Hap raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe that case was ever solved. Was it?”
“No,” Toby said. “It wasn’t.”
“And why do you think that is?”
Toby shifted his weight in the chair. “Are you saying Clint had something to do with it?”
Hap shrugged.
John looked at Hap, a look that said they were heading in a direction that John didn’t want to go. Of course, John wasn’t thinking about Clint, but rather he was thinking about Becca, Clint’s daughter. The more removed she was from him the better.
“So what’s it going to be?” Hap asked, narrowing his eyes and leaning in close to the chief. “Are you going to help us out or not?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Becca stayed on the dock when Parker went into the house to get ready for work. She watched the sunrise, in no hurry to rush back to her father’s bedside. The fresh air moved through her lungs easily. A damp breeze blew from the water despite the warmth of the sun’s rays slipping through the branches of the trees. She hugged herself against the chill. She’d forgotten how quiet early mornings on the river could be, how peaceful.
Her life on the other side of the river had left very little time for stopping, sitting, being still. Her mornings were spent running with Romy, focused on the trail, her pace, monitoring the dog, making sure the dog was getting the exercise she needed, resting and racing with the dog’s natural rhythm. And more times than not, Becca’s thoughts were on the animals in her care at the clinic. She made a mental note to call Vicky later to check on Maggie.
And then there was Picasso, the cat who had chewed an electrical wire, shocking and burning the inside of his mouth, lucky to be alive. Which reminded her of Lucky, Matt’s cat, although Becca couldn’t remember the last time Matt had actually fed the cat or cleaned her litter box. Becca missed the feline rubbing against her legs, the sound of her purr, her soft kitty fur.
Eventually, inevitably, she circled back to Matt, how he would hate sitting here, motionless, taking in the scenery. If he were beside her, she imagined he would be staring at his phone—texting, calling, working—missing the beauty around him.
She had let him take control of how she’d spent her free time outside of the clinic, whether it had been jetting to Washington, DC, for some benefit dinner or driving into New York City to catch a Broadway show. It had been exciting, extravagant, uncomfortable.
She’d forgotten how much she missed her time away from the rest of the world, alone with only the river, the woods, and its animals for company. She’d forgotten what it was like to feel the kind of peace she felt on the inside when she’d been still. She’d forgotten how she’d once shared this feeling with someone, with Parker.
She turned, sensing his presence at the top of the stairs, feeling his eyes on her; he was watching her from the back deck. He didn’t say anything. In the next moment he was gone. She heard his car starting, the tires crackling on the gravel driveway, the sound disappearing once the wheels hit the blacktop. She reached down to pet Romy and then remembered she’d left her at home.
Her gaze returned to the river. She was left with only the sound of water lapping against the shore, the occasional bird calling to anyone who was listening.
After leaving Parker’s sometime later, she turned into the driveway of her father’s house. As she was pulling in, Toby was pulling out. He stopped alongside her, rolled down his window.
“Becca,” he said.
“Hey, Toby, or should I say Chief?” He looked older than she remembered, heavier in the face and neck, creases by his eyes. It wasn’t that aging was surprising, but his expression was disconcerting. “Is everything okay?” She motioned toward the house, her father.
“Sure, he’s, well, he’s . . .” He lifted his hand from the steering wheel. “What can I say?”
She understood it was hard for Toby to see her father so ill. Her father and Toby went way back, having worked side by side for over fifteen years.
“It’s good to see you home,” he said.
She nodded and was about to take her foot off the brake when he added, “You be careful, you hear?” and pulled away.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, watched him drive down the road, wondered what the heck he’d meant by that. She parked her Jeep by the garage and got out. Romy greeted her, tail wagging, prancing, licking Becca’s hands and face when she stooped to pet her.
“You can come next time,” she said, feeling bad about not taking the dog fishing with her, but she’d been worried about the casting, Romy getting hooked by a lure. Now that she’d seen the size of Parker’s dock, she knew it could easily accommodate a dog. She kissed Romy’s head and stood, but she wasn’t ready to go inside the house just yet. She needed a little more time before she faced her father for another day.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said to Romy.
She trekked through the crabgrass and the weeds of what had become of the backyard, moving in the direction of the woods. Romy jumped and ran in front of her, stopping to sniff the ground, a rock, a leaf, following a scent known only to dogs. It didn’t take long for Becca to find the path at the bottom of the mountain, the one that crossed the stream where she’d spent many hours playing when she’d been a kid, the same one that led straight to the river.
The leaves were starting to fall from the trees; yellows and reds and oranges blanketed the ground. Squirrels scurried along branches, their cheeks packed with nuts, preparing for the winter months ahead. She and Romy walked on, pausing when they came upon John’s old barn. Romy stopped, ears perked, teeth bared.
“It’s okay, girl,” Becca said, reassuring the dog and herself. “I know the man who lives here.” John’s farmhouse was on the other side of the barn.
“Come on, we’ll walk around.” She started to lead Romy away, but after taking a few steps, she paused, glanced over her shoulder, catching sight of the farmhouse, a single motorcycle parked outside.
She started moving faster than she had been before, covering the ground in long strides as much as the thick brush would allow. Romy trotted on the right side of Becca a couple yards away, putting Becca between the dog and the barn.
Becca continued to pick up her pace. Something in the back of her mind, something she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, drove her forward with a kind of fury. She started running. She was used to running in the woods and dashed through the scrub. Twigs and small branches whipped her arms and legs, most of them missing her face. She had to watch her footing on the rocks and branches and uneven terrain.
She ran a half mile, maybe more.
It was hard to gauge distance when you were surrounded by maple and oak trees, pines, ferns, and brush, all blending into one colorful, autumn-enhanced visual. Her heart pounded; her breathing was heavy. The collar of her shirt was damp underneath her windbreaker. She heard the river. Her pace slowed as she approached a small clearing. Romy panted beside her after racing ahead and then doubling back.
Becca was certain she’d never been to the clearing before, but she knew it was there like she knew about all of the places along the river where kids weren’t supposed to go. There were certain areas they stayed away from, locations considered off-limits where the Scions congregated for outings, hangouts, meetings of unknown business. No one had to tell them to stay away from these places. It was just another part of growing up in the town, as much a part of the area as were the tourism and tubing, the fishing and hunting, the bears and wolves.
At the thought of bears and wolves, Becca searched the wild grass, the weeds, all yellowing from the cool autumn air. A section looked to be stomped down, walked over repeatedly by several large animals.
She’d never been afraid of being alone in the woods before, but she sensed something strange in the air, something charged and not quite right. She listened for any sound. Other than the rushing rapids, all was quiet. A chill flitted across the back of her neck, making the hairs rise.
Romy was preoccupied with
the scent of whatever or whoever trampled the ground. The dog lifted her head into the faint breeze, sniffed the air. Not far from where Romy stood, Becca spied a piece of yellow police tape dangling from the trunk of an oak tree.
She’d stumbled onto what was left of a crime scene. She took several cautious steps forward, approached the riverbank. Her thighs strained to keep her balance and control her forward momentum downhill. She came to a stop at the bottom near the water’s edge.
The rapids thundered by, the noise drowning out the sound of her own breathing, of Romy’s panting. She hesitated, not wanting to look but looking anyway, across the river to the Jersey side. She recognized the path she and Romy ran every morning, the path that curved toward the river where she would catch John watching her.
She was standing where he’d stood.
“Becca.”
She jumped, spun around. Parker was half walking, half sliding down the bank toward her. He was wearing his gray detective suit. The bottoms of his pants were dusty and dirty. His jacket flapped open, exposing his sidearm.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a loud, scolding tone.
“Romy and I were walking.” She had to shout to be heard over the rapids.
Parker shook his head as though he couldn’t believe the shit he had to deal with. “You have to go,” he shouted. “You can’t be here.”
“Why?” She batted a mosquito away from her ear.
“Because you can’t.”
She glanced across the river at the path she ran every morning.
“This is a crime scene, Becca. You and your dog have to leave.”
“It doesn’t look like a crime scene anymore.” The police tape hanging from the tree had been cut and no longer blocked off the area.
“Well, it is. It’s ongoing.” He rubbed his eyes. She’d been with him not three hours ago, and already she could see the wear of the day on his shoulders and in his face.
“What happened here? What’s going on?” She took a step closer to him.
He shook his head, refusing to answer her. He looked around, craned his neck as though he was listening for something.
“What’s going on?” she asked again.
“I told you before I can’t talk about the case.” He took her by the elbow. Romy danced around them as though she wanted in on their game. “You have to go now. I’ve got a team coming. They’ll be here any minute.”
“What team?”
“We’re dragging the river.” He tried to lead her back up the riverbank.
She pulled her arm away. They stared at one another. Becca saw concern in Parker’s eyes, worry, and something more, a dogged determination. Romy stopped jumping around their feet.
“What are you dragging the river for?” she asked.
The sound of voices drifted through the woods before drowning in the rapids.
“Just go home, Becca,” Parker said and walked away, making his way back up the bank.
She backed up slowly, taking hold of Romy’s collar and pulling the dog with her. She took off running. Romy raced ahead, thinking they were playing some kind of new game.
Becca ran upstream away from Parker, the police, and the spot along the river where John had stood. Her feet sank in the soft earth where the water met the shore. John was a Scion. She’d always known he was Scion. And she’d seen him by the river the day before the body had washed up against one of the bridge’s columns.
She raced on. Her legs and hips absorbed the pounding of her feet, her body taking in the shock. When it became too rocky at the water’s edge, she had to slow her pace so as not to fall. She turned and ran up the riverbank and into the woods. Romy ran several feet ahead of her, leaping over small shrubs, graceful and strong.
Fear chased Becca. Adrenaline pushed her forward. He’d been wearing nitrile gloves, hunting gear. The body in the river had been shot and gutted. Parker had to be searching the river for the murder weapon—a gun, a knife.
She darted around trees, jumping over roots and fallen limbs. She didn’t stop until she reached the path alongside the stream, the path to home. Romy slowed to a trot, panting. Becca’s cell phone went off in her pocket. She recognized the clinic’s ringtone.
“Hello,” she said, out of breath, her head buzzing from the exertion. Romy drank from the trickle of water at her feet.
“It’s Vicky. I wanted to let you know Maggie went home today.”
“That’s great.” Becca wiped her brow. The clinic. The golden retriever. Matt. Her thoughts were muddied. Parker. The crime scene. Her father. All of it tangled together in her mind. Nothing was clear. “That’s great,” she said again.
“Are you okay?” Vicky asked.
The trees tilted to the right. The ground swayed left. “I’m good,” she said. Her words echoed in her ears. “Thanks for letting me know about Maggie.” Romy lifted her head. Water dripped from her jowls. Becca’s vision blurred.
“Is there anything else?” she asked.
“No, that’s it. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Becca said and closed her eyes to make the dizziness in her head go away. “Yeah, I’m good.” She couldn’t make sense of it all, but in her gut she knew she had seen something and wished she hadn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Becca was sixteen years old. It was late July and her last summer in Portland, although she didn’t know it at the time.
She was hanging back from her friends as they crowded around Parker’s pickup truck. They were deciding where to go for a party that night. Chad’s older brother had hooked them up with a half keg, and it was just a matter of deciding whether they would park their trucks in a field for a good old-fashioned country tailgate or look for a less conspicuous spot.
“Max Headroom,” Parker said, picking a well-known hangout along the Appalachian Trail where someone had spray-painted a large rock with the faded caricature of the computer-generated TV host from the eighties. It was the perfect place for kids to drink, smoke, and engage in the kinds of activities their parents had warned them about.
Parker continued. “Otherwise, we’re going to have to pile everyone into pickups to get to the field.” He pointed to Chad and two other guys on the football team with trucks.
“What’s wrong with piling into pickups?” Chad asked.
“It will draw too much attention,” Parker said.
“But we’re with the police chief’s daughter,” Chad said. “No one’s going to question what we’re up to. Right, Becca?”
She didn’t answer.
Chad’s girlfriend, Krissy, clung to his arm. Her eyes were outlined in black, her lips shiny pink. “Let’s just go down to the river,” she said.
Becca folded her arms, tired of the same old debate, where to party, who was driving, who was hooking up with whom. She was sick to death with the routine of her life in the small town, sick to death with the same arguments with her high school friends, the same troubles with her father.
“Let’s just go to the river,” she said, jumping into the ongoing discussion, feeling the rebelliousness rise up whenever she thought about her father. She supposed her friends knew this about her, knew she’d take more chances with getting caught doing the things they shouldn’t be doing, if for no other reason than to shove it in her father’s face. They went along with it, of course, pushed her even, knowing in the end her father would bail them out.
Eventually, after some continued reluctance from the others, they agreed the river would be perfect. The moon was full. The air was thick with the heat of the day, the humidity, a typical night in July. It would be cooler by the water. Chad would meet them down by the pines, a place where the riverbank was wide and a row of hemlocks lined the backdrop to the woods. Couples would lie behind the pines on a blanket of needles, invisible to the others partying by the water. Girls in Becca’s class lost their virginity behind the trees.
Becca wasn’t one of them.
She and Parker were just friends. He�
�d made that pretty clear when he’d failed to kiss her that time in his pickup truck earlier that spring. Things between them had gotten weird after that. She was hurt. She was the girl the guys wanted to be friends with but no one wanted to date. She didn’t mind most of the time, but somewhere hidden beneath all those confusing feelings about love and sex, she wanted to be the girl who was desired, the girl who was capable of capturing Parker’s attention.
The keg was hidden in the woods, and they had to walk back and forth with their red plastic cups for refills. Someone made a circle of rocks to sit on. Music from a boom box blared Tim McGraw’s “Angry All the Time.” Parker had grown quiet, holding the same cup of beer for the last hour, skipping rocks across the river. He’d gone off on his own more and more as the summer had worn on, putting distance between them.
Becca herself had been moody, feeling out of sorts and bored. She’d started drinking one beer after another, losing count of how many she’d had and not caring. Mosquitoes buzzed around her legs, biting the skin on her calves and thighs. She didn’t bother batting them away. Nothing felt right. Tim McGraw’s wife was angry. She was angry. She wanted to leave, but where was she supposed to go? And now Jenna had joined Parker by the river. Parker had started talking to Jenna more and more lately, a girl a year behind them in school. Becca was angry about that too. Her thoughts were fuzzy, her arms heavy. The red plastic cup slipped from her hand, splattering beer onto her feet and ankles.
“Watch it,” Krissy complained, moved away.
Becca gazed in the direction of Parker. He was standing close to Jenna, moving her hair away from her face. It looked as though he was going to kiss her. And then he did kiss her. He kissed her. What did Jenna have that Becca didn’t? How could he have kissed Jenna and not her? She marched toward the keg to refill her cup to get stupid drunk, to numb the pain. But instead, she kept walking, winding her way up the riverbank and through the woods. She had to get away. She couldn’t watch him with another girl. It hurt too much. Several times her feet tangled in brush, and she had to rip the plants and vines away with her hands. She couldn’t find the path.
River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1) Page 12
