Take Another Look (27 page)

“That's circumstantial,” Jane argued. “There are other factors involved. Maybe it was stress or something in this house. A mold or lead paint. Something that Chrissy is allergic to.”

Anya put her hands on her hips. “You won't change my mind. I know Isabel is trying to kill my sister, just as she killed my brother-in-law.”

“I thought Nick died from heart failure.”

“That was the cause of death, but when the doctors examined him, they learned that he had no heart medication in his system. My sister, she checked his prescription bottles, and do you know what was inside? Little candies. Tic Tacs.” Anya lowered her chin and leveled a piercing gaze at Jane. “Who do you think replaced the medication with candy?”

Isabel? Considering Chrissy's devotion to Nick, Isabel was the likely choice.

“You can't prove that,” Jane said, though her voice lacked commitment now.

“I don't have to prove anything.” Anya tapped her chest with two fingers. “In my heart, I know what is true. There is evil in Isabel's heart. And it is my duty to see that she is stopped.”

“But Anya, what if you're wrong? You don't want to make a young girl suffer consequences for something she didn't do.”

“I know the truth.” Anya beat a fist against her chest. “God in heaven has given me the truth. It is up to me to see that His will is done.”

Chapter 28

R
eality check,
Jane thought as she drove home. Although Anya had been over the top with exaggerations of the devil in Isabel's soul, there was a thread of truth in the accusations that made Jane shiver as she waited at a stop light. She turned the heat up and tried to consider the facts.

Isabel had been on the fringes of some terrible tragedies. The death of her baby cousin. Her father's death and her mother's chronic illness. But sometimes bad things happened to good people, and just because Isabel was involved with these people did not make her guilty of harming or killing them.

And Isabel is a good kid,
Jane reminded herself. She was polite and well-behaved. She worked hard in school, and she went out of her way to help other people. If she was telling the truth, her recent inappropriate behavior had been prompted by her desire to please Harper. She had taken on adult responsibilities in caring for Chrissy. Even now, in Jane's house, Isabel did more than her share of the cooking and cleaning.

There was also Anya Diamant's state of mind to consider. The woman had suffered tragedies herself. She'd lost her son and her husband. She'd suffered a breakdown that had transformed her life. And more recently she had buried her brother-in-law and had come close to losing her sister. Jane couldn't help but feel empathy for Anya; but at the same time, she could not trust the woman. Anya's fortitude had rallied the police, but even Detective Drum had admitted that it might turn out to be a wild-goose chase.

Was Isabel a murderer? Or was Anya crazy? Although Jane suspected that the truth lay somewhere between those extremes, the muddle in the middle gave her little consolation.

 

Back at home, the dining room table was covered with purple material with a paper pattern pinned to it. Isabel worked intently, cutting out pieces of the pattern—a bodice, a flared skirt. Jane didn't mind the project, but the timing seemed odd, right at the beginning of finals week.

“What are you making?”

“It's going to be a dress for Harper to wear to the Snow Prom. The purple is perfect for her, don't you think?”

“It's very nice,” Jane agreed politely. She wasn't sure how much to share about her meeting with Anya, but she had decided to save the news until both girls were here. “But I'm not sure Harper is planning to go to Snow Prom.”

“She told me she is. With Jesse. She's planning to wear an old dress, but this will be better. I'm going to surprise her with it.”

“If it's a surprise, you'd better clear it out of here. Harper will be stopping by after practice in the next half hour.”

“Okay, Mom. I'll clean it up.” Isabel began folding, calmly, methodically.

As she took a tray of lasagna from the freezer, Jane shook off an odd feeling. Why did it feel strange to hear Isabel call her mom? And why did she slip and say that Harper was coming home when she was actually an absentee daughter, stopping by to pick some things up?

You've got to fix this,
Jane told herself.
Put this family back together.
She knew it was up to her, but she didn't know where to begin.

A few minutes later, when Harper tore in like a bull in a china shop, it was about all Jane could do to maintain peace.

“Mom, I'm here for my stuff!” Harper called from the garage entryway. “Do you have it locked in a closet to protect it from the thief?”

“Is she talking about me?” Isabel looked up from her homework with pursed lips.

“Harper!” Jane hurried to the door. “Come in here and don't be so rude. You don't have to stay, but I expect you to be civil while you're here.”

With a dramatic roll of her eyes, Harper came in and skulked against the kitchen island. “What do you want me to say? I'm still freaked out about Friday night, and so is Jesse.” For the first time she swung around and faced Isabel. “Now that we know you're a psycho, we have a secret code with each other. So don't bother trying that again.”

“Of course not,” Isabel said. “I only did it for you in the first place. I just want to make you happy.”

Harper hunched up and lifted her hands. “Stop that! Just stop. Leave me alone.”

“Okay, enough bickering. We have something more important to discuss. Isabel, you know I've been trying to reach out to your mom, and I've been talking with the social workers. Today I met with your Aunt Anya, and I'm afraid the news isn't good.”

Isabel's lips swelled in a pout. “Is Mom sick again?”

“Actually, she's still recovering. It sounds like she'll be okay. But your aunt has no intention of bringing you to Seattle anytime soon.”

“Aunt Anya never liked me,” Isabel said sadly. “It's okay. I don't mind staying here.”

“While I was talking to your aunt, she mentioned some disturbing things that you were involved with. Her son Gregory . . . She says you're responsible for his drowning?”

With a silvery calm, Isabel closed her eyes and shook her head. “Aunt Anya is blaming me for her own mistakes. I wasn't even there when the baby drowned. I was at the store with my dad. It was Aunt Anya's fault that Gregory fell in the pool, and the guilt drove her crazy. Do you know that she was in a mental hospital?”

“Yes, I know.”

“I feel bad for her. Mom says she lost track of reality.”

There was no animosity in Isabel's clear blue eyes.

By way of contrast, Harper looked horrified.

Jane was not sure what to believe anymore. “Anya mentioned a few other suspicious circumstances. She thinks your father's death might have been prevented. He was supposed to be taking medication for his heart, but they found none in his system. Anya thinks you switched his medication for a placebo.”

“That's just silly. I loved my dad. Everyone knew that.”

“Anya is also blaming you for your mother's illness. She thinks you were doing something to make her sick.”

“Poor Aunt Anya.” Isabel sighed. “She wants to blame me for everything.”

“Well . . .” Harper folded her arms. “If the shoe fits . . .”

“I didn't hurt anyone,” Isabel said solemnly. “If I did anything wrong, it was because I tried to protect my mom.”

Jane paused a moment, staring down at the counter. “Protect her from whom?”

Isabel let out a heavy breath. “From herself. Have you ever heard of Munchausen syndrome?”

“Is that your new excuse?” Harper snickered. “It sounds like popcorn treats.”

Jane had come across it in a psychology class. “It's a psychiatric disorder. People with Munchausen pretend to be sick to draw attention to themselves.”

“I can't believe I'm telling you this.” Isabel pressed her palms to her cheeks. “This is a huge family secret. But . . . you're both family, too. The thing is, Mom used to make herself sick so that she could get attention and extra-special care. She would eat weird things like soap and cleansers. I don't even know everything. I just know she made herself really sick.”

Harper winced. She didn't seem to be buying it.

“And before that, I . . . I didn't know it at the time, but I think she also suffered from Munchausen by proxy. I think she was making my dad sick so that our family would get special treatment.”

“That's . . . that would explain a lot of things,” Jane said. The revelation should have provided some relief, but she felt tense, her nerves like taut guitar strings being wrenched tighter. “I had no idea your mother suffered from mental illness.”

Isabel nodded sadly. “No one ever wants to talk about it. There's such a stigma attached and . . . I don't want to believe that Mom killed my father. Do you think she would really do that?”

The only thing Jane was sure of at the moment was the cold numbness in her heart. “I don't know.”

“Well, I may not know about Munchout Disease,” Harper said, “but I know this house has gone cray cray, and I'm getting the hell out of here.”

“You're being insensitive,” Jane said.

“I'm being practical. I can't believe you made me live in the same room with a killer. Mom, why can't you see what's so obvious? This one is a psycho killer.”

“Harper!”

“I'm not a killer.” Isabel faced Harper without wrath or anger. “I'm your sister, and I love you. You'll see. Soon, you'll see how much I love you. I'm going to make you Snow Queen, sister dear.”

“I don't want to be a freakin' prom queen. I just want to survive high school, and with you around, I'll be lucky to survive sophomore year.” Harper went over to the stairs. “I'm packing,” she called. “Next family meeting, you can count me out.”

“I'm sorry,” Jane told Isabel. She followed Harper up the stairs, thinking that she would make her apologize for being insensitive, but when Jane reached the top of the stairs she realized how ridiculous that would be. It was ridiculous to think she was going to rein Harper in at this point. It had taken Jane fifteen years to realize that you couldn't really control another person.

She went to her room and sat on the edge of her bed.

Munchausen syndrome. Why hadn't it occurred to Jane before? To think of the abuses Isabel had suffered, only to land here and receive further abuse from her sister.

Flopping back on the bed, Jane stared at the ceiling and tried to prioritize. She would contact Detective Drum and Sally Pinero to report the accusations about Chrissy Zaretsky. It pained her to think that Isabel was never going to be reunited with her mother. After all, Munchausen by proxy was abuse. It would take a while to determine Chrissy's competence as a parent . . . months, maybe years. Could she keep Isabel here during the investigation . . . throughout high school?

The question made Jane's head hurt.

Her job was to raise Harper. She had made that decision fifteen years ago, and she stood by it. But she'd be damned if she'd let Hoppy dictate whom she could and couldn't help.

For now, she needed to keep her girls safe. Harper would continue to stay with Sydney, and Isabel would have safe haven here.

The air in the car sizzled with tension as Jane drove Harper to the Schiavones' house. After a few blocks, Jane broke the silence. “I wish you could be more sympathetic to your sister.”

“I wish I'd never found out I had a sister.”

Jane sagged back in the seat. “Oh, Harper. Can't you see that Isabel needs our help, now more than ever? She's lived a life of torture.”

“Yeah. So she says.”

“Why don't you believe her?”

“Maybe because she's a liar and a bully. Did you forget that she set up a whole ploy to make a play for my boyfriend and make me look like a slut?”

“And you really didn't have anything to do with that? Tell me the truth. You never talked about switching places, wearing each other's clothes?”

“Not like that. God, Mom. Why can't you ever believe me? You believe Isabel when she comes up with some excuse, but I always get a million questions.”

“That's not true,” Jane denied.

“It is! You're always on her side, always making me out to be the bad twin. What can I do to . . .” Overwrought, Harper let out a growl. “Okay, I guess it's safe to tell you now that Isabel almost killed me. Does that make you like me more, Mom?”

“Harper, you know I love you.” Jane struggled to keep her voice steady. “Tell me what happened.”

“There was one night over Christmas break, when we were hanging out, watching a movie. I think you were upstairs. We were joking around, nudging each other off the couch, and then it got a little crazy and we were wrestling on the floor. You know how that goes. Just goofing around. But suddenly she had her hands around my neck, and she was squeezing really hard.”

For the second time that day Jane saw the hands closing in like a vise.

Relentless. Brutal.

She pulled over to the side of the road, threw the car into park, and turned to her daughter. “She was choking you?”

Tears pooled in Harper's eyes as she nodded. “It hurt really bad, but the scary part was that I couldn't breathe. And she told me that she could kill me, just like that. She said it didn't take that much effort if you squeezed the right spot.”

“Oh, Hoppy.” Jane rubbed her daughter's arm. “I'm so sorry.”

A whimper escaped Harper's throat, and Jane held her close for a moment. “You should have told me.”

“She said that if I told you, she'd do it again, and she wouldn't back off the next time.”

Jane found it a little hard to believe that Isabel had used those exact words. Maybe a veiled threat. But then again, if Isabel had been abused by Chrissy, it was likely that she would carry on the cycle of torment.