“Fair enough. The first question is pivotal—the police often hold back information, and because there was no suspect and the case is still open, I haven’t been able to find out a specific detail.”
“I don’t know that I can—or should—tell you details about the investigation. If the police held something back—I was eighteen and in the navy when Tommy was killed, not on the force—they had a reason.”
“We know that the first and third victims were both buried by the killer wrapped in a blanket from their bed, along with a favorite stuffed animal. It’s public that the boys were taken from their beds, drugged, wrapped in their own blanket, and suffocated. What is not public is if anything else was found on the body. The fourth potential victim is currently under investigation in Arizona, and we’re working on finding out if he was buried with a toy or stuffed animal. What about Tommy? Was there anything buried with him?”
David didn’t have to wait for an answer. Grant McKnight’s eyes widened, then watered. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Tommy had a bear when he was found.” His eyes watered. “I’d given it to him when he was born. He started sleeping with it when I was deployed. He told me at Christmas—the last time I saw him alive—that the bear reminded him of the fun we had together.”
Chapter Eighteen
An odd mix of nostalgia and deep sorrow washed over Lucy as she stood in the small park where Justin’s body had been found.
The park was a mile from Justin’s house, but she remembered her mother taking them there every week for as long as Lucy remembered.
Until Justin was killed.
The playground had seemed so big when she was little. She remembered the swings—her favorite—and the twisty slide, which was Justin’s favorite. And the little rocking horses that they’d outgrown by the time they started school, but loved to play on anyway. Pretending they were on the Pony Express. Or racing in the Kentucky Derby. Or riding mules down to the Grand Canyon like they’d watched on Brady Bunch reruns.
Justin had been buried in the trees along the far perimeter of the park. At the time, everything south of the park had been an open field. Now new homes filled the acreage, large square boxes oblivious to the young boy who had died there.
The park had been renamed. Lucy didn’t know who’d done it, possibly Andrew. Or maybe it was a family decision, one she was too young to remember or her family thought she was too young to be part of.
Justin Stanton Memorial Park.
A tree had been planted nearly nineteen years ago, on the one-year anniversary of Justin’s murder. Lucy remembered that day because she had cried—cried that her parents wouldn’t take her to the ceremony. Their priest had gone, blessed the tree, spoken to the group there, but Lucy was excluded. It was the first time and only time she had screamed at her parents. She remembered yelling at them, that she had to go, that she had to say good-bye, but they didn’t budge. She ran upstairs and slammed her door—breaking yet another house rule. But they hadn’t punished her like they had Carina when she slammed her door in anger when she was sixteen and grounded for breaking curfew.
Her dad had taken Carina’s door off for a full month.
But the week after the ceremony, Patrick had brought her to the tree.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
She hated lying, especially to her parents, but she had never told them. And she had worshipped Patrick from that day forward because he was the only one who talked to her about Justin. He explained what had happened—she only knew Justin had died. Patrick hadn’t told her the details, but he explained that someone had taken Justin from his house and killed him. She didn’t think Patrick had said Justin was murdered. She didn’t remember the words he used, except for three short sentences.
“Justin was suffocated. He didn’t know he was dying. It didn’t hurt.”
But the pain to Lucy was real, and it had been from the beginning.
Lucy didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Maybe Max sensed her sorrow, because she left Lucy alone. She walked the perimeter of the park and took pictures, wrote in a notepad, and even took a phone call. Max was a busy woman. Driven, dedicated, abrasive, but surprisingly astute. She gave Lucy the space she needed.
Lucy had an overwhelming urge to call her brother. The RCK meeting would be starting any minute, but Patrick would pick up. She was pretty sure Sean would have told him everything, including what happened last night at the house.
Patrick picked up immediately.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Am I interrupting the meeting?”
“JT hasn’t locked us in yet.”
“I thought Sean was joking about that.”
“Nope. No cell phones, no computers, no electronics whatsoever for however long it takes us to get through business. Last year—when Sean wasn’t here—we didn’t get out until after midnight.”
“I’m at Justin’s park. No one told me about the name. Did the family do it?”
“No, it wasn’t us. Carina told me about it, thought Andrew had it renamed, but she doesn’t talk to him. I doubt she even mentioned it to him.”
“When I was little, you took me here to say a prayer at Justin’s tree.”
“I remember. I took you a few times.”
“No one else would. I never thanked you for that.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Lucy. Justin was our family.”
“Well. I just wanted you to know I appreciate that you were honest with me. You always have been, and that means so much to me, especially now when I realize it must have been just as hard for you. I’m really sorry I didn’t call you when I decided to investigate Justin’s murder.”
“I wish you had, but I get it. I’m not angry about it. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks.”
“Sean told me about the reporter. He doesn’t like her.”
“He made that very clear. I do. She’s very interesting.”
“He also told me what happened last night. Are you sure you didn’t hear Dad wrong?”
“I know what he said, Patrick. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I’ll come down with Sean on Sunday, smooth things over.”
“No, I don’t want you in the middle of this.” Her voice cracked. She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t want to get so emotional, but maybe she didn’t have a choice. Being here, at Justin’s park, remembering her early childhood, her family, the sadness that she grew up with. A deep, almost unbearable sadness that touched everyone she loved. It did get better over time. But it had shaped her. Maybe she didn’t realize how much until the last two days.
“We’re family, Lucy.”
“And I don’t want our family divided because of a decision I made. I handled the dinner completely wrong—I thought it would be better if I talked to everyone together, but I realized too late that I was dumping a huge amount of information on the family all at once about an extremely painful subject. Sometimes, I don’t think—I forget people don’t see the world as I do. In hindsight, I wish I’d talked to Carina alone.”
“Why Carina?”