Brown and de Luca Collection, Volume 1

by Maggie Shayne

  It was good sex.

  Yeah, it was really good sex.

  At least myself and I could agree on that much. I peeled back the covers and eased out of the bed as carefully as possible, because, A, I wanted to avoid the awkward moment when we both woke up in the morning and had to say something, B, I didn’t want to wake Myrt, who we’d hefted onto the bed after our playtime was done, and C, I fully intended to spend the night in Eric’s room.

  I don’t know why. Maybe to prove to myself that I could, or maybe I was hoping to figure something out while I was in there. Who can tell?

  I got there by way of the bathroom, because I had to pee, and I almost scared myself when I passed the mirror. Going to sleep with wet hair is never a great idea.

  Then I was back in Eric Brown’s childhood bedroom. I doubted I would ever get to sleep, but I was damned well going to give it my best shot.

  I lay there for a while. I tossed and I turned. I cussed under my breath and thumped my pillow. I figured I’d been lying there for an hour or so when I finally conceded defeat and sat up.

  The bed rocked a little with my motion, and I heard the gentle slapping of oars in water. What the hell? It was still dark, but when I looked around I knew I wasn’t indoors. There was cool night air on my face and mist rising all around me.

  Ahh another dream, then. Okay, let’s see where this one goes.

  The oars, it turned out, were in my hands as I rowed a small boat across the water. It was nighttime, and the mist made it hard to see how far away the shore might be, but I could see a few stars winking high above. And as I settled more deeply and comfortably into the dream, I could smell the air, the wet fishy scents close to the boat and the pines farther away. The dampness of that mist was like the air kissing my skin.

  I was rowing, and I was crying. But as before, I wasn’t me. I was riding along inside another body, looking at the world through another set of eyes. A killer’s eyes.

  Hell, this is Eric. I’m in Eric’s head. What is this? A memory?

  I tried to focus, to really look at my surroundings, at my body. I could see my legs, big, male legs clad in jeans and badly stained work boots. Wait, there were other feet in the bottom of the boat. Someone else was there.

  Don’t look don’t look don’t look.

  I forced myself to look further, up the long, skinny legs, also dressed in jeans, and then higher, to the button-down shirt that was buttoned only partway. To the white T-shirt beneath it, red stains making my heart beat faster. Higher, to the pale skin of the neck, past a mark on one side of it, to the face, the head, but I couldn’t keep my focus there. One glance, that was all. Hamburger. He looked like hamburger. I jerked my vision lower again, and this time, I paid attention to the mark on his neck. It was a badly done tattoo. A tiger, upright and climbing the neck like it was a tree.

  It’s Tommy.

  The person whose body I was inside stopped rowing and brushed tears from his eyes/my eyes with a big hand. He was thinking, This is the last time. This is the last time. I can beat it, I know I can.

  He leaned over and grabbed a length of rope I hadn’t noticed before. He knotted the rope to one of my brother’s wrists, then looped it around both of them and tied them together.

  I can’t watch this. Wake up now. Come on, wake up.

  I closed my dream eyes, then opened them again, hoping I would wake up in reality, but no. I was still in the boat, and another length of rope was being knotted around my brother’s ankles. Then the killer turned and picked up a pair of cinder blocks, connecting the free end of each rope to one of them.

  Sobbing loudly now, the killer picked Tommy up and lowered him into the water, just as gently if he were handling a beloved child. As Tommy began to sink, the killer tossed the two cinder blocks over the side, as well, and then he sat and watched the body descend into the weeds and vanish from sight.

  When it was gone, he grabbed the oars again and started rowing away. The mist was clearing a little. I could see the shape of the shoreline in the distance. The sun was starting to rise and the sky was growing lighter, making a silhouette of the trees.

  I tried to squint things into better focus, and the scene turned into a window with the same trees and the same sky beyond it. I was sitting up in bed, wide-awake now, and looking through Eric’s bedroom window at the paling sky outside.

  I pressed my hands to my eyes. Dammit, I’d just seen Mason’s murderous bastard of a brother dump my own brother’s body.

  Well, that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? That was why you slept in here, to see if you’d dream up more information about what happened to Tommy. Right?

  Right. So now I knew. Tommy was at the bottom of a fucking lake.

  A fucking lake.

  I looked at the window again. There were, I realized, probably a couple of hundred lakes in the Adirondack Preserve.

  But how many of them did Eric Brown have a personal connection with?

  I got up and got dressed, tamed my hair down and ponytailed it, then padded quietly downstairs, because I didn’t want to wake Mason. No, I wasn’t just being polite. I was still avoiding the awkward, post-sex discussion we were going to stumble through eventually. I made coffee, filled a big mug of it to take with me and then pulled on my jacket and the cute brown knit hat and scarf Amy had bought me last winter.

  Coffee in hand, I went to the French doors and out onto the big redwood deck for a better look at the lake. Leaning against the rail, cupping the warm mug in my cold hands and sipping, I stared across the sloping expanse of back lawn to the water, some fifty yards distant. It was foggy, dammit. Mist rising from the water just like in the damned dream. It would burn off once the sun got up a bit higher, I thought, but for now I couldn’t see a hell of a lot. Still, there was a set of redwood steps leading down to ground level, two short flights with a landing in between. Sighing, I decided to take them. At the bottom, I saw a pair of red kayaks leaning against the back of the house, under the deck. I walked through the wet grass, peering through the fog at the lake the entire way.

  Birds were singing like maniacs. It was even louder than what I’d heard last night, because apparently most birds were morning people. Unlike me. You know, except for when I spend the night in a serial killer’s bed, or in a serial killer’s head, or both.

  There was a wooden dock extending into the water, with a couple of little boats bobbing serenely, tied up on either side. One was a canoe. Gleaming hardwood, shining and glossy, with a stripe in pine green and the words Old Town, which I figured was the brand name. That was on the left. On the right was a flat-bottomed metal rowboat that didn’t even come to a point in the front. It was boxy. The bow tapered a little, but then squared off, and the stern was identical. It had two built-in bench seats, and oars in the oarlocks.

  I stood there staring at that boat and wondering. Could it be the same one I saw in the dream? I stepped into the thing and then crouched to grab the sides when it rocked way more than I’d expected. I damn near tipped it over, but no, it steadied. I sat myself down on the bench seat, my eyes riveted to the floor at the stern. And then, leaning forward, I put my hands there, right where Tommy would have been lying if this was the same boat.

  I stared hard, trying to recall the image of my dead brother and the boat from the dream, so I could compare. I strained to see any trace of blood, but there was nothing. Nothing obvious, anyway. And all the while, I pressed my hands to the cold metal.

  Were you here, Tommy?

  Blinking away hot tears, I stared out at the water. The mist was starting to dissipate a little, and I could see the shape of the lake better now, along with the trees lining the shore. It looked a lot like the lake from the dream, but then, so did most of the other lakes up here, I imagined.

  Are you out there, big brother? Are you out there in that dark water somewhere?

&nbs
p; “Going for an early-morning boat ride?”

  I jumped so damned hard I almost capsized, sucking in a breath that could have busted a lung, and twisted my head around like a freaking hoot owl.

  “What the fuck are you doing here!” It wasn’t a question.

  David was standing on the dock, handsome as all hell in his bomber jacket with his GQ-model blond hair just perfect, despite the morning breeze. He had his hands in his pockets but offered me one when I started to climb out of the little boat.

  I didn’t take it. I was good and pissed. And yeah, maybe that was partly because I’d just realized that my brother might be anchored to a pair of cinder blocks not far from me, but mostly it was deserved.

  “I decided to drive up for the weekend. I told you I like to camp up here sometimes, didn’t I?”

  I was on the dock now, facing him and not trying one bit to hide my temper. “You came up here because I came up here with Mason and you’re jealous. The question is, how the hell did you know that?”

  “No, you’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “I told you, I camp up here sometimes,” he repeated. But his tone had turned grim.

  “And I told you I didn’t want any strings. We had a few good times together, but now it’s done. I think there’s someone out there who’s a much better match for you than I could ever be.”

  “Oh, come on, Rachel. You don’t mean that. Any guy would be worried if his girlfriend was out in the middle of nowhere with some—”

  “David, I’m not your girlfriend. We don’t know each other well enough for that.”

  He lowered his head, but I got the feeling it was more to hide his burgeoning temper than out of sadness because I was breaking up with him.

  “Please,” I told him. “Go home. Get a start on finding that right woman.”

  His gaze came level. He met my eyes, and I didn’t like what was in his. It was dark. “You can’t just end it like this.”

  “There was never anything to—” I bit my lip, because he was, at the very least, a stalker. And at most? God, could it be him?

  “You’re ending it because of him, aren’t you?”

  I softened my tone considerably, glancing past him toward the house. I thought I saw movement just beyond the glass doors. “David, I’ve only had my eyesight back for a couple of months,” I said, using the rationale I’d been using to convince myself not to get involved with Mason. “I need time to be independent before—”

  “I suppose this is independence. Coming up here with him.”

  “He’s a cop, David. He’s trying to help me find my brother.” I tried to walk past him, but he stepped right up and blocked my way.

  “Right, and you had to screw him to get that help?”

  I was getting pissed now. “Get out of my way and let me pass.”

  “No. I’m not moving until we talk about this.”

  I shrugged. “Have it your way.” I shoved him hard, both hands to the chest. He staggered backward a step and a half, then lost his balance and hit the ice-cold water with a splash that should have lowered the level of the lake.

  By the time he came up spluttering, I was sprinting back across the lawn to the house. But I could hear him cussing me out in a way no one ever had. And the anger in his voice shook me in spite of myself, especially when I sensed he was out of the water, on the shore and coming after me.

  Mason met me halfway, clasped my shoulders and put me behind him. I could see the gun tucked into his waistband and nestling in the small of his back.

  David stopped where he was, glaring and dripping wet.

  Mason faced him squarely. “Go on home, pal. We don’t need any trouble.”

  “You’ve already got trouble, pal,” David replied. “When you take another man’s woman on a romantic weekend, you’ve always got trouble.”

  Without turning, Mason said, “Go on to the house, Rachel.”

  “Fuck you both. I can fight my own battles.” I stepped around Mason, pulling his handgun from the back of his jeans as I did. I didn’t point it. Just held it. “Back off, David. Get out. And don’t even think about coming back here, or calling me when I get home.”

  His jaw twitched, he was clenching his teeth so tightly. “This isn’t the end of this.”

  “Oh, it so fucking is.” I was shaking. The guy was clearly warped, his rage way out of proportion to our handful of dates.

  He sighed so hard it was a growl, then started toward me. Suddenly I heard a car horn, followed by a child’s voice calling, “Uncle Mason?”

  I turned to see Joshua come racing around the house and over the lawn at breakneck speed. Behind him, on the deck already, stood Jeremy and two women, one old, one young. Angela and Marie, I presumed. They must have gotten on the road by four to have made it here so early.

  “We’ll settle this later, David,” Mason said. “Go home now. My family’s here.”

  David looked at Josh, who stumbled to a halt a few feet from us, clearly aware that something was up. David glared at him hard enough to break something but finally stomped away. He was out of sight in a minute, and I heard his tires spitting gravel in their wake when he roared away.

  Mason looked at me, and I looked back at him. I wanted to remind him that David was a transplant recipient, but I could see he was already thinking the same thing. I wanted to tell him that I thought the lake might be his brother’s dumping ground, and ask how he thought David had found us way up here in the middle of nowhere unless he’d followed us, along with about a dozen other things, but Josh was rushing in for a bear hug and time was up.

  How the hell was I going to bring all this up with Eric’s grieving mother, pregnant widow and fatherless sons here?

  * * *

  Marie took over the kitchen, while Josh ran from room to room shouting at the top of his lungs.

  Okay, that wasn’t really what the kid was doing. It was just what it felt like. Why the hell are kids so damned noisy?

  Not Jeremy. He wasn’t noisy. He was petulant, which was worse. He heaved loud, overblown sighs any time anyone so much as looked at him and sat morosely like a lump. Yes, I know that sounds petty, considering the kid had just lost his father a few months ago. And yes, I knew that and still wanted to smack him upside the head.

  I played nice, pretending my life wasn’t on the line, and that my brother wasn’t, in all likelihood, feeding the fish in their pristine fucking lake. I brewed another pot of coffee and filled cups for the four of us.

  “What do you take, Marie? Cream and sugar?”

  “Black, please.” She took the sizzling bacon pan off the burner to join me at the nearby counter, I handed her a coffee, and fixed my own. “How about Angela?”

  She looked blank. “Um—”

  “Cream and sugar,” Angela said, stepping into the kitchen. “Same as I’ve taken it for as long as you’ve been in the family, dear.”

  Oooh, some tension there.

  “And one for Jeremy, if there’s enough. Black,” Angela said.

  To prove he’s a manly man, I’ll bet.

  Angela took her mug from me, and I carried mine and Jeremy’s into the living room, since Marie didn’t seem to want my help with the overblown breakfast she was making. I figured she needed to throw herself into something. Anything, I imagined, would be a welcome distraction from life as a widowed mother of two. Soon to be three.

  “Hey, Jeremy,” I said, handing him the mug. I sat on the sofa beside him. “So why are you acting like such an asshole today?”

  Angela gasped and damn near dropped her cup. Joshua laughed his ass off. Jeremy glared at me for a second, then shrugged. “Because I don’t want to be here any more than you probably want me here,” he said.

  His grandmother gaped at him. “That was rude, Jeremy.” Then she looked at me. “And while
I hate to criticize at our first meeting, Ms. de Luca, so was what you said.”

  I met her eyes. “It was honest. You’re not going to get anywhere tiptoeing around and pretending it’s okay for him to act like a jerk. And call me Rachel.”

  “He’s just in a mood.”

  “We all have our moods. We don’t all put them on public display and use them to beat up on our relatives.” I shrugged. “So if you want to mope, go mope in private.”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “You will, sooner or later.”

  “This stinks on ice.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Jeremy got up, coffee mug in hand, and headed for the stairway to the basement where his room was.

  I was suddenly suspicious of how willingly he’d obeyed me. “Where are you going, Jeremy?”

  “To my room. Where does it look like I’m going?”

  “To sneak out the basement door and try to get home on your own.”

  He turned to stare at me, eyes wide as saucers, so I knew I was right.

  “How about this? Try to act human and I’ll let you drive me into the nearest town this afternoon. We desperately need junk food in this place.” He was sixteen and male, right? So driving was bound to be his passion.

  “Your T-Bird is up here?”

  “Uh, no, and even if it was, I wouldn’t let you drive it. Are you kidding me? I love that car.”

  “What, then?”

  “Mason’s rented Jeep.”

  He looked at me curiously. “And what do I have to do for this?”

  “Be nice, stop moping, have a conversation. Act like your uncle for a while. Think you can do that?”

  He heaved a sigh. “All right.”

  “Good. No more of those heavy sighs, and absolutely no eye rolling.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’ll let you know.” I could see Marie moving back and forth, putting vats of food onto the kitchen table, so I presumed breakfast was served. I tipped my head toward the kitchen, and Jeremy shuffled out there and took a chair. I sighed, then rolled my eyes to boot, but I followed him.