13

Amber leaned back on the pillows of the hospital bed. She wore a cardigan over her hospital gown and had insisted on keeping her underwear on. The nurses weren’t impressed, but she had no other way of keeping the pendant hidden. Her left wrist was cuffed to the metal bed guard and a policeman stood outside the door.

Jackson sat by her side where he’d been since they let him into the room. He rubbed her hand. “So you can’t leave?”

She shook her head. “The doctor wants me to stay in for twenty four hours. He said I’m fortunate not to be on suicide watch because I ate the marzipan sweet deliberately.”

“There were extenuating circumstances, honey,” Jackson protested. “Let him try anything like that and I’ll…”

She shook her head. “I’m in enough trouble as it is. Besides, no matter how much I tell the bloke that suicide is only ever a permanent solution to a temporary problem he won’t listen. I still have to talk to the shrinks and so on. Never mind the charges DCI Fraser’s thrown at me. He’s probably bugged the room in case I say something.”

“Paranoid much?” he teased.

“You don’t know the bloke.”

“You don’t either, and while I don’t like the way he’s gone about this…” Jackson paused. “The charges have been laid and he’d be negligent if he ignored them.”

“I guess.”

“We’ll get this sorted and then we can go home.”

Amber sighed. “There are too many charges. I didn’t hurt Joanne or the kids. And I didn’t steal her locket. Joanne gave it to me.”

“So talk to me. I’ll not make rash decisions on the ramblings of some crazy woman who decided the best way to escape wasn’t wait for rescue but eat something she was allergic to.”

Amber looked at him, then away. “Thanks.”

Jackson slid his fingers under her chin and turned her face towards him. “Honey, in my book that is incredibly brave. If we hadn’t turned up when we did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. You’d be dead.”

“I know…” she whispered. “Sure you don’t mean incredibly stupid?”

“Brave,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. “Now, talk to me.”

“My whole life when I was growing up I had nothing. Then for a while I was part of a family and things were wonderful. But then…”

“Honey, Dirk Judge is in jail and he’s never getting out. He can’t touch you now.”

“Wanna bet?”

Hurt flickered across Jackson’s face. “Not really.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, honest. It’s just he has friends in high places and…” She paused. “Then I found Jared and met you, and was settled. Telling someone then would have ruined everything.”

“So you chose to live a lie.”

“Not all of it was a lie. And he found me anyway.”

“Couldn’t you have trusted me?”

“I wanted to. I wish I had now.”

Jackson stood, his face set, hands shoved firmly into his pockets. “I have to go.”

Amber’s stomach clenched. She’d said too much. This was why her secrets had to stay buried. The burden of choice really was no choice at all. “Jackson? Where are you going? Why?” she managed.

“I have to ring work and arrange a flight home.” He kissed the top of her head. “See ya.”

“I tried to protect the kids. Only I didn’t want to fail again and get someone else hurt on my watch.”

Jackson moved back over to the bed. “Say what?”

“I tried to stop him,” she whispered. “But I failed.”

The door opened properly. DCI Fraser came in, accompanied by DI Jenson and another officer who looked like a blond Jackson.

Jackson turned and several emotions ranging from surprise through shock and finally pleasure crossed his face. “Austin? What are you doing here?”

“It’s my case. I had to be here.” He crossed the room and bear hugged Jackson.

Jackson returned the hug. “Amber, this is one of my brothers. Lt. Austin Parker, currently on detachment to the Toronto constabulary, but he’s usually based in Galveston.”

Lt. Parker nodded to her then looked at Jackson. “We found the bodies of Joanne, Julian, Sam and Laurie Judge in the garden of the house yesterday.”

Amber kept her face impassive. This wasn’t news to her. Relieved it was over, she now dreaded what was to come.

“You dinnae seem surprised, Miss Neville,” DCI Fraser said.

“I knew they were dead. And I know how they died because I was there. I watched them die and tried to stop it, but failed.”

DCI Fraser scowled. “Then I suggest you start being honest or I shall add perverting the course of justice, withholding evidence, and murder tae the list of charges against you.”

Amber looked down at her hands.

DCI Fraser pulled a small tape recorder from his pocket and set it on the table. “Dr. Parker, you need tae leave.”

“I want him to stay,” Amber whispered.

“It’s not protocol.”

“He needs to know all of it. Save me saying it twice and it’s not like he’ll be needed to give evidence. He wasn’t there.”

“Fine. But I dinnae want tae hear a word from him, is that understood?”

“Perfectly.” Jackson sat on the bed and grabbed Amber’s free hand.

DCI Fraser started the tape. “Interview with Amber Neville on November twenty-fifth at fourteen twenty. Persons present are DCI Craig Fraser, DI Millie Jenson, Lt. Austin Parker, and Dr. Jackson Parker. OK, Miss Neville. Start with the theft.”

“I can’t. Everything is all mixed up and intertwining. Dirk had been hitting Joanne for years. The bruises never showed, he was too clever for that. He slipped up once or twice but because I was so similar to her height and build I had to pretend to be her at a few work functions.”

“Like the ones you attended here?”

“Yeah.” She picked at her finger nail. “She couldn’t leave him, she tried, and he found her. He had a document written that said if she left him, she’d get nothing in any divorce settlement. He forced her to sign it. If he’d been drinking his temper was worse.

“Julian had gotten into a fight at school and Dirk really got mad at him. Joanne decided she had to leave to protect the kids. I began to pack while she went into his study to get the files.

“He’d turned the dressing room off the bedroom into a study. He’d been laundering money for years, and the police could never pin it on him.

“But she knew where the files were that would prove it. She downloaded them onto a micro card, then she corrupted the hard drive on his computer. She was going to the police for protection in return for her giving evidence against Dirk.” Amber shivered. She could see it all happening again in her mind’s eye.

“Only Dirk came home early and found her in the study. He’d been drinking, but he wasn’t drunk. He found us packing. He and Joanne had a huge fight, but she wouldn’t tell him where the files were. She hid the original paper files under the floorboards in Laurie’s room and put the disk with the computer files on in her locket. I had that for safekeeping.”

“The one he accused you of stealing?” Lt. Austin asked, producing a photograph of the locket. “This one?”

Amber nodded. “Yeah. He wants it back because of what it contains. Joanne told him she was leaving him, that the boys weren’t his. He went ballistic. He hit her. She screamed at me to get the boys out, to call the cops. He put his tie around her neck and strangled her with it. Then he came to find us.”

“Where were you?”

“Hiding with the boys. I tried to get them out, tried to stop him, but he had a knife. He turned on me. Jackson, can you pull up my right sleeve?”

“Sure, honey.” Jackson did as she asked to reveal the long jagged scar running the length of her forearm. He frowned and ran a finger down it. “Honey, did you ever see anyone to treat this?”

Amber shook her head. “I put steri-strips on it and prayed it wouldn’t get infected. It’s not pretty, but it doesn’t bother me. If I’d checked into a hospital, the cops would have gotten involved and Dirk could have caught me. I couldn’t risk it.”

DCI Fraser frowned. “Why not simply go tae the police anyway? Isn’t that what a normal person would do on witnessing a murder?”

“I was scared,” she said. “Besides, it was common knowledge he had at least one of the local cops in his back pocket.”

Lt. Parker nodded. “Hence me being brought in to run the case.”

“When I came around he’d gone and the kids were dead. He was digging in the garden. I pulled the CCTV footage—he’d got cameras in every room. I saved it to a disk and left. But he knew I was still alive because I wasn’t there when he went back to bury the bodies. He found me in Headley Cross. I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know who I could trust.”

“I’d have protected you,” Jackson said. “Nate or David would have done. That is what the cops are for.”

DCI Fraser’s gaze bored into her. “Where is the locket and evidence now?”

Amber reached into the top of her gown. “I kept it safe. Here.”

He took it. “You need tae stay here until I can corroborate this evidence.”

“Can’t you at least uncuff her?” Jackson asked. “I won’t let her go anywhere and you have a guard on the door.”

DCI Fraser nodded. “Fine, but she moves from this room, and I will hunt her down and charge her.” He undid the cuffs. “Freedom of choice does nae mean freedom from the consequences of those choices. You could still go down for your actions, Miss Neville.”

“I know.”

Jackson pointed to the burn on her arm. “What’s that?”

“I said no, and he didn’t like it.”

Jackson frowned. “If I could have just two minutes with the guy, I’d teach him to treat women a little better.”

“He’s not worth it.” Amber gripped his hand. “It’s better to be nice to him, than stoop to his level and use your fists and repay evil with evil.”

“She’s right, Jackson,” Lt. Parker agreed.

“Aye,” DCI Fraser added. “Then I’d have tae arrest you too and I dinnae need the extra paperwork.” He looked at Amber. “Stay here. We’ll be back at some point.”

Jackson looked at his brother. “Austin, can I have a quick word outside?”

“Sure.”

Amber closed her eyes. It was over. Perhaps. If they pressed charges and it got as far as court, she’d end up in prison. But it’d be justified. Because DCI Fraser was right. She’d known what Dirk had done and kept quiet. That made her an accessory. She’d let a monster walk free and withheld the evidence that would put him away. What kind of a person did that make her?

The door opened and Jackson came back in. He moved silently to the cabinet next to the bed and pulled out his phone. He tapped quickly and pulled up an app. “I don’t know about you, honey, but I think we need to sit and read the Bible, and then pray for a while. Put us, the cops and this whole situation into God’s hands.”

Amber nodded. There was something about a man who read his Bible, and prayed, and did so as a matter of course. She leaned against him as he began to read.