“And yet he tried to kill you.”
“He wanted revenge.” Randall forced himself to sound dispassionate, but his mind was protesting: I can’t believe I’m saying these words about my own son. My ex-wife. My family.
“And where were you the night she died?”
“I don’t know.” His admission was soft, but rang in his ears.
Bill Anthony’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I had too much to drink. I can’t remember anything after I went to this bar downtown.”
“Blackout?”
“I suppose so.” He felt humiliated. He’d never in his life lost his faculties like that.
What if…?
He quashed the thought.
“What kind of condition were you in when the police found you? Were you disheveled? Bruised? Did you have any scratches you don’t remember getting?” As he spoke, Bill Anthony’s eyes scanned Randall’s hands, face.
Randall tried not to flinch under his lawyer’s gaze. “I don’t think I was any more disheveled than you’d expect when you’ve drunk that much booze.”
“Look, Randall, the police are lining up their ducks. They just need the murder weapon and they’ll be after you.” Bill chewed another peanut, vigorously. Thoroughly.
Randall watched Bill’s jaw work. How could someone spend so much time masticating one frigging peanut?
“They may try to charge you even without the weapon.” Bill reached for another peanut. Randall had to restrain himself from grabbing Bill’s hand and yanking it away from the bowl. “If they think your son’s testimony is strong enough.” He chucked the nut into his mouth.
“So what do you think we should do?”
Randall’s question halted Bill’s hand in his quest for the peanut bowl. His dark eyes locked onto Randall’s. “First of all, make them realize that they may have the wrong guy. Your son has a history of problems. He attacked your dog. He just tried to kill you. They shouldn’t rule him out.”
“There’s no way I’m deflecting this onto Nick.”
“How do you know he’s not deflecting it onto you?” Bill scooped up a handful of nuts and jiggled them in his hand. “Either way, he’s taking you down, Randall.”
Randall stared at his drink. It was dark and murky. His bile rose. “I can’t do that.”
“Then we go with plan B.”
“Which is?” Randall knew he wasn’t going to like this. Maybe it was the way that Bill’s eyes had narrowed. Or the way that he’d thrown all the nuts in his mouth.
“We argue that your ex-wife killed herself.”
Randall stared at him. Had Elise killed herself? He didn’t know. His gut told him she hadn’t.
She loved those kids too much.
“We know that Elise was under the care of a psychologist, that she’d just had an abortion and that she had a history of severe postpartum depression.”
Randall closed his eyes. It was sure to be all over the media. Successful Lawyer Victim of Depression. Then the media would provide salacious details of Elise’s previous postpartum issues under the guise of shedding light on an important social issue.
“What about my son’s testimony?”
“We’ll show he had reason to fabricate a story. Besides, it was dark. He’d fallen.”
“So your strategy is to make my ex-wife and my son look like basket cases?”
“Exactly.” Bill reached for the final peanut in the bowl.
Randall was sure Bill Anthony would mete out the same vigorous mastication to his ex-wife and child. “No, thanks.” He stood, then stalked out of the bar. A waitress stepped out of his path. The fear in her eyes forced him to slow down. He looked like a crazed beast, with his beaten-up, angry face.
This depersonalized box dressed in heavy brocade and fake mahogany wood wasn’t helping. He felt like a caged animal. He was scared he would begin to behave like one. Real air was what he needed.
He drove his rental car down to the water by Point Pleasant Park, yearning for his own vehicle that had been seized by the police under the search warrant. The salty breeze ruffled his hair, cooling his inflamed skin. Sunlight swathed the water in ribbons.
He had planned to be far out on the ocean by now. Just him, the water and his son.
His phone rang. “Randall, I’ve been trying to reach you,” Nina Woods said, her voice crisp, holding an edge of accusation.
“I’ve been held up.” So would you, if your ex-wife was killed and then your own son tried to murder you.
“I left a message with your associate at your home.” There was no mistaking her tone: What the hell was Kate Lange doing at your house?
He wanted to leave Nina Woods stewing over that, but it wasn’t fair to Kate. She had to work with this woman, this rainmaker who had saved Randall’s ass just a few months ago.
She’d been a coup, bringing Great Life Insurance and several other corporate entities with lucrative business to the newly branded McGrath Barrett, providing a needed income stream for the partners. It had helped eradicate some of the doubts about Randall’s leadership. But Nina Woods was well aware of her value.
“We need you to come in,” she said.
The fact that Nina Woods felt confident enough to make demands on the firm’s managing partner told him that he was no longer in charge. And her choice of words insinuated that he was no longer part of the “we.” She had turned his partners on him.
Although, he suspected, they hadn’t been hard to persuade. It was telling that it was the newest partner in the firm who’d called him. The partner who had the least history with him.
“When?”
“Tomorrow—9:00 a.m.”
He hung up.
The wind was picking up, the ocean no longer ribboned in silver. Instead, the wind ruffled the surface into white-tipped swells.
He raised his head and let the wind fill his ears. The wind could tell you a lot. Whether there’s a fog lurking beyond Chebucto Head, whether a warm rain was coming from the south, the wind never lied. Never betrayed you. It will give you the full force of its wrath or cool you from the midsummer heat, it will caress your cheeks or whip your hair into a tangle. But it will always play straight with you.
And the wind was telling him he’d better watch his back.
41
Monday, 5:42 p.m.
It was becoming a compulsion. Every few hours he would check the Halifax Post’s website, searching for a mention of the Barrett case—searching for another photo of Lucy Barrett.
There were several updates, but none that involved Lucy. On Monday, the Halifax Post reported Randall Barrett had been assaulted by his son, Nick.
He had scrolled down the article, his fingers shaking with impatience, only to find that the photo accompanying the report had been mined from a hockey tournament in which a flushed Nick, bulky in his hockey gear, grinned at the camera.
Disappointed yet again by the lack of fresh material on the website, he clicked on the archives, plowing through the links until he found the photo of Lucy taken the night her mother died. He let out his breath.
Her grief, her shock, her softly rounded vulnerability never failed to stir him.
It had been like that with Becky Murphy, too. In the beginning.
A runaway with a tough attitude smeared over her childlike features, Becky was the first girl with whom he’d been able to consummate his desires without fear of reprisal. He’d picked her up on a rural road in the heart of Nova Scotia, about one hundred miles away from his cabin. She hadn’t gone willingly into the specially fitted basement, but she was easy enough to overpower. She’d been the first girl he’d ever abducted, the first girl he’d ever physically restrained. He’d been amazed at how easy it was.
It had been perfect in the beginning. Becky, unloved and unwanted, had blossomed under his care.
He’d visited her on weekends, and occasional weeknights. After each of their weekends together, he would shackle Becky to a ring in the wall, as
suring her that it was a symbol of his commitment to her. He would never abandon her, he’d explained. He would always come back and unlock her.
She had never complained. And the chain had been long—she had plenty of room to move. The basement was furnished with a small refrigerator, a tiny bathroom with a bath, a TV (no cable but with a DVD player and a generous assortment of DVDs), a bed and his coup de grâce—a pair of lovebirds.
Becky had loved the birds. She’d never had a pet before. She had named them Hugs and Kisses. Given a chance to love something that loved her back, she’d matured and finally learned to trust.
Perhaps that had been the turning point. Or perhaps it was the fact that there was no immediate danger to what he was doing. And even though she was technically his captive, she had been so pathetically eager to see him that the whole situation was depressingly domestic.
One Friday night in May, she’d thrown herself in his arms, then placed his hand over her stomach. “You knocked me up,” she’d said. Her words were crude, but a small glow of excitement had lit her eyes.
She was going to be a mother. Another little bird for her nest of captivity.
And he couldn’t help but suspect that this was a ploy to get his attention. She had sensed his distance. She had been desperate for him to lavish her with the love he’d given her at the beginning. So she had tricked him. They had always used condoms that he’d left in the tiny bathroom. Had she tampered with them?
Becky Murphy had become a liability. He couldn’t let her have his child. Besides, her pregnancy had been the tangible proof of what his subconscious had been telling him: Becky was no longer the prepubescent girl he’d abducted.
She had become a woman.
The next week, while she was stroking Hugs and Kisses, cooing to the birds in a high-pitched voice that set his teeth on edge, he had slipped an electrical cord around her neck.
Garroting her had been simple.
He’d killed her quickly, while she was with those she loved most in the world.
He’d buried her in a shallow grave in the basement. That was three years ago.
There had been no other girls since Becky.
Until now.
He ran his finger over Lucy’s face, imagining the velvety texture of her skin, the smoothness of her mouth.
His finger left a smear of sweat on his laptop screen.
42
Monday, 6:03 p.m.
His mother greeted Randall with her usual hug, but only their arms embraced; their bodies did not touch. Penelope had never been a physically demonstrative woman, although Randall never doubted her love for her family, for her art, for her little Cape Cod perched on the edge of the ocean or for her dog, Scrubby.
He stepped back and studied his mother’s face.
Lines of fatigue were etched around her eyes and mouth, deepened over the past few days by sorrow and confusion. But not suspicion. Her gaze was level. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His mother did not think he’d killed Elise; he could see it in her eyes.
He wanted to hug her. Tight this time. He wanted her to tell him that the kids were okay, that he was okay, that life was okay.
He stepped back. “How are things?” he asked in a low voice.
“David called. About Elise’s funeral.” Randall’s shoulders tightened. He dreaded seeing Elise’s parents, even more so now, with his face branded by Nick’s accusations. Penelope hesitated. “Randall, David told me they want custody of Nick and Lucy.”
His chest tightened. “I’m the legal guardian.”
“They think you were responsible for Elise’s death.” Randall noted his mother couldn’t bring herself to say he killed his ex-wife. She was trying to protect his feelings, but her choice of words made him feel worse. “They want to fight for custody.”
He crossed his arms. “My children belong with me. I’m their father.”
Penelope looked at him with such profound sadness that fear curled through him. “What do you think the children want to do?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Lucy will want to live with me.”
“And Nick?”
He looked away. “He’ll come around.”
“Maybe.”
He cleared his throat. “When are they planning the service?”
She bit her lip. “They were told by the police that the homicide team is still waiting for toxicology reports. Since it’s a long weekend and some of the lab staff are out on summer vacation, they think it could be over a week before the police will release her body.”
“That long.” Though it would give him some time to sort things out here.
“Yes.”
“We’d better get our flights booked. Could I ask you to do that?”
Penelope put a hand on his arm. “They don’t want you to come, Randall. They asked if I could chaperone the children on the airplane.”
Rage burst through his hurt. “Goddamn them!”
There was an uncustomary sheen of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“She was my wife. My wife. The mother of my children. I want to mourn her, too.”
“I know.” Penelope’s voice was husky. “I understand. But they lost their only child, Randall. To a violent death. And their own grandson thinks his father did it.” She blinked. For a moment, she looked frail. Old.
He didn’t know why he was arguing with her. It was Elise’s parents—not his own mother, who had stood by him—who needed to hear his frustration. He cleared his throat. “How is Lucy doing today?”
Penny shook her head. “She won’t come out of her room. She’s barely eaten anything. I’m worried about her.”
“I’ll go up and see her.”
But he made no move to go. There was one more member of the family he had not inquired about. “What about Nick?”
Penelope’s eyes welled. “He won’t come out of his room, either.” She looked past him, at the ocean. The metallic-gray water heaved against the shore. “I’m scared, Randall,” she said in a low voice. “He’s completely changed.”
“Has he threatened you?”
After Nick had attacked him, the police had taken them into custody but no charges were laid, so they were both let go.
Nick, deflated and sullen, had returned to Penelope’s house. Randall had assumed that his son’s rage had only one target: him. But now he cursed his lack of judgment. How could he have left his mother with Nick? She was vulnerable. So was Lucy.
The thought snaked into his mind again: Had Nick killed his own mother?
God, how had his family turned on itself?
“I’ll deal with it.”
“No. Wait.” Penelope grabbed Randall’s arm. “I don’t think you should speak to Nick. He’ll just explode again.” Her eyes, so like his own, so like his son’s, forced him to acknowledge the truth of what she was saying. “He needs help, Randall. Professional help. I think Lucy should have some, too.”
“We’re fine.” He tugged his arm, but she would not let go.
“No. You can’t deal with this yourself, Randall. Neither can I. These kids are in shock. You need to get them some help.”
He swiped a hand through his hair. What was wrong with him? He’d always been so sure of his decisions, but now he doubted himself. His kids were shell-shocked. For God’s sake, his son had tried to kill him. And he’d just told his mother they were fine.
His mother watched him.
“Maybe we should call a psychologist.” His words dragged, reluctant to face the light of day.
Penelope’s hand relaxed on his arm. “I think that would be a good idea.” Remorse stabbed Randall. He was putting his mother through something she did not deserve. He was making her bear the cost of his mistakes. “In fact—” She stopped abruptly.
“What?”
Penelope exhaled. “Lucy spoke to me a little about Nick. About his behavior. I think she blamed herself for what happened on Sunday night. Apparently, after Nick stole that money, Elise ask
ed Lucy to come to a few of her therapy sessions to talk about Nick. The therapist was hoping that Lucy might know more about what was going on at school, et cetera.”
“And…”
“Now Lucy’s worried she missed something. Something terrible about her brother that might have prevented what happened. She feels guilty, Randall.”
He couldn’t speak. Lucy shouldn’t have to carry this burden.
“I was just thinking,” his mother said softly, her eyes searching his, “maybe we should call this therapist. His name is Dr. Gainsford. He knows the family dynamics. He met Lucy. She seemed to like him. It would be one less strange thing for her to have to deal with. We can ask him if he can recommend someone for Nick, too.”
Randall closed his eyes. He’d been so blind, so wrapped up in his own fucking problems he hadn’t even seen what his young daughter was going through. “Call him. I’ll fly him in from Toronto if need be.”
Penelope exhaled. “Thank you.” Exhaustion pulled at her features. “I’ll make some tea.”
“I’ll go see Lucy.” The narrow wooden staircase, warped by age and damp, creaked under Randall’s weight. Nick’s door was to the right. Closed tight and probably locked on the inside.
Lucy’s was on the left. It was partly open. He knocked.
“Come in.”
Lucy gasped when she saw his face. He was able to control his own reaction to her appearance. Her normally peach-colored complexion was so sallow it looked almost yellow.
And her eyes…
His own eyes pricked with tears.
Her eyes were pools of loss. Despair. So deep, so still.
He swallowed, trying not to weep when Lucy wrapped her arms around her knees. Instead of wrapping her arms around him. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Where were you?”
“I told you, honey, I had to go to the hotel.”
“I meant the night Mummy died.”
The surf crashed against the rocks, elemental, unstoppable.
He reached out a hand and stroked her hair, no longer smooth and soft, but tangled and greasy.
She pulled back against the headboard. Her eyes were full of fear. She was scared what he would say. She was scared he would tell her that he killed her mother.
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