So Far from Safe Eden
So Far from Safe
Eden
Everything changes when the news about Andrew’s parents breaks.
Security outside the hospital triples. We’re told they are a combination of GBI and FBI and are there to keep us safe.
I send a note of thanks to Theresa and ask her to call me as soon as she can.
When I hear nothing, I call but get her voicemail.
The hospital TVs blare the story on a loop. Andrew’s face is plastered on the screen, showing over and over. His new face. The new Andrew. The missing man from our lives.
It’s sexy, this story. A wife hit by a car, the parents murdered, a husband on the run.
Why would he kill his parents, though? I can’t understand the motivation there. They were sweet, kind, generous people. The whole town loved them. I loved them. They were so gentle with me when I lost Mom and Dad. Without hesitating, they took over for them when they passed away.
They’d lost their daughter-in-law. They’d lost their son.
When Andrew abandoned them, he left all of us.
And they had nothing left but me. Our bond was born in blood—the blood of my sister, killed by their son’s hand.
They never wavered in their support. And they made sure to take good care of that relationship.
When my parents died, Lucy came and sat with me, chatting, cleaning, keeping me company, even spending the night a few times a week so I wouldn’t have to be all alone.
Andy showed his love through food, grilling for me, and making sure the refrigerator was always stocked.
Even after I moved to Atlanta and took the job with the airline, they continued to reach out to me every week to check in.
They sent cards on every holiday and birthday.
They invited me home for Sunday dinner. Unlike so many whose attentions faded over time, theirs never waned. I appreciated them more than they knew.
Their loss is almost as hard as the loss of my sister and my parents.
It doesn’t feel real. I have to stop myself from getting in the car and driving home to visit the crime scene for myself.
But I know that’s not a good idea. PTSD is a real thing.
Who knows what seeing their blood spilled might trigger?
There will be time enough. I know I’m a beneficiary in their wills.
I will have to play a role in the future. But not today.
Instead, I call Theresa again, who sends me directly to voicemail four times in a row. Finally, she calls back.
“Are you okay?” she asks, true sympathy in her voice. She’s outside; I can hear the wind whistling through the trees. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. She’s in Malogen, on the hill overlooking town, probably the Lockes’ driveway or farther up, near the fire tower.
“No. I’m at the hospital with Margot and the kids, and I just saw the news. What happened? Are we safe? There are FBI agents here, but they won’t talk to me.”
“One thing at a time. No, we don’t know yet for sure what happened, nor who is responsible. But Eden, I need you to be on the lookout. Anyone who feels wrong, you get as far away as you can and call me.”
“They’re saying Andrew is a suspect in his parents’ murder. Why would he go to Malogen and kill his parents? What is he trying to hide? What did they know?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Is it true his passport was dropped at the scene?”
“Good grief, that’s on the news? Damn it. This place leaks like a sieve.”
“They’re saying all kinds of things, like they were tortured. Is that true?”
“I can’t comment on the details, Eden. You know that.”
“Which is a yes. But if he killed them . . . Theresa, we’re back to square one, just like we were a decade ago. It’s Andrew we have to fear. Again.”
“This is bigger than just Andrew, I’m afraid.”
“Bigger? Like, what, he has an accomplice?”
“I don’t know yet, okay? We’re working every angle. But if you see a man hanging around with a baseball cap and curly blond hair, you hole up and call me immediately.”
“A man with curly hair . . . Who? Do you have a name?”
“No, we don’t. Just be on the lookout, okay?”
“You’re scaring me.”
I hear the car door slam and the background get quieter. Her voice is overloud now. “Good. I want you to be scared. I want you to be aware. Whoever killed the Lockes, be it Andrew or someone else, is extremely dangerous.”
“You don’t think Andrew did it?”
She hums a little under her breath. “If he did, he’s gone completely off the rails. I haven’t seen anything like this in my entire career. Be careful, okay?”
“Yeah. You too.”
I hang up, breathless. This is not good. And I don’t have time to properly grieve. We have our hands full here.
Margot stays at the hospital nonstop the first couple of days.
I keep the kids at the house and entertained.
I’m grateful she’s letting me help; the kids understandably need a lot of attention right now, and she needs to be focusing on her sister.
It also gives me something to do besides obsess over Andy’s and Lucy’s deaths.
The kids and I have a lot of fun. We watch movies and play cards.
I find the classic Nutcracker ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland for Neve, and she watches it at least five times in a row.
It turns out Four is a whiz with numbers, and he gets lost in a few of my cryptography books from an internship I did with the cipher lab at Georgia Tech the summer before I graduated.
It’s cold, so warming comfort food is the order of the day. I make nourishing soups and grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches, keeping their bellies full and their minds occupied. There are no computers or TVs allowed that aren’t monitored. We don’t need them to see the news and get scared.
The day after the accident, when the doctors say they’re going to be keeping Brooklyn in the hospital under observation for a few days, Margot starts talking about having her sister transferred back to Nashville.
It is a decision not without concern for the doctors, but a terrible incident forces their hand.
No one knows for sure exactly what happened.
Brooklyn’s vitals had been stable for several hours, a very good sign, and she was more awake, but not entirely lucid.
The doctors assured us that she would be okay alone overnight.
Still, Margot wasn’t comfortable leaving her twin in such a state, so I offered to stay.
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. You’re exhausted. The kids are wiped out. Go take a real break.”
She pulls her hair into a ponytail, smiling ruefully. “I would kill for a shower.” She winces at the words, but I wave them away.
“Having a loved one in pain is the hardest thing.” I hand her my keys. “You have a long road ahead. Take the opportunity to get rest now. Trust me.”
“You really are an angel, Eden. Thank you. Just . . . be careful with her, okay? Call me if anything happens.”
Prescient words.
Honestly, I was happy to keep watch. Still adjusting to the demands of parenting two adorable but rambunctious children, I was a bit worn out myself.
So I sent Margot off with my keys and a hug, then settled in for the night.
The hospital was being incredibly generous, allowing one of us to stay overnight, making up the chair that converted into a foldout twin bed, and so far, it had all been on Margot.
She watched her sister, and I watched the kids.
But tonight . . . Alone for the first time, knowing that Andrew was out there slaughtering the people closest to him, I was struggling.
Violence touches people differently. Some are able to compartmentalize; some break down.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I can put it out of my head for long stretches, but then the memories come back and I can’t shake them. This was one of those nights.
And it was very hard to see Brooklyn in such straits.
She was in and out and didn’t recognize me at all.
The monitors were, understandably, extensive, constantly taking her blood pressure and pulse.
She was receiving oxygen. The machines made an unholy racket, things I’d never even heard of hooked to her poor body.
She’d been having trouble swallowing, whether from the sedatives or the TBI, they didn’t know, so they’d successfully placed a nasogastric feeding tube for proper nutrition, and compression devices pumped her legs so she didn’t develop blood clots.
There were electrodes attached all over her head, leading to the EEG machine.
But she was pale, and so still, and honestly, while she slept, she looked like she was dead.
Watching over her, I kept imagining Andy and Lucy, dead.
I kept seeing Chloe, prone on the floor.
All the blood, all the horror, was alive in me, overwhelming me.
If we’d found my sister sooner, we could have donated her organs, and she would have been tethered to the machines just like Brooklyn while plans were made to dissect her body and share the pieces across the country, maybe even the world.
I thought about this a lot, that there was nothing left of my sister.
At least Brooklyn had a chance to bear and raise her children.
Four and Neve were perfect angels, and even if their mother didn’t come back to normal, or, God forbid, didn’t make it through, even if she died, those pieces of her would be left behind.
And they would have memories of their mother.
I remembered my own mother’s death and immediately wished I hadn’t gone there. I’ve lost so much. So many people I loved. It hurts, and it’s too much to bear sometimes.
And it’s all Andrew Locke’s fault.
All this thinking, the beeping, the hissing, the sight of Brooklyn’s broken body and the bandage around her head and her eyes shut and the horrors of the past few days . . . I got, understandably, upset. My stomach twisted, and I felt faint.