Gerard bit his tongue to keep from laughing, but concern sobered him quickly enough. “Do you think we should leave them alone at the house if they’re both affected?”
“Good try,” Megan said with a glance over her shoulder, “but I think I’ve convinced Kirstie to stay at Nora’s for a while. Where she goes, Lynley will go. Nora’s coming over in a few minutes. Kirstie’s going to have work done on the house, and I’m going to suggest she and Lynley buy new clothing, shoes, toiletries, everything before they go to Nora’s.”
“Now you’re thinking like a cop.”
“I’ve been around you too long.”
Gerard disagreed. He didn’t think she’d been around him nearly long enough. “Anyway, good job.”
“We’ll see what she says once she’s thought about it.” Megan kicked her pace into high gear and Gerard followed, admiring her speed.
She reminded him of Kirstie. “You had a good mother substitute.”
Megan looked around at him. “Kirstie? Yeah. Kind of strange, though, don’t you think? She took my mother’s place in my life after her husband took my father’s place in bed?”
“Kirstie doesn’t know about that?”
“I’m not like Lynley. I don’t tell all I know, and I think Kirstie knows enough already, so why load her down with more? Anyway, is it necessary for us to get into this conversation while we could be stalking a perp in the darkness through a haunted lodge?”
“No such things as haunted lodges if you pray over them right,” Gerard said.
“Then maybe it isn’t haunted because Lawson Barnes is a praying man, but there were lights up there earlier, and you apparently have the only keys in town. Did I tell you I threatened to give away my mother’s dirty little secret if she didn’t stop seeing Barry?”
“And yet you didn’t give her away?”
“She told me she would never see him again. I believed her. She was pretty broken up about it.” Megan paused. “At least she pretended to be.”
“Do you know if she ever saw other men?”
“I don’t think so. You didn’t see her expression when I walked in on them. It was as if her world had just exploded.”
“What about your world?”
“I was angry.”
“You’ve never forgiven her for it?” Gerard asked.
“I think I was angrier with Barry. You’d have to know my mother. She struggled with depression off and on, and I felt Barry took advantage of that. Sometimes I wonder if I’m to blame for Barry Marshal still getting away with wicked activities. I often wish I’d spoken up.”
“But that would have made everything more real.”
Megan’s footsteps slowed. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What’s this special gift you have of knowing what’s on my mind? And don’t tell me it’s because I’m so readable.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I guess I could say my mother did me a favor because the memory of finding her and Barry like that stuck with me through my teens and kept me chaste in the face of Alec’s demands.”
Gerard wanted to shoot his fist into the air and cheer. “I’m glad something good came out of it.”
“But if Barry’s somehow poisoning his family in order to get Lawson’s money for himself, then I could be partially to blame for what’s happening to them now. Maybe Kirstie would have kicked him out years ago if I’d told her.”
Gerard hated the sound of anxiety in her voice. “You think someone living with a childhood trauma should be blamed for the actions of another person? He was the reason for your trauma, Megan. You’re not the reason for what’s happening now, and I doubt any word from you could have been a revelation for her.”
“You think she knew?”
“I think she knew a lot, and you weren’t the cause of the lifelong pain of her marriage. You were a child.”
A moment later, Megan aimed her light up the hillside to reveal the lodge-style front of the resort. “There it is.”
Megan led him between two looming buildings to the front of the huge double doors that were the lodge entrance. She turned to Gerard, and a half-smile touched her face in the shadows of the porch roof. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. And since you’re opening up about that, how do you feel about yet one more subject?”
Her smile died.
“I just want to make one point, Megan.”
She sighed. “Okay, I can see you’re going to start spewing steam from your ears if you can’t have your say.”
“I’m glad you told Lynley about Joni. I wish you’d keep talking about it, telling more friends, sharing the load. It’s what friends are for. Another reason I drove here last night was because I couldn’t get Evelyn Murphy off my mind. Remember her?”
“How could I forget? She had compartment syndrome. She lost her leg.”
“And you explained how that happened. Her blood supply was cut off from her leg. Ever since you left I’ve thought about her, even dreamed about her.”
“After Joni’s murder and Stud’s death at Christmas and your own sister being stalked and almost killed, you’re thinking about a case from last year?”
“I’m pointing out that it’s exactly what you could be doing to yourself emotionally and spiritually if you don’t ask for help.”
“You think I should find a therapist.”
“Most definitely. You can’t keep that bottled up inside and expect to heal from it. You’re a doctor. You know better.”
“But I need time.”
“You don’t have time. Evelyn didn’t have time, remember? It was tragic, especially because it was preventable. You said so yourself.”
Megan shook her head. “This isn’t the same thing.”
“You’re shutting yourself away from your main source of help. You were getting to know Him again after all these years.”
“I can’t go there yet, Gerard.”
“He’s your spiritual strength.”
She shook her head. “That blood supply you’re so sold on was poisoning me.” There was a tremble in her voice he hadn’t heard before. “It’s hot in Texas in more ways than one. I can’t do everything God expects me to do.”
“He only expects you to lean on Him. Believe me, I know it’s hot. I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. You’ve always been so sure of your calling.”
“I’ve been burned multiple times.”
“You’re not the one who saw it happen.”
“I was there, Megan. Remember? I heard the shot. I came running.”
“You weren’t the one who shot and killed Guffey.” Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “It seems all I can do is cry tonight.”
“I wish I’d been there when he arrived. Then maybe you wouldn’t be going through all this.”
She closed her eyes. “And the blood…all the blood. Joni’s lifeblood…”
He touched her wet cheek. “You saved the baby—you didn’t kill the mother. She was already gone, and you know that.”
“Cutting her like that.” A sob escaped, and Megan raised her hands to her face as if she might be able to physically block the flow of emotion.
Gerard took her hands, and she let him. He drew her into his arms. She went. She pressed her forehead against his chest and wept.
“You not only stopped a psychopath on a murdering spree, but you performed a postmortem C-section right there on the clinic floor and saved little Daria.”
“It wasn’t a C-section—it was an invasion. A slaughter.”
“A rescue.”
“And it shouldn’t have had to happen. I knew how to shoot, I had my weapon, kept it close after Stud’s death, but I still couldn’t
stop him.” Megan looked up into Gerard’s eyes. “I couldn’t do anything to stop him, and I can never go back and redo it.”
“Who knows how many other lives you saved when you took him down?” Gerard said softly. “Two days later Sean and I received a report that Bryant Guffey had killed at least sixteen people in other cities.”
Megan caught her breath and withdrew. She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a tissue. She wiped her face, obviously struggling to put herself back together again.
“You’d have been next,” Gerard said. “And then maybe Tess, or Sean or me.”
“I’ve told myself that many times, but it’s never enough.”
“It’s enough, Megan. More than enough. No police officer I know could have done what you did to save Daria.”
“Except save her mom.”
Gerard watched helplessly as the mask of cool control slipped back over Megan’s face, belied only by her red eyes and nose. Once again she was withdrawing into herself. And yet she had relented and talked to her best friend about it. Granted, she’d most likely done so because she knew Lynley needed at least a few answers, but now that the subject had been broached, he had to believe Megan would feel some relief.
He reached up and dabbed at a stray tear on her cheek. Unable to stop himself, he leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I guess we should take a look at this mansion.” He pulled the lodge keys from his pocket. Kirstie had shown him which one opened the doors, and Megan held her light on the lock. The doors opened without a sound.
The place smelled faintly of a citrus grove. “Someone keeps this place up.”
“Didn’t Kirstie tell you?” Megan entered a magnificent great hall with gold-and-white-marbled floors and a carpeted staircase more than two stories high. “She’s the caretaker. When it needs a deep cleaning she hires the help and oversees the work.” She reached to the right and touched a circular light switch. “There’s a grand piano, a stage and dance floor up the—” The lights came on and she cried out, grabbing Gerard’s arm.
A man’s body lay sprawled on the marble directly beneath the polished mahogany railing that edged the upper floor. Blood pooled beneath his head.
“Stay back.” Gerard pressed her behind him and sprinted across the marble floor. He dropped to his knees beside the man and felt his carotid artery. The body was still warm, but he was dead.
“That’s Barry Marshal,” Megan said softly from the doorway.
FOURTEEN
On Monday evening Megan stepped from the crowded funeral home for some fresh air and looked at all the cars lined along the quiet street in Pierce City, a short drive from Jolly Mill. The lot behind the home was full. Practically every citizen of Jolly Mill and many Pierce City residents were here for the evening visitation and funeral being held for Barry Marshal.
After a day of storms and torrential rain, birds sang from the surrounding trees and the air smelled clean and pure. Megan wished her mind would feel so fresh after the storms in her life.
She wasn’t surprised by the turnout despite Barry’s questionable reputation. Folks in this part of the country attended funerals to support family, not necessarily to show respect for the dead. They reconnected to life, to each other, and if the deceased had been loved, then their friends focused on them and relived funny memories. Megan suspected that, for her community, attending a funeral was a way to come to terms with the limits placed on their own lives.
The door rattled behind her and Lynley stepped out, her heels echoing across the porch. Her dark eyes were rimmed with red, and her makeup had all been wiped off a couple of hours ago by the shoulders of friends and neighbors.
“You look awful,” she said as she joined Megan at the edge of the porch.
“Thanks. You too.”
“You heard his death was ruled an accident?” Lynley asked.
“I heard.”
“What would my father have been doing in the lodge? Nora talked Mom into getting the locks changed after Dad moved out, so he didn’t even have a workable set of keys, and there was no evidence of a break-in. Only Uncle Lawson, Mom and Nora had a master key. Have you heard the rumors flying around in there tonight?”
Megan had, but for the sake of Kirstie and Lynley she’d asked the people talking to keep their voices down. “A little.”
“Now they’re thinking Carmen or Nora might have had a private encounter with Dad at the lodge.”
“Then they don’t know either woman very well. Carmen doesn’t even have a key.”
“Nora does.” Lynley crossed her arms and sighed as she leaned against the railing. “As if Nora would ever be stupid enough to have an affair with my father.”
Megan studied her friend’s face. “You’ve held up well.” Despite the smudged and erased makeup.
“I’ve cried all evening and I can’t understand why. It isn’t as if my father ever loved me. We were never close.”
“That in itself is something to cry about.”
“Then you and I both have reason to cry. He didn’t have much love for you either.”
Megan recalled the very brief talk he’d had with her after she found him and Mom together. All he’d said was, “Consider what you lose if you say a word. They’ll hate you.”
“I’m not crying,” she told Lynley.
“No, but right now we’ve got all these shoulders offered to us, so we might as well take advantage of it. Emotionally healthy and all that.”
“No more episodes with Kirstie?”
“None. Nora did exactly what she’d threatened to do—which you would know all about if you’d bothered to take a jaunt through the woods and visit us.”
“What did Nora do?”
“She made Mom sleep with her these past two nights on the king bed in the guest room, complete with handcuffs she borrowed from Moritz.”
Megan pressed her lips together for a second. “Oh, that is so wrong on so many levels.”
“That’s what Mom said, but Nora wouldn’t relent. She said Kirstie would go swimming in the mill pond again over her dead and handcuffed body.”
“You’re serious?”
“No kidding. Any time one of them had to get up to go to the bathroom, the other had to go too.”
Megan burst into laughter. “I didn’t think Nora meant it when she made that threat.”
“She’s determined Mom won’t go missing again. She also hired a housekeeper—a man named McDowell—to keep watch over Mom during the day. He’s driving Mom crazy, but Nora’s been teaching him to bake her cookie recipe, so she may offer him another job after his watchdog role ends. It can’t come too quickly for Mom. But there have been no more blackouts.”
“It’s early yet.”
“Not really, Megan.” Lynley hesitated, cleared her throat. “She had several episodes while I was with her these past few weeks. I just never let her leave the house, and it was our little secret.”
“You didn’t tell me?”
Lynley kicked her toe against the concrete step. “Didn’t tell anyone. I kept picturing some men in white coats coming to take Mom away, and I couldn’t let that happen, no matter what. It would have killed me.”
Ouch. And Megan had been trying to make Lynley lock her mother away. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I’m glad we kept the clinic closed today. You needed to be with Kirstie.”
“And you needed to be with Gerard?” Lynley spread her hands. “Just guessing, not interfering. I thought you wanted to avoid him.”
“You know how much you love chocolate? Yet when you try to break the habit you crave it even more?”
Lynley grimaced. “I know that has to be difficult, especially since he’s trying to set up shop here.”
“You have no idea.”
“You love him.”
Megan nodded.
“Then what’s the problem? He’s obviously crazy about you. I mean, look at what the man’s doing here. He’s here because you are, plain and simple.”
“First of all, I can’t get Joni’s death out of my mind, and with him here it’s even worse. Second, sure he’s here now, but what if he suddenly decided he needed to return to the mission in Texas?”
“I think he’s made it clear he plans to settle here to be with you.”
“But I need to love him enough to return with him to Corpus Christi if he goes. And I can’t do that right now.”
“Because you don’t love him enough?”
“Because I’m terrified. Besides, my thoughts about God are not the best thoughts after what happened with Joni, and a shared faith is vital. I’ve seen that with your mom and dad. The spirit—whatever spirit it was—in Barry hated the Spirit in Kirstie.”
“So which spirit do you choose? Barry’s or Mom’s? You’ve seen evidence of both. You’ve seen tons of evidence in Gerard. It kind of seeps out of him like sunlight through a clean window.”
“I don’t have what it takes to keep up with Gerard’s God.”
“Okay.” Lynley placed a gentle hand on Megan’s arm. “Take your time. Hey, seriously, you’ve missed so much action at the Thompson home the past three days.”
“Fights between Nora and Kirstie?”
“Well, sure, there’s that. You know Mom and Nora can’t be in the same room for ten minutes without arguing. I think Nora loves the company, though, and she experimented with a new cookie recipe. I thought you’d at least stop by.”
“You had a funeral to plan, and I didn’t want to interfere.”
“Stop that. You know you’re family, even if I did behave like a shrew the other night.”
“How have you felt over the weekend?”
Lynley’s eyes narrowed as she studied Megan in silence for a moment. “Civil today. You and Nora both seem to think there’s a leak or contaminant in the house that’s affecting Mom, and maybe even me, though neither of you has come right out and said it.”
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