Secondhand Sinners (15 page)

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Emily said. “I know he can be overbearing.”

“Now the final decision of his life is up to me. Do you think he would have let me cook dinner if he knew that?”

“I don’t know, Mom.” First she said he was getting better, and now she was acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t. The doctor was right. She did need to get some rest. Now, on top of everything else, Emily needed to get those pills the doctor prescribed and get her mother home.

“Do you think he would have made me have the baby if he knew that?”

“What baby?”

“Emily,” she said with her eyes fixed on Norman. “Do you think he would have made me have Emily?”

Emily wanted to run out of the room and get as far away from her mother and father as possible. She already did that once, and it hadn’t solved anything. She liked to think she was a stronger person than she was fourteen years ago.

“
I’m
Emily.”

Gail looked at her and frowned. “When did you get here?”

“Just now. I told you that.”

“You look exactly like your father.”

She took a few steps toward her mother and reached for her. “What do you mean he ‘made’ you have me? You didn’t want me?”

Gail crossed her arms over her chest, sending a clear signal that she didn’t want Emily to get any closer. “I can’t look at you without seeing him.”

“The doctor said you need to go home and get some rest.”

“You should go.”

“I came to check on you and be with you so you won’t have to be alone. That doctor is very worried about you.”

“Doctors don’t know everything. I don’t need you here.”

“Then why did you even call me to come back home to begin with?”

“Go. Before you find out what kind of a monster your father really is.”

Emily knew who her father really was. He was a controlling, abusive, self-righteous hypocrite, but she never knew her mother thought that. She always thought her mother was grateful to have someone make her decisions for her and tell her what to do. Between Ma'am and her dad, her mother never had to decide anything for herself.

“What did Dad do that you don’t want me to find out about?” she asked. “Tell me. Help me understand. You might know something that can help Levi.”

Gail looked at Emily with vacant, unblinking eyes. “I was going to get out of here, and he made me stay. ‘You’re keeping the baby,’ he said. ‘This child is your punishment.’ Then he came back and we drove her away.”

“Me? Are you talking about me?” She closed the distance between them, knelt beside her mother’s chair, and took hold of her chin to force her to look at her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Gail finally blinked. “It’s judgement day.”

Emily released her mother’s chin, thinking about all those times she wondered why her mother hated her so much. Now she had her answer. Her mother hadn’t even wanted her. She had ruined her life. She left without saying another word and walked back to the waiting room where Alan was sitting on the floor with Jack, who had crawled under one of the chairs. She sat on the floor beside him.

Jack reached through the legs of a chair and tugged on her shirt. Miller’s shirt. She was still wearing Miller’s shirt. That reminded her of Miller and the way he encouraged her to go with Alan.

“Whatchya doin’?” she asked, trying to smile.

“I’m in jail.”

She looked at Alan out of the corner of her eye. “That’s a bit insensitive, don’t you think?”

He gave a quick nod toward Jack. “His idea.”

“I’m in jail, Mom.”

“Yep,” she sighed. “Seems to be the trend.”

“How’d it go?” Alan asked.

“Didn’t.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Alan put his arm around her. This time it didn’t feel sleazy. It was actually comforting.

“You okay?” he asked.

She shrugged and rested her head on top of her knees. “Something’s wrong with my mom. The things she was saying…I…I never understood why she was so mean to me. Now I know. She hates me. My dad made her have me as some kind of punishment. I don’t even know why she called me to come back here.”

“Why did you come back?”

“I thought I could help Levi. How can I help him if he won’t even talk to anyone?”

“I’m hungry. What about you?”

“Not really.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Dinner last night.”

“Then you’re hungry.” Alan stood up and offered Emily his hand. “Let’s go to lunch.”

“I don’t feel like eating, and I told Miller I’d come back as soon as I saw my mom.”

“Come on, Em. I’m tired and starving, and you said we could have lunch if things went well. I’ve been a good boy, haven’t I? It’ll take an hour. Tops.”

“I wanna eat!” Jack scrambled out from underneath the chairs and hopped up and down next to her saying, “Eat! Eat! Eat!”

“Come on, Alan. I don’t feel like playing this game. Thank you for bringing me here, but I said
maybe
if things went okay, not
definitely
.”

“Not a game. I swear.” He cocked his head toward the door. “Have lunch with me, and then I’ll take you back to Miller.”

If Miller was counting all the cattle, he would probably be gone for another few hours, so he wasn’t going to be sitting on the front porch waiting for her. She probably did need to feed Jack, and since her car was out of commission, Alan was her ride.

“Okay. A quick bite and then back to Miller’s.” She took his hand, and he helped her up.

For some reason, the phrase
Famous last words
ran through her head.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Miller

With Emily and Jack gone, the house was back to its normal early-morning state of empty, yet it felt so lonely.

“Given our history?”
What did Alan mean by that? Nothing, he decided. Alan was an idiot, a liar, and a cheater. He was trying to get under his skin.

Miller got in the shower. The longer he stood under the hot water, the more he second-guessed his plan to go talk to Levi again. So what if Abby didn’t come from where he thought she came from? She was his daughter. That was all that mattered. If he started to poke around, he could end up asking the wrong person the right questions, which was no different from throwing a match into a field of hay. Just like a fire, it could spread.

He stepped out of the shower and dried off with a new resolve to be okay with not knowing his daughter’s true paternity. He would continue with his plan to keep his head down and not make any sudden movements. Who cared where Abby came from? He certainly didn’t. He raised her. He loved her. She was
his
daughter. Hell, she could be Chester’s and he wouldn’t…

Miller froze. Was that what Emily’s family did to her? No, she couldn’t be Chester’s because she had Wilson’s disease. He wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at himself. The disease Hoyt passed to his own son. Hoyt’s daughter? Was that possible?

He did some quick math in his head. Hoyt was his parents’ age, so he would have been fifty-five or so when Abby was born. Not too old. If Hoyt could pass Wilson’s and his jawline on to Daniel, then he could have passed them on to Abby too. Had Hoyt hurt Emily? Was that what Levi meant about that night not being the worst of her life? Was Abby the product of a rape? His stomach flip-flopped. That would explain why Emily didn’t want to talk about it and why she convinced herself the baby was Miller’s. She wanted to be carrying the product of love, not rape. If he was right, would telling her now devastate her?

He sat down on the side of his bed, the side Emily slept on, and tried to think of something else—anything else—that could explain the fact that Abby had Hoyt’s genetic disease and Emily’s hands. He was sickened at how quickly it had become Hoyt’s disease and not Daniel's.

He walked down the hall to Abby’s room, terrified he would feel like he was in a stranger’s room when he stepped into her little world. He went in, walked straight to her desk, and thumbed through the calendar. Just doodles and notes about homework and cheerleading practice. Yes, this was his Abby. He looked in the drawer of her desk. Her favorite stuffed animal, a bear he gave her when she was three, was in there. It used to be on her bed. He stood up and looked around. The poster of the Disney princesses was gone, replaced by a poster for a band called The Script. There was a hardcover book on her nightstand titled
Nothing Left to Lose But Me
. He could have sworn the last time he was in there she had a picture book with kittens right there.

He picked up the book and opened it to the bookmarked page then slammed it shut when he read a line with a boy pulling a condom out of his wallet, asking a girl if she was sure. When had his daughter started to grow up? How could it have happened without him even noticing?

Miller’s foundation was rocking underneath him.

Next to the book was her brush, with strands of her long blonde hair…strands of her DNA.
A DNA test!
All he needed was something of Hoyt’s.
Something of Hoyt’s
. He had something of Hoyt’s. Miller went to his room and dumped the contents of the box from Daniel’s room back onto his bed. He rummaged through the trinkets—arrowheads, track medals and a few pictures of Emily and Levi. When he first put those pictures in the box, he was jealous and angry that Daniel had loved Emily first. This new information shed a different light on the photos, blinding him with an altered perspective. All those pictures Daniel took were of Levi, not Emily.

He put the pictures aside and found the key Daniel had planted in his palm the day before he shot himself. He gave it to Miller with the instructions not to tell anyone he had it, especially Hoyt. When Miller asked what was going on, Daniel said Hoyt was hiding something and that he’d come get the key as soon as he could figure out how to get into the box. Daniel hadn’t answered any of his questions.

What is Hoyt hiding? What box? When was the last time you had any medicine?

Miller thought he was acting crazy because of his Wilson’s. He even offered him some money. Daniel didn’t take it. Maybe he wasn’t acting crazy. Maybe Hoyt
was
hiding something about Emily. What was it? Where was it?

Miller shoved the key into his pocket and left the house, driving off the property with his foot pressed hard on the gas and his eyes fixed on the gravel road in front of him. He found the harder he concentrated on the road ahead, the less he thought about Hoyt hurting Emily.

He pulled his truck around the back of the Sunny Horizons nursing home, drove half a block, and parked on the street in front of the hardware store. He went into the store and bought a box of drywall screws he didn’t need and a new battery pack for a drill he didn’t own. Then he walked down the sidewalk to the nursing home.

A nurse was at the front desk. She jumped when she saw him and put her hand over her heart. “Holy Mary, Mother’a God, you scared me.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He looked at her name tag. “Jasmine?”

“Jasmine Washington. Nice t’ meet ya. Now whaddya doin’ here?”

He held up the bag. “I had to pick up a few things, so I thought I’d come visit Hoyt Thornton. How’s he been?”

“Sumthin’s got under his craw. Been real agitated this morning.”

“Agitated, huh?”

“Won’t eat nuthin’, not even his chocolates. Won’t take his pills either.”

“Oh. I guess I can try to talk to him.”

“Good luck with that.” She pointed over his shoulder. “Down that way.”

Miller walked down the hallway and found Hoyt’s name across the hall and three doors down from the room with Violet’s name on the door. Hoyt was in his wheelchair in the corner of the mostly darkened room, courtesy of the mostly closed curtain. He would check on Hoyt. First, though, he needed to find some DNA. He moved to the bathroom and closed the door, then flicked on the light. Hoyt’s comb was on the side of the sink, but it was clean. No surprise there. Hoyt had so little hair his attendants probably didn’t even need to use a comb. The toothbrush, though, had to have something. Miller wrapped it up in some toilet paper and put it in the sack, switched off the light, and left the bathroom.

He pulled open the curtains, moved to Hoyt’s side, and stared down at him. What kind of secrets were locked up in that muddled mind of his? Did his regrets haunt him, or were they stored away somewhere behind a door his brain had shut from the inside?

Miller fished the key out of his pocket and held it in front of his face. “Do you know what this is? Do you remember it?”

Hoyt’s eyes focused on the key. He raised his arm slowly, grabbed the key, and tried to pull it out of Miller’s hand. Miller simply had to twist his hand to get it out of Hoyt’s grasp. He held it out of reach. “What did you do? Did you hurt Emily?”

Hoyt closed his eyes and tears spilled out underneath his eyelashes. It was one of the worst things Miller had ever seen. An old man, physically crippled and mentally disabled, crying.

“Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

Hoyt closed his eyes tighter.

“Come on, Hoyt. Open your eyes and tell me what you did to Emily. Blink. Once for yes you hurt her, twice for no you didn’t.”

Hoyt blinked. Once. Twice.

“Bullshit.” He waved the key in front of his face. “Abby’s her daughter, you know. She has Wilson’s. Tell me the truth. Did you hurt Emily?”

Hoyt blinked again—once, twice—reaching for the key.

Miller snatched it out of his reach. “You always were a sorry sack of shit liar.” He dropped the key into his bag and left. He was a few doors up the hallway when a woman yelled out from her room.

“You get outta here, Hoyt Thornton, you sorry piece a’shit!”

That was Violet. Why was Emily’s grandmother shouting obscenities at Hoyt? Miller crossed the hall to her room and knocked lightly on her door. “Violet? You okay?” There was no answer, so he went in. Her room wasn’t dark. It was bright and stark.

“What about Hoyt?” he asked her.

“You lyin’ son of a bitch.”

Was she talking to him? “Violet?”

“I ain’t lyin’, Hoyt. It’s your baby.”

“Whose baby?”

Violet held his hand and whimpered, “Tell him to leave her alone.”

“Leave who alone?”

Her face contorted into an evil smile. “I didn’t want your bastard child anyway.” She released her grasp on Miller’s hand and flailed her arms, like she was fighting for her life with the air. She cried out, “No. No. No. Get away. No. Stop it. Stop it.” Then she screamed, but not a real scream—no sound came out, making her face look like a ghoulish Halloween mask. After she finished her silent scream, she dropped her arms.

“What the hell was that?” Miller asked her, hoping she wouldn’t answer him.

She raised her hands and took a handful of her hair with one hand and made a scissoring motion into it with the index and middle fingers of the other.

“Violet?” Miller asked. “What are you doing?”

She took another lock of hair and “cut” it. Then she took another, then another, then another.

“Violet?”

“Why can’t he leave us be?” Violet covered her ears with her hands and tossed her head from side to side. “Why can’t he leave us be?”

“Who won’t leave you alone?”

Like a scene from an exorcism movie, she arched her back. Miller backed into the wall, but he could still hear her joints cracking. Then she collapsed and let out a low, guttural laugh that flash-froze his blood, sending shards of ice through his veins.

He wanted to use the call button to summon help, which meant getting closer to Violet. He didn’t want to get any closer to Violet. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t look away. All he could do was blink and say, “Jesus.”

She was still laughing when she started scratching at her face. He darted to her and grabbed her disfigured hands. They were cold, and the skin was paper-thin. He held them in her lap, gripping them with one hand and reaching for the call button with the other.

Jasmine’s voice answered in a long sigh. “Yes, Ms. Vi?”

“It’s me, Miller.”

“Who?”

“I came in to visit Hoyt Thornton.”

“How’d you get in there?”

“I thought I’d visit her while I was here.”

“You got nuthin’ better t’do than come visit the old people? Don’t you got no job?”

“Violet did something really weird. It was like she was…well—”

“Possessed?”

“Yeah.”

“She do that sometimes.”

“She mentioned Hoyt Thornton. It was like she was fighting with him.”

“Yep. She do that sometimes too.”

“Do you know why?”

“Pro’lly have sumthin’ to do with the fact that they got a history.”

“What do you mean, ‘a history’?”

Jasmine’s voice went up an octave. “Whaddya think I mean?” Then she sighed. “You should get on out of there, Mr. Miller. You don’t need to be dealin’ with her right now.”

“But she—”

“First she thrash. Then she laugh. Next, she gonna curse like the devil himself and threaten to kill.”

“She was scratching her face.”

“Yep. I keep her nails short.”

He was surprised Jasmine was so calm about it. “She does this sometimes, you say?”

“Mr. Miller, I cain’t sit on this speaker here an’ shoot the breeze with ya all day. I’ll be in there in a few minutes to check on her.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll go.” He released the call button and Violet’s hands and took two steps to the door.

“You sorry piece’a shit.”

It was a little funny to hear Violet cuss so much and to know that her nurse knew the routine so well. Miller stifled a laugh and took another step.

“You’s a damn liar, is what you is.”

It sounded, once again, like she was talking to him. Miller pivoted and looked at her. Her eyes were open, and she was clutching the air with her fists.

“I kilt one ‘a your bastards before, Hoyt Thornton, and I’ll do it again. I swear to Jesus I will.”

Miller stepped closer and leaned over her. “Who did you kill, Violet?”

Violet clutched Miller’s arm. “He’s here. I know it.”

“Who’s here?” he asked. Then he scanned the room. “God?”

“Hoyt’s here. I can feel him. Don’t let me go first.”

He pulled his arm out of her grasp and stared at her in shock for at least a minute before he rushed out of the room and ran the whole way to his truck. He sat with his hands gripping the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the tree-lined road in front of him.