Page 139 of The Mercy Chair

‘Noah and Grace had always hated me, Sergeant Poe, but it wasn’t until after I’d sat in the mercy chair that I understood why . . .’

Chapter 121

‘Have you any idea what it was like to grow up in that family?’ Bethany asked Poe. ‘Noah and Grace were insane. I understand that now. The punishments, isolating the three of us from children our own age, the constant need for approval from Cornelius and his acolytes, none of that was normal. But back then I thought it was. I knew they favoured Eve and Aaron over me, of course. They didn’t try to hide it and, apart from during the final few months, Eve and Aaron did everything they could, bearing in mind they were children as well, to mitigate the worst of Noah and Grace’s excesses. They brought me food, they warned me when they heard something bad was going to happen. Gave me enough time to get out of the house.’

‘That’s why you kept running away?’ Poe asked.

‘Noah and Grace were always arguing about me, usually over who hated me the most. Sometimes one of them would get so incensed with me that Eve would fear for my life. When that happened she would smuggle me through her bedroom window. Cover for me as much as she could.’

‘But you kept returning.’

‘They might have been certifiable, but they also lived in a country with laws. They couldn’t just cancel me like I’d never happened. I was on databases and school systems. There were birth records. In other words, despite them wishing otherwise, Iexisted.’

‘And people would look for you if you suddenly stopped going to school. They’d start asking questions.’

‘Exactly. So Eve, sometimes Aaron, would get me out of the house. Keep me safe from their rage. We’d wait until they had calmed down. I’d return then.’

‘Why bother?’ Poe said. ‘You had an awful life. Why keep returning to it?’

Bethany gave him a side-smile. ‘Because of him,’ she said, flicking her thumb in Aaron’s direction. ‘He was a delicate child and without me he wouldn’t have survived school.’

‘Alice said the same.’

‘She was a good friend and it was her I turned to when I had nowhere else to go.’

‘She never stopped looking for you.’

‘You’ve said. I like to think we could have been more than friends in a different life.’

‘How did we get to this?’ Poe asked. ‘You three seem to have had each other’s backs. What went wrong?’

Bethany nudged Eve with her foot. Not gently. Not hard enough to cause an injury, but with enough force to bruise the skin.

‘Her,’ she said.

‘Me?’ Eve protested. ‘What did I do?’

Bethany smiled at her sister then turned back to Poe. ‘Teenage hormones,’ she said. ‘That’s what went wrong, Sergeant Poe. Teenage hormones that parents like Noah and Grace were singularly ill-equipped to deal with.’

‘I’m not following you?’

‘Aaron and I were close. Always had been. Eve was the eldest and, because Aaron was immature for his age, they didn’t really have anything in common. It inflated the age gap between them. Aaron and I were much closer in age, and we became friends as well as siblings. When Eve went through sexual maturation, she no longer saw me as her little sister.’

‘What did she see you as?’

‘A rival,’ Bethany said. ‘She was a fast developer sexually, the first to have “naughty hair”, as Grace called it. When it became apparent that Noah and Grace were more likely to eat a weasel than let her have a boyfriend, she turned her eyes to her own brother. Aaron was the only male available to her, but Aaron and me were close. Far too close for her.’

‘You and Aaron were never sexually active though,’ Poe said. That’s what Israel Cobb had told him. He’d said that Aaron had become infatuated with his younger sister, but it had been unrequited.

Bethany vehemently shook her head. ‘Never. Our relationship was as it should have been. We were siblings, nothing more.’

‘But hedidsteal your underwear,’ Poe said. ‘It was why you ended up in the mercy chair. Your parents sacrificed you to rid Aaron of his obsession.’

‘Aaron?’ Bethany said. ‘Feel free to chip in here.’

‘Bethany and me never did anything,’ Aaron confirmed, his eyes still wide with terror.

‘I don’t under—’

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