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I, along with Rock, Reid, and Lacey, heard Roy’s story for the first time.
“How could you have kept that inside for so long?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Roy said. “I buried it so deep, I guess. All this time, I knew there was something in there, something fucking with my mind, but I kept it buried, let it come out in my artwork. The only way I could deal with it.”
“Did our father do something to you?” Rock asked. “Something to make you forget?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Reid stroked his chin.
“I don’t know. It’s clear as day now.” Roy rubbed at his temples. “Dad and Father Jim came running toward the elevator, and…” He closed his eyes. “Finally, the doors shut. All that time I’d been trying to get them to close, but they wouldn’t. Then, just in the nick of time, they did. That’s all I remember until…” He squeezed his eyes shut harder.
“Until what?” Reid asked.
“I remember going up in the elevator. I remember the door opening into the lobby. I remember the girl running out screaming. Then it all went black.”
“You probably fainted.”
“No. I didn’t faint.” Roy rubbed the back of his head. “I woke up later with a throbbing headache and a bump on the back of my head.”
“Someone knocked you out,” Rock said, “and I’ll bet you the Wolfe fortune I know who.”
“It couldn’t have been Dad,” I said. “He was somewhere else. Down…”
“Are you saying there’s a lower floor to our building that none of us know about?” Reid asked.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is the elevator shaft broke and I fell. When the doors opened, I didn’t recognize where I was. And there wouldn’t be a naked woman running around on any of the other floors. Dad was down there. He couldn’t have been the one who hit me.”
“So there’s Dad, Father Jim, and some unknown assailant,” Rock said, shaking his head.
“And the woman,” Lacey added. “Whatever they had planned for her, she escaped it. None of you ever heard anything more about this?”
“I wasn’t around,” Rock said.
“And I never heard a thing,” Reid added. “I don’t even remember you having a concussion, Roy.”
“Neither do I, really,” Roy said.
“A concussion can sometimes cause some retrograde amnesia,” I piped in. “Maybe that’s what happened to you, Roy.”
“Or Derek could have drugged you,” Lacey offered. “A lot of drugs can make you lose the several hours before you actually took them.”
“Maybe,” Roy said. “Dad couldn’t have let me remember. What if I’d gone to the authorities? He’d have been finished.”
“Or not,” Rock countered. “He probably owned the authorities.”
“Then how could he be remembering now?” Reid asked. “No, this was something he buried intentionally. What that detective said is starting to make sense.”
“What?” Roy asked, still rubbing his head.
“Hank Morgan. He said some of your artwork showed signs of psychosis.”
Roy stood. “What?”
“Relax.” Rock’s voice was oddly soothing. “We didn’t believe it. We don’t believe it.”
Reid nodded. “I only mean that it makes sense that some of your art is dark. It must be how you dealt with this all these years.”
Roy sat back down and rubbed his forehead. “My painting. The one in the lobby… I know what it means now. I found the key.”
I smiled, wishing I could take him in my arms and comfort him.
“It doesn’t matter how or why you remembered,” Lacey said. “It only matters that you did.”
She was right. Roy would be okay now. The road might be dark and bumpy, but he’d be okay. And I’d be at his side.
“In the meantime,” Lacey continued, “I guess we find this secret lower level in this building.”
Icy bumps erupted on my arms. We sat in a building with a secret.
A big secret.
“First thing next week,” Rock said, “we’re bulldozing this motherfucker to the ground.”
“We can’t,” Reid said.
“The hell we can’t.”
“Dad had a way in,” Reid said. “We’ll find that. My guess is he isn’t the only one who knew how to get in.”
“Father Jim?” I asked.
“Maybe. If Dad trusted him with that knowledge.” Reid loosened his tie.
Why was he wearing a tie on Saturday?
“Well,” Lacey said, “this all has to wait until after the memorial service next week. You all need that to happen to make it look like you give a shit the bastard’s dead.”
Reid nodded. “Plus, Father Jim will be there. Give us a chance to get information out of him while he’s not on guard.”
Roy tensed visibly at Father Jim’s name. So did I.
“We have a week.” Roy stood, his countenance still rigid. “Then we find whatever our dead father is hiding here and put an end to this hell once and for all.” He turned to me. “Let’s go.”
“Are we done here?” I asked Lacey.
“Yeah. Go home. Take tomorrow for yourself. You deserve it. Next Friday is the memorial. We’ll all need our energy to get through it.”
