Midnight Caller (23 page)

T
he vodka was Russian and very cold, taken from the minifridge in Alex's office. Although she didn't care for the taste of straight liquor, Rain took a sip and felt the warmth of it unfurl in her stomach, making her feel steadier than she had in hours.

“Alex doesn't keep alcohol in the loft upstairs because of Brian,” Annabelle explained as she took a seat in the leather desk chair. “But he keeps a stash down here for the gallery's clients.”

Rain looked at Annabelle in the room's soft lighting. Her combination of ivory skin and dark hair was striking. Like her brothers, she was gifted with strong bone structure, but her nose and jawline were delicate and feminine, her mouth sensual and full.
Trevor's twin.
The revelation made his estrangement from his family even more mysterious, considering his connection with Annabelle went beyond mere sibling. They'd shared the same womb.

“So you and Trevor had a fight?”

Rain exhaled. “That would've required Trevor sticking around. Right now, he seems intent on putting distance between us.”

“I believe he has feelings for you.”

I thought so, too.
But Rain said nothing. Instead, she stared into the clear liquid in her glass and realized even twice the amount of vodka wouldn't be able to erase the memory of the distrust she'd seen in his eyes.

“How much do you really know about my brother, Rain? About his childhood?”

“I asked Trevor…about the scar on his chin,” she said hesitantly, realizing it was Annabelle's past she was speaking about, too. “He told me how he got it. Alex also mentioned some things Brian's told him.”

Annabelle stood and went to gaze out the darkened office window. “You're a psychologist?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know in homes where there's abuse, the oldest will sometimes take the worst of it, to deflect it from the others?” She turned to face her. When Rain nodded slowly, she continued.

“Trevor always tried to protect us. Especially Brian, who had a way of setting our father off. Daddy would come home from his shift in a foul mood, just looking for someone to take it out on. Trevor took some terrible beatings.”

“Where was your mother?”

“Drinking, mostly.” Annabelle set her glass on the desk, her fingers tracing its rim. “She loved us, but she wasn't a strong person. It was her way of dealing with things. She was afraid of her husband, too, and with good reason. In those days, the courts weren't nearly as sympathetic to domestic-abuse victims, especially when the one accused of violence was a police officer. Momma seemed to draw up inside herself whenever Daddy was around.”

From down the hall, Rain heard Haley giggling at the cartoon she watched. The little girl's laughter was a sharp contrast to the childhood her mother described.

“Was Trevor the only one of the children your father hurt?”

Absently, Annabelle rubbed the thin line of scar tissue on her left wrist. Rain had noticed it earlier, peeking out from the sleeve of her blouse when she'd started the DVD.

“My father began sexually molesting me when I was thirteen.” Her quiet disclosure seemed to echo inside the room, and Rain realized the vodka was as much for Annabelle's fortification as her own.

“Trevor didn't know. No one did. I kept it a secret because I didn't want to cause more problems in our family.”

“How long did this go on?”

“For nearly two years… Until Trevor caught him in the act.”

Anxiety formed a knot in Rain's stomach. She prepared herself for whatever she was about to hear.

“I was at home alone,” Annabelle recounted, her expression tense. “Momma had taken Brian to a doctor's appointment, and Trevor was at junior varsity football practice. I was in my bedroom listening to music when I saw the black and white roll up outside… I knew why he was there, what he would want. I thought about climbing out the window, just running away from it all. If I had, everything would've turned out differently.”

Rising from the couch, Rain approached her. “You were barely more than a child. Of course you didn't know what to do.”

“He'd always been so careful before.” She avoided Rain's gaze. “He'd take me out in the patrol car. We'd go to the levees at the edge of town where there was nothing around but seagulls and muddy river water. Where no one would be able to see.”

Bitterness leaked from her soft Southern drawl. “But this
time, he came into my room. He didn't lock the door because no one else was there. He'd been drinking.”

“And Trevor came home,” Rain whispered.

“Practice let out early. We never heard him come up the stairs. Daddy still had on his uniform. He was making me—” Her words caught, her blue eyes closing and opening again like a fragile china doll's. “Trevor walked in on us.”

The vodka bottle sat on the credenza behind Alex's desk. Rain took Annabelle's glass and refilled it, giving her time to pull herself together. Once she'd taken a sip, Rain asked the question weighing on her.

“Annabelle,” she urged. “What happened then?”

Her forehead wrinkled, and for a moment she appeared lost in memory. “Daddy backed Trevor to the wall. He slapped him and cursed at him. Then he put the barrel of his service pistol…against his head. He gave him a choice—keep quiet about what he saw, or die. Trevor looked him in the eye and told him to go to hell.”

A tear spilled onto her cheek. “Even at fifteen, Trevor was brave to the point of foolishness.”

Rain felt her pulse racing. Seconds passed before Annabelle spoke again.

“He hit Trevor with the gun. He swung it hard.” She looked at the floor, as if she could still see her brother lying in front of her. “Trevor fell, and Daddy hit him again. I tried to stop him, but I—”

Annabelle put a hand over her lips. Rain touched her back, trying to comfort her.

“Trevor was in a coma for three days…on a ventilator. They had to do surgery. He was bleeding inside his brain.”

Rain thought of Trevor in a hospital bed, connected to tubes and wires. The injustice appalled her. “But your father? Surely he was punished for what he did.”

“The official story was that Trevor had been hurt during a
robbery attempt on our household, which my father managed to stop when he came home during his break. Since he was a police officer, no one even questioned him. He came off like a hero.” Annabelle looked at Rain, her eyes filled with guilt. “At first, we all went along with it because we were afraid of what might happen—what'd he do to us—if we told the truth.”

“What about your mother? Brian?”

“They came home right after. Daddy forced Brian to make the 911 call and lie to the operator about what happened. He was ten years old.” Her voice thinned, becoming unsteady. “I held Trevor in my arms while we waited for the ambulance, but he wouldn't wake up—”

“Mommy?” Haley stood in the doorway. She gazed at her mother, who hurriedly wiped at her face.

“It's okay, baby.” Annabelle smiled sweetly.

“I want something to drink.”

“Apple juice?” Annabelle went to the minifridge and removed a small carton. She pulled the tiny straw from the container's side and popped it through the sealed foil top. Bending down, she handed it to her daughter, then wrapped her in a hug. As Rain took in the scene, she tried to process all she'd been told. The night she and Trevor had made love, he'd talked a little about his troubled past, but he hadn't revealed to her the true depth of it. As bad as she'd imagined his childhood to have been, she hadn't expected this.

Once Haley left the room, Annabelle took up the story again, seeming determined to finish despite the toll it was taking.

“When Trevor regained consciousness, he needed help. He was very weak. His speech was slower and he was having trouble with his words. He also had what the doctors called retrograde memory loss—he didn't remember anything leading up to his injury.” Picking up a photo in a silver frame
on Alex's desk, she ran her fingers over its surface. “Losing Trevor was especially hard on Brian. He looked up to him so much.”

“Losing Trevor?”

“Momma sent Trevor to Maryland to live with her sister and her husband. There was an excellent outpatient rehabilitation program there, but mostly it got him away from our father. Trevor couldn't fight him anymore.” Her reddened eyes sank into Rain's. “My mother did one brave thing in her whole life, and that was finally telling James Rivette she'd let everyone know the truth if he didn't agree to let Trevor go.”

“She could've just gone to the police and told them what really happened from the beginning. I know she was scared, but with you and Brian to back up her story—”

“She didn't want it to come out what my father did to
me.
She was convinced my life would be ruined if anyone knew, and that we had to keep what happened a secret. At first, we lied out of fear, and then we lied to protect me.”

Rain stared at Annabelle, who seemed to be waiting for condemnation. When she received none, her hands twisted together briefly.

“My father never touched me again, not after that day. Less than three months later, he moved out. Our parents were devoutly Catholic, but he didn't contest the divorce.”

Trevor's traumatic injury had finally broken the fistlike hold James Rivette had on his family.
But it wasn't enough,
Rain thought. There had to be some kind of punishment for such violent, immoral behavior. “But Trevor
did
get better,” she pointed out. The Trevor she knew was strong and healthy, his mind sharp and brimming with intelligence. There was nothing about him that suggested frailties, physical or otherwise. FBI evaluations for agents were rigorous, and he'd obviously passed them all.

“The specialists in Maryland were certain Trevor hadn't
suffered any permanent brain damage,” Annabelle said. “It was more like an electrical short circuit. The wires inside his head had gotten crossed, and they needed straightening out. It took several months of therapy, but Trevor was young and very determined. He got completely well.”

She replaced the photo on the desk. “But his memory of what happened that day never came back. He asked questions, of course, but he only got lies in return.”

“No one ever told him the truth?”

“Sometimes I try to convince myself he was better off that way,” she admitted softly. “Aunt Susan and Uncle Frank couldn't have children of their own. They treated Trevor like a son. For the first time, I think he had a peaceful home life. After he recovered, he got an opportunity to attend a private prep school there on scholarship, and he stayed. Trevor's always been so smart. He was thriving without us.”

“But he knows now, doesn't he? How did he find out?”

Annabelle gazed at the scar on her wrist. “Aunt Susan finally told him…after I cut myself. She decided it was time for the lying to stop.”

She shook her head, causing the dark waves of her hair to move and shimmer under the muted lights. “She brought Trevor home to visit me when I was in the hospital. I was in the psych ward. He tried to be strong for me, but he was very upset. I was pretty drugged, but I remember him holding my hand and asking me why we lied to him.”

Her eyes were unflinching despite the emotion they held. “He pulled away from us after that. Trevor's kept in touch over the years, but…”

Rain felt the loss within her own heart. “You and Brian didn't have a choice in any of this. Surely Trevor understands that now. You were victims, too.”

“Trevor loved Brian and me more than anything in this world, and we deceived him. He's been through so much,
and he has a hard time trusting. If you care for him…I just thought you should know this about him.”

It had all happened so long ago, and yet the aftershocks still seemed to reverberate around them. Rain understood what it had taken for Annabelle to lay out the brutal facts for someone who was in essence a complete stranger to her. Even more, she was aware of the courage required for her to move beyond her own tragic childhood—beyond a suicide attempt—to regain her footing and forge ahead. To raise a child on her own. Annabelle Rivette was a true steel magnolia.

“Rain? Brian and I…we're worried about Trevor. We think being in New Orleans might be triggering his memory about what happened that day.”

“He's having flashbacks?”

Annabelle looked at her uncertainly. “Is that possible after all these years?”

Rain thought of the stress Trevor was under. Not only was he deeply immersed in a hunt for a violent killer, but he was being forced to run up against painful recollections his mind had worked hard to suppress.

“It's entirely possible,” she said.

Trevor.
She realized how long she'd been gone—nearly two hours. Pulling her slender cell phone from the pocket of her jeans, Rain cursed silently when she saw it wasn't turned on. Her only hope was that the cop at her house hadn't noticed her absence, and she could slip back inside as easily as she'd gotten out.

“What is it?” Annabelle asked.

Rain pressed the phone against her ear, her heart clenching at the recorded message. Trevor sounded furious and more than a little scared.

Damn it, Rain. If you get this message, call me. Please.

Looking at Annabelle, she dialed his cell phone. He answered instantly.

“Where are you?”

“I'm on my way back home now. Don't worry.”

“Don't worry?” Trevor practically barked into the phone. “The cops call and tell me you disappeared. Can you guess what I've been thinking? I've been out of my mind.”

She felt Annabelle touch her arm, offering support.

“Just tell me where you are,” Trevor said. “I'm coming to get you.”