Chapter 20

<<Trigger Warning – Violence, murder, discussion of S/A>>

Hank Richmond prepared to leave to go have dinner with his friends before his night shift with the Veil Valley police department. He wanted to talk to them about what his professor said about Miranda's rambling journal pages. He started to get into his truck but stopped, inhaling deeply and turned around. No one else was home and yet for a moment he was certain he smelled his sister's favorite perfume. He shook his head, got in his truck, and drove over to the DuBois mansion. He was shocked when a man who looked like a more red-headed version of Colt King answered. They eyed each other and then Hank noticed the gun on his hip.

"I'm Hank."

"Cody... Have you seen your sister?" Cody's voice was cold, but he didn't move to let Hank enter.

"My sister is in a long-term drug rehab hospital in Arizona," Hank answered as Trina pushed Cody to the side.

"Dammit, Cody. He doesn't know. He's not one of them." Trina pulled him inside. "Heather escaped. Lisa Moore is staying there in her place. She has already told the US Marshals that your mom and Heather paid for her to have a nose job to look more like Heather and that she has spent ten months of the last three years in different places pretending to be Heather."

Hank's jaw dropped as he stammered, "Wh-what are you talking about?"

"Ms. Moore admitted to Charlene, my cousin Trent, and a US Marshal friend of his that the Richmonds have been paying for her to switch places with Heather to give her an alibi," Cody answered as he looked around and then closed the door.

They followed Trina into the kitchen as she said, "She... She was out when Char and Meri's parents and Chuck were killed. When the housefire that killed Mikayla's parents happened, and when Vanessa's grandmother had a car accident."

Hank stopped in shock seeing his fellow deputy sitting at the island. "Adele?" Meri was placing plates in front of those already seated.

"Actually, I'm Vanessa. Mikayla and I both had cosmetic surgery after the Marshal service put us in witness protection. I'm sorry, Hank... But your mom and sister are murderers." She looked at him with such sympathy as the woman next to him nodded.

She had lip filler, a nose job, and eyelid tuck, looking so different, Mikayla was barely familiar to him. Recognizing her as the platinum blonde he had seen riding around town during the last two weeks, he gritted his teeth then admitted, "If they are, then so is my father. I'm sorry about your parents."

"Thanks," Mikayla said with a nod of her head. "My husband saved me. We thought it was someone Winston Winslow hired but then everything traced back to here and we thought he was back. That someone powerful was hiding him."

"Now we know my father covered everything up starting from Winston's crimes to his murder," Meri admitted putting the last plate in front of her husband then sitting, as Colt hugged her to his side.

They were silent for several minutes, the plates of gourmet food sat growing cold. Hank picked up a fork and took a bite, chewed then swallowed but started by asking, "So how do we prove it? Lisa Moore isn't a reliable witness. She has been in and out of rehab since high school and having someone pretend to be someone else in rehab isn't a crime."

"Could we get them on fraud instead of the murders?" Adele wondered.

"No, because my parents have never billed Heather's stays to our insurance." Hank frowned, revealing, "They had always paid full price for her care. It's the only decent thing they have ever done. Paying for the best and most private care so no one will know what they let happen to her."

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Katherine Richmond took a moisturizing bath before she went to her dressing table to begin her moisturizing treatment. Her evening routine was one of the things she always did and her daughter hated her for the perfect image her mother valued above all.

"Mother..." Heather's voice was cold.

Katherine tensed and then sat down. "I see you let yourself out again. How much did you pay Lisa this time?"

"Enough... I have to preserve my alibi and mental impairment disability." Smirking, Heather walked over like a predatory cat and lowered herself onto another chair. She tossed folded paper on the dressing table. "Miranda wrote some very interesting things before she died. I think she was crazier than I am."

Picking up the papers, Katherine unfolded them and read the two sheets. She shook her head. "That dumb drunk just never knew how to let things go. She couldn't even shoot him in the right place."

"Thanks for finishing Winston," Heather replied; her tone was anything but grateful. "You should have told me."

"You were too young to understand, and then you became too unstable. You're better now." Katherine waved the papers, "Where did you get these?"

"The DuBois cousins are remodeling the house. This isn't all of them. I was looking for more paper for the printer when Katrina almost caught me... You promised to make it all go away. You promised no one would know and no evidence would be left once they were all gone. You promised no one else would ever know what he did to me." Heather's voice raised in pitch but became more of a harsh whisper. "No one can know. That's what you always told me, but you let them leave... I can't let them tell anyone else."

"Be patient. They can't leave and they can't sell the house for five years." Katherine began dabbing cream from a blue jar on her face and neck. "That is plenty of time for accidents to happen. In a few years, no one will be left who knows."

"Why bother with accidents? It's taken too long." Heather scooped a dallop out and rubbed it between her gloved fingers. "Did Dad know you killed him? Or Louis?"

"Yes. They knew Miranda and I killed Winston, and that Layne was there. We covered up that you killed Layne, but Louis thought it might have been me. That's why I set you up with that private clinic and gave Lisa a nose job, so you would always have an alibi after the house fire... You're welcome."

Katherine sealed the blue jar and opened a black bottle. She shook some of the elixir into her palm then began rubbing it into the skin around her eyes and lips. She stood and turned off the table lamps then left her dressing room and went into her bedroom before she spoke, "Are you staying in your room tonight? The maids won't be in until Tuesday. Hank is in living the guesthouse and working overnights. Don't disturb him or your father."

When Heather didn't answer, Katherine turned around. She was alone. Shaking her head, she lotioned her feet and put on special socks to keep the moisturizer from getting on the silk sheets. Laying down, she adjusted her sleep gel-mask and slipped on moisturizing mittens. A tap turned on a theta-wave noise machine. She exhaled then inhaled deeply smelling something strange as the sensation of mist settled onto her skin. Suddenly, the skin on her neck and face burned with caustic sizzles. Katherine tried to sit up as she pawed at the skin in agony, but a strong, gloved hand covered her mouth and muffled her screams as someone straddled her. Katherine pushed weakly and fought to place her feet, but the silk sheets slipped under her moisturizing socks.

"Every day for over a decade, I have felt him touching me and waited to feel his blood on my hands, Mother... When I read those pages I realized you took my revenge from me, and I will never forgive you." Heather murmured, watching her mother's face and neck sizzle and smoke under the chemical reaction. The cream from her gloved fingertips smeared on her mother's mouth.

After spraying more of the alkali activator on, she reached over with her free hand and grabbed one of the other pillows then pressed it over Katherine's melting face and screams. Heather blinked against the fumes, looking around the room as if bored while waiting for her mother's struggles to cease. Standing up, she smiled as she peeled the pillow off the weeping, bloody mess. Katherine's expression was horrified in death. The chemical reaction that blistered her skin had eaten through to the bone in a few places. Her leather gloves still sizzled and she looked at them annoyed, before pulling them off inside out.

Leaning over, Heather pressed a kiss on the top of the sleep mask. Her voice light and childish, "It's okay, Mommy, I won't make you look in a mirror everyday for the rest of your life after you've been scarred like you made me."

Silently, she walked through the house. Stopping in her room, she took another pair of gloves from her closet. She threw the ruined ones in the toilet and flushed. Her father was sitting in his study looking at the overseas markets. Arnold didn't even look up when she walked in.

"Go away. I don't want to fight tonight."

"But didn't you miss me, Daddy?"

Arnold's head jerked up and stared at her. "Heather? Why aren't you in Sedona?"

"I released myself on my own recognizance... I heard about Louis and Miranda. Sorry, not sorry," sneering, Heather walked around his desk and leaned against the edge.

His look warned her to not have a fit. She looked around at the handmade leather legal volumes in the room. Staring at a set on inheritance laws, she had read every one of them. "So Hank lives in the guest house now?'

"Yes."

"You never let me live in the guest house." Heather pouted. "Like you never told me Mom killed Winston."

Arnold hesitated while typing then leaned back. "We couldn't tell you, you know why."

"Did you ever think I might need to know he was dead?" Heather complained angrily. "I spent years afraid he would come back... Thinking he got away." Her hands shook as she clenched them hard enough to stretch the leather.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. We didn't tell you because we didn't want to upset you further. We didn't know what he was doing to you." He bowed his head , looking truly regretful. "Your mother and I have done everything we could to protect you and help you recover without exposing the events of those months. No one will ever know."

"Hank knows... The DuBois family knows. What if they tell someone? What if they humiliate me again?"

"Your brother has Louis's misguided sense of justice. Once he learns Winslow is dead, he'll give up the investigation to protect your mother." Arnold sounded grumpy. "As far as the DuBois girls are concerned, their parents are dead, and I am looking into loopholes so they can sell the mansion and leave again."

Heather tipped her head back, letting tears leak down her cheeks. 'You'd let them go without punishing them for humiliating me? Leave me to take the risk that they'd tell someone? Don't you love me?"

Grumbling, Arnold got up and walked over to the wet bar and poured himself another scotch. "Enough! You killed Layne because you thought she was going to go public! Don't pretend like I don't know it was you who ran Louis and Miranda off the road and killed an innocent boy. Chuck was only..."

"He! Knew!' She hissed at him. "Mother promised me no one would know. I can't stand it. I can't live with the fear people will find out. I can't let them tell anyone else!"

"You can't keep killing people! Didn't you do enough to them in school? If you hadn't told anyone, if you hadn't bullied the others or murdered Layne, Donna, and Selene, it would have gone away. But, no! You just had to act like your mother and then turn into an alcoholic like Miranda. Everything that happened after his death is your fault for not getting over what happened." He gulped the smokey amber liquid then slammed his glass down. "Gawddammit. Why do you women have to be so dramatic? It's just sex, it means nothing."

Her tears stopped. Heather became still. She blinked at his back slowly as he poured another glass of scotch over ice. Her hand slid into the thigh pocket of her leather pants. The blade she slid out opened silently. The phone rang on the desk, and he walked past her to pick it up.

"What is it, Hank?" Arnold demanded. His eyes flicked in annoyance at Heather while she held the switchblade behind her leg. "Katrina and Charlene DuBois are traumatized young women who are grasping at straws to explain the delusional rants of their alcoholic mother... No. Your mother and sister haven't killed anyone... Yes, I know she isn't in Sedona... Because she is standing in front of me... She..." He gasped in pain as she stabbed him in the neck, then she took the phone from her father.

"Hello, little brother... No, Dad's fine. We're just sitting in his office talking... Can you come home? There's something I need to tell you. Bring Trina and Meri with you... I know who killed Winston, I want to tell them in person." She hung up and then blinked at her father clutching his neck, trying to hold in the scarlet liquid. It looked like his fingers were disappearing into the wound. "Mom promised me no one would know. After they're gone, I only have to go to San Diego and find Charlene, then I'll be free because no one will be left that knows."

She took her father's cell phone and broke it in half as it started ringing again. Her brother's name flashed on the screen before it went black.