Page 72 of Unburied

Rage simmered in Mason's veins at the sight of the pistol pressed to the side of her face. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. He knew he had to stay strong, but he could hear her uneven breaths from where he stood several feet away, and he could see her trembling in his peripheral vision. He needed to stay calm, needed to focus on the situation at hand. He couldn't get distracted by her fear or he would snap and do something stupid.

Slowly, he held up his hands placatingly in front of him. “Okay, okay. I’ll go.”

Not taking his eyes from Harrison, Mason put one foot behind the other and slowly backed his way out of the room and down the hall toward the bedroom, moving from memory. Harrison held the gun trained on Vivi, and Mason kept his movements slow and controlled. The last thing he needed was to spook him and have him pull the trigger.

He maneuvered into the bedroom, speaking as he did so. “Tell me what happened. Did you kill Russ?”

Harrison shook his head. “You wouldn't understand.”

“He hurt Christine, didn't he?” Mason asked. “And he was going to hurt Vivi unless someone stopped him.”

Harrison’s eyes flicked to Vivi for a second before returning to Mason's. His face slowly crumpled. “We didn't know.”

“About Christine?”

Harrison shook his head. “We never thought… God. None of us ever imagined he could do that. I'd known him all my life, but I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it. But after he tried to hurt Vivi…”

A cold wave moved through Mason's stomach at the thought of what might have happened. “You did what you had to do. You stopped him from hurting another innocent child.”

“Not me.” Harrison swallowed hard. “Ellen.”

Now it began to make a little more sense as the picture became clear in Mason's mind. “She killed him, and you helped her cover it up.”

The other man nodded. “I did what I had to do. We couldn't go to the police.”

“If you were defending Vivi⁠—”

“He wasn't dead when I got here,” Harrison stated flatly. “She called me as soon as it happened. She was frantic, completely beside herself. I thought he was gone, but he was just knocked out cold. He woke up just after I got here. He…”

A muscle ticked in his jaw as he spoke. “I confronted him about Christine. And he admitted it. How could he do that to her? He was her stepfather. He was supposed to protect her, and instead he⁠—”

Harrison drew a deep breath. “I was angry. I just… couldn’t help it. I remember holding the shovel, then swinging at him. I just… lost it.” He blinked, lost in thought. “After I realized what I’d done… I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t want to. I had to get rid of him. For Vivi, and for Ellen.”

That put a whole new spin on things for Mason. Ellen had incapacitated him, but Harrison had taken things one step further by killing him, then disposing of the body.

“And Tyler?”

Harrison’s lips pressed into a firm line, and he closed his eyes briefly before meeting Mason's gaze again. “I warned him,” he said softly. “He just wouldn’t let it go. He kept pushing and pushing, and…” He shrugged. “He didn’t leave me a choice.”

There was always a choice, and Harrison had made the wrong one. He’d killed an innocent man to keep from going to jail. Every fiber of Mason's being ached to lash out at him, but he forced his anger down for Vivi’s sake. He needed answers to all of her questions, and there was something he still didn’t understand. “Why doesn't Vivi remember any of this?”

“Ellen took Vivi to a doctor the next day. A hypnotherapist. Then a child psychologist after that.” Harrison shrugged one shoulder. “Anyone who would make sure it never came up again. We couldn’t afford to have her remember and risk us going to jail.”

In his peripheral vision, Mason watched Vivi's mouth widen in a little ‘O’ before snapping shut again. “But… all of his things…?”

“Elijah,” Harrison confirmed. “While Ellen and Vivi were out, we erased every trace of evidence that he'd ever been here.”

Mason's heart kicked up in his chest, and he mentally calculated how much time had elapsed. “If you kill us, you’ll still go to jail, even if they don't find Russ’s body.”

Harrison was quiet for a moment. “You know, I've loved Ellen half my life. When she was married to Russ, I tried to see her as just a friend. After his death, I still couldn't be with her. She struggled so much after that. She regretted what happened, and I knew I was the cause of that. She saw me differently, and things were just never the same after that night. I loved her so much, but… he was always between us. Even when he died, he was still between us.”

His face creased with defeat. “It's so hard to see her slipping away. Ellen doesn't know me anymore—she didn't even recognize me the last time I was there. She was the only thing worth living for and now she's gone.”

Mason saw the intent in Harrison's eyes, and he didn't hesitate to lunge toward him as he lifted the gun once more. Vivi’s scream filled the air at the same time the pistol blasted loudly, the sound deafening as it echoed throughout the room.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE