by Reinke, Sara
Tessa nodded. “I guess you could say I idolized Eleanor when I was growing up. She and Brandon…they were my best friends.”
“Drôle,” Rene remarked. Funny. “I don’t remember Brandon ever mentioning her.”
Tessa thought of their sixteenth birthday, how she’d seen Brandon jerk away from Eleanor in the foyer, a mixture of anger, bewilderment and hurt on his face.
“He wasn’t as close to her as I was, at least not after we turned sixteen,” she said. “Grandmother Eleanor gave me a very extravagant gift—that necklace I told you Monica stole from me. It had a green sapphire pendant, ten carats.” When Rene raised his brows and whistled, she nodded. “It was beautiful. My grandfather had given it to her—his first gift, in fact, after they were married. It was very special to me, but I think Brandon must have been jealous, his feelings hurt. After all, it was his birthday, too. But Eleanor told me sweet sixteen is more special for girls.” She watched Rene pull the keys to Martin’s car out of his pocket and thumb off the car alarm. “I always wished they would have reconciled before she died, but I guess they didn’t.”
“How did she die?” Rene asked.
“I don’t know exactly…” Tessa murmured as he opened the trunk.
You’re a goddamn lying, stealing Noble whore, Martin had said as he’d tried to strangle her. Just like your slut grandmother. So I guess that makes it only fitting that you fucking die like Eleanor.
“…but I’m about to try and find out.”
Martin looked like hell.
The places on his face where bird beaks and talons had torn or pecked him open were beginning to heal, but still, it was hard to look like anything less than warmed-over shit when you were hog-tied and gagged in the trunk of your own mid-sized luxury sedan.
He squinted blearily against the abrupt glare of morning sunshine as the trunk swung open. When he caught sight of Tessa, his brows furrowed and he bared his teeth around the wadded up washcloth in his mouth, wriggling and mumbling at her, an inarticulate mess of sounds.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Rene said to him. He held up a plastic water bottle, in which he’d dissolved a handful of crushed up Percodan tablets. “Breakfast is served.”
The cleft between Martin’s brows cleaved more deeply and he muttered and growled around the gag, angry and defiant.
“Now, now,” Rene said, setting the bottle down and grabbing Martin roughly by the hair, forcing his head up. “That’s no way to talk, what with a lady present.” He jerked down the gag and moved to cram the mouth of the bottle between his lips. “Down the hatch.”
“Wait,” Tessa said, catching him by the arm. He and Martin both blinked at her in mutual surprise.
She stared at her husband, feeling tremulous and frightened, as if he could somehow still hurt her. She stared at him as she would have a rattlesnake curled by her feet; despite the ropes and her proximity to Rene, she still could feel that threatening potential energy surrounding Martin, coming off him in thick, stinking, nearly tangible waves.
“You said something yesterday,” she said, her voice choked and quiet. “You told me I was going to die like Eleanor. I want to know what you meant.”
He held her gaze, his eyes cold and filled with contempt. “Go fuck yourself,” he croaked, spittle spattering against his cracked, blood-crusted lips.
Rene jerked his head, tearing hair loose from his scalp, and Martin uttered a hoarse cry. “You want to join the Hair Club for Men, asshole? Keep up that charming attitude.”
“Tell me what you meant,” Tessa said, clearing her throat and narrowing her brows. In that moment, as he’d cursed at her, the illusion of intimidation had fallen away and she’d seen him for what he truly was—not the monster who had beaten and terrorized her for the last four years, but something pathetic, battered and helpless, so consumed with greed and jealousy, she doubted he had room in his heart or mind for anything else. “You tried to kill me. You tried to kill my baby. You son of a bitch—did you kill my grandmother, too?”
When he said nothing, turning his eyes away as if bored with her, she felt the same rage that had filled her the day before—that fire that had been Eleanor’s—ignite again. Tessa grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and shook him furiously. “You tell me!” she cried. “You son of a bitch, you tell me right now! What happened to my grandmother?”
He locked gazes with her again, the hatred in his eyes spearing into her. “Why don’t you ask your grandfather?” he hissed and, startled, Tessa let go of his shirt and drew back. Martin chuckled at her surprise and bewilderment. “Go on. Call him on the phone, you stupid cunt. Ask him about it. He should know how Eleanor died—he’s the one who killed her.”
“Liar!” Tessa punched him hard enough to knock him loose from Rene’s grasp and send him crashing back to the floor of the trunk. But she wasn’t finished. She launched herself after him, all but scrambling into the back of the Jaguar as she began to pummel him, scratching, slapping and pounding his head and face over and over. “Liar! You’re a goddamn liar!”
“Tessa!” Rene caught her by the waist and hauled her backward.
“You’re a liar!” she cried at Martin, squirming against Rene. “My grandfather would never have hurt Eleanor! He loved her!”
“Yeah?” Martin spat out a mouthful of fresh blood; her knuckles had sheared open his bottom lip. “My father was there. He saw the whole thing, told me all about it. Augustus Noble crushed her goddamn throat with his bare hands, until her eyes bulged out of her goddamn skull and she pissed her fucking panties—how’s that for love?”
“Liar!” Tessa yelled again, but she couldn’t get to him to punch him anymore, not with Rene holding on to her. He hoisted her aloft, leaving her feet to pedal in the open air, and carried her forcibly back from the car.
“That’s enough, pischouette,” he said against her ear. He dropped her unceremoniously against the curb and gave her a warning look from beneath crimped brows. “Let me finish with him.”
“But I need to—” she began, objecting.
“You need to sit tight and be quiet before you wake up the entire place and have cops crawling all over my ass, wondering why I’ve got your husband cinched up in the trunk,” Rene said in a low voice. “Now stand still and stop it, goddamn it.”
He returned to the car and leaned over the trunk. Martin uttered a choked, gurgling cry that cut off quickly. When Rene finished forcing him to drink the contents of the bottle, he stood again, looked about warily, then slammed the trunk down.
For a moment, she thought he’d be angry with her, but as he approached, his expression softened and he touched her face with a gentle hand. “You better now?”
She nodded, looking away, sullen and upset. “He’s lying.”
He canted his head to catch her gaze. “He’s trying to push your buttons, pischouette,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her. “And you let him. Come on. Let’s get on the road.”
“My grandfather didn’t kill Eleanor.” Tessa turned, following him back to the motel room. Here, she began to collect her things, shoving them with angry emphasis into a bag as she continued to speak. “He adored her, would have done anything to make her happy. They were everything I grew up thinking love was supposed to be.”
He loved her like I love you, Rene, she thought, closing her mind and mouth. He couldn’t have hurt Eleanor any more than I could you.
Rene made a strange little coughing sound and she paused, glancing over at him. “What?”
“Nothing, pischouette,” he said, shaking his head and shouldering his traveling bag. “It’s just…”
His voice faded and he shrugged, making her frown. “What, Rene?”
He met her gaze, his brow raised slightly. “To hear you and Brandon talk about your grandfather, it doesn’t seem to me like you’re describing the same person at all. I’m not saying anything one way or the other, but this great man you keep mentioning, the one who loved your mamère so much…he’s the same son of a bitch who
broke Brandon’s hands, punished him for wanting to go to school.”
She blinked at him. “I’m not saying the Grandfather was a great man. I’m not saying that at all. I didn’t live in the great house after Eleanor died. I don’t know what things were like for Brandon then. I—”
“Sounds to me like things were bad off for Brandon for a long time before your grandmother died,” Rene remarked.
“What the hell are you saying, Rene?” she asked, her voice growing sharp.
He shrugged again. “Rien,” he said. Nothing. “Just making an observation, that’s all.”
He walked out the door, leaving her to stand in the middle of the room, blinking after him.
He’s right.
She had long struggled to reconcile within her mind the Augustus Noble who had so doted on Eleanor—the loving and adoring husband Eleanor had always described, who had smiled easily, laughed often and shown nothing but warmth to his wife—and the domineering patriarch who had so cruelly ostracized and abused her twin brother, offering Brandon nothing but icy contempt and condemnation.
She’d tried to tell herself that he hadn’t been cruel before Eleanor died, that the bitter malice in his heart had come about in the aftermath of that loss. But that was a lie.
Because he was always cruel. Brandon was always afraid of him.
She slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and pressed her lips together in a thin, troubled line. I’ve never wanted to believe that. I still don’t want to. Because if that’s true…if the Grandfather really is that kind of monster…
“It means Martin’s right,” she whispered. “He murdered my grandmother.”
Chapter Twenty
Lake Tahoe was twenty-two miles long and twelve miles across, encompassing a surface area of more than 190 square miles and bridging the outermost edges of California’s eastern snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains and the high desert plains of western Nevada.
And what a surface it is, Rene thought, looking down the steep slope of mountainside toward the plane of dusk-draped cerulean below. The sun was sinking beneath the Sierra Nevada peaks behind him but even without the full benefit of daylight, the view was extraordinary, damn-near breathtaking.
They’d followed Interstate 10 to the outskirts of Los Angeles, then turned north to take highway 395 to Carson City, Nevada. From there, he’d taken highway 50 and hugged the southern shoreline of Lake Tahoe’s impressive and expansive circumference until hitting state route 89 west toward Emerald Bay. He’d have to double back along 89 in another hour or so to meet Lina and Brandon at a local restaurant for dinner.
“What is this place?” Tessa asked. Her voice was small, her eyes enormous as she took in the sweeping vista of dense pine forests, rocky peaks and that stunning view below. It was at least ten degrees cooler in the mountains than at lower elevations as a general rule of thumb; after sunset, you could notch that down another ten degrees at least. He’d stopped in the town of Stateline and bought a coat for her; it was always either ski season at Lake Tahoe, or damn near it, so finding something stylish enough to suit her and warm enough to be practical hadn’t been a problem. The lightweight pink parka had cost him almost three hundred dollars, but it was quilted and down-filled, and she seemed grateful for it now as she tugged the collar flaps up toward her face and stuffed her hands into her pockets. The wind flapped dark strands of hair across her cheeks as she followed his gaze down to the water.
“It belonged to my father,” Rene said, turning away from the edge of the slope and walking around the front of a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. He’d stowed the Jaguar sedan at a hotel in South Lake Tahoe when he’d checked in, and rented the Jeep to better navigate the rough-hewn terrain. “And now it’s mine. Come on, pischouette. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
They were north of Emerald Bay, looking down upon the expansive inlet, on twenty-five acres of relatively untouched wilderness accessible only by four-wheel drive. Rene didn’t know why or how the property had come to be among his father’s assets; the deed had been included among the documents left to him upon Arnaud’s suicide, but the origin remained a mystery.
A loud, rustling crash from somewhere in the woods startled Tessa and she jumped, wide-eyed. “What was that?”
“Probably just a pinecone falling out of a tree.” There were black bears in the forests surrounding the lake, enough to warrant them being considered an official nuisance by most area residents, but Rene decided now was probably neither the best time nor place to point this out to Tessa.
“A pinecone?”
He leaned down, hefting one from the thick carpeting of dried pine needles on the ground. Not your run-of-the-mill, residential variety of conifer seed cluster, it was as big as a softball at the circumference of its base, thick and heavy with sap. He tossed it to her and she caught it with both hands, her eyes widening again at the surprising heft.
“Pinecone,” he said again, chuckling at her. “Watch your head when you’re under the trees.”
Although the land itself was extremely valuable, it was relatively vacant. Surrounded on either side by state park acreage, the area was virtually undeveloped, and the only building on Arnaud’s property had been what Rene had surmised to be some kind of fire lookout about 900 square feet in circumference, with windows on all sides to award a panoramic view. The windows were hidden beneath hinged shutters that could be propped up and open, but were closed and padlocked in place otherwise. There was no plumbing, phone service or electricity, although there was room in a crawl space beneath the house to install a generator if Rene had ever wanted. Which had been his plan, once upon a time.
“The road up here from the highway is pretty much impassable in the winter, but I used to come every year in the summer,” he remarked, fishing a set of keys from the pocket of his own down-filled ski jacket. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always felt something…like I’m supposed to be here, like I’m home.” He glanced over his shoulder at Tessa and smiled. “Once upon a time, I was going to retire from the police force and move here. Of course, then I got shot. Kind of messed up the whole idea.”
“Are we going to stay?” Tessa asked, a bit apprehensively as he led her up a rickety flight of wooden steps to the plank porch that wrapped around the entire breadth of the house.
“We’re not, no.” He couldn’t remember which key was which. It had been at least three years since he’d been out here. The last vestiges of daylight were rapidly dwindling, too, and he handed her a large Maglite he’d been carrying beneath his arm. “Here, pischouette. Do me a favor, no? Shine that light over here so I can sort through these keys.”
She did and after several clumsy attempts, he found the right one for the front door. It opened on rusty, creaking hinges into a solitary room; the air inside smelled musty and stale. It was sparsely furnished: a twin-sized cot in one corner with a bare, lumpy mattress; a small, propane-powered one-burner stove on a wooden table in another corner, along with a dust-covered box containing pots, pans and other household items. No sink or toilet.
He glanced at Tessa again, offering a feeble smile. “Be it ever so humble,” he remarked, sidestepping across the threshold so she could follow him inside.
“You were going to live here?” Tessa panned the flashlight around, sweeping its wide yellow beam across the wooden floor, the stark white walls. The only fixture was a single vertical beam, a post in the center of the room spanning from floor to ceiling. “But there’s nothing here. No rooms.”
“I don’t need them,” Rene said, walking slowly toward the center of the room, listening to the soft crunch of dust and grit beneath his shoe soles. “Or walls, either. Never have liked them much.”
“Why?” Tessa asked.
With a laugh, he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m claustrophobic. Can’t stand to feel shut in for too long.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tessa said, looking surprised.
“It started when I came home from my tour of duty in Vietn
am,” he said. “We used to go humping around in the middle of the night through some of the densest goddamn jungle you can imagine. You could never relax because as soon as you did, someone would take a potshot at you. I remember always feeling smothered, like everything was closing in on me and I was suffocating. I guess that just stayed with me.”
Dark places were particularly bothersome for him, maybe because light—particularly from windows—helped lend the illusion of space. He always kept the lights on at his loft in the city; a restored Victorian gaslight burned perpetually in the center of his living space. If he had no light to see by, he’d become disoriented, panic-stricken, suffering nearly full-fledged anxiety attacks. Sometimes in his mind, he’d even have flashbacks to his time in Vietnam, delusions that were realistically intense, even down to the remembered fragrance of mud and rain, the stink of his own ripe, pungent fear. In fact, being in that dark room, with only the flashlight’s glow to orient him, was making him feel a bit edgy. Should have thought to open the windows first, he thought.
Not that he intended to stay long enough for it to matter.
“Good thing our sort don’t really have to camp out in coffins, no?” he said with a wink. “I’d be in real trouble.”
She smiled, and he watched as she traced little concentric circles on the top of the mattress with the flashlight beam. “You want to break that in or something?” he asked.
She swung the light directly into his face, blinding him. “No,” she said, laughing.
He laughed, too, groping against the glare, shoving the light aside. “No?” He caught her by the wrists and pulled her against him, making her dance momentarily on her tiptoes. The simple prospect of making love to her—even in the dark in these close quarters—was enough to get his heart pounding, and the fly of his jeans to suddenly feel tight and strained. “You sure about that, pischouette?”
She could feel his arousal against her; he could tell by the mischievous reflection of light in her dark eyes. When he reached between them, sliding his hands deliberately, firmly against her breasts, reaching for the zipper of her coat, she giggled, pushing his hand away. “Don’t even think about it. It’s freezing in here.”
