He said, “Jamie, I think we should stop seeing each other.”
And at that instant, I felt as if the entire hillside had shifted beneath my feet.
“You’ve been great,” Barrett went on. But he wasn’t looking at me any longer. He grimaced at his family’s old homestead nestled in the bowl below us. “This just isn’t going to work out for me.”
I turned to look in the opposite direction. I couldn’t quite make out the peaks of the Wentz house in the distance. But I could see the barn’s crumbling roof.
“I get it,” I replied. “You want me out of your hair while you and Vance—”
“No, I want to call it quits permanently. I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
Like last Tuesday night? In my guest bedroom? I felt cold all over.
“I think it’s best if we end things where they are.” Barrett clambered to his feet. “Now, we should go. It’s getting late.”
But that was an excuse to part ways and I knew it. I opened my mouth to call him on it. He interrupted me.
“It’s getting dark. I’ll wait here while you walk to your car.”
“You could come with me. Your grandmother will be glad to see you.”
Barrett’s chocolate-brown eyes slid away from mine. “No, thanks. I’d rather walk. But you watch your step. The hillside’s steep.”
In Barrett’s words, I heard Deputy Dawkins’s warning.
And this angered me.
“You don’t need to do me any favors, Barrett. I can put one foot in front of the other—with or without you watching my back.”
I turned on my heel, started for the trailhead.
Barrett’s voice, as rough as gravel, chased after me. “I let a girl walk through that pasture alone once. I’m not making that mistake again.”
I didn’t stay to argue. I picked my way down to the creek bed, strode across the meadow without looking back. But before I got into my Jag, I glanced at the hilltop, at the old contorted tree, to see the silhouette of the man standing next to it—and I knew he was just as twisted inside.
And worst of all, I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter 11
As I slid behind the wheel of my XJ8, I refused to shed any tears over Lieutenant Colonel Adam Barrett.
But I sure as hell felt like it.
I fired up the ignition, tried to take comfort in my car’s racy growl. And the fact that I’d be going home to D.C. in the morning. After all, if Barrett and I were through, there was no point in my staying in Fallowfield any longer. As much as my heart bled for Pamela Wentz, she was beyond harm now. Besides, I had clients waiting for me. Clients who’d be glad to hear from me. And I’d spoken to the sheriff as well as brought Barrett home from his overnight in the county jail, so I’d met my obligation to Barrett’s grandmother. She’d have to be content with that. Even if I wasn’t.
In all fairness, though, I had to admit Barrett never promised me a rose garden. And from the get-go, I’d sworn to him I didn’t want any kind of commitment. Having been raised by a decidedly single father and with a ratty ex-husband in my past, I couldn’t imagine what a healthy commitment even looked like. Happily ever afters, I was convinced, were for other women. Except I couldn’t deny that the more I got to know him, Barrett had seemed an awful lot like a prince among men.
That idea made me angry beyond reason. I hit the brakes a little too hard, skidded to a halt alongside an obligatory stop sign. Apparently, I’d reached the fork in the road that would take me into Fallowfield—or back to the Barrett house.
But I wasn’t ready to face anyone or anything connected to that last name.
So I headed into town—and to the Apple Blossom Café.
The glow of good cheer spilling from the diner’s wide window drew me like a moth to a flame. And I wasn’t the only one. A guy in baggy pants, a tight T-shirt, and a leather vest peered into the plate glass like tomorrow’s lottery numbers were pasted on the wall inside the restaurant. At the curb, his companion stood in the shadow of the open driver-side door of a black Dodge Charger with wide red racing stripes running its length. He had propped one foot on the car’s floorboard as if he needed to be ready to jump into the vehicle and make a clean getaway.
And I didn’t like the look of that.
I called to the guy at the window.
“I think they’re open.”
The man turned. A scrolling tattoo patterned his throat, and in his mouth, a toothpick flicked from side to side like the tongue of a snake. He looked me up and down like I was a little brown mouse who’d arrived at the Reptile House in time for dinner.
“Next time,” he said, “I’ll get carryout.”
His friend guffawed like he’d said something dirty. The two of them got into the Charger. Their tires squealed as they took off up the street.
I pushed my way into the diner, but I couldn’t see what had been so interesting that Toothpick Boy had pressed his face against the glass to get a better look at it. The place was as quiet as if all of Fallowfield routinely stayed home on a Sunday night. Maybe they did. But in one of the deep booths, a young mom enjoyed a meatloaf dinner she hadn’t had to make, while her equally young husband spoon-fed mashed peas to the infant in his lap. The baby’s brother was old enough to hang on to his own spoon. He repeatedly banged it on the tabletop with glee.
At the far end of the lunch counter, Charlotte laughed with two men as they each finished a piece of banana cream pie. It took me a second to realize the man in jeans and a navy blue hoodie was actually the sheriff. I’d never seen Luke Rittenhaus out of uniform before. The second man wore a kind of uniform, too, but his was a beautiful camel tweed sport coat with suede elbow patches and the same burgundy pocket square I’d seen him wear the day before. He was the spitting image of what a librarian ought to be, and that was a good thing, because a librarian was exactly what Calvin Mead was.
He glanced my way as I made tracks to a table in the corner, did a double take when he recognized me.
“It’s Jamie, right? Come join us.”
Rittenhaus turned, saw me, and didn’t look delighted with the invitation.
“Cal,” he growled, “maybe she’s here to meet Adam.”
But I wasn’t going to meet Adam Barrett anywhere anymore.
And the pain of it must’ve shown on my face.
“Oh, no,” Charlotte said. “I know that look. Here. Sit here. The chocolate cake’s on the house.”
She laid a fresh paper placemat and cutlery beside her brother’s spot.
I thought, What the hell, left my table, and, despite a surge of shyness, settled onto the stool at the counter.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked, sliding a fat wedge of cake in front of me. “Did you argue?”
“Adam’s been arguing with everyone all week,” Rittenhaus declared. And he had the black eye to prove it, though the bruise was fading to a mossy green. “Now that he’s pissed everyone off, maybe he’ll have the sense to go back to wherever the army’s been keeping him.”
“Nope,” I said, forking up a mouthful of chocolatey goodness and nibbling on it carefully. “I guess he’s got a whole lotta leave, because he’s staying in Fallowfield for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, I’m going back to D.C. in the morning.”
“I’m very sorry,” Charlotte said.
So was I. I swallowed hard, pushed the plate of cake away. I didn’t want to bare my heart and soul to these kind strangers. Besides, they were Barrett’s friends, not mine. At least, they’d been his friends at one time. But the bonds of youth were hard to break. If push came to shove, I’d lay money that they’d step up to be his friends still. And with that in mind, I changed the subject. I told Rittenhaus about the jokers I’d seen outside the café when I’d arrived.
Cal eyed his sister. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do I.” She crossed her arms against her chest.
“About three months back,” Cal told me, “a guy hit
her cook over the head in the alley when he went to take out the trash after closing. After he filched the cook’s wallet, he forced his way in here, stole all the money in the till.”
“He didn’t get much,” Charlotte said defensively. “I’d already left with the night deposit.”
“Just because it could’ve been worse,” Rittenhaus interjected, “doesn’t make it any better.”
I said, “I take it assault and robbery are rare things around here?”
“Robbery,” Rittenhaus confirmed, “assault and battery, rape…all crimes against persons are pretty unusual in our neck of the woods. Don’t get me wrong; people still get themselves into all kinds of trouble. We’ve got our share of burglary, drunk and disorderly, theft, and drug use.”
Having met Vance McCabe, I could well believe that last one.
I said, “Drug use often means drug trafficking.”
“Yeah, we’ve had a definite uptick in that, too.” The sheriff got to his feet, tossed his napkin on the plate he’d practically licked clean. “I’ll call in your description of that Dodge Charger, see if my deputies can spot those guys tonight.”
Charlotte walked him to the end of the counter. There, their body language changed. Playfully, she flicked his hoodie’s zipper pull—and he leaned in for a lingering kiss on her lips.
My jaw must’ve hit the floor, because Calvin chuckled.
He said, “They should get a room, right?”
“What? No.” I turned my attention to my flatware, lined it up on the placemat just so. “I didn’t realize they were seeing each other, that’s all.”
“They’ve been together about two years now.”
And Barrett had cut me loose after seven months. But I didn’t want to think about Barrett. Or the dull ache throbbing behind my breastbone since our last conversation.
Still, I said, “What’s Rittenhaus got against Barrett, anyway?”
“You mean except the brawling and the black eye?” Cal laughed outright this time. “They were good friends in high school.”
“I’d gathered as much. What changed?”
Calvin Mead’s good humor disappeared.
“Pamela,” he said.
“I visited her home,” I admitted, “and saw the shortcut through the field where she was attacked. Did you ever see anyone out there who shouldn’t have been?”
He shook his head, smiled wistfully. “I’m the wrong guy to ask. Char and her friends used that trail all the time to cut between Eric’s house and Adam’s. They were seniors. The last thing Char wanted was her little brother shadowing her. I was just a lowly freshman.”
“Then you were in the same class as Pamela.”
“Yes, I was.” He took a sip of his coffee, ended up staring into the cup as if he could see the past in the bottom. “Kids around here always talked big about graduating and getting out of this tiny town. Her death only made it worse.”
“But many of you stayed. Rittenhaus is still here. Eric Wentz, Vance McCabe, your sister…”
“Eric watched his family implode after Pamela’s death. I don’t think he wanted to leave. But Vance? He never grew up. He kept sponging off his parents until his mom died last spring. His brothers have made it clear they aren’t going to support him anymore, but I don’t think he has anywhere else to go. He’s stuck.”
“Well, he left Fallowfield at least once. I understand he was in the National Guard and served in the Middle East.”
“That’s true. I think he was shocked when he got called up. After a tour in Iraq, he went to Afghanistan twice. Eric did a tour there as well.”
“And you decided to stay in town, too.”
Cal snorted. “Not for lack of trying. I wanted to get out of this pothole as much as anyone. I got into Cornell, got my PhD. I taught at the university level for a while.”
“Impressive.”
“Thanks. My girlfriend’s parents thought so, too. They weren’t happy when I decided to come back here.”
“Why did you come back?”
Cal’s eyes drifted to Charlotte. She laughed and gossiped with the little family as she tucked their plates into a bin she balanced on her curvy hip.
He said, “Our mom isn’t getting any younger. And she’s got some problems.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She…well, she wasn’t the best mom. Our dad bailed when Char and I were little kids. Mom drank. Char basically raised me. Now, after years of marinating her liver, Mom’s pretty sick. She’s still our mom, though, so Char helps her out. I didn’t want her to shoulder that on her own.”
“There’s nothing wrong with coming back to your hometown for that.”
“I guess not.” He snatched up a menu wedged between a paper-napkin dispenser and a rack of condiments and handed it to me. “You know, you should eat something besides cake. Char’s got great corn chowder tonight. My treat.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t feel very hungry.”
“Well, if it helps, let me say Adam’s an idiot for breaking up with you.”
It didn’t help a bit.
But it was still good to hear.
Honesty, however, made me say, “I’m no prize. Maybe he’s smarter than you think.”
“He was smart enough to figure out how to have a life outside of Fallowfield, I’ll give him that. What is he now? Like a major or something?”
“Lieutenant colonel.”
“There you go. Local kid makes good. He’s a patriot and everything. He even comes home to help his granny a couple times a year. Everybody in this town loves him for it.”
But I remembered the letter to the newspaper editor published all those years ago. It had condemned Barrett in no uncertain terms. “You’re sure everybody loves him?”
“Well, maybe not everybody.” Cal Mead smiled at me kindly. “It was good to meet you, Jamie Sinclair. Safe travels.”
And with that, he rose from his stool, waved farewell to his sister, and left me all alone with my heartache in her diner.
Chapter 12
I managed to catch some solid sleep that night.
But not at first.
The apartment over Miranda Barrett’s garage was dark when I pulled into the drive. Her grandson could’ve been anywhere, but apparently, he’d spoken to his grandmother before going about his business. She was waiting for me in her kitchen when I walked into the house. In the end, I didn’t have to explain a thing to her. As if she could sense my heartbreak, she patted my hand and wrote me a check and told me it was all right that I was going home.
I had no intention of banking her money, but to preserve her pride, I took the slip of paper with me when I excused myself and headed to bed. I went through the motions of washing my face and brushing my teeth. And I’ll admit that once I was tucked beneath Elise’s rosebud comforter, I silently cried myself to sleep.
When dawn came creeping into the orchard the next morning, however, I was dead to the world.
And then my cellphone began to buzz. I groped in the darkness, found it dancing a jig on the nightstand. With bleary eyes, I snatched it up, scowled at the caller ID. GOVERNMENT NUMBER, it read. The info was hardly helpful, but I answered the call in spite of it.
“Jamie Sinclair. What’s your hurry?”
“Ms. Sinclair? Good morning. This is Master Sergeant Jenna Shelby. We met briefly last spring when you, uh, visited Fort Leeds.”
I’d done more than visit that military installation. I’d tracked down a kidnapper and uncovered a sick plot to sell out American soldiers. I’d also met Barrett—and ended up unable to say goodbye to him when I said goodbye to the post.
But Barrett wasn’t the only soldier I’d met while working there. I considered the name Shelby, dug deep, and dredged up an image to go with it. She was, I recalled, an MP—or military police officer—with cropped blond curls and sergeant’s stripes on her uniform sleeve.
She was also Barrett’s right-hand man, so to speak. A respected woman who’d earned rank a
nd responsibilities. Barrett commanded her company, but it was her job to make sure his orders were carried out right down the line.
From what I’d seen, she was good at it.
“I’m trying to reach Lieutenant Colonel Barrett,” she said. “He didn’t make his medical appointment last week. He hasn’t returned to his duty station, either.”
Clutching the phone to my ear, I shoved the covers aside, sat up on the edge of the bed.
“We understood him to be staying with you, ma’am.”
“He was. But I left town. For a case.”
“Well, that explains why the Alexandria Police received no answer when they knocked on your door. Do you have any knowledge of where the lieutenant colonel might have gone?”
I snatched my brainiac glasses from the nightstand, slipped them on to peer past the filmy curtains at the window. In the dim light just before daybreak, I could make out Barrett’s apartment over the garage. The windows were still dark. He could’ve been asleep inside. Or he could’ve been up and out.
“Sorry,” I told Shelby, “I can’t say I know Barrett’s whereabouts.”
“I see. If you hear from him, I’d appreciate your call.” She rattled off her phone number.
“Is he in trouble?” I asked, knowing full well Shelby wasn’t calling to invite him to make a fourth at her bridge party.
“Let me put it this way,” she said. “Lieutenant Colonel Barrett is currently considered absent without leave.”
“AWOL?”
The acronym threatened to stick to the back of my throat and gag me.
Going AWOL—or leaving your assigned location without permission—is a serious offense. It can result in court-martial, loss of pay, or a demotion to lower rank. And it can even be punishable by jail time.
The Kill Box Page 9
