Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

“How long were they together?” John asked.

“A long time—twenty-four years.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story, but basically my father had to change jobs and move to New York. It all started to go downhill from that point, and eventually my mom moved back to Miami with some guy she had met.”

“You chose New York over Miami? Why?”

“My dad’s a lot easier to get along with, and the guy my mom lives with is an asshole.”

“Got it,” said John.

She figured he took her at her word and didn’t need to know the details. “How about your parents?”

“My father went into a business partnership with a guy from Australia on an office development project in Dublin when I was fourteen. The day after the building was sold, I came home from school to find my mother gone, along with all her clothes. It wasn’t until a few days later that I was told she had moved to Australia with my father’s business partner. Then there was the divorce, and I decided to stay with my dad. After that, she never contacted me.”

“That’s tough.”

“I was devastated,” John admitted.

She sensed the wound ran deep, and he wasn’t accustomed to talking about it. But she also felt he wanted to share things with her, and they spent the next few hours exchanging details of their parents’ divorces.

It was about 6:00 p.m. when they heard someone entering the house. Jennifer’s heart raced as she imagined it being the spirit she had seen, now in possession of someone else.

To their surprise, it was Jennifer’s father, home earlier than he’d said he would be. He and Detective Williams were standing in the kitchen where David was operating the espresso machine. Jennifer exchanged greetings with the detective.

“Dad, what’s going on? Why are you back so early?”

“Detective Williams was planning to take your statement at the precinct today but after your reaction to seeing Hardwell, I asked that he wait until tomorrow. You know, give you a little time to recover. Unfortunately, that’s no longer possible because Hardwell’s arraignment has been brought forward to tomorrow, so he needs to take it now. We thought you’d be more comfortable if he took it here, too.”

“We expect Devereux will try to show that Hardwell is unfit to stand trial for reasons of mental illness and, if that doesn’t work, will plead an insanity defense,” Williams advised.

“There isn’t a chance he could be set free, is there?” Jennifer asked, balking at the prospect.

“No, they wouldn’t do that. He would probably be put into a mental institution, but that would mean we might never know the truth about why he stabbed John.”

“So, it’s down to a psychiatrist to decide if there’s a trial?”

“On the question of whether he’s fit to stand trial, no, we have no influence. But on the insanity plea, Devereux will have to make a jury believe that Hardwell is suffering from a mental disorder so severe that he had very significant detachment while committing the crime. Judges and juries are skeptical of insanity pleas, plus we have evidence of him buying the knife and something else that shows he planned it.” Detective Wilson opened his briefcase and pulled out a brown envelope. “These are photos we found in Hardwell’s apartment.” He pulled out a stack of images recording what seemed to be the last twelve months of Jennifer’s life.

Jennifer gasped. “He was photographing me, and I had no idea! Why would he do that? Is he some kind of pervert?”

“The psychiatrist said he showed no recognition of his real age and no grasp of simple facts such as what year it is. He seems to be living in the past, stuck at around the mental age he was when he attended high school. And for some reason, he kept referring to you as ‘Jessica,’ ” Wilson added.

“That’s my mother’s name!” Jennifer exclaimed, looking confused.

David Miller now spoke up. “Yes, and I showed the detective a picture of your mother taken when she was at high school—unbelievably the same one as this man Hardwell, in Ohio. What struck me was that at that age, she really looked very similar to you.”

“I know. Mom showed me her yearbook photos. Did you ask her if she remembers Hardwell?”

“She said she had a lot of admirers, but he wasn’t one of them. She did remember him as someone who acted awkwardly around her, and sometimes he even seemed to have been following her, even when she was on dates.”

She probably thought it funny, Jennifer considered for a moment, and then she waited for her father to add something about her mother’s concern for her safety, but it never came. Her father simply went on. “She said she couldn’t believe he was capable of doing this and even felt guilty for not having been nicer to him. If she had been, he may not have done what he has.”

Wow, Jennifer thought as she was taken aback by what seemed to have been a rare moment of genuine self-reflection on her mother’s part.

“Nobody except Hardwell is to blame here,” the detective said quickly. “We think these photos triggered something inside him and made him attack. Jealousy seems to be the obvious motive.” He pulled out more photos. Each one was sealed in a separate clear plastic envelope and showed Jennifer with a male companion who couldn’t be identified because the face had been cut out. It was the same for each photograph in the stack.

“Oh my God, that’s John!” she said, recognizing the leather jacket in a few photos and his sweater in others.

“Can you positively confirm that these are John Logan’s clothes and that is his build?”

“Yes, I can,” Jennifer said without hesitation.

“And you can confirm that you were with John Logan at the locations shown?”

She glanced at John before affirming that she could. Her eyes started to well with tears as she muttered, “Yes!”

“Well, it looked like he literally wanted John out of the picture.” This came out wrong, like a joke