Chapter 13 #2
His father dragged a hand down his face.
“Eli, please don’t go there. We moved to Shelby to put our loss, the media attention and notoriety behind us.
Your mother and I made the decision long ago not to discuss her death with you any further after you finished the counseling sessions your doctor recommended.
We felt it was better for you to put it behind you and build a new life, with happy memories here in Alaska. For all of us to make a fresh start.”
“I understand your reasons and can appreciate what you did, but I need information.”
His father sighed and tipped his head back against his chair. “All right. I don’t like it, but if you say you need answers, I believe you.”
Believe. His family’s motto filtered through Eli’s mind. As he had many times growing up, he appreciated his family’s determination to have an open mind and trust each other. To support each other in all circumstances.
Eli studied the grim tension in his father’s face. Revisiting his family’s brutal murders, the disturbing crime scene he’d stumbled upon, had to be difficult for Will. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wouldn’t dig this up if it weren’t important.”
His jaw tight and eyes bleak, Will raised one hand from his lap. “Ask your questions.”
“I’m primarily interested in how Aunt Caroline’s killer—”
“Jason Stevens.” His father spat the name out in a low growl, like a foul word. “I don’t like giving him the anonymity of a tag like Caroline’s killer. He should bear the guilt and be recognized for the evil man he was.”
“Stevens then.” Eli paused to gather his thoughts.
“I remember that Caroline and Stevens were both sitting on the couch in the living room when I found them. At first I thought they were asleep, but I realized soon after that that Aunt Caroline looked…odd. The color of her skin… Her eyes bulging—” He stopped short, knowing a more graphic description of his aunt’s body was unneeded.
“Yes. You’ve told us this. The scene frightened you as a child, gave you nightmares for weeks until your counselor helped you manage your fears and memories.”
“Maybe too well.” Eli rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Some of the details are fuzzy. What was Aunt Caroline wearing? Her nightgown?”
“Wh—” His father blinked rapidly. “Why?”
“I hope it’s nothing, but tell me. Please.”
Will’s hands fisted, and he swallowed hard. “Stevens had put her in a little black dress and stuck a diamond ring on her finger, playing out his fantasy that they were a couple.”
Eli’s gut clenched, and bile rose in his throat.
“After he drugged her and strangled her to death,” his father continued, “he posed her with her left hand over her heart, so we didn’t miss the ring, and her right arm around him as if they were cuddling.” His father gave his head a small shake as if shuddering at the vile memory.
“Go on. What else did the investigators conclude?”
“Stevens had initially injected Caroline with a sedative. Once he’d killed her and posed her, he injected himself with a lethal dose of the same sedative and died beside her. A far more peaceful demise than he deserved, the bastard.”
Eli dropped his gaze to the floor, his brain processing this information with a growing unrest in his soul. Black dress. Diamond ring. Posed.
“Is that what you needed to know?” his father asked.
Scrubbing a hand over his chin, he sighed. “I’m afraid so.”
“Can you tell me now why you needed to resurrect this dark period from our family history?”
Eli hesitated. Could he divulge what he suspected? It wasn’t confirmed yet. His hunch was just that—a hunch. But what his father had shared was too similar to the current investigation to be coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidence, he’d told Noelle earlier.
He cleared his throat and gave his father a grim stare. “When the victims of the Fiancée Killer were found, they were all wearing a diamond ring. Even the older more skeletal remains still had a ring on the left hand.”
Will nodded. “So the news reports have said. That’s how the case got that name, right?”
Eli gave a nod. “They’re also wearing short black dresses, and the cause of death has been pinned as strangulation.” For all that Montgomery had tainted the forensic records, at least that much could be confirmed.
“Like Caroline,” his father said darkly.
“Very like Caroline. The victims we’ve found before scavengers got to the bodies have been posed with the ring hand up.”
“Also like Caroline,” his father rasped, his blue eyes widening. “Are you saying the current killer is copying Caroline’s murder?”
“Maybe. I need to run more checks and verify—”
“But why? Caroline was killed twenty-eight years ago! In southern California! What’s the link?” His father stiffened. “Do you think that whoever is doing this could harm our family? Is he doing it to taunt us or—?”
Eli raised both hands. “I don’t know anything for certain yet.
I can’t make assumptions without facts.” He raked fingers through his hair and expelled a frustrated breath.
He refused to believe that his assignment as the lead in this case and having been the first to find Aunt Caroline murdered was a coincidence.
Was he the link? “Just in case, keep a close eye on Mom. Don’t let her go anywhere alone. ”
His father’s grim expression said he clearly read between the lines. “I’ll tell her not to—”
“No.” Eli lifted a hand in apology for his abruptness, then took a beat before adding, “You can’t tell her or anyone else anything yet.
This is confidential information related to my case.
Besides, I don’t want her frightened. Just…
stay alert.” Eli shoved to his feet. “I’ll let you know what I learn after I look at this angle more closely. ”
His father stood, as well. “Eli, I—I’m sorry if we failed you back then, after Caroline and your grandparents’ murders. That had to be a traumatizing thing for you to walk into.”
Eli shrugged one shoulder. “You got me counseling.”
“Some. But was it enough? Were we right to move you away from your friends and the only home you knew? To make such a drastic change when you were grappling with such horrible memories? Maybe it was a mistake for us to stop talking about it and shut it out like it never happened.” His father raised a shaky hand to his mouth.
“We thought we were doing what was best, but if we made it harder on you…”
Eli stepped over to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know you did your best with what you knew at the time.”
“Were we wrong? Could you forget?”
“Clearly I shut out some of it,” he said. “That’s why I needed your help today. But… I did have nightmares of losing family. Finding my siblings and cousins dead or running from a monster who wanted to kill me. I still do on occasion.”
Will’s face reflected pain and sympathy. “Oh, son. I’m sorry. If we could do it over, your mother and I would do so many things differently.”
Eli squeezed his father’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t dwell on it. We all do the best we can with the information and life experience we have at the time.” He gave a soft, wry chuckle. “And I turned out all right, didn’t I?”
His father’s eyes grew moist, and he clamped both hands on Eli’s upper arms. “You turned out better than all right. I am so very proud of you, Eli. Your work, your ethics, your support of our family… You’re an inspiration, my boy.
” He drew Eli into a firm hug and pounded his back. “I just wish—well, never mind.”
Eli backed out of the embrace and tilted his head. “No, say it. What do you wish?”
Will snorted and glanced away before drilling him with a look that was warm despite the ice blue of his father’s eyes.
The same eyes Eli saw every morning in the mirror.
“Your mother and I have been so happy together. We fulfill each other and take strength from each other. She makes me so incredibly grateful.”
Eli smiled. “It’s obvious to anyone who knows you.”
“I want that same happiness for you, dear boy. I wish you could find someone who brings you joy, someone you can settle down with and make a family. I don’t want you to be alone, Eli. Not when marriage has been so good to me and your mother.”
Eli’s heart kicked. Images from a few nights earlier, the passionate kisses and whispered intimacies he’d shared with Noelle, flickered in his mind’s eye.
“I want that, too. I have for a long time, but…the woman I want to settle down with keeps pushing me away. I believe she loves me, but she’s scared for some reason.
She’s been hurt before, and she hasn’t trusted me enough yet to open up about what frightens her about our relationship. ”
“May I assume you’re talking about the young lady out in the pottery studio with your mother right now?”
“Noelle. Yes.”
“She’s the one who broke your heart in college, isn’t she?” his father asked.
“How do you know about that?” Eli asked. He thought he’d kept his personal affairs and heartache more private than that.
“To be honest, your mother picked up on it first. You went from talking about Noelle frequently when you were home on holiday to saying nothing at all after graduation. And you were far more subdued, even glum at times. Your mother put two and two together and shared her theory with me.”
“Of course she did,” Eli said and flashed a half grin. “She doesn’t miss much. I never could get away with any shenanigans growing up.”
His father chuckled. “That’s as likely because you’re a terrible liar. You have more tells than a novice poker player.”
Eli’s eyebrows shot up. “I do? Like what?”
His father hitched his head toward the door, and Eli followed him out toward his mother’s studio. “I’m not telling you. How would I ever beat you at poker again?”
Eli groaned. “I may never play poker again.”
Giving him a clap on the back, Will sobered. “Just as long as you don’t give up on Noelle. If you love her, fight for her. Be her safe place, and with patience and encouragement, she’s bound to come around.” Will’s expression perked. “Say, why don’t you bring her on Sunday to the family party?”
“It’s been suggested, but she doesn’t seem keen to meet the whole boisterous brood of us.”
“Pssh.” His father waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll invite her and let her know we’re nothing to fear. No vipers among us. No one bites. Teddy bears all.”
Before Eli could mount a counterargument, his father headed out to the pottery shed.
Eli hurried to catch up to him. If his father came on too strong, would he scare Noelle away? He recalled what she’d said about her cold family, her isolation as a child and her discomfort with the dynamics of a large family.
When they reached his mother’s studio, Noelle’s expression was stark, her cheeks tearstained. His mother sat close beside her, an arm around Noelle’s shoulders and clay-crusted fingers dabbing moisture from Noelle’s face, leaving dirty smudges in her wake.
Eli’s gut lurched. What the heck had happened? What had his mother said to Noelle?
He rushed to Noelle’s side and crouched by her chair. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” He shot his mother a quick, scolding look.
Sasha lifted her chin. “Don’t glare at me in that tone of voice. I did nothing wrong.”
Eli grinned at his mother’s familiar catachresis.
Noelle sucked in a deep breath and blew her nose on a questionable-looking rag from his mother’s pottery cleanup supplies. “I’m all right. Really. And your mother has been nothing but kind.”
Eli angled his head, trying to meet her eyes. “If you’re sure…” Placing a hand on Noelle’s knee, he asked, “Are you ready to go? I have what I need from my dad.”
Noelle sniffled again and nodded. She led the way out of the pottery studio, clearly eager to leave.
Before following her, Eli hugged his mother and gave her a searching look. “What happened?” he mouthed.
“Talk to her,” his mother whispered back.
Eli nodded. He planned to do exactly that.