Oliver: Forbidden: Paranormal Romance, page 12
They talked on into the sunrise. Quincey was very calming, Oliver thought. He was also highly intelligent. Not that he had thought the man was stupid, but he knew a great deal about a lot of things. Quincey also asked for him to invest some of his money for him, which Oliver agreed he’d do for him. It was the very least he could do to thank him for all he’d done for him. Quincey was okay with that too.
When David came down a little after seven, Quincey asked him for a bit of his blood. After agreeing to give him some and making it happen, Quincey said that he would return sometime tomorrow. After he left, Oliver and David sat down to a nice breakfast of ham and eggs, talking and touching one another until they had to leave to pick up Lyle.
~*~
Lyle wouldn’t want to ever go through that again if he could help it. The trip to the house was painful, as well as stressful. He was afraid to make any noise when he was hurting, and biting his lower lip had caused it to bleed a little, which scared him.
“You’re going to be just fine.” He must have heard that a million times on the way to the house. And almost the second that he entered the house, the pain really did seem to lessen. “It’s the magic that you now have.”
Oliver explained what had happened and what was going on with him while David put the things away that the hospital had sent home with him. There wasn’t a great deal—mostly it was pain killers—but knowing that he was going to be better sooner than he had thought made agreeing to stay home for a few weeks much easier to take.
Having the magic, however, didn’t make him feel any less exhausted. Closing his eyes, he heard his name said softly and turned his head to the sound. He asked who he thought was his grandpa if he could come back later, he was going to take a nap. But the laughter that came after that had him looking at the stranger standing beside his bed.
“You’re my father, aren’t you?” Dad nodded, then sat down on the side of the bed. Like when his grandpa did it, there wasn’t any pain or other sign of him being there. “I heard that you were coming to see me. Grandpa said that my mom murdered you.”
“She did. However, for now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you how you’re doing.” Lyle grinned and told him he was doing much better now that he was home. “I can see that. I did go by and see you a couple of times while you were laid up in the hospital, but you were resting then too. I really wanted to talk to you today, so I’m sorry that I woke you.”
“You can wake me anytime you want to talk to me. I’m glad that you came to see me. Grandpa gets me laughing, then I can’t rest. I don’t think it will be the same being at home, but he would get me laughing so hard I’d not be able to rest for a few hours. I miss him too.” Dad said that he did as well. “I bet that you guys hang out a lot, don’t you?”
“We can. There are people here that he can visit that I can’t. If we didn’t know each other in life, then we can’t speak to them in death. I don’t know if I like that rule or not. It’s something that I guess we all on this side have to get used to.” Lyle told his dad that he could talk to Henry about it. “I know of him as well. There is a man that can frighten a ghost nearly to death, if you understand what I mean.”
“I do. He said that he’s more powerful than he used to be. Now he can send people on their way if they mess up. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about things that can get the dead into deep trouble.” Dad put his hand over his, and Lyle could feel the coldness of it. “I’m sure that you want this too, but I wish that I could hug you again. You died when I was so young that it’s hard for me to remember much about you. I’m sorry about that.”
“Sunshine did that to us. She was upset because I was working harder than she thought I should. I don’t know where she thought the money we had was coming from, but there is a cause and effect to working.” Lyle told him that she still didn’t seem to understand that. “I’ve heard. I understand she’s in jail now. Along with your grandma.”
“Yes. Grandma confessed to murdering Grandpa, so she’s going to have a trial about that. Plus, the things that she did to Uncle Oliver. I confessed to a lot of things too, but they said because I was a minor, and Mom and Grandma forced my hand in it, then I can’t be tried as they are. Having Uncle Oliver helping me with that has been nice. He’s a lot better man than I was ever led to believe he was.” Dad told him that he had always liked Oliver. “I wish I had known him when I was younger. He might not have almost died had I been a lot nicer to him than I was.”
“I understand that. But I also want you to think about the person you are now. A son that I’m very proud of. A man that has realized his own mistakes and has done something about them. Your mistakes were what you did because of the way you were raised. Am I glad that you were like that? No, I’m not. That is something we must talk about, too, I guess. But before I tell you the events of my murder, will you allow me to come and see you again? Even if what I tell you upsets you?” Lyle told him that he was his father. “And Sunshine is your mother. But you’d not want her around, would you?”
“No. No, I’d rather she ended up in prison for the rest of her life. I want you to come and see me whenever you want, Dad. I promise, whatever you’ve done or think you’ve done that is bad, we’ll figure it out. Uncle Oliver taught me that. That nothing is so terrible that confessing to it won’t help.” Dad nodded. “Tell me. I want to know how she did this to us and why. I’m not saying that I’m good at this investigating stuff yet, but perhaps we can find a way to get someone to notice that you were killed by her.”
“I was leaving her.” Lyle felt his heart hurt a little when he said that. “Not without you. I was taking you with me when I finally got the nerve to leave her. She was an abusive person well before you grew up enough to notice. The things she did to me and to you would have killed a lesser person, I think. It did me. And you have no idea how happy I am daily since dying that you were in your car seat when we were rammed off the road by her. Otherwise, Lyle, she would have killed us both. Now I think that was her plan all along. To kill us both. She had no more use for you than she did for me at that time. And your grandma, she was there as well.”
“You were taking me away from her?” Dad nodded. “I thought you had left me there when you wrecked your car. That’s what she told me. Not that I believe her anymore, but she said that you were drunk and that you tried to take me with you when you left to kill yourself. That your plan was to kill me as well so that she couldn’t have me.”
“No. No, son. That’s entirely not true. First of all, I have never drank a drink of alcohol in my life. It was something that I never wanted in my life because my parents were both alcoholics. I swore that I’d never put up with it being around me when I grew up. But she was the one that did this to us.” He said that he was going to start at the beginning. “Your mother was in jail when you were born. I think she’d been getting abortions all along when she found herself having a child. But with her having to spend ninety days in a cell, it was too late for her to get rid of you when she was released. Then, and this is where I’m so very happy about the turn of events, no matter what she did to try and lose you, you hung on like you were never going to be born until you were ready.”
“She did tell me all that time that I wasn’t anything that she wanted, but since I’d not get away from her, she ended up keeping me. I didn’t know what that meant until now.” Dad said he was sorry that she had said that to him. “So, what happened when you tried to leave her with me?”
“It wasn’t the first time I’d tried. No, I’d tried four other times before that night. Each time she would call the police or her mother, and they, together, would cause me so much pain in trying not to let you get hurt that I’d end up in the hospital. But that night, your mother came home covered in blood, she was telling me how she’d helped her mother kill off a bastard. I didn’t know who it might have been. I died, so I never figured it out until going to this side. But it was your grandpa.” Lyle knew that he was going to say that, and it saddened him so much to have lost them both so quickly. “I had you in the car and was pulling out of the drive before Sunshine got out of the shower. We had made it. That’s all I could think about as we drove away from that house. We were going to be safe, and you were going to be all right once we were settled again. You were such a good boy, never fussed at all about being dragged out of your bed. Nor did you make a sound when she started bumping us from behind in Honey’s car.”
Lyle knew that everything he was saying was true. Henry had told him that the dead cannot lie to the living. Nor can they blame someone for their deaths if they didn’t do it. So if a dead person suspected someone of killing them and they hadn’t, they’d not be able to say their name. But Dad had not only said their names but his as well.
“I tried going faster, but that only scared me more. If I were to have an accident at the speed I was going, I knew that we’d both be hurt. I think on that now and again, how perhaps if I’d taken the chance and gone faster, we would have been all right.” Dad looked at him and said he was sorry before continuing the story again. “We were headed around a bend that I knew was much too sharp for us to be speeding. As I started to slow down, Sunshine rammed us again, this time hard enough that I was tossed forward, and not only hit my head on the windshield but broke the steering wheel with my chest as well. I was dead even before the car started tumbling down the embankment. But I couldn’t leave you. Couldn’t figure out a way to get you help until your grandpa came along, dead as I was, and helped me find someone to find us.”
What Dad had said just occurred to him. “Are you telling me that she left me in the car after knocking it over the embankment? That she never went to find out if either of us was alive?” Dad shook his head. “She left me there? To die?”
“She did.” Lyle felt the hot tears of betrayal roll down his cheeks. “The man that saved you was a good older man. He carried you up the hill and started along the road to get you help. His truck that he’d driven to the accident was about a mile up the road. He parked there so that he’d not be hit when cars came down the hill too fast.”
“He died before he could tell anyone where the accident was.” Dad nodded again. “I saw that in the paper. That someone had taken me from Mom, and the man who had kidnapped me had died after taking me from my home. They never found the car.” Lyle looked at his dad. “They don’t know that you’re dead, or that you were murdered, do they?”
“No one alive knows the entire story except your mother and grandmother, and now you. I’m still in the car. No one has bothered to find me since that day. I think, from what I’ve heard Sunshine telling people, that when your grandpa was found murdered by an unknown hand, people just assumed I’d done it, then had left town to avoid being caught. I loved that old man. I would never have harmed him.”
Lyle laid there for hours after his dad told him that he had to leave. Something about the level of energy that it took for him to talk to him. Lyle was still trying his best to accept the fact that his own mother had left him to die. Like he wasn’t a thing to her. Which, he just realized, he had never been.
Armed with the information he now had, including the whereabouts of his dad’s body, Lyle picked up his new cell phone and called his new Uncle Forrest. It was time to get some justice for his family, both for his dad and grandpa, and his mother and grandmother. He wanted his dad to have a resting place, and for his mother to rot in hell. Yeah, he thought, she could rot in hell for the rest of her long or short life. He was finished with her.
“Uncle Forrest? I was wondering if you could come by and see me. I have something important to tell you.” Forrest said that he and Jake were about to have dinner, but they’d come by as soon as it was over. Then he asked him what was going on. “I just talked to my dad. I know where his body is. I know who killed him and my grandpa. I want to make sure that my mom and my grandma pay for their deaths. As well as them leaving me there to die too.”
“We’re coming over now, son. You tell your uncle that we’re on our way.” He said that he would. “I’m bringing Henry too. He’ll be able to help us a little more than you can right now. Thank you for calling me.”
“I want them to pay.” Forrest told him that they would. “They killed them both and left my dad there to die all alone and still in his car. I want them to pay.”
By the time he put his phone back down, Lyle was sobbing. His dad had tried to save him. In turn, he’d lost his life doing it. Calling for his new fathers, he told them what was going on. Before he was finished telling them what he knew, Forrest and Jake showed up. It was going to be a long time, if ever, before he would want to speak to his mom again.
Chapter 9
Sunshine wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but she’d been rousted out of her bed at six this morning and told to get her face washed. After that, she was hustled down the hall with chains around her ankles and her wrists, then clamped together in the middle. There wasn’t any way for her to scratch her nose in this get up, much less walk very fast. As soon as she was chained to the floor of the van, they were off.
“Your mom is going to be there too. She’s being taken in another conveyance.” Sunshine pointed out that this wasn’t nothing but a van, nothing at all that should be called a conveyance. “It’s a conveyance if I say it is. You just sit there and keep that trap of yours shut, and I might give you the information that you will need when we arrived at the courthouse.”
Sunshine didn’t care for this particular cop. She was bossy and wouldn’t have enough sense to get out of the rain if it was pouring down on her head. Leaning back enough that she could look out the window, she saw the second van behind them. Why they didn’t put them together was beyond her.
As soon as they pulled up in front of the courthouse, Sunshine couldn’t believe the number of news vans and people. She wondered what was going on that would bring out so many people. As soon as she was out of the van and being taken in, the news people started shoving mikes in her face. If they asked her anything, she didn’t understand it. They were all talking over each other. The others—the bystanders, she thought they might be called—were also yelling at her and her mom when she was out of her van.
Signs were also being held up. Burn the Bitches. Hang Them. And the one that confused her the most, The Dead Don’t Tell Lies, was being waved around like a giant fan to cool off people’s tempers.
They were seated in rooms with a lone cop when they were taken in. Sunshine wished that she’d paid more attention to the cop in the van about why she was here, but it was too late now. Trying to get the cop that was with her to give her some answers was like talking to the wall. He only stood there staring at her with his hand on his gun, like she might get away from being chained like a dog.
When the door opened, two people walked into the room. She thought the taller man was someone she should know, but when they introduced themselves to her, she wondered why a judge was here and not in the courtroom like she thought that he might have to be.
“Ms. Graham, there are several things that I’m going to ask you about. But first I would like to inform you that Lyle has been adopted by his uncle. He has also agreed to change his name to Lyle Moody. You will not be allowed to be in contact with him. Nor will you be able to write him. Understand?” She said that he lied. “I assure you that I’m not. Here is a copy of the paperwork. It will be taken to your cell when you leave here so that you can read it over.”
“Lyle is my son, and that fucking bastard is the reason that I’m in here in the first place. I want my brother to fucking help me out of this.” The two of them just stared at her. “Did you hear me, shit for brains? I want my brother to come here and get me out of this mess and hand over my son.”
“I’m afraid that with recent events, there will be no one that can get you out of this. We got a tip that told us where to find the body of Anthony Graham.” Her blood suddenly ran cold. “He was murdered by you and your mother on the day that he disappeared.”
“No. He killed my father, then ran off when he thought that he could go to prison for it.” Jake shook his head. “You tell me who told you that bullshit and I’ll talk to them. They have it wrong. I had nothing to do with him running off with my kid.”
She watched their faces as smiles started to form. Sunshine tried to think what it was that she’d said that they found so funny. Whatever it was, she hadn’t any idea how to cope with this right now. Sunshine had to think and do it alone. She’d never been one to think on her feet, and now, with all this being thrown at her, she was afraid of making a major mistake.
“I never mentioned that he was running off with your son, Ms. Graham. I only said that his body had been found. The man that was accused all those years ago died trying to save your son. The son that you left in the car the day that Tony left you after you came home covered in your father’s blood.” Sunshine told them that they were putting words in her mouth. “I’m afraid that won’t cut it either. You volunteered that information. Damning information, too, I might add.”
“I want to go back to my cell. You’ve confused me, and I don’t care for it. And Lyle is my son. My only child.” He pointed out that he was the only child that she had allowed to live. “Where the fuck are you getting this from? Not from anyone I know. No one would dare tell those sorts of things about me.”
“No, perhaps not the living. But you have no idea how forthcoming the dead can be. I’ve been speaking to your husband. And to your father. They have a much different story to tell than the one you’ve been spreading around.” She would believe just about anything right now. If they had this much detail and knew the whereabouts of her husband, they were certainly talking to someone, dead or alive. “We’re here today to charge you with murder in the first degree. Attempted murder of a minor child. Kidnapping. Abuse to a corpse. You are also being charged with—”
