Meg’s mind looped. “I … Sally? I don’t understand.”
“We haven’t charged her yet—she’s got herself a good lawyer, but we’ll get there. I need to ask you some questions,” Kovacs said. “Informally. Off the record.”
Meg’s walls went up. “I can’t guarantee—”
“I’ve reopened the Sherry Brogan case. Unofficially, on the quiet. Put two of my guys on it. They’re going through the files.”
Her heart stopped, then kicked into a fast, erratic pattern. Irene glanced up.
“I found it, Meg! I found the missing piece I was looking for.”
Meg forced a smile, and held up her hand, telling Irene to hang on a moment. She stepped further around the corner. “What made you reopen it?” she said quietly.
“My father’s heart was in the right place. I trust him on that. He did what he believed was right. But you’ve raised some serious concerns that will need to be addressed if this book of yours comes out. I’ve been going through the case files myself.” He hesitated. “I need this solved as much as you do. And yes, in part because of my campaign. If I nail this now, I can use it—I can show the electorate that even if it involves family, or comes at personal cost, I can still be objective, that I will serve the public, not myself. And, in part because, no matter what you might think, I do believe in justice. You work with me, we both win.”
Meg blinked, suspicion curling through her. “You been drinking, Kovacs?”
He laughed, then turned serious. “Okay, so why do you think Sally Braden might have done this? What would make her in particular want to take such radical action to scare you off this story? What connection does she have to you, to Sherry, to your family, to Ty Mack? Is there anything you can think of?”
Meg closed her eyes, casting her mind back. “Only that Sally was in Sherry’s graduating class. And she’s related to Braden farms, where Mason and Keevan Mack now work.”
“She works there, too. Part-time. Doing their books,” he said.
“Maybe she’s tight with, or seeing one of the Mack brothers? Although it seems unlikely—Sally must be, what? Around thirty-nine, forty? The Mack brothers are in their late sixties.”
“I’ve seen stranger things. Attraction can be a tricky little bitch.”
“The wording of the graffiti would make sense, though, if Sally was on their side in hating my family for killing Ty.”
“Still, the motivation doesn’t really play, does it? Why would a single woman with no priors, apart from a drunk driving accident in her early twenties, take her brother-in-law’s rifle, get a bucket of blood, of all things, and go shoot up a house in a peaceful subdivision? Just to vent? Doesn’t add up for me. She’s hiding something. She knows something.”
Meg rubbed her brow, excitement trilling quiet and hot through her blood. Finally, maybe they were getting somewhere.
“Think on it,” he said. “Call me, please, if something strikes you.”
She hesitated, deeply unsure about this swing in Kovacs. “Okay,” she said. “But the information flows both ways.”
“Understood. Within the framework of police legality, of course.”
“And you’ll give me an exclusive, on the record, no matter how this plays out?”
A beat of silence. “Fair enough.”
Meg was about to kill the call when he said, “Oh. Your house—we’re clear. It’s all yours.”
She hung up, went over to Irene. “How’s the puzzle coming?” she said, pocketing her phone.
Irene grinned. “I like puzzles.”
“I can see. But it’s getting cool in here. How about you join us in the kitchen, by the fire? Geoff is making pizza from scratch.”
Meg led Irene into the kitchen where Geoff was pounding dough into shape in a big bowl. His sleeves were rolled up and he wore an old denim bib apron with an orange crab appliquéd onto the front. Noah peered up over the counter like a little Kilroy cartoon, watching the dough.
Irene stalled when she saw Geoff. Confusion chased through her eyes. “That’s Bull’s apron,” she said. “He always wears it for the annual crab boil.” Her gaze darted around the kitchen, as if in search of Bull, but fearful of asking and perhaps highlighting her failing mind.
Geoff and Blake exchanged a look.
“Bull passed away, Irene,” Blake said gently. “Remember? Two years ago.”
Her brow creased and she started scratching her blouse. Meg quieted her hand. “How about something to drink?” she said. “Some wine, pop?”
“I also have orange juice and sparkling water,” Blake offered.
“Orange juice would be lovely,” Irene said. “Thank you.”
“So how have you been keeping, Irene?” Geoff said, turning the dough onto a floured board. “It’s been a long time.”
She frowned, as if trying to recall when in fact she had last seen Geoff. “Yes, it has.” She quickly changed the topic, as if trying to avoid potentially showcasing her mental shortcomings. “Can I help?”
“Sure,” Geoff said with a grin. “You could chop the peppers, slice salami, mushrooms, olives.” He dusted his floury hands on his apron and pulled the vegetables out from another bag. He set them at the far end of the counter for Irene along with a knife and board. Blake pulled up a stool for her and set a glass of juice in front of her.
“Noah,” Geoff barked. “Music! We need music. Be the DJ, man?”
Noah leaped off his stool and turned on the old stereo in the corner. A bluesy jazz tune filled the room. Noah turned it up louder. Blake poured Meg a glass of chilled wine, and she sat sipping it at the counter. Geoff dragged over a small wooden crate, and gestured for Noah to come stand on top. “Here’s the roller. Now, do it like this.” He showed Noah how to beat down, and roll out the elasticky pizza dough.
“Looks like we’ll be christening Crabby Jack’s soon,” Geoff said to his brother over Noah’s head. “Are the contractors all done?”
“We are all done.” Blake snagged his own beer from the counter, took a long pull. “Noah and I did most of the work ourselves over the winter, right, champ?”
Noah bobbed his head, a huge grin splitting his face as he rolled the dough. He had flour on his nose. Meg glanced at Blake. He met her eyes, and she could read in his face what he was thinking. This old marina was full of warmth and food, and wine and music and laughter. Family. And it had not been alive like this in a long, long time. He raised his bottle, tipped it toward her, and smiled. She returned his smile, but something tilted inside her. She felt a sense of foreboding. Of time running out.
The wind outside gusted, and the night pressed against the windows.
“He hasn’t come home,” Lori-Beth said into the phone. “And he’s not answering his cell. I was hoping … that maybe he was with you? Working late on something at your home office?”
“I’m sorry, LB,” Tommy said. “Henry did come into the office today, but he left after lunch.”
“And you don’t know where he went?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“Was he … did he seem okay?”
A beat of silence. “What do you mean?”
“He hasn’t been feeling too well. He’s been acting a bit strange. I was just worried.”
Another pause. “I’ll let you know if I hear from him.” His voice was curt, as if she’d interrupted something important.
She hesitated, glanced at Sally, who was stirring soup at the stove. “When does one call the police for this sort of thing? Do you have to wait thirty-six hours or something, or is that just on television?”
“Police?” Tom said.
“To report him missing, if he doesn’t come home.”
“LB, listen to me, it’ll be fine. It’s not even late yet. Do not worry. I’ll look for him. I’ll call around, okay?”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Sit tight. Do not involve the cops yet.”
“Okay.”
“Is there … something else you want to tell me?”
Silence.
“Tom? You there?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was just trying to think back. I don’t believe so—nothing that stands out immediately.”
She debated whether to tell him. She was sick about Henry, what she’d found. What he was. She was also terrified of rocking the boat until Joy was safely hers. And what then? Maybe a facade of marriage was better than being a disabled single mother living with a spinster sister who was beginning to make her uneasy, too.
She inhaled deeply, conflict tightening her throat. “Henry took his SIG Sauer to work this morning. It’s not in the cabinet.”
They sat around the table in front of the big windows. The fire crackled, and the music had been turned down softly. They ate piping hot, bubbling, cheesy pizza and Irene made them laugh with her tales of the big Crabby Jack crab boils hosted annually by Bull way back when. She even had stories of boils when Blake and Geoff’s mother was still alive. Noah hung on to every word until his eyelids began to droop.
“School day tomorrow, champ, last one before the weekend,” Blake said. “You better go up and get ready for bed.”
As Noah got up from the table, he bumped Geoff’s dirty knife with a clatter to the ground.
“Oh, I’ll get it,” Meg said, reaching under the table.
“Wait, stop, Meggie,” Geoff said. “It’s easier for me from this end.”
Ice shot through her veins. Her hand froze midreach.
Wait. Stop! Don’t run, Meggie, don’t run …
Time warped. Sound stretched like an old cassette tape that had been exposed to heat. A moan began to sound in her head. Like a foghorn. Her skin turned cold, her mouth dry. Her eyes locked with Geoff’s as he bent down to reach for the knife under the table, too. A current crackled hot between them.
He got up, plunked the knife on his plate. Slowly, Meg sat upright. She stared, unseeing, at Geoff. In her mind she was running, tripping, screaming. Rain slashed at her face. Darkness all around. Wind tore at her hair, her wet clothes. Fierce. Someone coming after her. The bushes tore at her legs. She hooked her toe on a root, smashed into the ground. Pain exploded in her chest. Scrambling to her feet, stumbling, going down on all fours again, scrabbling back up to her feet, running. For her life. Heart pounding. No, not water running down her face. Blood. Sherry … Sherry was … Sherry … naked. Sprawled in the black mud … she could see her body …
Wait. Stop! Don’t run, Meggie.
A hand grabbed her. She jerked away, screamed, tried to run harder, faster. But the hand clamped tight on her arm, fingers cutting into skin. The hand spun her around, her shirt ripping. She saw a face. A face she knew. Then he was gone. Blackness. The familiar blackness.
Meg stopped breathing.
Someone she knew had been the monster chasing her into the storm.
“Meg. Meg! Talk to me. What’s wrong?” It was Blake, on his feet, holding her shoulders, trying to pull her back, worry bright in his eyes. Geoff was staring at her, a strange look on his face.
She tried to swallow. Her hands were pressed tight on the table. Couldn’t swallow. Needed water. No, not water, drowning, she was drowning.
“Noah, upstairs, please,” Blake snapped. “Get ready for bed. Geoff, can you take Irene into the kitchen to make some tea?”
Geoff got up quickly. “C’mon, my man, it’s bedtime. Irene, can you help with tea?”
“What’s wrong with Meg?” Noah wailed, refusing to leave his chair. “Is Meg okay?”
Irene, too, remained in her chair, eyes shining with worry.
“I … I’m fine,” Meg said, voice hoarse. “Please, everyone relax.” She struggled to take a deep breath, to steady her heart. Her eyes burned. “Just … some water.”
“I’ll get it.” Irene burst up from her chair and scurried into the kitchen. Geoff slowly reseated himself, his gaze fixed on Meg, his features tight, eyes dark, energy simmering from him in waves.
Irene returned with ice water. Meg took the glass, sipped, her hand shaking. Blake steadied her arm as she wobbled the glass back to the table.
“Noah,” he said quietly. “Bed. I’ll come up to read in a sec.”
His son got up, stared at Meg for a moment, then made slowly for the door, glancing over his shoulder before exiting.
“Meg—talk to me,” Blake said, taking her hand, feeling her pulse.
She sucked in a huge breath of air, blew it out slowly. “I … I had some sort of flashback.” She cleared her throat. “It’s happened before, but it always stops just before I could see who was chasing me. It always starts the same way. Me running. Someone chasing. A male voice, yelling for me to ‘wait, stop, Meggie, don’t run.’ This time, he grabbed me, ripping my shirt as he yanked me around, and—” She reached for the water glass, took a deep gulp. “I saw a face. It was white, luminous, wet with rain. Hair plastered to his head. I knew who it was.”
“Who?” Geoff demanded. “Who did you see?”
Blake shot his brother a hot look.
“I don’t know,” Meg said. “I just felt a bolt of recognition. That terrible shock that someone you know is trying to hurt you. But his face blurred away before I could make out his features.”
Silence swelled thick and electrical around the table. The candle flickered, and the fire cracked.
“Did you see anything else?” Blake asked quietly.
“I had a flash of Sherry. Her naked body. Like a black-and-white freeze-frame, as if illuminated by a bolt of lightning—the kind of stark image that burns into your retinas. She was lying on her back, spread-eagled in mud. I … had the sense I was fleeing from that image. And that there were several shapes around her wanting to come get me.” Meg looked up from the glass of water that she’d been staring at.
“It must have been triggered by Geoff calling me Meggie. No one has called me that in years, not since I was twelve, really, when I asked everyone to stop. Sherry never listened, she always called me Meggie-Peg.” She cleared her throat. “And that image of Sherry’s body, it had to have come from the crime scene photos I’ve been looking at. I’m transposing things after going through all those files.” She took another clumsy sip of water, coughed again, eyes watering. She dug in her pocket for a tissue, blew her nose.
“I know how these things work—you can insert your own images, create your own false memories.” She tried to laugh, but it came out a cough. “I don’t even know whether to trust my own mind, now.”
CHAPTER 20
Blake felt as though a cold stone had dropped right through his stomach into his bowels. A dark thought, one he didn’t want to—couldn’t—even begin to entertain, prowled nevertheless along the edges of his brain. Geoff had always called Meg “Meggie.” He’d left Shelter Bay still referring to her as Meggie.
The image of his brother in the boathouse that night twenty-two years ago shimmered into his mind. His skin turned cold. He tried to push it away as he read Noah his bedtime story, but it lurked like a hungry wolf in the shadows of his mind.
Geoff had offered to drive Irene back to Chestnut Place and Meg was resting in the big wingback in front of the fire. Blake tucked his son in, and clicked off the light. He went downstairs and reentered the living room. Meg looked up and smiled. Relief punched through his stomach.
Color had returned to her cheeks. She looked golden in front of his hearth, the flames giving her hair a coppery light. Lucy lay at her feet and the music was soft. The vignette stalled him for a moment. And a coal of need burned deep. He wanted her. All of her. Here in his home, in front of his hearth, until death do us part. He came slowly forward, his attention going involuntarily to the diamond cluster catching firelight on her hand. The reminder she still wanted someone else.
He drew up a chair and sat facing her across the low coffee table. There was a notepad and pen on the table. Th
e top page of the pad was covered in writing and lines connecting names.
Before he could ask what she’d been writing, she sat up and leaned forward. “I’ve been waiting for a moment to tell you that Kovacs called earlier. Just before supper. He’s reopened Sherry’s case, on the quiet.”
His heart kicked. With it came a small spark of irritation. “Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“I didn’t want to involve Irene or Geoff, or Noah.” She smiled. “I didn’t want to break the spell,” she said softly. “It was such a warm evening. It … I felt like we’d all come home somehow. Until my little flashback ruined everything. I’m sorry about that—this case is just messing with my mind.”
Blake swallowed, his pulse quickening, that coal in his gut burning bigger and deeper. And suddenly everything felt fragile. It was here, the whispering of a dream between them, but if he reached out to grasp it too firmly, or early, it would vanish like gossamer in his hand.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “word for word. What did Kovacs say?”
She told him about Sally Braden’s arrest, and how Kovacs asked if she could think of a motive for Sally to shoot out the house. “He said he wanted to work with me. That he wanted this solved as much as I did now. It makes sense, I suppose, him wanting to clear this up before the election. But I got a feeling that something was off. It was just such a turnabout.” She watched the flames for a moment, absently fiddling with her engagement ring. “I don’t know whether to trust him. Perhaps he was fishing.”
“Sally?” Blake said. He gave a soft whistle. “Whoda thunk.”
Meg jerked her chin toward her notepad. “I’ve been trying to come up with possible links between everyone. Sally was in Sherry’s graduation class. Along with Tommy, Emma, Ryan Millar, Geoff, and Henry, who is now her brother-in-law. Henry is married to Lori-Beth, who was in my class.” She glanced at Blake. “Lori-Beth was friendly with Allison.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“It’s probably not. I’m just laying out the links.” She gave a soft snort. “Goes to show how interconnected everyone can be in a small town, how things now could relate way back to childhood—grudges, first loves and allegiances, bullying, jealousies, perceived slights.”
In the Waning Light Page 26
