by EC Sheedy
He knew April harbored the hope that his meeting Phyllis Worth would change things, that there’d be a joyous reunion of some kind, an instant mother-son bonding. Tears and the whole bit. There wouldn’t be. Not going to happen.
That ice cream sandwich melting in his hands was the only memory he had of the woman who brought him into this world. It was enough.
He hit a pothole, and the Taurus bucked and shuddered. April put a hand on the dash as if to steady the car. He slowed down, muttered, “Sorry.”
He rounded a turn and there it was. Joe let out a noisy breath. “Whoa.”
April looked at Noah’s glass house, silvered in the cold gray light. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“It’s that all right. It’s also a perfect shooting gallery.” If Joe had been asked to design a more exposed or defenseless structure, he couldn’t do it. Visualizing Phyllis and April behind that glass with darkness outside it, was like seeing them set up in a department store window. “And this is where your mother came to be safe.”
“It does look kind of open.”
“Bare-assed and vulnerable open.” One thing was certain, they couldn’t stay here. He hadn’t seen a gate at the head of the driveway—and it didn’t look as though there were any neighbors around for miles. Whoever this Bristol guy was, he must be some kind of hermit. “I don’t like it.”
“I think it’s fabulous. Like a beautiful stage set.”
Before he could respond, tell her he was talking about the situation not the house, a man and a very tall woman stepped onto the wraparound deck. A big dog, the color of hay, and of no discernible breeding, stood beside the man. The woman waved.
“That’s Phylly,” April said.
He shot her a glance. “I kind of guessed that.”
“Yes . . . of course you would.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “I’m just—nervous. For Phylly and for you.”
“Afraid I’ll throw another tantrum like I did in that ER she left me in? Word is it went into the record books.”
“No. I know you won’t do that. It’s just that by bringing you here, I’ve broken her trust. She’s under a lot of stress, and your being here . . . now, on top of everything else. It’s not going to be easy. And even though you’re acting the part of the big strong man who doesn’t give a damn, you do, which means it won’t be any easier for you.” She shot him a direct look.
Acting the big strong man . . . psycho-babble. He’d let it lie. He wasn’t about to let his feelings, or lack of same, for Phyllis mess up what was going on between him and April. So he’d keep his mouth shut. That he knew how to do. “Maybe it’d be a good idea to remember we’re not here looking for my long-lost mother. We’re here to look out for her. Make sure she—and you—stays safe.” He leaned over, gave her a quick kiss—wished it were more, like he always did when he was within a hundred yards of her—and opened his door. Before getting out the driver’s side door, he added, “You good with that?”
She didn’t move. “Like it or not, you are going to meet her, Joe, and it’s going to be . . . emotional. For everyone.” She met his eyes, put her hand on the car’s door handle. “So the question should be, are you good with that?” She got out of the car.
He sat a second and shook his head. In the last-words competition, she was the clear winner. He followed her out of the car, opened the back door, and retrieved both their bags.
Phyllis stayed on the deck, the man came down the stairs to meet them. “Noah Bristol,” he said, taking a good hard look at both of them, before offering April his hand. “Glad you’re here April. Phylly’s been anxious.”
She nodded. “Thanks for having us.”
He offered his hand to Joe. “And you are?”
“Joe,” he said, glancing at the woman on the deck. Fuck it. It was now or later. “Joe Worth.” He dropped Noah’s hand and gestured with his chin to Phyllis Worth. “And to say I’m not expected wins this year’s prize for understatement.”
“Joe is Phylly’s son,” April said, filling in the blanks. Silence. Then Bristol said, “She didn’t tell me she had a son.” He didn’t look pleased, he looked pissed, join the club.
“Probably slipped her mind.” Joe knew Phyllis couldn’t hear him, but he sensed her eyes fixed on him like a pair of lasers. He shook Noah’s hand, because he was still holding it, and let it go.
Bristol didn’t waste time getting into things. “Phylly’s told me most of what’s going on about this Victor/Castor business, April. Is there a chance you’ve been followed?”
“Yes. A good chance. I’m sorry we arrive with so much baggage—of the trouble kind.”
“You’re in Phylly’s orbit, you’ve got trouble. In Vegas they’d call that a sure thing.” He smiled slightly, but he still looked pissed, and for some reason Joe felt as though he were the cause of it. “Come in. I hope you’re hungry, because we’ve made lunch.”
They followed him toward the house, as if they were normal guests in a normal situation. April walked ahead with Bristol, and Joe followed them, but he took his time, studying every detail of Bristol’s steel and glass home. The house, sitting in a clearing, was flanked on three sides by dense forest and underbrush, allowing maybe ten-million possibilities for cover for anyone wanting to blow out a few windows—and the people inside. Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head, convinced the only safe place to be was as far down the road as they could get. The house was a damn snow globe.
And April was putting herself inside it—along with his mother. The thought tightened the knot in his gut. A knot that had started turning in on itself the closer he got to Bristol’s place.
April didn’t know it but, when it came to Phyllis Worth, that “big strong man” thing wasn’t working well.
He looked at the first step leading to the deck where she was waiting—a step he had serious trouble taking.
So far thinking about logistics had kept his mind off the tall woman at the top of the stairs, but with a suddenness that staggered him she took over his brain—and all he wanted to do was run away. Like a boy who’d broken a window, a boy who’d torn his best pants, like a . . . goddamn boy.
When he made it to the deck, it was on legs and feet as weighted as sandbags. Once there, three people stared at him as if he were an alien who’d just oozed out of the trees at the back of the house. So many glances were exchanged, between the three of them, so quickly, they were indecipherable. It was like a tennis match with a dozen balls in play.
April looked as if she were going to bite her lower lip off.
Bristol looked as if he wanted to bite someone’s head off.
And Phyllis Worth just looked, and looked, and . . .
Then she fainted.
Quinlan and Mercy checked into the Crystal Cove Beach Resort within a half hour of their arrival in Tofino. Q’s cursory look around the accommodations Charity had arranged left him satisfied. It was a freestanding log cabin, tastefully appointed and the last in a row of them, given privacy by a natural fence of low shrubbery and trees. Perfect.
He glanced at Mercy, who had tossed her bag on the sofa then sat beside it, immediately taking out her cell phone and calling her sister who, Q was advised, was at a motel closer to town and their ultimate quarry. He left Mercy to her call. He saw no need of further conversation with a woman who from his view was nothing more than a walking corpse. And he certainly had no interest in Charity, who, when this was over, would also be counted among the dead.
That the death toll was rising he accepted, had already calculated the added risk that came with each one. Risks he’d already set about mitigating.
Mercy looked up at him, but didn’t remove the phone from her ear. “I’m going to see Charity, get the Worth woman’s exact location.”
He noticed she’d neither sought his advice nor his permission, but he let it pass. For the moment he needed her, or to be more precise, he needed the location of the two women and the future sit
e of his killing field. He thought of the godlike work ahead, his power over the blood and finality of death. It had been too long since he’d felt such power, such passion. Except with Giselle . . . Faintly troubled by how often she invaded his thoughts, he frowned.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He settled his eyes on her. “Wait for you to return with the appropriate information, of course.” Turning his back on her, he chose the larger of the two bedrooms and went in, closing the door behind him. He carried three items: A structured canvas duffel, an aluminum case, and his rifle in a leather sleeve.
Placing the duffel on the bed, he unzipped it and surveyed its perfectly arranged contents, exactly what he’d instructed Jerald to pack. Jerald always did as he was asked—to the letter. It was reassuring having such competence and loyalty in one’s employ.
While unpacking his clothes, Q considered the steps to be taken before the killings could commence, finding the site, a reconnoiter—
The outer door closed; Mercy leaving to visit her sister, to confirm the details. Good.
He wanted no surprises. He hoped the site wouldn’t be some bunker-style dwelling made of logs as was common in such heavily wooded areas.
He hung two crease-free shirts in the closet along with a pair of dark brown cotton twill pants. A light vest with both inside and outside pockets followed. Setting his hand- sewn Arrow hunting moccasins immediately below the vest, he aligned them in the closet’s center. He’d always preferred the softer, quieter shoe over the noisy crunch of a hard, inflexible boot. Doing such trivial tasks calmed him.
It also made him think of Giselle, the disturbing fact that he missed her. Missed her even more since having his sexual tryst with the unsavory Mercy.
After surveying the closet and ensuring the items were uniformly spaced, he turned back to the aluminum case on the bed. He removed three boxes of ammunition, and clicked it closed. The hunting rifle, in a fine leather case worn from years of use, was a .338 Winchester Magnum, a hunting rifle legally cleared through Canadian Customs. He loaded the gun and propped it against the wall beside the bed. Q hadn’t hunted in quite some time, but he’d kept up his skills at the shooting range, and he was certain his choice of gun, able to drop a bull elk from 400 yards, would be up to the job. Not that he’d rely on it exclusively—backup was always wise.
Having completed his tasks, he put his cell phone on the side table, and glanced at his watch. Stretching out on the bed, he closed his eyes and waited for his call.
He didn’t wait long. When the phone rang he picked up immediately. “Jerald?”
“Yes, sir. I’m in place.”
“You understand your role?”
“Yes.”
Q clicked off, smiled, and closed his eyes.
Chapter 28
“That went well,” April said, standing with her arms crossed, watching Joe stride off along the road they’d driven in on.
Noah glanced at the opaque glass door leading to his bedroom, a room constructed of glass bricks—where Phylly now hid like a frightened cat. “How long do you think she’ll stay in there?”
April followed Noah’s gaze. “Hard to say. The last time she melted down like that, it was three days at least.” April looked from the door to Noah. The man looked shell-shocked, so she added, “But this time, I don’t plan on giving her that luxury.” She rubbed at the lines forming in her brow, which did nothing to ease the frustration rippling through her stomach. What she wanted to do, more than anything, was shake Joe and Phylly until their brains dropped into place. Until they healed. But with a deranged killer on their heels, it was hardly the time.
“And him?” Noah waved a hand in the general direction of Joe, who at that moment rounded a sharp bend in the road and disappeared from sight.
“Even harder to say. I don’t know him all that well.” Except in bed. Which of course made her a complete idiot. She should have seen this coming, should have been ready—or at least got some kind of promise from Joe about how he’d act when he met Phylly. Not that he’d done or said anything terrible, but God, did he have to look like Dr. Death when he came up those stairs? He’d been as rigid and straight as the steel girders supporting Noah’s wild see-through house. Phylly had taken one good look at him and collapsed in a manner fitting the most delicate of Victorian maidens. Then, after Joe had helped Noah and her get Phylly onto Noah’s bed, he’d taken off without another word.
April should have known Phylly would recognize him instantly from his striking silver eyes—so like her own. The family resemblance was uncanny—as it was between Cornie and Noah Bristol, which made April doubly grateful Cornie hadn’t come along to complicate things even further.
Standing here, cold and edgy, looking through a glass wall, with the father Cornie didn’t know she had, her mother in meltdown, and the man she’d come to care about more than was wise traipsing around in the woods somewhere, April was coming to believe their unknown stalker was the least of her concerns.
She didn’t know the precise moment her coping skills had evaporated, but they were long gone, leaving in their place only impotence and the sense she was tapped out. Dry. “Could I have a glass of water, please?” Better water than more of Noah’s questions.
“I’ll get it.”
He was back within seconds. Handing her the water, he said, “And you, April? Will you be all right?”
No. And I won’t be until Phylly and Joe are. Which might well be never. That thought entered stage-left and she hated it, for Phylly’s sake, for Joe’s—and for her own. She sipped some water. “Yes, I’m okay. Thanks,” she finally said. And she was okay—for now.
“You knew about this? About Joe and Phylly.” He jerked his head toward the road Joe had walked away on. The day, what was left of it, was sinking deep into shadow, the cloud cover making it unusually dark and ominous looking. The curling mist between the trees, while still low, had coalesced into heavy gray billows of fog. Even the shine of Noah’s bright pine floors was graying down in the pallid light. “Some of it. Most of it, Phylly kept to herself.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Momentarily, he looked irritated.
“Phylly’s idea of dealing with unpleasant or difficult things is to pretend they never happened. Her premise being that if you don’t talk about it, it ceases to exist.”
“I’m learning that—or at least I’m trying to.”
“Her way works as well as any other, I suppose.” April said, compelled to defend Phylly. And herself. She hadn’t been above playing Phylly’s denial game herself—until the name Victor Allan reemerged, like some rabid disease out of a long remission.
“Depends on what your definition of ‘works’ is, I guess. But all that keeping secrets has a price. Sometimes too high a price. I don’t want that for her.”
April saw the concern in his face. “You and Phylly,” she started, choosing her words, knowing it really was none of her business, “what was between you was . . . special?”
“Is special,” he corrected. He met her eyes, his own expression determined. “Very special. She just doesn’t know it.”
She raised a brow, wondered if Phyllis had told him about Cornie, but sensed she hadn’t. She also sensed Noah Bristol was a decent man, a stable, settled-down kind of man, who’d probably scared the sap out of the young, free-living, marriage-phobic Phylly. You passed on a good one, Phylly.
He went on, “But none of that matters right now. What matters is getting those secrets of hers out in the open, whether she likes it or not.” He glanced at the closed bedroom door where Phylly lay, playing out her drama, and firmed his lips as though he’d made a decision. “Come with me,” he said.
Curious, April followed him upstairs and into his office, really more of a glass box that sat atop the larger glass box below it. The room faced a rolling Pacific Ocean. Stepping into the room, April said, “This is beautiful, but why so much—” she stopped, not her business really. But the idea of living t
his transparent a life surrounded by water and wilderness made her curious.
“Glass?” He finished for her while opening a bottom drawer in his desk, a desk that sat center stage in the room. Low shelves crammed with books formed a base on three sides of the office.
“Yes. It’s unusual.” She took a couple of steps, turned back to him. “You built it yourself?”
“I designed it and had it built.” He put a burgundy-colored journal with a cream spine on his desk, and began to leaf through it, adding without inflection. “As a child I spent a good portion of my time locked in a closet. This”—he waved a hand around the airy room—“as a shrink would no doubt confirm, is the result of that experience.”
“A closet. Really?” April was aghast.
“Really.” He opened the journal. “We all have things that shape us—that closet was one of mine.” He flipped a few more pages, swiveled the book, and shoved it toward her. “Chances are what you’re about to read in this journal will shape yours.”
An hour later, April, with hands so shaky they barely kept the thick journal she held from crashing to the pine floors, took a breath, and opened Noah’s bedroom door. Although the room was dim in the darkening twilight, Phylly hadn’t turned on the bedside lamp.
She sat in shadow on Noah’s bed, propped up by pillows, a box of tissue beside her and a wad of them in her fidgety hands. She’d obviously splashed her face with water, because her usually meticulously made-up face looked pale and tragic.
Clutching the journal to her chest, April walked to the bed and sat down on its edge. “You look like you were run over by a truck,” she said to Phylly. “In forward and reverse.”
“Thanks for that.” Phylly’s eyes found the journal. “Oh, God.” She pulled herself higher against the headboard. “Noah’s told you.”
“Yes.”
Her expression stark, Phylly said, “I didn’t know, April. If I had—”
“You’d have told me. I know that. I’m not here to blame you for anything. This”—she patted the journal she still held to her breasts—“doesn’t take away from what you did for me. You saved my life. I won’t ever forget that. Ever.”
