Chapter 33 Michael
MICHAEL
“After the fourth miscarriage, it seemed unlikely she would ever have a child,” John said, sitting across from us in the interrogation room. “Annabelle was her miracle baby.”
“She died when she was four,” I said, reading through the file. “Pneumonia.”
He nodded. “She was always a sick little girl. It was a miracle she even lived as long as she did.” He shook his head slowly. “Tore Grace’s heart out to bury her. I thought she’d die right alongside her.”
“And what happened after that?”
“Grace was never the same,” he said, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
“She went through depression, mood swings…some days she wouldn’t get out of bed, and others, she was baking cookies for everyone in town.
And then one day…everything just changed.
She started seeing Annabelle. She became obsessed with finding her. ”
“That must have been hard.”
He nodded. “It was. Jim had to watch her closely, and it wasn’t long until he had to stay with her all the time. She became obsessed with the idea that her daughter hadn’t actually died. All it took was him falling asleep just one time.”
“Is that what happened?” I asked, wondering where he was going with this.
“He’d been sleeping less and less. Sometimes, he’d wake up and find her missing. It got to the point that he would lock her door when she was sleeping. But one night, he forgot. He fell asleep on the couch…completely passed out. He didn’t even know she was missing until it was too late.
“That was the day she kidnapped Dakota Walker. Jim didn’t know it at the time. He thought she was just out wandering in the storm. He brought her home, warmed her up, and we moved on with life. Never knew anything happened until six months later when they found her body.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
His eyes finally met mine. “She was sick,” he croaked out. “Mentally incapacitated. She didn’t know what she was doing. They would have put her in jail.”
“Or the psych ward,” I corrected. “After an exam, it would have been obvious she wasn’t in her right mind.”
“This was twenty-five years ago. Do you really think that’s true?” he argued.
I didn’t really know. I was just a kid when all this happened.
“Her records show that she died a year after the kidnapping.”
“That was Jim’s decision. Faked her death with the help of the sheriff,” he admitted.
And there was no way for me to verify that because the previous sheriff was dead.
“There’s a bunker under the cabin—a tornado shelter. She’s been living down there all this time.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You kept a woman in a tornado shelter for twenty-five years?”
“Not all the time. That’s just where she stayed when I couldn’t watch her.”
“Do your sons know about this?” I asked accusingly.
His eyes drifted off again, his jaw clenching in anger. “Austin and Clay. Not Wyatt.”
“Why would you do that? Go to all that trouble to fake her death?”
“Because she wasn’t okay, and I knew if anyone ever found out, they’d take her away. I made a promise to Jim.”
“This was before Jim died,” I argued. “The two of you made this decision. You kept the truth from a grieving family. You allowed a mentally unstable woman to live in a bunker for years. Don’t you see how fucked up that is?”
“Yes!” he shouted, tears springing to his eyes.
“Yes, I knew how wrong it was. But Jim knew we couldn’t keep the truth hidden if she was wandering around.
And he couldn’t stand the thought of her living in a hospital the rest of her life after all she’d suffered.
You have no idea what it was like every time they lost a child. ”
That was true. I had no idea, but I also didn’t know how they condoned keeping her hidden all this time.
And then another thought occurred to me. John and his entire family blamed my family for a car accident that was no one’s fault. Yet, his sister-in-law killed a child, and no one said a word.
How the hell did he live with himself? How did he go to bed every night and think any of this was okay?
Better yet, how had he kept a woman living in secret for so long with none of us knowing? The Callahans were known for their secrecy, but this was stretching beyond anything I could fathom.
Pushing back from the table, I strode out of the room and into the adjoining office where Mav had been watching. “So?”
“What a clusterfuck,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. “So, he didn’t know she killed the girl until she was found. Well, I guess that’s something.”
“But they hid the true murderer,” I said, still unable to believe that this woman had been in hiding for twenty-five years.
“She would have been put in a mental hospital for sure if she hadn’t been shot in the head. She wouldn’t even have made it to trial. The district attorney would have struck a plea deal and moved past the fact that the former sheriff helped cover up her death,” he chuckled humorlessly.
“And Jim? He knew she was a killer,” I added.
“Precisely. That wouldn’t look good for the town,” he grinned sarcastically. “Thank God the bastard’s dead.”
“What about John?”
“Not sure. He could claim he didn’t know for sure the woman did it. The ramblings of an insane woman. Find a sympathetic judge and he might get community service and a fine.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I asked incredulously. “A little girl died, and another girl was kidnapped years later!”
Mav turned to me, cocking his head at me. “I’m not saying I want him to get off. But I do get it. It’s fucked up, but that woman went insane. I’m not sure she even knowingly committed murder, and she’s dead now, thanks to you, so it’s not like we can ask her anything.”
My blood boiled. “She was holding a knife on a little girl.”
He slapped me on the shoulder. “And that’s why it’s not my job to be judge, jury, and executioner. We caught her. The little girl is home. What we have to do now is go inform Dakota’s family so they can finally be at peace.” He jerked his head at me. “Come on. They’re in my office.”
Fuck, this was gonna be bad.
We stepped into the hall, and that’s when Blake approached. “I’m going in there with you.”
“It’s not an easy conversation to have—” Mav started.
Blake lowered her voice, making sure the family didn’t overhear. “I told them I would find Dakota. I’m not staying out of it now just because it’s difficult.”
“Your choice,” he said, holding out his hand for her to enter his office.
So, there we were, the three of us crammed in Mav’s office with the mayor and Mrs. Walker. I stayed at the back of the room, letting Mav and Blake take the lead on this one.
“Mrs. Walker, I promised you I wouldn’t stop until I found the person who murdered your daughter.”
“You found him?”
“Her,” Blake breathed, gripping the woman’s hand.
I couldn’t watch as Blake explained every last detail of the case, but that didn’t mean the events of the last few hours didn’t run through my head on repeat. If I had gotten there just a few minutes later, what would have happened? Would the little girl have died?
Would Blake still be here?
“Thank you for letting me know,” Mrs. Walker said, her voice shaky.
“What about John?” Mayor Cameron asked. “I hope you throw his ass in jail and—”
“No,” Mrs. Walker spoke up, surprising us all. “He was just protecting his family.”
“And your daughter died because of—”
“No, she died because a woman was sick,” Mrs. Walker said to me. “All John did was try to uphold a promise to his brother.”
She took in a shaky breath. I could see that this was tormenting her.
“I don’t like that he kept what happened to my daughter a secret. I can’t deny that—that things would have been easier on all of us if we had just known. Maybe—”
She pressed her hand to her lips as tears streaked down her cheeks. Mayor Cameron held her hand, her own eyes welling.
“Mom, he deserves to be punished.”
The woman shook her head, pulling herself together.
“I will not destroy anyone else’s life to bring justice to my daughter.
The woman who killed her is dead, and she’s been paying for her sins for years.
Jim is dead. And John…I have no doubt the guilt is eating him alive.
He’ll have to live every day knowing that everyone in town knows what he did.
Now that I know, I just want to live in peace. Dakota’s finally at peace.”
I didn’t agree with a damn word of what she said.
The Callahans had made a huge mistake, and maybe it was in the name of love, but what they did was wrong.
John shouldn’t be walking away with a slap on the wrist, and if the state chose not to press charges based on Mrs. Walker’s wants and needs, no one would ever pay for Dakota’s death.
“Thank you for letting us know, and for finding out the truth,” Mrs. Walker said, getting to her feet. “I think I can finally sleep through the night.”
After a few more goodbyes, the two of them left, and then it was just the three of us.
“Well, that didn’t go how I expected,” Blake sighed.
“She’s right, though,” Mav said. “There’s not a person in town who won’t let him forget about what he covered up. His business is going to die.”
Blake pressed a hand to my chest, then leaned on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “I’m gonna wait with Wes in the lobby. Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t.”
As soon as the door closed, I spun on Mav. “This isn’t right, and you know it.”
“No, it’s not. But what exactly would they charge him with? He didn’t cover up the murder, technically. He didn’t hide the body or even witness the murder. Six months after the fact, he found out and didn’t say anything. How would the state even prove that?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“He’ll probably be fined, and it won’t be good for business. But the worst of it is over, and the Walker family finally has some peace in their lives.”
“Is that really good enough?”
“You can’t change the past, Mike. All you can do is hope for better.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was judging too harshly. After all, I couldn’t say I would have done anything differently in his shoes. Could I condemn someone to a life in prison when they had already suffered so much?
Sighing, I stepped back from the situation, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do about it anyway.
“You’re right.”
“Listen, our job is done. I’ll pass the information along to the prosecutor, but after that, it’s out of my hands. You can’t win them all, and getting upset over every outcome will drive you insane. For now, go home and be glad that everyone came out of this alive.”
“Everyone except Dakota and Grace,” I reminded him.
“Well, after what Grace suffered, that might be for the best.”
He clapped me on the shoulder as I walked out, meeting Blake and Wes in the lobby. Blake was already half asleep on Wes’s shoulder, and for his part, he didn’t look like he was all that upset about it.
His eyes flicked up to meet mine as I strode forward. “Are we done?”
“Yeah. Let’s get home before you become a couch cushion.”
He smirked ever-so-slightly, which he quickly schooled the moment he realized he was doing it. I wasn’t sure his wild days were behind him, but at least he was starting to come around.
Blake stood with a yawn, stretching her arms over her head. “God, I could sleep for a month.”
“I think you earned it after tonight, even if I am pissed that you put yourself—”
I stopped myself at the angry look she shot me. I almost forgot for a minute who I was talking to. If I wasn’t careful, she’d shove me through another window.
Clearing my throat, I grinned. “Pissed that you put yourself in the position to be the only one to take her out. I almost didn’t get to have any fun.”
“Well, if you want some fun, just let me know.”
“Ew,” Wes grimaced.
“I’ll be glad to accidentally shoot you sometime, just like you did to me.”
Wes rolled his eyes. “You guys are so weird.”
Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, we headed for the door.
“I’d say we had enough fun for ten lifetimes. Maybe we could take it easy for the next few months.”
“I make no guarantees. An old friend sent me a message this morning. Apparently, she needs a favor.”
“An old friend, huh?”
“From the bureau. She thinks her boss is corrupt and wants me to look into him.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing there was no stopping her now that the bit was between her teeth. “I thought we were getting out of this line of work?”
“I thought you were going to show me what you looked like in Wranglers and a cowboy hat,” she said, tugging me to a stop. Her hands slid around my waist and down into my back pockets. “I guess we can’t always get what we want.”
Her eyelashes fluttered playfully as she grinned, tugging me closer.
“Baby, you might want to be careful. The way I’m feeling right now, one or both of us is gonna end up in the hospital with a piece of glass sticking out of us.”
“Foreplay,” she grinned. “I love it.”
“Guys, seriously!” Wes called out. “I’m right here!”
Chuckling, I sealed my lips over hers, holding her tight to me. “That’s gonna take some getting used to.”
“Eh, we’ve got forever to figure it out.”