Chapter 24
Devon had heard Camden take off in the vehicle again, and she didn’t expect it to bother her quite as badly as it did because now she was sitting inside the house, almost paralyzed, trying to figure out what to do, if anything.
Then she got a text from him saying he had orders from his captain to go back and get that statement from Mark and get it signed and sealed and in safe hands.
She understood, yet it didn’t make her feel much better.
When he added that they’d beefed up security and had put her house on patrol, that didn’t help either because, by the time anybody heard what was going on, it would already be way-the-hell too late, as far as she was concerned.
When Tabby came down a little bit later, she looked at her and said, “It’s almost time, you know?”
“I know,” she whispered. “Tomorrow night, in fact.”
The girl stared at her, eyes wide, and noted, “You’re so calm.”
“Well, you’ve already told me that I’m the sacrificial goat, which you three decided without once considering me and what I want,” she snapped, her tone hard. “What difference does it make whether I’m calm or not?”
The girl looked at her in shock. “You don’t care?”
“Of course I care, but what is it you want me to say? You obviously have chosen to sacrifice me so that your mother can live again,” she spat.
“And, believe me, if this comes about, it will be interesting to see if it works out exactly how you think it’ll happen,” she muttered.
“Because I won’t just sit by and give myself up. You know that, right?”
The girl frowned and nodded. “And it seems …”
“It seems what?”
“It seems wrong.”
“Damn straight it is wrong,” she declared. “I’m glad you have a glimmer of understanding about what it is you’ve cheerfully signed me up for.”
“Mom told us that you were willing.”
“She lied to you,” Devon snapped. “Why would I be willing to give up my life so that she, who refused to do anything about her treatment until it was too late, could take over my healthy body as her own?”
“I noticed that she fought the treatment,” Tabby acknowledged.
“Yeah, she sure as hell did. She fought it and made my life difficult in many ways, but I was always there for her. It really sucks to find out now that always being there for her meant that I became a sacrifice and that you guys were totally okay with it.”
“It’s not that we were okay with it,” she began, looking slightly ashamed. “Just that, as far as we knew, we had … Well, Mom had your permission, how you didn’t want to live anymore.”
Devon snorted. “She lied to you,” she repeated.
Tabby stared out the window and nodded. “I never understood why you didn’t want to live anymore.”
“That’s because it was an out-and-out lie,” Devon spat, her voice rising. “It was a lie on her part, which is really sad for me to hear because I was always there for you three guys all these years.”
Tabby nodded. “I remember. You’re the one who took us to all the events, sometimes ones that Mom could have attended but chose not to.”
“What do you mean?” Devon snapped yet again.
“Mom was attending some classes or workshops on seances and stuff like that but telling you they were medical appointments that she preferred to deal with alone. She kept telling us that we couldn’t tell you, that it was for your own good because it would just upset you. And that you just wanted it over with.”
Devon shook her head, almost growling now.
Tabby stared at her. “All of it was just a lie, wasn’t it?”
Devon didn’t want to completely destroy her view of her mother, but that was exactly what it was—a whole bunch of lies in a wrapping of even more lies. “It was all a lie,” she muttered, “and it appears that you guys were a part of it right from the beginning.”
“Because we didn’t think anything of it,” Tabby wailed. “Only as I think about it now and realize that maybe it’s not quite the way Mom said it was, then I start to understand that it’s, … it’s really just wrong, isn’t it?”
“If I’m not willing—and I’m not—it’s definitely wrong.”
“Yeah.” Tabby closed her eyes and whispered, “We really just wanted our mom back.”
“I get that, but there is no way for that to happen without taking another life. That’s called murder.”
Tabby blanched, her color going completely pale as she stared.
Devon snorted, shaking her head. “Think about it, Tabby,” she exclaimed.
“You have to kill me in order for your mother to live or attempt to live again. You already know that she’s dead and gone, and yet you want any other truth than the reality of what actually is.
” Devon sighed, trying to calm down but this was a volatile subject.
“And I am truly sorry for you two because losing your mother is not what any of us wanted,” she added.
“However, for the record, it’s also not my fault. ”
“She told me once that you were to blame,” Tabby added, “and that you wanted to do this to make up for it. That was after I’d been asking why you would want to do it.”
“And in what way did she say that I am to blame?”
She frowned. “Mom told me that you wouldn’t take her to her appointments.”
Devon just stared at the girl and waited for her to connect the dots, Devon’s expression revealing more and more of the hatred she felt inside.
Finally Tabby replied, “But she had a car, and she could have gone on her own, couldn’t she?”
“Yes, she sure could have gone on her own. After all, she was going to all her séance groups, wasn’t she?
” Devon snapped, not even trying to hold it all in anymore.
“For the longest time, your mom was looking for somebody to blame. I tried hard to be there for her, but I can understand now that, from your perspective, I was probably the worst person in the world, for you, for Toby, and for her. It’s not true of course, but you’ll believe whatever you choose to believe,” Devon declared.
“At this point in time, I don’t know what I could even possibly say to convince you otherwise, and I shouldn’t have to.
Just look at all I did for you and for her.
That should speak louder than any words, aka lies, your mother fed you. ”
Troubled, Tabby turned and headed upstairs. Then she stopped, looked back, and added, “Mom repeated over and over again that you felt guilty, that it was all your fault, and that’s why you were doing this.”
“Your mother lied. Your mother had cancer. I didn’t give her cancer.
I’ve never felt guilty. I felt sympathy for her because she was losing her life, along with her children, but I never felt pity.
I certainly wouldn’t have volunteered to lose my life so that she could live hers.
You do realize how absolutely insane this conversation is, don’t you? ”
“Yeah, I’m starting to.” And, with that, Tabby slowly ascended the stairs, leaving Devon to stare at her, while Devon’s anger just burned hotter and hotter.
*
Camden walked back into Mark’s room to find the old man slowly writing out his statement.
He looked up, frowned and asked, “What’s the matter? You can’t trust me?”
“It’s not that I can’t trust you,” he clarified, “but things are coming to a head, and I need to make sure that I have that statement.”
He paled. “You talked to him?”
“Not yet. Not in my official capacity. … He’s my neighbor,” he explained. “So, I did see him tonight, but I haven’t talked to him about this. I haven’t interrogated him yet.”
Mark nodded. “He’ll deny all of it.”
“Yeah, I know. I was hoping that there might be some way we could trick him into answering the way we need him to in order to have his confession.”
Mark frowned. “I don’t know why he would confess though. I mean, he spent a lot of years free, and he doesn’t appear to have any conscience issues, not like the ones I have,” he noted bitterly. “Otherwise, you never would have pried it out of me.”
“No, but you also know that chances are, you don’t have too much longer to live, and deep down you’ve always wanted to go with a clear conscience.”
His shoulders sagged, and he nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. But now that you know the truth, I just want to ensure that you get that son of a bitch.”
“Did he say anything other than what you’ve told me, with you both at the crime scene?”
Mark thought about it and sighed. “Not that I can remember, at least not clearly.”
“And did he call you by your name?”
He looked at him, paused for a second, then shook his head.
“Actually he called me by his nickname for me. That’s right.
I’d forgotten about that. It was a name that nobody but Jerry ever called me.
Kind of mocking me. I was quite chubby when I was younger.
He used to call me Burly Mark. I hated it because it always implied I was fat, and I wasn’t.
I was just really big way back when, when I was a kid—back when life was normal, before everything fell apart. ”
Mark snorted. “He called me Burly Mark, and I think that’s the part that stuck with me when I woke up, the fact that he had used that name, so I knew exactly who it was.
If it had been anybody else, calling me just Mark, I might have disassociated from it over the years because I might not have remembered who it was who said that.
But in this instance, I knew exactly who it was because of that.
” He sighed. “But he won’t tell you that. ”
“But we’ll put that down in your statement.”
“I’m pretty well done,” Mark said. As he stared at it, he added a few extra notes.
“If and when this ever gets past where it is right now, you can always come back, and I might have more to say, but, for the moment, this is all that I remember so far.” He wrote a few more lines, then put down his pen.
“I’m exhausted. This has been incredibly draining. ”
“It has, but it may also be the first night in a very long time that you get some sleep, and that’s a good thing.”
He sighed. “I don’t know the last time I really slept. I’m forever waking up with nightmares about what I saw.”