by Deirdre Dore
“Is she all right?”
“Yeah. Funnily enough, her nieces were visiting at the time, though I specifically said no visitors other than her lawyer, and they mentioned to Jane’s guard that they’d seen Jane’s nurse carrying a gun. The guards searched the nurse, no gun, but her badge was a fake and they found two syringes full of something that they’re analyzing.”
“Okay, does this mean I don’t get to talk to her today?”
“No. I secured permission for you to visit this afternoon because the plan is to move her to a different location and hold her under a different name. If she’s making sense and is willing to testify, she’ll be put in witness protection. If she still isn’t making sense, she’ll be put in witness protection in a secure psychiatric facility, with the hope that her condition will improve.”
Witness protection, Raquel thought darkly. Raquel would never be able to talk to her.
“All right. When?”
“Be at the hospital at three. I can’t meet you there, but I sent word to the agents on duty.”
“Okay—”
“There’s something else. The DNA on the ribbon came back, and the military archives delivered some photos of Abraham’s unit. I emailed you the photos. You’re going to want to ask Jane about the ribbon. When I sent in the sample, I sent Jane’s DNA as well, just to run as a comparison. It’s a perfect match for Jane’s.”
“Jane’s blood is on that ribbon?” Raquel asked.
“That’s right.”
“Wow. I don’t understand.”
“You and me both. Well, I have to—” he began.
“Wait, Ryan. Brent and I found something at Abraham’s as well. It seems that either Abraham’s mother or father had an affair with someone in Summer’s family. Abraham had a half brother. Can you ask Tyler about it?”
“A half brother?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a George Jones standing next to Abraham in this photograph of the unit. They have the same nose, but he looks younger, barely eighteen.”
“George Jones,” Raquel repeated.
“Yeah, hang on.”
Raquel heard keys typing.
“Sorry. No good. It says he was listed as KIA in 1962, one year after joining the unit.”
“The records could be wrong.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “From what I’m reading, no body was ever recovered. Sounds familiar,” he muttered, undoubtedly referring to Charlie, “but unlikely.”
“Okay.” Raquel scowled, frustrated again. “Ask him anyway. The kid in the photo could have been someone else.”
“All right. I will. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going into town to talk to Old Ninny, see if she remembers anything, and Brent is going to talk to his uncle.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “I have to question Jane myself tonight, but I can’t be there with you this afternoon, I have meetings.”
“That’s fine,” Raquel agreed.
“Raquel, be careful.” His brisk tone had softened a little. She guessed he wasn’t that mad at her anymore.
Raquel swallowed. She was done being careful. The dream of Summer had reinforced an idea that had been sliding its way to the front of her mind. Knowing Jane could be put in protective custody and forever out of her reach just increased her resolve. It was an idea that no one who cared for her was going to like at all.
“I will,” she lied, and hung up the phone.
“What’s up?” Brent asked from the bed. He was pulling his T-shirt over his head. Raquel saw the scratches she’d left on his back, and made a small noise.
“What?” He looked at her.
“Your back.” She indicated it with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Brent smiled widely. “Honey, you can hurt me like that anytime you want.”
Raquel smiled in return, but she wasn’t laughing. She was going to hurt him. She was going to keep him out of her plan, keep him safe.
“Jane was attacked yesterday, and it’s her blood on the ribbon,” she told him, wanting to distract him from reading the expression on her face.
Brent paused. “That’s interesting.”
Raquel raised her eyebrows at the understatement.
“Who’s George Jones?”
“The military sent Abraham’s service records over. There’s a kid standing next to Abraham named George Jones, but he was killed in action.”
Brent frowned. “How old was the kid?”
“Ryan said he looked young. Why?”
Brent didn’t answer right away. “Don’t know, just sent a little chill through me for some reason.”
“Well, he sent me the pictures. I’ll fire up my laptop so we can take a look if you want to make coffee.”
“Sure,” he agreed, but he was still frowning.
Raquel tugged on a T-shirt and pulled her hair into a ponytail, walking quickly down the hall toward the living room, where her laptop sat on a small writing desk.
She turned it on. It booted up, but after a moment a progress bar appeared with the message INSTALLING UPDATES 1 OF 25.
“Oh, for the love of God,” Raquel muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stupid updates.”
“Coffee will be ready in a couple minutes.”
Raquel sighed. “Okay, I’ll take a quick shower. If this stupid thing starts up, my password is Summer1986.”
“All right.” He nodded. “You sure you don’t want company in the shower?”
Raquel looked at Brent, at his crooked smile and rumpled appearance. She felt something, a strange shift somewhere inside herself. It could be like this, she realized. If he came back from wherever he was filming and stayed with her. If she didn’t get killed trying to catch the assholes who had, in all likelihood, hurt her friend. It felt natural for him to be in her living room, wearing boxers and watching her with that interested look in his eyes.
“I’m sure,” she replied, but her gaze lingered on his strong muscled legs. “I don’t think my ancient hot water heater is up for the challenge.”
He moved forward and stood in front of her, placing his hands on her hips and slowly gathering her T-shirt upward, until she was completely exposed from the waist down. “We could make it a quickie,” he suggested, and Raquel sighed.
24
BOB DID NOT take well the news that Jane’s attacker had failed in her mission. George glanced up from the paper he was reading when Bob’s phone beeped, and the man cursed.
George smiled to himself. He didn’t know what the message was about, but he was glad that Bob was frustrated. He’d be even gladder when Bob was dead, and George was free to look for the girl in the woods.
“Jessop,” Bob said into his phone. “Yeah. I heard.”
George listened to the one-sided conversation, wondering if Jessop was going to ask to speak to him as well.
“I don’t know how they were tipped off. Clearly, she fucked up somehow.” He paused.
“No, George was here and I didn’t let him touch his phone.” Another pause.
“Yes.”
Then, “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
Bob looked at George and then handed him the phone. “Jessop wants to talk to you.”
George accepted the phone, asking Bob, “Problems?”
Bob gave him the finger, which George ignored, and answered the phone, “Yes.”
“George. You have something to do with this?”
“No.” George just considered it extraordinary good luck. Now he still had a chance to get Jane’s help in finding Summer, though, he supposed, a backup plan would be wise.
“I’m sending Bob in to take care of Jane himself. I want you to get my drugs as planned, is that understood?”
“I understand,”
George agreed, picking at a hangnail.
“And you’re going to start packing up all that crazy shit you have in that house, and you and Bob are gonna have a little barbeque in the backyard after he’s taken care of Jane. You’ll burn all those maps, all that shit about that magic girl. After that, I expect you to help him shut down the house in Cherokee County. If any of those things don’t happen, George, I’m going to hunt you down, you understand?”
George understood finally, in a way he never had before. His brother, Abraham, had tried to tell him back then that George didn’t have to do what Jessop said. George knew where all the money was, and where some was hidden, and he knew how to disappear. He didn’t need Jessop; Jessop needed him.
“I understand, Jessop,” he said, almost believing the sincerity in his tone.
George handed the phone back to Bob after Jessop hung up.
Bob put the phone back in his vest pocket. “Your fat ass better be here when I get back. Once I kill this bitch, we’re going to have to clear out fast. When is your nephew supposed to come back?”
George shrugged, chewing on his lip. He wasn’t sure how to keep Brent away. He could say something came up, he supposed.
“This afternoon sometime, I think,” he replied.
“Well, keep his ass here until I get back. I’ll take care of him since you’ll probably puss out on me.”
George remained silent.
“Whatever, dude.”
“Wait,” George said.
“What?” Bob gave George a look of complete disgust.
George reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a small black Glock. He shot Bob, as he’d been trained so long ago, in a close group straight in the chest. The three shots ripped into the older man’s heart, stopping it instantly. The body was knocked backward into the counter island before falling forward in a heap.
George watched the blood pool on his tile with dismay. He didn’t think he could get the stains out of the grout.
25
RAQUEL RODE HER motorcycle into Fate, trying not to think about the kiss Brent had given her before he left to go talk to his uncle this morning. They’d looked at the photos on her computer; Raquel mentioned that the boy in the picture looked a bit like Abraham, and then they’d both gotten dressed. When he’d left, he’d gripped her hair, held on to her, and kissed her as if he hadn’t just spent twenty minutes making love to her, as if he’d never kissed and always wanted to kiss her at the same time.
He’d pulled away after a couple minutes, looking surprised. “Sorry.” He’d released her hair. “I just look at you and think, I get to kiss her. And then I have to kiss you, right then.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked when he kept staring at her.
Brent seemed puzzled, shaking his head a little. “I don’t know, just a weird feeling. I’ve seen too many movies, heard too many stories, I think.” He kissed her again, pulling her to him, only this time, instead of letting her go, he hugged her close. “You know, I’ve known some women in my time.”
Raquel snorted. “I’ll bet.”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “But after I met you, when I saw a pretty girl, I would think, ‘She’s pretty, but there’s something missing.’ Some spark, some life, just something, and in the end I always left before anything got too serious.”
Raquel had never asked about the women in his past, hadn’t wanted to know if he’d had a wife or a fiancée or a lifelong love at some point in his life.
“And then, when I saw you again in Tavey’s driveway, it was like, Oh, right, asshole, that’s what’s been missing this whole time—her.”
Raquel had blinked at him, speechless.
He’d laughed a little at her expression and kissed the tip of her nose the way he liked to do. “Who knew? I’ve been avoiding clichéd love stories all my life and here I am, falling into one.”
Raquel hadn’t known what to say, that she loved him, too? She wasn’t about to say she loved anyone—she couldn’t. The part of her heart that was willing to love had frozen in her chest when Summer disappeared. She couldn’t risk loving anyone else. People you loved betrayed you, they abandoned you, they disappeared, they died.
Liar, her heart whispered. She’d started to love Ryan like a brother, loved Tyler, loved the insane Triplets, loved . . . Brent? Raquel refused to acknowledge it. She knew it didn’t matter. She had to find Summer and protect the people she loved at the same time. She was about to do something that would probably land her in jail at best and dead at worst, but Brent’d be alive, they’d all be alive, and the story of Summer would be finished, or just beginning, one way or another.
“You’re getting too cheesy for documentaries,” she kidded instead. “You’ll have to switch to Hollywood, make romcoms for a living.”
He’d laughed, but he’d looked sad. “God help me.” He’d given her one last hug and gotten in the Jeep, rolling down the window. “You know what Gloria Belle said when she saw the documentary about her life?”
“What?” Raquel asked warily.
“She said that the ending was wrong.”
“Wrong how?” Raquel felt compelled to ask when he didn’t explain, already irritated. If he tells me that Gloria Belle had regretted giving me up, I’m going to spit . . .
“She said I made it seem like there was hope, like she could change, like showing her story to the world was a way to make it mean something. She told me that it doesn’t mean anything, that nothing she’d ever done was worth anything, and never would be.”
“Why would you tell me that?” Raquel asked, astonished.
“Because she was wrong. Even though your mother died a junkie and a whore, even though she never did a worthwhile thing in her life, you’re here. And that’s worth everything to me.”
He’d rolled up his window then and backed out of her drive.
Raquel shook her head again. That man. She’d waited a couple hours before leaving herself, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to see Jane until later that afternoon. She parked her bike behind the building that housed Dog with Two Bones, Tavey’s dog-grooming salon and pet store, and fetched her backpack out of the leather saddlebag on the side. Using the key that Tavey had given her, she opened the back door and stepped into the foyer with the black and white tiles and switchback stairs. She removed her leather riding gear, folded it as neatly as possible, and set it on a chair next to the mailboxes. She changed quickly into her police uniform, feeling her nerves drain with every step she took toward executing her plan. When she was dressed, she swung her backpack over one shoulder. It was heavy; she’d loaded it with water, snacks, topo maps, and a compass, thinking even as she prepared that she hated the woods, hated them.
She left the building, locking the door behind her, and was glad that for once Tavey wasn’t in the grooming salon; she’d wanted to be with Tyler while he’d recovered, and Chris wasn’t teaching her yoga class until later tonight.
She debated with herself a moment, then walked across the asphalt two buildings down, to the back door of Aspect, Jane’s herb and remedies boutique. A car that Raquel had never seen before was parked behind the store, a green Ford Escape.
Raquel considered going around the front, but she didn’t want anyone to stop and talk to her about Gloria Belle, which would be inevitable if she walked through the circle in the center of town, especially this time of year, when the college students had all gone home for the summer, and the locals celebrated by taking over the circle with festivals and fairs.
Raquel tried the door, but it was locked, so she knocked loudly, hoping Ninny was inside and would hear her. A moment later, Ninny answered the door, looking as tough as ever, the stringy muscles of her arms bared by a sequined tank top.
“Raquel, been expecting you. Come in.”
“Expecting me?” Raquel repeated stupidly, following Ninny into the ba
ck room of Aspect, which was mostly shelves stocked with all kinds of herbs, soaps, lotions, fungi, and salts. It smelled strange, both good and occasionally rank as currents of air brought different scents forward. Raquel usually stopped by every Friday to chat with Ninny and let the old woman give her a tarot card reading and a manicure while they exchanged local gossip, though why Ninny liked giving her manicures was beyond Raquel.
“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t come by last week.”
Ninny gruffly patted her on the arm. “Don’t worry, honey, I know you’ve been busy looking for whoever took Gloria Belle.”
“Yeah,” Raquel agreed, wondering just how she was going to explain what she wanted to Ninny.
“Follow me into the store, honey. Without Jane, I’ve been having to deal with all these fools. Getting too old for playing nice.”
Raquel followed Ninny into the store, which, Raquel admitted to herself, was beautiful. Either Jane or her alter ego Circe was very good at presentation. There were statues of birds and beasts, Native American art, wood carvings, iridescent bags full of handmade soaps, and potions blended for scent, with names like True Love, First Kiss, and Triumph.
There were several people milling around, which Raquel hadn’t expected, nor had she expected the Triplets to be there, helping customers.
“I didn’t realize Schisandra could talk,” Raquel said before she thought.
Ninny laughed. “Neither did she. She’d rather let Ro speak for her, but I needed their help this week. Jane’s been working this town up every year over the solstice and now they all want to participate, been bugging me about sacred herbs, proper placement of candles, and chants all week. Just another excuse to drink too much, if you ask me.”
“The solstice.” Raquel felt a memory stir, an old one, dust covered and blurred, but it smelled like the woods.
“Yes.” Ninny was eyeing her. “Tomorrow is the summer solstice.”
