Page 137 of Tear Me Apart
“I’ll tell if she calls. Promise. But I need to tell you something first.”
“What’s that?”
“Mom had letters taped to the back of her dresser. I was snooping, and I read them. They were between a woman named Liesel, and someone called V. The V person was writing from someplace called University Hospital.” She takes a deep breath. “V is Vivian. And I think Liesel is Mom.”
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The furor grows. When the media find out Dr. Juliet Ryder, CBI, is in ICU clinging to life after being poisoned, the stories begin to coalesce. They are careful to use the wordallegedlyin front of everything to do with Lauren Wright.
Allegedly poisoned... Allegedly murdered... Allegedly stole...
Zack wanders the halls with Kat by his side, feeling utterly impotent. There is nothing he can do here except watch and wait. Pray for a quick and non-lethal outcome. Avoid the entrances and exits, where reporters lurk like starving wolves. The police are taking apart the Wrights’ house, looking for the letters Mindy mentioned.
Online and on air, the sort of gleeful befuddlement that follows any great criminal unveiling is underway. Twitter and Facebook explode. Tips come pouring in. Sightings abound. Talking heads are pulled in. No one has any idea what they’re talking about, but talk they do.
* * *
By 10:00 p.m., Lauren Wright is a household name.
And despite this myopic attention, nothing pans out.
No one has seen her. She has disappeared.
A statewide BOLO has been issued. The airports have been alerted. The CBI have added her to their Most Wanted list, which gains extra attention from law enforcement officials across the state.
Zack is disconcerted to see his own face, and Vivian’s, flash on the screen every few minutes. The photo of him is from his Army days. He is in uniform, unsmiling, shoulders broad, a beret cocked over his right eyebrow, his jaw square.
He barely recognizes himself.
He barely recognizes Vivian, either. The photo is not one he remembers. She is very pregnant, hands cradling her belly, a smirk on her lovely face. Someone close to her took this, he is certain. But who? And where did the media find it?
The guilt he’s stashed deep in his soul bombards him.
It is his fault. It’s always been his fault.
Mindy has finally fallen into an exhausted sleep, with a little help from Dr. Oliver, whose latest check of her levels says everything looks good, but they need to keep her stress down, so he slipped her a Mickey in the form of a mild sedative. She might be mad tomorrow, but for now, everyone’s tension has gone down a notch. Her body needs rest to heal. Without her, none of this matters anymore.
Juliet continues to hang on. She is still unconscious, now purposely so, but her blood gases are returning to normal levels, her blood chemistry’s getting back into line. The fomepizole is working. The dialysis will continue until morning, and she’ll stay intubated until they see the extent of the damage to her lungs. Tomorrow, they’ll talk about taking out the breathing tube. Letting her wake up. Getting the whole story. The patience needed for the next twelve hours seems impossible to bear.
Jasper has been slumped in a chair outside Mindy’s room, staring at the ground, his hands between his legs, for the past few hours, refusing comfort or conversation. He is utterly, completely defeated.
The police report in frequently about their finds at the house. Bottles of ethylene glycol have been found in the garage. One in particular has his wife’s fingerprints on it. A teacup in the dishwasher has traces of the chemical in it. There is a bottle of Ativan in the bathroom cabinet, prescribed by Dr. Oliver to Lauren Wright, only last week. The count was thirty, there are now only three left. No letters are found. Lauren must have taken them with her, afraid to have any tangible links to her past discovered.
Jasper is clearly a man who can’t believe what’s happening, but the story that’s emerging from the evidence is clear. Lauren is in possession of every aspect of a capital murder charge against her sister.
Motive. Means. Opportunity. And the worst—premeditation.
Parks and Starr have briefed Zack in detail about both crime scenes—his old home in Nashville, and the Wrights’ house on the mountain. Despite the evidence, despite the assumptions, nothing fits. Lauren’s DNA at the Nashville crime scene means only one thing, and everyone knows it, but it makes no sense. Or it makes a perverse kind of sense, which is what the media has latched onto.
Only two people have any answers. One who might be able to shed any light on where Lauren was and what she was doing seventeen years ago lies intubated in a hospital bed, fighting for her life. The other has disappeared.
Zack has to admire Lauren, in a way. How she managed to orchestrate stealing his daughter and kept it a secret from everyone around her for seventeen years is nothing short of miraculous. And when she’s found out, instead of trying to deny it outright or play dumb, she simply, cold-bloodedly, removes the obstacles in her path.
Gorman, for one. His accidental death is being reopened as a possible homicide.
Juliet, for another. Attempted homicide is a nasty charge.
What’s confusing to everyone—why she didn’t just try to kill Zack, too? The answer is beyond him, and he’s not the only one interested. Everyone is fascinated by how a loner suburban wife can hide herself so thoroughly. At least every ten minutes, the question comes up from one of the law enforcement people:Where is she?And the even grimmer news people:Is she still alive?People tend to kill themselves when their more horrifying secrets come out, and many of them do so in a show of strength and fury, taking out people around them. The news warns people again and again not to approach Wright if she’s spotted. They don’t know if she is armed, but she is undoubtedly dangerous.
