“Flyers are free speech,” argued a man a few feet from Ava. “That’s protected.”
“You’re correct, they are,” agreed Ava. “I’m not challenging the right to hand out flyers. The 1920s were a very active decade for the KKK in Oregon, but most residents would agree that it has fizzled out. No one has seen a white hood around here for decades, right?”
Nods answered her.
“The point I’m making is that hate never dies,” Ava continued. “It can go dormant and seem to disappear when it’s actually hiding and evolving, passed from generation to generation. Did you know the KKK was very active in Portland as recently as the 1980s? Someone even called Portland the skinhead capital of the US back then. We can’t say racism doesn’t exist because it’s never personally touched us. It’s here and it can be deadly.”
The agent clearly knew what she was talking about and had presented it tactfully, but scowls on several faces indicated they didn’t appreciate a lecture from an outsider. Many people in the pews studied the agent in confusion. Curious glances to neighbors were met by shrugs. No one knew who she was.
“Uh, thank you . . . Miss . . . ?” Harlan asked.
“Special Agent McLane,” she said solemnly. “I’m part of the FBI presence looking at whether or not the Fitch murders are a hate crime.”
The room erupted again.
Madison blinked. She’d assumed the FBI was present simply because the sheriff needed help investigating the two deaths. This was the first mention of a hate crime.
Am I dense?
“What the hell?” Her uncle shook his head, scowling.
The realization made her head swim. Sean and Lindsay might have been killed because of the color of Sean’s skin. The FBI’s presence indicated Leann Windfield’s theory could be right.
A long-forgotten memory poked at Madison’s brain again, wanting to come out.
“Is it true Nate Copeland was also murdered this morning?” someone shouted. “Was he murdered because he was the first deputy that saw the Fitch murder scene? He’s not black.”
Shock hit Madison, and she saw Leann straighten, surprise on her face.
Someone else has been killed?
“Holy shit,” her uncle said under his breath. “Another murder?”
All eyes went to Agent McLane. She said nothing but held up a hand until the loud conversations stopped. “I can’t comment on Deputy Copeland’s death, but the Clatsop County sheriff has the full support of the FBI in their investigation.”
In other words, they’re paying attention because it’s related to the Fitch murders.
Agent McLane set a hand on Emily’s shoulder and spoke rapidly to her. Madison’s gaze locked on her sister’s face. Emily was completely pale, her eyes wide, clearly alarmed by the news of Copeland’s death.
The reason for Emily’s fear struck Madison, and her heart skipped a beat.
Emily was there too.
Did Copeland see something at that murder scene that got him killed?
“Who’s the guy with the sheriff?” Rod mumbled beside her.
Sheriff Greer had stepped through the sanctuary door with Agent Zander Wells right behind him. Greer raised a hand in greeting to the townspeople while Wells swiftly took in the crowd, his gaze darting from face to face. He stopped when his eyes landed on Emily, ten feet to his right.
Relief and something else flashed on his face, and a ripple went through Madison’s female instincts.
The agent is attracted to Emily.
She set aside the observation to mull over later.
Emily and Agent McLane hadn’t seen the two men enter. Sheriff Greer worked his way around the pews toward the front of the room, stopping to shake an occasional hand or slap someone on the back. Ava finally noticed him and immediately turned to check the door. Spotting Agent Wells, she gestured for him to join them.
He took a place on Emily’s other side and joined their conversation.
Now that’s a conversation I’d like to hear.
She watched her sister listen intently to the agents. She’s upset and trying not to show it.
Madison was suddenly swamped by an image of a handful of odd coins. The fascination and curiosity she’d felt about them as a child swirled in her mind. She felt them in her hands, the cool, round surfaces, and she wondered what had triggered the memory.
What coins?
16
“Any updates on Nate Copeland’s death?” Ava asked softly as Zander joined them in the crowded sanctuary.
Surprised she’d asked in front of Emily Mills, Zander simply shook his head. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”
“Like whether he was murdered or not?” Emily’s question was delivered with her usual bluntness, but Zander noted her pallor. Her pupils were large in the bright light of the church, and her hands were clasped tightly together—to the point of white knuckles.
Ava caught his eye. “The autopsy will give us answers,” she said, her low voice quieter than usual.
“Do you need to tell the other deputies that were at the Fitch house to watch their backs?” Emily asked. She didn’t look at either one of them, her focus straight ahead. Still candid, but lacking her usual spirit.
Zander exchanged another glance with Ava. “We’re not at that point.”
“I see.”
“Can I have everybody’s attention?” Sheriff Greer had made it to the microphone. A sweating bald man darted away from the podium, relief apparent on his face.
Another man stood up near the front of the sanctuary. “What’s going on, Sheriff? How come no one’s giving us any answers?” Many heads nodded.
“I just got here,” Greer said. “Can I talk before you accuse me of not talking?”
The questioner folded his arms across his chest. “We’re listening.”
“Thank you.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “I know you’re all concerned about the deaths of the Fitches.”
“Damn right!” came a shout.
“Be quiet!”
“Let the man talk!”
“What we’re concerned about is our safety,” said the first man. “We all hate what happened, but the natural reaction is to worry about our own families. Are we safe?”
The air grew still as the audience waited for the sheriff’s answer.
Zander didn’t envy Greer.
The sheriff studied the audience, many of whom were leaning forward in anticipation, hoping to hear him say everything was okay.
Greer took a deep breath. “I’m not going to pretend everything will be fine. We don’t know who killed the Fitches, and we don’t know why.” His face softened. “I can’t stand here and honestly tell you nothing else is going to happen. I can’t predict the future.”
The brief stunned silence was disrupted by voices. Just about everyone’s voices. Some people stood and worked their way past the others in the pews, their children’s hands clenched in their own. Several streamed past Zander, fear and anger in their eyes, bits of their conversations reaching his ears.
“—going to Grandma’s in Portland.”
“—out of my gun safe tonight.”
“—dogs go bonkers if they hear someone outside.”
Beside him Emily tensed as people passed, many of them stopping to pat her hand or say a brief word about Lindsay.
“Folks!” The sheriff knew he’d lost the crowd. “Any more questions?” He was ignored as more people stood and left. A few gathered at the podium, peppering Greer with questions. Others met in small groups, their heads together as they spoke, occasionally casting suspicious looks at him and Ava or the sheriff.
“Fuck.” Ava was succinct. “This accomplished nothing except to rile up everyone.”
“What do you expect when they’ve been told that they could be the next murder victim?” snapped Emily.
“That’s not what—”
“I know that’s not what the sheriff said,” Emily stated. “But that’s what they heard.”
Zand
er couldn’t argue with Emily’s logic. Her color was better. Anger had replaced the earlier anxiety.
He liked her better this way.
She turned to him. “When will you have a motive?” Her dark-blue eyes probed him, expecting an answer.
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t lie.
“You’ve figured out nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Am I in danger because I was there at the same time as Nate Copeland?”
Zander held her gaze. “We can’t rule it out yet.”
She swore under her breath. “Now what?”
Madison stepped quietly through the mansion’s front door and slowly closed it, the knob tight in her grip, attempting to be as silent as possible. Her aunts were home from the meeting at the church, and Madison didn’t want to listen to a discussion in which they rehashed every word. Emily’s car wasn’t parked in its usual spot out front—which was fine with Madison. She didn’t believe her sister had seen her at the meeting; Emily had been focused on the FBI agents.
Emily probably wonders why I didn’t attend.
Her sister was always looking over Madison’s shoulder, checking up on her, being a mother hen. It made her feel like a teenager with a chaperone.
The staircase creaked as she lightly jogged up the treads, keeping one ear open for her aunts. She passed the open door of Emily’s room. And then stopped. The coins from her earlier memories reappeared in her mind and drew her inside Emily’s room.
Is this where I saw them?
It couldn’t be. The memory felt very, very old.
She flipped on the light switch and studied her sister’s things. Madison had nosed through Emily’s things in the past simply out of curiosity and because she had the opportunity. She assumed her sister had done the same with Madison’s belongings. The three sisters—and then two—had constantly gone through each other’s things for as long as Madison could remember.
All sisters snooped. Right?
Madison slid on her stomach, the hardwood cold against her bare knees. The space under Tara’s bed was tight, and Madison kept a cheek to the floor to stay low enough without banging her head. Tara’s bed was pushed into the far corner of her room, and Madison had spotted a large box underneath in that corner. She wanted to know what was in it. She pushed shoes and games and smaller boxes out of her way. She’d already rooted through those little boxes and found nothing of interest. But that large box by itself was like a beacon to her nine-year-old brain.
Emily shared a room with Madison, but at seventeen, Tara had her own. Jealousy ran rampant in Madison’s heart. Tara got to do everything. Dates, movies, driving. She got to work in the diner and earn money to buy all the clothes she wanted.
Madison couldn’t wait to be a teenager.
Her fingers reached the cardboard box, its brown surface rough to the touch. It was too tall to open under the bed. She backed up the way she’d come, sliding with one hand awkwardly grasping a corner of the box. It was heavy and kept slipping from her grip. Excitement curled in her chest.
What would it be?
She emerged from under the bed. Dust from the floor left odd pale patterns on her navy T-shirt, and she tasted it on her tongue. Kneeling, she flipped open the box’s flaps. And exhaled in disappointment.
Books. The box was full of books. She dug to the bottom, searching for hidden treasure. Nothing but books. She picked one up, wrinkling her nose at the embracing man and woman on the cover. Flipping it open, she noticed someone had used a pen to underline sentences.
Mom would be furious if Tara had marked in books.
“Madison!” Tara stood in the doorway, fury shining in her eyes.
Dropping the book back in the box, Madison felt her stomach swirl and churn, ready to vomit.
Madison trembled, experiencing the same guilty nausea as she searched Emily’s room. But somehow the nausea was different. Now more regret and disgrace affected it since she was an adult but committing the sins of a child.
This time I know what I’m searching for.
That excuse didn’t settle her stomach the way she’d hoped.
She listened, still hearing only the far-off murmurs of her aunts. Emily’s room was a mirror image of hers. Every room in the mansion had high ceilings, and the bedrooms each had a wide bay window or two. Everyone complained about the stupidly tiny closets, but no one did anything about it. People had owned less clothing when the mansion was built. Remodeling the bedrooms to have the spacious closets that reflected the current day’s excess would cost a fortune that they didn’t have.
Emily’s room had a queen bed, a dresser, two nightstands, the minuscule closet, and a desk. Any of which could hide what Madison was searching for.
Why do I think I’ll find them here?
The sensation of holding the cold metal disks tingled through her nerves. She’d never encountered anything like the coins in her previous searches of Emily’s room. She considered starting under the bed and then chose the closet. Grabbing a footstool, she opened the door. The closet was crammed. She stood on the stool and scanned the shelf above the clothing. A dozen shoeboxes. Most of which, Madison knew, contained shoes. She didn’t have the patience to search each one again. Stepping down, she closed the door and replaced the stool, feeling the urge to get out before Emily came home.
Maybe she was no longer the horrible snoop she’d believed herself to be.
Deciding to leave soon, she slid open a drawer in the closest nightstand and caught her breath.
Not coins. A pocket watch.
She picked it up in awe, the watch familiar to her fingertips. She recognized its weight, its polished surface, and its tiny clasp.
This is Dad’s.
She pressed the stem, and it sprang open. Her gaze halted on his initials inside the little door. The hands showed an incorrect time. Lifting it to her ear, she heard nothing. She closed her eyes and saw him.
He sat on the back porch of their home, grinning as he shouted for her and Emily to beat Tara in the impromptu tug-of-war they’d started with the hose. It was hot. She wore the turquoise bathing suit—the one with the unicorn. Tara and Emily had matching orange suits. Their mother had tried to buy a third one for Madison, but she hated orange and had fallen in love with the unicorn.
The water made the hose cool in her hands. It gushed out near Emily, making the grass squish between their toes. On their father’s loud count, she and Emily yanked with all their strength, giggling with delight as their oldest sister tripped and fell face-first into the grass. In a flash he was beside Tara, lifting her up and exclaiming at the blood gushing from her nose. It dripped down the orange suit, leaving dark, crooked trails. Mesmerized, Madison watched as they grew longer. Her father dug in his pockets and pulled out the watch and a tissue. He dropped the watch in the wet grass and pressed the tissue to Tara’s nose.
Madison looked at the watch in her hand, remembering how shocked she’d been that he had let his precious watch fall to the ground, risking water damage and breakage. To her it had shown how much he loved Tara—all of them—to endanger his most prized possession. A wave of loss and love slammed into her, and she leaned on the nightstand for support, tears blurring her vision.
She’d lost so much.
Breathing deep, she waited for her eyes to clear and pushed the emotions behind a locked door in her brain, where they belonged.
The watch had been a gift from her dad’s grandfather, who’d had the same initials. Her father had allowed the girls to examine it whenever they asked, as long as he stayed close by. It was precious to him, and the sisters regarded it with awe. Below the engraved initials in a fancy script was a phrase in a foreign language. Latin maybe? She remembered her father telling them it meant to care for others.
The case door closed with a snap, and Madison clenched the antique, her mind racing.
It was always in her father’s pocket. He’d kept his keys and spare change in one front pocket and the pocket
watch in the other.
After he’d died, the pocket watch was nowhere to be found. Her mother had been furious, convinced his killer had taken the watch, or possibly one of the investigators. When the police had suggested it was lost in the house fire—since all their belongings had burned—her mother had brushed off their theory. Her father had worked late that night and still had on his jeans when he was killed; the watch would have been in his pocket.
How? How did the watch end up here?
Did one of the aunts have it and give it to Emily? Without telling Madison?
Her mother had pointed out that her father’s wallet was still in his pocket. Why would anyone take an old watch and leave the leather wallet with thirty-two dollars?
No one had an answer, and the watch was forgotten, presumably never to be seen again.
How long has Emily had it?
Hearing the front door open and shut, Madison slipped the watch in her pocket and darted out of the bedroom. She silently jogged to her own room, where she listened as Emily came up the stairs. The light switch in Emily’s room clicked, and Madison held her breath, hoping she’d left everything the way Emily’d had it. Madison yanked off her Goonies cap, ran a hand through her hair, and shed her coat. After a long moment, she went back to Emily’s room.
Her sister sat at her desk, leafing through a stack of papers.
“Hey, Em.”
Emily didn’t turn and continued sorting her papers. “Hi, Madison. Did you know there was a meeting at the church tonight about the Fitch murders?”
Her sister’s casual tone was like nails on a chalkboard.
“I was there,” Madison replied in the same tone.
That made Emily swing around, her eyes narrowing, a slight frown on her face. “I didn’t see you.”
“I was standing by Uncle Rod. I saw you at the back with the two FBI agents.”
“I didn’t notice Rod either. I bumped into Agent McLane in the parking lot.” Emily’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Agent Wells showed up later.”
The Last Sister Page 12
