Wishing Well(59)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


Faiville Prison, 12:03 pm



“It’s noon,” a guard said as he walked through the interview room door. “We’ll need you to wait outside the room while the guards change shifts.”

Despite the guard’s words, Meadow and Vincent stared at each other, both locked in a moment where truth had been revealed, where secrets were beginning to emerge.

Before Meadow could respond to the guard, and while she sat confident that she knew more to this story than even Vincent knew, Vincent shook his head and laughed.

“You should listen to the guard, Meadow. There’s no telling what could happen if we’re left together, alone , for a shift change.”

Regardless of the idle threat, Meadow smiled, believing she’d cornered Vincent with details from Penny’s diary she was certain Vincent had no way of knowing. There had been moments when his expression shifted, surprise drawing lines across his brow. Anger drawing a line between his eyes.

Reluctant to leave, she convinced herself that it was as good a moment as any to take a break. Letting Vincent absorb his part in the destruction of several lives would weaken him, she hoped.

Or, it would give him time to strengthen his lies.

In the end, it didn’t much matter. Penny was dead. Maurice was dead. émilie was dead, together with several other women who’d had the misfortune of meeting the monster Vincent created.

Because, what Meadow knew that even the police and prosecutors hadn’t, was that although Vincent had been responsible for all the lives lost, he hadn’t been the one to kill them. Some, perhaps. But not all. And that fact drew Meadow’s notice more than she’d yet had a chance to admit.

The question now became: Why hadn’t Vincent told the truth and thrown his brother behind bars?

“I’ll see you when I get back,” Meadow said, standing from her seat and enjoying the metallic screech of the chair legs against the floor. Vincent merely watched her stand, ignoring the jarring noise as he held his expression carefully in place.

Allowing the guard to lead her out, Meadow spent the half hour she had to wait worrying her fingernails between her teeth, gnawing at the edges while considering her next step. A day and a half remained, and there was still more to this story she hadn’t revealed.

More importantly, there was more that Vincent hadn’t yet confessed. Wanting to save the best parts for the last day of the interview, Meadow formulated questions she would ask, prepared herself for answers she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear.

Her heart shattered each time she thought about the man Penny had written about in her diary, the confused, sorrowful creature that hadn’t been given a chance. Meadow wanted to hate Maurice for killing Penny, wanted to curse his soul after discovering he’d died after Vincent went to jail. But the images in her head that Penny had painted of him, the whispers and memories that came to Meadow in dreams, made it impossible not to feel pity for the man.

Vincent was one thing entirely. A scoundrel that enjoyed the games he played. But Maurice? Wasn’t he just another victim, another pawn caught in Vincent’s tangled web?

“You ready?”

Meadow’s head snapped up to see a new guard waiting at the gates. Forcing a polite smile, she pushed herself to her feet and followed him to interview room three where Vincent sat waiting.

Patient as ever, Vincent said nothing while Meadow readied her recorder and turned to take her seat. “So, about Maurice, I think you owe me an explanation as to how he died.”

“Not just yet,” Vincent responded, the note of humor she’d always heard in his voice absent. “I want to ask you about what Penny wrote regarding her first meeting with my brother. Not that night in the garden, but when I sent her down with his lunch. No...” his voice trailed off, his eyes refusing to meet hers as he studied a scratch that ran across the table where they sat. “Not then, either. I want to talk about when she brought him breakfast the next morning.”

Gaze lifting, he asked, “Did she write anything beyond what you told me? Beyond being frightened? Beyond feeling sorry for Maurice?”

Straightening her posture, Meadow gave the question some thought. Revealing too much would betray the secret she’d been guarding, and she wanted to save the sting of that for the last day of the interview. “I’m not sure what else she would have written. Your brother was a frightening man, but Penny saw him differently. She saw a man unaccustomed to social graces, to the rules of interaction between two people.”

“So, she didn’t view him as a monster?”

“No,” Meadow answered confidently, “she never did.”

Vincent nodded his head, his throat working to swallow down the acrid flavor of Meadow’s admission. It must have burned him to know that his attempt at torturing Penny by forcing her to serve Maurice hadn’t scarred her as deeply as he’d assumed.

“How did Maurice die, Vincent?”

Trailing a fingertip across the scratch he’d studied earlier, Vincent answered, true remorse in his tone. “After I was arrested, I hired a management company to maintain my properties, including Wishing Well. I also hired an attorney I believed I could trust to look after Maurice’s continued care. The company and attorney were intended to work together to see that nothing changed for Maurice.”