by M K Dymock
“Cliff’s going to screw you over,” Blake said. “You’ll be in jail, he’ll own the dispensary just in time for the laws to change, and the Ackerman name will be dead. I’ll be out of a job, my family will lose the house, and our future is gone.”
William looked up from the folder and smiled his camera-ready smile. “You’re in this as deep as I am. How many times have you looked away? You’ll kill whatever investigation comes up. That’s always been the plan.”
The key to making a lot of money, William had said, was to be there before anyone else. The laws legalizing marijuana were coming and William wanted all the infrastructure in place before the competition. They’d started shipping six months ago while Blake ignored what he could. Money flowed through the city to a few businesses to hide the source.
“You know, William, I really considered that, but I’m not as stupid as you. I don’t trust Cliff. Eventually, if any sort of suspicion went his way, all the evidence he’d created would end up in the hands of the DEA. And I’m not going to jail for you.”
“If you think for one second I’m going to prison, you—”
Blake put up his hands. “You misunderstand. I don’t want you to go to prison or even a trial.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. Think of what the publicity would do to the family. No, we can’t have that.”
“So, what then?”
Blake slipped on his plastic gloves behind the desk. “Then what? That’s the problem, and I can only think of one solution where Grace and I and the kids come out of this intact. Our fortunes relatively intact.” Blake slipped the key, a key William thought only one of existed, into the desk drawer and pulled out a pistol, which he slipped in his jacket pocket.
He came to his feet and moved between the door and William. “Why don’t you look over those documents? I think you’ll find the answer.”
William went to his vacated chair immediately, uncomfortable to not be in his throne in his castle. “What am I looking for?”
Blake went to his side with his left hand pointing to a page but still standing as far back as possible. With his right hand, he pulled out the pistol.
“Where, I don’t see—”
Blake pulled the trigger with the barrel of the gun only a few inches from William’s head.
A little blood splashed on Blake’s clothes and face, but the .22 was a small caliber gun and the bullet didn’t even exit the head. When the medical examiner did an autopsy, he’d find the bullet had scrambled the brain.
Blake felt a faint pulse, careful not to disturb the blood dripping from the wound, and wished William had owned a larger gun. Nonetheless, the mayor only had moments to live.
It took a few minutes to place the gun in William’s hand, point it at a corner of the ceiling, and pull the trigger to leave gunshot residue on the mayor’s hand. It barely left a hole in the ceiling and he had no doubt in his deputy’s ability to miss it, especially with such an obvious suicide. William’s head lay on the very papers proving his guilt, his blood soaking through.
Without wasted effort, Blake checked the room for any sign he’d been there. The mud was cleaned up and he wiped down where he touched the desk. He took one .22 cartridge from the box in the drawer and placed it in the gun. It would only appear one shot had been fired. After one final scan, he shut the office door. Considering the state of his in-law’s marriage, he had no doubt of the body not being found that day. He’d worn a jacket left at the jail by a former inmate sleeping off a wicked hangover and could toss it on his way home.
Come tomorrow, he would meet with the county attorney and Cliff to reveal all the evidence. The attorney, who had ignored a lot herself, would help with anything pointing in William’s direction. They would come here to question the mayor and then discover the suicide.
Bad press would come, but Blake would be the man who turned in his own father-in-law for the benefit of the town. The suicide would save a messy trial, and Grace could go on TV with tears in her eyes talking about how her father made mistakes, but he was still her father.
Grace. Blake sighed as he closed the front door. This would cut her deeply and he’d sworn to never cause her pain. She would never understand the need to cut off a limb before it could infect the rest of the body. The best he could do now was to keep her convinced it was a suicide.
With the files cleaned from Keen’s computer and Cliff more than happy to lay all the sins at William’s dead body, Blake went home. The question of Keen remained, but he was confident that would solve itself in time.
He jumped into his Tahoe feeling more at peace than he had in a long time.
46
In the morning, Elizabeth stood at the stove stirring sauce for a lasagna to be baked later. Eggs cooked on the next burner over.
Keen paused in the doorway, watching and breathing in the smell. Her mother would feed her back to health. In that moment, she knew she would never be able to pretend not to know her parents’ secret. She yearned to return to a week ago when she was still a child before life changed in two ways. Two ways? Two life-changing things happened within two days of each other. They happened to her, who never had anything happen to her.
Elizabeth turned with a tearful smile. “I knew you’d come home, you know.” She set the spoon down with its bright red contents bleeding onto the stove. “Actually, that’s a lie; I didn’t dare believe.” She wrapped Keen in a tight hug. “You hungry?”
“Where’s Dad? We need to talk.”
“He ran down to the store for a second; he’ll be back for lunch.”
As much as Keen didn’t want to say it twice, she wouldn’t wait or she’d lose her courage. Since her mother handled the accounts, maybe it was best. “Remember last week when I helped Cliff audit some of the town’s accounts?” She took a deep breath. “I stumbled on a file I don’t think I was supposed to see. It was a file with a lot of cash going from the town to the store.”
Elizabeth switched to her “how can help you” mode. Her mouth turned up, she brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, and turned away. “I don’t know, must’ve been an error. Did you ask Cliff?”
“No, I’m asking you.”
Her mother’s shoulders stiffened a bit. “Odd, but I guess he’ll sort it out. You hungry? Eggs are done.” She turned back to stirring the sauce.
Keen came up behind her mother. “What did you do?”
Elizabeth turned around, her fist clenching the spoon but a strained smile still on her face. “I don’t know what you’re going on about, but we will get it straightened out.”
“I majored in business,” Keen said. “To take over the store. While my friends go on adventures, I work a cash register, ringing people up to go on their own adventures. This is my future as much as it yours.”
Elizabeth’s face deepened with worry, a look Keen had grown accustomed to during the last few years but a face that had aged since only a week ago. “It’s nothing, Keen.”
“Really? Then why lie about it?”
Her mother turned her back. “It’s nothing,” she repeated.
“You want me to come home again? I need to know the truth. Did you delete the email off my computer so I wouldn’t figure it out?”
“What email?”
“I sent the file to my computer in an email. You went on my computer when I was gone.”
“Yes, to see if there were any clues about what happened to you.” Her mother cupped Keen’s face in her hands. “We’ll talk it all out when your dad gets home, I promise.” The tone of her mother’s voice didn’t change. Elizabeth returned to stir the sauce. Her calmness infuriated Keen, who, for the first time, refused to be placated.
“Does Dad know what you did?”
As Elizabeth faced Keen, the spoon she clenched in her hands dripped drops of red sauce onto the wood floor. “Keen, I love you, but you have no idea what we’ve …” She dropped the spoon back into the sauce and twisted the knob to off. “We’ll talk when your fat
her gets home.”
Elizabeth left Keen, stunned, in the kitchen.
Elizabeth called Grace. “I’m in trouble. You got a minute?”
The drive up the side of the mountain took a while but delivered her sooner than she would’ve liked to her friend’s far larger home.
Grace opened the door, carrying Cece on her hip. “Is Keenley all right?”
“Yes, I just needed to talk to you for a second.”
“Of course, come in.” Grace stepped aside, setting Cece down, and enveloped Elizabeth in a hug before letting her come all the way in. “I told Cecilia to thank God in her prayers tonight her Qween came home.”
“I know. I walked around the last few days whispering ‘thank you.’”
“Dana, can you come here for a second?” A young woman who babysat the McKenzie kids came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Can you get the kids breakfast?” Even as Grace asked, the little girl reached out her arms to the young woman.
“Come on,” Grace said. “Let’s go for a drive. We’ll take the convertible; I think we could both use the fresh air. Snow will be falling before long.”
As she settled into the leather car seat, Grace turned right at the road, taking them up the canyon. “Where we going?”
“Somewhere away from husbands, kids, and gossiping townsfolk,” Grace said. “And if you’re lucky, we can stop at my parents’ and raid the fridge. Just ’cause I’m grown doesn’t mean I can’t steal cookies from the jar.” Grace smiled at Elizabeth until she relented and returned the grin.
But it faded far faster than it came. “Keen came to me this morning. She has the files showing cash coming to us, even a few bank accounts. I guess she found them on Cliff’s computer. She didn’t understand what they were until last night.”
“What are you going to do?” Grace rounded the corner in the BMW without slowing.
“We’ve got to stop.”
“Less than a year, the laws will catch up. Your family will—”
“No, I’m telling Keen the truth; then we’re out. I can’t keep treating her like a child. She has as much stake in this as any of us.”
“If you think she’s ready for it.” Up ahead, two electric torches on brick towers signaled the start of the mayor’s house. “Are you ready for ice cream and cookies?”
Elizabeth sat up. “I thought you were joking.”
“I never joke about dessert,” Grace said with mock seriousness that was betrayed by a small smile.
“I appreciate you getting me out, but I really want to get home with Keen.”
Grace pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. “Daniel texted me before you got to the house and told me under no circumstances are you to return home in under two hours. He said you need a break, but I think Keen needs one too.”
With an exasperated sigh at the conniving of her loved ones, Elizabeth got out of the car.
Grace used the intercom to announce to her mother their presence. She opened the door with a smile and ushered them past the front rooms and into the large stainless steel kitchen, as inviting of a space as a hospital.
“We need to throw Keen a party, not to mention the whole town for showing up to search,” Grace said.
“I’ll ask her, but she’s been eager to get back to school and put it all behind her.”
Grace walked into the freezer, which rivaled the Junction’s new walk-in beer cooler. She came out carrying a couple of different kinds of ice cream. “Where’s Dad?” she asked her mother.
“Oh, hiding in his office, I think.”
“I’ll go grab him, see if he wants some.”
Elizabeth wanted to lodge a protest, as the mayor always made her feel as though she was being sold a vacuum at the door, but she couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no.
In the end, it didn’t matter, as her swallowing of chocolate was interrupted by a scream.
47
Blake showed up first, followed by his two deputies. Calls were made, the room cordoned off, and everyone questioned. Elizabeth tried to ignore the conversation happening in the next room as Blake explained it looked like suicide. But she couldn’t help but hear the sobs of both women.
She waited in the living room with thirty-foot ceilings, making her feel small. She thought of Keen lost in a wilderness the size of Connecticut, and William, in his own way, lost in this house. At the end, they were all so small.
Blake came into the room and sat beside her. “I’ll have a deputy take you home.”
“No, I need to stay with Grace. She’s got to be going out of her mind.”
“Elizabeth, your well is dry. She’s with her mom and they’re already in planning mode. Come back tomorrow when there’s nothing for her to do and she’s climbing the walls.”
She couldn’t argue. As it was, she had to remind herself to breathe in and out.
He pulled her off the couch. “Come on. I’ll have Clint take you home.”
Grace came to the doorway, her face hard and her eyes red but dry. “You two done chatting?” There would be no talking Grace through this loss, Elizabeth knew. Her father was her idol. When she started work at the store at the age of sixteen, most of her sentences started with the words “My dad says …”
“Clint!” Blake yelled down the hall. It took a few minutes for him to pop up. “Take Elizabeth home. You can use Grace’s car. We need your car to process …” He glanced at Grace. “… everything.”
“Keys are in it,” Grace said. Elizabeth tried to hug her friend as she walked out, but Grace held herself so tightly, it was like squeezing a two-by-four. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
The driveway had filled with cars, but since it was circular, nobody blocked them in. Elizabeth slipped into the passenger seat, relieved to be going home to a complete family. It could’ve so easily gone the other way.
Clint jumped in the driver side. “There’s no keys.”
Elizabeth glanced around the console. “She said she left them in it.”
“I’ll go in and grab them.” He got out, leaving the door ajar while she closed her eyes against the sun.
The smell of pines filled the cooler air, and she longed for the peace it usually brought. The door slammed shut and the ignition started, triggering the automatic locks. “Thanks for taking me.” She opened her eyes, but instead of a deputy in the driver seat, it was Grace. “You don’t need to drive me.”
“I can’t sit in that hellhole another minute. I don’t care what my husband wants.”
“Then let me drive.”
“I’ll have you to my house and your car in five minutes.” Grace pulled out even as they spoke.
“I’m so sorry, Grace. I can’t imagine what led him …”
“I can. Keenley has the files; she has everything that could put him in jail.” Grace hit the brakes as she banked a turn, forcing Elizabeth’s seat belt to tighten. The tall pines blurred into a solid green wall.
“He didn’t know that.”
“Everybody knew, Elizabeth!” Grace shouted. “Except you and Daniel. She didn’t call worried about school; she called about what she discovered.” Grace clenched the steering wheel. “I know you and I know her. You would’ve confessed everything, gone to the police—anything to keep her soul clean.”
Any denial Elizabeth had at what her friend might’ve done was swept away with an absolute fury of hate. “You hurt her.” She punched at Grace’s head, but a swerve in the road made it a passing attempt.
“My father is dead, and if it’s suicide, it was to protect us all.” She added softly, “And you … you would destroy everyone.”
She gunned the engine around the corner, and this time she didn’t bank the turn. She let go of the steering wheel and reached toward Elizabeth, who scratched at Grace’s face. The car plunged through the thin brush separating it from the cliff.
The convertible held in the air for a brief second before plunging. Elizabeth clutched the seat belt, which ripped off her b
efore pain and darkness took over.
48
“Dad!” Keen yelled. “When’s Mom coming home?”
“Don’t know.”
Keen texted her mother the only thing she knew would bring an immediate response. Come home; I need you. The day lengthened as she waited for an answer.
A knock sounded on the front door. She opened the door to Clint in his uniform with a somber expression, and she thought, This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It was supposed to be her mother opening this door, asking if something happened to Keen, and sobbing at the news. She’d imagined this scene in the desert, wondering at her parents’ reactions.
She took on what she’d assumed her mother’s response would be: calmly asking what was wrong, listening as he told her there’d been an accident, and grabbing her purse to ride with Clint to the hospital. In the car beside Keen, her father shook from this second blow. And she watched it all from above, as if she’d imagined it from the desert.
They sat in the waiting room of the small clinic as people checked in for appointments, small children colored, and everyone else’s life went on. If Mom was hurt bad, they would’ve life-flighted her out on a helicopter to a hospital. But they don’t send police to your door for a broken arm.
Clint brought them to a small checkup room with a few chairs and a doctor’s bed covered in paper awaiting its next patient. Keen battled between wanting to run away and wanting to scream at Clint to just say it already. Her mother’s voice steadied her. Whatever it is, Keen, it’s always best to face it head-on and get it over with. That was the advice she gave her when Keen suspected Jacob was about to break up with her.
“Clint.” Keen’s steady voice surprised her. “Just tell us.” Her father grasped her shoulder, grounding her.
