Maniac - Necessary Evils #7 - Ch. 14 (Patreon)

We're getting to the tricky part where everything starts to come together. I'm just hoping I haven't missed any glaring plot holes. Hope you enjoy. As always, unbeta'd, unedited and subject to change, especially if I fuck something up as I'm wont to do. 

Aiden

Thomas and Aiden rolled to a stop just outside of a sagging aluminum gate and a fence made of chicken wire which now sat flat enough to drive over. Once upon a time the gate had probably served as a deterrent to anyone who had dared to trespass, but now—like the fence—it was barely clinging to its post. Aiden hopped from the passenger seat and gripped the free end, grunting as he hauled it from the rut it made in the ground to drag it open. How had Lola opened this herself?

Once the gate was swung wide, Thomas drove inside, the other vehicles trailing in behind them like a convoy. Not everyone had come along. There was no need. The coroner could only provide a very narrow scope, if any at all. He was clearly not the man they were looking for and there was no guarantee they’d find anything to even tie him to the blackmailing. But Lola seemed to think it was important for them to at least see the mess with their own eyes.

So they’d decided to divide and conquer.

Jericho and Atticus had stayed behind with his boys in case they needed to run down any leads. Adam and Noah were at Calliope’s beck and call as she tried to digitally run down this AlwaysChristmas character that Mac and Archer had stumbled upon to see if it was all a bizarre coincidence, another fucking problem, or the man they’re looking for.

The twins—along with Felix and Zane—had all but insisted on coming along. Aiden feared Cricket was right, that Felix and Zane were already wondering if maybe parenthood was something they were interested in, and if so, could Lola be the one. It was all too weird for Aiden. For a thousand reasons.

Lucas and August were there as well at Aiden’s insistence. Lucas’s gift would be invaluable there. It had practically taken an act of congress to get him to leave the girls, only saying yes when Mac and Archer had agreed to babysit.

Aiden smiled to himself. For a group of psychopaths, they were surprisingly gentle with the girls. Like when they gave gorillas kittens. The boys were both fascinated with them and overly gentle with them, for fear of accidentally injuring them. Well, all but Adam who played with them like they were puppies, rolling around on the floor until they were squealing with laughter that echoed through the house and made Thomas smile. Aiden was grateful for anything that made Thomas happy like that.

And he was relieved Lucas had acquiesced, reluctantly or not. They needed him. They’d all have targets on their backs until this was solved. And this house felt important. While the coroner wasn’t the blackmailer, they must have been there at some point. How else could he have gotten a hold of the photos?

Aiden hated this shit. It felt like the answer was…right there, just out or reach. This vague notion like they had all the pieces but not the picture on the box.

The coroner’s house was just as Lola described, a ramshackle Victorian style farmhouse that looked as if had fallen from the sky into the middle of a desolate nowhere. Which was good for them. No prying eyes to watch what they did.

Aiden scanned the dead ground and the trees in the distance. What had this place looked like twenty years ago? Had there been green grass or livestock? Or had it always been patches of brown weeds, puddles of stagnant water and muddy gravel that crunched under foot as you walked on it?

Off to the left was another old building, a shed or barn maybe? The paint—once a brick red—had long since given way to time leaving the wood weathered and gray. There was a vintage Mercedes Benz sitting just outside that looked just as unkempt as the grounds and house. This man’s family must have really hated him to leave a car like that just lying around.

Lola waved from the front porch, a cup of coffee in her hand. How many of those had she had already? Before Aiden could even open his mouth, Zane and Felix were flying past him, holding out their hands to her.

“I’m Felix.” “I’m Zane.” The said in tandem, sticking out there hands.

They were close enough to where a lesser person would have been painfully uncomfortable. These two were a different kind of neurodivergent. They had zero sense of decorum. “Boys. Maybe don’t start sniffing her hair like creeps five seconds after meeting her.”

Lola cut her eyes at him. “They’re fine. Do I look like I can’t speak for myself?”

Felix and Zane both gave him a smug look that had Aiden rolling his eyes. Why did he bother? The Mulvaney’s were like a circus rolling into town wherever they went. He’d missed the chaos. Even if he’d never admit it out loud. There was safety in that chaos.

He shook the thought away and stepped inside the home, stopping short just inside the door. “Fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath.

The inside was exactly what Aiden had anticipated, but his stomach dropped just the same. There were floor to ceiling boxes, not in just the living room, but the dining room, the kitchen, strewn along stairs and spilling from the hallway. There was room to walk—and to sit if one wasn’t picky about ruining their clothes—but the options were limited. How had nobody known how mentally unwell this man had been?

“Don’t worry,” Lola said, stepping behind him. “I’ve made good use of my time. I’ve managed to isolate the few boxes that deal with the Mulvaney murders to the dining room table.”

Aiden nodded towards the boxes and the rest of the family—minus Thomas—descended on them like locust, quickly finding a chair and digging in. This would take all night if Lucas couldn’t do his thing.

Aiden gave her a doubtful look. “You couldn’t possibly have looked through all these boxes.”

“Of course, not,” she said, “but not all of these boxes can pertain to the Mulvaney’s. The guy was a hoarder, not a historian. He knew about the cover up so he clearly didn’t have any reason to dig any deeper. He wasn’t trying to Sherlock Holmes his way through a mystery. He was someone mentally ill who couldn’t stop collecting things.”

“How do you know that?” Aiden asked.

Lola side eyed him once more. “I’ve been in this house for two days. The Mulvaney’s make up a small part of his interests. It looks like somehow the evidence came up for grabs and he just…took it. Maybe he’d told them he’d destroy it and they were dumb enough to believe him.”

“You don’t know the whole story. Someone is blackmailing Thomas,” Aiden said. “They’re threatening to tell the world that Thomas killed his family, even though they know the truth.”

“Well it wasn’t this guy,” Lola said. “He’s in a locked unit due to his severe dementia.”

Aiden groaned in frustration. “Fuck. I know. How can someone know the whole story and still think Tommy is the guilty party? How can they still be offended? None of this makes any sense.”

“It does if the wounded party has a connection to Shane,” Thomas said gently.

“Or is Shane,” Zane called from the dining room. When they all stopped to look at him, he shrugged. “I mean, I can’t be the only one thinking it, right? He was practically unrecognizable. Maybe he had a contingency plan just in case dad didn’t play along with his delusional fantasy?”

Thomas shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. It was Shane. Trust me. This isn’t a movie. He’s…he’s dead.”

Aiden put a hand on Thomas’s lower back, gently pushing him into the dining room with the others. Lola followed close behind. Zane and Felix took things from the boxes, took pictures with their phones, then handed them to Lucas, the only one who hadn’t taken a seat.Instead, he stood looming over the table, taking what they handed him and pressing his hand to them, eyes closed.

“All of the people who cared about him are dead too,” August said. “At least those we know about. Are you getting anything, umnishka?”

Lucas tilted his head, his facial gymnastics almost comical as he seemed to rifle through the impressions left behind. “These photos passed through a lot of hands. People in uniform, people in suits. The man who lived here. And another man…someone who didn’t belong here.”

“That is so freaky,” Lola whispered. “But it's so cool.”

“What does he look like?” Thomas asked.

Lucas grimaced, then shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. I can only see from his point of view, I can only feel from his point of view… and he’s pissed. He’s vengeful. He…hates you, wants to destroy you like you destroyed him.”

“You destroyed him?” Felix questioned. “How could he do that if Thomas didn’t know he existed? And how did he even know about this? About any of this? This has to be Shane…centric. It's the only thing that makes sense.”

“Relax, kitten,” Avi said. “We’ll get there.”

August pulled a coffee stained large manila folder from a box. It was brimming with papers that were folded and worn at the edges. When he opened it he stopped short. “It’s Shane’s medical records.”

“This guy had his medical records?” Avi asked. “How does that make any sense?”

“Maybe it was part of the initial investigation? Before they decided it was easier to just cover it up and pretend it never happened?” Asa supplied.

“Or maybe this guy was trying to ‘Sherlock Holmes’ his way through an investigation,” Aiden said, giving Lola a superior look that was completely lost on her.

Thomas met August’s gaze. “Can you?”

August scoffed like it was a stupid question then began to run his finger along the page, reading and absorbing faster than any human had a right too. He flipped page after page as they all watched.

“This is crazy. Is he reading those?” Lola asked, before taking a sip of coffee.

“Yeah, he’s…unique,” Aiden said, fumbling to describe his brother who loved his husband, his kids, pop divas and murder.

Lola rested her hip against the wall. “They’re kind of a power couple, huh?”

“So we know that this guy has it out for Thomas and we know it has to do with Shane. That screams family,” Aiden said. “Like it's personal. Did Shane have siblings? Cousins, maybe? Anyone who might have the same fucked up psychopathy as him?”

“Get Calliope on the phone,” Thomas said to Asa.

Asa took out his burner phone and hit a button then set it on the center table.

“This is Cassandra, you’re all seeing, all knowing prophetess. How may I serve you?” Calliope chirped.

“Is she always like that?” Lola asked, with a smile.

“Yes,” they all chorused.

“Calliope, dig deep. Is there anybody in Shane’s family tree that could somehow not have known about his mental illness? I can’t even imagine who but step-siblings on his father’s side, maybe that came after his death? Someone who maybe romanticized what happened?” Thomas asked.

There was a slew of typing and after about three minutes, Calliope said, “As I’m sure you know, his mother and your uncle both passed without having any children between them. Shane’s father did remarry and he had three more children.” Once more there was a long pause. “Two daughters and a son.”

“We know the blackmailer is a man, so focus on the son.”

“Roger Graves—Graves? Yikes,” Calliope said. “Married to a… Vanessa Slaughter—Jesus, imagine getting an invite to the Graves-Slaughter wedding? No thank you, I’ll pass,” she muttered to herself.

“Calliope,” Thomas said sharply.

“Yeah, yeah. Roger and Vanessa have been happily married for nineteen years, have two children and are currently living in Okinawa, Japan where he’s a lieutenant general. I don’t think he’d be able to pull off any major crimes from across several continents and this required planning. Years if the message boards are to be believed.”

Aiden’s heart sank. Fuck. The message boards. He’d forgotten about them. The random strangers on the internet who believed Thomas Mulvaney was a serial killer like them. “Did you find out anything more?”

“Yeah, were there any more messages claiming dad’s a serial killer?” Zane asked, still flipping through pages.

“A serial killer?” Lola said, taking a step back, not out of fear but more like she was assessing him further. She gave him a thorough once over and then snorted, dismissing the idea. “Hardly.”

Calliope chuckled. “I found another dead thread, but I can’t tell if these are the same players or different ones because their handles have changed. All but one. That AlwaysChristmas handle was still calling the shots. If this is tied to blackmail, I would bet money, he’s our guy.”

“Why do you think that?” Asa asked.

Calliope sighed. “Because he’s still feeding the others tidbits of information, riling them up, telling them you’re like them but that you are hunting your own kind. That you’re some kind of betrayer.”

Lucas slammed his hand down on the table. “What the fuck? So is this about Shane or isn’t it? Why is this sick fuck going after my kids?”

August didn’t stop reading and flipping. “Relax, my love. We will find them and we will make sure you get your revenge.”

That seemed to placate Lucas slightly, but Lola was now leaning against the wall, watching them in a way that made the hairs on the back of Aiden’s neck stand on end. It was only a matter of time before she realized the real Mulvaney secret. And then what?

Felix jumped up, a sharpie he’d found on the table in hand. “Okay. Let’s just take a second. Right now we have two issues, right?” He drew a line down the wall. “On the one hand, we’ve got this random Christmas guy who is claiming that Thomas is a killer killing killers. Right? On the other hand, we have someone who knows the truth about Thomas and Shane and still blames Thomas.”

“What else is being said by Mr. Christmas,” Zane asked Calliope.

There was the familiar sound of nails flying over keys. “He is…organizing them, helping them kill better, essentially building a little…hub of killers.”

“How many?” August asked suddenly, looking up from his work.

“How many what?” Calliope asked.

August glanced at Asa and Avi then asked again. “How many killers are in his little hub?”

Calliope made a vague sound, then said, “The names have changed, but there’s seven in both threads. I can’t tell you if they’re the same seven people, but we could posit that it's true.”

Asa’s expression grew grim. “He knows about us.”

“What?” Thomas asked.

Asa’s voice was dangerously quiet. “They’re both the same man. And he knows what we do.”

“What do you do?” Lola asked.

“We kill people, really bad people,” Felix said, earning a wide-eyed look from Zane. Felix shrugged. “What? If Lola is going to be part of the family then she needs to know.”

“That should have been dad’s decision,” Lucas said. Felix stood firm, his expression unapologetic.

“Well she has to be family now,” Zane said. “I don’t want to kill her.”

Lola snorted. “Kill me? Good luck, little one.”

“We only kill really bad people…if that helps,” Zane said, uncertain.

Lola smirked, then looked at Felix, who nodded his head quickly. “Really, really bad. The worst of the worst. Someone’s gotta do it, right?”

“I mean, it doesn’t hurt,” Lola said, surprisingly calm about the situation. “It actually explains a lot.”

“Can we focus?” Lucas said. “If Asa’s right, that means this guy isn’t just trying to destroy you, he’s trying to…counteract you. Create new players on the board anytime we take one out. Christ.”

“Have we totally ruled out Holly?” Avi asked out of nowhere.

“I mean, she’s dead so, yeah,” Zane said.

“Yeah, I know, but what if she had a child? A secret one nobody knew about? Maybe when she died, he learned about his dad and went digging?”

“But there’s no record of her having any children,” Calliope said. “But I can do some digging.”

With that she was gone.

“What do you say we take these boxes to go?” Thomas said. “We can have more eyes on these files at home in the war room.” To Lola, he said, “You’re welcome to come home with us. There’s plenty of room.”

“Please?” Felix said, eyes glinting.

Aiden arched a brow when Lola locked eyes with him. “Are we gonna have a problem now?” Aiden asked. “I really don’t want to have problems with you. You’re my only friend.”

Lola snorted, then shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanted to put a bullet into a pedophile’s head instead of throwing them in prison for the fifteenth time? I’m more mad that you didn’t let me help than that you did it at all.”

Aiden’s shoulders sagged, then he hugged her.

Lola stiffened in his arms then patted his back like he was a stranger. “Okay, that’s enough of that,” she said, then pushed him away. “So, are you taking me to the Mulvaney mansion?”

“Looks like we are,” Aiden agreed.

Aiden had worked so hard to create a life that ran parallel to Thomas, but never intersected, but now those world’s were colliding, collapsing into each other at an alarming rate. If this ended badly, he’d have no safe spaces left.

Anywhere.