Broken Grace (25 page)

“So you were afraid of upsetting your mom, or you were afraid of Lisa?”

“She would have killed me. I watched her do it once.”

“What do you mean?”

She was silent for a moment—what did she mean? She waited for the memory to come. “She took me into the woods. She brought me to a dead tree that had fallen. Its thicker limbs were still intact, but the smaller limbs had snapped off. She wanted me to see something. We walked around the trunk and I saw a cat. It must have been a stray. It wasn’t moving. It was just hanging there, its head caught on the branches. Its eyes were open and its belly was moving. It was choking.” She stopped, gasping to catch her breath. “I moved the branches to help it get free. But Lisa grabbed my arm. ‘No, don’t touch it!’ I looked at her eyes. She was like a stranger. ‘I wanted you to see it happen.’ ‘Why? Why are you doing this?’ ‘It’s a cat, a stray, no big deal,” like how could I be so stupid. And then she said, ‘But how often do you get to watch something die?’

“I screamed and hit her. She put her arms around me like a bear. ‘Gracie. You don’t want to be next, do you? You’d better not say anything.’ I broke free and ran toward the house. Mom was in the yard painting. I was hysterical. She asked me what happened but I couldn’t catch my breath. Then Lisa ran up and said that I’d seen a dead cat in the woods and got freaked out.

“Mom hugged me and said that a coyote probably got to it. Lisa was staring at me. Watching me, watching to see what would come out of my mouth. I didn’t tell. If I told I might be next. And then I was really trapped. I should have told. I should have dragged my mom into the woods and saved the cat. But I believed she could do that to me.”

“Grace, did your parents ever hurt you? On Wednesday, you showed me scars on your arm that Lisa said your father inflicted.”

“He didn’t do that.”

“Who did?”

She took a deep breath, like she was swimming for the surface of a deep pool and needed air. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Lisa would smoke cigarettes in the woods and burn herself. She said it made her feel better when she felt out of control. I wanted her to go. I just needed to survive until then. Every time she did something, I began cutting myself. It became like a survival badge. I’d look down when I was sad and see what I’d survived. I’d remember that I could handle it.”

“And did you ever tell?”

She nodded. “When Mom compared me to Lisa, I snapped. I told her everything.”

“What happened?”

“A week later they were dead.”

“Grace, are you saying your sister killed them?”

She was looking down on herself as she sat in the police station that morning, a social worker by her side, the woman’s hand on hers, squeezing as the officer, another woman, tried to explain what had happened. “Police said someone else did it.”

All the fights, the tension between her and Lisa came into full view. It had never stopped. Even after she’d moved out, even after their parents were gone. “I want to stop.”

“Okay, Grace. But keep your eyes closed for another minute. I want you to take a few breaths. You did really well. Just listen to my voice as I count from five to one. When I get to one, you can open your eyes.” Dr. Newell began counting.

Grace opened her eyes and sat up slowly. She wiped the tears that continued to fall. “She tortured me,” she said. “But I should have told. I should have told them what was happening so many times. That cat died because I didn’t tell . . . She made me as bad as she was.”

“It’s not the same, Grace. There is something to be said for self-preservation, don’t you think? At our core, aren’t we all just trying to survive? You were afraid.”

She sat back on the couch, both hands pressing against her face, plugging the leak. “But if you know someone is bad, maybe even evil, and you don’t do anything about it, what does that make you? At school they would say that if you ever saw a kid bullied and you did nothing, you were as bad as the bully.”

“I don’t think this is the same, Grace. Lisa was much older, and you had good reason to fear her. You can’t blame yourself for how you responded at such a young age.”

Grace let her head fall against the cushion. “My head hurts.”

Dr. Newell stood, walked to the side table, and poured a glass of water. “Let’s relax here for a bit. You’ve obviously been blocking some childhood trauma.” She brought Grace the water. “Perhaps your brain has gotten pretty good at protecting you from difficult memories.”

Grace looked at the ceiling, following the molding around the room. “I remember them now.”

“Who?”

“My parents. They weren’t bad people. They didn’t hurt me.” She sat forward and put down the glass. “I need to go. Thanks, Doctor. This has helped so much.”

“Grace, what is it?”

“It’s okay. I just need to get home. I’ll call you later.”

Dr. Newell checked the calendar on her phone. “I want you back here next Friday again, okay? I think we should continue to talk about all of this.”

“Absolutely. I’ll call you Monday.” She was out the door before the doctor could say any more.

Grace pushed the speed limit all the way home, her mind reeling from the light shining through the dark tunnels of her mind. Her childhood. Her family. Lisa was at the center of it all, the trauma, the tears, everything. Her memories, shattered and broken into hundreds of pieces, were coming back together. But a few holes remained.

The answers were in that house, she was sure of it.

TWENTY-SEVEN

H
ACKETT FLEW UP THE DIRT ROAD
as fast as he could. He pulled open the station doors and silently waved at the clerk, hoping he could enter without anyone else, Bishop particularly, noticing. Bishop was at his desk, talking on the phone.

Hackett ducked behind the partition and looked around the corner. He needed to get to a computer. Bishop was walking now, heading for the break room. Hackett rushed into an empty office and shut the door. He typed Tucker’s name into a search field to pull up his records: DUI, assaulting an officer (and yelling nonsense), public indecency (running around naked in someone’s field, intoxicated). According to the report, he’d gotten violent with the arresting officer—had to be tased. Hackett pulled up the records from the Abbotts’ murder, searching for the case notes on Stanford Jones, the man serving time for the crime.

He found what he needed. Bishop was back at his desk, drinking coffee, when he approached. “I thought I told you to get out of here.” He set down the mug and started scribbling on a Post-it.

“You did. I know I’m off the case and I might get fired, but I have to tell you something. It’s important.”

Bishop didn’t look up. “What?”

“I went to find Tucker this morning. First at the auto shop and then at his house.”

Bishop dropped his pen. “You did what?”

“Wait. He wasn’t there. He hasn’t shown up for work since the day of Cahill’s murder. And I found a receipt in his locker for Four Winds Casino from the Friday before. I also picked up his sweatshirt and baseball cap. Thought maybe you’d need them for DNA. Anyway, I met his roommate, another one of these psychonauts. They’ve got a grow room in their barn that we need to investigate, by the way. But he hasn’t seen Tucker either. Tucker texted him on the Friday before the murder, telling him they needed to meet, that he’d hit the ‘mother lode.’ But then he didn’t show. The roommate tried to track him down, but Tucker’s girlfriend said he’d left town.”

Bishop finally looked interested.

“That’s not the best part. Tucker’s last name is Bichon. You remember that name?”

“Should I?”

“That’s the name of Lisa Abbott’s boyfriend, the one she was living with in Benton Harbor who provided her alibi for her parents’ murder. And guess what else?” He didn’t wait for Bishop to respond. “Tucker was a foster kid. I just checked his records. Tucker Bichon was one of Jones’s foster kids.”

Bishop leaned back in his chair, methodically digesting the information. “So, Lisa Abbott’s parents are murdered, and the guy who went away was someone who had abused her boyfriend. That sounds awfully coincidental.”

Hackett nodded, his excitement building. “And the MO for that murder was a shotgun, owned by the victims. They were shot in the bed and robbed. Michael Cahill was shot with his own gun, in his bed, and maybe he was robbed too. We haven’t found the ten K, and it sounds like maybe Tucker knew about that win. He was at the casino. He told his roommate he’d hit the mother lode. And then he disappears.”

“You think Lisa was in on this?”

“Don’t know. But she is the one who told his roommate he’d left town. Maybe she’s in the dark—or maybe she’s covering for him.” His mind was reeling. Lisa might have killed her parents. Or Tucker killed them. Either way, the thought of Grace in her care, oblivious to any danger, made his stomach turn.

Bishop rubbed his head, looking more and more disturbed. “Well, I’ve got some news too. I heard back from the crime lab last night. Grace’s clothes from the car accident—there’s no evidence of Cahill’s blood on them. And there were traces of scopolamine in Cahill’s hair. Sounds like you might have been right about him being drugged on that Sunday.”

A massive wave of relief poured over Hackett. He could barely contain his smile. He wasn’t sure if now was the time, but . . . “I fucked up. I’m sorry. And I don’t want to mess up your investigation, but I wanted you to know everything.”

Bishop sat forward in his chair. “Well, as long as we’re sharing, I got one more interesting tidbit too. I was working through Grace’s hospital records last night. She came in on Saturday morning unconscious and spent several hours in surgery. The hospital didn’t track down Lisa until Sunday.”

“So?”

“When I first asked Lisa what time Grace left her house on Saturday morning, she said she didn’t know because she’d slept in and woken only when the hospital called to tell her about Grace’s accident.”

“Another lie. You know what else?” Hackett added. “The only reason we think that Grace and Michael Cahill even broke up is because Lisa said so. Everyone else reported them as happy and engaged. The only reason we think Grace went to Lisa’s Friday night is because Lisa said so. Maybe despite the protective sister act, Lisa wants us to think that Grace did this. Maybe despite what we know
about Michael Cahill, Grace loved him.” He swallowed hard and moved past it. “She’d agreed to marry him and that was it. She went for a run on Saturday morning, and she came home and either saw him dead and ran or saw the killer and ran. Maybe she saw Tucker. Maybe Lisa is more interested in protecting Tucker than her sister.”

“Get me Tucker’s vehicle registration, and get me Lisa’s while you’re at it.”

Hackett moved over to his own desk to pull up the records. The top paper on his case files was Jacks’s list of party attendees from their meeting yesterday. Hackett quickly scanned the sheet of more than twenty first names: Tracey, Sheri, Bill, Bobby, Nina . . . and near the bottom: Tucker, Lisa. So he could place them at the scene where evidence was found. And how had she been home for Grace if she was at Jacks’s party?

Bishop picked up the phone, called his contact with the tribal police, and asked him to pull up the casino’s security tapes from Friday, December sixth, from the time of Michael Cahill’s win and any tapes from the parking lot for the window of time when he must have left. He began describing Tucker, looking to Hackett for more.

“Lots of tattoos, skinny, around five nine, spiky bleached-blond hair,” Hackett provided.

Bishop gave him a thumbs-up and finished the call. When he hung up, Hackett brought over a note with Tucker’s and Lisa’s registration records. “I know I’m off the case. No matter what happens, I don’t want to fuck it up anymore. Good luck with everything.” He headed toward the door. At least Bishop was now on the right track.

“Oh shit,” Bishop said. Hackett turned back and Bishop waved him over. “Look at this.” He jogged over to his desk as Bishop placed the photographs of Michael Cahill with the naked woman next to an image of Grace’s dead parents on his computer screen. “You see what I see?”

“What?” Hackett said.

“Look closer,” Bishop said, his finger on the wall behind the bed.

“Oh shit.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

G
RACE BARRELED INTO THE HOUSE.
Lisa’s car wasn’t there. “Lisa?” she shouted. Silence. She went back into the office where she’d already found the insurance files and school documents. Maybe there would be more about Lisa—about whether she’d ever been diagnosed with anything, or more about Mary’s death. Her parents never wanted to discuss the details. All she’d ever been told was that a bad man took Mary from them.

She found the box with the hanging files and scanned the tabs. There was the file marked
Grace
—nothing but old report cards, school projects from elementary school, other memorabilia that her parents had obviously thought worth keeping. She found Mary’s file. Projects from preschool and several photographs filled the thin folder; all of them featured the two little girls: in the yard, in bed—the double bed that Grace had spent the last week in—in the kitchen, at school. They were always together, arm in arm, leaning in, heads together, matching smiles for every photograph. Grace ran her fingers across her sister’s face. She could feel her spirit—as if they were still together, as if she’d been with her all along. But there was the death certificate: October 5, 1997.

Another file was marked
The girls
. Inside, Grace’s birth certificate—December 1, 1992—and an imprint of her little baby foot from the hospital. She found Mary’s too, born two minutes later; her little footprint mirrored her own. Several ultrasound photographs of the two babies—a notation below one read,
They’re holding hands!
There was no birth certificate in the file for Lisa, but a couple of photos were clipped to some papers. The first was of Lisa, maybe three, staring into the camera, no smile, no light in her eyes. The second was a picture taken of her back, bare for the camera, bruised and cut. Grace looked at the paperwork attached to it. Adoption papers. So that was why she didn’t see a resemblance. Was this the answer? Why Lisa had been so cruel, so unhappy about having sisters? She examined the papers: born June 3, 1985; adopted on July 6, 1988. She’d been abused, mistreated, born to a drug-addicted mother, one prior foster-home placement that lasted six months. Grace couldn’t imagine the pain, the damage such neglect had caused.

Suddenly, light beamed through the windows in front of her like a strobe, as if she’d been caught stealing. Headlights. Someone was here.

She put everything down and moved to the side of the window. The porch light illuminated falling snowflakes. Lisa got out of the car, opened the back door, grabbed a couple of grocery bags, and walked toward the porch.

She was suddenly terrified of confronting Lisa about their history. She waited in the library, listening as Lisa came into the house, removed her boots and hat by the door, and dumped the bags on the kitchen counter. She looked down at her arm, at all those scars, the pain she’d been pushing down for years. She needed to face her now.

Grace took a step forward. The floor creaked beneath her and Lisa turned, startled. She looked at Grace as if she were a ghost.

Neither spoke. For a moment, they stared at each other. Lisa recovered quicker and plastered a smile on her face. “Hey! How are you feeling?” She didn’t wait for a response but began unloading the groceries.

Grace walked through the living room and into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table. Lisa’s back was to her. “I got a lot of my memories back today,” she said.

Lisa paused in the midst of placing a cereal box in the upper cabinet. “What do you mean?” she asked, sliding the box onto the shelf.

“I mean our childhood. I remembered you and the things you did to me.”

Lisa turned to her, arrogance distorting her expression. “Is this about the laundry chute?” She laughed. “It was just for fun!”

Grace hesitated. She’d felt so confident of the truth in Dr. Newell’s office, but the reality was, she had no way of knowing what was real and what wasn’t. She only knew she didn’t want to be frightened any longer. “I’ve been having all these feelings, these hints of memories, terrifying anxiety. And then today I found out they were all buried memories of you. You did terrible things to me. You—”

“Oh, please.” Lisa turned back to the counter. “You’re being dramatic.”

“You locked me in a trunk. You almost drowned Mary. You blindfolded us in the woods.”

Lisa didn’t respond except to pull a corkscrew from the drawer. Grace watched as she opened a bottle of wine, then walked to the cupboard for glasses. She stood there for a moment, her back to Grace. Was she angry? Was she dangerous? A shiver traveled up Grace’s spine. She scanned the room. She might need to make a quick exit.

But Lisa turned toward her, a smile on her face, and carried two full glasses of wine over to the table and sat beside her. “Grace, I’m really sorry about all that.” She handed her the glass and took a sip. “We were kids. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You forgave me for that stuff a long time ago! Come on, let’s toast to having your memories back.”

Grace stared at her, still angry, even more confused.

“Seriously? Are you going to be mad at me for things that happened when we were kids? It’s ancient history!” Lisa’s arm was outstretched, waiting for Grace to clink glasses. Her smile was disappearing, a storm cloud emerging.

Grace slowly lifted her glass, suddenly afraid. They toasted, and Grace took a sip.

The storm passed. Lisa returned to the counter. “Look, I got your favorite.” She pulled out chicken breasts, pasta, and a bag of greens. “Chicken piccata. You remember that dish? With angel hair? It was the only good thing Mom ever made us. You remember?”

She didn’t. There were still gaps.

“I bought it to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Well, I guess we need to celebrate two things now. Getting some memories back, for one. Sorry they weren’t the good ones, but it is progress, right?” She rushed on before Grace could respond. “And it’s only a matter of time before this murder silliness is behind us. So come on, drink up. You hungry?”

Could it be that Lisa was right? That Grace had forgiven her? That she was afraid and angry now only because she’d just relived it all in terrifying detail? Lisa had obviously had a tough start. Grace took another sip of wine. But no, she reasoned. Lisa had been lying to her. “You said Mom and Dad were bad people, that they hurt us. It’s not true. None of that’s true.”

Lisa dropped the knife on the counter and spun. “It is true. They fucking hurt me, Grace.”

“No, they didn’t. Those burns on your arm aren’t from Dad. You did that. I remember. You showed me.” That moment in the woods came back in full view: Lisa, maybe fourteen, Grace only seven. She’d shown Grace how to smoke, acting like a big sister, sharing secrets of growing up, but then she’d taken the cigarette, burning her own flesh, wincing slightly but laughing, explaining that sometimes it felt good to hurt, that it helped focus pain.

Grace looked down at her own scarred arm. “No one else ever hurt you.” She regretted saying it the moment it came out. Obviously this girl had been hurt since the beginning.

Lisa opened the cabinet above her and slammed it again and again, focusing her rage. “Not true!” she repeated.

Fearing her erratic mood, Grace softened her tone. “Lisa, you needed help.”

“Bullshit.”

Grace looked away and saw her, Lisa, maybe eleven years old, yelling at their mother, slamming a kitchen drawer shut, over and over. “Why can’t I go?” she kept repeating. “Why? I hate you. I hate you all.” She’d thrown her plate across the room. Her mother had done nothing, said nothing, just held her head in her hands, trying to block out the noise. The wall in Grace’s mind began to crumble as the images rushed back: Lisa punching holes in the wall of that room upstairs; throwing a chair across the kitchen; crying inconsolably, her head buried in her mother’s lap on the couch; stomping up the stairs, kicking out the spindles. The rage, the repentance, the neediness. Lisa could never handle being anything but the sun.

“You need medication, Lisa. You’ve always needed medication.”

“Bullshit. This is the only medication I need,” Lisa said, raising the wineglass. “I need a little wine, and I need some freedom, and I need people to leave me the fuck alone.”

And Grace had done that—she suddenly remembered. She’d stayed away since their parents’ deaths, leaving Lisa to have the house, fearing the rage that would only grow worse if she staked any claim. Unfortunately, Dad’s lawyer had never known their history and had assumed that Lisa would willingly share the money with her. It meant Grace had to come to the house for her checks each month. It was the only way she could afford school.

“You take your meds today, Gracie?” Lisa said.

“No. They make me feel worse.”

She nodded. “That’s how I always felt too.” She turned back to the counter for a moment. Grace couldn’t see what she was doing. And then Lisa was walking toward her, one hand fisted, the other holding a knife. “That’s what I used to say,” Lisa said. “They gave me sweats, insomnia, horrible dreams, awful side effects, but everyone said, ‘Take the meds.’ So now I’ll say it to you too.” She stood there, the closed hand now outstretched, offering two capsules and a tablet. The knife pointed directly at Grace.

Grace looked at the blade, then at her sister. Would she really do this? Lisa didn’t move, didn’t blink, her eyes getting darker. Grace raised her hand and accepted the pills. She slowly put them in her mouth. Lisa waved the blade at her, the silent instruction clear. Grace took a few sips to wash down the pills.

Lisa relaxed the knife then, grinning. “Good girl. Now!” She turned and went back to the counter full of groceries. “I brought home your favorite dinner. We should celebrate.”

Grace didn’t know what to do. Her rage was palpable.

“Come on and help me.”

The raw chicken was splayed on the counter and Lisa began pounding it with a mallet, breaking down the muscle, spraying juice onto the counter. “We gotta get this nice and thin, you remember?”

There was anger and speed in her movements, power in her destruction, as the meat weakened under her will. Grace watched, mesmerized. Tomorrow. She would go to Officer Hackett. He would believe her. She would tell him what she’d remembered. Lisa was dangerous. They needed to investigate her.

Her head wobbled, too heavy for her neck. Her gaze fell to the linoleum tile. The pattern began to oscillate, and soon the whole room was spinning. She squeezed her eyes shut. Cinder blocks came crashing down and suddenly she was there: standing in her own house, Michael’s house, in the yellow living room. Acid rose up in her chest, bile burning her stomach. She saw the bedroom, the blood, Michael lying on the bed, the gaping hole in his chest. And Lisa. Standing in the doorway, a man behind her. Tucker. Everything came back.

Her chest started heaving. She put down the wineglass and clasped her hands over her mouth to stop from screaming. But the tears couldn’t be contained.

Lisa stopped working on the food and looked over. She must have seen it on Grace’s face. “What are you thinking?”

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t look at her sister’s face. The reality of what had happened was now painfully clear.

Lisa grinned, a carnival grin. “You remember, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well, I knew you’d remember at some point. Luckily, it doesn’t matter anymore.” She walked toward the table. “Boy, Grace, it’s kind of nice to finally be able to talk about it.”

Grace was shaking her head; she didn’t want it to be true. The horror. She’d never broken up with Michael. She’d never been afraid of him. She hadn’t gone to Lisa crying about leaving him on Friday night. That wasn’t it at all. Everything Lisa told her was a lie. “Why . . . ?” she whispered.

“The ‘whys’ don’t really matter anymore, do they? We’re here now and this needs to end, because there’s no fucking way I’m going down for Michael’s murder.”

Her legs felt heavy. Move, she told herself. Why couldn’t she move?

Lisa took another swig of wine. “We saw you hit that tree. I thought maybe you were dead. I wanted to see if the car would burst into flames. I just wanted to see you die. Finally. I’d be rid of you and I could tell the police you killed Michael, but we heard a siren and Tucker said we needed to get out of there.” She sat at the table, like they could finally share how it all went down. “I tried to make him understand that if you lived, we couldn’t keep the money, but that asshole was too stupid, too stoned to listen. He called me a psycho,” she said, her voice laced with anger. “So that was the end of that.”

Grace felt her body shutting down. This might be the end. She focused on slowing her breathing. Breathe, she’d thought, just before the deer crashed through her windshield.

“Frankly, I thought I was fucked. I was in such a panic. But when the hospital called and said you didn’t remember anything, I almost laughed right into the phone.” Lisa was still holding the mallet, smeared with raw chicken, waving it with excitement. “You didn’t actually think I would go down for this, did you? I’m a lot smarter than you are, Gracie. Always have been.”

Breathe.

“I knew I could play the doting sister and take care of my brain-damaged little Gracie, just long enough to be sure the evidence pointed nowhere near me. I just needed to keep you medicated and isolated. Not exactly hard out here. I had to make sure they saw that it was you.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Me?” Lisa said incredulously. “You turned our parents against me.”

“I didn’t.”

“You ruined everything. Everything was fine until you—”

“They loved all of us. Even you, despite everything.”

“Bullshit.”

Grace swallowed hard. It was difficult to speak now, every movement, even her lips and tongue, weighted and weak. “Is that why you killed them?” she slurred. She’d never been so bold as to accuse Lisa before, but she was never going to get away now. There was no more need to keep secrets.

“You poisoned them against me, Grace. It was your fault they died.”

Grace’s eyes closed; her head rested on her chest. “I told them the truth.”