by Debra Webb
Rowan put her hand to her mouth to cover her smile.
Billy looked down to hide his. When he had cleared his face, he voiced his newest suspicions about Pryor. “I think he’s leaning toward framing Dressler for these two murders.”
Rowan cleared her throat softly but the shock in her eyes was loud and clear. “I won’t even go there. The man is obviously mad.”
Billy glanced around the room. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“I guess you’re unhappy with me. I suppose you feel my going off into those woods was risky.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t ditch your surveillance team first.”
She shrugged. “I like to think I’m a little smarter these days when it comes to protecting myself.”
“Good. Make sure you stay that way.”
“I think you’re right,” she said as she surveyed the room.
“About which part?”
“Pryor is looking for a scapegoat. We both know there’s a leak somewhere on his side of this. I think Dressler might be his chosen sacrificial lamb. And me, of course. I’m an equally worrisome enigma.”
“Don’t worry about Pryor,” Billy assured her. “I’ll take care of him.”
Whatever beef the man had with Dressler was between those two. But when he poked his suspicions at Rowan, he might as well be poking Billy.
Not a good idea at all.
Eleven
Thursday, March 12
Rowan finished off her coffee and placed her cup in the kitchen sink. She watched Billy pace the living room, his cell phone pressed to his ear. Maybe there was a new development in the case. She hoped there hadn’t been another murder.
He had told her about visiting Julian’s ex-wife. Like Billy, Rowan couldn’t reconcile the idea that Julian and his ex had not been in contact with all that had happened the past year. Julian had to be aware she was in Winchester and that her friend, Cash Barton, was following the investigation. Rowan knew Julian well enough to understand he would not appreciate the interference, much less the reminder of his failed marriage or his ex-wife’s lover.
Then again, why would the woman lie? What did she hope to gain?
It was possible this game was as enticing to her as it was to Julian. She claimed Rowan’s mother had destroyed her life by luring away her husband. But why wouldn’t she be grateful? Julian was a serial killer. He had murdered more than a hundred people and he’d started long before he and Norah met. His ex-wife should appreciate that he had been lured away. Then again, she blamed Norah for the death of her daughter. Perhaps her insistence on seeing this through was exactly what she claimed—the need for justice to be served. Or maybe she simply wanted to watch Rowan squirm. Maybe she hoped if she hung around she would be able to watch Norah’s only surviving daughter end up dead, too.
Whatever the case, it was a very strange relationship. Rowan wondered how Julian could have so carefully and so successfully kept that side of himself—his history—from her when she had spent her days helping to identify motives and track down killers. Had she needed him to be what she believed him to be? Had Rowan been so desperate to never be betrayed again—as she had been by her mother—that she overlooked the signs right in front of her?
Apparently that was the case. She had been so adept at recognizing evil during all those homicide investigations, yet she had not recognized the most depraved of killers in her personal life. But she recognized him now. Rowan rinsed her cup and wiped down the counter. Anything to keep herself occupied until she knew what Billy’s call was about. Though he had discussed yesterday’s events with her last night, she had sensed that he had kept some aspect from her. Something that disturbed him deeply.
Maybe he would tell her this morning.
She had been exhausted last night. The Donelson visitation had turned out far larger than expected. Ms. Donelson’s sister had been very pleased with the attendance. The family was always happy when friends and neighbors made an appearance at a loved one’s visitation. Memories were shared and reminders of the lives that had been touched were discussed. Rowan had appreciated those same aspects of her father’s visitation and funeral.
She hardly remembered her mother’s viewing. She’d been in shock, swallowed by grief and despair. Her father had stood stoically by his wife’s casket and greeted the many, many visitors. Most had come to show their support for him. Her mother hadn’t had that many friends. Many in the community had considered her a bit odd.
Rowan remembered standing beside him wearing that dark blue dress he’d selected for her. He’d said it wasn’t right for a little girl to wear black. She hadn’t uttered a word the entire evening. Not even when Billy and his family arrived. That was the first time she remembered him hugging her. He’d looked so dapper in his suit. Even then he’d been wearing cowboy boots. She might not have noticed except she had spent most of the evening staring at the floor to avoid eye contact with people. Deep down she had been glad Billy came even if she hadn’t been able to interact much with him.
He appeared in the doorway now. Rowan blinked away the memories and produced a smile. “Everything okay?”
The question was a foolish one, but it was better than asking if someone else had been murdered.
“That was Pryor. He wants to talk to you again. I told him it would have to be tomorrow.”
Rowan shook her head. “He just won’t let the idea go that I’m working with Julian somehow.”
Billy heaved a weary breath. “As much as I disagree with everything this guy says, I don’t believe he’s convinced you’re working with Addington. I think he believes you’re hiding information about him. Keeping relevant details to yourself.”
They had been down this road before. “Is that what you think?”
He held her gaze for a long moment, his dark eyes as familiar as her own heartbeat. Finally, he shook his head. “No. In the beginning, there were things you kept to yourself, but you’re not doing that now.”
Her chest ached with the realization that he trusted her so completely when she wasn’t sure she trusted herself. “How can you be so certain?”
He moved away from the door, put his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. “I trust you completely, Ro. I know you wouldn’t do that to me or to yourself.”
She hugged him hard, then drew back. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
He held on to her, searched her eyes as if he needed to be sure what he saw there. “What we have is the real thing. I hope you know that, Ro.”
She made a face. “Of course it’s real. Why would you think I don’t recognize that?”
He shook his head. “No reason. I guess I just want to be sure we’re on the same page.”
Uncertainty swelled beneath her breastbone. “What page is that?”
“Moving forward with this...” He glanced around. “With us.”
Was he having second thoughts? “Why wouldn’t we be on the same page? We want the same thing.”
“Do we?”
His question took her aback. “This,” she insisted, “is what I want.”
“Okay. Good.” He gave her a sweet kiss on the nose. “I need to get to the office.”
“Be safe,” she called after him.
When the door had closed behind him she shut her eyes and fought the urge to cry. Something was off with Billy. He either suspected she wasn’t being completely honest with him or he wasn’t being completely honest with her.
Not possible. Billy Brannigan wasn’t capable of lying.
Rowan tucked her cell phone into her back pocket and her weapon into her waistband beneath her sweatshirt. “Let’s go, boy.”
Freud followed her into the corridor and she locked the door, then headed downstairs. Burt’s viewing was tonight. She wanted everything to be perfect for him.
So much had happened the p
ast few days she hadn’t had a moment to consider just how badly she would miss the man. He’d lived a good life and he’d lived it well. As grateful as those who knew and loved him were for that, he would be missed.
As they passed the refrigeration unit, she smiled and said, “Morning, Burt.” Freud glanced up at her, recognizing the name. She reached out and scratched him behind the ears. “You miss him, too?”
She disarmed the security system and unlocked the back door so Freud could go outside. The WPD cruiser was parked on the side street. As much as Rowan had hated the idea of anyone watching her every move, she felt grateful now. Freud trotted across the yard, barking at a squirrel that raced up the nearest tree. A school bus rolled down the street, reminding her it was almost eight. Deciding to let Freud romp for a while, she locked the door and headed for her office.
A knock at the main entrance echoed in the air as she crossed the lobby. She walked to one of the front windows and checked the parking lot. An unmarked sedan was there, a woman seated behind the steering wheel. That would be Pryor’s agent. Another car, this one sporting a Davidson County tag, sat nearer the lobby entrance. Another knock drew her attention to the door. A woman dressed in slacks and a sweater, her dark hair threaded through with gray, stood at the entry door.
Rowan walked to the door and went through the steps for opening it. As soon as her gaze collided with the other woman’s, Rowan recognized her as the one from the photo with her mother.
The woman gasped. “My God, you look exactly like her.”
Rowan steeled herself against the words. “May I help you?”
The woman thrust out her hand. “My name is Kara Solomon. I was a friend of your mother’s. I wanted to speak with you if you have a moment.”
Rowan considered the large shoulder bag she carried. “Do you mind leaving your bag in your car?”
Solomon glanced down at the bag she carried. “Sure. No problem.”
She walked over to her car, unlocked it and dropped the bag onto the passenger seat. She reached inside and removed her fob, then locked the door.
Rowan stepped back, opening the door wider and inviting the woman inside. Once they stood in the silence of the lobby, Rowan asked, “What is it you’d like to talk about, Ms. Solomon?”
“Do you mind if we sit down?” She gestured to the nearest grouping of chairs.
Rowan moved in that direction as did the other woman. When they were seated Rowan waited for her to begin. She was the one who wanted to talk. Rowan had questions but she wanted to hear her out first.
“I’ve been watching you in the news the past several months.”
“Year,” Rowan corrected. “My father was murdered a year ago.”
Solomon nodded. “Yes. I suppose I had hoped that would be the end of it and then Carlos died and now Crash has been murdered.”
“You’re referring to Carlos Sanchez and Crash Layton?” Rowan wasn’t going to cut her any slack. She needed to get to the point.
“Yes. The two of them and I were friends just as your mother and I were.”
“Perhaps you can shed some light on the nature of their relationship with my mother.” Rowan used the coolest tone she possessed.
“All those years ago when your mother married your father and settled in Winchester, she and I became friends. I was living in Tullahoma and I was actually a friend of Julian’s. He and I had known each other when I lived in Nashville. He asked me to become friends with her. He wanted me to watch her for him.”
Rowan’s pulse raced. It was true, her mother had known Julian before.
“How did he know my mother?” Rowan found herself holding her breath.
Solomon shook her head. “The only thing I know is that it had something to do with their childhood. Julian and Norah were both very tight-lipped about their childhoods.”
Rowan shook her head. “I don’t understand. My mother grew up in Memphis.”
“This was before. As a teenager she lived in Memphis but not as a child.”
“I’m not aware of her ever having lived anywhere else.” The woman had to be wrong. Rowan would know where her own mother lived as a child. This made no sense. Even as the thought entered her mind, instinct warned her that the things she knew about her mother’s childhood could be more lies.
“All I can tell you,” Solomon said, “is that, according to Norah, she ended up with a foster family in Memphis when she was thirteen. By the time she was fourteen the family had adopted her, so she took their name, O’Brien.”
“What was her name before that?” Rowan wasn’t sure she was buying this story, but it wouldn’t be completely impossible to confirm either way. There would be records somewhere.
“I have no idea. I only know that she was born in Alabama. Something happened when she was thirteen and she was put into the foster care system.” Before Rowan could ask, she went on. “I have no idea what happened. Like Julian, she would never speak of it.”
“Assuming any of this is true and not just another of her stories, why would she need these so-called protectors?” Rowan blocked the images from the October night at that shack in the middle of nowhere when Crash Layton had appeared and rescued her from certain death. When she’d asked who sent him, he had said her mother—which was impossible...at least, she’d thought it was impossible. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Don’t be ridiculous, Rowan. This is just another trick no doubt inspired by Julian.
Solomon turned her hands up. “I wish I could tell you more. I only know that whatever happened when she was a child, it was like something from a horror movie. Those two, Crash and Carlos, would have done anything to protect her. Whatever Julian would have you believe about your mother, it’s probably lies. He was obsessed with her. He used me to try and get to her.”
“How did she become involved with Julian?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t speak of that either. The one thing I am certain of is that when I met her all those years ago, she did not want Julian to know where she was. Obviously something had happened between them before that time.”
“You’re saying that when she settled here in Winchester with my father she wanted nothing to do with Julian.”
“She hated him. And she was terrified of him.”
Rowan leaned back in her chair for the first time since they’d sat down. “I don’t understand. Both Julian and his ex-wife insist that Norah was having an affair with him before my sister and I were born. That it went on for years.”
Solomon shook her head. “They’re lying.” She spoke with such vehemence that Rowan drew back. Solomon held up a hand. “I apologize, but I know those two and you cannot trust them.”
Rowan put her hand to her mouth and tried to think where to go from here. Her first thought was to call Billy.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you but I only came because I’m afraid for your life.”
“Why now?” Rowan didn’t trust Julian or his ex-wife and she damned sure didn’t trust this woman who suddenly came out of the woodwork with this bizarre story. “Why allow me to flounder all these months and then suddenly show up and tell me this story?”
“Until your father was murdered, I had no idea you even knew Julian. Even then, I swore I wouldn’t get involved.” She looked away. “I was afraid.”
“But you suddenly grew a conscience and decided to pay me a visit?”
When she said nothing in response to the accusation, Rowan stood. She had heard enough. “Thank you for stopping by, Ms. Solomon.”
The woman stared up at her. “He murdered the only man I’ve ever loved.” Fury tightened her face. “I couldn’t let him get away with it.”
Obviously she wasn’t talking about Utter, and Sanchez had died of a heart attack. “Layton?”
Solomon nodded. “We couldn’t be together. He said I’d never be safe, but I still loved him.”<
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“How does this help me, Ms. Solomon? I know Julian is a monster and I assumed his ex-wife wasn’t to be trusted. But what am I supposed to do with the rest? You insist my mother never spoke of her childhood. How will this headline help me without the story?”
“The answers you need lie deep in the past. Find those answers and you’ll know what to do now.” She stood. “She wouldn’t speak of it, but she often told me that she wrote of those days. She said it was the only way to purge herself of the demons that haunted her.”
A tale about a young girl whispered through Rowan’s mind. There was a story about a child amid all those ramblings in her mother’s journals. Anticipation awakened inside Rowan. She needed to get to her mother’s journals.
“Thank you, Ms. Solomon. I appreciate you coming forward to help.”
They chatted a moment longer about what a wonderful person Norah had been as Rowan ushered her toward the door. When Solomon was out the door and Rowan had locked it and rearmed the security system, she headed up the stairs but then remembered Freud was still outside.
After letting Freud in, the two of them hurried up to the second floor. Rowan went to her mother’s desk and pulled out all the journals. She skimmed one after the other until she found the one about the child.
Rowan started to read and she couldn’t stop.
The little girl’s name was Nina Mulligan. She’d lived in a tiny village near the river and her family had been monsters.
Journal in hand, Rowan rushed up to the third floor and opened her laptop. She opened a screen and entered the name Mulligan and Alabama into the search box. Hundreds of entries filled the screen. Slowly but surely she weeded through the extraneous. When she had sufficiently narrowed down the results she was left with shocking headlines.
The blurry photo of a young girl could have been Rowan or her sister.
Her heart thundering, her fingers touched the screen. “Momma.”
Rowan studied the image of her mother and the house behind her. Her breath caught. The house was the same one in the photos she’d found in Burt’s home office.
