by LS Sygnet
My eyes scanned both crowds. Christ, even that obnoxious editor Samantha Wine from Sync! was out with a photographer. All the local television stations were there. Perhaps Belle Conall’s replacement on the crime desk was in attendance for The Sentinel. It was a sea of digital cameras and massive video equipment, puffs of microphones and a cacophony of chaos.
Behind them, the muted crowd watched. I think it was their silence that struck me as poignant. No murmurs rippled through the crowd. No one shoved closer to get a better look. It was if the entirety of Darkwater Bay stood mute in judgment of not only an event, but the man on center stage. Or perhaps what was left of him.
Johnny was off with his head pressed into the FBI/OSI huddle. David Levine, Devlin Mackenzie, Chris Darnell, and my twin brother – Crevan Conall. I didn’t wonder at their discussion. No doubt that too centered around the web in which I felt trapped at the center.
Maya’s blue coroner’s jacket flapped in a gust of wind off the bay. She caught my eye, and a moment later, I found myself sliding out of the front seat of the Expedition and walking toward her. Nobody from Bay View Division stopped me. Why would they? Johnny and Helen are an established team now.
The gurney with Sanderfield’s remains was about to be shoved into the back of the coroner’s van when Billy Withers stopped dead in his tracks. Our eyes met. His lips moved. A moment later, Maya turned slowly.
I waved.
She smiled and took a hesitant step toward me before it faltered.
It would be so easy, to take the next step for her. I needed to do it. Even if I didn’t know how much yet, it somehow felt like the right thing to do.
In two seconds, I was hugging her and begging for forgiveness.
“I’m the one who should apologize. I broke my promise, Helen. I swear, I’ll never do it again.”
My chin bumped the top of her head when I nodded. “I won’t ask you to keep anything like that a secret, Maya. It’s all out in the open now anyway.”
She peered up at me. “Explain that one, cupcake, because –”
I arched one eyebrow.
Maya grinned. “Just checkin’.”
“Johnny knows the truth. Crevan knows the truth. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Only if it matters to you, my friend.”
“I don’t suppose you’re inclined to tell me what your gut says about this mess,” I asked.
She grinned and hooked one arm through mine. “Revenge is a dish best served cold?”
I laughed. It wasn’t exactly what popped into my head for her bizarre coping statement, but it eased the lingering tension just the same.
“I should be asking you that question, Helen. And,” with a gentle pat to my growing tummy, “I’m stunned that Orion let you within a ten mile radius of this place. After all, our sniper extraordinaire could still be lurking about.”
It didn’t frighten me, which if I were thinking clearly, was wrong. It simply felt too right to be back with Maya again, our familiar banter free to scandalize anyone in earshot. “He is, as they say, in the wind, Maya. Assassins don’t hang around to watch the cops work a crime scene. Now a serial killer might.”
She grinned. “I’ve missed you, you know.”
“Me too.”
Did I mean I’ve missed her or that I’ve missed me? Not the me that has evolved in this brain-clouded fog, the old me. The real me. The one who was reared to know better than to stick around and watch. Wasn’t that what I was doing after all? I came here, to Darkwater Bay with one purpose – to get Danny Datello. That job was done.
Why was I still here?
The flapping crime scene tape caught the corner of my eye again. I glanced at it, saw the dark clad figure for a split second with his back turned. A chill wracked my body. What was it about that gait? Those squared shoulders? In a split second, another wave of unease washed over my confused psyche.
“Someone is watching.”
“Whole lotta some ones, sweetheart.”
I let her little pet name pass this time. My eyes bore into the back of the retreating figure. Willing him if you will. Turn around, you son of a bitch. Let me see your face.
His head bobbed, shoulders twisted their way through a crowd without the intention of dispersal.
But for a split second, he turned, and I glimpsed blinding white… something.
“Helen?”
“Oh Jesus,” I said.
Maya grabbed my arm. “Are you all right?” I saw the next word on the tip of her tongue. Johnny.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.” Bright smile sealed the deal. “Good God, we stop speaking for a few weeks and you go all maternal on me.”
“Should you be out here?”
No question about it. Yes.
“I’m keeping you from determining cause of death.”
Maya grinned. “I’d say the absence of his head is pretty definitive. I can rubber stamp this one, cupcake.”
“Don’t call me cupcake.” The automatic reply snuffed whatever concern still etched her brow. It did not however, turn my attention away from the spectators. My mystery man was no longer in sight.
“Can I call you later?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I nodded absently.
Fingers snapped in front of my face. “Hey, you solve this one already?”
I looked at my friend, best poker face in play. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just curious why all of these people are out here.”
She shrugged. “Not every day a senator gets blown away. But in any case, there are a few other things I’ve got to do on this one before the final report is concluded. I’ll call you later.”
I have no idea what I said to her. My focus had come to a single pinpoint. That man, drifting away from the crowd, drawn to turn back for one last peek at me. I still had no idea why, or really who even, since the white that blinded me momentarily was a thick bandage covering the side of his head. At the same time, there was no doubt. He was watching me, and I was too distracted for a moment to interpret the sensation clamoring for attention.
“This isn’t over yet.” I rattled off the names of those we already linked to this ring somehow in my head: Gillette, Gutierrez, Preston, Gerard, Sanderfield and Sherman. “That’s not all of you. There’s at least a seventh conspirator, and for you, my friend, time is running out,” I mused to myself on the short trek back to the Expedition.
I knew what had to happen next, the battle with Johnny that loomed on the horizon. A empty promise to my father to stay away from these people was a distant memory. I needed to go back to the beginning, the very woman who tripped up the operation for all of them.
I needed to find out what it was about Melissa Sherman that made her the one person worthy of protection. Sanderfield, with his political clout and power, was expendable in the end. And that didn’t make sense.
Did Lyle Henderson hold the answers? Why would he sanction the murder of a step-son, one by all accounts, he remained very close to? I itched to find a way to talk to him, to wring the truth from his lying throat if need be.
As I reached for the door handle on my SUV, that niggling unease at the back of my brain burst through into my consciousness.
I froze, hand suspended in mid-air as I saw history flash before my eyes, the surroundings morph into a place from my past. My heart seized in my chest.
That gait. The way the shoulders twisted and moved. The shock of hair… yes, it was all familiar to me. Too familiar.
“No,” I said. “It can’t be. It can’t be him!”
Johnny’s hand reached around me and opened the door. “You okay, sweetheart? Please tell me you and Maya aren’t still at odds.”
His voice snagged me out of a vortex of panic. At least momentarily. Absently, I shook my head. “No, Johnny, everything’s fine.”
And again, the opportunity for a fresh and honest start with my husband was lost. My eyes scanned the crowd one last time, for one more glimpse of he who could not be, as Johnny d
rove away from the latest dead end in the mystery of my life.
