You Don't Want To Know (44 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know
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“But—”
“Let's go,” she said to the detective, cutting off any more arguments as she left the room.
“She's going to blow it!” Wyatt worried aloud, pacing.
“Have a little faith,” Dern suggested. Ava had a lot more grit than anyone gave her credit for.
“She's fragile,” Wyatt said. “She could snap like that!” He snapped his own fingers to emphasize his point.
Dern lifted a shoulder. “I don't think you give her enough credit.”
“You're not paid to think,” Wyatt said before stopping short as the sound of his own words echoed in the room. He was suddenly aware of the eyes of everyone else waiting to be interviewed watching him. “I'm sorry. I'm just upset.”
Sure. It's not that you're an egomaniacal prick.
But Dern let it slide. There was no reason to antagonize Garrison any further or give the cops anything more to think about.
Besides, Dern had a couple of his own bombshells to drop.
 
“So after spending a little over an hour in Austin Dern's apartment, you were just going up to your cousin's room to talk to her, find out the name of the father of her child, the one you adopted but didn't remember?” Snyder asked. Seated in Wyatt's executive chair, he was taking notes on a small spiral-bound pad, even though a small recording device had been placed on the top of the desk.
Ava sat on the opposite side of the desk, nervously propped on the edge of her grandmother's favorite chair. “That's right.” Ava had told him everything she could remember about the night before. “I admit it, I was furious and determined to find out who was the father of my son. I thought she was lying to me and probably knew where Noah was, so I went up to Jewel-Anne's room. I knocked, called through the door, and when she didn't answer, I let myself in and . . . and . . .” The grotesque memory of Jewel-Anne in the bathtub with the dolls and all that blood assailed her. “And I found her.” Shuddering at the memory, she knew how bad it sounded. She'd been angry with her cousin, again, not long after nearly throwing her over the railing.
Snyder had been scribbling, but his hand stopped writing and he looked up at her. “You have no idea who could be Noah's biological father?” His eyebrows raised a fraction.
“No,” she admitted. Looking at him, seeing his face remain much too bland, she felt a little buzz on her spine, a warning. “You do?” Her heart began beating crazily at the thought that this man had information about Noah.
The detective nodded. “We have reason to believe that your cousin might have been sexually involved with one of the patients at Sea Cliff.”
“A patient . . . ?” she repeated, hearing her own heartbeat in her ears as an image came to mind.
“Lester Reece.”
A little squeak of protest escaped her lips. The murderer?
He
was perfect little Noah's father? “No!”
No! No! NO!
“That can't be right. There must be some kind of mix-up, because there's no way that a serial killer could be . . . No!” She didn't realize she was shaking her head.
“You didn't know this was a possibility?” Snyder asked.
“Of course not! How could . . . ?” She thought of Jewel-Anne with her smug little I've-got-a-secret smile. But . . . but
Lester Reece
? “I don't believe it.”
“She and her family lived at Sea Cliff. Her father was the head administrator.”
“I know that!” she nearly screamed as her mind raced. Was it possible? No . . . oh, no!
“She spent time with the patients. Worked there, didn't she? As an aide of some kind.”
Ava's heart grew cold. Yes . . . she remembered Jewel-Anne talking about some of her chores at the hospital, how she'd gotten to know some of the patients. Still she couldn't,
wouldn't
believe this nonsense. Her voice was hard to find and she had to clear her throat. “Uncle Crispin would never allow anything like this to happen.” But Jewel-Anne had always been sneaky and rebellious and stubborn, even devious. For the love of St. Peter, could it be true? Though she wanted to deny, deny, deny it. How could she?
“You'd never considered the possibility?”
“No,” she finally whispered, and swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat and reminded herself that she could face anything—she just had to find her son. No matter what. Closing her eyes, hearing her heart drum denial in her ears, she took several deep breaths before opening her eyes again.
“Why? Why do you think he's the . . . ?” She couldn't even get the word over her tongue. Barely able to hold on to the shreds of her composure, she listened mutely as Detective Snyder explained further about the connection between Reece and Jewel-Anne. The police had connected the dots; they were confirming with others, including Piper and Crispin, who had been informed of their daughter's violent death and were headed to Neptune's Gate, a place Crispin had tried to avoid.
Ava listened to the detective's theory, and though she wanted like hell not to believe it, the idea that Jewel-Anne had rebelled and fallen for Reece made a peculiar kind of sense. After all,
someone
had fathered Noah.
Ava answered all of the detective's questions as best she could despite the fact that the headache building at the base of her skull had her head pounding. Denial was still a roar in her brain, as loud and bitter as a keening wind that carried with it a sharp little shard of truth. “You have to find him,” she told Snyder, suddenly desperate to face the monster. “Lester Reece. You have to find him!”
“We don't even know if he's alive.”
“But he has to be,” she insisted. “Don't you see? He's the one who kidnapped Noah!” Her voice was rising now, her desperation palpable. It all made sense. He'd come back for his boy! Even now he could have Noah locked away on the island!
“Of course . . . however, right now, though, we're in the middle of a murder investigation,” he reminded her.
“But the killer? Couldn't it be Lester Reece? He's done it before and you think he's on the island.”
“You think he killed the others?”
“I . . . I don't know . . .” It didn't make sense, but then what about murder did?
“You found Jewel-Anne's body. You think Lester Reece would take the trouble to place dolls around your cousin? Slice and paint 'em up?”
Ava shook her head in mute bafflement. “I don't know. Maybe?”
“I heard that you found another doll,” he added carefully. “In a casket. Buried by the victim, kind of a way to get back at you.”
She gazed at him, aware of the dominoes starting to fall, the list of events and her own actions that made her look guilty. Standing, leaning across the desk, she said clearly and precisely, just so he got it, “I didn't kill Jewel-Anne, Detective. Nor anyone else. I'm just trying to find my boy and I'll swear to that on his life!”
CHAPTER 43
F
eeling like a caged animal in the den with the rest of the Church family, Dern managed to hang on to his patience, but it took more than a little effort. Outside, the night was thick, impenetrable, while inside the house, a pall had settled over the residents.
More cops arrived, along with the medical examiner and the crime scene people. Even J. T. Biggs, the sheriff himself, in full uniform, showed up in the early morning hours, though he spent more time outside the house organizing the search party than inside.
While the staff and occupants of the house were called in for interviews one by one, the technicians and investigators began collecting evidence. Everyone was questioned, even Graciela, who arrived for work several hours into the interviews and was escorted into the den. Doe-eyed, she, too, waited to tell everything she knew about Jewel-Anne's death, which she'd only heard about when Khloe had texted her earlier.
When it came to his turn, right after Wyatt Garrison, Dern was led into the dining room, offered coffee, which he declined, and was pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the table from Detective Lyons. She was typing on a tablet computer, her coffee forgotten, not so much as a lipstick stain on the rim of the cup.
The interview was quick. “Just tell me what happened last night,” she instructed. Obviously the police already knew about the altercation between Jewel-Anne and Ava that had occurred the night before the murder. What they didn't know was where Lester Reece was hiding or that Austin Dern just happened to be his half brother. Dern decided to lay all his cards on the table. First with the cops; next with Ava. He figured he owed her that much. So, after explaining about the night before and answering a few subsequent questions to his statement, he said, “You know, there's another wrinkle here.”
“Is there? And what's that?” Lyons asked as she typed on her keypad.
“I'm Lester Reece's half brother.”
Her reaction was swift. She looked up sharply, her fingers quit moving, and her gaze focused hard on him.
“Is that right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You know,” she said, her eyes narrowing a little, as if she really thought he might try to con her, “I haven't seen any record of Reece having a sibling.”
“Then your records aren't complete.” Dern was ready for the argument, had figured no one would believe him, and he didn't really give a damn one way or the other; he just wanted to say it. “Here's the short and the long of it: Reece and I have the same mother.” She glanced at her iPad. Probably checking out his facts as he gave them to her. “My mother is Reba Melinda Corliss Reece Dern McDaniels. The marriage to Reece was short. She lives in Texas. Moved around a lot. El Paso, Houston, a couple of smaller towns. She's now living in a town called Bad Luck. Kind of appropriate.”
Her eyebrows lifted a bit as her gaze moved from the small screen to his face. “So many names. Your mother was a serial marrier?”
“You could say that.” He tried not to be rankled, to let it slide, but he'd always had a soft spot when it came to Reba.
Lyons's eyebrows puckered together, and Dern could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. She clicked a pen as she thought. “I don't know how we could have missed this.”
“Me, neither. But I'm just telling you straight up,” he said.
“Okay, go on.” Finally he'd caught her interest. She leaned back in her chair.
“Well, here's the good news,” he said cautiously. “I think I can lead you to Reece.”
“Seriously?” Again the skeptic.
“Yep.”
Her smile said she didn't believe him for a second, but she quit clicking her damned pen. “Okay, Dern, I'll bite. That's the good news? So what's the bad?”
Dern said, “He ain't gonna like it.”
 
“So I should have told you sooner, I guess,” Dern admitted after telling Ava that he was Lester Reece's half brother.
“I don't guess,” she said angrily. “I
know
!” Ava couldn't believe what she was hearing, but Dern seemed dead serious as he broke the news to her in the kitchen, less than an hour after he'd finished his interviews. He'd spoken for a long time with Lyons and then spent another hour or so in the dining room talking to both cops after Lyons called Snyder in. Ava had guessed whatever he'd told them was important, but she hadn't expected this—that Dern was Lester Reece's damned half brother. Dear God, was everyone related to the maniac? First Noah and now Dern.
Not everyone—just the people you care about!
Ava had witnessed Lyons, obviously agitated, summon Snyder and sequester him for a while; then each detective had left the dining room and made a couple of calls, one at a time, while leaving the other to keep the interview going. Even J. T. Biggs had deigned to come up from the stable area where he was amassing the search party and had closeted himself in the dining room with the others.
Whatever Dern had told them, it had an impact.
At the time, she'd wondered, Was he a suspect? Had he told them Ava had been hell-bent on getting Jewel-Anne off the island? Or was it something else?
Ava and everyone else in the house had seen Biggs join the detectives, but no one had been able to guess why.
“What the fuck is all
that
about?” Jacob had asked as his cell phone jangled. “Oh, great. Mom and Dad have touched down in Seattle. This is just getting better and better.”
Ian had groaned and went looking for a cigarette break, which was finally allowed, and Trent, seeming to have aged five years in as many hours, walked into the kitchen for a cup of coffee while Virginia, Khloe, and Simon waited to talk to the cops.
Ava hadn't said anything but had wondered what Dern had told Lyons to get the detective so riled up.
Now she knew.
But she was having a lot of trouble digesting the information.
“I don't believe you,” Ava said, the odor of stale coffee lingering in the kitchen.
“Why would I lie?”
“God knows.”
“I swear to you.”
“Great. Go ahead. Swear till you're blue in the face.” She was tired, cranky, still shocked at having found Jewel-Anne so gruesomely killed and sick at the thought of Lester Reece being her son's father . . . now
this
? After everything else?
“Ava,” he said, reaching for her, but she stepped away. “I'm telling you the truth, and trust me, I don't like it any better than you do.”
The honesty on his face got to her. And there were other reasons to believe him as well, even though she wanted desperately to deny the obvious. Hadn't she always thought he reminded her of someone? Hadn't she once imagined she'd viewed Lester Reece in the rising mist, only to look again and discover she was staring at Austin Dern?
“Just listen,” he said, and as they stood near the sink, he explained about him and Reece having the same mother and her being married several times, but it was too much for her to take in after sleepless nights and the shock of Jewel-Anne's and Evelyn McPherson's murders. Tired to the bone, she listened but couldn't help but wonder what other secrets this man had kept from her. Why had she trusted him, fancied herself falling in love with this stranger, this man who had no more substance than the fog rolling in from the Pacific?
Because you're an idiot. A damned romantic fool. That's why.
“So . . . why didn't you tell me you were related to Reece earlier?” she asked, hurt and more than a little pissed. “Why let me go on believing that you were someone you weren't?”
“The timing wasn't right.”
“Oh. Great!” she said sarcastically. “Tell me, when was the timing ever going to be right?”
“Don't know.”
“Maybe never?”
“Didn't turn out that way, did it?”
More good news,
she thought, anger sharpening her disappointment that he hadn't confided in her before. “So . . . let me get this straight. And help me out if I get this wrong, okay?” she said as she tried to make sense of what he'd told her. “You're saying that you're . . . you're Noah's biological uncle?”
“I don't know. That isn't a leap I can make. You don't really know if Noah is his son.” Leaning his hip against the counter, Dern rubbed the worn tile with one finger. “The truth is, I really don't know Reece. At all. Don't even know that much about him. He was raised by his father, who I never met. I'd barely even heard of the guy. My mother didn't discuss him and preferred no one knew that she'd ever been involved with him. Believe me, Ava, I had no idea Lester Reece had a kid. I've never heard that. It's just what the cops have conjectured, right? The only person who really knows is Jewel-Anne.”
“But—”
“So far it's all just speculation.”
“Isn't everything?” She stared at the faucet where a drop of water was forming on the spigot. “God, I'm sick of this . . . the second-guessing and not knowing and . . . all of it. Every damned thing!”
“I know.” His gaze found hers and her throat tightened. She thought he might reach for her, but he was smart enough to give her some space. Besides, though they were alone in the kitchen, the house was crawling with people.
As everyone milled around, the cops still collecting evidence or talking to each other or on phones, her family being questioned, she was still trying to understand how this—her life, her son's disappearance—all fit together. And it didn't. For God's sake, how could it? Austin Dern was the half brother of one of the most heinous murderers in the state. Not to mention uncle to her son. Really? And he just happened to be hired by her husband on the QT. No way was it all coincidence. “Is that why you took this job?” she asked. “Because of Reece?” She noticed the water still dripping from the faucet and she cranked hard on the handle.
“One of the reasons. I had a suspicion that he was back on the island.”
“Why? I mean, he escaped from Sea Cliff. Why would he come back?”
“He could have run out of options. Maybe he felt safer here and thought the cops would never come back here since it was combed years before. It might be that he was drawn back because of Jewel-Anne or something else. Who knows. But the island is isolated. Has deep forests where anyone could get lost. It's surrounded by ocean. Not all that inhabited. He could have some freedom without fear of too many people seeing him.”
“But he would be trapped here.”
“He's trapped in his own damned skin.”
“Yeah, but anyone here who did see him would recognize him. He could get lost in a city, a big city far away. No one in Boston or Miami would know or probably even care about him.”
Dern was nodding, as if he'd already considered her arguments. “Reece could have changed his appearance. It's been a while, but you're right—the few sightings that there were caught my attention. And the local rumors about him. Was he like Bigfoot, or was he really here? Thought I'd find out for myself. That's one of the reasons I came here, took the job.”
“The island's been searched before.”
“As I said, a long time ago. I figured he probably left for a while. Who knows? But for some reason he came back, felt safe here at the very place where it all started: Sea Cliff.”
“He
escaped
from Sea Cliff. I'd think it would be the last place on Earth he'd want to be,” she said, keeping her voice low as Virginia seemed to hover near the door either to eavesdrop or just keep an eye on the area of the house she considered her domain.
“Exactly. That's what any sane person
would
think. He could have figured he was going to use it to his advantage.”
“Pretty far-fetched.”
“Or not. I've been up to the hospital a couple of times. Broke in and poked around. I've found evidence that someone's been hanging out there, but I haven't explored all the buildings; there are a few places locked so tight, I wasn't able to break in.” He frowned, the edge of his jaw sharpening. “Yet.”
Her head was pounding with bad news followed by worse. She hadn't yet come to grips with the fact that Jewel-Anne and Dr. McPherson had been killed by the same homicidal maniac who had murdered Cheryl Reynolds, and now Dern's announcement that he was related to the guy who could have killed them? “I can't deal with this right now.” She started to walk away, but he grabbed the crook of her elbow.
“You don't have a choice, Ava,” he whispered, turning her to him, his nose nearly touching hers, his gaze so intense she felt as if he could see into her soul. “There are people here who think you killed your cousin as well as two other women.”

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