Page 59 of Shiver

“No, son, there isn’t. That’s what you have failed to understand. It’s her. It’s always been her.” William shook his head.

His words wrenched loose a deep fear in Riley. No, it wasn’t possible. “Someone has been stalking her, things have happened.”

“Things she could have done on her own?”

Riley thought back to the raspberries smeared across his windshield and the way she disappeared that day when he was in the treehouse. He supposed she could have done it. “No, I was attacked at my house.” And there was a man at the hospital speaking with Nurse Jenkins, the man who had Devra’s locket.

“I don’t have all the answers for you,” William said. “I only know what happened here.”

“But you had your own daughter committed to a sanitarium?”

William leaned back in his chair, his eyes hard, his tone cold. “Don’t pass judgment on us. You weren’t here. You didn’t see what she’d done to that poor boy. You didn’t see the state she was in afterward.”

Lydia swiped the tears from her cheeks. “We’ve always done what we thought was best for Devy. That’s all, nothing less, nothing more.” She rose to clear the table.

Riley tried to understand, but he just couldn’t get past the image of Devra thirteen-years-old and locked in an institution. No wonder she kept herself isolated from people. No wonder she couldn’t trust.

“There wasn’t enough evidence to prove she killed that boy. They released her back to you, back into your care.”

“That’s right, and that’s when her nightmares started. Terrible dreams that would have her sitting up in bed at night, screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Her head full of disgusting visions straight from hell itself. Chief Marshall would come by every few days to check on things, to harass us because we still had our child, while his was buried down at Pearson’s Cemetery.”

Riley looked him square in the eye. “She didn’t do it. If you have any information about what did happen here fifteen years ago, please help us. Help her.”

William paused and suddenly the years of pain and suffering showed in every line on his face, each fold of his skin, and Riley knew this man had endured more than any man should ever have to bear.

“My daughter isn’t right in the head, son. You heard what she said about the others. Where she goes, death follows. She can’t help it, she was born that way.”

Riley had heard enough. There wasn’t any more any of them could do here. “I feel sorry for you, Mr. Miller. Devra is a warm, caring person with a big heart. She loves children and she loves animals. She volunteers every week at the Children’s Hospital, reading to the kids, helping them through their suffering. She isn’t a cold-blooded killer, and she isn’t mentally insane. If you knew your daughter at all, you would already know that.”

He left the kitchen and followed the path out of the front yard and into the woods, heading toward the river. His head ached and his nerves were fried.

My daughter isn’t right in the head, son.

He’d sounded so certain, so sure of himself.Devra. An ache rumbled inside him as her name whispered through his mind. What if he’d made a mistake? What if she really was sick? What if she had to go back to the sanitarium?

He closed his eyes, as the image of cold granite and tall iron fences entered his mind. Now he knew why she was so afraid of being locked up. She had been locked up—in a mental institution.

“Devra,” he yelled. The forest swallowed the sound as if it had never been spoken. Riley moved deeper into the shadows. This forest was different from the woods back home—colder, darker. Even the sky above him was a misty shade a blue. He felt almost as if he’d stepped into an alternate reality, one where he was no longer sure of himself, or of her. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure of anything.

He heard the roar of the river before the sparkling waters came into view. He saw Devra sitting on a rock by its bank, her head bent on drawn-up knees. She looked so small and beautiful, and so much in need of his help. He wouldn’t let her down.

“Devra,” he said, softly.

She turned to look at him. The puffy redness circling her eyes broke his heart.

“You okay?”

She sniffed, nodding. “I’m sorry you had to witness that wonderful display of family love.”

“I’m sorry you had to grow up with it.” He sat down next to her. “I don’t know how you did it. How you survived.”

She took a deep breath. “Neither do I.”

“It’s over now. They can’t hurt you any longer.”

She turned to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I wish that were true.”

He held her for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me about the sanitarium?”

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