Darkness & Shadows (22 page)

Patrick turned toward the building and saw more investigators exiting, loaded up with storage boxes. Soon after, a man came out and stood at the top of the entrance steps: short and heavyset, wearing a suit and hardly any hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. Very serious expression.

“Okay. We’re going to make this quick, folks,” he said, straining to shout above the noise. “I have a brief statement, but I’m afraid there won’t be time for questions. We’ll hold a more in-depth news conference later, once the investigation’s complete.”

The crowd grumbled.

“This morning,” he continued, “after a lengthy investigation, the California Department of Health Services ordered the closing of the Clark-Fairchild Cancer Treatment Center, which is in violation of state law and health codes, including administering unapproved treatments to patients. No questions right now,” he added as hands began waving. “We’ll have an update for you as soon as possible.”

The crowd broke into spontaneous chatter. The man headed back inside.

Erika turned to Patrick with a reflective expression.

Patrick said, “I’m thinking we’re still missing one thing.”

She raised a questioning brow.

“A body,” he said.

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A body, indeed.

Without one, there was no way to determine for sure if Wesley Clark was a victim or suspect, or for that matter if Fairchild was a coconspirator or double murderer.

So many questions drifted through Patrick’s mind, much like the scattered ashes of that long-ago fire—one that only answers could finally put out.

On his way home, he stopped at La Jolla Cove, thinking about the one person who had those answers, and again how all this could possibly be related to that fire.

As the waves came tumbling in, so too did his memories of that last night they spent together. Along with those words Marybeth whispered. Words he would never understand.

Never forget.

It was a Friday evening, and as with many college campuses, the weekend had unofficially started the night before. Many students spent the day skipping class and sleeping off their Thursday night hangovers. By around seven p.m., the dorm was steadily rocking its
way back to life, stereos blasting, bottles clanging, rowdy voices echoing down the hall.

Marybeth was off on a mandatory weekend canoe trip for an environmental class. She had only been gone a few hours, and already he felt as if his oxygen supply had been cut off, his life suddenly filled with inexplicable emptiness. The wild antics throughout the dorm weren’t helping any; they only seemed to reinforce his loneliness. He didn’t belong here, didn’t fit in.

He lay in bed reading—or at least trying to—surrounded by shrieking voices, loud music, and heavy wall banging. Then his door blasted open. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

A guy and girl stumbled in, laughing, clearly intoxicated. They didn’t seem to realize they were in the wrong room as they groped one another and blearily locked lips. Until they saw Patrick sitting upright on the bed.

They looked at him with vacant expressions, then at each other. She let out a tiny hiccup-filled giggle, which he complemented with a loud, hearty belch. They both erupted into hysterical laughter and staggered from the room; Patrick could hear them cackling all the way down the hall.

He shut the door, turned toward his bed, feeling even lonelier.

Then another knock.

“Jeez,”
he said, yanking the door open. “The rooms have numbers on them. Can’t you guys find your damned—”

Marybeth stood in the doorway, in full camping attire, looking positively amazing. “I couldn’t go,” she said with a tiny shrug and smile. “I couldn’t stand being without you. Is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” Patrick said, beaming. He slid his arm around the curve of her waist and pulled her close.

“Yeah?” she said, her lips barely touching his. Patrick breathed her in, and his knees nearly buckled when she kissed him. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Show me.”

And he did; he showed her how much he did indeed want her as he pulled her even closer and delivered a deep, passionate kiss. And
they kept kissing as he placed a firm hand on her waist, gently backing her up. At the foot of his bed, Marybeth undid his jeans and he coaxed the T-shirt over his head. After carefully lowering her to lay atop the covers, he finished undressing her, unable to take his eyes away, lost in her beauty—she was so amazingly beautiful.

She buried her mouth against his neck as he eased himself on top of her, and as he entered her, they both cried out, Marybeth bringing her hips to meet his and moaning with pleasure, Patrick unable to get enough of her. His thoughts were getting blurry, every sense heightened and raging with wild intensity.

At the height of their lovemaking, Patrick brushed her hair back with a hand and met her eyes. He wanted to remember every second of this. Watching her was glorious as they moved in perfect unison against each other, dissolving into the moment, making the rest of the world disappear. There was nothing else. There was just the two of them, creating pleasure he never knew could exist.

“Patrick. Oh, Patrick…” Marybeth said, looking into his eyes, her breaths fast and delicate. She didn’t say anything else; she didn’t have to. He was feeling the same way, and there were no words to describe it.

And just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, it did, as their bodies simultaneously culminated with intense and satisfying climaxes.

Afterward, they lay together, her head resting on his chest, gazing up at him.

Suddenly, Patrick smiled.

“What are you thinking right now?” she said with a playful grin.

He took in a deep, sustaining breath and let it out. “That I never knew it could be this way. You are so amazing and so good for me, Marybeth… so very, very good in every way.”

Something shifted in her expression—something that transformed the moment, taking it someplace else; he couldn’t tell where,
but all he saw was darkness. And in that moment, the face he thought he knew so well changed, and he was staring into the eyes of a stranger. Maybe older, maybe tired, but definitely so very sad.

He said, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

She looked even sadder. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not good for you.”

He lifted his head slightly, thought he saw a dark shadow moving through her eyes; she closed them and said, “You don’t know everything about me.”

“But I know everything I need to know.”

She buried her face in his neck, breathed in and said, “No. You don’t. But I love you for loving me, anyway.”

And as he began falling asleep, she whispered in a voice so small he could barely hear it, “I did a very bad thing.”

The next morning when he awoke, she had already left the room. He didn’t see her again until just before the fire. And by the time he remembered those words, she was already gone. Lost forever.

So too, it seemed, was the meaning of her final message.

Patrick watched waves slam violently into the rocks, shattering through the air like tiny bits of green, broken glass. Now more than ever, he wondered if those words were somehow connected to her murder.

And whether she’d finally been punished for her bad thing.

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Patrick’s phone went off just as he was about to turn the ignition and leave the beach.

“Detective Jim Dotson,” the voice from the Bayou said, gruff, rushed, and steeped in a southern drawl.

“Detective, thanks for the callback.”

“So, Lorna Clark. That’s a blast from the past. Something new with her?”

“The interest is actually in her former husband. His current wife’s been murdered, and he’s missing.”

There was dead silence on the line.

Patrick checked the screen to be sure they were still connected. They were. “Detective?”

“Yeah. Still here,” Dotson said through a troubled sigh.

“Something wrong?”

“I hope to God he didn’t kill another one.”

His answer was hardly a surprise, but still it managed to rattle Patrick. He struggled to sound otherwise. “I understood that Lorna killed herself.”

“That’s what they ruled, yeah. But I never bought that.”

“What’s your reason?”

“How many would you like?”

“I’d like all of them.”

“For starters, we found her hanging down the side of the house.”

“Sounds sort of unconventional,” Patrick said.

“I thought so. Rope was tied to a bar just beneath the window, hands cuffed behind her back.”

“Cuffed? How is that a suicide?”

Patrick heard a chair creak. It seemed that Dotson was settling in for the conversation. “You see it sometimes. People use restraints to keep themselves from changing their minds in the moment. Cuffs are easier to manage than rope. Hard to tie a knot behind your back. So in theory, all she had to do was take a leap out the window, and the show was over. The handcuffs alone weren’t necessarily a red flag. Hanging down the side of the house was odd too, but again…”

“It sounds like something else was,” Patrick said, taking furious notes.

“There was plenty more. The life insurance policy he’d upped substantially a few months before she died, the marital problems, plus the financial mess they were in—those were definite red flags.”

“All possible motives,” Patrick acknowledged. “But any evidence?”

“There was. I just couldn’t get to it.”

“I’m not following.”

“Bridget had it all.”

“The daughter?” Patrick furrowed his brow. “Was she involved?”

“No, no, but she was scared half to death of him and, oddly enough, she was his alibi. They were supposedly at the movies at the time Lorna died.”

“Could they prove it?”

“They had receipts for the tickets, yeah. He dropped her off at a girlfriend’s house on the way back. Said he came home and
found Lorna dead. At least the poor kid didn’t have to see her mother like that. We pulled the body down before we sent a car for Bridget.”

Patrick waited. Sometimes silence was the best question.

Dotson continued. “She was like a scared little rabbit. Silent, staring at the floor… I talked with Dr. Clark in the living room. When we finished, I sent for her. He was leaving the room, and she was coming in. He had his back to me so I couldn’t see his face, but I could see hers, and when she looked at him…” He sighed down the phone line. “I saw fear on that little girl’s face. Actually, it was worse than that. It was absolute sickly terror.”

“You think he gave her a warning?”

“I know he did. Like I said, I didn’t see his face, but I didn’t have to. The message was written all over hers.”

Patrick felt goose bumps rise on his arm and tried to rub them away. He knew what it was like to fear a parent day in, day out. He’d lived it. He took in a deep breath, tried keeping his emotions in check. Went on. “So what happened once you got her in the room?”

“Exactly what I expected: absolutely nothing. God as my witness, that kid was terrified into silence.”

“So, in the end, you had nothing.”

“I had zilch. My only chance of proving his guilt was locked up inside a very frightened little girl. Can’t use an evil look as evidence in court. Even the coroner’s report worked against me. No bruises or marks on Lorna’s skin, no evidence of a struggle. All consistent with suicide.”

“So, what ended up happening to Bridget?”

“I worried like hell about that kid. Being forced to hide your mother’s murder—one your own father committed—doesn’t come without a price.”

“Was there one?” Patrick asked, feeling profound sadness for a child he’d never met but already thought he understood.

“There sure was. She started losing her mind. A few months after Lorna’s death, we found her wandering around town late
one night. Wouldn’t talk, didn’t even seem to know where she was. And she had bruises all around her neck.”

“From what?”

“Never found out. Wouldn’t tell us.”

“Did you suspect she was using drugs?”

“At first we thought maybe, but when Clark came to pick her up, he gave us permission to test her. She was clean. Then things just got worse.”

“In what way?”

“Late one afternoon, a gym teacher walked into the girls’ locker room and heard someone moaning, so she ran in to investigate.”

“What did she find there?”

“Blood.”

“Where?” The goose bumps had now taken up residency on the back of Patrick’s neck. He tried to rub those away, too. No luck.

“Everywhere,” Dotson said in a grim voice. “She followed a trail of it to one of the stalls and nearly passed out when she pulled the curtain open. Found Bridget curled up in a ball on the floor, in a pool of blood. Apparently, she’d stolen a knife from art class.”

“She killed herself?”

“No. She was still alive. The blood was coming from under both arms. She’d sliced herself up something awful.”

The goose bumps had subsided, replaced by frosty chills shooting through Patrick’s entire body.

“By the time paramedics arrived, that shower looked like a damned bloodbath. Stunk like one, too. Bridget just laid there on her side, cheek to the tile, eyes wide open, while they tried cleaning her up. No sign of emotion. I don’t think she had any left.”

“Poor kid,” Patrick said.

“But there was more,” Dotson said gravely.

Patrick had been hoping there wouldn’t be.

“The blood wasn’t just on the floor.”

Patrick’s voice was shaky and reluctant. “I’m not following.”

“She’d used it to write a message.”

“A message…” Patrick wasn’t asking questions anymore—he was just repeating what Dotson said, in astonishment.