Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  "Sam isn't going to arrest you," she told Henry and Lillian. "He has no jurisdiction in Connecticut, but no one here is going to arrest you, either. So don't worry about that." She hesitated, met Sam's dark look and sighed. "But I think you should tell Sam what's in the letter, what parts are true—everything."

  "It's all true!" Lillian was indignant, slapping at a mosquito on her wrist. "We are in danger."

  Sam's silence was deadly. Kara waved at a mosquito buzzing around her head and frowned at him. "It's complicated."

  "Try me. I bet I can figure it out."

  She turned to Henry, who stood sullenly halfway up a gentle hill with his arms folded on his chest. Her heart broke for him. He was trying to be so strong, but he couldn't do it anymore. He needed adult help. "Henry—Sam needs to know. If something happens, he's the one with the experience." And the gun, she thought. "You can tell him."

  "I can't. And Lillian, you be quiet."

  She stuck her tongue out at him. "I don't take orders from you."

  Henry scowled at her, then shifted back to Kara. "Aunt Kara, please—what if something happens to Mom because we said anything?"

  "That's it." Sam started up the hill. "If these kids believe the governor of Connecticut is in danger—"

  "It's not that simple, Sam," Kara said, not moving. "Trust me."

  He stopped, glancing back at her, the shade darkening his black eyes, making them seem even more unyielding, and she knew this all was black-and-white for him. Every bit of it. "I'd trust you with my life in a courtroom," he said. "You're a damn good lawyer from all I hear. This is a law enforcement matter. Time to trust me, Kara."

  Her head pounded, and she was aware of Henry and Lillian looking intently at her, barely breathing, waiting for her to come up with a solution. She wished she knew what they were holding back, what else had happened to them that day in the tree house, or the day they'd decided to run away from the dude ranch. What didn't she know about their troubles?

  Frustrated, she pushed up the hill and tried to think. She didn't understand why they wouldn't at least tell Sam about the man who'd followed them in Texas, unless he was as fictitious as their letter. She wondered if some of what they claimed they saw from the tree house was imagined or exaggerated, a psychological response to the shock of Mike's death, then the sudden isolation of Texas, coupled with their mixed emotions about their mother becoming governor. Saying they saw Big Mike drown could be a way for them to fill in the blanks and make sense of what happened.

  But it didn't matter. Sam would want to know everything.

  If he had his way, Kara thought, he'd put an asterisk by attorney-client privilege and say it could be violated if it involved the minor children of the governor of Connecticut.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she realized there was just no easy way out for her. Or the kids. "I'll sit the kids down with Allyson as soon as possible," she told Sam. "This afternoon. We'll talk. But it's up to Henry and Lillian to reveal what they told me. It's not up to me."

  He didn't like it. She could see his displeasure with any sort of compromise in the stiffness of his spine, the hard set of his jaw. "This isn't a courtroom. We're out in the damn woods."

  "It's the best I can do."

  He clenched his teeth visibly. "Fair enough."

  Henry and Lillian seemed satisfied at what must have sounded like a compromise to them and ran up the hill together, Henry yelling at his sister about her big mouth until she hauled off and belted him. He turned to complain but met with Sam's unsympathetic look and gave up, renewing his solidarity with Lillian.

  But Kara knew there'd been no real compromise. Sam fell in beside her and, with his attention on the path ahead of him, said his piece. "You have until five o'clock. Then I go to the state police with what little I know."

  Madeleine Stockwell had set up lunch on the patio and greeted her grandchildren with her usual starchy reserve. They were polite, but Kara was relieved when no one brought up how they'd ended up back in Connecticut. She introduced Sam and noticed Madeleine perk up. "I met Kara's brother several years ago," she said. "Do you know him?"

  "He's my superior officer."

  "Ah. That could be awkward, couldn't it?"

  Sam didn't answer.

  Kara went down toward the pool and intercepted Allyson on her way to the patio. She smiled, but was so obviously drawn and tense that Kara winced at the idea of having her friend hear more troubling news. "I need to talk to you later. With the kids."

  "Sure." She spoke smoothly, vestiges of the Allyson of old. "I was hoping to go swimming with them—"

  "After that would be fine." She had until five o'clock, Kara thought with a sudden flash of irritation mixed with resignation. Sam wasn't going to be a passive participant. She'd known that the minute he rang her doorbell and detected the smell of popcorn in her living room.

  Henry and Lillian followed Madeleine into the kitchen to help bring out lunch. There was no hired help today. Allyson excused herself, hurrying inside to join them, passing Hatch and Billie at the door. Billie was red-faced, arguing with her half brother. "We can't cancel. That'd be a red flag. People'd think it's either because your mother doesn't trust me after the bonfire accident or this thing with the kids is a bigger deal than you've let on."

  Hatch wasn't backing down. "I just don't think it's a good idea to go forward with a cocktail party under these circumstances."

  Billie threw up her hands. "What circumstances? The kids took off from a stupid dude ranch in Texas and ended up an hour or two away at their godmother's. Big deal. Kids do shit like that. They're fine. If you ask me, it'll look worse if you don't go forward."

  "You'll be paid for your trouble."

  "Hatch, you are such an asshole. I'm not talking about the damn money." She stormed off the patio, her too-small shirt stretched across her breasts, and stopped abruptly, oblivious to anyone else around her. She flew around at her brother. "Anyway, this is your mother's gig. It's up to her to cancel."

  He grimaced. "Billie, for God's sake."

  She grinned up at him suddenly, as if they hadn't been arguing. "Do you like my luminaria idea?"

  Kara bit back a smile. Billie Corrigan was so irrepressible, it was difficult not to imagine what Hatch might have been like if he'd seen more of his father growing up. He sighed at his younger sister. "I'd prefer only electric lights. After the bonfire on the Fourth—"

  "Oh, ye of the faint heart. Luminaria are perfect. This'll be a fun party, Hatch. Trust me." She smiled at Kara, as if just now realizing she was there, then at Sam. "My brother is paid to think the worst. I think he earns his salary, don't you?"

  Kara laughed. "I'm not coming between you two," she said, then quickly introduced Sam. When he called her ma'am, Billie just about melted. Kara didn't know what it was about him and his effect on women. She turned her attention back to Hatch. "Are you and Billie staying for lunch?"

  "No," he said. "Neither of us."

  He was definitely in a sour mood. Billie rolled her eyes and dragged him down to the pool to press him further on her luminaria idea. Sam stood next to Kara, obviously devoid of patience for any kind of social outing.

  "I'm going to take off for a while," he said. "I'll be back when you're ready to leave. Enjoy your lunch."

  Kara was immediately suspicious. "Where are you going? How will you know when we're ready?"

  "You can call me on my cell phone or ask one of the troopers to take you back to the cottage."

  "Ground rules?"

  But he was in a serious mood. "Yes."

  "Well, you won't want to be later than five o'clock."

  He ignored her. She was feeling argumentative, irritated that he thought he could go off without her, without explaining himself, but he didn't want her making a move without him.

  Then she realized if Sam was off reconnoitering or doing whatever he planned to do, she could slip out to the gravel pit and have a look at Henry and Lillian's tree house. If they could indeed see Big Mike'
s pool through their binoculars, she might be able to figure out how much of their story was reality, how much imagination and exaggeration. It would help her understand and counter any further reticence on their part, and she'd know better how to advise them.

  It wasn't just a rationalization. It made sense, even if she did have to violate Sam's ground rules.

  "It's a beautiful day," she told him. "It's been so hot in Texas, you'll enjoy yourself, I'm sure."

  "Give the Stockwells my regrets."

  He wasn't past a little sarcasm, either, Kara noted. "Don't skip through the fields. It'd be bad form."

  He didn't answer. She watched him head across the lawn and waited until he was over the stone wall and almost to the woods before she scooted up to the patio and excused herself from lunch. She claimed she wasn't hungry and thought they all needed some family time together. No one protested. She debated borrowing a car, then decided she didn't want to risk having a Stock-well vehicle spotted out at the gravel pit. Best to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  She knew the shortest route through the woods—or hoped she did. She didn't need to get lost. Explain that to Sam, she thought. It was a warm afternoon, the air humid and still, chipmunks and squirrels scampering over the stone walls and along high tree branches, but Kara didn't linger, moving quickly, almost at a run. She forced herself to keep her attention on what she was doing, not spin it back to the past or to the future. She'd discover what was what at the tree house when she found it.

  She veered off the old, overgrown logging road onto a narrow footpath, guessing from its well-worn look that it was the one Henry and Lillian had used. It led to a stone wall that put her onto Jericho land, the path nothing more than where the kids had pushed through the ferns. She came to a wide, muddy spot, probably a shallow spring, and slopped through the middle of it, wasting no time.

  The woods opened up into a mass of low wild blueberry bushes, dotted with ripe fruit, and a tall pine tree, its branches sweeping the ground. She picked her way through the brush and pricker bushes, up a sloping hill, through waist-high Christmas trees and, finally, out onto the gravel pit access road. Off slightly to her left, she saw logs piled on wooden platforms and Pete Jeri-cho's rusted truck, and straight on, the gravel pit, quiet in the afternoon sun.

  Kara paused on the rough road and tried to catch her breath. She was panting from exertion, sticky with sweat. She didn't relish the thought of tramping up the steep hill above the gravel pit and marveled at the energy and industry of her godchildren. They'd had to lug wood, nails, tools and snacks out here, get them up into their tree, do their sawing and hammering and building. Quite a project. She admired their tenacity and ingenuity, even if they'd broken a few rules. Their lives, she thought, were sometimes too filled with rules.

  She heard the crunch of gravel behind her.

  Ah, hell.

  She swung around just as Sam's shadow crossed hers. He didn't say a word. He must have watched her from the cover of the taller Christmas trees on the other side of the access road.

  "Well," Kara said. "I didn't think you went back to the cottage for hot dogs and coffee." She gave him half a beat to answer, and when he didn't, she pressed on. "Don't tell me you followed me out here, because you didn't. I'd have heard you. It's a quiet day, and you just aren't that subtle."

  He slanted his gaze at her. "The house Governor Parisi rented for the summer is on five acres that border Jericho and Stockwell land. All three properties come together on the other side of the gravel pit." He took a step toward her. "Provocative to find you here."

  "I didn't stay for lunch—"

  "I can see that."

  "Henry and Lillian needed to be with their mother, without me. Look, you know I have more information than you do. We both want all this to work out. I need you to trust my judgment."

  Sam moved half a step, his boots grinding into the hard-packed road. "I'm surprised Hatch Corrigan didn't come with you."

  "What? Where did that come from?" Then she realized what he was doing—throwing her off base, confusing her as if she were some damn criminal. "Sam, whatever Hatch had for me is over."

  "No, it isn't. He just doesn't want to sully his perfect love by something as common and nasty as sex."

  She could feel the anger rising in her. "You're being an ass—"

  "Quaint little town, Bluefield is." He didn't seem to notice her anger, or wasn't worried about it if he did. His black eyes stayed on her, unflinching. "A gas can left too near a Fourth of July bonfire nearly kills the lieutenant governor. A few weeks later, the governor drowns. Then two little rich kids are scared enough to run off in an unfamiliar state."

  "When you say it like that—"

  "It is like that, Kara." The sun was hot out here in the open, but it didn't seem to affect him. "Zoe West doesn't like what's going on in her town. Neither do I. Neither do you."

  Kara refused to let his sky-is-falling mood affect her, and she remembered she was in Bluefield because of Henry and Lillian. They were her priority, her sole concern. Everything else took a back seat. They'd told her about seeing Mike Parisi drown, about the man following them, thinking she was their attorney. She could maintain their confidence, but if she believed they really needed representation, she'd go straight to their mother and insist, or go to court, if need be, and get a judge to appoint a guardian ad litem, who would then see to it they had their own lawyer. Kara hoped it wouldn't come to that—she hoped everything would get sorted out when they got together with Allyson this afternoon.

  "That's Pete Jericho's truck." Kara pointed toward the stacks of cordwood logs where Pete had parked his old pickup. "Let's go talk to him and see what he's up to. Maybe he knows something he hasn't said."

  "Kara—"

  "Sam, I'm here. I went behind your back. I did it deliberately, for good reasons that I can't explain to you." She sighed at him. She appreciated his situation, but it was time he appreciated hers. "Decide what you're going to do about it."

  His eyes sparked dangerously. "I could cart you out of here right now and put you on a plane for San Antonio."

  "Austin," she said, not backing down. "I don't live in San Antonio."

  "Your brother could hold on to you while I finish up here." He said nothing for a moment, then exhaled through his nose. "Before this is over, he's going to have both our heads."

  She smiled. "We can take him."

  But he didn't return her smile, and his unrelenting seriousness added to her own sense of gravity. They headed across the road and into the pounded grass of the woodlot, where two gray squirrels chased each other across the top of a pile of logs. There was no sign of Pete. "He must be here somewhere," Kara said, looking around.

  She didn't want to miss this opportunity to check out the tree house, but with Sam on her heels, she didn't know how to do it and still maintain Henry and Lillian's confidence. The children were moving closer to confiding in him, trusting him, but if she jumped the gun, she didn't know how they'd react. They'd been through too much as it was. She wasn't worried nearly as much about professional ethics as she was doing the right thing by them, keeping her promise to them.

  Sam started down to the gravel pit, the same direction she needed to go to get to the tree house up on the hill. Maybe she'd be able to see it from the gravel pit and could gauge from there the veracity of the kids' story. The equipment was idle, the landscape silent and barren, without shade. There were huge piles of pea stone, uncut rock, gravel and sand, all waiting to be crushed, sifted or hauled out.

  Kara stood next to Sam on the pounded subsoil. "It's like standing in a desert, isn't it? Allyson and I used to come out here hunting for lady's slippers. It's hard to believe it's the same place. I understand the pit's almost played out—" She stopped abruptly, noticing that Sam had withdrawn the Colt. "Sam? What is it?"

  He touched her arm. "Stay here."

  Kara followed his gaze, gasping when she saw a body three-quarters of the way down the steepest part of the embankmen
t. It was a man, sprawled faceup in the dirt.

  She recognized the tawny hair, the dusty clothes.

  "Oh my God, it's Pete."

  She bolted for him, but Sam grabbed her and shoved her down next to a pile of pea stone. He pointed at her. "Don't move."

  She nodded. "All right. Go."

  He made it to Pete in seconds and knelt down, checking for a pulse as he did a 360-degree scan of the gravel pit. Kara didn't see anyone and shot across the open ground, the sun hot on the back of her neck. She crouched next to Sam, alongside Pete's motionless body.

  "He's alive," Sam said. "We need to get paramedics out here."

  She saw Pete's bloody arm and shoulder, his torn shirt, the swollen, bloody bruise on the side of his head—the bone sticking out of his wrist. "Pete…we're calling an ambulance." She pushed back her panic, leaned over him. She had no idea if he could hear her. "It'll be okay."

  He moaned. "Kara?" His voice cracked, and he winced in agony, his eyes shut. "Christ."

  "Do you remember what happened?" Sam asked.

  Pete tried to open his eyes, but moaned and shut them again without answering.

  Sam had out his cell phone and dialed 911, crisply giving the dispatcher their location and describing the situation. "The injured man is Pete Jericho. Someone will want to notify his family."

  "Pop—he was out here." Pete seemed confused, trying to figure out what had happened to him. He coughed, moaning in pain, then swore viciously.

  "I know it must hurt like hell," Kara said. "Don't try to talk. Help'll be here soon."

  "Kara…shit, you always see me at my worst."

  She stood up and squinted at the line of trees at the top of the ridge. The tree house was up there somewhere. Had Pete seen it? Was that why he fell? If Sam found it on his own, she wouldn't have to violate Henry and Lillian's trust. He'd figure out on his own what they were hiding.