Chapter Twenty-Four
Zachary and Kenzie stood watching as Isabella was covered with blankets and loaded into the ambulance.
“Glad it’s not you this time?” Kenzie asked.
“Very glad,” Zachary agreed. He rubbed his arms even though he was dressed warmly enough for the weather. “I’ll bet she’s colder than a witch’s behind.”
Kenzie laughed, nodding. “You did good,” she said. “You saved her.”
“This is not how most of my investigations end. I’m glad she’s okay.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want it to be him.”
“No one did.”
“Any idea what she was given?” one of the paramedics asked them.
“My first guess would be cough medicine,” Zachary said. “But I’m not sure if he could have gotten her to take it. He could have slipped her a prescription for anxiety. Valium, maybe.”
“We’ll have to get them to run her blood when we get her to the hospital.”
“We might be able to find out from Spencer,” Kenzie suggested.
Zachary looked at the police car they had put Spencer in. Hands over his face, Spencer was crying uncontrollably. “I wouldn’t count on it. It’s probably going to be a while before he can talk.”
“You’re both all right?” The paramedic looked from one to the other. “How are you feeling?” he asked Zachary.
Zachary brushed at the snow coating the front of his jacket from sliding across the ice. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“You didn’t get wet?”
“No. Just Isabella.”
They watched as the ambulance pulled out a few minutes later. Molly would follow it to the hospital and give them the information they needed to admit her daughter.
“What are you going to do for excitement now?” Kenzie teased.
“I’m looking forward to going back to a non-exciting life. A nice insurance fraud, that’s what I’m feeling like right now. Following someone around for three weeks to see if they really do have a whiplash injury.”
Kenzie smiled. “Sounds incredibly boring and tedious.”
“Exactly.”
“And what about… your health?” She stared at the police car Spencer sat in rather than looking at Spencer. “Sounds like you’ve still got some issues to work through.”
“I guess I’m like Spencer,” Zachary said. “I always figured I could just keep it to myself and muscle through it on my own, but maybe… the cookies at the support group weren’t so bad.”
Kenzie gave a smile of approval.
“Cookies are good,” she agreed. “That would be a good place to start.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zachary settled into his easy chair with his morning cup of coffee and turned on the TV. He didn’t often watch morning TV, but there was a show on that he wanted to check out.
The theme song for The Happy Artist started to play, and the opening credits played while showing different angles of Isabella painting in past episodes. It was the first new episode of The Happy Artist since Spencer’s arrest, and she’d been sorely missed in the intervening months. Then there was a view of Isabella sitting on a stool facing the camera, talking about the painting she would be undertaking for that episode. She seemed calm and relaxed, much more in her element than she had been when she and Zachary had both appeared on a talk show interview the previous day.
Then she had looked small and vulnerable. She seemed uncomfortable in her own skin and looked like she was wearing the wrong clothes or colors. Unlike the producers of The Happy Artist, which insisted that she keep her tattoo covered up and her memorial jewelry to a minimum, the talk show wanted to show her off in all of her mourning regalia. She had short sleeves that she kept tugging at, and the numerous chains and pendants made noise whenever she moved. Her mic had to be repositioned several times to find a placement that didn’t pick up the clinking.
They had run Zachary through the details of the investigation, more focused on his two near-death experiences and Isabella’s suicide attempt and her close call at the pond than they were in how he had developed the case. Then the cameras were focused back on Isabella, stroking the tattoo on her arm, gazing off into space, her lips mouthing the familiar words.
Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
“And how are you feeling now, Isabella? Have you been able to move on, knowing the truth of what happened to Declan?”
“Yes… I’m doing a lot better now. It’s horrible, knowing what Spencer did. At least I know… it wasn’t my fault, and that Declan didn’t suffer. He just went peacefully to sleep and never woke up.”
“Are you getting the help and support that you need?”
“What I didn’t know is that for the few months before the arrest, Spencer had been manipulating my environment. He had messed with my social media feeds, blocking out friends and changing my interests to dark and depressing things, so that whenever I went online, I just felt worse and worse. He blocked numbers on my phone and email as well, so that people couldn’t reach me. They didn’t know he had blocked them.” She turned her head to smile at Zachary. “Zachary has been so good in helping me sort it all out since then, so that I have the support of my friends and colleagues again, instead of feeling so isolated and alone.”
“That must have lifted a big weight off your shoulders.”
“It did. I guess Spencer thought that if he could make me depressed enough, he wouldn’t have to do anything directly. I would just kill myself. He almost succeeded.”
“And are you getting professional help?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Things are much better now.”
“What would you say to Spencer now, if you were face-to-face with him?”
Isabella bit her lip, her brows drawing down. “I guess… I’d tell him I was sorry.”
There was a noise of exclamation from the host, but Isabella went on, ignoring it.
“I wasn’t a very good mother. I should have paid more attention to Declan and taken care of him more. I shouldn’t have left him for Spencer to take care
