Chapter 43
CHAPTER 43
WILLA
“ L et me get this straight.” Chief Carson stared hard at me from across the table in the interrogation room. “You’re telling me that Roland O’Shea, member of the Kiwanis Club, volunteer at the church, and general upstanding member of the Sutter’s Ferry community, abducted and tried to kill you?”
Despite the anxiety twisting in my gut, I didn’t even flinch. I’d vowed to tell my truth. All of it. “Yes. You should find a bullet lodged in one of the trees not far from where his car was left, from where he shot at me when I managed to escape.”
“I’ll have my people look for it. And why, exactly, would he do this?”
“Because my memory is a threat.”
“Explain.”
Once the dam had cracked, I’d been able to remember a little bit more. “Twelve years ago, I left that bonfire with Gwen Busby. We went into the woods to the north of Osprey Beach. I don’t know why. I can’t remember that part. But while we were there, we were attacked. When I came to, I was on the beach and someone was arguing.” I repeated the details I could remember from the flashback.
“When Joe Anderson refused to kill me, Roland shot him.”
“You saw that?”
“I saw someone from behind. I didn’t know for sure it was Roland until he admitted it himself. Based on what he said tonight, I was never supposed to be there. Gwen was the target. Whose target, or for what, I don’t know. But we were both put on a boat. Roland told whoever else was there to take me out to sea and toss me overboard. That was how I ended up in the water that night. I wasn’t supposed to survive.”
Carson’s eyes narrowed. “If all this is true, why didn’t you come forward before?”
I’d expected this, so I was ready. “Chief Carson, I literally drowned. My heart stopped. If you’ll recall, I was in the hospital for quite some time after Sawyer rescued me. I didn’t remember anything at all around that night to begin with. And Roland apparently recommended that my parents send me to a psychiatrist he knew with a specialty in memory recovery.”
I told him the rest, about Collin Caswell and my two-year institutionalization, and all the efforts made to ensure I didn’t remember a damned thing.
“I didn’t remember for years. I couldn’t even go near the area without falling into a panic attack or a migraine. But once we found Joe Anderson’s remains, I guess that started unlocking things. I started deliberately pushing. It’s still not clear, but Roland assumed I’d remembered everything. That all the conditioning I’d been put through had been broken. I guess he started talking because he had no intention of letting me live. But I escaped.”
He listened without comment as I went through the last of it, all the way to the point where Triton charged him.
“That animal is a menace.”
“No. He was only defending his baby.” And me, but I didn’t think I needed to say anything else to challenge his willingness to suspend disbelief. “The horses are wild animals, and so long as they’re left alone, they don’t cause any problems. Roland was the one waving a gun around, threatening to kill them.”
Carson scrubbed a hand down his face, for once looking as old as his almost sixty years. “I don’t even know where to start with what to do with all this.”
“You start by digging into Roland O’Shea. He was working with someone. He said he was in charge of logistics. He referred to Gwen as a package. She was on that boat, and I think it’s not too far out there to assume she left here alive. To where or for what, I don’t know.” I’d had some time to think about it while the police had secured the scene. “It sounds a hell of a lot like she could have been trafficked. And I know that if that’s true, the likelihood of finding her is slim. But you have to try. This is the first lead we’ve had in years.”
I had to clamp down on the sudden surge of grief. If only I’d remembered sooner, when the trail was relatively fresh. Maybe they’d have been able to find something and bring her home.
The chief of police stared at me for a long time, and I was fully aware that the only reason he wasn’t investigating me was because I was a Sutter. Well, that and the fact that it was pretty hard to argue with the very clear hoof-shaped wounds all over what remained of Roland’s body and the gun with his prints that had been found nearby.
At last, he nodded. “I’ll look into it. I don’t know what there’s left to find after all this time, but I’ll sure as shit try. The Busbys deserve that.”
At least we could agree on something.
“You’re free to go, Miss Sutter. I’m sure I’ll be in touch as things move forward, but for now, go on home. You’ve had… an eventful night.”
There was little enough left of it, and all I wanted was to shower and fall face-first into bed.
I stepped out of the interrogation room. Sawyer shot up from the chair where he’d been waiting.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “We can go now.”
His hand closed around mine, quieting the lingering unease from the prolonged questioning. I’d have more processing to do later, but for now, my brain had hit the point of overload, and I was on autopilot.
When we stepped out of the police station, I saw the sky was already beginning to lighten. It truly had been a long night. We walked through the quiet, empty streets of the village to where we’d left his truck a few blocks away.
“Did he give you any grief?”
“Not as much as I expected. I know he’s struggling to believe some of what I told him. But he’s promised to look into the boat connection regarding Gwen’s disappearance.”
“Are you planning to try to dig more, see if you can remember anything else?”
“I don’t know yet. Now that we know what was done to me, I probably do need some treatment to work through it. Maybe something else will come of that. Maybe not. But I think I remembered the essentials. For now, that’s all I can do.”
“It’s a lot.”
The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we reached the truck. Sawyer pulled me back against him as he leaned against the door, and we both watched as the watercolor wash of sunrise painted the sky.
“Roland is dead, and the threat from your parents to your inheritance is dealt with. It seems like all the threats are over,” Sawyer murmured.
“Seems like. I expect it’ll take me a while to accept that.”
“True enough.” He hesitated. “You know, something occurred to me while you were in with Carson. If Roland lied about all this stuff, is it possible he lied about your parents and all the shit they were pulling about the estate? He had the skill to fabricate all of it.”
I blinked, taking that in. “I don’t know. It would be easy enough to check to see if anything was legitimately filed, but honestly, I don’t care. We’re estranged for a reason. They kept me locked up rather than listen to me when I said something was wrong. I can’t ever forgive them for that. Maybe I’ll change my mind someday in the future, but I doubt it.”
“Fair enough. What do you want now?”
Sucking in a breath, I turned in his arms and slid my hands up his chest. “Other than a shower and sleeping for the next fifteen hours, I want to put all of this behind me and move forward in this life with you. No threat, no subterfuge. I just want to be in love and have our shot at happily ever after.”
His lips curved as he dipped his head down to mine. “I figure it’s about damned time.”