Chapter 17

While Trina waited anxiously for Hank to come, she scanned the letters and laid them out on the floor of the living room, trying to figure out an order. There were two with orange paint smudges. She knew when the walls were that color so she set them down in the middle. One letter had an edge of the horrid bruise puce the walls were now. Feeling the paper for brittleness, she laid the rest out, hoping the dryness of the air in the Rocky Mountains would give her hints to the age. Reading one the scanning printer spat out, she chewed her lip as she read it. She wanted to chew her nails, but five years of nursing had broken her of ever touching near her mouth with her hands.

"Hey."

"FUK!" Trina turned and stared at Hank Richmond. "Don't fuking do that!" She spat the profanities at him.

"Woah, babe, easy. The door was unlocked and you didn't answer." Hank walked over to her looking worried as he stepped over the scattered papers. "What is all this?"

"My crazy aunt evidently wrote down a bunch of her drunken rants." Trina pulled one off the tray as another scanned. "Miranda and two other mother's confronted Winston. She shot him, wounded him, then another mother killed him. My mom was there, I think... I think that is why she was murdered; she was going to tell the truth." Her hand began to shake as she looked at the papers on the floor of the living room. Blinking back her tears, she laid the paper with two others then walked into the kitchen.

Looking after her, Hank bent down and began reading the three pages together. They were all written in red marker and only on one side of the paper. The words reminded him of when he read a poem called the Jabberwocky in school. Nonsensical but oddly terrifying.

"Come and eat," Trina called softly from the other room.

Walking into the office, he took two more pages off the tray and carried them into the kitchen.

"How many have you found?" Hank asked as he sat down.

"So far there are only sixteen, but we know there were several journals, like the composition books we used in school. Miranda wrote them. Meri says when she was drunk." Trina set a Dr. Pepper with a lemon slice in it by his plate.

"And you're sure she shot Winston?"

Nodding, Trina walked back to the living room then returned, holding out a piece of paper. "This was one of the first ones we found. She... She was molested, raped as a child, so she blamed herself for not protecting Char for the same monster. She sounds insane."

Hank lowered his spoon as he read. He began to breathe in shallow gasps. "I... I want copies of all of these... Do you have a safe place to hide them?"

"Yes."

He ate in silence as Trina took the pages back to the living room and placed them down. It was a sickening feeling, but his stomach was chewing on his spine and Trina's excellent cooking brought a little solace to his soul. She came in and fixed herself a glass of lemonade. Summer or winter didn't matter, she had always loved lemonade.

"Hank, if I'm..."

"I got the..."

They talked over each other then both laughed quietly.

"We aren't related," Hank murmured.

"Oh, thank gawd." Trina sagged onto a stool. "Uhmmm, but you might have a brother in town."

Hank's head jerked up. "What?"

Taking his bowl and plate to the sink, she rinsed them. "The night of the cotillion, Meri was in the library and overheard your dad arguing with a woman about your sister dating her son and that she would go to the police and have your mother arrested."

Hank rubbed his forehead. "That makes four."

Trina gawked at him open-mouthed. "Four?" She followed him back into the living room.

"My father has had at least four affairs that resulted in children that I have found after dating your mom in high school. I have three half-sisters and now a half-brother somewhere." Hank shook his head. "I always knew he was a hound but... And if that woman threatened to have her arrested, it is probably because Mom beat the crap out of two of his mistresses, but Louis never charged or arrested her."

They stood side by side staring at the papers spread out on the floor.

"So is there an order to Miranda's madness?" Hank bent to look at one row of the four-by-four grid.

"That's what we are trying to figure out. I know about when three were written because there is paint on the pages but the rest... honestly, I am just guessing." Trina pointed at the empty half of the bookshelves framing the stone fireplace. "There are several full sets of encyclopedias. Meri and I numbered them and have posties of where they were found. Colt found the first under a dresser drawer, so we went through the furniture first then one fell out of a book. We'll do the rest tomorrow."

"Can I get copies?" Hank asked again as he moved from page to page.

"Sure, but don't tell anyone else about these. I'll email them to you," Trina promised.

"Your secrets are safe with me." He smiled at her in the way that used to make her feel lightheaded.

She blinked, then looked back at the bookshelf. "If we find any more, I'll send you those too." She was still hurt by the way he broke things off with her after her mother's murder and the way his sister tormented her before and afterward.

"I'm sorry," Hank reached out to touch her arm then dropped his hand. "I... I should have told you what my father said... I should have stopped Heather from bullying you."

"You were sixteen and I was seventeen." Trina sighed because she didn't want to talk about those months. "I won't say it's fine because it wasn't, and it never will be. I've had therapy and you told me why you did what you did. I forgive you, but it still hurts. We were just too young to know how to deal with everything that happened." Picking up the papers and sticking the posties on them, she tucked them carefully into a plain manilla folder, silently hoping he would get the idea to leave. When he didn't move, she glanced toward him and saw he was watching her with the same lovesick eyes he had all those years ago. "It's late, Hank. You need to go home and get some rest, and I need to go to sleep, I have a virtual class in the morning."

"Trina... I..."

"Don't. We know the truth now. We aren't related so the whole 'you can't date because you're siblings' lie was just that, a big fat lie. Your dad didn't want us to date because he and Mom used to date. It's his baggage, not ours."

Bowing his head, Hank wanted to refute her, wanted to tell her he never stopped dreaming about her. The fact that what they did might be incest had tainted every memory of his first and only love. Now that the truth was there, he didn't know how to undo the pain he caused her. "I'll keep digging around in the old records, but I am certain there's nothing at the station. Is there anywhere else your dad might have kept files?"

"We gave you everything he had here." Trina clutched the folder of pages. "Honestly, he probably destroyed everything a long time ago."

Shaking his head, Hank refuted her, "I don't think so. He was talking to someone from the CBI."

"CBI?"

"Colorado Bureau of Investigations... I think... I hope he was about to reveal what really happened with Winston Winslow since there is no longer a statute of limitation on sex crimes against minors." Hank walked ahead of her to the door and put on his coat. "Your uncle was trying to make things right for you, for Charlene, for all the girls that monster hurt. If Layne, Miranda, and one of the other moms killed him and your dad covered it up, then I'm glad. I just wish they had told the victims so they would stop going crazy from it."

Trina slumped as he opened the door. "Those who went crazy killed themselves and the rest of us got therapy. We're survivors, we're recovering."

His breath made clouds in the air. The way he squared his shoulders made her hesitate to close the door. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

He nodded. "No one but my parents and your parents knew this... Heather was victim zero. He started drugging and molesting her from the first week he was in Veil Falls. He hurt her for two months before the mother-daughter trip where he assaulted the rest of you and began hurting Charlene. When she gets home from rehab next month, she wants to talk to you and her. Everything... all her bullying, the drugs and alcohol, the sex binges... She told me those were the only times she felt in control of anything in her lifeafter those months... She acted out because my parents tried to hide it from everyone, including me. It was happening two doors down from my bedroom and I never knew." Guilt colored his words with his impotence to protect his sister while he was still a teenager.

Trina gaped after him as he walked to his truck and then drove away. Closing the door, she sank to the floor and cried. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that someone who had suffered the same thing she had, had chosen to push another almost to suicide rather than show support or care after a shared experience. That any woman would treat a fellow rape victim the way Heather had treated all the other victims was unfathomable. Shaking, she stomped into Miranda's former home office and put the folder down. She knew she wouldn't sleep, so she went into the living room, climbed the rolling ladder to the top, and began pulling the next set of encyclopedias off the highest shelf. Carefully, she flipped through the pages of books that held the knowledge of the world looking for the red-scribbled rantings of an alcoholic while knowing neither would hold any answers for her.

~~~~~

Hank Richmond arrived home two hours later than the usual time for the end of his evening shift. He was surprised to walk into the guesthouse he was using and find his father sitting in a recliner. Hank set a six-pack of Black Bear Mountain microbrew bottles on the counter.

"You're late."

"I stopped to see a friend."

After several minutes of silence, Arnold sighed heavily and sipped his scotch and soda. "You haven't been the same since Louis and Miranda died with their son."

"Louis was my mentor and Chuck was my friend because I was his mentor. I promised Merideth and Charlene I would watch out for him," Hank half lied as he opened a beer.

"I didn't realize you were so close to the DuBois girls," Arnold responded.

"Chuck was the little brother I never had... at least, the one I knew about." Hank couldn't help the dig at his father.

"This again?" Arnold sounded disappointed. "And you don't have any brothers."

"Don't I?" Hank leaned against the bar, refusing to sit down for the discussion. He had been beyond using manners with his father anymore.

"No."

"Then who were you arguing with the night of the cotillion? You were overheard arguing with a woman about her son dating Heather." Hank was rewarded with his father standing suddenly.

"It wasn't about Heather. It was about you and Katrina Dubois. I told you, I was dating her mother when she got pregnant, and she kept the baby instead of having an abortion when my mother offered to pay for it."

"She's not my sister," Hank snarled at him.

"She is."

"No, she's not. I told her what you told me. We sent in our DNA. We aren't related but you already knew that. You just didn't want me to date her after Layne was murdered," Hank refuted, when his father looked about to protest, Hank cut him off. "Don't! I saw her body and her house. She didn't die of an overdose. She was strangled with a piece of fabric or a belt... Where were you that night?"

"Oh for fuk's sake, Hank! I did not kill Layne."

Hank held his father's eyes. "Did Mom? She left to go to some spa the next morning and didn't even say goodbye."

Flinching, Arnold picked up his drink, finished it in three gulps, then walked over and put the glass on the counter with a loud knock. "You need to stop seeing us as the bad people in Vail Falls. All we have ever done is try to keep our community safe."

Hank laughed but there was no mirth in the sound. "Safe? Safe for who? Heather? Charlene? Trina? I loved her, I have never loved anyone else, and she will barely speak to me after all the shyte Heather put her through. After you made me abandon her, the day after her mother was murdered."

"Hank... If this is about getting back into bed with that trashy..."

"No, I'm not you! I am going to figure it out for Heather and all of them. I will find out what really happened to Winston Winslow and to Layne DuBois, and to Louis and his family. I am going to figure it out and you are going to have to kill me to stop me. Now get out of my house, I pay the rent Mom asks, and have a lease."

Arnold grabbed his arms. "Listen to me. A drunk driver killed the DuBois family. Layne Dubois overdosed, and Mr. Winslow fled the country. If you start making up things to ease your conscience for what happened to your sister, and create wild conspiracy theories to justify your hostility toward everyone in our community, then I won't be able to protect you."

"Who are you trying to protect me from? Or are you just trying to protect yourself and the precious Richmond reputation, Mr. Mayor?" His hatred for his parents and all the miserable secrets he was forced to keep boiled in his tone.

Arnold stepped back as though Hank had punched him. He looked haunted to Hank but instead of answering Hank's questions, Arnold shook his head and walked out of the guesthouse.