River's End

by Nora Roberts

  “He makes them matter,” she continued. “So that what was done matters.”

  She smiled a little, but her eyes were horribly sad. “So that what his father did, every day, year in and year out, matters. You’re his standard for everything that’s right and strong.”

  Just, she thought, as her father was her standard for everything evil and weak.

  “Livvy.” Words clogged in Frank’s throat. “You make me ashamed that I never looked close enough.”

  “You just see Noah. I’m nervous about talking to him.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “I don’t want him to know that. I want us to try to do this on equal ground. Well, not quite equal,” she corrected, and her smile steadied. “I’m going back home tomorrow, so he’ll have to deal with me on my turf. I wondered, one of the things I wanted to ask, was if you and Mrs. Brady would like to come up sometime this summer, have a couple of free weeks at the lodge on the MacBrides. We’ve made a number of improvements, and I’d love you to see my Center and . . . Oh God. I’m sorry. God.”

  She pressed both hands to her mouth, stunned that the words had tripped out, stumbling over one another in her rush to conceal the truth.

  “Livvy—”

  “No, I’m all right. Just give me a minute.” She walked to the front window, stared out through the pretty sheer curtains. “I know he gets out in a few weeks. I thought, somehow I thought, if you were there, just for the first couple of days after . . . it would be all right. I haven’t let myself really think about it, but the time’s coming. Just a few weeks.”

  She turned back, started to speak, to apologize again. But something in his face, the grim line of his mouth, the shadow in his eyes stopped her. “What is it?”

  “It’s about him getting out, Liv. I was contacted this morning. I have some connections, and whenever there’s something new about Tanner, I get a call. Due to his health, the hardship, overcrowded system, time served, his record in prison . . .” Frank lifted a hand, let it fall.

  “They’re letting him out sooner, aren’t they? When?”

  Her eyes were huge, locked on his. He thought of the child who’d stared at him from her hiding place. This time, he could do nothing to soften the blow.

  “Two weeks ago,” he told her.

  The phone shattered Noah’s concentration into a thousand irretrievable shards. He swore at it, viciously, ignoring the second ring as he stared at the last line he’d written and tried to find the rhythm again.

  On the third ring he snatched up the portable he’d brought in by mistake, squeezed it with both hands as if to strangle the caller, then flipped it on.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Just to say good-bye. ’Bye.”

  “Wait. Liv. Wait, don’t hang up, damn it. You don’t return my calls for two days, and then you catch me at a bad moment.”

  “I’ve been busy, which you obviously are, too. So—”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m a jerk. I’ve got the sackcloth right here. You got my messages?” All ten thousand of them, he thought.

  “Yes, I haven’t had time to return them until now. And I only have a minute as it is. They’re already boarding.”

  “Boarding? What? You’re at the airport? You’re leaving already?”

  “Yes, my plans changed.” Her father was out of prison. Was he already in L.A.? Is this where he would come first? She rubbed a hand over her mouth and schooled her voice to sound casual. “I have to get back, and I thought I’d let you know. If you still want to talk to me, regarding your book, you can reach me at the lodge, the Center most likely.”

  “Go back in the morning. One night can’t make any difference. Olivia, I want to see you.”

  “You know where to find me. We’ll work out some sort of schedule that’s convenient for the interviews.”

  “I want . . .” You, he realized. How the hell had it gotten so mixed up a second time? “The book isn’t everything that’s going on here, between us. Change your flight.” He hit keys rapidly to save data and close. “I’ll come pick you up.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” she said flatly. “I’m going home.” To where it was safe. To where she could breathe. “If you want interviews with me, you’ll have to come to the lodge. It’s final boarding. I’m leaving.”

  “It’s not just the damn interviews,” he began, but she’d already broken the connection.

  Noah swung the phone over his shoulder, then halfway back to the desk before he managed to resist the urge to just beat it to bits of plastic.

  The woman was making him nuts. She ran hot, cold, jumped up, down and sideways. How the hell was he supposed to keep up with her?

  Now she was gone, leaping out of his reach before he had a real chance to grab hold. Now he was supposed to go chasing after her? Was that the game?

  Disgusted, he kicked back in the chair, stared at the ceiling. No, she didn’t work that way. It wasn’t games with Olivia so much as it was a match. There was a big difference between the two.

  There were details he needed to deal with, more data he needed to work through. And then, he thought, tossing the phone on the cluttered desk, then they’d just see about that match.

  He was more than willing to go one-on-one.

  Olivia didn’t relax until the plane was in the air and she could nudge her seat back, close her eyes. Below, Los Angeles was falling away, out of reach and soon out of sight. There was nothing there for her now, no need to go back. The house that had once been her own personal castle was locked behind iron gates and belonged to someone else.

  And the murder that had been done there, long since scrubbed away.

  If and when Noah contacted her, she’d deal with it, and him. She’d proven to herself that she could get through that swarm of memories. Retelling them would only be words, words that couldn’t hurt her now.

  The monster was loose.

  It seemed to whisper in her ear, a warning edged with a kind of jumping glee.

  It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let it matter. Whether or not they’d unlocked his cell, given him a suit of clothes and the money he’d earned over his years in a cage, he’d been dead to her for a long, long time.

  She hoped she’d been dead to him as well. That he didn’t think of her.

  Or if he did, she prayed that every thought caused him pain.

  She turned her head away from the window and willed herself to sleep.

  Sleep didn’t come easily to some. It was full of fear and sound and bloody images.

  The monster was loose. And it cavorted in dreams, shambled on thick legs into the heart and poured out in bitter tears.

  The monster was loose, and knew there would be no end, no finish without more death.

  Livvy. The name was a silent sob, trembling in a desperate mind. The love for her was as real as it had been from the moment she’d been born. And the fear of her was as real as it had been on the night blood had been spilled.

  She would be sacrificed only if there was no choice.

  And the loss of her would be, forever, an open wound in the heart.

  twenty-three

  “Out? What do you mean he’s out?”

  “He got out two weeks ago. His lawyer filed a hardship plea, and they bumped up his release date.” Frank settled down on a deck chair where his son had taken advantage of an overcast day and a quiet beach to work outside.

  “Son of a bitch.” Noah pushed to his feet, paced from one end of the deck to the other. “Son of a bitch. He must have known the last time I went to see him. He didn’t tell me. I finally got a conference call scheduled with Smith this afternoon, and his assistant didn’t mention it either. Well, where the hell did he go?”

  “I don’t have that information. Actually, I thought you might. I wouldn’t mind keeping tabs on Tanner.” Frank thought of the shock and fear in Olivia’s eyes. “For old times’ sake.”

  “He hasn’t bothered to give me his fucking forwarding address. T
he book’s dead without him.” He stared down at his piles of papers, anchored with bottles, a conch shell, whatever came most handily. “Without him and Liv, it stops. The rest fans out from them. Early release?” He looked back at Frank. “Not parole, so he doesn’t have to check in.”

  “He served his time. The state of California considers him rehabilitated.”

  “Do you?”

  “Which part of you is asking the question? My son or the writer?”

  Noah’s face closed up immediately, went blank. “Never mind.”

  “I didn’t mean I wouldn’t answer, Noah. I was just curious.”

  “You’re the one who compartmentalizes what I am and what I do. For me, they’re in the same drawer.”

  “You’re right. I’ve been giving that some thought recently.” Frank sighed, laid his hands on his knees. “I thought you’d be a cop. I guess I had that idea in my head for a long time. I had this image of you coming on the job while I was still on it.”

  “I know I disappointed you. But it’s not what I am.”

  The instinctive denial was on his tongue. Frank paused and gave his son the truth instead. “I had no right to be disappointed. And I know it’s not what you are, Noah, but some things die hard. You were always interested in what I did when you were a kid. You used to write up reports.” He laughed a little. “You’d ask me all these questions about a case and write it all up. I didn’t see that for what it was. When you went into journalism, I thought, well, he’ll snap out of that. But you didn’t and I was disappointed. That’s my failure, not yours.”

  “I never wanted to close cases, Dad. I wanted to study them.”

  “I didn’t want to hear that. Pride has two edges, Noah. When you started writing books, started digging into things that were over and done, I took it as a reflection on what I had done, as if you were saying that it wasn’t enough to do the job, gather the evidence, make the arrest, get the conviction.”

  “That’s not it. That was never it.”

  “No, but I let my pride get in the way of seeing what you were doing, why you were doing it and what it meant to you. I want you to know I’m sorry for that. More sorry that I never gave you the respect you deserved for doing work you were meant to do, and doing it well.”

  “Well.” Emotion slid through him, carrying out the tension in his shoulders he hadn’t been aware of. “It’s a day for surprises.”

  “I’ve always been proud of who you are, Noah. You’ve never been anything but a joy to me, as a son and as a man.” Frank had to pause a moment before his tongue tangled.

  “I wouldn’t be what I am if you hadn’t been there.”

  “Noah.” Love was a swollen river in his throat. “I hope one day you have a grown child say that to you. It’s the only way to know how much it means.” He had to clear his throat before he embarrassed both of them. “I’m going to give more consideration to what you do. Fair enough?”

  “Yeah, that’s fair enough.”

  “I’ll start by telling you I’ll do that interview sort of thing, when you have the time for it.”

  “I’ve got time now. How about you?”

  “Now? Well, I . . .” He hadn’t been prepared for it and found himself limping for an excuse.

  “Just let me get a fresh tape.”

  Noah knew when he had a fish on the line and made it fast. He came back out with a tape and two cans of Coke. “It’s not as hard as you think,” he said while he labeled the tape and snapped it into the recorder. “You just talk to me, tell me about the case. Just the way you used to. You told me some about this one. I made notes on it even back then. Tanner made the nine-one-one call himself. I’ve got a transcript of it.”

  Wanting accuracy rather than memory, Noah dug out the right file. “He called it in at twelve forty-eight. She’s dead. My God, Julie. She’s dead. The blood, it’s everywhere. I can’t stop the blood. Somebody help me.” Noah set the paper aside. “There’s more, but that’s the core of it. The nine-one-one operator asked him questions, kept getting the same response, but managed to get the address out of him.”

  “The uniforms went in first,” Frank said. “Standard procedure. They responded to the nine-eleven. The gate was open; so was the front door. They entered the premises and found the body and Tanner in the front parlor area. They secured the scene, reported a homicide and requested detectives. Tracy Harmon and I took the call.”

  For Noah, it was as if he’d walked into the house that night with his father. He felt the warm rustle of air that stirred the palm fronds and danced through gardens silvered in moonlight. The house stood, white as a wish with windows blazing gold with lights.

  Police cruisers were guard-dogging the front, one with its blue and red lights still spinning to shoot alarming color over the marble steps, the faces of cops, the crime scene van.

  More light poured out of the open doorway.

  A rookie, his uniform still academy fresh, vomited pitifully in the oleanders.

  Inside, the grand chandelier dripped its waterfall of light on virgin white floors and highlighted the dark stain of the blood trail.

  It smeared in all directions, across the foyer, down the wide hall, up the polished-oak stairway that swept regally to the left.

  The smell of it was still ripe, the look of it still wet.

  He was used to death, the violence of it. The waste of it. But his first glimpse of what had been done to Julie MacBride broke his heart. He remembered the sensations exactly, the sudden, almost audible snapping, the resulting churn of pity and horror in his gut. And the fast, overpowering flood of fury that burst into his head before he shut them away, locked them away, and did his job.

  At first glance it appeared to have been a vicious struggle. The broken glass, the overturned furniture, the great spewing patterns of blood.

  But there were patterns within patterns. The dead always left them. Her nails were unbroken and clean, the defensive wounds on her hands and arms shallow.

  He’d come at her from behind. Later Frank would have this verified by the ME’s findings, but as he crouched beside the body, he played the scene in his head.

  The first blow had gone deep into her back, just below the shoulder blades. She’d probably screamed, stumbled, tried to turn. There would have been shock along with the pain. Had she seen his face? Seen what was in it?

  He’d come at her again. Had she lifted an arm to block the blow? Please, don’t! God, don’t!

  She’d tried to get away, knocking over the lamp, shattering glass, slicing her bare feet on it even as he sliced at her. She’d fallen, crawled, weeping. He’d driven the blades into her again and again, plunging with them, slashing with them even after she was still. Even after she was dead.

  Two uniforms watched Sam in the adjoining room. As with his first glimpse of Julie, this image would implant itself on Frank’s mind. He was pale and handsome. He smoked in quick jerks, his arm pistoning up and down, up and down as he brought the cigarette to his lips, drew in smoke, blew it out, drew it in again.

  His eyes were off—glassy and wheeling in his head. Shock and drugs.

  His wife’s blood was all over him.

  “Somebody killed her. Somebody killed Julie.” He said it again and again.

  “Tell me what happened, Mr. Tanner.”

  “She’s dead. Julie’s dead. I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Couldn’t stop what?”

  “The blood.” Sam stared down at his hands, then began to weep.

  Sometime during that initial, disjointed interview, Frank remembered there was a child. And went to look for her.

  In his office, Noah typed up his notes from the interview with his father. It helped to write it down, to see the words.

  When his phone rang, he jolted, and realized that he had been lost, working for hours. The first streaks of sunset were now staining the sky through his window.

  Noah pressed his fingers to his aching eyes and answered.