“One of Miriam’s friends?”
He’d mentioned that he’d spent the day interviewing Gram’s friends. “Yes.”
Including one who’d been close enough to see the inner workings of the Thomas family during the year Bruce and Harper were married.
“You’re talking about Grace Parnell.”
Right on the mark. He pushed one hundred and seventy-five pounds of weight together at chest level.
“Wow. I thought Grace was a friend…” He’d like to think the break in her voice was due to exertion but she’d released her feet from the leg-lift bar and was sitting still on the bench.
Finishing his rep, Mason went over to the seat next to hers. “She considers you a friend,” he said. “In fact, she asked about you and when I said you were well, she not only wanted confirmation, but details. She said she thought of you as a surrogate granddaughter and that she misses you.”
Harper’s sideways glance held doubt. Distrust.
He couldn’t blame her. Especially considering the possibility that Bruce had been mentally manipulating her for years. He’d occasionally wondered, but after speaking with Grace, real suspicion had set in.
“She said the two of you would talk about something—even something simple like where to go on vacation or what to have for dinner. According to her, you’d have solid ideas about what you wanted or didn’t want, and then you’d talk to Bruce and suddenly you were doing the opposite. Sometimes they were things you’d said you wouldn’t do. Like the time you went to an adult resort with topless bathing…”
He hadn’t intended to mention that. He couldn’t stand the image of his brother parading Harper around topless. Some things were meant to be private—and enjoyed that way.
“The only topless bathing was on the beach. And we didn’t go down there. We stayed up at the pool.”
So…good to know. Not his business or relevant to this conversation. “But you went.”
“Grace used to tell me that I let Bruce control me, but I don’t and I never saw it that way.” Harper looked him straight in the eye. “She’s been a widow a long time, living alone a long time. She didn’t understand, as I did, that in a healthy relationship both parties’ needs and wants have equal importance. And that means compromise. So I didn’t always get my way.”
Mason waited a second before responding, not sure which part of that to address first. Or at all.
A marriage that only lasted a year didn’t indicate a healthy relationship. But he saw no point in belaboring the obvious.
“So you feel that your wants and needs were equally considered? That you got your way 50 percent of the time?” He felt slimy, like some kind of voyeur, digging for a look inside his brother’s marriage.
Harper nodded. Mason wished he was convinced.
“Grace says that when you left, Bruce started doing to Miriam what he did to you.”
Her instant frown—without any sign of alarm—told him her confusion was real. That didn’t mean Grace’s perception was any less real, only that Harper didn’t see what Grace, an outside observer, had noticed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harper said slowly, as though searching her memory. His dread grew. Was it possible that Harper really was a victim of Bruce’s manipulation and didn’t even know it?
Mason had grown up a victim of it, but at least he’d been a knowing participant; he’d given in by choice, not because he’d been controlled. In the early years he’d hoped Bruce would mature, find his own sense of worth, that his jealousy of Mason—and his hero worship, too—would ease. He’d wanted to protect his little brother from himself.
Instead, he was beginning to see that he might very well have helped enable a monster.
“He spins a picture of the truth in such a way that you feel empathy for him. He plays on people’s sincere desire to care for each other, to be compassionate, and he does it so effectively, he gets whatever he wants. He uses love as a means of control.”
She shook her head. “What are you, some kind of behavioral analyst now? I thought your skills were more in gathering evidence for the lab.”