by B. J Daniels
She could still hear voices from below and knew Pet wouldn’t be coming upstairs until she’d polished off that bottle of wine. Anna decided to check out something that had been bothering her.
She turned then and hurried down the hall to north end, hoping whoever’s room was at the end wouldn’t be locked. After seeing Pet and Jonathan at the window when she arrived, she’d been curious.
She reached the end of the hall and looked back. She was alone. No sign of Carol or any of the family. Reaching for the knob, Anna tried the door, giving in to her curiosity.
The door swung inward. The room was much like her own, only larger. It was decorated in soft pastels and on the wall by the door was an assortment of photographs from Jack and Pet’s wedding.
The redhead looked gorgeous. Anna could see why Jack had fallen for her. They both looked so happy. Unlike the rest of the family in one of the photos.
Jonathan was scowling at the camera and so was his mother. Only Big Jim Fairbanks was smiling his political smile.
Anna glanced toward the window and the huge unmade bed. The drapes were drawn and she could make out several items of clothing on the floor next to the bed. Anna recognized one item of clothing that had apparently fallen beside the bed.
It was the tie Jonathan Fairbanks had been wearing earlier when he’d met Anna at the front door.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“THERE YOU ARE,” Ruth Fairbanks said, when she found Anna outside Pet’s bedroom.
Anna couldn’t believe how close she’d come to getting caught. She’d closed the door only an instant before Ruth had appeared. As it was, the older woman was eyeing her suspiciously.
“I got a little turned around,” Anna said. “It’s such a large house.” She could tell Ruth didn’t believe that. Did Ruth know about Pet and Jonathan? IfAnna was right and Jack was alive, did he know his brother was sleeping with his wife? And how long had it been going on? Before Jack allegedly drowned?
“There’s a sunroom down the hall,” Ruth said. “Let’s go down there. I’m relatively sure it’s not bugged.” She smiled at Anna’s shocked expression. “Everyone in this house spies on me. I’m used to it.”
Anna couldn’t hide her surprise. Or her concern.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Ruth Fairbanks said with impatience as Anna followed her into the sunroom. “I’m not losing my mind. I’ve never been sharper. Don’t you think I know what Jonathan is? Or that I helped him become what he is today?” She closed the door behind them and turned on a lamp.
The last of the day’s light glittered on the lake, the view spectacular from the many windows. The sunroom was filled with wicker furniture, plants and colorful pots. It was by far her favorite of the rooms she’d seen in the house.
Ruth motioned Anna into a chair as she took one across from her. “You said you lost a son. Tell me about him.”
The statement took her by surprise. Anna had just assumed Ruth wanted to talk about Jack.
Anna’s first instinct was to balk at the order. Talking about Tyler was painful. Her reaction to her son’s death had been to curl up in a ball and cry the past two months.
Until the other night, when apparently she’d thrown a suitcase in her car and come racing up to Shadow Lake. The chance to find the driver of the car who’d killed her son had brought her out of her misery long enough to seek vengeance.
“Please,” Ruth said, her face softening as she looked at Anna. “I would like to hear about him.”
Anna hugged herself, took a breath and was surprised how easy it was. She told of what a sweet baby he had been, how he slept right through the night, how he broke into smiles and giggles whenever he saw her, how he’d grown into this incredible little boy who loved trains.
Anna was surprised how comfortable she felt with Ruth Fairbanks in this room. She knew it was the fact that they had each lost a son and still mourned that loss in a way that was soul deep. Neither would get over the loss. Anna suspected though that they dealt with their losses differently.
“Tyler was…four when he died. He resembled his father, big brown eyes, thick dark hair, an adorable little face and a smile that just melted your heart.” She smiled at the memory. “He was smart, too. A good boy.”
“How did he die?”
“A car wreck. I was driving.” She felt Ruth’s hesitant touch, just a brush of a cool hand on hers as she reached across the space between them.
“I’m so sorry. Your only child?”
Anna nodded. “When Tyler was born, Marc got a vasectomy without telling me. He didn’t want any more children.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Men can be such bastards,” Ruth said, and looked out toward the darkness, her face set in stone. Silence fell between them for a few moments, then she said, “So whose idea was it to divorce?”
“Marc’s, but how did you—”
“I confess I knew most of what you’ve told me. I wanted to hear it from you, though.” She raised a brow. “You didn’t think I would ask you to stay here without doing some checking on you, did you? I might be crazy, but I’m not a fool.”
No, Anna thought. Nor was the woman crazy. “Marc blames me for Tyler’s death.”
Ruth nodded. “I understand wanting to blame someone. I blamed God, my husband, especially Jonathan.” She sounded pained by that admission. “I would give anything to have Jack back. Anything.”
Anna felt the older woman’s gaze on her. She flushed, thinking of all the offers she’d made God just to have Tyler back.
“Do you think that’s awful of me?” Ruth asked.
Anna shook her head. “No. I made my own offers to God.”
“Losing a child, no matter how old they are at the time, is something a mother never gets over. There is no price I wouldn’t pay to have my son back.”
“Is that why you asked me to stay here? Because you think I can give you back your son?”
“You say you saw him. That Jack saved your life.” She held up a hand. “I know. Everyone says Jack’s dead and how is that possible. But you believe it was Jack, don’t you?”
Anna nodded.
“So maybe it was his ghost.” Ruth shrugged. “Maybe you saw him on the other side. You did say you were about to die. Because otherwise, if Jack is dead, how do you explain what you saw?”
Anna couldn’t explain it.
“Why would Jack have been there, though?” Ruth asked.
“Like I told you when I was here before, I believe that my friend Gillian Sanders was meeting someone named Fairbanks that night at the rest stop on the edge of town.”
“Jonathan swears he didn’t know her and had no plans to meet her.”
“Do you believe him?” Anna asked.
The older woman said nothing.
“I don’t know what happened at the rest stop, but I believe that whoever was meeting Gillian there saw my car go into the lake and saved my life.”
“That couldn’t have been Jonathan.”
“No,” Anna agreed.
“You are convinced that your friend wanted to talk to this person about the hit-and-run?”
Anna nodded. “You read the note. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. It would explain why I came to Shadow Lake that night. Also why Gillian is dead. She must have found out something that someone wants kept a secret.”
“You aren’t insinuating that Jack killed her.”
“No. Whoever killed Gillian, and tried to frame me, wouldn’t have turned around and saved my life.”
“Yes, assuming he is alive and didn’t want anyone to know it, he has now exposed that fact by saving your life,” Ruth said.
“That’s what worries me,” Anna said. “Whoever saved my life was at the rest stop or close by. He must have seen who killed Gillian and tried to frame me.”
Ruth Fairbanks seemed to give that some thought for a moment. “If that person was Jack…”
Anna nodded. “His life could be in dang
er—if it wasn’t already.”
WALKER DROVE BY THE NASH house first, to make sure the chief was at home. His patrol car was in the driveway and all the lights were on inside the house.
He’d had a little time to think on the drive over here and made a decision. He’d damned well investigate this murder on his own. If he was right, Nash was trying to protect the Fairbanks by not calling in the State on this. To hell with that, Walker thought as he drove on past the chief’s house.
The Cadillac was right where it had been. As far as Walker could tell, no one had been here. What the hell was going on with Nash? Walker could understand the chief wanting to keep the case. Shadow Lake was short on murders. The chief might want one big case before he retired.
But Nash didn’t seem to have any interest in it.
Whatever the reason, Nash had thrown the Gillian Sanders murder case into his lap. Because he thought Walker would fail to solve it without help?
Walker took his time photographing then searching the car, making sure he didn’t disturb any evidence. Still wearing the latex gloves, he carefully opened the back door of the Cadillac, slipped the suitcase over into the light and tried the latches.
He’d half expected it to be locked.
It wasn’t, which was more surprising when he opened it and the first thing he saw was the .38 Special. Anna’s gun.
“Son of a bitch.” He took a photo then quickly closed the suitcase without touching the gun.
Whoever had put Gillian’s body in the trunk had put the gun in the suitcase. It was the only explanation.
But how had the killer gotten the gun? Anna Collins had it with her. She’d just had a huge fight with her husband. She would have been irrational, grabbing the gun before leaving the house. Was it possible she’d just tossed it on the passenger seat in plain sight?
Seeing the gun could have given the killer the idea of trying to frame her for Gillian’s murder.
Walker started to close the car’s back door when he spotted a small pillow on the floor. What caught his attention was the powder burns on the cloth—and the bullet hole in the center.
That, he realized, was what had been bothering him. Why hadn’t Anna heard the shot that the killer fired after putting Gillian’s body in the trunk of the Cadillac? Because the killer had used the pillow to silence the noise.
Anna must have been close by. Probably looking for her friend at the rest stop. She either hadn’t heard the softened sound of the shot—or hadn’t recognized what it was. Had Anna been alone at the rest stop with Gillian, she wouldn’t have used a pillow to deaden the sound.
Someone was definitely hoping to frame Anna Collins for the murder.
Walker would have the lab boys come up from Pilot’s Cove and dust the car, the suitcase and the gun for prints. Not that he expected to find any fingerprints on the gun.
Locking up the garage, he drove down to the station and got on the computer. There was a connection between Jack Fairbanks and Anna Collins and he was determined to find it. Anna thought it had something to do with the death of her son. That was as good a place to start as any.
Taking out his notebook, he checked the date of Anna Collins’s hit-and-run collision that killed her son Tyler and put Anna in a coma for six months. August 30.
Jack had drowned September 7.
Eight days later.
Coincidence?
His heart began to pound a little faster as he read through the police report on the hit-and-run looking for a connection. Anna had been driving a small car. According to the only eyewitness, a woman in her eighties who was out walking her dog, the Collins car had been hit by a large dark SUV. She hadn’t gotten a license-plate number. But the paint chips found at the scene and on Anna’s car matched that of a newer model black Lincoln.
His heart was pounding now. Jack Fairbanks had driven a black Lincoln Navigator, but then a lot of people in this area did.
The case was never solved. Even state criminal investigation division hadn’t been able to track down the vehicle or the driver. No area body shops reported a customer with a large dark SUV needing that sort of repairs. The case had ended up in the cold-case file.
Walker made a copy of the file and was starting to put it aside, when something caught his attention. The accident had taken place along a two-lane road south of Seattle in the hills not far from Renton.
On a hunch, Walker checked the address and came up with a hit. The spot where the SUV had struck Anna’s car was only a half mile north of the home of Gillian Sanders. The Collins car had been headed southbound. Was it possible Anna Collins had been on her way to Gillian’s?
Walker wasn’t sure why that seemed important, but something told him it was. Anna Collins had said her friend Gillian had been doing her own investigation, trying to track down the hit-and-run driver. Gillian was so close by she could have been one of the first people on the scene. Had she seen something? Or had she been able to get more out of the eyewitness than the police had?
He copied down the name and phone number of the eyewitness. Elsie Mathews, according to the report, was in her eighties. He hoped to hell she was even still alive after all these months. She’d said she’d seen the two cars collide and the large black SUV then back up and speed away. The SUV, being so much larger than the car, had sustained damage, but not enough that it didn’t allow the driver to leave the scene.
Walker tucked the name and number of the witness into his pocket, his hand shaking. He told himself again that a lot of people drove large dark SUVs. But Walker couldn’t ignore the fact that Jack Fairbanks had driven a black Lincoln Navigator—that was, until it was reported stolen.
Walker called up the police report Big Jim Fairbanks had filed. Just as he’d feared, Jack Fairbanks’s black Lincoln Navigator had been reported stolen on August 31—the day after the hit-and-run.
However, Senator Big Jim Fairbanks had made the report saying that the SUV was believed to have been missing for at least two days prior to that. The Lincoln had been parked near the marina in Shadow Lake and to Big Jim’s knowledge hadn’t been driven by anyone in the family since August 27. Jack always left the keys on the floorboard and never locked the rig, according to his father.
Jack’s Lincoln Navigator was never found.
When the phone rang, Walker jumped. He picked up, glad to hear it was his friend with CID.
“Heard about the murder up there, but was told Chief Nash would be handling it,” his friend said when Walker asked what was going on.
“Nash didn’t call and ask for any help?” Just as Walker had suspected.
“No, in fact, when my boss offered him some men, Nash turned him down.”
At a sound, Walker looked up to find Chief Rob Nash standing in his office doorway.
“I’m going to have to let you go,” Walker said. “Chief Nash just walked in.”
RUTH ROSE AND WALKED TO the window of the sunroom. The sky beyond the glass was dark and black.
“What happened to Jonathan’s leg?” Anna asked.
The older woman stiffened and, for a moment, Anna thought she wouldn’t answer. “A boating accident when the boys were in their early teens. Jim had bought them a ski boat for Jonathan’s sixteenth birthday. It was much too big and powerful. I’d told Jim that, but he was determined that his boys would have the fastest boat on the lake.”
She turned to face Anna. “Jack was pulling Jonathan waterskiing. Jonathan fell. Jack went to go back to get him, hit a wave, lost control of the boat.” She shook her head. “The propeller…” She dropped into the chair again as if her legs would no longer hold her.
“I’m sorry. That must have been horrible for both boys,” Anna said.
Ruth looked up at her, tears in her eyes. “Yes. Jonathan never saw that, of course. He never understood that Jack was a victim, too. Jack never forgave himself. Nor would Jonathan ever let him forget it,” she added bitterly. “Jonathan used it against Jack the rest of Jack’s life. But then you would understan
d that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” Anna traced her scar without even realizing it.
Ruth reached into her pocket and held out the half piece of envelope with Gillian’s handwriting on it. “You’ll need this. But thank you for showing it to me. I know I sound foolish, but for a little while it made me feel closer to Jack. I never saw him again after that night he and his brother went sailing. His body wasn’t found for weeks and by then…” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I’ve only brought up painful memories for you,” Anna said. “I’m sorry.”
Ruth Fairbanks pulled herself together with an ironlike will that Anna had already glimpsed at dinner. “Pish posh. I love talking about Jack,” she said, standing again to go to the window. “His brother tries to forbid me from doing so.” She took a ragged breath. “Jack was kind and gentle, everything Jonathan is incapable of being. I suspect Jonathan has wished on more than one occasion that his brother had never been born.” She stopped abruptly as if she’d revealed too much.
Anna felt a chill as if the room had suddenly turned colder.
“For a long time, I’ve felt as if Jack wasn’t gone,” Ruth said, her back to Anna. “I thought it was his spirit, so I tried to reach him, to ask him…” She shook her head again. “You think I’m crazy.”
“No. Sometimes I feel that Tyler is still with me,” Anna whispered. “Maybe we’re both crazy.”
“I’ve never told anyone this, but I always knew that the lake would take Jack.” Her focus was on the water. Or maybe the past. “He almost drowned when he was little. He and Jonathan were swimming by the dock and all of a sudden Jack was gone.” She shuddered. “Maybe this lake was his destiny. Just as Jonathan’s is the White House.”
Anna shifted in her chair. It was dark out and suddenly she was tired.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Knowing about my son, you must understand why I have to find the hit-and-run driver,” Anna said.
