A Right to Remain Read online

  “Okay, so let’s say he is the one who’s been hanging around here. How would he have known about the rose on the night of the rape? I never told anyone about that except for you.”

  “He was at your wedding. I’m sure he knew your husband bought you roses in that color all the time. Maybe it was just a coincidence with what happened with your rape.”

  I nodded, not wanting to admit maybe Quinn was on to something as I remembered the conversation Adam and I had when he had accused me of replacing Aaron with Quinn. Maybe he was trying to make me feel guilty over it by triggering my memory of Aaron with those roses. “Okay, and what about the gloves? They were left at school, so there’s no way—”

  “His girlfriend works at the school. Lacey, you’re always dropping your gloves. Maybe she picked them up on her way out and was planning on giving them to you, and he happened to get a hold of them and leave them for you. If it is him, he’s doing this to freak you out and have power over you. I could be totally off with this, but it makes sense to me.”

  I was trying to digest it all. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it did make a little sense. “So, where do you think this girl fits in?”

  “I’m not sure, but hopefully once they talk to her, she’ll shed some light on it.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight. So now you’re thinking that whoever is doing this to me had nothing to do with the murder or the rape?”

  “I really can’t say for sure. Right now, with everything I know and have seen, I’m thinking it’s Adam. Like I said, I could be totally off with this, so please don’t let your guard down, whatever you do.”

  I wasn’t sure what freaked me out more, thinking a homicidal rapist was stalking me or the man who was my husband’s best friend was. A man I thought I knew so well, but I was beginning to have more and more doubt about. “I promise I won’t. Do you have to go back into work tonight?” I asked.

  He shook his head, and I was filled with a sense of relief. All this talk stirred up old memories that terrified me. But as long as Quinn was here, those memories were a little less terrifying.

  ***

  I thought I was dreaming when I heard Quinn’s phone ringing. When he answered it, sounding like he was still asleep, I knew it wasn’t a dream. I looked at the clock to see it was a little past two a.m. just as he shot up in bed, wasting no time getting dressed while he listened attentively to whoever was on the other end of the phone. I didn’t have the energy to even lift my head from the pillow as I tried my hardest to stay awake long enough to ask him what was going on. But it was of no use. My tired eyes gave in long before he hung up the phone.

  Chapter 33

  Quinn

  Lacey was sound asleep when I darted out of her place. It was just as well. I didn’t want to freak her out. I wasn’t even sure myself of what was going on, except that an officer who was patrolling the area happened to catch someone pulling out of my driveway just a little while ago. I jumped in my truck to get down to the station where they were holding him until I got there. I wanted to get all of the facts before I got Lacey’s hopes up that we might have caught the guy who had been stalking her.

  I pulled into the station parking lot, trying to think of this as a normal case involving someone I didn’t know. I didn’t want to cloud my judgment, but it was impossible to disconnect from this one like I normally would. This guy might have been the same guy who raped Lacey, and I knew it was going to be hard to keep that under control.

  “He’s in the interrogation room with Sergeant Greene,” the officer who had pulled him over said as I walked into the station.

  “Who the hell is he?” I asked.

  “His name is Neil Clancey. Other than that, he’s not saying much.”

  “Does he have a record?”

  “That’s what we’re looking into now.”

  I looked through the window at the muscled up, shaved man sitting across from Sergeant Greene, and felt my anger escalating. I knew the last thing I should do was walk into that room. I should just let Greene handle this. He had no emotional connection to this case like I did. Even though my head was telling me not to, I couldn’t control myself as I opened the door and stepped into the room. They both looked up at me as I entered.

  “Mr. Clancey, this is Detective Lavery. Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable talking to him and explaining exactly why you were trespassing on his property in the middle of the night.”

  I took a seat and focused on the many tattoos on his arm, searching for the one Lacey had described. In my brief evaluation, I couldn’t find any that resembled a bird. I remained quiet and let Greene continue with the questioning.

  “So, Mr. Clancey, I’m going to repeat my question from earlier. Do you want to tell us what you were doing on Detective Lavery’s property?”

  He was stone-faced, staring straight ahead. I tried my hardest to remain quiet and just observe, like I had promised myself, but with each passing minute, I was finding it harder and harder to keep that promise. “How do you know Lacey Sullivan?” I finally blurted out. I was done playing games and decided to cut to the chase.

  He turned his head in my direction, looking straight into my eyes. “I work with her.” I stared back, waiting for him to elaborate, but that was all the information he was willing to give.

  I lifted my head when one of the other officers walked into the room and handed Sergeant Greene a piece of paper. He read it over and raised his eyebrow. “Well, well, well, Mr. Clancey, I see you have a bit of a history with the Police Department up in Danville, Massachusetts.” My eyes widened, hearing the name of that town, remembering Lacey telling me that’s where she had grown up. “Statutory rape of a minor.” Just hearing that made me want to reach over the table and grab him by the neck as it was looking more and more like he was the one who had raped Lacey.

  “Those charges were dropped! Do you think I would’ve ever gotten a job working in a school if they weren’t?” he snapped back.

  “Do you care to elaborate on that?” Greene asked.

  “I was eighteen at the time. My girlfriend was sixteen. Her mother hated my guts and had me arrested. The only way she would drop the charges was if I went away. I never raped her. I loved her. We—” he stopped himself.

  “You what?” Greene asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “So why the sudden interest in Lacey?” I raised my eyebrow at him.

  He shook his head and his eyes filled with emotion.

  “Answer my question!” I shouted. “Why the hell are you stalking her?”

  “I’m not stalking her. She’s—” He closed his eyes for a brief moment and pulled it together. “She’s my daughter.”

  “Bullshit! Lacey said her mother didn’t even know who her father was.”

  “Yeah, she did. Lacey’s grandmother poisoned Lacey’s mother into saying that. The woman hated me. Take a DNA test if you don’t believe me. I’m not lying.” He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a picture. It was old and worn of a young teenage girl and boy. The boy holding the newborn had a very strong resemblance to Lacey. “This is me with Lacey and her mother, right after Lacey was born. This was the only time I ever saw her.”

  I wanted to think he was lying, but at the same time I wanted to believe he was telling the truth. “Okay, so if you’re telling the truth, why all this sudden interest in her life after twenty-nine years?”

  He looked down at the table. “Because I was stupid for too long. I was young and scared I’d end up in jail if I tried to pursue a relationship with Lacey. Lacey’s mother was always wild, and her mother blamed that on me. I’ll admit, I wasn’t an angel back in the day, but if I had been given a chance to be in my daughter’s life, I would have been, and I would have been a good father. I didn’t have the money or the means to fight for that right. Layla signed over her parental rights to her mother and listed the father as unknown on the birth certificate after she promised me she would allow me to be in Lacey’s life.” He shook his
head and, unless he was a very good actor, I truly saw remorse in his eyes. “I couldn’t find a job, so I enlisted in the army. I figured once I got out and had some money saved, I would fight to have my little girl in my life. I did a six-year tour, got to travel to a lot of different places, and then got out and threw my life away to alcohol and drugs, and nothing else mattered anymore. Not Layla, not her bitch of a mother…and not even Lacey. Getting drunk and getting high took precedence over everything.”

  Not only did I believe this guy, but I actually felt sorry for him. “So, why after all these years have you decided to look Lacey up?” I asked.

  “I got sober, going on almost two years now. My AA sponsor told me to make a list of my biggest regrets and go after them. Lacey was at the top of that list. So I did a little research and found out what had happened to her.” His eyes filled with tears, and his voice began to crack. “You know, even though I wasn’t in her life, she was still my baby. I held her in my arms only minutes after she was born, and I’ll never forget how that felt, it was instant, unconditional love. It was the best feeling in the world, and to know some animal did that to her…” He shook his head and wiped away the tear. I knew exactly how he was feeling as I thought back to the moments after Andrew was born and I held him for the very first time.

  “So you followed her from Massachusetts…for what reason?” Sergeant Greene asked.

  “To make sure she was okay. To make sure that monster didn’t come back for a repeat performance, and just to be in her life in some small way. When I got the job at the school, I took that as a sign I was doing the right thing. I know I was wrong for the way I went about this. I should have been honest with her from the beginning, but I wasn’t sure how she would react.”

  I passed my hand through my hair, trying to assemble my thoughts. How is she going to react? Was she going to be upset by this or would she be welcoming? He was the only family she had left, so there was a slight possibility she would be accepting of this. “Why did you leave her the roses?” I asked, my tone a lot more gentle than before.

  “Because I knew she liked them. I was in her classroom one day cleaning, and she was staying after with one of the kids from her class. The little girl asked her what her favorite kind of flower was, and she told her peach roses. Look, I know I’m coming across as some sick pervert, but I’m not. I’m just a father. A father who was never given a chance to be one, and even though it’s twenty-nine years later, I wanted to try. She’s so beautiful, kind, and caring even after everything she’s been through. I think to myself how could a fuck-up like me have created someone like her? It makes me feel like maybe for once in my life I got something right.”

  Sergeant Greene looked over at me before excusing himself from the room for a minute.

  “I don’t want to disrupt her life, Detective, I just wanted to know she’s okay. I didn’t realize she had you in her life. I thought she was still alone. That night I gave her a jump, when I got back in my car, I noticed someone sitting in their car far off in the distance. So I pulled off into the overflow parking lot and waited. Call me paranoid, but I was gonna follow her home without her knowing to make sure that whoever it was didn’t plan on following her too, but then you showed up, and that’s when I realized she did have somebody in her life.”

  I didn’t like where this was headed. Neil may have been the one who left the roses and gloves, but he wasn’t the one who left the cigarette outside of Lacey’s bedroom window. The more my mind began to work I was beginning to dismiss my initial assumption of it being the heating and air conditioning guys. Then there was the night Lacey assumed I had turned off her television. She never came out and said it, but I knew there was someone in her place who she had mistaken as me when she had awoken in the middle of the night. All of my suspicions led me back to the same person—Adam Symons.

  I broke free from my inner turmoil and focused back on Neil. “You have to realize how scary this whole thing has been for her after everything she’s been through.”

  He nodded. “I know, and I didn’t want to cause her any more fear or pain. She’s had enough of that to last a lifetime. I just wanted to be in her life in some small way. Even if it is just to see her for a few minutes as I’m coming in to clean her classroom and she’s heading out for the day. I would love to have a relationship beyond that with her, but if this is all I can get, then I’ll take it.”

  “Answer this question for me, and I want an honest answer.”

  “Okay.” He nodded.

  “Were you ever inside of Lacey’s place?”

  He creased his eyebrows and shook his head. “No. I swear to God, the only other times I had been there was to leave her the flowers and her gloves she left at school.”

  “And…what was your reason for showing up tonight?”

  He sucked in a deep breath. “I was talking to Lacey after school today, and she was telling me that it’s never too late to do something you’ve been putting off. When she said that, it was almost like it was a sign to tell her the truth. I honestly don’t know why I was there tonight. Maybe just to be closer to her.”

  “Do you smoke, Neil?”

  He looked at me strangely and shook his head. “Believe it or not, that was the one and only bad habit I didn’t pick up. Smoked one time back when I was a teenager and never understood the fixation with it.”

  “Quinn, can you come here for a minute?” Sergeant Greene asked as he stuck his head into the room. I got up and walked out, closing the door behind me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We’ve really got nothing else to hold him here on other than the trespassing charges. What did you want—”

  I shook my head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

  “Are you sure about that? He could be throwing you a line of bullshit. He may not even be her father. We have no way to prove it.”

  “He’s her father.”

  He cocked his eyebrow at me. “How do you know for sure?”

  “He has the exact same eyes as Lacey. Same shade of blue, and the same way they seem to get lighter when they get emotional.”

  He shook his head and a huge grin spread across his face. “Man, you got it bad for this girl, don’t you?”

  “I’m going with my gut on this one,” I said, totally ignoring his question. “I’ll cut him loose.”

  “Okay. Hey, Quinn?” he shouted as I was getting ready to walk back in the room.

  “I’m happy for you, man. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

  “Thanks.” I nodded, walking back in and taking a seat at the table.

  “Okay, Neil. You’re free to go.”

  “But I was trespassing on your property. I thought—”

  “Consider this your get out of jail free card.”

  “Thank you, Detective.”

  “It’s Quinn.”

  He nodded and formed a grateful smile. “Are you planning on telling her?”

  “Well, she has to know, but I’m leaving it up to you. If you want me to, I will or you can tell her yourself.”

  He let out an exhausting breath. “I don’t know how—”

  “How about this? We’ll meet you at the coffee shop on Main Street tomorrow at noon. If you decide you want to tell her, show up. If not, then I will.”

  He nodded. “Okay, that sounds good. I’m so scared.” He shook his head and his eyes glazed over once again as he looked up at the ceiling. “What if she hates me for it?”

  “I’m gonna give you some advice someone gave me not so long ago when I was nervous about visiting my son. She’s your daughter and even though you didn’t get to know her you still loved her. I’m sure if Lacey had gotten the chance to know you she would have felt the same way about you too.”

  “Well, thanks for that. I hope you were able to make amends with your son.”

  The dull ache in my heart never subsided whenever he was mentioned. “Yeah, we’re cool,” I whispered. He got up while I remained seated. “Hopefully I’ll see y
a tomorrow at noon.”

  “I’ll be there,” he replied with his hand on the door. “Thanks for taking such good care of my girl.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled as he walked out the door.

  Lacey had a father. A father she never knew existed, and even though I was uncertain of how she was going to feel about that, she needed to know the truth.

  Chapter 34

  Lacey

  “Where did you run off to last night?” I asked as Quinn walked through my door.

  “Oh, I got called into work for something, and I didn’t want to wake you up when I got back, so I just went up to my place and went back to sleep. Do you have anything planned for today?” I asked.

  “Umm…not really. I have to hit the food store at some point. I’m out of everything.”

  “Well, umm…do you want to go to the coffee shop in a bit?”

  I giggled. “Are you feeling okay? The last time I dragged you in there you told me it was too girly for you. Remember, real men don’t need all of that fancy stuff in their coffee?”

  A cute boyish grin spread across his face as he nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I do, but there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “And who would that be?” I asked, feeling my anxiety mounting. Even though I was slowly getting better at meeting new people, the apprehension was still there.

  “It’s a surprise.” His tone became more solemn than it was a few moments ago.

  I stared at him questionably before finally nodding in agreement. I trusted him, and I knew whoever he was planning on introducing me to wouldn’t be anyone I didn’t want to meet. I hated surprises, and he knew it. “I just want to take Gus for a quick walk.”