How Secrets Die

by Marta Perry

  If Mac came through with his promise to set up a meeting with Russell Sheldon, she could be on her way to finding some answers. Come to think of it, she didn’t doubt that Mac would do as he said. He wasn’t a person to promise what he couldn’t deliver.

  The door closed sharply behind her. Kate swung around, losing her balance entirely this time, and hopped from the stool just as it toppled.

  “Hey, sorry.” The intruder seemed abashed at the havoc he’d wrought with his entrance. He rushed to set the step stool upright, giving Kate a chance to have a look at him.

  Early twenties, probably, with a round, youthful face that didn’t seem to match the black pants, T-shirt and jacket he wore. His straw-colored hair was longish in the back, curling despite his likely efforts to subdue it.

  “Were you looking for something?” she asked. Or someone?

  “You, if you’re Kate Beaumont.” He tried to assume a menacing look that didn’t work well with his blue eyes and the dimple in his cheek. “You’ve been asking around about me. Lay off.”

  “Larry Foust, I suppose. I’ve been asking because I want to talk to you about my brother.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk, so quit poking around asking questions, or...”

  “Or what?” She took a step closer, resisting the impulse to grab him by the shirt and shake the attitude out of him. “If you want me to leave you alone, just answer my questions.”

  “I don’t know anything.” The words turned into a whine. He moved a step back, as if they were involved in an odd dance.

  “You knew Jason. Pretty well, I understand. How can you say you don’t know anything when you don’t know what I want to ask?”

  He shot a look toward the door, probably regretting the bravado that had prompted him to close it. “Look, I’m sorry about your brother. He seemed like a good guy. But you’ll get me in trouble if you go linking us together.”

  Kate was on that in an instant. “Why would you be in trouble? Unless you encouraged him to get back on drugs. Or maybe you know something about where he got the drugs he took.”

  “I don’t, honest, I don’t. But nobody wants to be mixed up in trouble, maybe have the cops coming to the door asking questions. You can’t say I had anything to do with Jason dying. Honest.” He tried for a boyish look that probably worked well on older women.

  But she had no desire to mother him. She tried an appeal of her own. “You knew Jason. You’re about the same age. I thought if anyone knew why he did what he did, it might be you. Won’t you help me?”

  “I don’t know. Honest, I don’t.” For an instant she seemed to see the confused kid behind the facade. “It seemed like Jase had everything going for him. Good job, enough money to get by on, a place of his own. I don’t get it.”

  “Do you think he took an overdose deliberately?” It was a struggle to say the words.

  Larry shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I mean, I know he wasn’t using before that. I tried to give him a joint or two, and he wouldn’t touch them. No harm in that,” he muttered. “Everybody does it.”

  That was one of the things she’d learned in helping Jason through his crisis. People who used had to believe that it was normal, that everyone did it, so that meant it wasn’t so bad.

  “Did you see him that last day?”

  He shook his head violently. “Not me. Last I saw of him was the night before. He just had a beer at the Lamplight and went home early. He seemed fine. Honest. It was strange that...”

  “That what?”

  Larry shrugged. “Well, that he had a beer, even. He didn’t drink anything alcoholic. Said he couldn’t, so I figured he had a problem. But something pushed him over the line.”

  So if Larry was to be believed, and that was a big if, something happened that last day that had pushed Jason into an overdose, deliberate or accidental. What could it be other than his firing? Unless, of course, his father had found out. She could imagine the brand of sympathy Tom would offer.

  Why hadn’t he called her? She backed away from the answer to that question and turned on Larry instead.

  “If he’d wanted something stronger than the marijuana you offered, where would he get it in Laurel Ridge?” She snapped the question at him.

  “I don’t know.” Panic flared in his face. “Honest, I don’t.”

  Her stepfather used to say that people used the word honest when they really meant the opposite. Of course, Tom had been a cynic about humanity.

  “Listen, I have to go.” Larry scrabbled at the door, missing the knob in his haste. “I can’t tell you anything else. Just leave me alone.”

  “One more thing.” She planted her hand on the door. He probably could have yanked it open against her, but he didn’t try. “Were you at the Lamplight last night?”

  “No, no, I swear I wasn’t.” His expression told her he’d heard what happened to her, and beads of perspiration appeared along his hairline. “Whoever did that, it wasn’t me. I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  Kate wasn’t sure she entirely believed him, but she doubted she’d get anything else from him. She stepped back from the door.

  This time his hand landed on the knob. He yanked the door open and catapulted through it. A moment later she heard the outside door open and close.

  Kate stood where she was for a moment. She didn’t think she’d gotten the entire story from Larry, but it was clear there was someone or something he feared more than he did anything she could do. She’d give a lot to know who or what that was. Her thoughts ricocheted to the incident Mac had told her about with the high school kid. She’d been so focused on Jason that she hadn’t even considered the bigger picture.

  * * *

  SUPPER AT HIS parents’ place tended to be a noisy affair, Mac knew, and tonight it was louder than ever. But it was a break from the thrown-together suppers he usually ate in his quiet second-floor apartment in town. He’d wanted his privacy when he got back from the military, and his job had made a good reason to move into town. No one would hear him there when the nightmares got bad.

  Nick and Allison had taken Jamie for a hike through the woods after school to collect autumn leaves, and he bubbled over with enthusiasm, as always.

  “Grammy’s going to show me how to make place mats with the leaves, Uncle Mac. I bet you don’t know how to do that.”

  Mac grinned, ruffling his nephew’s silky hair. “You’d lose, then. Grammy did that with me when I was a little boy. And your daddy, too.”

  Jamie ducked away from his hand and smoothed his hair back into place. “What happened to yours?”

  Mac exchanged glances with his mother, who smiled and shrugged.

  “They don’t last forever,” she explained. “But we’ll enjoy them this fall, won’t we?”

  Jamie nodded, apparently satisfied, and spooned the last bite of his apple dumpling between his lips. “Can I be excused?” he muttered, mouth still full.

  “May I,” Nick corrected. “Okay. But don’t run.”

  The addition was too late, since Jamie took off as if jet-propelled in his eagerness to get back outside before dark. The door slammed, punctuating his flight.

  His mother shook her head indulgently and turned back to her conversation with Allison about wedding plans.

  Mac lifted his eyebrows at his brother. “Do those two ever talk about anything else?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” Nick admitted.

  “Weddings take a lot of planning,” his mother informed him. “Not that you’d know anything about that.”

  Mac rolled his eyes at the inevitable jab at his unmarried state. “Seems like the Amish do it a lot simpler. I don’t hear Aaron and Sarah talking about flower girls and bouquets.”

  “If you think it’s simpler to provide a wedding supper for upwards of
two hundred family and friends in the Bitlers’ farmhouse, you’d best think again,” she said.

  “That reminds me, I promised Sarah’s father I’d put together a few extra trestle tables for the wedding,” his father said. “I said you boys would help.”

  Mac nodded. “Just let me know when. It’ll be nice to see those two happy after all they’ve been through.” Sarah and Aaron had had a difficult time of it this summer, but at last they were free to look forward to a life together.

  Nick nudged him. “All these weddings giving you any ideas, little brother?”

  “Not yet, thanks,” he said firmly. “I don’t plan...”

  He lost the rest of that thought when his cell phone vibrated. Pushing back his chair, he answered as he moved away from the table. At least he’d gotten through the meal before being interrupted.

  “Whiting,” he said briskly. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing important.”

  At the sound of Kate’s voice, he could almost sense her in the room with him. Keeping his back to the table, he moved into the living room. “You haven’t been dodging any more speeding vehicles?”

  “No.” She hesitated, making him think she was considering how to put whatever it was she’d called to say. “I wasn’t going to bother calling you about this, but I don’t care to listen to any more lectures about keeping secrets.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He moved to the window and glanced out at the rolling fields, golden now in the last of the afternoon’s sun. “What’s happening, then?”

  “I had a visitor at the bookshop today. Larry Foust came to see me.”

  “That’s a surprise. I thought he was avoiding you.”

  “He said he’d heard I’d been asking around about him. He wanted me to knock it off.”

  She said it lightly, but still his hand tightened on the phone.

  “You mean he threatened you? Right out in public?”

  “It wasn’t exactly in public. I was working in the back room when he suddenly showed up. As for threatening...” A thread of amusement ran through her voice. “With that baby face of his, he can’t really manage to look menacing.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s harmless, especially if he’s the one who supplied your brother with drugs.” His jaw hardened. He’d known Kate’s presence would stir things up. Still, if she hadn’t found her brother’s journal, the case would still be at an unsatisfying end. “Are you at home? I’m coming over.”

  “That’s not necessary. I just wanted to tell you, so you couldn’t complain.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He ended the call before she could answer and stalked back into the dining room, to find every member of his family looking at him with interest.

  He tried to ignore them. “Thanks for supper, Mom. It was great. I’m afraid I have to leave now.”

  “Was that Kate Beaumont on the phone?” his mother asked. “If you’re seeing her, tell her I’d like for her to come to dinner this weekend.”

  “Mom.” It was the harassed tone that made him feel like a teenager, trying to keep his parents from embarrassing him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He didn’t want a possibly dangerous situation touching his family.

  She tilted her head slightly as she studied his face, reminding him of Jamie. “Maybe you’re right. It should come from me. I’ll call her.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.” He shook his head, giving it up as a lost cause. No one ever stopped his mother from exercising her gift for hospitality. “I have to go.”

  * * *

  IT TOOK LESS than fifteen minutes to reach the bed-and-breakfast, park and start back the walk toward the cottage, but in that time the sun had slid behind the ridge, and the shadows were thick under the trees and around the buildings. He strode to the stoop, noticed something white fluttering against the door and tugged it free as he knocked.

  Kate yanked the door open immediately, looking ready for battle, her hair pulled ruthlessly back from her face to a knot at her nape. “I told you...” she began, but he walked past her.

  “If you had an encounter with Larry Foust, I want to talk to you face-to-face.” He thrust the paper at her. “This was stuck in your door.”

  She took it, still frowning at him. “Larry didn’t scare me.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” Unwilling, he felt a smile tug at his lips. “I’d guess it was the other way around.”

  Taken by surprise, she blinked, and her face relaxed. “You mean I scared him. I meant to, I suppose. But really, isn’t it stretching things to picture him as some kind of drug kingpin? I wouldn’t think he’d have either the brains or the nerve.”

  “Probably not, but that doesn’t mean he’s guiltless. If he introduced your brother to the person who provided the drugs he took, he’s still morally responsible. And legally, as well.” He moved a little farther into the room, glancing at the computer screen. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Jason’s face, but it was a page of text.

  She caught the direction of his glance. “I was working on a magazine article. Anyway, there’s no reason for you to get hot under the collar because I talked to Larry. I was fine.”

  “You were alone with him.” His exasperation grew. Didn’t the woman have any sense? “After what happened to you last night, you shouldn’t have put yourself in another risky position.”

  “I didn’t.” Kate sounded as exasperated as he felt. “I was in the storeroom of the bookshop in the middle of the day. And Emily was right in the next room. Why would I think that dangerous?”

  Mac knew perfectly well why he was so irritated. It was because she was right. And because she should have been safe in his town.

  “You wouldn’t,” he admitted. “But when you saw Larry, why didn’t you walk right out into the shop?”

  Kate just stared at him for a moment, and then a smile teased her lips. “And ask him about supplying my brother with drugs in Emily’s presence?”

  He threw up his hand in a gesture of surrender. “All right, you win. So, did you learn anything from all of that?”

  “Not much. Except that—well, I did get the sense that he wasn’t telling me everything. He did say, or imply anyway, that he’d offered Jason pot, and Jason refused.”

  Mac nodded. “I’m not surprised. There’s too much of it around to suit me. As soon as we stop one channel, another one pops up.” He zeroed in on her face, trying to penetrate the barrier she put up whenever the conversation turned to her brother. “You said you thought Larry was hiding something. Any idea what?”

  “I can’t be sure,” she said slowly, as if she thought back over the conversation, trying to tease out any further meaning. “When I pushed him about where Jason might have gotten the drugs, it seemed to me that he panicked.”

  He considered. “If that’s so, it sounds as if he knew.”

  “And didn’t want to say. Or was afraid to say.” She finished the thought for him, and her gaze met his. “So Larry knows where Jason got the drugs that killed him.” Her voice shook just a little. “We have to make him tell us.”

  “Not we,” he corrected quickly. “This is a job for the police. I’ll lean on Larry.” After he’d gone back and questioned people at the bar more closely, he’d been convinced that Larry hadn’t been around at all that night. Obviously he shouldn’t have accepted that. Maybe he’d become too confident that he knew his town and its people.

  Mac expected an argument and was surprised when he didn’t get one. Instead, Kate gave a rueful smile.

  “Much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think I’ll get anything more from him. I’m sure you’ll be a lot more impressive.”

  He masked his surprise with a smile. “It’s the uniform that does it.”

  “And the man who wears it,” Kate added.

  Coming from
anyone else that would have been a compliment. Kate made it sound more like an insult. Obviously her relationship with her stepfather hadn’t been a good one. Maybe she was transferring those feelings to anyone else in uniform.

  Well, there wasn’t much he could do about it. His job was clear. If any doubt existed about Jason Reilley’s death, he had to clear it up. And if he had any chance of finding the person who’d supplied the drugs, he’d never let go.

  He studied Kate’s averted face for a moment and decided it was time to change the subject if he could. “I’ve arranged for us to meet with Russ Sheldon tomorrow at eleven. I hope that works for you.”

  That news kindled enthusiasm that made her golden-brown eyes sparkle. “Great. That’ll be fine. I’m not working until the afternoon tomorrow, anyway. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’ll pick you up,” he said firmly. “I’ll be here about ten to eleven.”

  As anticipated, that raised an instant objection. “I know where he lives. I can walk.”

  He let his lips quirk just a little. “You walk beautifully, but I’m still picking you up.”

  His compliment hung in the balance for a moment, but then she smiled. “Okay, have it your way. I’ll see you then.”

  The words were a prelude to dismissal, and he didn’t want to go, at least not yet. He nodded toward the scrap of paper he’d carried in with him. It lay on the corner of the desk where she’d tossed it.

  “Was that trash, or has someone been leaving you love notes?”

  “Hardly that, I think,” she said, unfolding it. She glanced at it, then stared, the warm color draining from her face.

  “Kate?” He’d reached her in an instant, putting his arm around her waist. She looked pale enough to pass out. “What’s wrong?”

  In answer, she shoved the paper into his hand. He frowned, staring at it. A dragon, crudely drawn in pencil, the lines a bit smudged from lying on the step. No words. It seemed meaningless, but obviously it wasn’t.

  “Come on, Kate. Snap out of it.” His grasp tightened. He was suddenly, inappropriately, aware of the slim body brushing his. “What does it mean?”