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CHAPTER TWENTY

As Aidan sat beside Niall’s hospital bed, watching his chest rise and fall, he couldn’t help but wonder at the miracle that his anonymous donation to buy Mystic Lake a medevac chopper had saved his son’s life. Two days after the shooting, Niall was still miraculously clinging to life in the intensive care unit at a Chattanooga hospital.

He was in a medically induced coma to help his body heal. But he was breathing on his own now. Seeing him on a ventilator that first day had nearly destroyed Aidan. He didn’t think he could survive watching another loved one suffer the way Elly had. But Niall was young. And he was a fighter.

He’d need that fighting spirit not only to bounce back physically, but to live down the toxic lies the media was spreading. The reporter who’d been staying at the B and B had announced that the Crossbow Killer had been operating in Mystic Lake and that he was now clinging to life at the hospital after being shot by police. Aidan was grateful that his son’s name had been suppressed in the news reports because he was a minor. But in today’s world of social media, someone would leak his name eventually and it would spread across cyberspace.

A tap on the large glass window to the hallway had him looking up to see Grace, looking nervous and somber beside her boss, Dawson, Aidan’s lawyer and friend who was also now Niall’s lawyer, and of course, Niall’s legal guardians, the Larsens.

As if that odd mix of people wasn’t enough to remind him that his son had yet another battle on his hands if he managed to recover, the uniformed police officer in the hallway guarding the door was more than enough to jog his memory.

Grace said something to Aidan’s former in-laws. Judy Larsen hugged her and then she and her husband, Sam, entered the room. They headed directly toward Aidan, barely giving him time to rise from his chair before he was enveloped in yet another of their group hugs.

He was as astonished at their acceptance and support now as he had been at the parole hearing when they’d urged the board to grant him an early release. They’d told the board they were skeptical about his confession, always had been. But that even if he was guilty, they forgave him and were relieved that their daughter was no longer suffering. The fact that they were supporting him even now, and not blaming him for their grandson having almost died, humbled and shocked him.

It also shamed him that they still didn’t know the full story, exactly what had happened the day their daughter died. But telling them now seemed cruel. What good would it serve?

He looked over the top of Judy Larsen’s head and met Grace’s worried gaze. He’d hidden the full truth from her, too. He hated lying, even by omission, especially to her. But he had to keep lying or hurt the Larsens even more.

After giving them a summary of what the doctor had said about Niall’s condition while the two of them had taken a much- needed break at their hotel down the street, he headed into the hallway.

Grace gave him a smile of encouragement and the two of them followed the others down the long hall to the conference room that the hospital administrator had lent law enforcement for their interviews. Aidan had put off answering their questions as long as he could. But with the arrival of the supervisory special agent, Grace’s boss at the FBI, they couldn’t be put off any longer. Especially after Aidan’s probation officer told him he had no choice but to speak to them or risk violating the terms of his parole. He was so tired of the threat of returning to prison hanging over his head. But he had several more years of parole to endure.

After following Grace into the room and shutting the door behind them, Aidan turned around and stilled, shocked to see so many people there, many of them strangers. But it was the only other person dressed in a casual shirt and jeans, like him, who had his stomach dropping.

Stella. She knew—and could prove—the full truth, that one detail he wanted to keep secret above all else.

“Aidan.” Grace touched his shoulder. “Over here.” She led the way to two empty seats in the middle of the long table and took the one on the left for herself, leaving him to sit beside her with his lawyer, now Niall’s lawyer, on his other side.

“Aidan O’Brien,” Grace said, “I’d like to introduce you to Levi Perry, FBI supervisory special agent of the Knoxville field office, my boss.”

Perry leaned across the table and shook Aidan’s hand. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Mr. O’Brien.”

“Did I have a choice?”

Nate subtly nudged Aidan’s foot beneath the table.

Aidan sighed. “Sorry. This isn’t the best time for an interrogation with my son in the ICU.”

“Interview, not interrogation,” Perry corrected. “Any suspicion that fell on you early on during the investigation has been proven to be wrong. What we’d like to do now is discuss a few remaining questions we have that only you can answer. First, let me introduce you to the other people in the meeting whom you haven’t met yet.”

There were several higher-ups in law enforcement for the county, as well as a man in an extremely expensive-looking business suit sitting beside Perry. He was introduced as Raul Garcia, a senior member of the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole.

Aidan stiffened. His lawyer was already pushing his chair back to stand.

“As a reminder, I’m Nathaniel Barnes, attorney for both the suspect—Niall O’Brien Larsen—and his biological father, Aidan O’Brien. If the parole board is here to consider revoking Mr. O’Brien’s parole, then I must advise my client to invoke his right to remain silent. This setting isn’t the proper one for that kind of discussion.”

Garcia held up a hand to stop him. “I assure you, Mr. Barnes, the parole board has absolutely no intention of revoking Mr. O’Brien’s parole. Consider me merely an interested observer at this time.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Garcia. But I’m still advising my client not to speak.” He motioned to Aidan. “Let’s go.”

Aidan remained seated. “What about my son? Niall? I was told the main reason for this meeting was to get my side of what happened and any information that might help explain why Niall did what he did.”

“Mitigating factors.” Perry nodded. “That’s why we’re here, yes.”

“Then I’m staying,” Aidan said.

Nate slowly sat. “This is completely irregular,” he grumbled. “And for the official record, I’m still advising my client to remain silent.”

Perry motioned around the room. “There’s no court reporter here. Nothing is being recorded or written down. There will be no official record of this meeting. And if anyone asks after we leave here today, this meeting never happened.”

Aidan frowned at Nate, then Grace. “What’s going on?”

She cleared her throat. “The Mystic Lake police have already provided their statements. I’ve given mine, as well. We’ve been meeting since Niall was shot, exchanging information and reviewing the evidence. Before the district attorney decides what charges to press against Niall, a barely seventeen-year-old minor, they need to know if there are any mitigating factors that should influence their decision. That’s why you’re here, Aidan. To speak to those factors. To speak for your son. Do you understand?”

He stared into her deep blue eyes, her words replaying in his mind. Then he glanced down the table. “Stella? Is that why you’re here, too? Mitigating factors?”

She nodded. “It has to end today, Aidan. No more lies. No more cover-up. Niall’s life is on the line, his future. They need to understand everything that went into shaping who he is, and what may have triggered him to do what he’s done.”

Everything. That one word sent a surge of panic through him.

Grace squeezed his forearm, recapturing his attention. “It’s time to tell us what really happened the day that Niall’s biological mother died, the day that your wife, Elly O’Brien, passed away. Once everyone understands the full truth, only then can they truly understand what Niall has gone through and why he made the choices he’s made.”

“Mr. O’Brien,” Perry began.

Aidan tuned him out and focused on Grace’s beautiful face. “Did you speak to Stella already?”

“I know that she has an audio recording that she brought with her to play for us. But I haven’t heard it yet.”

He sighed deeply. “I can’t do this.”

Ignoring the potential repercussions to her career, she took his hand in hers. “The truth has been a poison inside you for years. It’s been poison to Niall, too. We just didn’t know that until now. Let it out, Aidan. It’s the only way for everyone to truly heal. And the only way to ensure that Niall gets every chance at going home after he leaves this hospital, rather than going to a detention facility.”

It was her last sentence that kept him in his chair.

“Just tell us what happened,” she encouraged. “Start with the fire, then go to the day Elly passed away.”

He let out a shuddering breath, and began to tell the story that had been stuck inside him for all these years. He spoke haltingly at first, stumbling over the words. But Grace took his hand again, this time beneath the table, and held on the entire time he spoke. Without that anchor, he didn’t think he would have made it.

He told them about the fire at his home, finding out that his wife had run through the flames to save their son. That in spite of her burns, she’d carried him downstairs. Then a burning beam had crashed through the ceiling, breaking her spine and pinning her down, but miraculously not hitting Niall.

She’d suffered horribly, had been mostly paralyzed from the neck down and would be on a ventilator for the rest of her life, however long that was. Her parents had wanted him to stop extraordinary life-saving measures at the hospital and let her go. But he couldn’t. He still had hope that she would defy the odds, prove the doctors wrong.

Months after the accident she was receiving care at home, with two nurses who rotated day shifts when he was at work or running errands. One of those nurses was Stella Simmons, now Holman. At night, Aidan was the one who took care of Elly if any alarms went off on her ventilator.

It was difficult and frustrating trying to communicate with Elly. She eventually was able to barely control one hand. But she couldn’t speak, not at first anyway. Through his research online he’d discovered that a special valve could be placed in her tracheostomy that might allow her to speak once again, even though she was paralyzed.

“And it worked,” he said. “I was so excited to hear what her first words would be. She didn’t say ‘I love you’ or ask to see our son. Instead, she said, ‘Let me die.’”

Perry winced across from him.

“It’s what she wrote on her pad of paper, too. That same phrase. Let me die. She wanted me to end her misery. I know that some people tolerate the vent, that even paralyzed they can live fulfilling lives and still experience joy. But Elly had been so active, athletic. No amount of counseling helped her accept her condition. She was truly miserable.”

He shook his head in self-disgust. “I’m the reason she suffered so long. I could have withdrawn care, signed forms at the hospital to let her die a natural death. But I was too selfish. I’d failed her by not being able to save her from the fire. I wanted to be there for her afterward, convinced my money could buy some kind of miracle cure if she could only hold on a little longer. I was a foolish man.”

“Skipping to the day that she did die,” Perry said. “The version of events you told the police was that you wanted to end her suffering, that you unplugged the ventilator, then waited another ten minutes until the backup battery drained. After her heart stopped, you called 911.”

“That’s the story I’ve told all these years.”

“But that’s not the truth, is it, Mr. O’Brien? Special Agent Grace Malone has insisted to me that you’re innocent. And even your in-laws seem to believe that. Did you kill your wife?”

“What the hell does this have to do with helping my son?”

“Understanding the trauma he may have witnessed or suffered himself can help explain the decisions he’s recently made. It could make all the difference in the charges pressed against him.”

“I’ll tell them what happened.” It was Stella from the other end of the table.

“Don’t,” Aidan said. “Please.”

“Aidan was exhausted that day, as he often was,” she said, ignoring his plea. “He worked long hours and had a five-year-old son to take to day care each morning, pick up after work, feed, bathe. He could have hired a nanny but he insisted on being there for Niall, to give him as normal a life as possible even though his mother couldn’t hold him or help take care of him.”

Aidan squeezed his eyes shut.

Grace whispered soothing words as she continued to hold his hand. He gripped it like a lifeline, both ashamed to be relying on her so heavily and desperate not to let go.

Stella explained that Aidan had come home, gotten the turnover report from Stella, checked on his wife, fed and bathed his son, then put him to bed. Then he’d gone out on the back deck to sit for a few minutes, to unwind, before he headed back upstairs to sit with Elly until bedtime.

“He fell asleep. It’s probably the only time he ever did, fell asleep on that back deck because he was so exhausted. When he jolted awake, he realized twenty minutes had passed. He ran inside the house and upstairs to make sure his wife was still okay. He didn’t hear any alarms going off on her ventilator so he thought everything would be fine. But when he went into her room, he realized everything wasn’t okay.”

“Mr. O’Brien.” This time it was the district attorney who spoke. “I know this is an unofficial inquest, but having your wife’s former nurse tell the story is still hearsay. I’d like to hear the rest from you, especially since this is a whole new version of events that I’m having trouble believing after all this time.”

“It’s the truth,” Stella snapped. “Not a version of events. He didn’t kill Elly.”

“It’s okay,” Aidan told her, a strange sort of acceptance finally settling over him. “I’ve lied for years. I don’t expect everyone to believe me now. But if even one person does, and it somehow helps Niall, I’ll tell the rest.”

He explained that when he entered the room, the first thing he noticed was that his son, who was supposed to be in bed, was playing with toy police cars and trucks by the window. The next thing he noticed was that the cord to Elly’s ventilator was unplugged and that Niall was currently using it to tie up one of his so-called bad guy action figures.

The DA leaned forward. “You’re saying that you didn’t pull the cord on your wife’s machine. Your five-year-old son did?”

Aidan nodded. “But he didn’t realize what he was doing. What he’d done. I told him to grab his toys and go back to bed. I didn’t want him to see what I had to do to help his mother. I plugged in the machine, called 911 and put it on speaker so I could lay her on the floor and begin doing chest compressions, CPR. But it was too late. Her backup battery had died before I came in from the porch. There were no alarms beeping. She wasn’t breathing. Her heart had stopped. Nothing I did made a difference.”

“When the EMTs arrived and tried to resuscitate your wife,” Perry said, “they said you went to check on your son.”

“I had to get out of the way so they could try to help Elly. I went to check on Niall and asked him what had happened. He was still playing with his damn cars and trucks, making beeping sounds. He said…he said mommy played with him, told him she could beep like his cars. She told him…she told him to pull the plug to make the machine go beep.”

There were several sharp intakes of breath around the room.

Grace placed her hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Aidan. I’m so sorry.”

The DA scoffed. “Now you’re not only blaming your wife’s death on your five-year-old son, you’re telling us his mother essentially ended her own life. You really expect us to believe this new story?”

“Well, of course I don’t expect you to believe it,” Aidan bit out. “I never expected, or wanted, anyone to believe it. It was horrific, awful. Can you imagine the pain, the absolute misery my wife felt, how desperate she was to end her suffering that she would actually convince her own child to pull the plug, knowing how that could mess him up later in life, knowing he was responsible for her death?”

He shoved his hand through his hair and tugged his other hand free from Grace to rest his forearms on top of the table. “Elly was miserable. All she asked me to do was let her go, let her die. And I was too selfish to grant her that end to her suffering. Instead, my five-year-old son did what I couldn’t. He ended her pain.”

The DA started to say something, but Perry stopped him. “Mr. O’Brien, if what you’re saying is true, everyone in here, I’m sure, can agree that law enforcement wouldn’t have done anything to punish your son. He certainly wouldn’t have been prosecuted. So why did you confess to your wife’s murder? What was the point?”

Aidan stared at him incredulously. “The point? Did you not hear what I said? He was a little boy. If the world heard that he’d unplugged that machine, that knowledge would have followed him the rest of his life. People can be cruel, horrible to each other. Parents would have talked. Their children would have heard. They’d have teased and bullied him at school. As it is, his grandparents had to move several hours away to raise him because of kids teasing him over his father killing his mother. I made a split-second decision to protect my son, choosing the lesser of evils. I believed it was far better for him to grow up thinking his father was an evil monster than to realize he’d inadvertently killed his own mother. That’s why I confessed. To try to spare him that kind of pain. But even more than that, I was, in my own misguided way, trying to protect Elly, and the Larsens.”

“Your wife and her parents?” Perry asked. “Please explain what you mean by that.”

A single tear slid down Aidan’s cheek. He angrily wiped it away. “Elly loved Niall more than anything. He was her world. If she’d been in her right frame of mind, not blinded by the agony of a life she couldn’t accept, she never would have tricked him into doing what he did. She wouldn’t want that guilt later in life to eat at his soul. And I didn’t want her parents or friends to ever know that she’d done something that would have shamed her. So, as strange as it may seem to someone not in that situation, yes, I confessed to protect both my wife’s reputation and my son. At the time, I felt my life was over anyway. And that because I refused to help her, I deserved my fate. Prison. But after seeing what’s become of Niall, how tortured he was to discover his father confessed to his mother’s murder, I wonder if he’d have been better off knowing the truth from the beginning.”

“That brings us to those mitigating circumstances,” Perry said. “If we take what you just said as fact—”

“There’s no proof,” the DA said, looking extremely skeptical.

“Assume it’s a fact for now. What the Larsens told us earlier is that when five year-old Niall was told that his mother was dead, that he’d never see her again, he shut down. He was never able to answer questions about anything he saw that day because his mind blanked out his memories. But it must have simmered below the surface because he suffered night terrors for years. And he acted out, had all kinds of behavioral issues. His grandparents became desperate to help him. They’d kept in touch with one of his nurses, Stella Simmons, who is now Stella Holman, because they’d grown close in the months that Stella helped care for their daughter. When they asked for recommendations, Stella helped them find a child psychiatrist. And she took him to his sessions whenever the Larsens couldn’t.”

Perry looked around the table as if to make sure that everyone was paying attention. “Let’s skip ahead to the year before Mr. O’Brien’s parole hearing. The Larsens said that Niall as a fifteen-year-old at the time became curious to learn about his father. It didn’t take much internet searching to find out everything that the media had reported. He believed his father killed his mother. And it ate at him. He sent Mr. O’Brien hate mail and in response, Mr. O’Brien had his lawyer contact them to let them know that Niall needed help.”

Barnes spoke up to add a lawyer’s viewpoint to the discussion. “Obviously, Niall O’Brien has been through trauma in his young life even if he’s never had a clear memory of what happened. Finding out disturbing things about his father sent him over the edge. He came up with a plan to have his father sent back to prison where he felt he belonged. He’d heard about the Crossbow Killer on the news and decided to try to frame Aidan as the killer. An adult, especially those of us in law enforcement, would of course know that framing someone isn’t nearly as easy as Niall thought it would be. When his actions didn’t achieve the results he wanted, he became desperate, doing what he could to hurt his father. But I contend that he wasn’t specifically trying to hurt anyone else. He only wanted to hurt Mr. O’Brien.”

“Hold it, hold it,” the DA said. “I’m one of the ones who didn’t hear from Mrs. Holman in the meetings you’ve been having, or from the Larsens. What exactly did they testify to at the parole hearing that you mentioned earlier? If it’s more of this unsubstantiated new story that O’Brien is putting forth, I don’t see where any of that is relevant and will help the younger O’Brien avoid the charges I’m inclined to levy against him.”

“They found out the truth,” Aidan said, his voice gruff with anger. “They testified that they knew that Niall had pulled the plug, not me. I didn’t ask them to speak on my behalf. I didn’t want them to. But they did.”

“Sounds convenient.”

Aidan glared at him. “Convenient? Why the hell do you think my wife’s parents would lie to a parole board? You think they’d want their daughter’s killer out of prison? If you think that, you’re an idiot.”

The DA pointed at Aidan. “Now you listen here—”

“Don’t you dare speak to him that way.” Stella stood, her expression one of loathing as she addressed the district attorney. “ You listen. All of you. Aidan didn’t come here today willingly to tell his story. He came because his parole officer ordered him to, and because all of you asked him. Enough people know bits and pieces about the truth to have pieced it together even though he has tried for years to keep it quiet. As to whether what he’s saying is true or not, I’ve got proof that it is. I brought a recording I’d like to play for all of you that—”

“Stella,” Aidan rasped. “Don’t. Leave it alone.”

“I’m sorry, Aidan. But Grace was right when she said this has been a poison in your soul, and that it’s poison to Niall as well, whether he realizes it or not. The only antidote to that poison is the truth.”

He shoved to his feet. “Then you’ll do it without me.” He strode out the door.

“Aiden, wait.” Grace followed him into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

He turned and she wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tight. Unable to stop himself, even though he knew he should, he hugged her tighter and rested his cheek on the top of her head. Some of the pain and anger inside him melted away at the feel of her in his arms. She was the embodiment of kindness, of empathy, of caring. And he selfishly drew strength from her, even at the risk of someone seeing them.

The convict and the FBI agent.

A father with a murderous son and a woman dedicated to justice.

It could never work.

And even if, by some miracle, there was some way for them to be together, he’d made a mess of things with his son. Niall had to be his first priority now. Somehow he had to fix the damage he’d caused by trying to cover everything up in the first place.

Regret ate at him as he pulled away. “Go back inside. I’m sure they’re waiting for you.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To see the Larsens. They deserve to know the truth before someone else tells them.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

He stared at her in wonder. “You’re amazing, you know that?” Unable to resist the impulse, he feathered his hand down the side of her face, then pressed a soft kiss against her lips. “Thank you. But I need to do this myself.” He quickly turned and strode away.