The Night Is Forever

already flushed away. Oh, that doesn’t matter. Aaron is dead! And you have me here, treating me like...like some kind of suspect. I need to lie down. I need to be sedated. I want to sleep. I want to forget everything that’s happened. I want to dream that it hasn’t happened.”

“Sandra, we believe you may be able to help us,” Frank said.

“How?” Sandra dragged her fingers through her hair. “Frank, I wasn’t there. I should’ve been there. But it might not have made any difference,” she added in a low voice, “because I might not have been in the bathroom with him when he did whatever he did. And then you would really have suspected me. I loved Aaron. Oh, the others cared about him, too. We’re a family. We all care about one another. But I loved him. We were going to officially announce that we were seeing each other. We were going to get married, Frank. I was going to be his wife!”

Sandra broke down in tears, sobbing hysterically. Frank pushed a box of tissues across the table to her.

“I’m sorry, Sandra. I’m very sorry for your loss. But if you loved him, you’ll want to help us.”

Sandra nodded, took a tissue and mopped her face. “How can I help in any way? I don’t know what happened!”

“Why was Aaron so determined to leave the hospital so quickly?”

Sandra waved a hand in the air. “Because he was being Aaron! He’d recovered from his near-drowning, and there was no reason for him to be in the hospital. He didn’t even have a headache, he told me. He was fine and he wanted to go home.”

“Sandra, did you let anyone know when Aaron was going home?” Frank asked.

“Yes. No. Well, kind of,” Sandra said.

“Who?”

“I called the Horse Farm to tell everyone that he was doing well and getting ready to check out.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“I left a message,” Sandra replied. “No one answered, but I know our group. They wouldn’t have been able to stay away from the farm. Our therapists would’ve gone out to check on Sydney and Drew...who might well have gone into the office.”

“Okay, Sandra. The morning you were all camping, where were you when Mariah screamed?”

“When Mariah screamed...” Sandra repeated dully.

Frank leaned forward. “Sandra, listen. First Aaron falls into the stream and nearly dies. Then he does die at home in the bathtub? Supposedly alone.”

“Stop it! Stop it, Frank! I didn’t kill him. I. Wasn’t. There!” she said, enunciating clearly.

“You didn’t answer my question. Where were you when Mariah screamed?”

“In my tent!”

“And right after?”

“Outside the tent—running around like an idiot. Watching the boys. Olivia grabbed Drew and went racing toward the sound.”

“You loved Aaron, but you didn’t notice he wasn’t at the campsite with you?”

“Frank. We were asleep. Suddenly, there’s this high-pitched scream. We jumped up. Aaron could have been peeing, for God’s sake!”

“All right, Sandra,” he said quietly. “I’m going to have a deputy take you home. I just have one more question. If you called the Horse Farm and left a message, why did you drop Aaron off and then go there?”

She sighed. “Aaron wanted me to. He asked if I’d reached anyone. I told him no, that I’d gotten voice mail. He asked if I’d go check in on Drew and Sydney, tell them he was feeling just fine and that he planned to be in the next morning. I was supposed to say we’d have a powwow so we could work on saving the Horse Farm. Not much hope of that now, huh?” she asked, and started to weep again.

When Frank rose, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Someone’s going to take you home right now. Or would you prefer to go to the hospital? They can fix you up with something that’ll help you sleep.”

Sandra sniffled. “Home,” she said. She looked tearfully at Frank. “Yeah, I know. I run the Horse Farm. Where we work with substance abusers. But I have a stash of sedatives at home for when I need them. I...occasionally have problems sleeping. Don’t worry. I never abuse them. I know better than that.”

Frank nodded. “Fine. Shall we go?”

As Frank rose to open the door for Sandra, Dustin felt his phone vibrate. He reached for it.

Both Olivia and Jimmy Callahan watched him.

“Sorry,” he murmured. He glanced down at his phone and immediately saw a text message from Malachi.

“It’s your cousin,” he told Olivia. “I’m going to have him and the others meet us at your house.”

She nodded in agreement.

Callahan stepped aside as Frank came in. “Okay, I questioned her like you wanted, but I’m not sure where that got us. Unless it’s a massive conspiracy and both Sydney and Drew are in on it, Sandra can’t have had anything to do with this. What she says is true. She dropped Aaron off and drove to the Horse Farm. He died before she ever got back to the house.” He exhaled with frustration. “So. I questioned a grieving woman in tears. To what end?”

“I’m not sure yet, Frank. It might have proven that she had an accomplice,” Dustin said. “Someone could have been in that house—waiting for Aaron. Someone who knew when to be there, because Sandra had told that person when he was leaving the hospital and heading home. And she did make sure that both Drew and Sydney saw her.”

“You’re going to have to come up with a hell of a lot more than that.”

“I know,” Dustin assured him. “Can you make sure Dr. Wilson calls me when he’s doing the autopsy?”

“He’ll be on it this afternoon. I talked to him about thirty minutes ago.”

“Thanks. I’ll go over to the morgue in about an hour.”

“You should catch him right in the middle of it,” Frank said. “He only had one other body—an old-timer who keeled over eating his oatmeal. He’ll be getting on to this one pretty fast.”

Frank turned to Olivia. “Did you see Sandra when you got up yesterday morning at the campsite?”

“I practically collided with her when I burst out of the tent at the sound of the scream,” Olivia said.

“Did you see her?” Frank asked Dustin.

“No. We’d been up during the night,” Dustin said. “I woke up and found Aaron on his way to the women’s tent. He was worried because he didn’t see Mariah—who’d gone to the stream for water. When Mariah came back, half the campers were awake and Sandra was annoyed. She just wanted to get back to sleep. I stayed out by the campfire for a while, waiting to see if anyone got up again. I went back into my tent, and I heard Aaron stirring, but then Mariah screamed and I went chasing after her.”

“Sandra was outside when I came out of the tent,” Olivia said. “But Dustin didn’t see her when he ran ahead, a few minutes before I stepped out.”

“But she could have come out of the tent just before you did?” Frank asked.

“It’s possible, yes,” Olivia agreed.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got to get moving,” Dustin said. “I do want to be there for that autopsy, and we’ve got friends coming to Olivia’s.”

“You’re going to make sure I get to know your friends, right?” Frank’s question wasn’t really a question.

“You bet,” Dustin promised.

Frank nodded. “Stay in close contact.”

“We will.”

Jimmy Callahan opened the door for them, tipping his hat. “Liv, take care of yourself,” he said quietly.

As they left the station and drove to Olivia’s house, Dustin noted that she still looked shell-shocked. He wished he could do something to ease the pain and confusion she must be feeling—and he knew it was only going to get worse once she got over the sense of numbness. It protected her, to some extent, from the full reality of her losses. Still, her whole world had to be reeling.

When they pulled into the yard, she let out a yelp of joy, leaping out of the car before he’d turned off the motor.