What Have You Done(45)

Liam propped himself up on his elbows and looked around the room. “Can you turn on the light?”

Sean walked back toward the door and fumbled in the darkness until his fingers found the light switch. He turned it on and could now see the booby traps of toys that he’d tripped over on his way in. The room was a mess. Clothes that should’ve been in the hamper were thrown over his desk. Liam’s extra pillows had ended up against his closet. Picture books lay open on the floor, the pages dog-eared and worn. A small stack of photos was on top of the desk, next to the clothes. Their mother and father.

“I had a dream about Mom,” Liam said.

“Yeah, no kidding. You been looking at these pictures before you went to bed.”

“I found them in one of my books. I didn’t do it on purpose.” He fell back against his pillow and stared up at the ceiling as he spoke. “She was like she was… that day, you know? All sick and scary. She was chasing me around the living room, and Grandpa was on the couch reading the paper, and you were at the dining room table doing your homework, and Grandma was making spaghetti in the kitchen. None of you would help me. I kept calling out, but it was like you couldn’t hear me. Or you were ignoring me. And Mom kept coming. She kept chasing me and wanted to throw me in the tub. You wouldn’t help me.”

Liam started to cry, and Sean came over to the bed. He pulled his little brother against him so he could hug him.

“I would never do that. I would never ignore you. It was just a dream. I’ll always be there for you. Always. Whenever you need me, you call me, and I’ll be listening. I’ll hear it.”

“You promise?”

“Of course I promise. We only have each other, Liam. So because of that, we only have each other to count on. I’ll be there for you, and you be there for me. Got it?”

“I guess.”

Sean kissed his brother on the head.

Liam looked up at him, his eyes still glassy from crying. “Do you think you can stay here with me until I fall back to sleep? I keep thinking about Mom. I’m scared.”

Sean maneuvered himself next to Liam on the small twin bed and kicked his long legs under the blankets until they were covering both boys. He pulled half the pillow over to his side and flopped an arm over his brother’s chest.

Without another word, Liam and Sean closed their eyes and fell asleep. The night pressed on, unimpeded.



Sean was in the basement sitting at his workbench when his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the number. Vanessa.

“Hello?”

“We need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?”

Vanessa spoke in a whisper. There was an urgency about her. Her breath came in short bursts. “It’s about Liam.”

Sean closed the toolbox he had open in front of him and pushed himself off the stool he’d been sitting on. “Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m at home. In the bathroom. Liam’s downstairs.”

“What’s going on?”

Again, there were a few short breaths before she spoke. “His boots.”

“What about them?”

“Wait, I think I hear him coming. I have to go. I can’t talk now. Meet me tomorrow.”

“What’s happening?”

“I said I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. He’s coming.”

“Tell me!”

The line disconnected, and Sean was again in the silence of his basement. He redialed and waited, but it immediately went to voice mail. He hung up and dialed again. Voice mail.

“Dammit.”

He tried one more time. Vanessa didn’t answer. He hung up and stared at his phone, waiting to see if she’d call back. After a few minutes, he knew she wasn’t calling, so he stuffed it in his pocket and sat back down on the stool in front of the workbench. What had she seen? What was going on?





33

There was a bit of traffic, so the drive from Center City to Wilmington took a little over an hour. During that time, there wasn’t much conversation with Jane, who kept busy by studying Kerri’s file and comparing it to the victim they were about to see. The victim was known on the streets simply as JB and had been working a certain section of the city for about four years. She’d been arrested several times for loitering and solicitation, but nothing heavy. On the night she was killed, she was working the corner of Hay Road and East 12th Street, just under Interstate 495. She worked that area alone, and no street cameras were operational in that section of the city, so who she went with, and at what time, remained a mystery. She was found the following morning in a motel on Bowers Street, several miles away from where she was picked up. There had been no next of kin, so JB was buried near the railroad tracks in a city cemetery primarily used for inmates with no families, homeless people who couldn’t be properly identified, and the occasional Jane and John Doe the department came across.

Liam drove in almost absolute silence. He thought about the mounting evidence that pointed to him, the fact that he still couldn’t remember anything from the night Kerri was killed, and the latest discovery that his boots were stained with blood. Even the victim they were driving to see was surrounded in more mystery than he could handle. Sean was right; Vanessa had been at a medical convention for her hospital the weekend of Valentine’s Day, and Liam had been alone at the house. Theoretically, a drive to Wilmington and back, even with a brutal murder crammed in between, wouldn’t have been that big of a time crunch. He strained to try to recall exactly where he’d been that weekend, as the thought of someone else framing him for Kerri’s murder began to fade. All he could remember was watching TV alone at the house. No way that would hold up in court.