Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)(23)
He surprised her by asking, “Do you have any idea why Parker was carrying a weapon?”
“I heard he thought he was being followed. But why carry a gun loaded with blanks if he truly felt he was in danger?”
“Carrying a gun loaded with blanks sounds like something Parker would do. You might not be aware that Parker had been attacked before.”
“No. I didn’t know,” she said, wondering if Roche was now resorting to lies.
“He was attacked in Capitol Park, I might add.”
She tried not to show her surprise.
The muscles in his face relaxed as he straightened. “I’m sure he carried a gun to scare off an attacker if he ever needed to, but he would never have carried a loaded gun because he would never want to harm anyone.”
Not only was Roche full of himself; he seemed intent on trying to intimidate her while also making Parker Koontz into some pillar of perfection, which was one more reason why he’d probably agreed to speak to her. He wanted to take her down a notch.
“I am curious,” he said. “Why exactly did you come to see me?”
“I’m an investigator. I talk to people and ask them questions. It’s what I do. If I have to go against Nicholas Levine in court, I need to be prepared, which means I need to find out more about Parker Koontz. And who better to talk to than his good friend and business partner?”
“Well, I’m afraid I won’t be any help to you, Ms. Cole. If anything, I’ll probably do you more harm than good since I will be making sure the judge is aware of your reputation for being trigger-happy. In my opinion, you’re a danger to society.” He stood, letting her know their talk was over.
THIRTEEN
The house he’d been watching for more than a year now belonged to Mike and Natalie Bailey. From his perch in the highest branches of an oak tree, he had a perfect view of the kitchen window. He saw Mike Bailey step up behind his wife, kiss her cheek, and then wrap his arms around her waist while she rinsed the dishes. Under the soft glow of the kitchen light, he could make out the slight curve of her lips when she smiled.
He shifted his weight from his right hip to his left. He hadn’t planned on sitting in the tree for so long. Usually that wouldn’t be a problem since he’d been climbing trees for as long as he could remember. After mastering the art of climbing gangly-limbed oaks, he’d moved on to pines and redwoods. From there he’d conquered fences and walls. His ability to climb trees had often saved him from his father’s tortuous whims.
Mike walked away, leaving Natalie alone.
His chest tightened. Tonight was the night.
He’d learned a lot about the couple just from picking through their garbage. Discovering where they hid the key to their house, though, had been a game changer.
He’d read every love letter he’d found hidden away in their closet. They’d met when Mike was a senior and Natalie was a sophomore in high school. Two days after Natalie graduated, they were married at a local courthouse. Hardworking people, they had toiled at odd jobs during the day and attended higher-education courses at night. Mike became a lawyer, and Natalie worked as a psychotherapist, which was surprising considering all her talk in her journal about wanting to be a social worker like her mother, Sue Sterling.
Which brought him to the reason he was here.
Sue Sterling was the social worker sent to his house when he was a child. By the time she came for a visit, there had to have been enough complaints and concerns about abuse and child neglect to fill a binder. He couldn’t count the number of times teachers, neighbors, and doctors had commented on the cigarette burns and bite marks they’d seen on his bony arms and legs.
Why else would she have been sent to his house?
What nobody had witnessed were all the other unimaginable things he was forced to do on the farm. If he didn’t submit to his father’s demands, he was locked in the box for days.
He didn’t question why his mother never left his father. The one time she’d tried, his father found her and dragged her home, shackled her wrists and ankles to the barn wall with metal cuffs, and made him, her only son, practice playing darts.
He was twelve by the time Natalie Bailey’s mom arrived. Somehow his father had been warned that someone from Child Services would be paying them a visit, so he made him and his mother scrub floors, wash clothes, and makes themselves presentable.
Sue Sterling seemed impressed. Not only by his father’s good looks but also by the cleanliness of their house. The second his father walked into the other room to stir the pot of stew on the stove, he’d lifted his shirt high enough so that Sue Sterling could see his chest was covered with infected crisscrosses made with a pair of rusty scissors.
Her breathing had hitched before she’d quickly looked away.
Ultimately he figured she must not have cared because she talked to his father one more time, shook his hand, and then left the premises, never to be heard from again.
He’d never forgotten her face or her name.
Many times after that day, he’d thought about running away, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave Mom. But she was determined that he save himself. She knew he was smart. Dad had pulled him out of school after the Sue Sterling visit, so Mom tutored him every day. When he was old enough, she’d helped him apply to colleges. He’d gotten a full scholarship to UCI, and since he was growing big enough to fight back, Dad let him go. He majored in psychology and social work. And when he wasn’t studying, he fought the demons within and did everything he could to keep the voices at bay. Two weeks before graduation, after discovering his mother had passed on, something had snapped.