Night Terrors (17 page)

Tara was about to begin her explanation of why they couldn’t stay in her apartment, but her aunt’s next words stopped her in her tracks.

“I know,” Aunt Katie said.

Tara froze for a moment, gripping the phone in her hand. “What do you mean, you know?”

“Tara, I have something I need to tell you. Something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”

Tara tried Agent Woods’ phone number again after she got off the phone with her aunt. Still no answer. She left another message this time and told him that her aunt had made a surprise trip down to Florida and that she was going to stay with her in a hotel room near the airport. She told him that she would let him know the name of the hotel and the room number as soon as she got there. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should add anything else, but then she hung up.

She packed an overnight bag into one of her gym duffel bags. She threw the small canister of pepper spray in there that Woods had given her. She also dropped in a paperback novel that she was struggling to get through along with a drawing tablet and a few pens and pencils tucked away in a plastic case.

Her apartment was already cleaned up and she made sure everything was turned off. And then she grabbed her car keys and left.

She walked towards her Jeep with the gym bag in her hand and glanced over at Steve’s apartment – and there he was, locking his door and walking to his pickup truck. He stopped and smiled at her.

Tara wondered what Steve was thinking, seeing her leave with an overnight bag just after their “date”.

She smiled at him, and hefted her bag a little. “That was my Aunt Katie on the phone. She just flew down from Boston for a visit.”

Steve smiled and nodded. “That’s great.”

He really did have a wonderful smile.

“I’m going to stay with her in a hotel room near the airport,” she added, feeling like she somehow owed him more of an explanation.

He waited by his truck and nodded. “I really meant what I said earlier,” he told her. “I’d really like to see you again. Maybe over another cup of coffee.”

Tara felt a tingling buzzing through her insides and she couldn’t stop smiling. “Yeah. Of course. I’d like to do that, too.”

Steve gave her one last quick nod and then jumped into his truck. Tara walked to the back door of her Jeep, opened it, and threw her gym bag into the back seat.

She got in her Jeep and started it, glancing over at Steve, watching his truck drive out of the parking area. She pulled out of her parking space and looked down at the gas gauge and saw that she would need to stop and fill up this thirsty beast before she got to the airport.

As she shifted into drive, her mind shifted back to her aunt’s cryptic words on the phone – her aunt had something to tell her.

A secret.

Something she said that she should’ve told her a long time ago.

Tara spotted her aunt right away at the airport. She wore bright orange pants that hugged her still-shapely legs and a tight-fitting flowered shirt. Her hair was dyed a bright red and she had a little too much make-up on. She wore gigantic sunglasses that looked like they’d come right out of a tourist shop. Aunt Katie still looked good for her age; she still looked much younger than her years. Tara hoped she had some of her aunt’s anti-aging genes in her own DNA.

She pulled over in the temporary parking behind a taxi. She helped her aunt stow two small suitcases in the backseat of her Jeep and then they hopped back in and drove off.

“I’m going to find us a hotel room around here,” Tara told her aunt as she merged her Jeep over to the exit lane out of the airport.

Her aunt didn’t seem to mind getting the room, she didn’t seem offended about not being invited back to Tara’s apartment – it was like she seemed relieved. And she remembered her aunt’s words that she’d heard on the phone, words that had chilled her to the bone.

I know,
her aunt had said. And it had something to do with the secret she was keeping; she was sure of it.

Tara glanced at Aunt Katie, she couldn’t wait any longer. “What’s this thing you want to talk to me about?”

Aunt Katie smiled at her and took her sunglasses off. There was nervousness in her eyes that Tara could not only see, but she could sense. “As soon as we get settled into the room, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

Tara nodded and darted her eyes back to the road. “Okay. And when you’re done, I have some things to tell you, too.”

They found a hotel room not too far away from the airport after stopping by a convenience store to pick up some wine and snacks. It was a nice hotel with seven stories. They got a room on the third floor.

“What is it you have to tell me?” Tara asked once they were tucked safely away inside their spacious room.

“It’s about how you really got that scar on your neck.”

Tara brushed her jagged scar lightly with her fingers without really thinking about it. Her scar: she’d always been so embarrassed and sensitive about it. Her parents always told her she’d fallen down and cut her neck on the edge of a table.

“How did it happen?” Tara asked.

“Some wine first,” Aunt Katie said and gave her a big smile.

But Tara could see that it was a fake smile – something was really bothering her.

Tara didn’t push. She could be patient.

Aunt Katie put her bags away and Tara shoved her gym bag on the top shelf in the closet. Her aunt found some plastic cups in the kitchen cabinets – they would have to do.

Tara didn’t really want more wine right now – she’d had enough last night – but she didn’t want to be rude. And if this news was as bad as it seemed to show on Aunt Katie’s face, then maybe she needed a glass of wine.

Aunt Katie sipped her wine and opened the sliding glass door that looked out onto a small balcony. From the third floor, the buildings of downtown Tampa and a partial view of the bay could be seen. She slid the door closed and locked it. She poured another glass of wine and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t want you to be upset with me for not telling you this sooner.”

Tara stared at her aunt – she looked miserable.

“What is it?” Tara asked. She sat in one of the plush chairs that was wrapped in a gaudy, flowery fabric. She took a sip of her wine from the red plastic cup and waited.

“That scar on your neck, you didn’t get it from a fall. You got it from your half-brother.”

Half-brother?

I have a half-brother?

Aunt Katie continued quickly.

“Your father and mother never told you about Jeremy, your half-brother. They had their reasons. Your father had a child, a boy, with a woman before he met your mother. The woman, her name was Hannah, was a little crazy and your father always swore that she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to try and keep him with her. But the more he got to know her, the crazier she became.”

Aunt Katie sighed and took a big sip of wine. “I’m not trying to make excuses for your father – but that’s the fact. He had a child with another woman. He said he hadn’t planned to stay with Hannah, and he definitely hadn’t planned on having a child with her, but he wasn’t going to turn his back on his son.”

Tara didn’t say anything. She had a million questions racing through her mind, but she just sat there in the chair. Her aunt had always had a flare for the dramatics, not only with her fashion, but with everything in her life. And she knew that her aunt would drag this information out as dramatically as she could.

“Jeremy lived with his mother, but he visited your father every so often. When Jeremy was a baby and up until he was about two years old, everything seemed okay. I’d only met him a few times. I didn’t really visit much … I was always roaming. You know me.”

Her aunt gave Tara a small smile.

Tara nodded. She knew her aunt. She knew how much she used to like to party and live life to the fullest. But she had changed that part of her life in an instant when she had to take Tara in.

“But when Jeremy was older,” Aunt Katie continued, “four and five years old, your dad began to notice some odd things about him. He seemed to have a mean streak in him a mile wide. He was always trying to hurt animals. He was always talking about killing things and people and then giggling about it. And that can be a normal stage that boys go through, but Jeremy never seemed to grow out of it. Your father let Jeremy come over less and less to his house.”

Tara nodded, still clutching the plastic cup of wine in her hand.

“After you were born, your parents were nervous about having Jeremy around, but your father still wanted to make an effort, he still wanted to try and be a part of his life. When you were a year and a half old, Jeremey was over staying the night. I think he was about eight years old at that time. He was over for some kind of holiday. It might have been Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’m not sure. I know it was snowing. Anyway, I was visiting and we all woke up in the middle of the night from your horrible screams. Jeremy had gotten up in the middle of the night and grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to slash your throat.”

Tara stared at her aunt in silence.

Aunt Katie drank down the rest of her wine and then continued quickly. “Your dad ran into your room and pulled Jeremy off of you. He told me later that Jeremy was stronger than he had expected, incredibly strong; like he was possessed. Of course, your mom and dad weren’t really religious people, but he told me later that he saw something in Jeremy’s eyes, a bottomless blackness, an evil that seemed to burn inside of him. Your dad said he’d felt this sudden oppressive force trying to smother him, and it took all of his willpower to keep from killing his own son that evening.”

Tara exhaled. She felt like she’d been holding her breath the whole time.

“Your dad watched Jeremy while your mother and I rushed you to the hospital. Your dad wanted to go, but he was too afraid to leave either one of us alone with Jeremy. He called Hannah and told her to come get her son. He told her he didn’t want to see Jeremy again and he didn’t want him around his family. He told me later that those few hours in the house with Jeremy were some of the scariest moments of his life. Not only was he afraid of Jeremy, he was afraid of what he might do to Jeremy. He said it seemed like there were voices in his mind trying to push him to do something. He said it seemed like the voices were coming from Jeremy.”

Aunt Katie got up and went to the kitchenette and poured another cup of wine.

“Do you need some more wine?”

Tara looked down at her plastic cup. She had barely sipped it; she’d just been holding the cup the whole time her aunt had been talking. She shook her head no.

Aunt Katie went back to the edge of the bed and sat down. Her face had fallen now. She wasn’t smiling anymore, and for the first time to Tara, she looked older, she actually looked her age, like she’d been burdened with a weight all these years. She looked like she was about to cry.

“Your father asked Jeremy why he had tried to hurt you, his own sister. He stared at your father, he had the darkest eyes then, like two black coals. He said that he needed to kill you. He couldn’t let you live. It didn’t make any sense to your father, and after a while he stopped trying to talk to him and just waited for Hanna to pick him up and for the police to get there.

“The police came and talked with your father and with Hannah. They even talked with Jeremy. It would’ve looked bad for your father, but Jeremy admitted to trying to kill you with the knife. He wouldn’t say why he wanted to do it, just that he needed to. They let Jeremy go with his mother and she promised to get some help for him. Later on, your mother and I both made statements to the police.”

Aunt Katie paused for a moment. She looked over at the sliding glass door for a few seconds. The drapes were drawn back and bright sunlight invaded the room.

“Your father was dead to Hannah after that. Hannah blamed him for everything; she was always sticking up for her sweet little Jeremy. She wouldn’t let your father see him or talk to him anymore, but your father didn’t want to see Jeremy anyway, not unless Hannah got him some kind of psychiatric help, which Hannah swore she would never submit her baby to.

“She moved Jeremy out of Ohio. They moved to somewhere in the middle of Indiana. I’m not really sure where exactly. But five years later Jeremy killed his own mother.”

Tara gasped – she hadn’t been ready for that.

“He stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife. He practically decapitated her. From there the state took over. Last I heard, he was going to be placed in a mental institution until he was an adult.”

“So what happened to him?”

“I’m not sure,” Aunt Katie said and shrugged her shoulders. She shook her head. “Hannah had Jeremy’s last name legally changed from Simmons to her own last name – Miller. I’ve tried to inquire about him at hospitals in Indiana, but nobody at the hospitals will talk to me because I’m not family. I don’t know if they released him when he was an adult. I don’t know if he was moved to another hospital in another state. I don’t even know for sure if he was ever released.”

Tara looked away as a chill ran through her body.

“I’m sorry, Tara. Your father made me promise never to tell you about your half-brother. He did it for your protection. After that night he was so scared that Jeremy would hurt you, maybe even kill you. And he never wanted you around him until he was sure it was safe. He had planned on telling you about Jeremy when you turned eighteen, but …”

Aunt Katie let her words trail off and she looked away as she wiped at a tear in her eye.

But they were murdered before I turned eighteen,
Tara wanted to finish for her aunt, but she didn’t.

Tara still didn’t say anything at all for a moment. She felt numb. She needed time to process this information.

Then a thought occurred to her. She looked at her aunt. “What if they did let him out of whatever psychiatric hospital he was in when he was eighteen or twenty-one?”

Her aunt didn’t reply. She just stared at Tara like she already knew what Tara had thought of; it was something she’d considered a long time ago, a possibility she’d had to live with all of these years.