Fatal Justice

by Faye Snowden

Genres: African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Sometimes the road to justice leads right back home.  .  . Two years after her mother's murder, Dr. Kendra Hamilton has returned to the mean streets of Dunhill County to bring the killer to justice--something the courts failed to do. When Luke Bertrand used his fortune to walk away a free man, Kendra walked away, too. Now she can no longer fight the ghosts of the past as they beckon her to make Luke pay for his crime--even if it costs Kendra her life. But she doesn't count on getting distracted by another troubling case--that of a stunning young woman with the mental capacity of a child and the sickly father who cannot care for her. When the man is accused of a heinous crime against his own daughter, Kendra knows only one person can help: the lover she left behind, former homicide detective, Richard T. Marvel. Since Kendra left, all Rich has wanted is peace--and the freedom to drink himself into oblivion.  When she re-appears, asking for his help, he can barely hide his bitterness. But fate soon intervenes, and Rich and Kendra find themselves delving into a dangerous morass of lies and corruption.  As they discover scandalous connections between the two cases, it becomes clear that all the unfinished business of the past--matters of life, death, and love--is about to come to an explosive finale.  .  .

Release date: October 1, 2006

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 415

Sample

You don’t cry. Forget all the horror books, the mysteries, the TV dramas and true crime stories where the victim rests on his or her knees, hands over face, cringing, crying. And remember this. You don’t cry. There are no tears, not in that perfect circle of horror, there is only terror—complete, tangible, bone-numbing like a poison terror. And every instinct in your entire body focuses on one thing and one thing only—survival. But you don’t cry. There is no time for crying or for grieving. And if you happen to survive, you might cry later. And that is how it was for Kendra Hamilton. And that was what finally ended her relationship with Richard T. Marvel. The crying that would not come, the realization that she could be dead and her lover was at fault.

Kendra had faced danger before but with less terror. She remembered once being trapped in a foxhole hastily and ineffectively dug by the refugees she was there to treat. Bullets screamed overhead, whizzed past her as she hunched over, covering the refugee lying beneath her and praying that the huge red cross on her back would be protection and not a target. But standing between the gun barrels of both Luke Bertrand and Rich Marvel—one wanting to protect her, the other wanting to kill her—that was different. That feeling, that terror was personal.

And Kendra couldn’t abandon it, no matter how hard she tried. As she and Rich made love, the terror lingered. When Rich moved inside her she felt the same spinning as she had when she stood between the barrels of Rich and Luke’s guns. Every time Rich touched her, Kendra felt the bullet once again slamming into her shoulder.

Rich knew how she felt, how she relived that night every time she was in his arms. She could tell by the way he would search her face when he thought she was not looking and avert his eyes as she moved to return his gaze. She could tell by the way he avoided touching her at the end of their relationship. Their lovemaking became more infrequent, the sessions briefer. But he didn’t say anything. He never said anything. He didn’t have to.

They never really broke things off. There was no closure. The phone calls just stopped—especially after the trial, after nothing else forced them together. When Luke Bertrand, the man who had killed her mother and many others walked free from the Dunhill County courtroom, Kendra walked away from Rich, from them both to start her life over.

And now here she was walking right back into his life as if she had a right to. She knew that she didn’t but she couldn’t help herself. Okay, it wasn’t because she couldn’t help herself; it was because it couldn’t be helped. She needed him now, needed him more than she ever had in the past. She just hoped that Richard T. Marvel would have the inclination to help her one more time.

It took her two days to find him. He had quit the Dunhill County Sheriff ’s Department two years ago. As far as she knew, he hadn’t worked since. He left no forwarding address and Beau Blair, his former partner and good friend, would not tell her more than that. She knew from another friend that he had been drinking heavily and that the upright, uptight Richard T. Marvel had reached a crisis point in his life. But the friend didn’t know where Rich was and told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from him, to leave him alone and let him put his life back together.

It was finally Rich’s brother, Dominic, who relented, who told her where Rich was. Rich was spending the weekend at Dominic’s cabin in Tahoe.

“But if he asks, you didn’t hear it from me,” he had said, wagging his finger at her before going back on stage to finish his set.

Kendra braved the drive to Tahoe in a pink Ford Fiesta she had rented from a place called Rent-A-Wreck. Money had been tight since she lost her medical license. The beat-up Fiesta was all that she could afford. She made the trip in the middle of the day, the air smelling sweet like summer even though it was early February. Brilliant sunlight dazzled through the tall redwoods rising up and piercing the blue sky. Kendra couldn’t believe that on a day as beautiful as this that anyone’s life could be so utterly out of focus. She had returned to Dunhill County with one purpose in mind, a sick purpose some would say, but a purpose nonetheless. But instead of being able to carry out her plans, she found herself on the road to the past once again.

Following Dominic’s instructions, she came to a cabin about twenty miles from the main highway. She walked a pathway strewn with pine needles to the front door of a large cabin. She opened the screen door and knocked. No answer. Feeling no remorse whatsoever, Kendra pulled over a lawn chair near the front door and peered through one of the front door’s small windows. There was no movement in the darkened living room.

She stepped down from the chair and walked out into the front yard. The air was motionless around her. Kendra heard nothing, not even birds chirping in the sky. She turned to leave, then stopped suddenly. One more look around couldn’t hurt anything. It was when she reached the backside of the cabin that she almost stopped breathing.

Kendra had stumbled onto the most beautiful landscape that she had ever seen. Beyond a small clearing in the backyard, tall redwoods and bushes with red and orange flowers framed a still lake as smooth and quiet as glass. A canoe, looking as serene as a lotus flower, reflected in the lake’s surface and floated upon the blue water. Richard T. Marvel, and Kendra knew it was him by his broad shoulders, sat in the canoe, his hands in his lap, the oars resting idly by his sides. The expression on Rich’s face seemed as motionless as the lake itself. Even though he was in profile, he looked like a man who had just been told that his life was over or was about to be over.

Kendra began walking toward the lake. Though her tennis shoes crunched along the gravel and rock, Rich did not turn toward her. He just sat there in the canoe, that same bewildered look on his face. She reached the edge of the lake and opened her mouth to speak. But she found that she couldn’t. She didn’t have the right words. And the ones that she did have stuck like stones in her throat. She looked at the cloudless sky above them. A duck, its long neck stretched out, spread its wings against the sky, arcing gracefully above Rich’s head. The duck honked once, disturbing the silence. But Rich still didn’t move.

Kendra licked her lips, found her own voice. “Rich,” she said.

It sounded small and fragile. She was not surprised that Rich didn’t hear. So she tried again, calling his name louder. He still did not move. It was as if someone had painted him and that canoe on the water.

“Rich,” Kendra said for the third time.

His head turned slowly toward her and he stared at her for a moment or two. Then he said, “Hey,” almost quietly, in a bemused voice. “Are you real?”

Kendra felt her heart knot. Tears stung her eyes. She realized two things in that moment as Rich looked at her, questioningly, wondering if she were real or not. She realized that he was still in love with her and she realized that she had made a mistake coming here. Richard T. Marvel was in no condition to help her. He couldn’t even help himself.

Before she could make up her mind to leave, Rich picked up the oars and rowed the canoe to shore. As he dipped the oars in the water they made no sound. It was when he stepped out of the boat that Kendra noticed the extent of his condition. He didn’t lift one leg over the side, but instead, he stumbled and fell on the bank. Out of instinct more than anything else, Kendra caught him before he reached the ground.

The smell hit her as she lifted him up. He stank of alcohol. And not just beer. He smelled of tequila, of rum and whiskey. Richard T. Marvel, the man who used to get his hair cut every two weeks like clockwork, the man who would not wear the same clothes the next day if you threatened his life, Richard T. Marvel stank like a broken-down drunk.

Empty bottles of Corona littered the bottom of the canoe. Some were old, dried out, the glass foggy. Others were brand new with a little dribble of foam around the neck. Budweiser cans lay crumpled along the bank. When Kendra took a step back with the weight of a drunken Richard T. Marvel against her, she almost lost her footing against an empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s. She stared at the black label before looking back to Rich.

His hair had grown out in uneven patches around his handsome face. He hadn’t shaved in what looked like a week or more and there were bald spots and bumps dotting his beard. He half stumbled and half jerked away from her.

“Well,” he said, only slightly slurred, “it seems that you are real, the great Kendra Hamilton deigning to pay me a visit.”

He swooped down in a mock bow. This time, when he stumbled, Kendra did not help him. She could see the anger burning in his eyes. Remembering his temper, she stayed away from it.

“And to what do I owe this honor?” he asked.

“Rich,” she said. “You are not well, you need some help.”

“Ahhh,” he stopped, held a finger in front of his face as if trying to make a point. “Even without your medical license, you still know how to play doctor.”

She winced but chose not to respond. Perhaps the best thing to do was to let him talk himself out. He would get tired in a moment and maybe then she would be able to reason with him.

“Tell me this, Kendra,” he paused. “Oh, excuse me, Dr. Hamilton, how did we both end up in these sorry states?”

“I’m not in a sorry state, Rich.”

She couldn’t help herself. Sure, the last two years had been bad but she was alive and wasn’t about to spend her time crying over what was past. Rich chuckled, a nasty chuckle that made Kendra’s blood boil. Even drunk to the point of stumbling, he still knew how to push her buttons.

“Still Polly Anna until the end, aren’t you?” he chided. “Still thinking the shit you smell is fine because it’s fertilizer for the roses.”

She felt the tears that had threatened to spill over when she first saw Rich on the lake. She stepped back as if he had hit her and turned toward the house. His voice stopped her.

“Tell me this, Kendra,” he said, then stopped.

She turned around to face him again, this time a safe distance away. He would not be able to see her tears from here.

“Tell me, why did everything go so wrong?” he asked. “I did everything right, didn’t I? Caught the bad guy, saved the girl, saved the baby for God’s sake.” He paused again and waved his hands in the air in a helpless gesture. “I even had my fifteen minutes of fame. I was a fucking hero.”

He stopped speaking suddenly as if remembering. It was all true. Going against the sheriff ’s department, his boss and even his friends, Rich had pursued a serial killer who preyed on Dunhill County’s weakest, the drug addicts and whores no one cared about. And when it looked like the predator was one of his own, prominent citizen Luke Bertrand, Rich didn’t stop. He did not stop until he had put Luke behind bars. Too bad he couldn’t keep him there.

Kendra could not stand to see him like this, so bitter. It took all her might to turn her back on him. But she knew that she had to because she couldn’t help him. Rich blamed her too much for that. After all, she had ruined his life. If she had never come to him when her mother was killed, he would be chief of homicide right now and married to a judge’s daughter.

The sound of him vomiting stopped her. She turned back around. Rich was on his knees, his right hand clutching the bark of a redwood tree as he vomited into the lake. Before she asked herself what she was doing, Kendra walked down to the bank. She held onto him as he emptied the contents of his belly. She ignored both the smell and the bile rising in her own throat. After he finished and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, she drew him up by the shoulders. He leaned on her as they walked toward the cabin.

In the bedroom, she helped him strip, then turned the water on in the shower. She pushed him in and shut the door. As she stood there listening to the water running, she looked around the room. The bed with the tree-trunk legs and headboard was filled with pizza boxes and beer cans. The sheets were filthy and Rich’s clothes lay in a heap on the floor. She searched the closets and the drawers until she found sheets. After piling the debris into a corner, she stripped the bed and made it up with the clean sheets.

“Kendra.”

She turned around and found Rich there, naked, dripping wet. He leaned heavily against the door frame. She didn’t say anything, just handed him a towel and helped him into bed. Pulling a plaid comforter over his passed out body, she stared at the drunk who used to be her lover and friend. She wanted to weep. She remembered helping her addicted mother Violet in the same way. When Violet had too much to drink, when she was so strung out that she didn’t even know her own name, Kendra had always been there. Now, she couldn’t help but wonder if Rich would be her Violet of the future—another person who she would have to take care of.

Kendra left Rich in the bedroom to sleep it off. He snored as if every breath was a struggle. Another blanket lay on the couch. She sniffed it to make sure it was clean, then wrapped it around her shoulders. The cabin was cold inside despite the alluring sunshine and the brightness outside. Rich’s cabin was like walking into an icebox. The kitchen was just as much of a mess as Rich’s bedroom. Cups and half-empty plates were scattered over the laminated countertops. Kendra gently closed one of the cupboards. Without acknowledging the intention to clean, she idly emptied glasses and coffee cups into the sink, scraped food down the garbage disposal. In the bedroom she separated the dirty clothes from the trash and hung the towel that Rich had thrown on the bathroom floor.

Back in the kitchen, she sat down at a massive, Mission wooden table. She placed her feet up on the hard bench and leaned back against the window. Kendra hadn’t realized that she had fallen asleep until she had woken up. Rich stood at the sink splashing cold water on his face. He had turned on the overhead lights and the room stood awash in an artificial yellow glow. Kendra looked out the window she had been leaning against. It was pitch black outside. No stars, no moon to cast giant shadows for the redwoods, just an all-encompassing blackness.

“You cleaned up.” Rich’s voice was matter-of-fact, sure of himself.

One look at him told her that he would never be the person Violet was. He did not sound like the man she had just cleaned up from his own vomit. She saw that he had shaved and had donned a clean polo shirt and blue jeans. Except for a few bumps on his face, he was as handsome as ever.

Kendra sat up, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. She caught Rich staring at her. She felt her skin warm under his gaze, conscious of how the sweater molded to her body. As usual, Kendra did not get dressed with anything in mind. Now she made a mental note to herself that the next time she paid a visit to an old lover, it would be best to dress as close to a nun as possible without looking ridiculous.

She pulled the blanket over her and returned his gaze. Looking into his brown eyes, she wondered if her first conclusion had been a mistake, the one she had made when he asked her if she were real. She had thought Rich still loved her. But now, the only thing registering in Rich’s brown eyes was resentment, maybe even hate.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I . . .” she started, but he cut her off.

“How did you find me?”

“Your brother . . .”

“. . . has a big mouth,” he finished for her. He turned off the water and dried his hands on a kitchen towel. “I asked you what are you doing here.”

“It was a mistake,” was all she could manage to say.

His stare withered her, scared her more than the darkness outside. In the silence, Kendra realized that she did not really know this man. She could not really trust him. After all, he had changed so much from the Rich she knew. Maybe the change had been her fault. Rich lifted a black eyebrow in the face of her silence, his full lips frowning. It was such a classic Rich move that it calmed her for a minute or two. At least until he spoke again.

“So you are going to keep me guessing? You are not going to tell me?”

He leaned his languid body against the sink. Kendra had nothing to say against the bitterness of his words. He stroked his chin, pretended to consider. “Let’s see, you can’t be pregnant. It’s been well over a year.”

Kendra rose from the bench and went into the living room to retrieve the keys to the rental. He followed her, a host of ugly words falling from his mouth. She tried not to listen, but in the silence of the room, she had no choice.

“What else could it be? You hard up? You need a lay?”

Light from the kitchen slid meagerly into the living room but at least she could see. She looked on the coffee table for her keys.

“Okay,” he said, “if it’s not a quick lay, is it a loan? Are you short of money now that you aren’t practicing medicine? You working, Doc?”

She whirled around, heart pounding. “Why are you so bitter ?” she exploded. “What did I ever do to you that was so horrible?”

The words were out before she could stop them. Kendra averted her eyes. Of course she knew what she had done to him. She didn’t need his face or his words to tell her. She didn’t wait for him to answer. Keys in hand, she flung open the cabin door and stopped frozen.

The darkness struck against her like a black hurricane. Even the pink Ford Fiesta from Rent-A-Wreck was not visible in this heavy, bleak silence, this thing so like death that it caused Kendra’s breath to catch in her throat. She reached for the miniature flashlight on her key ring and realized that she had left the keys to her apartment in the car. The two keys she held were to the rental, no flashlight to save her from this fear. The longer she stared into the blackness, the harder her heart pounded against her chest. Kendra had been afraid of the dark ever since that night two years ago when Luke Bertrand had dragged her and April Hart around Dunhill intent on killing them both.

“Go ahead,” Rich said softly, mockingly. “Go on out there.”

But she didn’t, couldn’t go out there. That blackness would swallow her up. Suddenly, she felt him near her. His hands touched her waist lightly.

“Just what I thought,” he said. “Still afraid of the dark.”

He reached over her and shut the door. It banged with a finality that made Kendra jump. Rich flicked on the overhead lights.

“You’re a bastard . . .” she choked, and then stopped.

God, she had not realized how much he had come to hate her. What a fool she had been to come here. He stared at her, his arms folded across his broad chest, his jaw tight. And then she saw something in his face give way. The anger receded behind his impassive brown eyes.

“Answer my question,” he said.

Kendra waited until her heartbeat slowed to normal.

“I need a favor,” she said.

Rich laughed then, a real laugh, then sighed. “But not pregnant? No sex? No loan?” he joked.

It wasn’t sincere, that joke. He said it in the manner that he would have said it to the clerk at a grocery store, the cab driver, some stranger he would never see again. Despite the insincerity, Kendra felt her own lips twitch into a small smile as she shook her head. At least he was trying. But she still couldn’t look at him.

“I’m hungry,” he said, walking away. “Tell me about this favor while I eat.”

Rich opened a can of Progresso soup—clam chowder. Kendra did not eat, turned away from the bowl offered her. But Rich ate. He ate as if he had never eaten in his life, head down, scooping soup, not looking at her. He acted as if she were not there, as if she were still a figment of his imagination induced by a two-day drunk. Kendra studied him, wondering how much of one—a drunk, that is—Rich Marvel really was. His hands were steady, not shaking, his eyes clear. But he had spent many hours at his brother’s cabin. The trash and the mess proved that.

Kendra wanted to speak but her voice had flown away with the daylight. She did not know what to say. Leaning against the stove, she felt steam from the simmering soup caress her back and shoulders. She turned around and shut off the fire. She looked up to see Rich staring at her. He had pushed the bowl away and now studied her with his arms folded across his chest.

“So,” he said finally. “How have you been?”

The question startled her. Kendra had not expected small talk from Richard T. Marvel. She expected recriminations, the accusations to continue, not the greasy phrase how have you been, not after all that they had been through together. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans, looked down at the wooden floor. Maple, shiny and supple, the wood looked liquid.

“It looks as if your brother has done quite well for himself,” she said. “It’s a nice place. You come here a lot?”

Rich’s expression did not change, “Do you mean do I come here a lot and get drunk off my ass?”

She looked at Rich full in the face. Maybe he hadn’t changed much; it seemed as if he still had a low tolerance for bullshit. She answered truthfully. “Yes.”

Rich chuckled, a chuckle that was mirthless and told her that he had no intention of answering her. “I don’t think,” he said, slowly, “that how often I come here is any of your business, not anymore, anyway. Are you going to tell me why you are here or are you going to keep me guessing all night?”

Kendra left the warmth of the stove, walked over to the table. She sat down and looked at her hands and started picking at the dead skin around her thumb. Still reluctant to speak, she lifted the thumb to her mouth but Rich caught her hand. He had always hated her biting her nails. She did it more often now since they had broken up. She pulled her hand away and they stared at each other for a few seconds.

“I’m not going to beg you,” he said. “Just tell me why you are here.”

“I screwed up again, Rich.” There, she said it, the words finally out. He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, only rose, went to the sink and ran water into a clean glass. When Kendra dared look at him, his face was unreadable. He returned her gaze, then said calmly, “Start from the beginning.”

Start from the beginning, Kendra thought before sighing and taking a deep breath. And so she did, telling Rich about Leroy Cotton. Leroy had a slow country way about him. But the man in overalls with the creased cheeks and foamy brown eyes was not the stereotypical country bumpkin. His hair was dotted with gray, his fingernails yellow and big as dinner plates, but his mind was sharp.

He was the handyman in Kendra’s apartment, the apartment on the border of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Dunhill County, The Pit. Kendra lived in a one bedroom apartment that smelled of stale smoke, the walls the color of brown piss. Sometimes, it was hard for her to believe that she had ended up right back where she started, that she and Rich didn’t ride out into the sunset Rich had found so promising when he left her recovering from gunshot wounds in Doctor’s Hospital. She shot Rich a look when she said this last but he didn’t respond. Kendra continued.

But she did know one thing—that the horror Luke had created was over. But she did not know that life as she knew it was over as well until the AMA went after her medical license and returned her to a place of limbo, a place she hadn’t been since high school. After she and Rich had broken up, she went overseas, practiced in places where knowledge was valued more than a piece of paper with your name on it. She told Rich all of this. But what she did not tell him was the real reason she returned to Dunhill County. That would come soon enough, and he would understand, especially if he agreed to help her.

Leroy Cotton and his twenty-five-year-old developmentally disabled daughter, Anna, came to Kendra when Anna had a cold she could not shake or when Leroy’s emphysema flared up to a point that kept him from working. Kendra worked with him, couldn’t prescribe anything, but recommended over the counter meds, some herbal treatments that she knew could be effective.

Anna, his daughter, Anna Cotton, was beautiful. She had long brown legs, a face like a model. Her short hair curled around her face like rings of pure, black silk. If she had all of her faculties, if, she was like the rest of us, Leroy would say, then she’d be a beauty. She could have any man that she wanted just by snapping a finger, turning a heel.

But she wasn’t like the rest of us, Kendra told Rich now. Anna was diagnosed as moderately retarded when she was five years old. Kendra stopped here, she hated that word. Retarded. She looked around, surprised that she was back in the cabin sitting with Rich, talking with him as if she had done this every day for the past two years. He still had his arms crossed but he listened intently, warm yellow light spilling around him.

“Go on,” he prodded.

Retarded, Kendra continued. Anna had the capacity of a seven-year-old, and she was getting worse because Leroy could not give her the care that she needed. When he left for work, he locked Anna in his one bedroom apartment on the second floor.

Anna was always getting into trouble. One day, she almost set the entire apartment building on fire, burning scraps of paper on the old gas stove. If it weren’t for Samantha, the girl who lived across the hall, The Liberty Apartments would have been burned to ash and ribbons of stucco and steel. Luckily, it was summer, and Leroy worked out a deal with Samantha’s mother to have her stay with Anna in the daytime. But when Samantha returned to school again, Anna was on her own.

“And so you could not help sticking your nose into their business, hmmm?” Rich asked her now.

Kendra sighed; no, she could not help it. It wasn’t only that Anna was a danger to herself; she was in danger all the time. The Liberty Apartments was not safe for a woman who looked like Halle Berry but had the capacity of a child. Anna was constantly harassed by pimps who wanted to turn her out. You see, Kendra explained to Rich, Anna did not like it cooped up in that apartment. She and Leroy had come from the country, a small factory community in Virginia. Anna had the run of the place. Everyone knew her there. She felt safe. She had a mother who could watch her constantly and when her mother couldn’t watch her, the town just sort of took care of her.

“So why did they leave Virginia?” Rich asked her.

Simple, Kendra explained. Money. The textile factory pulled out, moved to Mexico. No job or money coming in and the added strain of Anna’s condition were too much for Leroy’s wife. His wife was already sick. Soon after her death, a despondent Leroy left Virginia looking for work. He and Anna arrived in Dunhill, found The Liberty Apartments, and Leroy became the building’s janitor and handy man.

“A very sad story,” Rich said now, almost impersonally. “But what has it got to do with you?”

Leroy found Anna increasingly hard to care for. After the fire incident, Kendra told Leroy that he should put Anna in a residential care facility, that he could not leave her locked up in an apartment all day like an animal. Anna needed social interaction, education, some sort of self-fulfillment. But Leroy would not budge. He refused, outright at first, but Kendra pushed on. She knew that it would only be the best thing for Anna.

The last straw came several months ago when Anna escaped the apartment. She didn’t go out of the locked door but climbed barefoot out of the window and down the fire escape.

“People stared at her, Rich,” Kendra explained. “And you remember how it is around Liberty Apartments, right? Drug addicts, whores, kids, too, some good people, but the whores and the addicts frightened Anna.”

So she ran, Kendra explained. She ran in fifty degree temperature, a twenty-five-year-old woman in her bare feet wearing a flimsy tank top and a pair of pajama pants. Anna ended up at a Starbucks coffeehouse. People stared at her and Anna started screaming and screaming. When she wouldn’t calm down, the police were called. One of the policemen recognized Anna and called Leroy. Anna was taken into custody and put in a holding cell. When Kendra arrived, she told Leroy that it would be best to institutionalize Anna until they could find a residential care facility. Kendra laughed a bitter hard laugh that did not sound like it belonged to her. She called in a few favors and got Anna placed at Brighton House, a mental institution.

Kendra looked at Rich, who was nodding his head, his mouth grim. “You screwed up,” he said.

Kendra dropped her eyes, and nodded yes. How could she know that at Brighton House Anna would get care ten times more horrific than the care she had received in her father’s home?

“I screwed up,” she responded.

After Anna was committed, Kendra and Leroy scoured Dunhill and neighboring counties for a good residential care facility for Anna. The good ones, the ones run by good people with the care of their patients as their topmost priority, those places were all full. The bad ones, those whose primary objective was money, were