Page 67 of Moonshine Kiss
“I don’t know why I took the pictures,” she said, rising gracefully from the settee. “I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe I wanted to show them to Callie when she was better. To remind her that there weren’t any answers in the dark, that she needed to fight whatever monsters plagued her.”
“What pictures, Mrs. Kendall?” I was feeling the buzz in my blood again.
She crossed to the wall of built-ins near the windows.
“I know my daughter did this to herself. I know in my heart of hearts that she hurt herself one last time. I knew it when she didn’t come home by curfew. No one believed me. Until you.” She gave me a long look before leaning over and unlocking a file cabinet.
She pulled out a file. “Maybe they’ll listen to you.”
My hands wanted to tremble when I reached for the folder. There were answers inside. And with those answers, probably more questions.
I opened the file, and now my hands shook. I recognized the arms in the photos. Callie, the girl I knew, had thin arms and long, slim fingers. There was the sterling silver thumb ring she’d always worn. I stared at the pretty, familiar fingers before letting my eyes take in the gore.
Those lovely arms were stretched palm up on what looked like this house’s kitchen counter.
Blood seeped from angry cuts from wrist to elbow. It ran red and pooled on the countertop beneath. Vicious, shallow, mean slices carving through lovely skin. There were scars, some white and some pink, up and down the inside of the arms.
“That’s what she’d do to herself. She said this kind of pain was better than what she felt in her head and heart. Once, she went too deep and I didn’t think I’d be able to stop the bleeding.” Mrs. Kendall’s voice broke.
I closed the folder.
“Why didn’t you ever show these to investigators?” I asked her.
She raised her blue eyes to mine. Calm. Determined. Unwavering. “Because no one believed us. A murder was more salacious, more interesting. If they were going to waste their time searching for a murderer that didn’t exist, it was their own fault. I’ve talked to so many detectives and investigators over the years. Not one of them believes what I know. My daughter is dead, deputy. She did it to herself.”
Again, she laid a hand over the cross. Her eyes remained cool, but the fingers that touched the necklace trembled.
“And I’m relieved,” she confessed.
I blinked.
“I know it’s terrible. I’m a horrible mother. But I couldn’t take her suffering like that. There was no hope for her. Because I would have found it. I did everything I could. Her father and I watched her like a hawk, locked up the knives, checked on her every hour throughout the night. It still wasn’t enough. She still suffered. Until she finally stopped. My daughter is dead, deputy. And I won’t let her ruin another family over it. Please, take the photos.”
33
Cassidy
“Dad.” I burst into his office without knocking and came up short when I realized Detective Connelly was making himself at home in my dad’s visitor chair. It was an hour past the end of my shift. I was supposed to be getting ready for Girls Night Out.
But I had Callie Kendall’s photos.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” I said, trying to decide if the photos burning a hole in that file were worth me demanding they give me some time right now. It didn’t prove anything definitively, but it gave weight to the ignored suicide theory.
“Do you need something, deputy?” Connelly asked coolly.
What the hell. I’d done my investigative duty and turned up something that no one else had in twelve years. “I have some new information on the Kendall case,” I said.
“You?” Connelly asked. “Did your boyfriend confess?”
I wanted to kick his chair out from under him and watch that smug expression fall off his face. “No, sir,” I said crisply. “I spoke to Mrs. Kendall and she provided me with photographic evidence that Callie was harming herself.” To be a bit of an asshole, I handed the folder over to my father instead of Connelly.
My father stared at the photos, his face impassive. But his mustache twitched. He slid the folder across the desk, and Connelly gave it a cursory glance.
“Deputy, why were you talking to the victim’s mother?” Connelly asked. There was an edge in his voice. But I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was an officer of the law involved in an investigation. I’d investigated.
“I saw a vehicle in the driveway when I was doing my patrol and had a couple of questions.”
Connelly closed the folder and set it on the edge of my father’s desk.
