Blood Kin

by Judith E. French

  Bailey stared at him for long seconds before scoffing. “This is your idea of a joke, isn’t it?”

  “Walk in on her in the shower and you’ll see for yourself how much of a joke it is. Emma has all the standard male parts, and she’s pretty well-endowed.”

  Color streaked across her cheekbones. “That’s more than I needed to know.” She thought for a second. “If it’s true, why tell me now?”

  He shrugged again. “To make a point. Things aren’t always as simple as they seem. When you pull a single nail loose, you risk bringing down the wall, maybe even the house.”

  “I don’t care.” She brushed a few grains of loose sand off her chin. “I have to find out what everyone seems to be hiding from me, what even Uncle Will’s not telling me. I want your help, Daniel, but if you won’t help me, at least don’t get in my way.”

  “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He started the engine again. “And, please, no bike rides until I find out what kid got a new rifle for his birthday, and I put a stop to the target shooting.”

  “Deal.”

  They rode in silence the rest of the way back to Emma’s dock. When the boat was secure, he took her arm to help her out of the skiff. She winced, and he noticed that the marks his fingers had made were plainly visible on her fair skin. “I’m sorry about that,” he said.

  “Don’t be silly. Better that than a bullet through my brain.”

  Together they walked back toward the house. “Best not to say anything at the school about the gunshot.”

  “Why not? I’d hate to think that any of my students could be hurt because I didn’t warn them.”

  “Whoever did it will be scared. He’ll probably put the rifle back in the house and not touch it for weeks. But if people are talking about the incident, it will make it harder for me to learn the shooter’s identity.” He pulled her close and hugged her hard.

  She looked up into his face, and her mouth quivered. “Will you help me, Daniel? Please. You can’t know how much it would mean to me.” Her eyes glistened with moisture, and for a second he was afraid she’d burst into tears.

  Reluctantly, he nodded. “If you want me to. Just be prepared for anything. Secrets buried that deep may have a lingering stink about them.” He took hold of her shoulders and kissed her. “Trust me, Bailey.”

  “I think I do,” she admitted.

  “You’d better.” He brushed her lips with his again. “I may not be back for the evening meal. There are some things that are best taken care of alone. Ask Emma to look at the cut on your arm.”

  “I don’t know if I can look her . . . him in the face and—”

  “Sure, you can. She’s your friend. And she’s a damn good nurse.”

  They reached the house, and he held open the back door for her. “Emma?” he called. “Emma, are you here?”

  “In the pantry,” Emma answered. “How was the wedding? Must have been quite the party if the two of you are just getting in!”

  “Bailey will tell you all about it.” He pressed a finger against his closed lips. “Not a word about the damage to the boat,” he whispered. “I’ll break that to her later.”

  Leaving the two women in the kitchen, Daniel hurried up the stairs to his room and retrieved a semiautomatic pistol from a safe recessed into the back wall of his closet. Minutes later, after removing the safety lock and loading the handgun, he descended the front steps and left the house without another word to either woman.

  Rage clamps a fist around my chest. Disappointment, sharp as honed steel, tears through my vitals. How could I have missed that shot? I’m so mad that I want to bash my rifle against the nearest tree, fall on my knees, and rip up the grass in handfuls.

  They say I get my temper from my father, so it may not be my fault. People should know better than to cross me. But I hang on to my gun. I maintain my control and bite down on the inside of my lip until I taste blood. The pain is good. I need it to clear my head.

  I suck in jagged gulps of air, allowing myself some measure of release. I missed a shot. So what? It could happen to anyone. It should have ended here, but it didn’t, and I just have to make things right. I can’t give in to weakness. Every minute longer that I remain here makes me more vulnerable to discovery.

  It bothers me that I missed my target. This rifle has never failed me before. True, my vision isn’t what it once was, and the water is rough today, but I’ve never missed a shot that easy.

  Since the day I was born I’ve had streaks of bad luck. I’ve always been cursed by people who try to rob me of what is my rightful due. Fortunately, I’ve learned how to take back what’s mine, and I’ve had experience covering my tracks.

  Once I cross into the deeper woods, no one will know what direction I take. And in a few days or weeks, once I finish what I started, all this will be forgotten. Life will go on here on Tawes as it always has, exactly as I want it to.

  “Had some time for yourselves, I suppose,” Emma said, coming from the pantry with both hands full. “I was thinking of making a pineapple upside-down cake.” She glanced at Bailey in amusement. “Unless you two didn’t come straight home from the—” Emma’s face fell. “Ohh.” She grimaced as she let out a deflating sigh. “Somebody outed me, didn’t they?”

  “No, it’s . . .” Bailey’s face took on the hue of ripe plums.

  Emma dropped her ingredients on the round kitchen table. “You’re a terrible liar. Don’t ever take up working for a carnival.”

  “I . . . I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “I did once.” She grimaced and rested her fists on her hips. “Ran away and spent a whole summer traveling from the Eastern Shore to Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and then back south through Ohio and the Appalachians. It wasn’t what I expected it would be. When I finally hitched a ride home I didn’t have a cent in my pockets, and I’d lost fifteen pounds, my good boots, and a jacket. And I had the worst case of head lice my mother had ever seen.”

  Bailey looked like a scared child who didn’t know whether to cut and run or come clean, Emma thought as she motioned to the table. “Sit down. I won’t bite. I promise. At least, not today. What you need is strong coffee and plenty of it.” Her insides churned. Why did the girl have to be the spitting image of her dead mother?

  Guilt enveloped Emma like cracker crumbs on a crab cake. God, but she’d give both arms to go back and change that one day . . . one cursed hour.

  “I’m sorry,” Bailey said. “I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

  Emma placed a large mug of black coffee on the clean tablecloth in front of the young woman and took the seat opposite. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. I am what I am—whatever that is. I started out one way, but, like a hand-me-down pair of shoes, the Emery part never seemed to fit. I tried. I didn’t want to let my mother down, but it got too hard. It’s better this way.”

  Emma took a big sip. The coffee was too hot, but she swallowed anyway. When the hot liquid burned her throat, she didn’t feel the gnawing guilt in the pit of her stomach so badly. “Most people around here take me in stride. I figured you guessed that I was one of a kind, and it didn’t matter to you.”

  Bailey nibbled at her bottom lip. Her eyes were huge and sparkled with tears. “Daniel told me. He said that it was possible . . . that you might be my . . . my biological father.”

  “Sweet Jesus! Is that why you’re trembling like a willow in a blow?” She shook her head. “I’m not, hon. I swear to you, there’s no chance.” But there could have been, an accusing voice echoed in her head. Another beer, a little more nerve . . . “No, I never was with your mother, not in the biblical sense. I knew her, but not that way.”

  “Then who is?” Bailey demanded. “You must have some idea.”

  Emma drew in a ragged breath as a tear ran down her nose and dropped into her coffee. More tears followed the first one. “If I had to put money on it,” she managed, “I’d guess it was either Joe Marshall or Creed. Maybe even Matthew.”

&nb
sp; “Matthew Catlin?” Bailey swallowed hard. “It could have been Daniel’s brother that got my mother pregnant?”

  Emma pushed her coffee back so quickly that some sloshed onto the oilcloth. She folded her arms on the table and buried her head in them while she fought to control her emotions. So much hurt after so long. It would never be over. She’d never sleep without waking to find Beth’s lipstick-smeared face seared into her mind.

  “Tell me,” Bailey urged. “What do you know?”

  Emma raised her head and dashed away the tears. “I know you need to get off Tawes before something terrible happens.”

  “Why do you say that? What’s going to happen?”

  “You’ll think me a superstitious fool, but there was an owl hooting in the tree outside the back porch this morning. An owl in broad daylight. They hunt at night, not when the sun’s up. It’s an omen; that’s what it is. An omen. And it’s a bad one. It means somebody’s going to die. You get out today, before it’s too late.”

  “That’s nonsense. I’m not leaving now. Not when this whole ball of twine is starting to unwind. Was Joe Marshall Beth’s boyfriend? Was Creed or Matthew?”

  “I’ll say no more on it. I’ve said too much already.”

  Bailey’s fair complexion turned the color of lye soap. “It’s true, then, what Grace hinted at? My mother . . . Beth . . . was promiscuous?”

  The girl looked as if she might faint, and Emma worried that she’d made things worse by giving any answer at all. She got to her feet heavily, retrieved a sponge from the back of the sink, and began to mop up the spilled coffee. “I’ll say no more, not if you sewed me into a sack of roosters and dropped me into the bay.” She dropped the sponge into the sink. “The tide’s right for crabbing. I’ve promised crab cakes for the church supper. I was just waiting for you two to get back with the boat.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “God knows I think the world of you, Bailey. But you go. You go today, while you can. And don’t come back.” She rushed out the back door and slammed it behind her. Never come back, she thought. Because whoever that owl is hooting for, I don’t want it to be you.

  Daniel barged into Will’s studio and found the older man gluing glass eyes into the life-size image of a great blue heron. The dogs leaped up and greeted him with wagging tails and lolling tongues. Will laid the tweezers and an eye on the counter and regarded him with an enigmatic gaze. “What’s got your shorts on fire, boy? Hope you’re not packing that pistol for me.”

  “Somebody took a shot at me off Tilghman’s Sandbar.”

  Will uttered a sound of disgust, picked up the tweezers again, and pressed the glass eye into the heron’s head once more. “Wasn’t me.”

  “I suspect it has something to do with the senator’s accident.”

  Will glanced over his shoulder at him, all the while keeping pressure on the glass eye. The carved and painted heron was magnificent, so lifelike that Daniel half expected it to unfold those enormous wings and take flight. “Have to do this before the glue sets,” Will said. “Makes a mess of the job otherwise.” After another minute he stepped away and selected a second eye from a saucer.

  “If it was you, I’d be dead.” Daniel exhaled softly, wondering how much he could trust Will and if he should tell Will that Bailey had been with him. He couldn’t stop the shame from washing over him, shame that he could doubt the one man who’d been more father to him than his own father.

  “You’re right about that. I don’t miss too often, and if I do, my second shot takes down whatever I’m aiming at.” He turned the artwork and fitted the eye into the blank hole for size. “Perfect fit. Hand me that glue, will you, Daniel?”

  He passed the tube over. “Seen any strangers on the island?”

  “Detectives nosing around, asking questions about Creed and Ida.”

  “No, not the state police and not the coroner’s office. I got a call from someone I used to know. The agency is investigating Marshall’s death.”

  “CIA?” Will’s features twisted into a skeptical mask. “This neck of the woods is more the FBI’s briar patch, isn’t it? Didn’t know the agency went poking around inside the U.S. of A.”

  “It’s an unofficial investigation. I can’t tell you any more.”

  Something close to a smile tugged at the corners of Will’s mouth. “No need to risk your neck over me. They stay off my land, I don’t give a flying damn what they do.”

  “Joe Marshall was into some stuff overseas where I was stationed.”

  “Something he shouldn’t have been doing? There’s a surprise. Anybody whose fortunes rose as quick as Joe’s had to be doing something crooked.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t have to. Question is, what was Joe selling?” The amusement vanished, and steel flickered behind the older man’s eyes. “Somebody tried to poison my dogs last night. I found a chunk of store-bought meat on the trail that leads to Elizabeth’s place. Not far away lay a dead raccoon. It died quick, and it died hurting. Lucky for Blue and the rest, they’ve been trained not to take food from strangers.”

  “Bailey was with me in the boat. The bullet passed between us. She could have been killed.”

  Will shook his head. “She should have stayed away. She’ll only break her heart on Tawes.”

  “I don’t think wild horses could drag her away now. She’s determined to find out what happened to her mother, and why.”

  Will applied the glue sparingly to the back of the second glass eye. “This piece is going to Tokyo. Can you believe that? Something of mine on display in Japan. Man paid top dollar too. Not that I met him face-to-face. His agent contacted me just after the Boston show two years ago.”

  “Bailey’s your flesh and blood. She’s as much a Tawes as your sister was. Don’t you care that she came so close to harm?”

  “Funny, isn’t it, that McCready’s taking so long to work the kinks out of that deed to the farm? It’s been in the family since the eighteen hundreds,” he mused. He pulled several dog biscuits from his jean pocket and tossed them to the dogs. “I don’t see what anybody could find wrong with the title.”

  “I told her that it didn’t matter to you that Elizabeth left the place to her.”

  “That much is true.” He rubbed his hands on his pant legs. “I got as much here as I need. I’ve got a lot of faults, but greed isn’t one of them.” He gathered up his tools. “Don’t let me keep you from whatever you were hunting.”

  “Will. Damn it, Will. This has got to tie in with how the senator died.”

  “It just might. Or it might be something altogether different. Can’t tell until it plays itself out. One thing for sure—anybody poking around here after dark had best be careful. These dogs mean a lot to me, and I’ll not stand by and see them—”

  “More than Bailey?”

  “Don’t put words into my mouth, boy.”

  “I’m going to find out the truth one way or another.”

  “Hope you do.” Will ran a finger over one wing of the carving, almost as if he were smoothing a feather into place. “There’s nothing lower than a dog poisoner, nothing lower under the sun.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It took Daniel nearly an hour to reach the high ground overlooking Tilghman’s Sandbar. Once there he proceeded to map out an imaginary grid over the two acres of woodland, picturing where a sniper could have stood and waited for Emma’s boat to pass by. He walked back and forth, searching the ground for any trace of the shooter.

  When he was a boy, this had been farmland. Cows and horses had grazed here; now it was overgrown with a mixture of cedar, pine, and maple, wild rose and sassafras. Once there had been a house and outbuildings, but lightning had taken the house and wild grapevines, and time had left the barn and sheds in ruin.

  As long as he’d been back on Tawes, Daniel hadn’t gotten over the sheer joy of smelling home . . . of the salt bay air, the earthy scent of the freshly turned soil, or the sweet odor of clover crushed under his feet. It was
so familiar and comforting on a primal level, so different from the high country of Afghanistan and the Far East as to be another planet. He’d known instinctively that if there were anywhere on earth where he could become whole again, it would be here on this island. And day by day he’d felt himself healing . . . until cracks began to open in the fragile eggshell of security and the horror began to seep in, drop by drop.

  He had closed the door on Mallalai, sealing her grave, burying it beneath a mountain of regret and grief. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the memory of her small hand in his, her soft voice, or the brush of her lips against his skin. She was dead, and she’d stay dead, because once he allowed the stones to crumble beneath the onslaught of why and what-if, he’d begin to relive the senselessness of the ensuing carnage.

  The breeze was coming off the water, and not a single mosquito buzzed around his head. It would have been a good place for a man to think, to make plans for his future. At least, it would have been a perfect spot if he weren’t hunting a would-be assassin.

  If he hadn’t come close to losing the second woman he’d let inside his heart . . .

  He could almost hear the groans and cries of the dying, smell the splattered mud and spilled coffee . . . taste death in the air. There’d been little left of Mallalai to identify as human, let alone recognize. He might not have believed the body was hers if it weren’t for the gold bracelet he’d bought her in the bazaar only days before. One hand remained, small, slender, and bloodless, and on the macabre wrist, his last and only gift, now twisted and blood-soaked.

  He couldn’t think about Mallalai now. It was Bailey he had to think about, Bailey he had to protect at any cost.

  It took the better part of two hours of careful searching before Daniel found the place where the shooter had stood, and less than five minutes to pick the spent shell out of the undergrowth. He swore as he grasped the brass between thumb and forefinger. This was no .22-caliber, no careless kid out squirreling. The shooting had been deliberate.