He’d been living there for a while with his new wife, Evangeline, every day feeling like the gilded prison of a caged bird, endless hours passing slowly one after another while he lived a lie and pretended to care about his future child and the stranger who was carrying her in her womb. Evangeline’s pregnancy came as a relief, offering an excuse to keep his distance from her bed. When she miscarried, he was secretly thankful for the extended reprieve, and continued sleeping in the next room.
When Blanche suddenly returned, she’d been gone five years. He’d heard the news from Kendall, and had driven like a madman to the new house to see her. When he rushed into the large living room, there she was, a grown woman now and stunningly beautiful, her long, blond hair wavy and smooth, her blue eyes warm and loving when she looked at him, a glint of the old fire still smoldering in them.
He called her by the name he’d given her, whispered it only for her to hear. “Mira, my beautiful Mira.” And she’d smiled.
Then he saw the brat she was holding by the hand, and his heart withered. Her second betrayal.
“This is Dylan,” Carole was quick to introduce him. “He’s three.” She paused and smiled tenderly at Blanche. “Your sister had an adventure with a Frenchman in Europe, and, well, this is Dylan,” she ended, laughing. She ruffled the twerp’s hair, then added, “Isn’t he the sweetest little boy?”
He drove away in a rage that night, not sure where he could go to quench the inferno blazing in his chest. How could she have betrayed him like that? She was his Mira, the only woman he’d ever loved, the only one he ever would. A Frenchman? What did that make Mira, if not a cheating slut? And yet, he would’ve done anything for another night in her arms.
He couldn’t stop driving, not knowing where to go. His aimlessness drove him to Redding, where he saw a young girl in the red-light district, whose blond hair and thin body reminded him of the Mira he once knew. He took her with him, searching for a place where he could recreate his best memory and relive his first night with Blanche.
That night, he decided Evangeline had to move to the new house, and so would he.
The old house belonged to him and Mira.
Forever.
54Family Portrait
“This is Detective Kay Sharp, FCSO, I need a bus to my location, stat. Thirty-one-year-old male, GSW to the neck. Stat!”
“Where do you need me?” Elliot asked, his hand gripping Bill’s arm firmly. Caldwell was kneeling on the floor, reaching for Dylan, but Elliot kept him away.
She’d pushed Blanche away, and Carole, who’d rushed to Dylan’s side sobbing, but the time to grieve wasn’t there yet. The bullet had grazed his neck, missing the carotid and jugular, but still lacerated enough smaller blood vessels to make exsanguination an imminent risk.
Kay kept pressure on Dylan’s neck, fighting him at the same time, her thoughts rushing to Jacob, of how she’d found his body lying on the kitchen floor, the raw memory of his blood bursting between her trembling fingers making her whimper. Yanking her back into the moment, Dylan clawed at her hands trying to reach his wound, flailing, making things worse with each accelerated heartbeat that pushed more blood out of his body.
“Here,” she replied, looking briefly in Elliot’s direction. “Help me hold him down.”
Elliot turned to Bill. “I’m going to let go of your arm now, to help your son. One move, one word, and you’re a dead man, you understand?”
Bill nodded, his eyes riveted on Dylan’s agonizing face, on the blood oozing between Kay’s fingers as she kept pressure on his wound.
“Hold his legs, gently,” Kay instructed Elliot. “We have to slow this bleed.” Elliot squatted and put some pressure on Dylan’s legs, but the gleaming hardwood was slippery, and Dylan’s thrashes almost threw him off balance. He set a knee down and grabbed the young man’s ankles.
Still keeping pressure on his bleeding wound, Kay looked at Dylan with a reassuring confidence she wasn’t feeling. “You need to lower your heart rate,” she told him in a firm voice. “You need to breathe in for three seconds, hold it in for four, exhale for five. Can you do that for me?”
He whimpered, his eyes rounded in fear. “I—I’ll try.”
Kay breathed with him, the vagus nerve stimulation having an immediate effect in lowering his heart rate. “Good,” she whispered, shooting a side glance toward Bill.
He’d dropped to his knees in front of Blanche, sobbing hard, his shoulders heaving. “Mira… my son… our son. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Blanche wiped a tear from her eyes. “You hated him the moment you laid eyes on him. You never even asked. And then she—”
She looked briefly toward Carole, who stood, pale and dignified, yet shocked, her trembling hand covering her agape mouth. Was it because she was at risk of losing the last heir to her precious estate? Or was the unforgivable secret they’d been keeping for so long, now out in the open, a threat she could not control?
But Carole snapped out of it and looked at her son with cold eyes. “It was the right thing to do, son. The only thing we could’ve done.”
Bill’s eyes turned hateful, searing. “Damn you, Mother. You ruined our lives!”
EMTs rushed in, and for six tense minutes while they stabilized Dylan and loaded him on the stretcher, no one spoke, the secret they were guarding so treacherous it kept even the most intense of emotions muzzled, silent.
“Where are you taking him?” Blanche asked, while the EMTs were rolling Dylan to the bus.
“Franklin Medical Center, ma’am.”
She squeezed his hand and promised him she’d be there in just a few minutes, then they reconvened in the large living room, where the picture above the fireplace still gnawed at Kay’s gut.
Then
