Authors: Kevin O'Brien

The Last Victim (47 page)

BOOK: The Last Victim

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Mr. Shields had answered her questions. The ghosts of Gorman’s Creek—old and new—were best left undisturbed.

A week before Thanksgiving, Bridget was still cleaning out closets when an old friend from out of town dropped by. They had coffee and sat in the den, amid trash bags full of Corrigan-for-Oregon paraphernalia and other junk Bridget was throwing out. Through the picture window they could see Zach tossing around a football with David and Eric in the backyard.

Kim Li hadn’t changed much since high school, except she’d gotten rid of the pink streaks in her hair. She also had glasses now, very chic-looking. She’d told Zach that she was coming to town, and he’d arranged the reunion.

Bridget told her everything.

“I think I made the right decision,” she said. “Gerry’s parents don’t want to hear anything more about his death. They just want to move on. I doubt Mrs. Rankin would like to know about Olivia blackmailing people. And Mrs. Meehan doesn’t need to hear how her daughter was killed after taunting a mentally ill man—”

“You don’t have to justify it to me,” Kim said, patting Bridget’s arm.

Bridget slouched farther back on the sofa and sighed. “God, I shouldn’t even be telling you any of this. If it ever came out that you knew—”

“Oh, relax. I’m a shrink. We’ll call this a session. Everything you say falls under the sanctity of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“I’m so sorry I pushed you away after high school,” Bridget admitted.

“Me too,” Kim whispered. “You know, you could have told me about Mallory. I would have kept your secret.”

“I didn’t want to burden you with it. And Brad was so adamant about us not telling anyone.”

“How are things with you and Brad?”

“Strained,” Bridget replied. “We’re cordial to each other, and that’s about it. Still, he’s my brother, and I love him. We’ll always have that connection. But right now, we’re doing our best to avoid each other. That might change some time down the line, but I doubt it.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that Janice refused to have Bridget in their house. Bridget didn’t tell Kim the awful details about Janice’s pregnancy. There were some family secrets that couldn’t be shared with anyone.

Her father was a stranger to her now. Bridget remembered when she was a child, how much she and Brad had worshipped him. She remembered making all those welcome-home signs they posted on the block whenever their father returned from one of his business trips. Now, whenever she visited him in the rest home, Bridget would bring him flowers, then sit at his bedside. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. So usually she just sat there saying nothing. But at least, he knew she was there.

Kim glanced out the window. “Well, the kids look like they’re doing okay,” she said.

Bridget smiled as she watched Eric, trying to block a long pass Zach threw to David. “They’ve sure latched on to Zach. They’re really crazy for him.”

“You too, I guess,” Kim said. “It’s about time you caught on to what a catch he is. Don’t forget, I had a crush on him way before he became officially cute.”

Bridget just smiled. Her old friend had always been very bright.

He sat alone on the park bench. Through the chain-link fence, he had a good view of the playground of St. Catherine’s Elementary School. He watched Bridget’s younger son, playing with some other third graders on the monkey bars. He could hear them laughing and shouting in the distance. In fact, Eric was so busy having fun that he apparently had no idea someone was watching him.

“Sorry I’m late,” Bridget said, coming around and sitting on the park bench with him. She wore a trench coat and carried a Subway bag. “I had to interview clerks, and it took longer than I expected.”

Eying the playground, she handed Zach the bag. “I got you plain turkey on Italian bread, and a root beer. What did I miss?”

“Eric’s having a good time,” Zach said. “Didn’t you get any lunch for yourself?”

“I’m too nervous to eat,” she said. Bridget spotted Eric, playing with the other kids, and she smiled. She scooted closer to Zach on the bench.

When she’d told him about her job at the congressional district office in Bellingham, Zach had started looking for work at Western Washington University and the
Bellingham Herald
. He’d landed on the staff of the Living Arts section of the
Herald,
and found himself a small apartment eight blocks from Bridget’s new home. Zach had moved the week before.

Bridget had just relocated this weekend. She hated plucking the boys out of school in the middle of the year, but the congressman wanted her working for him that first week in December. She knew she was being overprotective—spying on them during recess on their first day in the new school. But they’d been through so much recently, she needed to make sure they were getting along all right.

The recess bell rang, and the younger students started to file back into the school building. Eric was among them. A couple of boys were talking to him.
Good,
Bridget thought.

From another set of double doors, the older students came out to the playground in waves.

“I don’t see David yet,” Bridget whispered. “Do you see him?”

“Not yet,” Zach said, over his sandwich. “You know,
if he sees us
, he’ll be really ticked off.”

Bridget spotted him, wandering out those double doors by himself. He walked with his head down and shoulders slouched. He kept his hands tucked in the pockets of his windbreaker. Someone yelled out, “Maul ball!” and a group of boys started running in a pack, tossing a ball around.

David leaned back against the brick building and watched them. Bridget’s heart was breaking for him. “Why doesn’t he go join them?” she muttered.

“Well, he’s
new
,” Zach said, his eyes on David. “He’s checking things out, that’s all.”

“You’d think one of those little jerks would go over and talk to him—or invite him to play. They ought to make the new kid feel welcome.”

The screams and shouts from the playground grew louder. The crowd playing maul ball got bigger and more rowdy. David stayed propped up against the building, looking down at his feet. He was still all by himself.

“Oh, I hate this,” Bridget whispered.

“Wait, look,” Zach said.

Two boys wandered over to David and began to talk to him. Both boys were shorter than David. One was very hefty, and the other, his exact opposite—a gangly stick of a teenager. Together, the two boys resembled the number 10. Biting her lip, Bridget anxiously gazed at them. “Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured. “It sounds mean, but they look kind of geeky.”

Zach nudged her. “Hey, I was a geek, remember?”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Sorry.”

The round boy said something that made David laugh. After a few moments, the three boys looked like old friends.

Watching them, Bridget smiled. “Well, he seems to be doing okay.”

Zach put his arm around her. “Yeah, I think it’s going to be all right.”

The staff at Glenhaven Hills always made a fuss whenever Brad Corrigan, the senator from Oregon, came to visit his father.

Janice Corrigan was at the rest home twice a week. The nurses had grown to hate her. They felt sorry for Brad. His visits were infrequent. He always came alone, and stayed only a few minutes. It was touching to see the handsome, young senator sitting at his father’s bedside, holding the old man’s bony hand.

Bradley Corrigan Sr. was dying, and drugged up with painkillers most of the time.

They’d put a fake little Christmas tree in his room that December afternoon the senator came to visit. Brad Corrigan charmed the nurses and thanked them for the festive decorations. Then they left him alone with his father.

Brad pulled up a chair, sat down, and took hold of his father’s hand. “Well, you look good, Pop,” he lied.

He glanced at the side table—at a Christmas bouquet that Janice must have brought, and a drawing Emma had made. Brad didn’t spend much time with them nowadays. With all his trips to Washington, D.C., it was becoming more like home now.

“On the way here today,” he told his father, “I was thinking about all the sacrifices you’ve made for me, Pop. What I am today, I owe to you.”

He leaned forward. “I’ve avoided talking to you about this,” he whispered. “But I think you know anyway. That night you had the stroke, when Brigg and I were in my study, I didn’t expect—”

Brad shook his head. He looked down at his father’s face, so drained of color and expression. But his eyes twinkled with a sort of understanding.

“You must have been listening to our conversation for quite a while,” Brad said in a hushed voice. “And when you came in and told Brigg that you’d hired those guys to kill off all the Gorman’s Creek witnesses, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what you were saying, Pop. I just couldn’t believe it.”

A little smile came to his father’s pale, lopsided face. He opened his mouth. When he spoke, his words were slurred, but Brad understood.

“But . . . Brigg . . . believed, didn’t she?”
the old man said.

Brad nodded and squeezed his father’s hand. “Yeah, Pop,” he whispered. “She believed you. Thank you for lying.”

His father didn’t try to say anything else, and neither did Brad. He sat there, just holding his hand for several more minutes.

He stayed longer than usual. Finally, Brad got to his feet. He bent down and gently kissed his father on the forehead. “I’ll be back to see you again real soon, Pop,” Brad said. “I promise it won’t be so long until the next visit.”

But even as he made his promise, Senator Brad Corrigan knew he wouldn’t keep his word. He wouldn’t be by again for several weeks. What he’d said was a lie.

Still, he told himself that his father would understand.

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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-0-7860-2775-0

BOOK: The Last Victim

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