Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  Six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl would end up costing him the woman he loved.

  He hadn't been involved with Allyson then. Madeleine Stockwell had done her job and made sure he knew her son's widow deserved better than a Jericho. She nipped any romantic intentions on his part in the bud. He remembered that bright, cold afternoon when Madeleine stood out on the patio of the only home she'd known since marrying Edward Stockwell and told Pete he had no ambition, no real prospects. "You'll make a living. You're a Jericho. That's what you do. But it's all that you do."

  She knew he had a "crush" on Allyson, a choice of words designed to further diminish him. And if he loved her, he would understand it was in her best interests that he never act on his feelings.

  Furious, humiliated, he hadn't gone home and hit the heavy bag or chopped wood. Instead, he'd headed to O'Reilly's Pub in town and intervened when an idiot he'd known from high school harassed a woman. Words were exchanged. Fists flew. A couple of beer bottles. He ended up with torn knuckles and a broken nose, the idiot a cut on his jaw that required five stitches. Pete figured the score was even. O'Reilly went along. He wasn't looking to see an account of a brawl in his pub in the local papers, and he hated cops and lawyers.

  Walter Harrison thought otherwise. He was an off-duty cop who happened to witness the brawl. He made a wimpish attempt to break it up, then pushed to have Pete arrested on felony assault charges.

  Stories changed. The woman, who was from out of town, said she wasn't really being harassed and begged Pete not to get involved. Not true. The former classmate said Pete threw the first punch and smashed the first beer bottle and was generally out of control. Walter corroborated their versions. O'Reilly stayed out of it. Pete was convinced, then and now, and so was his father, that Madeleine Stockwell had her hand in it. A few greased palms, a little intimidation. A criminal record would make any romantic relationship between him and her daughter-in-law that much more unlikely.

  He knew he was screwed, but Mike Parisi, a man who understood barroom brawls and the ways of Madeleine Stockwell, recommended Kara Galway, said she was a hell of a lawyer. Big Mike spent a lot of time in Bluefield even after Lawrence's death, wooing Allyson into state politics; he'd always gotten along with the Jerichos.

  Recommending Kara hadn't worked out, at least in Pete's estimation. He'd expected her to find a way to bring out the truth. Instead, she suggested he take a plea bargain when it was offered. The odds were against him if he went to trial, she explained. If he was convicted of felonious assault, he could count on spending three years in a nasty state prison. Plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and he was in and out of the local jail in six months.

  Pete took the deal. He didn't like it, but he took it. He supposed it was unfair of him to blame Kara, but he knew he'd lost any hope of having Allyson in his life the minute he heard the jailhouse doors shut behind him. It was as if Madeleine Stockwell had planned it that way.

  Then last fall, he ran into Allyson when he was delivering wood up to the barn she and Lawrence had converted. She was alone, the kids off for the weekend with friends, and it was like two old friends suddenly seeing each other for the first time, that old cliché. Since then, they met each other when they could, content to watch television together when she was at the barn alone on weekends. Pete would sneak through the woods so Madeleine and Hatch wouldn't find out. That was no longer possible now with round-the-clock security.

  And a secret affair wasn't what he wanted. It couldn't last. He didn't want it to. He wanted to tell everyone—the whole world—that he was in love with Allyson Lourdes Stockwell. But it was different for her with her high-profile life, her responsibilities, the commitments she'd made.

  Madeleine was right, after all. He and Allyson just weren't meant to be. He was a goddamn jailbird. It stuck to him like rot.

  He hadn't heard from Allyson since Big Mike drowned. Now that she was governor, she was probably wishing she'd never gotten involved with him in the first place. She tried to pretend she wasn't ambitious, but she was—he liked that about her. She sometimes ranked on her abilities, her self-doubt always a surprise to him, because he believed in her to his core.

  Charlie Jericho drove up on his old tractor, and Pete waved at his father, a bandy-legged man in his early sixties. He and Madeleine Stockwell had been feuding for as long as Pete could remember. Lately she was mad at him about the gravel pit, accusing him of having dug it on the border of Jericho-Stockwell property just to goad her. Charlie said he wouldn't go to such trouble, it just happened to be where the gravel was located. The gravel pit would play out in three years and the land would be restored. She'd just have to live with it.

  Charlie climbed off the tractor, wearing his habitual navy work pants and pocket T-shirt. "Madeleine wants us to deliver her cordwood early this year. Says to make sure it's super-dry. Like we've ever given her green wood. The old bat." He coughed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes as unconsciously as someone else might grab a handkerchief. "We should charge her double for being such a pain in the ass. Call it combat pay."

  Pete laughed. "Why not? She keeps saying she gets screwed by the locals. It'd give her something real to bitch about."

  His father tapped out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, fished out his lighter. He had a bad, wet cough, but he had no intention of quitting. He liked to smoke, he'd say, and you have to die of something. When Big Mike drowned, Charlie Jericho had said, "See, would it have made a damn bit of difference if he'd had a two-pack-a-day habit?"

  The cordwood was still drying in the August sun. They'd cut the trees over the winter, trimmed them in early spring, before the leaves sprouted, then dragged the logs out here with a tractor and cut them into eight-foot lengths, setting them up on wooden platforms, off the wet ground, to dry. When the weather cooled off after Labor Day, they'd cut them into cordwood, mostly sixteen-inch lengths. It used to be they could sell four-foot lengths and people would cut them down themselves, but that wasn't the case anymore. Some people even had Pete stack it for them. Hauling it to the wood box was enough of a chore, he guessed.

  "Madeleine pays on time, I'll say that for her." Charlie puffed on his cigarette and grinned. "And her checks never bounce. Listen, I was out talking to the gravel guys this morning and noticed somebody's been up on the ridge above the pit. Hunters, kids. Looks like they've built some kind of platform in an oak. If it's kids, it's dangerous up there. One wrong slip, and they're in the pit. That sand and rock is unstable."

  "I'll check it out and dismantle whatever's there," Pete said.

  "Good. I don't want anyone getting hurt."

  Pete nodded. "It's a long way to get help."

  "A short way to the nearest lawyer. People get hurt, they start thinking lawsuits."

  "Pop," Pete admonished.

  Charlie waved a hand and climbed back on his tractor, his cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He could have walked out here, Pete thought. The exercise would have done his father good, but Charlie Jericho's attitude toward exercise was similar to his attitude toward quitting smoking—not for him.

  After he finally puttered off on his tractor, Pete headed across the barren landscape of the gravel pit. No one was working it today. They'd finish taking out the last load of sand and rock this fall, then restore the land in the spring. Right now it looked awful, a gaping hole dug out of the hillside, a desolate stretch of stripped ground, with huge piles of sand and rock, the dump truck, backhoe, rock-crusher and sifter all idle today. Pete could picture what it would look like in a few years, when nature had reclaimed the land.

  He made his way into the light, untouched woods on the edge of the pit and walked up the hill, the steep, unstable descent into the gravel pit to his right. He pushed through ferns and ducked under the low branches of pine and hemlock, staying in the shade of small maple and oaks. This was the northernmost corner of Jericho land. Their house was back in the other direction, past the gravel pit, through the fields to the main
road. The endless acres of Stockwell land stretched out over the rolling hills to the north.

  Straight down the hill, to the south and west, the mini-estates started. Charlie had fits every time he saw evidence that the estate owners had been through the backwoods with their horses. He kept talking about putting up No Trespassing signs, a bother and an expense he'd never considered before and probably wouldn't at all if the worst offenders hadn't plastered their own property with them. "What's mine is theirs, and what's theirs is theirs," Charlie would grumble.

  Pete came to an old oak, the tallest tree on top of the hill, so close to the near-vertical edge of the gravel pit, some of its massive roots were exposed to the sand and erosion. A crude ladder of skinny, split cordwood led up the trunk on the safer side, above a cushion of fallen leaves. Saplings of maple, beech and ash grew densely on the south side of the hill, which led down to the mini-estate Mike Parisi had rented for the summer.

  High in the tree, Pete spotted a platform tree house, a half-finished mishmash of old boards.

  Kids. Had to be.

  He climbed up the crude ladder, which barely held his weight, and at the top, grabbed hold of a branch above his head and swung onto the platform. It was sturdier than he'd expected, built across two branches above a V in the tree, maybe four feet by four. Someone had left behind a rusted hammer, a few nails, a water bottle and an old pair of binoculars.

  A white polo shirt hung stiffly from a branch. Pete plucked it off and noted the label in the collar. Henry Stockwell.

  He grinned. There was hope for the kid yet if he was building tree houses. Lillian was a scrapper—she'd probably helped. They must have worked on it over the summer.

  The binoculars were grimy from exposure to the elements. He cleaned the lenses on his shirt and trained them on the view. Nothing much to see down in the gravel pit, but he supposed Henry and Lillian would have enjoyed watching the work going on there. He turned, the view to the southwest much more impressive with the faroff rolling hills and endless summer sky.

  He brought the binoculars down lower, focusing the lenses on what he quickly realized was the roof of Big Mike's rented house. He scoped out what all he could see, adjusting the lenses.

  "Jesus Christ."

  Pete suddenly felt cold, as if it were midwinter instead of midsummer.

  With the binoculars, Henry and Lillian had a limited but unimpeded view of the swimming pool. The kids could have been up here with their snacks and water bottles, amusing themselves with their binoculars, when Big Mike fell into the deep end of his swimming pool. They had been in Bluefield that weekend.

  Had they seen their friend fight for his life?

  Jesus, had they watched him drown?

  Even if they saw him go into the water, they'd never have made it down the hill in time to save him.

  What did they do? Run to help him? Watch, paralyzed with horror?

  Why hadn't they said anything? But Pete had a feeling he knew. If they saw what happened, the police would want to talk to them, answer any nagging questions they had about how the governor had died. Instinctively, Henry and Lillian must have understood that no one, except perhaps their mother's worst enemies, would want to hear that the children of the new governor had witnessed his death.

  Pete swore to himself and swung down to the crude ladder.

  He was jumping the gun, he told himself. Ten to one, the kids hadn't seen a thing.

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  Six

  "Get a warrant." Nothing in Jack's voice on the other end of the phone suggested he had even a shred of patience left for his sister, a feeling Sam shared. "Or wait until I get there, and I'll break into her damn house myself. I'll be there in an hour."

  It was 8:00 a.m. in Austin, and no Stockwell kids. Past the point of exhaustion, Sam had stopped in a twenty-four-hour diner for coffee and eggs. A lot of coffee. A cabdriver remembered dropping off two children meeting their description near but not on Kara Galway's street. They'd pointed at a big house, presumably at random, and told the driver that was where they were headed. The man had thought nothing of it, but he definitely remembered them. They were polite, they had Yankee accents, and they'd overtipped him with a crisp twenty.

  Sam had gone straight back to Kara's little bungalow in Hyde Park, but he was too late. She was gone. Lights out, doors locked, car not in the driveway. No note. She was a defense attorney. She wasn't about to leave behind any evidence that could be used against her or her godchildren should push come to shove— which it would, Sam thought, if he had anything to say about it.

  No one was panicking yet in Connecticut. The kids' uncle and their mother's adviser, Hatch Corrigan, had told the Austin police that he and Allyson trusted Kara completely and weren't as worried now that it looked as if Henry and Lillian Stockwell were with her. Corrigan was sure Kara would get in touch. Nor was he surprised his niece and nephew had made it to their godmother's house on their own—they were smart, worldly children accustomed to being on their own.

  Sam didn't share Corrigan's optimism. Neither did Kara's big brother. It all could be spin to keep Texas law enforcement at bay and control what went public. The kids' mother, after all, was already in a touchy situation, with her predecessor dead in his pool. Her people would want to keep this escapade quiet now that it looked as if Henry and Lillian were in responsible hands. Sam didn't know about that. Kara's actions struck him at best as requiring further explanation. Jack agreed. He'd checked in with Sam and hit the road after learning the Connecticut governor's kids were technically still on the loose and his sister had cleared out in the middle of the night.

  Sam sipped his coffee. He should have taken off his badge before knocking on Kara's front door last night, said he was there on personal business and walked right past her.

  The popcorn wasn't her damn dinner. It was a snack for those kids.

  She hadn't lied to him outright, but she'd come close— and she'd deliberately misled him about two runaway minors. He hadn't said as much to her brother. Jack was good at putting together the pieces. Maybe too good, if he started thinking about the gallery opening, coffee, his sister's alibi and Sam beating a path to Austin last night.

  "Where do you want me to meet you?" Sam asked.

  "My in-laws' gallery. Let's keep this unofficial for now."

  He hung up, and Sam set his cell phone on the table next to his plate. His eyeballs felt as if they'd been rolled in hot sand. He pushed his eggs around on his plate, not hungry. He was trying to work the facts and not jump to conclusions, never mind the uncertainty he'd sensed in Kara last night, the fear he'd seen hovering in her dark eyes.

  His cell phone trilled again, and he hoped it was the Austin police telling him they'd located Governor Stockwell's children and they were nowhere near their godmother.

  It wasn't. It was Susanna Galway. "Sam—where are you?"

  "Diner out by the Austin airport."

  "Good, not too far. Meet me at my parents' gallery as soon as you can. Fifteen minutes? Do not tell my husband—"

  "He's on his way there."

  "Here? To the gallery?"

  "That's right. He should be there in an hour."

  She swore. "All right, we still have enough time. Get over here, Sam. Now."

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose up. "Susanna—"

  But she'd disconnected. Sam paid for his breakfast and headed out, wondering if he should just throw his badge in the nearest garbage can and get it over with. Before this was all over, Lieutenant Galway would be feeding it to him. The women in Jack's life gave him fits. His wife, his daughters, his sister. Sam could see why—he'd seen it six months ago in the Adirondacks, and still he'd waded in with Kara.

  He drove over to Hyde Park and found his way to the shaded street where Eva and Kevin Dunning had opened their gallery almost eight years ago. It was in a renovated 1920s frame house painted cream with white trim, just enough yard out front for a pecan tree and asters in a half-dozen colors. On
the night of the champagne reception for Gordon Temple, the place had sparkled, people wandering inside and out as they chatted and oohed and aahed over his artwork. Even before he'd found a spot to park his damn car, Sam had known he shouldn't have come. He had a similar feeling now, gnawing at him, warning him away.

  Susanna met him at the door, refusing to speak as she led him through the main showroom. He barely noticed his father's paintings on the wall, mostly landscapes, some with animals native to North America—bison, eagles, river otters. An Eastern bluebird. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught sight of an oil painting of a desert sunrise, haunting with its vibrant colors, but he didn't allow himself to stop and look at it.

  When they came to a small, tidy workroom in the back, Susanna shut the door and leaned against it, as if Sam might try to escape and she meant to stop him. "Thank you for coming." She had on a sundress and sandals, no makeup, no jewelry, her hair pulled back with a rolled-up orange bandanna. Last winter Sam had seen fear in her green eyes—it was there again now, mixed, he thought, with a certain measure of anger. She sucked in a breath. "Sam—Jesus."

  "Susanna, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

  She held up a hand. "I'm okay. I need to ask you a favor. And you can't say no. You can't, Sam."

  His eyes narrowed. This was a woman who loved her secrets. "I'm listening."

  "Yeah, and you're suspicious as hell." She struggled to smile, then gave up. "First you have to promise—"

  "No promises in advance."

  "All right, all right. Forget it. You won't squeal to Jack. That would be stupid, and you're not stupid. Well, you are stupid about some things, like my sister-in-law, but that's—" She was talking more to herself than to him, her forehead creased as she put one heel up against the door and seemed ready to kick it. "There's no reason to believe a crime's been committed, so you won't be compromised on that score—I'd never ask you to cover up a crime. A real one, anyway."