by Abby Gaines
“Jared, what’s happening?” Holly half whispered.
He put a hand over the phone. “Dave’s alive, the Colonel found him.” He addressed the investigator again. “Where are you, Colonel?”
“Auckland, New Zealand.”
“Can you keep an eye on him until I get there?” Jared discussed the details with the Colonel, then ended the call.
“I don’t believe it.” Holly’s voice shook with mingled relief and anger. “Where is Dave? Can I talk to him?”
“He’s not exactly in downtown Kechowa,” Jared said. “He’s in New Zealand. We’ll fly down on Monday and see for ourselves.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Holly said. “I’ll call Agent Crook, and he can have Interpol arrest Dave.”
“Good luck with that.”
Holly ignored Jared’s skepticism as she dialed Crook from her cell phone.
The skepticism became an outright smirk when Crook made her repeat everything she said at least twice. She swiveled her chair so her back was to Jared.
“Colonel Briggs says it’s definitely Dave,” she told the FBI agent, exasperated. “Can’t you have someone take him in for questioning?”
“Look, Ms. Stephens.” Crook sounded every bit as irritated as she felt. “I have a dead man here with plenty of evidence to suggest he’s Dave Fletcher. You have a guy who doesn’t look like Fletcher, doesn’t call himself Fletcher, in a country where we have no record of Fletcher going, who’s been identified by some geriatric P.I., who may not know one end of a criminal from the other.”
“All I’m suggesting is that you ask the guy some questions.”
“I’ll pass your information to my colleague, Agent Slater,” Crook said. “He can take it from there.”
Holly couldn’t budge him from that position, couldn’t even get him to agree contacting the New Zealand police was a top priority. She switched the phone off and tossed it onto the desk where it clattered among her papers.
“I assume Crook is going to drop everything and fly to New Zealand?” Jared asked.
She sent him a quelling look. “He wasn’t happy about your hiring the Colonel to find Dave. He’s going to ask his colleague to follow up.”
“Wow, when you say jump, those guys jump.”
She glared at him, but couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yeah, I really showed him who’s boss.”
“Even if Crook’s colleague gets right on it,” Jared said, “Fletcher’s probably a New Zealand citizen, if his mom was born there. It may not be easy to extradite him.”
Holly slumped back in her chair.
“If we want him caught,” Jared said, “we’ll have to go get him.”
She blinked. “You’ve been watching too many movies. How are we going to get him?”
She had him there. Jared was making this up as he went along.
But she didn’t wait for him to answer. “Anyway, this has nothing to do with you. I should go down there and talk to Dave, convince him to give the money back.”
Jared snorted. “Lady, with your diplomatic skills you’ve got about as much chance of that as you have of convincing the NRA to support a firearms ban. Don’t forget, I’m up for half a million dollars if you don’t turn up for your trial, and if you think I’m going to let you loose on Fletcher’s trail when there’s every chance you’ll end up dead…”
“I will not!”
“Somebody already did,” he pointed out. “I’m coming with you to protect my investment. The court didn’t make you surrender your passport, did they?”
She shook her head. “I don’t need you,” she said stubbornly.
Jared groaned. She would argue the point for eternity. Unless he could throw her off balance.
He leaned across the desk and captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger. The surprise that parted her lips allowed him to take her mouth, to sample again the heated pleasure of her kiss.
When it had gone on long enough that any other woman would be putty in his hands, Jared pulled back.
Holly touched her lips, then rubbed at them. “Can’t we go before Monday?” She resumed their conversation as if there had been no interruption. Only now, Jared noted with glee, she had accepted that he was going with her. “Why not tomorrow? What if Dave disappears?”
Jared kept his voice even, not willing to risk setting off her defenses. “I have to be in Kechowa this weekend. Family stuff. Dave won’t get away with the Colonel watching him.”
“Do you think they’ll let me leave,” Holly said in sudden alarm, “now that I’m a murder suspect?”
“You were bailed on fraud charges, not murder.” He soothed her with magnanimous protectiveness. “You can go anywhere you like. Crook’s just fishing at the moment—I doubt you’re officially a murder suspect.”
“But what if he comes back? He’ll expect to find me here.”
Jared tsked, done with the protective thing. “Then he’ll be disappointed, won’t he?”
ON SUNDAY MORNING an uncommon level of activity drew Holly to the kitchen earlier than she might otherwise have gotten up. They were all there, the Harding family, eating breakfast in a silence underpinned by tension.
But Beth gave her usual welcoming smile. “Morning, dear. I was going to bring you up a cup of coffee and ask if you’d like to come with us this morning.”
“Come with you?” Holly registered Jared’s surprise, saw him turn to his father, saw Edward’s curt nod.
“To church,” Beth said. Beth and Edward were regulars at the First Kechowa Church on Main Street, Holly had learned. Last Sunday, Holly and Jared had stayed home working. Today, Jared wore a crisply laundered white shirt and a tie, although he still looked completely untamed.
“It’s a special day for us,” Beth said. “The anniversary of Greg’s death. He died on the last Sunday in August twenty-one years ago. Jared always comes home to join us in remembering Greg and visiting his grave afterward.”
“I…thank you for asking me.” Holly struggled to get the words out past the lump in her throat. “I’d be honored to come.” She looked down at her clothes— Summer’s cutoffs and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt. “I’d better get changed or they won’t let me in.”
Beth pushed a cup of coffee into her hands. “The service is at nine. I’ll get your breakfast while you change.”
The problem was, nothing in her sister’s wardrobe was suitable for a memorial service and Holly had left her navy suit in Seattle. She was still staring at the meager offerings spread out on the bed when Jared rapped on the door.
He stuck his head around without waiting for her to invite him in. “Hurry up, you’ve only got five minutes to eat.”
“Look,” she wailed. “How can I wear any of this stuff?”
She gathered up an armful of the skimpy, flirty clothes in every color of the rainbow, then tossed them back onto the bed. “Nothing here is even remotely solemn.”
“Mom and Dad are used to your clothes. They won’t expect you to appear in something ultraconservative.”
“But I feel bad about dressing like this today.”
“Don’t,” he said, and his abruptness made her look up. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts, not your appearance.”
Resentment glinted in his eyes. Holly didn’t have time to go there. She pressed her lips together and turned away. “I’ll be down in two minutes.”
True to her word, as Jared had known she would be, she appeared in the kitchen in a short black skirt and white T-shirt, with a baby-pink jean jacket slung over her shoulder. With her hair caught back in a headband and a light touch of makeup, she at least looked neat and modest, if not the conservative woman she was.
Which didn’t abate his anger one bit.
Childishly, he kept a stiff distance between them as they drove to the church, and even in the crowded pew near the front of the church. This had gone too far. His folks should not have invited Holly to the service without consulting him. And if they had consulted him, he’d ha
ve said a definite no.
Every year he came back to Kechowa for this pointless ceremony. He certainly didn’t need it to keep Greg alive in his memory. Jared was planning a more concrete memorial—the ruin of Keith Transom. He doubted his parents needed the annual ritual, either.
He accepted the unwelcome knowledge that they probably saw it as a means of getting him back home. He ducked out of Thanksgiving and Christmas whenever he could come up with a convincing excuse, but he wouldn’t dare refuse to be here this week.
Most years, he brought a woman with him. Ostensibly his girlfriend, someone he couldn’t bear to leave, even for a few days. But in reality, a convenient buffer between him and his parents and the conversations they might want to start. By unspoken agreement, he never invited the girlfriend to the church or to visit the grave. But she ate the special dinner, Greg’s favorite—she could hardly be excluded from that. And that’s when he needed her presence, whoever she was. Mealtime was the greatest risk of opening it all up again.
It hadn’t occurred to him his parents would invite Holly to join them at church. Even worse than this break from tradition was that it seemed…right, having her here. Somehow, her pink-and-black presence made the pastor’s advice about the importance of family as God had designed it more meaningful and yet at the same time distracted him from the gloomy purpose of the occasion.
What Jared wanted was to sit here in furious contemplation of the waste of his brother’s death, to be filled with righteous indignation, which would fuel his vendetta against Transom. And to leave convinced he’d fulfilled his obligation to his parents for another year.
But today, he sat here mourning the loss of the ideal family he’d thought they had until that day twenty-one years ago. Except it was only an illusion he’d lost. The ideal had never existed. Which made the unfamiliar ache in his chest impossible to understand.
Jared lived strictly in the realm of the possible.
He let his shoulders relax only after the service ended and they had filed out into the sunshine. His parents were surrounded by well-wishers, alerted, no doubt, by Jared’s presence to the fact that today was the anniversary. He and Holly stood some distance apart from the throng.
“You didn’t want me to come today,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize until we were in the church. You should have said earlier.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“I’ll take a cab home,” she said, looking around as if a taxi might materialize in quiet, downtown Kechowa on a Sunday. “I won’t come with you to the grave.”
“I told you, it doesn’t matter now.” And he’d have his parents to answer to if she disappeared. It was hard enough talking to them today without arguing about Holly.
“But if you don’t—”
“Just shut up and come,” he snapped.
So she did.
The grave was simple, well-tended. Holly brushed tears away so she could read the inscription: Gregory Edward Harding, Beloved son of Edward and Elizabeth, Brother of Jared. Forgive us our weakness.
Forgive us our weakness? Holly didn’t like to disturb the silence that had fallen over the group by asking the meaning of the inscription. Beth knelt on a cushion to pull weeds from among the tulips that bordered the grave. Edward squatted next to her, focusing intently on the movements of his wife’s hands. Though no words were exchanged, Holly sensed they were in accord.
Not so Jared.
The younger son—it was hard to think of him as ever having come second to anyone—stood aloof, lost in his thoughts. Holly saw past his set expression to the moisture in his eyes. She almost wished she hadn’t come, hadn’t ruined this day for Jared. Yet she was sure that in some way her presence was making it easier for the whole family.
When Beth had finished, his parents stood and said a prayer. Holly joined in the amens, and knew a sense of peace as they walked back to the car.
When they got home, Jared headed toward the woods at the back of the house. “I’m going for a walk,” he said over his shoulder. Then, to her surprise, he added, “Come with me, Holly?”
She caught him up on the edge of the wood and they walked side by side into the gloom, the sun fading behind them with each step, until only the beams strong enough to make it through the trees provided a dappled illumination.
“I was rude to you earlier,” Jared said.
It was not by anyone’s definition an apology. Holly figured he was acknowledging he’d done wrong, but that he didn’t regret it. She appreciated his honesty.
“It’s okay, I’m used to it,” she said, and he grinned.
“Ouch. Don’t you ever make allowances for a guy having a bad day?”
“I certainly do,” she retorted. “Why do you think I didn’t quit?”
He laughed out loud, and the sound lifted her spirits. Jared took her hand, and although she felt the familiar flood of awareness, she knew it was companionship he had in mind.
“Thanks for being so good about today,” he said. “It can’t have been easy for you.”
Holly was at a loss how to answer that. Yes, it had been difficult to see the distress suffered by the older couple she’d become so fond of. Difficult, too, knowing Jared didn’t want her there, that he also suffered and that her presence couldn’t alleviate his torment. But at the same time she’d known a sense of belonging unlike anything she’d experienced. She couldn’t regret that.
But if she tried to put it in words it would sound at the very least intrusive and at worst voyeuristic, as if she were feeding off their pain. So she squeezed his hand but said nothing.
“What did those words mean on Greg’s tombstone—forgive us our weakness?” she asked.
Jared stopped in his tracks. “I don’t know,” he said in surprise. “In all these years I don’t think I ever actually noticed them. I guess I’ve always been busy with my own thoughts, and trying to keep out of Mom and Dad’s way when we’re there.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Beth.”
“No, don’t.” He started walking again, faster this time, pulling her along with him. “Tonight we have a meal in memory of Greg, and it’s difficult to find a topic of conversation that doesn’t lead to an argument. I’d rather we didn’t talk about the gravestone.”
“Okay, no problem.”
He slowed his pace again and they wended their way in a wide circle through the woods and back to the house.
DINNER WAS CORN BREAD, Virginia ham and potato salad, followed by blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream.
Holly held a hand to the level of her chin to indicate just how full up she was as she laughingly refused a second helping of pie. “That was wonderful, Beth.”
“Greg always loved it, too.” There was calm acceptance and pleasure in the older woman’s voice. No edge of pain. “We should eat it more often.”
“No reason why not,” Jared said, and the sarcasm in his tone prompted Holly to look at him. “Saving it for once a year isn’t going to bring Greg back.”
“Nothing could bring him back. Your mother and I always accepted that.” Edward spoke quietly, but with a strength that dared Jared to argue with him.
As if Jared would turn down a dare.
“It wasn’t a matter of bringing him back, it was about not letting that jerk get away with it.”
Holly suspected this was the exact argument Jared wanted to avoid. It seemed the Hardings were drawn to it like moths to a flame, unable to resist the warmth it provided. She wriggled in her seat, sure none of them could want her here, but unwilling to remind them of her presence by getting up to leave.
“Suing Keith Transom would have made it harder for us to deal with Greg’s death, not easier.” Beth’s tone was pleading.
Keith Transom. Dave Fletcher’s client, the man who’d filed a lawsuit against her. Was Transom the man who had called in Greg Harding’s loans?
She turned to Jared. “Why didn’t you tell me—”
“Stay out of this,” he ordered. “Tr
ansom might have learned that cheating a man out of his business was wrong, Mom. He might at least have regretted what he did.”
Edward took his wife’s hand. “Son, you had every right to be mad at me and your mother back then. You were only a kid, and you felt we’d let you down. We were coping the best we could, and I don’t doubt that in some ways we failed you. We’re sorry.”
Holly could tell from the drop of Jared’s jaw that the familiar argument had taken a new turn.
“What’s brought on this sudden contrition?” he demanded.
“We’re scared we’ll lose you, too.” Beth’s voice was clogged with unshed tears.
“What?” Jared stared at them. “I wouldn’t kill myself.”
Beth winced. “That’s not what I mean. Sometimes I’m afraid we’ve already lost you. You were so angry back then, and you still are.” She turned to Holly—so, they hadn’t forgotten she was there. “When we told Jared we weren’t prepared to sue Keith Transom, he laid a complaint with the police. He demanded they charge the man with inciting to commit suicide.”
Holly could just imagine an enraged fourteen-year-old storming in and making demands. She could equally imagine the police response. “They wouldn’t do it.”
“Idiots,” Jared said, his frustration still palpable after all these years. “They said there was insufficient evidence. But as soon as I stole something from the drugstore, they were on me like a ton of bricks. Their priorities were completely screwed up.”
Holly could contain herself no longer. “Why didn’t you tell me Transom was the one?”
He eyed her coldly. “You didn’t need to know.”
Holly ignored the puzzled glances of his parents. “It doesn’t make sense. When you told me about Greg, you avoided all mention of Transom’s name.”
“Then it was my mistake for telling you anything at all,” he growled, waving a hand to silence Beth’s protest. “I don’t owe you one word more.”
Holly’s anger burned even hotter than her hurt. “I’m sorry you had a moment’s weakness and told me about your brother. But I expect you to be honest with me, and if the only reason you decided to help me with my court case was because you hate Keith Transom, then I—”
