by Debra Webb
“Is there a financial connection?” Julian’s family had been quite wealthy. There would be alimony of some kind unless the split was so ugly his wife wanted nothing more from him.
Of course it got ugly, Ro. He was a depraved killer. But he’d always seemed so normal. So gentle and kind. What a fool she had been.
How was any of this possible?
More important, how could she not have seen it?
Eventually she had to stop asking herself that pointless question. Had to stop beating herself up for not seeing what no one else appeared to have seen, either.
“I asked that same question,” Billy confirmed. “Evidently, the ex-wife comes from a wealthy family of her own. So I guess she didn’t need anything from him.”
Rowan shook her head. This was simply too much. “I’m just supposed to wait for someone to tell me what’s going on?”
She had thought she could do this but she’d been wrong. Sitting back and waiting for someone else—the task force—to figure out this bizarre mystery was something she simply could not do.
Rowan understood that now.
Billy shrugged. “I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on.”
His conclusion was likely true to some extent. If Mrs. Addington had reason to withhold information, it would be difficult to prove without evidence. If there was evidence, she would already be a part of the case.
Another fact struck Rowan as odd. “There wasn’t a single connection to a wife, much less a daughter, found at his home in Nashville or the retreat in Hendersonville. Nothing. Not even a photograph.”
There were, on the other hand, several photos of Rowan. Deep inside where Billy wouldn’t see, she shuddered.
“Ro, I understand that nothing I say will make you feel any better about how you’re seemingly connected to all this, but for now the best thing you can do is go on with your life. Agent Dressler will call if there’s something you need to know. I’ll keep my finger on the pulse of this thing, you have my word. And I’ll keep you informed. I won’t let you down.”
Billy had never let her down. “I have no doubt that you’ll do all within your power to keep me in the loop and to help get to the bottom of this...” She shook her head. “Whatever it is.”
He drew in a long breath, let it go as if trying to relax the tension visible in his posture. “I know you too well, Ro. You’ll never wait for anyone else—not even me—to figure this out. I just don’t want you getting hurt in the process. If I can’t convince you to stay out of this investigation, at least include me in your plans.”
“This is not seventh grade, Billy. You don’t have to protect me anymore.”
He grinned. “I am well aware I don’t have to protect you, Ro, but I want to. Your daddy would want me to, as well. I’m thinking it’s time for you to break down and get a security system installed.”
“You’re playing dirty now, bringing Daddy into this.” But he was right. She knew this, too. “As for the security system, I’ve been thinking about having one installed.”
“Good. You take care of that and let me do my job. I’ll need your help, for sure, but don’t get ahead of me on this thing, okay?”
As much as she wanted to make him feel more comfortable she couldn’t make him a promise like that one. “I can’t guarantee you I won’t get ahead of you, Billy. You have a lot of cases—like the Geneva Phillips case—and I don’t. But I will keep you informed. You have my word on that.”
“Close enough, I guess.” He smiled, then frowned. “When they pulled all the vines and leaves away from the bones by the lake, they did find one thing.” He pulled out his cell and tapped the screen a few times before passing it to Rowan.
She studied the photo on the screen. A silver necklace with a sun and moon charm. The inside of the sun was a dark stone, amber maybe. “Was there anything else?” She passed the phone back to him.
He shook his head. “The evidence techs said the same thing you did about her clothes having disintegrated. They haven’t found anything so far, but it’s possible they could find something else in tomorrow’s sweep.”
Rowan searched her memory banks for any recollection of a necklace like the one found with the remains. Nothing. It looked vaguely familiar, but jewelry with the sun and the moon was commonplace. She could have seen something like it anywhere. “Nothing on cause of death yet?”
He shook his head. “We’re hoping to have more tomorrow.”
“What about the Phillips case? Anything new there?”
“None of the neighbors saw a stranger in the neighborhood on the day of her death. The daughters haven’t found anything missing so far and everyone says the same thing: Geneva wouldn’t hurt a fly and she definitely didn’t have any enemies.”
“And yet, someone killed her.”
Billy couldn’t argue the assessment. “So, how about that other beer?”
“I could use one myself.”
If they were having a second beer, particularly since Billy had to drive home, they needed to eat. Rowan pulled a pizza from the freezer and popped it into the oven. They talked about their school days and his failed relationships and pretty much everything else...except the Addington case.
Nearly two hours later, when she watched from her family room window as he drove away, she felt more alone than ever, even with Freud waiting at her side. She let the curtain fall back over the window and turned away. She had to find a way to feel comfortable in this house again. Since coming home she’d dreamed of either her sister or her mother every night. Not happy dreams, either. Always ones about their deaths and a few about her own. Whether it was all that had happened the past few weeks or adjusting to the change in her life circumstances, she seemed off her stride. She kept forgetting things, misplacing things and just feeling off balance.
She reminded herself that her life would settle down in time but it certainly didn’t feel as if that was happening. In fact, it felt like things were deteriorating.
Putting the worries out of her head, she glanced around. “We could both use a distraction, couldn’t we, boy?” She scrubbed at Freud’s back.
Her gaze shifted toward the kitchen. Maybe that renovation would do the trick. When all this insanity was behind her, she could call a few contractors and get some estimates. With Mrs. Phillips’s visitation postponed, she didn’t have anything on tomorrow’s schedule except the funeral for Mr. Whitt. But death rarely took a day off. Chances were an intake would end up at the basement entrance before the day was through.
Rowan locked the door. Billy had promised to lock the lobby entrance as he left. She turned out the lights and headed up to the third floor, grabbing her heels and jacket as she went. Freud trailed behind her, his nails clicking on the hardwood. The third floor had been her and Raven’s private space. The bathroom at the end of the hall had a door from each bedroom. Rowan’s bedroom was on the right, facing the front yard. Raven’s was on the left, overlooking the backyard.
Rowan stared for a long moment at the closed door. She never went into her sister’s room. Not since she’d left for college anyway. She hadn’t been in there since she’d come home, either. Freud whimpered as if he, too, sensed the painful memories hidden beyond that door.
Goose bumps shivered over her skin, but Rowan shook off the foolish reaction. She went into her room, hung up her jacket and put away the heels. The navy suit would be best for tomorrow’s funeral. She removed the suit and the matching heels from the closet and hung the suit on the wall hook next to the full-length mirror. She’d gone through that phase as a teenager where she’d needed to really scrutinize her appearance before leaving the house each morning, so her father had installed a big mirror. She sighed. Strange, when she looked in that mirror right now she still saw glimpses of that lonely little girl she’d been back then.
But she was not that little girl anymore. Lifting her chin in d
efiance of the self-pity, she headed for the shower. Freud followed and curled up on the cool tile floor. It had been a long day. She turned on the water, shucked her skirt and blouse and then her underthings. With a towel on the counter and her contacts removed, she stepped beneath the hot spray of water. She skimmed the soap over her body and for the next few minutes she forgot everything else.
When she stepped out of the shower and toweled off she felt completely relaxed. A few more minutes were required to dry her hair. Freud waited patiently. She pulled on clean panties and dragged on her nightshirt as she walked to the bed. Hopefully she would sleep like the dead tonight.
She rolled her eyes. No pun intended. After all, poor Mr. Whitt was only a few floors below her. She climbed into the bed and sank into her pillows with a sigh. Freud curled up in his own bed next to hers.
When she reached up to turn off the bedside table lamp, something in her peripheral vision stalled her.
She blinked. Looked again. The navy suit was not hanging on the hook by the mirror.
After throwing back the covers, she stood and walked into the closet. Her fingers trailed along the fabric until they came to rest on the navy suit. Hadn’t she hung it out for tomorrow before she took her shower? Her pulse skittered, but then she reminded herself that it had been a long day, culminating in a shocking revelation from Detective Barton, and then she’d had a couple of beers.
She hung it on the hook next to the mirror. Again...maybe. Freud lifted his head and watched her every move.
Then she went to bed. Her faithful pet lowered his head once more. Rowan pulled the covers up around her shoulders and closed her eyes. The forgetfulness was getting old. It seemed as if she misplaced something or forgot something every day.
Unless it was not her at all.
Could someone have come into the house and gotten into her room while she was in the shower?
Julian?
She opened her eyes. No. The door was locked. Though Herman and Woody as well as the cleaning team had keys to the funeral home, no one had a key to the living quarters. Besides, Freud would have barked or growled and gone into attack mode if he’d heard a sound and certainly if he’d picked up the scent of a stranger.
Except Julian wasn’t a stranger to him. Freud loved Julian.
Rowan forced herself to look at the situation rationally. Why on earth would anyone come into her room unless it was to harm or to rob her? Certainly no one would gain anything from moving her suit. The idea was beyond ridiculous.
Unless it was Julian playing one of his sick games. The idea didn’t seem completely plausible. Why would Julian risk his freedom and perhaps his life to toy with her in such a simplistic, childish fashion?
Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d forgotten something or thought she’d taken care of something and later discovered that she had not. It happened to everyone now and again. No matter how organized she tried to be, it was easy to overlook something or make a mistake after a day like today. With all that had happened, she had reason not to be at her best.
Still, considering she remembered so vividly hanging the suit next to the mirror...it felt odd. Felt...wrong.
“Just do it.” She flung back the covers once more and climbed out of bed. She fumbled for her glasses on the bedside table, grabbed the weapon she kept in the drawer of her bedside table and went downstairs, with Freud at her side. On the second floor, the door that separated the living quarters from the rest of the house was locked. She unlocked it and moved into the corridor.
The long corridor before reaching the main landing above the lobby was dark. The cool air whispering from the registers sent a chill over her skin. She shivered and rubbed at the goose bumps with her left hand. The fingers of her right hand instinctively tightened on the butt of the handgun she carried.
She would feel utterly foolish when she confirmed all the doors were locked.
When she reached the main landing, moonlight filtered in through the towering stained glass with its angels ascending to heaven. She turned her back to the images and reached for the railing. She stalled on the first step, stared at the banister from which her mother’s lifeless body had hung.
For a second she was suddenly twelve years old again and standing at the front door, staring up at the grotesque image.
Momma?
Her twelve-year-old voice echoed around Rowan, resurrecting the devastation and terror from that day so long ago.
Anger bolted through her and she shoved the memories away. No loving mother would do that to her child.
Focused on the task at hand, she descended the stairs and checked the front door. Locked. Billy would not have failed to do so. Before going back upstairs, she checked the side entrances at the portico and the chapel. Locked. Then, Freud still on her heels, she padded to the corridor leading beyond the parlors and to the back of the house. The back door was locked, as well. She scanned the moonlit yard. No fleeing figures, no odd shadows...just the dark night. The double doors used for receiving were bolted. They were never unlocked except for the intake of new arrivals.
She sighed. So foolish. “Let’s go back upstairs, boy.” She gestured to the rear staircase, the one the family had always used for privacy, and Freud bounded upward. Rowan readied to follow and then she stilled. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The undeniable sensation that someone was watching her crawled over her skin.
Clutching her weapon more tightly, she slowly turned around. Her free hand reached for the switch on the wall. Her heart thundered in her chest. With her fingers on their destination, she flipped the switch and light filled the room.
She was alone.
“Pull yourself together, Ro,” she muttered.
Frustrated with herself for overreacting, she shut off the light and climbed the stairs. Freud waited for her at the top. She unlocked the rear door to the living quarters and then locked it once more behind them. She did the same at the main entry. Silently railing at herself for getting spooked, she climbed the final set of stairs to the third floor and went back to bed. She placed her glasses and her weapon on the bedside table, and for the second time tonight she sank into the pillows. She told her mind to shut off.
It refused.
She doubted she would be sleeping much tonight.
Something else she had done very little of since coming home. As much as she wanted to blame her inability to get some shut-eye on the funeral home, she recognized it was primarily about Julian.
He was out there. Possibly watching her and plotting his next move.
Six
Tuesday, May 7
Last night’s dreams had followed Rowan from her fitful sleep, lingering as the sunlight speared through the kitchen windows, heralding a new day. She poured a second cup of coffee and decided to take a walk in the gardens. Maybe the fresh air would help cleanse the haunting memories of the past from her mind.
On the second story landing, she hesitated. Freud did the same. He stared up at his mistress, waiting for some indication of what to do next. Her attention settled on the oak banister to which her mother had secured the rope she’d used to hang herself. Rowan’s chest tightened at the memory. It was only days before Christmas. They had all still been grieving the loss of Raven. As painful as it was for a parent to lose a child, only an identical twin understood the enormity of losing the other half of her-or himself. Rowan felt as if a part of her had died in that lake.
On some level she still felt her sister—they had started out as one, after all. For years after Raven died, Rowan talked to her reflection as if she were speaking to her sister. Particularly after their mother died. Norah DuPont hadn’t just died; she had killed herself. To this day the thought remained like a dagger to Rowan’s chest. She had needed the comfort of her sister. Her father had done all that he could. He had tried to spend more time with Rowan, but the dead didn’t wait f
or the grieving. Her father had to work. Over and over he had told Rowan that the funeral home was her legacy, too. It was her future.
But all she had felt after that awful year was alone. No matter that she’d had her father and Billy. Deep inside, she had been empty.
She turned from the staircase and that ominous banister and studied the large stained-glass window that overlooked the landing and the first floor lobby below. Her mother had painstakingly restored the beautiful artwork that depicted angels ascending toward a perfect blue sky, leaving the earthly meadows below far behind.
Rowan had stopped believing in angels the day she came home from school and found her mother hanging from that railing. She had never prayed again after that moment, either. She’d gone to church on Sunday mornings with her father because that was what he expected, but she had never believed again.
In her adolescent mind, God and the angels had not protected her family. If they had really existed, surely they would have.
Rowan pushed away the thoughts and descended the stairs. Freud trailed her. Besides the tick, tick of Freud’s nails clacking on the hardwood, it was so quiet she could almost hear the house breathing. It had stood for 150 years. Had witnessed the preparation of thousands of those who had passed in the community and the grief of those left behind. Certainly a sigh was in order. Her father and his family had carried on the family legacy all that time. She had made up her mind after his death that she would not be the one to drop the ball. Since she had no children, it was very likely that the family legacy would end with her.
Beyond the door marked Staff Only, the corridor led to the rear exit. Rowan walked outside into the crisp spring morning. Freud trotted ahead of her to do his business. She breathed deeply of the fresh air and the azalea blooms. In addition to fancying herself a writer, her mother had adored gardening. Her father had struggled to keep the gardens going after her death. He’d managed a fair job. The sheer number of flowers and shrubs was daunting. Rowan wasn’t entirely sure she could handle the magnitude of caretaking the gardens would require. Rather than risk being the one who killed her mother’s flowers, she had hired a landscaper for maintenance, at least for now. Tuesdays and Thursdays were his days to come by. He would be here this afternoon.
