by Tessa Wegert
“Hon,” I said. He’d brought up the idea twice already. In fairness to Carson, I couldn’t stall any longer. “I’ve thought about it a lot, actually. I know you’d like him there. The thing is, it’s awkward.”
“Why would you think that?”
“It just is.” I flipped my hand on the kitchen table and the diamond on my engagement ring, an obscenely large cushion cut I’d drop in a box on the dresser before leaving for work, struck the wood. A spark of pain whizzed up my arm like a shock. “For one thing, we barely know each other.”
“All the more reason for him to come.”
“For another, we can’t invite him and not McIntyre and the rest of the troop.”
“Timmy’s your partner. It’s different.”
“BCI investigators don’t have partners,” I said, though I saw his point. Compared with Tim, the time I’d spent with the other investigators was negligible. “Timmy,” I repeated with a half smile. “Did he really let you call him that?”
I thought I’d seen blue eyes before I met Carson, but his were next level. Shards of sky and slate twinkled and flashed at me when he smiled in response. “We used to be best friends, Shay. I helped him blow out the candles at his fifth birthday party. After the summer we learned to water-ski? When he sprained his wrist? I took notes for him in class for a month. I was there when Timmy set fire to a porta potty at a construction site in town and landed himself in jail.” Carson scratched his salt-and-pepper goatee and laughed. “I thought his dad was going to lose his mind.”
“When I told you we were going to be working together, you said you hadn’t talked in years. All that stuff you just described happened a long time ago. Be honest,” I said. “Do you have anything in common now other than being from the same town?”
“Sure we do,” Carson said. “We have you.” He tilted his head and studied me. “Okay, so we’re not exactly besties. But let’s look at this another way. You’ve got some random grandma on the guest list who you met in a kung fu class you stopped taking six months ago.”
“Karate,” I said, “and Sueanne’s in her fifties. She doesn’t have grandkids yet.”
“I stand corrected. Tim’s local, and we both know him. Inviting him makes sense. So what’s this really about?”
Carson was always analyzing, always two steps ahead. Watching him think reminded me of riding the subway. To pass the time and hone my investigative skills, I used to observe the other commuters and try to read their body language, their minds. I’ll never know if I was right, but it was a fun challenge. With Carson, there was no point even trying. When he looked at me, my fiancé could have been devising a new name for my condition, considering disclosing his darkest secret, deciding whether to have a second bagel, or all of the above. That fascinated me, and it never got old.
“Work is work. This is personal,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable blurring the lines.”
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Thirteen months.” As if I needed reminding.
“Thirteen months since it happened.” He used his thumb to remove a smear of cream cheese from his plate. Carson had mild OCD, which I thought was ironic given his profession—or maybe it made perfect sense. He couldn’t stand it when things were a mess. “Thirteen months since I found you, and every day I worry—every single day. And now, at last, you’re going to be my wife.” He glanced at my hand, at the ring, and paused. “It’s my job to protect you. It’s why you hired me.” He waited for me to laugh, but the joke was old and inaccurate. I never hired Carson; he was assigned to me. “I love you, you know that,” he said. “So sue me if I want to make damn sure the guy I used to cut school with, and who now spends ten hours a day by your side, isn’t another deranged piece of shit.”
My vision blurred and the room turned white. We had a rule: Don’t talk about Bram. We’d long since picked apart what happened between me and him. I’d rehashed my time in that cellar until my throat was raw. The day Carson finally suggested we shift the conversation from Bram to me in an effort to help me heal, I was ecstatic. And here he was comparing my colleague to the man who stabbed those women. Becca. Lanie. Jess.
I took a breath and willed my palpitations to diminish. Carson’s worried about me. That’s all. For a second I considered telling him he didn’t need to be, because I didn’t expect to be with Tim for long. I was sure McIntyre would still change her mind and drop me. When we first got to A-Bay I didn’t unpack my clothes for weeks; why bother, when I wouldn’t be staying? If I blew my chances at the only detective gig around, we’d have to relocate, no question. My apathy toward living out of boxes had driven Carson crazy. He wanted me settled in his hometown. The whole point was to leave New York—and what happened there—behind. Carson would feel better knowing I’d be his again, all his, very soon.
I could have put his mind at ease, but I didn’t. I decided against it, because what if—what if—I was wrong? What if I was a better investigator now than ever? What if Carson was mistaken about my going back to work?
What if I was healed?
We stared at each other across the table. Sometimes, when I got tired of revisiting the worst experience of my life and projected my frustration onto him, I told myself his eyes were too close together. The color made up for that. They were the clear, cool pool I always found relief in when I needed to loosen my muscles and mind.
Carson slid back his chair far enough for me to see his socks. He’d picked Bob Ross today, the painter’s face and iconic puffy hair encircled by the words Happy Clouds. The socks made me smile. “You’re gonna be late,” Carson said. “We’ll talk about it over dinner. Let’s just do takeout. I’ll pick up some Thai food.”
“Not Thai,” I said. “Anything but that.”
“Fish, then,” he said as he kissed the crown of my head and strode off to the bathroom down the hall. The place where his lips met my scalp felt as bright and hot as a flame.
* * *
—
Lunch on Tern Island was more refined than my breakfast with Carson by a mile, but there was just as much tension in the air, and just as much unrest. Aside from Camilla, who was still trying her best to be a perfect hostess, everyone stared unsmiling at their plates.
Tim and I planned to eat in shifts—one of us would supervise the Sinclairs while the other wolfed down only the most filling components of Norton’s meal. Camilla had other ideas. She insisted we all sit together in the dining room while the rain streamed down the windowpanes. Naturally, she took the head of the table. Flynn sat at the opposite end. Tim and I were elbow to elbow with our fellow interlopers, Abella and Ned, but Tim did most of the talking, beaming at the others while praising the food. One thing about Tim is he doesn’t like awkward silence. If there’s a chance to talk, he’s going to take it.
As for me, I tried to be invisible. It was my first opportunity to study our witnesses’ faces without looking like a creep, and I intended to make the most of it. Maybe it was because I had Carson on the brain, but I found my eyes lingering on Miles. Looks-wise he reminded me of my fiancé—cool glasses, dark hair with a smattering of gray. If I saw Miles Byrd on the streets of New York, I’d definitely turn my head his way. As I ate, he looked up from his soup and met my gaze with a shy smile.
What was this guy’s relationship with his brother-in-law? Men as good-looking as Miles and Jasper often stuck together. From my place on the periphery I’ve observed that beautiful people travel in packs. Then again, Jasper was an eligible bachelor while Miles was married, a man in his forties with a daughter to think of. He didn’t appear to be devastated by the day’s events. He didn’t look afraid that a dangerous criminal might be lurking on the island either.
Next to Miles, Flynn reminded me of a circus bear. He ate noisily and didn’t bother to wipe the soup from his mustache, but his facial hair and clothing were lavish enough that I suspected he, like Ned,
enjoyed standing out. When Flynn and I made eye contact, he radiated anger. I noticed he wasn’t trying to hide the bruises on his hand anymore. Nobody else at the table gave his swollen knuckles a second glance.
I set down my spoon to wipe my own mouth, and was surprised to see it quiver in the bowl. Glancing to my left, I saw Abella’s eyebrows knotted in concentration as she tried to lift a spoonful of broth to her lips. On the other side of her, Ned whispered something in her ear and took her hand under the table.
If Abella had lied to me, she was a convincing actress. While her boyfriend’s family slurped chicken, fennel, and farro soup all around her, the girl’s knees shook so violently I thought she might fall off her chair.
TWELVE
There was no question as to what Tim and I would do when Norton cleared the table. Tim immediately escorted the family back to the parlor, where he would tackle the dual challenge of distracting an increasingly impatient lot and counting the stylized flowers on the Persian rug. Buoyed by a full belly—the Sinclairs’ caretaker was an excellent cook—I retraced Abella’s footsteps to the kitchen, out the mudroom door, and across the yard.
The October air was raw and cold and the rain pummeled me from all sides. If I didn’t have a slicker of my own, I’d have been soaked through in seconds. High above me the treetops thrashed like barbed whips and I heard the telltale crack of a splitting branch. I picked up the pace, careful on the dicey rocks, and hoped a falling tree wasn’t about to cleave me in half.
As I trudged through the muck with boots squelching and mud splattering the backs of my knees, I thought about Jasper. I imagined him beyond the island’s stone wall, bleeding and battered by ice-cold waves. I saw him lying pale and still among tall trees as rain pooled in his unseeing eyes. In my mind, Jasper was no longer breathing. Thinking of him like that kept me going. No way would I get lazy or careless if I invited that image to haunt me today.
My destination was the shed, but as soon as I got far enough from the house to see all three stories, I pivoted and planted my feet. Counting windows, I figured out which ones were Jasper’s. I hadn’t been wrong about his little Juliet balcony. Not only was there no staircase, ladder, or tree nearby, but the first-floor roof wasn’t close enough to give someone a leg up either. Whatever his condition when he left his bedroom, Jasper did it through a door.
I walked on, around the perimeter of the house over squishy moss and blue rocks that stuck up like fangs. There were no other access points to the second floor, no signs of forced entry to the cellar door, which was almost invisible, flush with the ground.
Back where I started, I returned my attention to the shed. Earlier, when I’d gone looking for Jasper, I’d taken a peek inside. The building looked just the same now. Strapped to its exterior wall on the west side was a thirty-two-foot aluminum ladder, but it looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years. I pushed up the latch, and the door to the small building swung open without a sound.
The inside of the shed was as Abella described it, sawhorse and all. Rakes and hoes and coils of rope hung from hooks on the walls. She’d been right about the woodpile, too. Firewood was stacked floor to ceiling in the corner and there was a general odor of sawdust and wet bark. Crouching, I examined the floor and found a cluster of footprints in the dust. They could have belonged to Norton, Bebe, Ned, Jasper, or anyone.
I shrugged deeper into my coat and dialed McIntyre’s number. It wasn’t much warmer in the shed than outside, but it was dry, and private. Given the conversation I was about to get roped into, I needed that.
When I accepted this job, it was partly because of Maureen McIntyre. A twenty-eight-year veteran of the state police, a former senior investigator with the BCI in Alexandria Bay, the first-ever elected female sheriff in the history of New York State . . . the woman was a legend. I’d met her once before, years earlier. Shortly after she was first elected, she visited NYPD headquarters and the chief of the Community Affairs Bureau gave her a tour. I made sure to be there that day. A lot of female officers did. It wasn’t long ago McIntyre was one of just ten women in her State Police Academy class. We ladies like to support our own.
McIntyre’s law enforcement career was impressive on every level, but what she was doing now to clean up Jefferson County was more remarkable still. Watertown, where she was stationed, was embroiled in controversy—four former town officials had just been indicted on charges of misconduct and corruption. Half the town was convinced the accusations against the longtime officials were false, while the others felt so betrayed they wanted them convicted on the spot. McIntyre had her hands full. Couple that with weeks of flooding that led to multiple drownings, damage to public facilities and roads, and countless other hazards, and I wasn’t surprised it took her a few rings to answer my call.
“Tough morning?” I asked, checking my watch. With a start I realized it was coming up on 3:00 p.m.
“Neither snow nor rain nor a goddamn nor’easter,” McIntyre said. “How’s by you? Your first big case on the river and it sounds like a doozy. Everything going okay?”
I’d hoped against all hope there would be no trepidation in her tone, and to my relief she sounded as collected as ever. “Still no sign of our missing person,” I said. “The interviews are taking some time. Seems like some of our witnesses have reason to want Jasper Sinclair gone.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. We’ll figure it out, though.”
“I don’t doubt you will. Gotta say, this is an unusual situation for us.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You should try to get this thing resolved fast.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for acknowledging this is a serious case and not a goddamn game of Clue. Don’t worry, Mac, I’m all over it.”
“Because it can’t be good for you to be out there. Fact, it might be pretty bad.”
Ugh. In all of Jefferson County, McIntyre was the only person besides Carson who knew what happened in New York. It isn’t like I could hide the details from her. They were all right there in my file. No matter how much physical distance I put between myself and the city, no matter how much time has passed since those days that changed my life, I’ll never be able to keep it entirely to myself.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled onto my story—funny to call it a story, as if it’s something comforting to share at bedtime—online. A lawyer working on behalf of my former department got the press to omit my name from all public reports, but even seeing the words undisclosed female officer felt like an invasion. When I mentioned the old article to Carson, he made me read it to him out loud, as if I were a kid and he were the teacher checking I got the intonation right. He said I had to own it, which I thought was odd advice considering we just ran away.
Unless someone knew what to look for, they couldn’t easily connect me with the case. I don’t know why I chose to tell McIntyre the extra bits that weren’t in my file, or even in news stories like that one. That was stuff no one could get anywhere else, the behind-the-scenes footage hardest of all to share. I guess I felt a kinship with her. Maureen McIntyre’s a sheriff, but I had also come to consider her a friend.
Shivering in that shed, I wondered if I shouldn’t have been so quick to open up. “It’s not a problem,” I said firmly, my ears uncomfortably hot. “This isn’t the same thing. Not even close.”
“I know it’s not. But it is a missing persons case, and it’s your first since you started working again. I heard there’s blood on the scene. Cause of injury?”
“We think he was stabbed.” At least I do.
“Stabbed.” Coming from her, the word oozed meaning. “With the troopers held up and this weather”—as if on cue, a sheet of rain assaulted the shed window—“the reality is you’re going to be there on your own for a while. So I’m wondering if it might make sense to have a private chat with Tim.”
If it was me, well . . . I would tell him. That’s wha
t McIntyre meant, and it disappointed me. After I opened up and asked her to keep my truth to herself, she’d made this same recommendation. She respected my decision, meaning she hadn’t gone to Tim herself, but she didn’t agree with it—and so I hadn’t hurried to unpack my boxes in A-Bay. My abilities . . . those McIntyre trusted. It was my judgment she questioned. And in my line of work, judgment counts for a lot.
It’s not that I didn’t understand where she was coming from. Tim was the closest thing to a partner I had out here. In order to work together effectively, we needed to be in sync. Offset each other’s weaknesses and play off each other’s strengths. Many days after I started coming to the station and sitting at the desk next to Tim’s, I visualized what it would be like to bring him some sludgy, too-hot office coffee and ask for a few minutes of his time. In my mind, the scenario always ended with him giving me a sorry look that mutated into bottomless concern. If by some miracle he heard my story and didn’t immediately start questioning my mental state, he would surely see me as a charity case. Assume I was hired because of some obscure office policy that required damaged officers be given a chance to prove they’re healed. I’d always be broken to Tim.
As an experiment, I reversed the situation in my head. What would I do if my new colleague and informal adviser recounted a story like mine right after we met? The fact is, I wouldn’t trust him. And I deserve to be trusted, don’t I? There’s more to me than those dark days spent in the East Village, clawing at a cellar door until my fingernails bled. Screaming under the city in the land of rats and rust, and carving objects out of the kind of dark so full and rich it has texture. What happened with Bram doesn’t define me. It was Carson who taught me that, though I can’t say I was a quick study.
Telling Mac and telling Tim were two very different things. Tim wasn’t a self-imposed mentor like McIntyre, but a peer I’d have to see every day. He was someone Carson knew—hell, Carson wanted him at our wedding. If I allowed that to happen, Tim would meet my parents and see the everlasting shame and sadness in their eyes. There was no way he’d understand.
