
Trey closed the door behind them, leaving Sara in the room with David. “I was already going to talk to Hannah tomorrow, but now I’m even more concerned that she may be, at the very least, a witness, if not the killer. I'm going to talk to her, and I’ll push for more manpower to find Ryan.”
“Okay, what do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I want you to stay here for now. I’m going to post a security guard outside the door. No one except for ID’d staff will be allowed in and only if it's necessary.”
“But I-”
He gently grabbed her arms. “I know you want to come with me, but if Hannah killed your mother, I don't want you near her.”
He kissed her on the forehead and took off down the hall.
“I love you,” she shouted.
“I love you, too!”
Hailey went back into her father's room and closed the door, hoping the killer didn’t come barging in.
Sara awkwardly stood by the door, her eyes burning a hole into David’s soul. But all he did was stare at the white walls, ignoring her. She felt like a child again, yearning for his attention and affection only to be met with silence or beatings.
But David Gallagher didn’t have affection to give. And what attention he could spare, it was never good attention. He didn’t want to be bothered with her or Hailey, they were a nuisance. So, she had acted out.
In the beginning, she was unsure, not knowing what the repercussions would be of her wild outings. And at first, she had liked the attention, even if it was her father yelling at her. At least he noticed her. But then her yearning slowly turned into hate. And everything she had done was to spite the man who should love her more than anything.
She said from the door, “Why do you hate me?”
The beep of the heart machine was his response. A steady rhythm and song of his impending death; one Sara was looking forward to celebrating.
“All I ever wanted was your love, but you looked at me and Hailey as if we were your death sentence.” She walked a little closer to his bed. “But you're incapable of love, aren't you? Or at least you're picky about who you give it to.”
Silence.
Sara snorted and shook her head. “Even while you’re dying you don't have enough decency to answer me.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You refused to be controlled. Your free spirit needed to be broken but you wouldn’t break. You were my reminder that I had one weakness: you. And I'd be damned if I let you get away with it.”
Sara stared at the man who had ruined her. She felt a deep hatred, one that darkened her very core. It was an evil that had seeped into every part of her, a cancer that was eating away at her heart.
A wicked grin crept on his face. “Kill me. I know you want to; I can see it in your eyes. I’m dying anyway so you’d be doing me a favor.”
At first, she didn’t move. She was surprised by his words. Then, she slowly walked to the edge of his bed. She wondered what it would be like to feel his life leave him, to know she had been the one to destroy him. How poetic would it be if she, the one thing he hated most, was ultimately his downfall?
She wondered if she was just as much of a monster as he was.
Then Gavin’s face flashed through her mind: his kind eyes and quiet nature. He would hate that she was dancing with the devil, willing to throw everything away. He would hate to see the darkness swallow her, turn her into a monster.
And that’s exactly what David wanted. To make her just like him. To take her life from her for good.
Hailey’s words echoed in her mind, “ You’re a survivor. ”
She had survived too much to let David steal one last piece of her before he died.
“I’m not like you,” she said.
A laugh wheezed from his lungs. “I see that glint in your eye, the bloodlust. You want to kill me. You have hate flowing through your veins. You are every bad part of me. You are just like me .”
“No, I’m not. You think the darkness made you invincible. But your greatest strength is actually your weakness. And at your core, that’s what you are: weak. You thought the darkness would make you a bigger monster, but all it did was hide your failure in the shadows. I rose from the grave you tried to bury me in, and I’ll be damned if I let you do it one last time.”
She stepped closer to him, getting in his face. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of killing you.” She smiled. “Karma is coming for you, and she’s coming with a vengeance.”