Closing Books (33 page)

Evelyn was exhausted after a full day of work and a whole night of shopping. She’d expected Tyler to send her back to Dan’s place. Instead, he had dropped them off at the mansion and said he had to make a trip to the office to solve some problem.

Evelyn couldn’t help feeling that she was being kidnapped as Kate pulled her into the house and made her look through all the drawings for the new room.
 

She tried paying attention, but she wasn’t in the mood to discuss the room. All she wanted was to go home and sleep.
 

The thing about being such great friends was that Evelyn had no problem telling Kate how tired she was, but neither did Kate have any problem insisting that she stayed.

Kate never asked anything that would inconvenience anyone unless it was really important.
 

For a moment, she thought herself to be an awful friend. Of course, Kate was excited about the room; it was their first child. Evelyn was thrilled for them as well, and she shouldn’t allow her doubts about her own relationship to dampen Kate’s mood.
 

So, she stayed, smiled, and gave as many suggestions as she could.
 

As time dragged on, Evelyn became suspicious that Kate was keeping her around on purpose.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, cutting Kate’s speech about the clouds she wanted to paint on the ceiling wall.
 

Kate paused and opened her mouth.

Evelyn waited, but no words came out.

Then, Tyler suddenly came in, telling Kate that it was late and he should take Evelyn home. He didn’t wait for either of their replies. He stretched his hand to help Kate to her feet. “Let’s go.”

She thought Kate had gotten into a squabble with Tyler, but the smile that Kate was giving him said otherwise.

Something was wrong.
 

She wanted to stop Kate and ask what was wrong, but she was dead tired.

Tomorrow, tomorrow she’d ask Kate about it.

“Evelyn.”

She felt a light tap on her shoulders and sprang upright.
 

“It’s just me,” Tyler said when he saw the shock on her face. “You’re home.”

“I fell asleep.”

He nodded.

She stretched and leaned forward.
 

Tyler immediately put his finger to his lips and said, “She fell asleep, too.”

“Thanks for sending me home,” Evelyn whispered and pushed the car’s door open, then closed it softly behind her. Heading up the stairs, she dug into her bag for the keys that Dan had given her.

There was no hint of lights behind the windows, so she assumed Dan had gone to bed. She opened the door as quietly as she could, but gasped the moment she stepped in.
 

From the edge of the door, two fake walls covered the entire living room except for the narrow path leading to the kitchen and the staircase leading upstairs.
 

The fake walls were overlaid with wallpaper. On the wallpaper was a blossom tree, its branches stretched across the length of the walls. Stenciled words of various colors and size were written across every plain surface.
 

Petals of red roses were scattered across the narrow path, and small tea candles placed in transparent glass tubes lined the edge of the floor.

She ran her fingers under the first message.
You make me the happiest man on earth.
She smiled and moved along, reading every message on the wall.

When you’re in my arms, every worry melts away.

Waking up next to you is the best thing in life.

Your smiles light up my day.

You’re always on my mind.

No one had ever done anything like this for her. Her tears fell as she read the messages, and all the doubts she had about Dan and her completely faded. She picked up her pace and moved toward the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to see him and go into his arms.
 

Pushing aside the translucent white drapes painted with small golden flowers, she entered the kitchen and skidded to a halt.

The kitchen was completely transformed. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, holding five tea candles, illuminating the entire kitchen in the dim glow. Every surface of the countertop was covered with tiny red flowers. In the middle of the kitchen, where the dining table used to be, stood a tree with the same flowers that were on the countertops.

Christmas lights were draped across each branch, adding to the orange glow in the room. She stepped toward the tree and ran her hand down the trunk. She already knew it wasn’t a real tree, but she couldn’t figure out how Dan got it in and managed to get it standing upright in the kitchen.

“I know you don’t believe in fairy tales,” Dan said, turning her head.
 

The transformation of the room had captured so much of her attention that she hadn’t realized he was standing by what used to be the fridge.

 
“So I created one for you.” He took a step forward and gave her a bouquet of peach and white roses.

“If you allow it, I’ll make sure that from this day forth, every day of your life will be lived happily ever after.” Getting down on one knee, he opened the small black box he had been holding. “Eve, will you marry me?”

She couldn’t stop the tears from rushing down her cheeks. Neither could she keep herself from smiling.
 

Right now, with him, she did feel like a princess in one of those fairy tales. “Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”
 

Dan’s smile was as wide as hers. He slipped the ring onto her finger and stood. Gently, he wiped the tears from her face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Then, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him; her own prince charming, the beginning of her own fairy tale.

The sun had risen for hours before Evelyn and Dan got to the mansion. Evelyn ran in ahead of Dan, but was surprised to see Kate missing from the entourage in the kitchen.

“Congrats!” Ryan and Joseph exclaimed.
 

“Thanks.” She grinned, then glanced over at Tyler.

“She just woke up. She’s in our room,” Tyler said without her asking.
 

Turning around, she rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. She burst into Kate’s room without even knocking.

Kate smiled and sat up straight on the bed. “Let me see your ring!”

Evelyn hopped onto the bed, settling beside Kate. “Why are you still in bed? Not feeling well?”

“Just feeling lazy. Ty told me to rest for a while longer. It looks great on your hand! Do you like it? Ty helped.”

“Yes, I heard. And, I love it. You should see what Dan did to the house!” She pulled out her cell phone from the back pocket and showed her all the pictures.
 

“Wow, he did that in one night? Ty’s description didn’t do it justice.” Kate took the phone from her hand and examined the pictures. “He put in
a lot
of work on this; do you know how heavy the tree was? It took all of them to move it.”

“I never thought I’d get married. I never thought I’d be so happy. Oh Kate, you made a great decision to move in here.”

“Aww…I’ve never thought about things that way. But yeah, and who was telling me that it was a horrible idea?”

“I was wrong, so wrong. Thank God, you never listen to me.”

“Hey!” Kate elbowed Evelyn softly before tossing back her phone.
 

“I was thinking—”

A few soft raps on the door cut Evelyn’s sentence and they both turned toward the door as it opened.
 

Tyler stepped in and, after a quick glance at Kate, his eyes moved onto her. “Detective Allen is here. He’s hoping he can speak to you for a few minutes.”

“Ty…”

“It’s okay.” Evelyn gave Kate a pat on her leg. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. I know all of you think I shouldn’t be, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I really am.”
 

She meant every word she said.

The whole episode should have scared her beyond all imagination. Even though she’d somehow found the courage to keep her wits together while she was in the cage, she should have broken down after that. Her nightmare should be plaguing her every night. She should be waking up in the middle of the night, quivering with fresh fear sparked off by the whole event.

Instead, she found it easy to forget about David Morgan.

The only memories she held from the kidnap was the reinforcement that she wasn’t alone anymore. She not only had Kate, she had friends who knew about her past and still defended her. Above all else, she knew that no matter what happened, Dan would be there for her.

She gave Kate a quick hug and left her with Tyler while she went out of the room.
 

Evelyn grinned as she saw Dan leaning against the wall. “Why didn’t you come in?”

Dan laughed softly and led her down the stairs. “While he’s willing to extend the courtesy toward you because of Kate, he won’t be that kind toward the rest of us.”

She looked up at him, wondering what Dan was talking about.

“He’s an extremely private person. No one goes into his room. If we wanted something in his room, he’d get it. He’s weird like that.” Halfway down the stairs, Dan paused and took her hands. “You all right with this? We can just tell him that you don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Don’t worry. I want to help him put them away. If it’s going to take a thousand interviews, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Dan squeezed her hand and lifted it up to his lips. “Sometimes I forget how amazing you are. But promise me, any time during any of these interviews, if you get upset or if you just need some fresh air, let me know.”

“I promise.”

They headed down the stairs and saw Detective Allen speaking to Mr. Sawyer.
 

Ben and Tyler had handed over all of their own and Lydia’s findings to the police. Mr. Sawyer had convinced Detective Allen that everything was legal, and they wouldn’t have a problem using the information they’d found. He even found some precedents on evidence provided by civilians being admitted for court trials.
 

When she had decided to help Lydia on the case, Mr. Sawyer began keeping tabs on everything they were doing to make sure that they wouldn’t end up getting into trouble with the law.

She remembered Mr. Sawyer talking to Ben at length, asking in detail how he obtained the information and so forth. She’d thought Mr. Sawyer was merely being curious, but in fact, while they dove head first into the case, Mr. Sawyer had made sure that their backs were covered.

“Hi, Detective.”

“Hi, sorry to disturb you. I was actually here to update Mr. Hayes about the case, but since you’re here, I thought…”

“Don’t worry about it. What can I do for you?”
 

They moved over and settled on the couch.
 

“Let me give you the good news first. The DA is sure that we have everything we need to put David Morgan away.”

“But?” Evelyn asked. Whenever someone wanted to give the ‘good news’ first, there was bound to be a ‘but’ behind.

Detective Allen took a sip of his coffee and sighed. “We can’t find anything to link any of the cases to Richard Morgan. We went through the house and the office, but couldn’t find anything on him.”

“David Morgan admitted it when we were in the truck.”

“We only have his word. Besides, he’s keeping his mouth shut now.”

Her hand twirled the phone she was holding as she thought back on everything that David Morgan had said. She was sure Richard Morgan was behind it all. There must be a way to prove it. “The camera in the truck was being transmitted somewhere. He was watching. Whenever David Morgan got too chatty, Richard Morgan would call.”

“It was streamed to a computer in David Morgan’s office. The security camera was switched off. We can’t prove that Richard Morgan was in the office.”

“Then how did he see us? He kept calling just moments before I heard Melissa screaming. He must have seen Dan and Melissa going into the building.”

“Circumstantial at best,” Mr. Sawyer said.

“Look at the old cases. David Morgan said something about his father screwing things up. That was why Kate’s father could take them to court. He didn’t say exactly what Richard Morgan screwed up on, but whatever it was, it must be something damning.”

“That case revolved around one witness, Suzanne Harrison. She was the one woman who got away. When Mr. Mitchell died, Suzanne Harrison backed out, and the case went cold. I tried looking her up, but she simply insisted that she didn’t want anything to do with it and slammed the door in my face.”

“Then why was only David Morgan charged?”

“The evidence wasn’t strong enough. I think Kate’s father was trying to deal with David Morgan first, then see if he could turn David against his father,” Mr. Sawyer said.

Detective Allen nodded and said, “It seems that way. According to the statement, David Morgan tortured her. She was kept in a room without windows, so she didn’t know how long she was held captive. It was only after she escaped that she realized it’d been over a week.”

“How did she get out?” Dan asked. “They were all strapped to the chair.”

“She couldn’t remember. She was pretty doped up. All she remembered was Richard Morgan strangling her and she passed out. He must have thought she was dead, but she woke up a while later and caught him off guard, then ran out to the road.”

“That sounds pretty damning to me!”

“Problem was, she was heavy on drugs. She couldn’t get the details of her escape right. It would be easy to refute her claims.”

There must be a way. After all that they had done, both of them should get punished. “What if David Morgan confessed?”

“If I’m on the defense, I’ll say I know nothing about it, and he’s just pushing the blame so that he can escape the death sentence. All you need is for the old man to shed a few tears or choke up when he’s speaking. No jury will send a frail old man away or issue a death sentence unless they see something concrete.”