Price of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “Nothing.” She pushed at the air with the back of her hand as if that would make something disappear. “Really nothing.”

  “Not nothing. Because it made you more willing to accept the offer of the North Carolina cabin.”

  “Even if it did, that has nothing to do with what happened.”

  “You can’t know that. We’ll only know after you tell me and we can look into it.”

  “You don’t think I want to know what happened, who was killed in my house, and why? You don’t think I want this to be over? But I can’t possibly tell you every tiny, unrelated thing that’s happened in my life.”

  “You might have to. If we can’t get answers from the big, related things.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. He let that sink into her new vision of reality before continuing.

  “But this is related, Jamie. Anything that changed, anything unusual, we need to know about. You’d gone to that cabin previously. You didn’t this time. Why?”

  “I told you, Bethany offered and—”

  “You wanted to make her happy.”

  His deadpan delivery irked her, but he’d bled out any sarcasm she could grab onto.

  She did that with Maggie. Made it about what Maggie’s tone said about Maggie, instead of what the words said about Jamie. Grabbed onto Maggie’s tone and her sharp slant on the world to deflect the reality Maggie spoke.

  So he couldn’t give her that easy route to avoidance.

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make someone happy — to have them feel valued, to acknowledge a generous offer by accepting it. Changing my routine was a small thing to do to accomplish that.”

  She sounded defensive. Good. Less certainty from her might serve them well.

  He chose an angle to keep her unbalanced.

  “What about the owner of the cabin where you usually went? Wouldn’t that person would feel less accepted and valued when their generous offer was declined in favor of the newcomer’s?”

  She quickly said. “Hendrickson knows how I feel about him. That would be no issue.”

  “He offered the cabin as usual and you refused?”

  “He was fine with—”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time. He offered the use of his cabin while you finished the book?”

  “Yes.”

  “You refused?”

  “I declined. Not the same thing.”

  “Why did you decline?”

  “I told you before—”

  “No, you didn’t. You talked about how nice the scenery was in North Carolina, how convenient it turned out to be — things you couldn’t know when you made the change. But you did know what happened the last time you were at the Pennsylvania cabin.”

  She met his gaze.

  Longer and straighter than anyone else he’d ever questioned.

  In the end, she looked away. But she answered, “I need to get over being so finicky about how I finish these projects. But when time’s tight I go back to the way I’ve always done it. That’s why I thought the North Carolina cabin was a good idea after Bethany offered and I thought it through.”

  “How did Hendrickson York take it when you told him?”

  “He totally understood. He said he’d hate for me to feel I was getting stale and if a change of scenery could prevent that he was all for it.”

  Did she not hear the undermining sting in those words?

  Belichek could. The older man’s intimation that stale was already upon her and changing scenery was a pitiable attempt at self-delusion.

  “I meant how did he take it when you told him to leave the previous time?”

  Her eyes didn’t just widen this time, they went a bit wild.

  Caught.

  Not like a wild animal. But like a human forced to open a door she preferred closed, locked, barred, and hidden from anyone else’s sight.

  “Not well, huh?”

  “I never told him to— I wouldn’t. He had entirely generous intentions. He wanted to help, to make things easier, to take care of the mundane details that distracted me from the work. What he didn’t understand — not at first — was that the mundane distractions are part of my routine. They give me a chance to do something while I think through the next part.”

  “He showed up uninvited.”

  “It’s his cabin.”

  “Even though he knew you wanted to be alone. Even though he knew you had worked alone the other times.”

  “The foundation had grown tremendously since my previous book. But—”

  “Because of the previous book you wrote.”

  She ignored that. “—there’d been a longer gap between books. I hadn’t kept the same rhythm.”

  “You were worried about writing that book?”

  “Not really, but Hendrickson worries about me and can be overprotective, so it would be natural for him to think I might be worried.”

  “So, he disrupts your routine by showing up uninvited and unannounced, trying to elbow his way into your solitude.”

  Not denying was as good as a confirmation.

  She stood. “This is crazy. You’re asking the same questions—”

  “Get a bit more with each round—”

  “Don’t talk over me, Belichek.”

  He dropped his head slightly, looking at the pattern of the wood floor. That’s what got her ticked? Not worrying about somebody out there probably wanting to kill her, but whether he interrupted?

  “You’re asking the same questions and I’m giving the same answers. This is going nowhere. And in the meantime, my parents, my family, my friends all think I’m dead. They must be getting ready to bury me in Richmond next to Aunt Vivian.”

  “Not with an ongoing murder investigation,” Maggie said. “And not without a positive ID.”

  A shiver moved Jamie’s shoulders, but she didn’t relent. “I’m going home. Now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Belichek kept his head down.

  It gave the impression he wasn’t listening. That he’d tuned out. Maybe that he didn’t care.

  It even could be interpreted as vulnerable, with his eyes not on the job, not watching for a potential attack.

  But Jamie knew better.

  It wasn’t vulnerable. And he was entirely on the job.

  Didn’t she know that first-hand?

  The layers of shock, of numbness were long gone. But he kept peeling, until she felt raw. Fighting to hold onto what covered her raw nerve-endings, consigned only to the safety of her journals.

  Which he had read.

  Her friends, her neighbors, her relationships, each exposed and examined.

  Her, exposed and examined.

  And then even her excruciating memories of Aunt Vivian and of what came before… Even those weren’t safe inside the protections she and Maggie and Ally had implicitly built. Because he shared them, too. He had been there.

  Detective Rutherford Belichek with his questions and his probing and his unblinking relentlessness.

  Even in this moment, with his head down, it was more like he needed to disconnect his eyes from what was in front of him to let his other senses and intellect apply fully to the matter under consideration.

  Her.

  The bug under the microscope.

  The bug had to escape. Now.

  She expected to hear about how she was their only clue, how she held the secret, how she could die.

  What he said was, “You don’t have a way back to Fairlington.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You won’t drive me back when you — you practically kidnapped me the night before last to bring me up here?”

  “Didn’t kidnap you then, even tougher argument to make that I’m kidnapping you now when all I’m doing is refusing to drive you someplace. Particularly to a place explicitly dangerous for you.”

  She jerked her head around to her cousin. “Maggie? You know — I’ve got to see to my parents. I can’t let them go on thinking…”

  “That’
s not why,” Belichek said quietly.

  “Maggie,” she repeated.

  Maggie hissed out a breath. “He’s right. It’s not why. You’re tired of the tough questions because you don’t like the possible answers. Even though they’re necessary.” She turned toward Belichek, though he still looked at the floor. “But she’s right that this can’t go on, Bel. And I can’t be part of it going on and not telling her parents, Ally, and the rest of the family.”

  For a beat it seemed that no one breathed.

  “Yeah,” Maggie said, “I’ll take you to Fredericksburg, to your parents.”

  “I drive,” J.D. said.

  * * * *

  Jamie set her tote by the front door, then went to where Ford Belichek sat alone at the kitchen counter with an empty glass in front of him.

  She poured water from the nearby pitcher into his glass, stopping when it was a little over half full.

  Still holding the pitcher, she said, “I recognize that my answers haven’t let you solve what happened at my house while I was gone. But I can only give you the answers I know. And I have — multiple times. I’m going to Fredericksburg to see my parents. You’re going to have to accept that your glass is half-full, Detective Belichek.”

  “This is a serious business, Jamie — deadly serious. And you’re in a dangerous business, trying to change people.”

  “I’m not trying to change people.”

  “Foundation. Books.” As if those two words proved his point.

  “They’re not trying to change people. They’re offering people opportunities to change themselves. Sometimes people can’t change because of circumstances. But if you show them how they might change their circumstances or when you have the opportunity to directly change their circumstances, then people can change themselves.”

  “Do you believe your aunt’s murderer would have been a different person if his circumstances had changed? Do you think she’d still be alive?”

  “We’ll never know, will we?”

  “What we do know is if he’d been put away or killed before he entered your aunt’s world, she’d still be alive. And you do try to change people. You just tried to change my view of this glass.”

  He picked up the glass, tipping it as if preparing to taste fine wine.

  “This glass is not only half empty, it could be poisoned and it’s for damned sure polluted.”

  He righted the glass, then drained it in two long gulps.

  He stood and placed the empty glass directly in from of her without releasing it.

  “It’s your glass, Jamison Chancellor. The one where the best-case scenario will probably be that you’re suspected of murder and the most likely scenario is someone finishes what they started Labor Day weekend.”

  He let go of the glass, turned, and headed out, joining Maggie and J.D., standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  He shook hands with J.D., thanking him, and hugged Maggie. Without looking back, he left.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  J.D. Carson driving was some consolation. Certainly safer than Maggie behind the wheel, the poster girl for hard-driving in more ways than one. And his training would have him on the alert for any threats.

  Not likely, maybe, that a killer would be hanging around the Chancellor home in Fredericksburg on the off-chance Jamie showed up — assuming the killer meant to kill her and knew he hadn’t.

  But Belichek didn’t fool himself that Jamie would stay at her parents’ place.

  Now that she was out of the cocoon of shock and J.D. Carson’s cabin, she’d get herself back to the Sunshine Foundation pronto.

  Maggie might be able to delay her a day, maybe two, but then…

  Jamie also would want to be back in her own home again. Probably trying like hell to do that alone.

  Only way to keep her safe was to figure this thing out fast.

  He had pieces from their time in Bedhurst. Important pieces. But not enough to know which ones fit where.

  He called his partner as he neared the metro area.

  “Landis. We need to talk.”

  “We need to talk? That’s how you say hello. First you have a woman call for an ID on you, which I thought was a real hopeful sign. Until you disappear — yes, I checked Jamison Chancellor’s house so I know you weren’t there. And then you send me a cryptic text about deep-diving on that Usher woman, don’t answer any of my replies, and now you say—”

  “What did you find out about her?”

  “Why should I tell you? You’re still on vacation. Speaking of which, I don’t have time to hear about your exploits, buddy — even if she was as hot as she sounded. I’ve got this little investigation going, in case you don’t remember.”

  But Belichek heard it in Landis’ voice. “What did you find out about Bethany Usher?”

  “Possibilities. Not definite, but possibilities.”

  Belichek grunted. “You’re not telling me on the phone. Not with the leaks.”

  “Right. Been more, by the way.”

  “Okay. The place we’d get food during the Dorset stakeout.” Belichek’s mental map of the county was based on cases. Landis’ on food. “You bring your possibilities and I’ll bring my … news.”

  “When?”

  “An hour.”

  “Give me two.”

  * * * *

  Maggie turned from the front passenger seat. “You know that stuff with Bel with the glass wasn’t about water, don’t you?”

  Jamie breathed in, then out through her nose. Maggie wasn’t asking if her younger cousin was bright enough to see what was obvious. She’d made it a statement as an opening to something else she wanted to say.

  The chances of stopping Maggie from saying whatever was coming were slim and none — no, they were none and none.

  Jamie took in another slow breath. “He was trying to scare me to do what he wanted.”

  “That’s not how Bel operates. He tells you the truth as he sees it.” A beat passed. “Including about you being a possible suspect. That’s a stronger possibility with you not going to the authorities.”

  “But he said — you both said there’s a leak in the department that—”

  “There is and it does make it more dangerous for you to go to the police. That doesn’t change how you will be viewed for not going to them, especially by the police department. Bel knows that. It’s why he was driving so hard to get answers.”

  “Then I’ll have to prove I had nothing to do with this. After I see Mom and Dad.”

  * * * *

  The food came first with Landis.

  They ordered kafta sandwiches from the Lebanese restaurant and deli, added knafe for dessert. They ate in Belichek’s car before talking.

  “You don’t look like you’ve been to a spa for your vacation, Belichek.” His partner’s mildness was dangerous.

  “What have you found out about Bethany Usher? I’ve got to know that first.”

  “What you’ve got to do is talk to me, that’s what you’ve got to do. What the fuck is going on, Belichek?”

  “Tell me about Usher and—”

  “I’ve left you a hundred frigging messages. I thought the first day maybe ol’ Ford got real lucky with the female he met. But then I got to thinking maybe it wasn’t so lucky, some females are crazy, and where the hell is he? So, then I leave messages. Nothing. If that leak hadn’t made me jumpy, I’d’ve sent you a message saying we got a break in the Chancellor case, knowing—”

  “Did you?” Belichek’s gut tightened.

  “No, but I figured that was the one way you’d call back. But you didn’t, so I go to that house, because I wouldn’t put it past you to blow off your chance to get laid in order to go back and re-read those diaries — journals. But guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You weren’t there.”

  “Guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Landis.”

  “That’s what’s got me worried. Because you know what I did find out at he
r house? Some of her clothes are now missing.”

  “Did you tell anybody?”

  “No.”

  Something in his tone arrested Belichek’s attention. “What are you—? You can’t—” He fought against laughter. “God, Landis, you’ve been around that shrink way too much.”

  “Something’s going on,” Landis said doggedly.

  Belichek drew in a long breath and wiped the corner of his left eye. “Yeah, something is going on. I swear, I will spill all. I got you here to do that. But if you’ve found out anything vital about Bethany Usher, it could change things.”

  Landis stared at him an extra beat. “Don’t have a lot. Terrington went to Bethany Usher’s apartment — looked like she’d cleared out. He reports nobody knows where she is. Vague impression she was going to the beach — maybe Delaware, maybe Jersey. She was supposed to be back to work a week after Labor Day. They all agree on that, including additional volunteers we’ve talked to.

  “What’s your interest? Her being away at the same time is interesting, but if there’s a motive for her to go to her boss’s house and unload a shotgun in her face, I haven’t heard a whisper of it. And nobody at the Sunshine Foundation liked Usher near enough to be quiet about a motive for her. I wondered if she had something on Chancellor to get that unearned vacation time, but then, the shotgun should have been aimed the other direction.” He turned his head. “Have you picked up a motive involving her?”

  “No.” He shoveled out a sigh, then just said it. “I have reason to believe she’s likely the victim.”

  Landis didn’t object or deny or argue. He stared at him, cogs in his brain shifting and adjusting to the theory — because for him it was still theory.

  “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  “Process of elimination. Because Jamison Chancellor is alive.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “She showed up night before last at her house. About two in the morning.”

  “What the hell, Belichek? What the fucking hell? Where is she?”

  He ignored that, because his partner needed to expel steam. “She couldn’t stay there. Neighbors might see in. People going by — it would have been impossible to keep it a secret.”