by Patti Larsen
Crew’s silence wasn’t about me, or so my father said when I called him with what I’d found and my worries my husband might be in danger (no, I didn’t mention I was actually more concerned he was giving me the silent treatment). He’d gone out of town suddenly on a case, something I wished he’d shared with me and reinforced my certainty he was, in fact, choosing to put distance and quiet between us. I knew he processed best when he had space, but it didn’t always work for me.
We’d be having a conversation about how our marriage was going to survive our disparate ways of communicating, he could be sure of that.
For now, I had Dad as my partner in crime, though it surprised me when he called Liz in to help. Even more when the FBI agent gave a rapid yes and met us at the yacht club dressed in tight black everything.
“If anyone asks,” she said, stepping into the boat Dad borrowed (I didn’t ask from who and didn’t want to know what borrowed meant to my father who seemed lackadaisical with the law these days), “I’m off duty for the next few days.”
Like that would save her job if she was caught with us. I had no doubt the Patterson family in general—their matriarch in particular—would not only press charges if we were discovered, they would ensure Liz lost her job with the FBI under any means necessary.
She didn’t seem that concerned, however, as calm and collected as ever while I shivered next to her and worried about her in her stead. Not to mention Dad and me. After all, I was sure Blackstone had supplied the security bullies who’d kept me from sneaking close enough to witness Alicia and Jared’s wedding back in the fall. There was no reason to think that same security force patrolled the Patterson property, but they’d been carrying some pretty impressive weaponry and, if (my favorite word of all time) they were present and if (so delicious, isn’t it?) they spotted us and if (the very epitome of worrywart doubtypants in two simple letters) they were so inclined with no reason to believe otherwise to salve my growing anxiety, there was a chance we could end up being shot at.
How was that for a lovely and convoluted exploration of my possible impending mortality while riding in silence in the darkness toward the only place in Reading I had never been welcome ever?
But wait, that wasn’t true. I’d been on their dock as a child, evidenced by my recurring memories of the death of Victor French. As Dad steered the silent speedboat toward the bank and away from the main dock—empty of other vessels—I wondered if it was Vivian’s brother’s death that created the rift between the Patterson family and mine.
No. I braced myself as the hull thudded into the grassy shore, Dad hopping out to secure it before offering his hand to me. Things started long before now, with Fiona Doyle.
The dock was far from the main house, at least, as was the arrow’s tip the butterfly had created. Dad had plotted out the location the best he could, his phone coming to life a moment as he checked his GPS. I glanced at the overlay of the current topography with the map he’d scanned into his cell, shaking my head at how far technology had taken us, even more that my father was better at using it than I was.
Weren’t most millennial’s parents technophobes? So I’d been told. Yeah, not John Fleming. Lucky me.
I followed him as he headed inland, Liz at my back, keeping my head down and watching my step. The grassy meadow gave way to rocky outcroppings as this part of the mountain made itself known quickly. The main house, easily a mile away, glowed in the distance, lights from the windows making it a glaring obstacle. Every time I looked at it I lost some of my night vision and, invariably, stumbled thanks to my obsessive glances toward the stronghold of the beast.
Imagination running away with you, Fleming?
It wasn’t like we were dealing with supervillains or something. I almost snorted at my own nonsensical reaction to being here, on Patterson property, in the middle of the night, chasing down the clue my grandmother left me on a map it was now very likely she fabricated with assistance from my husband’s grandfather in an effort to make me chase down something she thought I needed to see.
Right. And I was being ridiculous. Thanks a lot, Grandmother Iris.
It didn’t take long to find the location, Dad gesturing for the two of us to join him. I’d worried we’d have a hard time finding what we were looking for, had no idea if we’d be able to pinpoint the spot we’d been guided to. We didn’t exactly have information or a sign saying, “Here it is!” waving in our faces, did we?
Apparently, we did. Because Dad was standing over a long, flat rock on which was carved a quartet of butterflies.
Oh. My. God.
Liz crouched next to it, slid her fingers under it, lifted. It came away after a moment, Dad joining in, grunting softly while I fell to my knees and examined the metal chest beneath. A treasure chest? Was this the hoard after all? Had we somehow misinterpreted the map, was Oliver wrong?
Dad pried the large chest out of the ground and I shook my head at my own folly. This was more like a toolbox, not an old-fashioned container to hold jewels and gold pilfered by a pirate.
I reached for the heavy lock keeping it shut, but my father was already standing, lifting one end, Liz reaching for the other. They didn’t seem to struggle with the weight so I let them carry it, wondering at the faint thudding sounds that came from inside as my father stumbled and almost dropped the front end. He caught it in time, though, hurrying on through the dark toward the shore and the boat and escape.
I was positive we were going to get caught at that point. So sure we’d made a massive error and likely set off some kind of alarm taking the chest. Right now, deep inside the Patterson mansion, a red light flashed a warning and black-outfitted super soldiers were heading our way.
That’s why I was in shock, I think, when I settled into my original seat, hands resting on the chest Dad and Liz loaded into the boat, before Dad pushed the bow off from shore and hopped on with us. The current from Minute River caught us quickly, as my father said it would, carrying us around the outside edge of the Patterson property, close enough to shore if someone had come looking we’d have been spotted, but silent as we drifted past, unseen and utterly silent, until we cleared the edge of their property.
Dad gave the thumbs up, but didn’t fire up the engine for another five minutes, only then turning us around the outside edge of the lake and heading for the yacht club. Liz’s eyes caught the light in the distance, glistening, faint smile one of satisfaction while I continued to shiver, and not from the cold.
Did we really just get away with it? But, what was it we actually got away with?
It felt like a mutual agreement, though none of us actually spoke to make such a pact, that not one word passed between the three of us until Dad pulled up in front of the office. And only then did he sigh, deep and long, hopping out to retrieve the chest. I followed him to his desk, Liz locking the door behind us before joining us at the far end of the narrow space. Dad had deposited the metal box on the wooden surface of his workspace and we all stood back a moment and examined it as though afraid to do anything else.
“Well,” my father said at last, making me jump from the break in the quiet, “we’d best find out what all the fuss was over.” And, with that, he reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a pair of pliers. Only my dad would have pliers in his top desk drawer.
He made quick work of the old lock, snapping the rusting casing open, using the business end to release the mechanism and open the hasp. Liz took it from him as he freed it from the chest, holding it in the palm of her hand while my father took a deep breath and opened the box.
The lid didn’t want to lift, protesting with a squeal of unhappy and warped metal, but Dad was determined and, after a brief struggle with the right corner, it let go its refusal to accede. Which meant the top practically flung itself wide when the pressure Dad used to pry it loose no longer met resistance.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, though privately, in the very far reaches of my mind, I guess I was hoping fo
r gold. Instead, I peered down into what looked like ashes, with a few white sticks, charred on the edges, stirred up from within. The scent of ancient barbeque overdone hit me a moment later, my mind unable to make the connection, though it was obvious to me, as Liz gasped and Dad took a half step back, one hand over his mouth, they both knew exactly what was in the box.
Took me another heartbeat to connect the old smell of cooked meat trapped within despite the passage of time, paired with the outline of a jawbone to the contents.
“Dear god,” Liz whispered. She turned to Dad, her shock palpable. Sure, she was a seasoned FBI agent, but even she hadn’t been prepared for this, right? “Do you have any idea who it is?”
My father didn’t answer. He didn’t seem able, tears now streaming down his face. He turned away while I choked on my own, heart pounding so loudly in my ears I barely heard myself answer her.
“It can only be one person,” I said. “Fiona Doyle.”
***
Chapter Thirty
Things couldn’t get any worse, could they? Surely not.
Enter Dr. Lloyd Aberstock and so much worse I could barely breathe.
“I’m afraid, from preliminary examination, there is more than one set of skeletal remains in this mess.” He stood over the box Dad had dropped on the surgical table, the morgue already quiet but now feeling like a tomb as he spoke. His normally jovial tone was gone, grim sorrow replacing it. “I can’t identify the victim without a DNA test, I’m afraid. But there is enough bone matter remaining that whoever tried to burn these,” he gestured into the box with his gloved hands trailing bits of ash, “failed in their attempt to disguise this poor woman’s identity.”
“You’re sure she was female?” Dad’s voice couldn’t have been any flatter, empty of all emotion. I guess he’d released what he needed to at the office before bundling all of us up and calling the doc on our way to the hospital, practically ordering the older man to meet us there.
“The width of the pelvic bone is a dead giveaway, I’m afraid.” Dr. Aberstock winced. “Apologies for the unfortunate use of language. But it’s these bones that concern me the most.” He held up a tiny one that looked like the remains of a chicken wing. “From an infant. I’d say newborn.” He set the bone gently aside on a strip of heavy paper he’d unrolled, laying it out next to the few others he’d already excavated from the ashes. “A tragedy, this.”
Dad left us then, turning around and marching out through the swinging doors without saying another word. Liz held me back when I tried to follow.
“Let him have a minute,” she said, compassion in her face if not her regularly scheduled FBI tone of voice. “I take it Fiona Doyle was pregnant?”
I nodded, swallowed hard against the need to sob and throw up at the same time. “That was the rumor.”
“Until we know for certain this is, indeed, Miss Doyle, it remains just that.” Dr. Aberstock seemed offended by the leap in logic. “A rumor.”
Fair enough. I wiped my mouth with the cuff of my jacket, pulling back on my overwhelm enough to keep from falling completely apart.
“Siobhan was wrong, then,” I said. “She thought Fiona was alive.” I met the doc’s eyes. “If this is her.”
He sagged a little, shrugged. “Fine.” Dr. Aberstock went back to sifting through the ashes. “Speculate.”
“I’ll wait on the lab,” Liz said.
“And you’ll be explaining where you found these remains how, Agent Michaud?” The doc looked back and forth between us over the round rims of his glasses, fluffy white eyebrows arched, cheeks pink. Why did he have to look so much like Santa Claus pawing through the acrid remains of a dead woman and her baby as though some gristly present he planned to deliver to an unsuspecting child? I’d never think about Christmas the same way again.
Liz looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I know,” she said, glancing at me, then. “Fee, honestly, I figured we’d find nothing. Or something ridiculous. Not this.” Her right hand rose and fell, thudding against her thigh. “I have to report this. But that means also reporting where we found the box.” Any concern washed out of her expression the moment she said it, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. “I’ll just accept the consequences.”
“I can report it,” I said, touching her hand, feeling her tense from the contact. “You don’t have to be involved, Liz.” I met Dr. Aberstock’s eyes and he nodded.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you met us here, Agent Michaud, after Fiona found these remains. Alone?” He was obviously trying to protect Dad, too.
“No.” My father had returned in silence, striding then to the table, crossing his arms over his big chest, glaring at the box like it broke his heart. “I found it. Fee and Liz had nothing to do with it.”
We both started to protest but my father just grunted and refused to respond which, in John Flemingspeak, meant the case was closed, and nothing would make him change his damned fool mind.
Grunt. Flemings.
“I want to know how Grandmother Iris knew about the body.” Sigh. Bodies. “And why didn’t she just tell us they were there? Why the stupid treasure hunt?” Sick sense of humor, Grandmother. Sick.
No answers forthcoming, I lasted about five more minutes. Until the doc lifted out a perfectly preserved skull no bigger than a grapefruit.
I just couldn’t take it anymore. With tears partially blinding me and my grief over the woman I’d been named for welling up inside in a bubble of pending sobs, I spun and marched out. And kept walking.
The morgue connected to the main hospital through a narrow hallway just past Dr. Aberstock’s tiny office. I took the corridor, rounding the corner into the tall glass and stone entry of the hospital’s main foyer. My feet kept moving, past the bank of elevators with their shining stainless steel doors, the gift shop, the few people shuffling their way to the coffee shop for a snack while the bored attendant behind the counter looked like she was second guessing her employment options.
I wasn’t really seeing any of them, paying attention to my surroundings. Instead, I followed the colored lines on the floor, guiding me by coded stripes through the hospital halls, half expecting to be stopped at some point, only to be ignored as staff did their thing and let me do mine.
Maybe I looked like I’d just lost someone important to me and they didn’t want to disturb me. Well, they would have been right. The fact I’d never met her? Didn’t matter. It felt as if a part of me had been discovered in that metal box, desecrated by someone who’d attempted to hide what they’d done with fire and a burial no one would ever uncover.
But we had. I paused near the end of a hallway, looking up, realizing I was lost and had no idea what part of the hospital I’d ended up. Didn’t matter. I leaned against the wall, staring without focus at the hand sanitation dispenser bolted to the gap between the doorjamb and the clear plastic slot for patient files. We’d found her, and her baby, thanks to Grandmother Iris. Had she discovered the resting place and carved the butterflies into the stone? But why? Why not bring the bodies out herself? Why not tell Dad when he became sheriff? Why the subterfuge and the trickery and the endless line of mysteries?
If my grandmother knew, why didn’t she just say something?
That question’s answer would have to wait. Because, as I sighed and shook off the lethargy of my quiet wandering, I looked up at a hint of movement ahead, the dark hall further on home, it looked like, to offices.
And spotted the familiar young man in the suit exiting one of the doorways. He paused at the exit, turning back just as a second person emerged. In a flash of memory, I made a connection, and, knowing how important this could be because there were other mysteries than the death of Fiona Doyle, I tucked myself into the partially open door beside the hand sanitizer and listened.
“The next shipment better not be light on product,” the first young man’s voice carried faintly, enough in the quiet of the hall to reach me legibly. He’d cleaned up his accent a bit, no longer sounded like a smar
tass kid, but it was him, all right. Pitch Conway might have gotten a good haircut and a nice suit, but he was still the drug dealing punk I remembered, under all that. Never mind he was Alicia’s little brother.
“I’m doing my best.” Why was I not surprised Pitch’s partner was none other than Barry Clement? The doc’s assistant sounded nervous. “We’re moving too much product through this one location. Can’t they slow down a little? I haven’t come this far to get caught.”
“You have your instructions.” Pitch sounded almost pleasant in contrast. “See to it you deliver, Barry. You know what happens when the bosses aren’t happy.”
I didn’t see Barry’s reaction to that, but the threat was obvious. The tapping of footfalls drew near, the sound of another set retreating further down the hall telling me I only had to wait a moment and I’d be alone again.
Yeah. Wasn’t big on waiting. Though, I didn’t know if it was Barry or Pitch I grabbed and yanked into the dark office with me, the assistant or the drug dealer who yelped in surprise and staggered to do my bidding as I flicked on the light, prepared for anything.
Anything, that was, expect for the initial stunned expression on Alicia’s brother’s face that flipped almost instantly to a big grin.
“Fee Fleming!” He hugged me hard and tight. “Thank god. We have to talk.”
Um. Okay. “Pitch,” I said. Stopped as I tried to sort out my thoughts. But he was way ahead of me.
“I know, I know. Here.” He tugged me toward the desk and the two chairs on the closest side. I sat with him while he ran both hands through that nice haircut, the harsh lighting showing the faint pockmarks of old acne scars on his cheeks, healthy living not quite able to completely erase the premature lines around his mouth and on his forehead. He was maybe twenty three, but he looked a decade older and not in a good way. “I’m glad you found me. I was trying to figure out a way to get to you without anyone finding out. This is perfect.” Pitch practically rubbed his hands together, a quick flicker of fear in his eyes.
