Mad Man, page 20
Avi took his hand. “Just say it, kitten.”
Felix closed his eyes and sighed. “You know the case we’re working on with Aiden. The girl who was raped?”
“Yeah…” Jericho said, his voice taut with something. Concern? Fear? Rage? “Did somebody hurt you?”
“What?” Felix asked. “No. No, not me.”
Felix watched the tension drain from Jericho’s shoulders, but he took Atticus’s hand just the same. How the fuck was he supposed to say this?
“You know how I used to eavesdrop a lot on Mama’s and Dad’s conversations?”
“Uh-huh,” Jericho said carefully.
“Please, don’t be mad at me,” Felix said.
“Mad about what, didi?”
“One night, I was up late when I heard them all fighting. Mercy was crying and angry, and Mama was doing that thing she did when she was scared and angry, so she just defaulted into disappointment. Just making that face that made you feel like shit. You know the one.”
Jericho nodded.
“Mercy was fourteen. She’d snuck out.” Felix could feel tears trailing down his cheeks, but he ignored them. “She was…messy. She had dirt on her legs and her shirt was kind of untucked. She was trying to get them to listen to her, but they just kept telling her she was going to be punished, and then she said it. She said somebody raped her.”
Jericho made a sound like somebody had punched him in the diaphragm. “What?”
Felix couldn’t say it again. He couldn’t. So, he just continued like Jericho hadn’t said anything. “Dad got mad. He just kept saying she never should have snuck out and started talking about her clothes and her lipstick and how she’d put herself in danger. And Mama was still making the face and, instead of defending Mercy, she just told her to go to her room and clean herself up. Then she told her not to say anything to us and that in the morning the three of them would go to church and light a candle for her attacker.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jericho muttered.
Felix collapsed into sobs, holding himself. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry. I know it’s the reason she started running away and the reason she got into drugs and pr-probably the reason why she’s dead.”
Jericho was suddenly in front of Felix. “Didi. You telling me what happened wouldn’t have changed anything. The damage was done. They’d already screwed up. You know how stubborn Mercy was. She did what she always did. She stuffed her feelings down and she medicated herself to forget. You were a little kid. It wasn’t your job to say anything. It was theirs. They fucked up. Not you. Not me. Not Mercy. Just Mama and Dad.”
It took Felix a long while before he could stop the tears. Avi was right. He did need somebody like Zane for emotional support. He had a lot of feelings. Too many for one person to bear.
“Why tell me all this now?” Jericho asked finally.
“Because nobody believed Mercy. They blamed her. Said she brought it on herself. Nobody believed Carradine either. And she overdosed because of it. Just like Mercy.”
“Mercy didn’t OD,” Jericho reminded him gently.
“No, but the rape made her turn to drugs, and drugs were how she found her way into the situation that ultimately killed her. Just like Carradine. Now, somebody is avenging Carradine’s death and I want to help. I want all of us to help. There are ten men walking free, so fucking smug about how they got away with it. How they shut her up. I want them all to hurt. I want them all to pay.”
“You want us to kill them?” Atticus asked.
Felix shook his head vehemently. “I want to destroy them. I want to find whoever’s setting up these men and offer to help. I want them to die screaming, and I want them exposed for the disgusting trash they are. I want the world to know what they did to her.”
“Why are you coming to us with this? Why not go straight to my father?” Atticus asked. “Do you think he won’t see the merit in this case? I assure you, this is exactly why my father does what he does. Not just to eliminate bad people but to punish them. Thomas is an atheist, but he’s a big fan of an eye for an eye. You won’t have to push him too hard to see things your way. But you have my vote if you need it.”
“And mine,” Jericho said, voice raw and expression shell-shocked.
“You know you have mine and Asa’s and Zane’s,” Avi reminded him.
Felix nodded, rubbing at his suddenly itchy eyes. “I need this. Carradine deserves this.”
“Thomas will see things your way,” Jericho promised.
“And if he doesn’t, we’ll just dangle Aiden in front of him as a distraction and go around him,” Avi said, as if the matter was solved.
For a moment, Jericho looked like he might object, but then he shrugged. “Yeah, sounds like as good a plan as any. We’re going to get dressed. Meet you at the big house?”
Felix nodded, letting Avi help him up from his seat. They started to walk to the door when Jericho crushed him into a hug. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered in his ear again.
Then he was gone, hurrying to the bedroom and slamming the door with enough force to startle the cat. Felix stared at the closed door, chewing his bottom lip. He knew his brother was on the other side doing his own version of spiraling. Raging.
Atticus knew it, too. He looked at Felix. “Go on. I’ve got him. We’ll see you at the house. Give us an hour.” There was the sound of glass exploding on the other side of the door. Atticus grimaced. “Maybe two.”
Felix started to protest, but Avi gently took his upper arm. “Come on. Let’s go talk to my dad. Let Atticus take care of his husband. Okay?”
Felix swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d thought telling Jericho would make the ache in his chest disappear, but it was suddenly so much worse. “Yeah, okay.”
In the elevator, Avi wrapped his arms around him, resting his chin on the top of his head. “It’s all going to be okay. I promise. You did the right thing by telling him. You shouldn’t have to carry that shit alone.”
Felix shook his head. “You saw him, though. He looked destroyed.”
“No, he looked surprised. He needs time. That’s all. Trust me, okay?”
Felix did trust him. With his life. But Jericho was his only flesh and blood family. He didn’t want to be the cause of his pain. “I feel like all I did was burden him so I could unburden myself.”
“Stop. I don’t know anything about burdens or anything you might be feeling about Mercy. But I do know about secrets. Big ones. I know that those types of secrets are easier to carry when the weight is distributed evenly…among family.”
The Mulvaney secret was huge. And dangerous. And the implications far-reaching. If even one of their secrets got out, it would cause a ripple that would suck down all of them. But Avi was right. The Mulvaneys worked because they all worked together. All carried the secret together.
“I need this to go my way,” Felix whispered.
“Leave it to me, kitten.”
Felix tightened his grip on Avi’s waist. “Okay. I think I will. Just this once.”
“Good.”
When Avi and Felix arrived in the war room, the entire family was in attendance, including Zane and Asa, who had apparently saved two seats beside them. When Felix dropped into the seat next to Zane, he leaned in to ask, “Are these meetings always like this?”
“Sometimes, there are donuts,” Avi said helpfully.
“Oh…” Zane muttered, giving Felix a confused look.
Felix patted his head just as Avi had done the day before. Zane was…sweet. Felix said he was ‘touch starved.’ They’d bonded fiercely in just one night and the writing was on the wall. Zane was Felix’s new favorite pet. There was no other way to put it. He stroked him and snuggled him and leveled a glare at Asa anytime he even hinted at teasing Zane about something.
Felix hadn’t seen Zane order for a man to be buried alive and he hadn’t seen how fiercely he’d demanded that creepy game bro be brutalized. With Felix, Zane was soft. He smiled shyly, talked about nerd things like video games and comic books, things Felix clearly liked, too. It made something unknot in Avi’s stomach knowing the two of them would be there for each other in a way Avi and Asa maybe couldn’t.
When Jericho arrived with Avi’s brother in tow, he looked like he’d rallied from their earlier conversation. He didn’t look carefree, exactly, but he didn’t look like somebody burdened with a terrible secret, not like Felix had looked when he’d confided in Avi.
Thomas stood, leaning against the table, legs crossed at the ankles. He was dressed in what he considered casual dress, which was a pair of white pants and a navy sweater, like he was expected on the deck of a yacht later.
He seemed relieved all his children were present and accounted for, even Archer. Even when Noah looked around at the others with wide eyes and said, “I think we’re going to have to invest in a bigger table.”
“Or stadium seating,” August suggested drolly.
Thomas rolled his eyes. “We’re all here, Calliope,” he said, then asked, “Aiden?”
Aiden? Avi’s stomach dipped wildly at the way Thomas said Aiden’s name. He wasn’t the only one who noticed, the others cutting their eyes at each other, like they weren’t sure where to look. There was a roughness to Thomas’s voice that Avi couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it left him feeling…distressed somehow.
When Aiden’s face appeared on the wall, most of those in attendance acted like they’d seen a ghost. It probably felt like they had. Aiden had seen all of them off and on individually, but on his turf, not theirs. With the exception of Atticus and Jericho’s wedding, he hadn’t been home since he’d helped get rid of Noah’s abusers. The family thought he’d been avoiding seeing Thomas in person but, according to Aiden, that might not necessarily be true.
Thomas had vehicles out there. Resources. Aiden had seemed to imply that their paths crossed in Washington, either intentionally or accidentally, which was definitely news to Avi—and judging by the reaction of the family—news to them as well. Watching the two of them watch each other made Avi feel like they’d all been fucking blind not to notice it before.
“Woah,” Zane whispered. “Who’s that?”
“Aiden.”
Zane watched Thomas staring at Aiden’s face on the screen. Aiden seemed to be doing his best not to look at Thomas but there was no missing the way his gaze seemed to gravitate back.
“Yeah, that tracks,” Zane murmured.
Had Asa told him about Aiden and their dad? It wasn’t hard to see something was happening in front of them. The tension between them was sucking the air from the room.
Felix leaned into Avi’s space, hissing, “He shaved.”
Avi gave a slow nod. “Yeah, he cut his hair, too. And I’m pretty sure that’s the only shirt he owns that he bought in the last decade.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Aiden said, voice strained.
He was in his office in front of his murder board, looking like he was about to give a presentation to a class.
“This is fucking weird, right?” Zane asked Felix.
Felix nodded. “Yeah, totally.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “Okay, since this is Aiden’s case, I figured he would be the best one to break it down for us. Along with Avi and Felix, of course. Once we hear all the evidence and get this properly vetted, we’ll go from there.”
Aiden cleared his throat, then pointed to the first picture. “This is Douglas Madsen. I was hired by him after he was accused of murdering this woman, Abby Vandergrift.”
“Which, spoiler alert, he did,” Felix said.
“Yes,” Aiden agreed. “All four men accused of killing these victims actually did kill them. However, we believe they were drugged by a form of scopolamine called Devil’s Breath. It makes people not just susceptible to suggestion but unable to refuse it. Whoever dosed them demanded they kill their victims, and they were unable to say no.”
August frowned. “But the men and their victims are the bad guys…and girls?” he added as an afterthought.
“Your brother saying bad girls is off-putting,” Noah said, loud enough for all to hear.
August rolled his eyes but said nothing. Aiden nodded. “Calliope, can you take this part?”
“Sure, sweet cheeks.” A picture of a pretty young girl with blonde hair and a cynical gaze popped up on the screen. “This is Carradine Simmons. She was seventeen years old when she had the misfortune of being invited to a youth leadership conference with these boys.”
Pictures then appeared of ten men, both as teens and as adults. Four pictures were circled.
“These four men here are our supposed victims,” Calliope said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “These boys convinced Carradine to go to a hotel room with them during the conference where they drugged her using scopolamine and then forced her to participate in her own rape, recording it not just for fun but to implicate her if she told, which she did.”
“What the fuck?” Noah seethed.
“It gets worse. The four victims of these men were all complicit in silencing her.” Abby Vandergrift’s picture blew up on the screen. “The rape crisis counselor encouraged her to stay quiet.”
A doughy-faced man appeared beside her. “Dewey Canaan, her guidance counselor, threatened her scholarships.” An older woman appeared on screen. “Muriel Agostino, the reporter who leaked her rape tape and smeared her in the media.” A young girl with a pinched face popped up next. “And finally, her best friend, Crystal Ratree, who was appropriately named since she was the one who was feeding the reporter information on Carradine.”
“Um, why do we care that these people are dead?” Lucas asked.
“We don’t,” Felix assured him. “We want to find who’s doing this and offer to help finish the job for them. If these men get out of prison, Carradine’s avenger is not going to stop and they might get hurt. They’re clearly not professionals.”
“How do we know it’s not the girl herself?” Adam asked.
“Because she died of a drug overdose,” Avi answered.
“Do you know who’s avenging this girl?” Archer asked. “I don’t understand how we’re meant to help if we have no idea who’s behind all this.”
“Calliope?” Aiden asked.
“I’ve combed through the girl’s life, and I have found one person who fits the bill,” Calliope said. “There weren’t many people in this girl’s life outside of family. Her mother died of cancer at age forty. Her stepfather is in a nursing home for disabled veterans. Her father appears to have disappeared while she was still in diapers. But she had an uncle who was a CBRN specialist in the Army.”
“A CBRN?” Zane asked.
“Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear specialist,” Calliope said. “With a resume like that, whipping up a batch of Devil’s Breath doesn’t seem to be a big stretch.”
Atticus frowned. “Would a military man go through this level of subterfuge? It seems a rather elaborate set up. They’re taught to shoot first, ask questions later, no?”
“Well, the man is in his sixties, he’s on disability, and he would probably prefer not to spend the rest of his life in prison. Besides, he’d likely get caught before they were all dead,” Calliope said. “And I think he means to take all of them out. This is a man with a kill list.”
“But why make it so obvious?” Jericho asked. “Four men being framed in the same way and having the same story seems like a pattern? Something a defense attorney could easily ride to an acquittal.”
“We have a theory about that. We think he’s hoping that framing these men will force them to admit why they’re being framed, possibly in open court, on the record,” Aiden said.
“The plan is shaky,” Asa muttered. “Real shaky.”
“Are you saying you don’t think it’s him?” Felix asked, voice primed like he was ready to fight.
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying that whoever set this up is leading with his heart not his head. When shit gets emotional, that’s when people get sloppy,” Asa said.
Noah sat forward. “Calliope, you said Carradine died when?”
“Around two years ago,” Calliope confirmed.
Noah fidgeted with a pen in front of him. “I mean, the timeline adds up. I could see this taking two years to plan. Maybe Carradine hadn’t wanted revenge. Maybe she wanted to forget. I know that’s why I did drugs. To forget.”
Adam put a hand on Noah’s back, rubbing circles until the tension seemed to melt away. It was always weird seeing Adam comforting Noah. Maybe because Adam only comforted Noah. Of all the psychopaths in their family, Adam was perhaps the most textbook of them all. In some ways, he was colder than even August.
Adam only cared about Noah’s feelings. Just Noah. Every decision Adam made had Noah at the center of it, and nobody really could say why. Nobody knew what it was about Adam and Noah that they recognized in each other, but it had to be something nobody else possessed, because if Noah left Adam, Avi was pretty sure Adam would burn everything down.
“So, what do we do? Just waltz up to his front door and tell him we know he’s a murderer and we want to play, too?” Jericho asked.
They all looked at each other, Asa finally saying, “Yeah, like, we could.”
“That’s the plan?” Atticus retorted. “Confess to total strangers that the Mulvaneys are trained assassins? What if he’s not the killer? Then what? We’re running out of brothers to marry off unless Dad wants to take one for the team.”
“Atticus.” Thomas said his name like a warning.
Atticus looked startled but also sullen. “What? Oh, I’m sorry, are we not supposed to acknowledge that every person who ends up knowing our secret is either wed or bred?”
Asa spit out his water with a surprised cough. “Damn. You’re just putting your sex life out there for the whole world to see.”
Atticus glowered at Asa. “I was referring to Cricket having the twins.”
Asa smirked. “Whatever you say, Freckles.”
Atticus turned beet red, puffing up like he was about to lose his shit. Jericho put a hand on his shoulder, giving Asa a look. “Don’t make me beat your ass in front of your whole family.”
