“Going on almost two years come summer. I know that I’ll die here, but at least it will be on my terms. I’m not some toddler in preschool who doesn’t know better than to eat the crayons.” Abe lifted a hand before Brook could reply to his opinion. “Spare me the speech about how they are just looking out for me. The people in this nursing home are old, not stupid.”
“I was going to say that I wouldn’t want to be dictated to about what I could eat or when I needed to go to sleep, either.” Brook slowed down as they approached the door to Abe’s room. “I’m somewhat of a night owl. I doubt that will change in my old age.”
Brook managed to get the wheelchair through the doorway with little issue, and she was impressed by the size of the room. It was larger than what her father had at the facility in Illinois. Then again, the two facilities catered to different types of residents. Abe even had a sitting area with a recliner that faced a modest-sized television. He stopped her before she could roll his wheelchair close enough to the recliner so that he could make a transition.
“No, dear. You take the recliner so that we can sit and talk in comfort.”
Abe reached down and locked the wheels of his chair while she walked around him to reach the recliner. She took her time removing her dress coat, not having bothered with gloves when she’d gotten out of her car. They were still in her purse, along with her cell phone and keys.
The rest of last night had been spent poring over Jackson Ridgeway’s life.
The team had ordered a few pizzas while they sat around the conference room table, reading over everything and anything to do with the investigation that the prosecuting attorney had on file. Since Ridgeway had taken his own life, there hadn’t been any need to proceed with a trial. Apparently, a warrant had been issued for the man’s arrest hours before he took his own life. There had been enough evidence citing Ridgeway’s guilt that the prosecutor had given his authorization to proceed with an official arrest.
Brook had stayed at the office long after the other members of the team had left for the night. She had continued to work on the profile, which differed quite a lot from the one crafted by Martin Sinnett. Given that he hadn’t been aware of specific details that had been recently unearthed in the investigation, she would cut him some slack. The rest would depend upon their meeting this afternoon.
As for Jackson Ridgeway, he didn’t fit her profile.
It was her belief that he killed specific patients because he couldn’t stand to watch them endure anymore pain. Their situations had reminded him of his mother, and he hadn’t wanted them to go through the same type of death.
That realization was the reason that Brook had decided to question someone close to the situation. Someone who might not even know they held all the answers. She only needed to ask the right questions, and that wasn’t going to be easy given that she wasn’t exactly sure why or how the nursing facility came into play.
“You even remembered the whipped cream,” Abe said in delight as he dug right into his dessert. He closed his eyes as he savored the first bite, and she pushed aside the guilt that pierced her chest. She could have consoled herself with the fact that he was well aware she was bribing him for information, but she would have felt differently had this been her father. “I might only give you a few answers just to keep you coming back here, Brook.”
She smiled, her guilt vanishing into thin air. The man sitting in front of her had all his faculties, unlike her father had in the last years of his life.
“You drive a hard bargain, Abe.” Brook made herself comfortable in the recliner, wondering if she shouldn’t have closed his door. She had no doubt that Amelia would be popping in soon to make sure that Brook wasn’t taking advantage of an elderly man. “What do you know about Jack Ridgeway?”
Abe nodded as he took another bite, as if he were telling himself that he was right about the reason for her visit.
“I wasn’t here then, but I heard that he was really nice with the residents here,” Abe replied after he’d swallowed his second bite. He pointed his fork over his shoulder. “Noah calls us patients. I don’t like to use that term. We’re not sick. We’re just old. Anyway, Norman Maple told me that they were all surprised by the allegations. They didn’t want to believe that Nurse Jack could do something like that.”
“Do you know if Nurse Jack was close to any of the other staff members?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Abe said before taking the fork and slicing through the pie with the plastic prongs. “I don’t think Nurse Jack was here long enough, but I can ask Norman for you. He isn’t the most trusting soul, if you know what I mean.”
“That would have nothing to do with you earning another piece of pumpkin pie, would it?” Brook asked wryly, but with a small smile. She liked Abe. He didn’t pretend to be something that he wasn’t, and he spoke his mind. “I’m going to tell you something in confidence, Abe. I believe that the individual who abducted those five women last year, along with Jenny Capshaw a couple of weeks ago, has ties to this facility. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I need someone to be truthful with me. I’m afraid that I won’t get the truth from anyone employed here.”
Abe had made it halfway through his slice of pie before setting his fork down. He reached over to the small table near his bed and plucked a tissue from a box. He wiped his mouth before giving her his complete attention.
“I looked you up online.”
Abe’s declaration had come out of nowhere, and Brook needed a moment to form a reply…not that he’d asked her anything. He’d merely been making a statement. Silence was sometimes the best option, though. Abe took that as an invitation to continue their discussion.
“I know, I know. You’re wondering how an old fogey like me can use the internet. My daughter got me something called a Kindle Fire. I can read my books on it, but it also has access to a bunch of different sites. Anyway, I plugged in your name after you left yesterday. You’ve had a more interesting life than I have, dear. That’s saying something considering that I used to be a teacher. Teachers see everything, you know.”
There had been moments in Brook’s day-to-day life when something would catch her attention enough to apply it to her brother’s case. Abe’s opinion of his profession had her running through all the people that she’d questioned about Jacob after he’d left town following the murder of her best friend.
Her brother had fled from his sins, quite like the women in this case had been doing from their tormenter. Only they’d returned to him due to some unseen force. Most likely a threat that the unsub never would have carried out, but the victims wouldn’t have known that about their abductor.
Had Brook missed one of Jacob’s teachers? She’d believed at the time that she’d spoken to each and every teacher that Jacob had from kindergarten through his senior year of high school. He might not have attended college, but there was no denying that his IQ was off the charts.
“Brook?”
She cleared her throat and zeroed in on Abe.
He smiled at her tenderly, as if he hadn’t meant to cause her any pain.
“I’m sorry. For everything that you’ve gone through, I’m truly sorry.”