Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(83)

“I have nothing more to say to you.”

“I believe she contacted this individual, her first child, perhaps to try to make amends in some way. And that contact triggered a psychic break. I have the top profiler and psychiatrist in New York City, if not the damn East Coast, who will confirm this. He’s killed two women with strong resemblances to your mother at the same age.

“You’re a scientist. There were a lot of blanks in her past—before your father. Including the name she chose. Blank. You never questioned that?”

“She had an unhappy childhood, and wanted to put it behind her.”

“She did have an unhappy childhood, just not the one she created for you. And from what I’ve learned today, she created a new life, and a good one, was a good mother, a good wife. She loved you. She left a note for you before she took those pills.”

“It was an accident.”

“Dr. Fletcher, by trying to save your mother’s memory, to spare the shadow of suicide, you’re blocking any detail that might help me find and stop this man. Look at this.”

She turned to bring up Elder’s crime scene photo. “Her name was Lauren Elder. She had a man who loved her, a family who loved her. This is what he did to her because she bore a resemblance to your mother.”

“My—my mother never looked like that. She never.”

“She had a tattoo of a butterfly on her back, wings spread. Lower back.”

“She had it done when she was a teenager. I don’t see what—”

“Wait.” She shifted to the photo of Elder’s back. “This is the tattoo he put on Lauren Elder, and on Anna Hobe, his second victim. It’s the same, isn’t it?”

She watched some of the color drain out of Joella’s face. “A lot of women get butterfly tattoos.”

“It’s exactly the same, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes. I don’t understand it.”

“This is Mary Kate Covino. She’s alive, being held, but alive. He’s probably put that tattoo on her by now. You’re a doctor. Help me save her life.”

“I don’t know what I can do.”

“She left you a note. Was there anything in the note, anything she said to you that, knowing what I’m telling you now about having another child, applies?”

“I can’t help you.”

“If you refuse to, I promise you I’ll have your mother’s death investigated. You could lose your license over this, and you know it. Your brother the senator will have a major scandal on his hands. Help me, and we let her rest in peace.”

“You’d threaten to—”

Fuck this, Eve thought. “Mary Alice Covino’s been held, shackled like an animal, for almost a week. The time’s coming up fast when he’ll slit her throat. I need the truth from you, so I’m telling you that what I’ll do if you continue to lie isn’t a threat. It’s reality. She left you a note.”

Joella pressed her lips together. “She left a note for each of us. For myself and each of my brothers. We decided not to tell the authorities about the notes, and to push the accidental overdose.”

“I don’t care about that, and there’s no reason I can see why that has to be in the record. I care about what she might have told or written you.”

“She had blanks, that was clear, but I thought—we all thought—it was because her childhood was difficult. I thought most likely abusive. She overcame it.”

“I believe she did.”

“She was joyful, active, giving. She did occasionally have trouble sleeping. When my father died, so much of the joy went out of her. She had insomnia—chronic—headaches, listlessness. Then she seemed to get better, a little better. She went to our house in Hilton Head for a week. She said she wanted to walk the beach, and have some alone time.”

“She went alone?”

“Yes, she insisted. But we talked every day, it was only a few days, and she’d seemed better. We had a big family dinner a few weeks after she got back. She seemed better, steadier. Happier.”

Joella paused to gather herself. “I believed, we all did, she’d found her peace. My husband and I stayed the night, and I found her in the morning. Found her and the notes. She said, in my note, she was sorry. She knew this would cause me grief, but she was with Daddy now. She couldn’t go on without him, and she couldn’t face the before him. She’d done the best she could for all her children. She loved all her children, and asked forgiveness. She asked for understanding. She said her life began on the night my father saved her, and to believe she was at peace now, with him.”

“She said specifically ‘all her children,’ not, for instance she’d done her best and loved you and your brothers?”

“Yes, she wrote ‘all her children.’ God. Dear God.”

“And she wrote about the night your father saved her.”

“Yes, I thought she was confused. As he’d hired her to garden and house clean, and…”

“I understand this is difficult, but it’s very helpful. If your father had come across someone in distress, in pain, or who needed help of some kind, what would he have done?”

“Helped.” Those eyes, so like her mother’s, gleamed behind a sheen of tears. “Done whatever he could to help. He wasn’t just a doctor. He was a healer. He devoted his life to helping and healing. Lieutenant, if my mother had a child before us, my father would have accepted that child, raised that child as his own. He would never have turned his back.”