by Nora Roberts
“Be careful.” Atherton's expression never changed, but Bob paled again. “Women are whores,” he said quietly. “It's their way. Now I'll remind you that there's no turning back from the path you've chosen. You're marked. Others have tried to turn away and have paid the price.”
“I don't want any trouble,” Bob mumbled.
“Of course not. Nor will we have any but what we make ourselves. The boy will watch Clare and watch her well. Others are watching Lisa MacDonald. And you.” He smiled again. “I have two assignments for you. First is to tell those who are discontent that there is only one high priest. Second is to take a particular statue from the Kimball garage and deliver it to our place in the woods.”
“You want me to steal that metal thing right from under Clare's nose?”
“Be innovative.” Atherton patted Bob's hand. “I know I can depend on your loyalty.” And your fear.
Cam put in yet another call to Florida. With a lot of time and perseverance, he'd been able to trace the former sheriff from Fort Lauderdale to Naples, and from Naples to Arcadia, Arcadia to Miami, and from there to a little town near Lake Okeechobee. Parker had moved from one town to the next within a period of six months. To Cam, it looked more like running.
But from what?
“Sheriff Arnette.”
“Sheriff Arnette, this is Sheriff Rafferty, Emmitsboro, Maryland.”
“Maryland, huh? How's the weather?”
Cam glanced out the window. “Looks like rain coming in.”
“Eighty-five and sunny,” Arnette put in smugly. “So what can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“I'm trying to track down the man who used to hold my job here. Name's Parker. Garrett Parker. He and his wife, Beatrice, moved into your territory about a year ago.”
“I recollect the Parkers,” Arnette said. “They rented a place by the lake. Bought themselves an RV. Said they were going to do some traveling.”
Cam rubbed an ache at the back of his neck. “When did they leave?”
“Ain't. Both of'em buried in Cypress Knolls the last ten months.”
“They're dead? Both of them?”
“House burned to the ground. Didn't have no smoke detectors. They was both in bed.”
“What was the cause of the fire?”
“Smoking in bed,” he said. “House was all wood. Went up like a tinderbox. You say he was sheriff there before you?”
“That's right.”
“Funny. He told everybody he was a retired insurance man and they were from Atlanta. You got any idea why he'd do that?”
“Maybe. I'd like to see a copy of the police reports, Sheriff.”
“I could do that—if you tell me what you've got cooking.”
“There's a chance that the Parkers′ deaths might be connected to a murder I've got here.”
“That so?” Arnette paused and considered. “Maybe I'll have to have another look-see myself.”
“Did they have any visitors?”
“Not a one. Kept to themselves. Seemed to me that the wife wanted to put down stakes and Parker couldn't wait to pull them up. Guess he didn't pull them up in time.”
“No, I guess he didn't.”
Fifteen minutes later, Cam found Bud ticketing a Buick in the red zone in front of the library. “Don't know why Miz Atherton keeps parking here,” he began. “Guess she'll come and strip a few layers off my hide.”
“The mayor'll pay the fine. Bud, I need to talk to Sarah. I'd like you to come along.”
“Sure.” He pocketed the citation book. “She in some kind of trouble?”
“I don't know. Let's walk it.”
Bud slicked a hand over his cowlick. “Sheriff, I don't like to … I just wanted to say that Sarah's got some problems right now. She and my mom have been fighting a lot lately.”
“I'm sorry, Bud, I just need to ask her some questions.”
“If she's done something …” He thought about the men going up the back stairs into her room. “She might listen to me. I could try to get her to straighten up.”
“We're just going to talk to her.” They skirted the park, where Mitzi Hawbaker had her youngest on the swing and Mr. Finch walked his Yorkies. “The Ladies Club put in some real nice flowers this year.”
Bud looked down at the petunias. He knew Cam was trying to make an uncomfortable situation easier. But it wasn't working. “Sarah's just mixed up. She never got anything she wanted. Guys were always after her, and they weren't much good.” He looked at Cam, looked away, and cleared his throat.
“It was a long time ago, Bud. And I wasn't much good.”
They got to Clyde's and walked around the back.
“Her car's not here.”
“I can see that,” Cam murmured. “We'll see what time her shift starts.” Cam banged on the rear door of the bar.
“Goddamn it, we're closed. Ain't opening till five.”
“It's Rafferty”
“I don't care if it's Christ Almighty wanting a Budweiser, we're closed.”
“I don't want a drink, Clyde. I'm looking for Sarah.”
“You and half the men in town.” Clyde pushed open the door and scowled. From his tiny boxlike office came the theme music for a long-running soap opera. “Can't a man sit for five minutes in peace?”
“What time will Sarah be in tonight?”
“That worthless—” He caught himself because he had affection for Bud. “Supposed to be in at four-thirty Just like she was supposed to be in at four-thirty yesterday and the day before. She ain't deigned to show up this week.”
“She hasn't come in to work?”
“No, she hasn't come in to work. Didn't I just say? She hasn't shown her butt around here since Saturday night.” He stuck out a finger at Bud. “You see her, you tell her she's fired. I got the Jenkins girl working her shift now.”
“Has she been upstairs?” Cam asked.
“How the hell do I know? I'm one of the few men in town that don't climb those steps.” He looked away, sorry to see Bud's face. But, damn it, they'd interrupted his favorite show.
“Do you mind if we look around upstairs?”
“Nothing to me. You're the law, and he's her brother.”
“How about a key, Clyde?”
“Jesus H. Christ.” He swung away and rattled through a drawer. “You tell her if she don't come up with this month's rent by the end of the week, she's out. I ain't running no halfway house.” He thrust the key into Cam's hand and slammed the door.
“That's why I love him,” Cam said. “For his cheery smile and sparkling personality.”
“It's not like Sarah to miss work,” Bud said as they climbed the stairs. “She's been wanting to save up and move to the city.”
“She's been fighting with your mother,” Cam pointed out. “Maybe she decided to take a few days to cool off.” He knocked first, waited, then slipped the key into the lock.
The single room was almost empty. The rug was in place, a braided oval, ragged around the edges. The pull-out bed was unmade, the red polyester satin sheets rumpled. There was a lamp, a dresser with a missing drawer, and a rickety vanity. Dust had settled, and Cam could see the lighter spots where bottles and jars had sat on the vanity top. He opened the closet and found it empty.
“Looks like she cleared out.”
“She wouldn't just leave. I know she's been pissed at Mom, but she'd've told me.”
Cam opened a drawer. “Her clothes are gone.”
“Yeah, but …” Bud rubbed his hands over his hair. “She wouldn't just leave, Cam. Not without letting me know.”
“Okay, we'll check things out. Why don't you take the bathroom?”
Cam opened the rest of the drawers, took them out, looked behind and beneath. He tried not to think of Sarah as a person, not to remember her the way she had been all those years ago. Or the way she had looked the last time he'd seen her. Odds were she'd gotten fed up and taken off. When she ran out of money, she'd be back.
But as he looked
through the empty drawers of the vanity, he kept remembering the phone call on Sunday night.
They're killing her.
Taped to the back of the bottom vanity drawer, he found a wad of bills folded into a Baggie. The sickness in his stomach increased as he counted them out.
“She left half a bottle of face cream and some—” Bud paused in the bathroom doorway. “What's that?”
“I found it taped to the drawer. Bud, there's four hundred and thirty-seven dollars here.”
“Four hundred?” Wide and helpless, Bud's eyes focused on the bills. “She's been saving. Saving so she could move. Cam, she'd never have gone away without that money.” His gaze lifted to Cam's even as he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “Oh, Christ. What are we going to do?”
“We're going to call the State boys and put out an APB. And we're going to talk to your mother.” He slipped the plastic bag of money into his pocket. “Bud, did Sarah have something going with Parker before he left town?”
“Parker?” Bud looked up blankly, then flushed. “I guess maybe she did. Jesus, Cam, you can't think she went down to Florida to be with Parker. She used to make fun of him. It wasn't like she had a thing for him. It was just that he … She was saving,” he murmured.
“Did she ever tell you anything about him? Like that he belonged to a club?”
“A club? You mean like the Moose or something?”
“Or something.”
“He used to hang out at the Legion. You know that. I'm telling you, she wouldn't have gone to Parker. She could barely stand him. She wouldn't have left here, left her money and her family and gone to Parker.”
“No, I know that.” He put a hand on Bud's shoulder. “Bud, who else did she sleep with?”
“Jesus, Cam.”
“I'm sorry. We have to start somewhere. Was there anyone who gave her a hard time, kept after her?”
“Davey Reeder kept asking her to marry him. She laughed about that. Oscar Roody used to pretend a lot, but he never came up here that I know. Sarah said he was scared of his wife. Lots of others, I guess. She said that most of the upstanding citizens of Emmitsboro and the tri-state area had been upstanding in here. She talks like that, but it doesn't mean anything.”
“Okay. Why don't we go make those calls?”
“Cam, you think something's happened to her? Something bad?”
Sometimes a lie was best. “I think she probably got riled and headed out. Sarah always acts first and thinks later.”
“Yeah.” Because he had nothing else, Bud clung to that. “She'll come back when she's cooled off and sweet-talk Clyde into giving her her job back.”
But when they left the tiny room behind, neither of them believed it.
Joleen Butts sat at her kitchen table busily making lists. It was the first time in weeks she'd taken an afternoon off. But then, midweek afternoons were slow, and she figured Will could spare her.
It wasn't every day your son graduated from high school.
She was concerned by the fact that Ernie showed no interest in college. But she tried not to make too much of it. After all, she hadn't gone to college either, and things had turned out just fine. Will had pictured Ernie with an MBA and was bitterly disappointed. But then, he'd never really gotten over the fact that Ernie refused to work in the pizza parlor after school.
Both she and Will had built themselves up for that fall, she decided. They'd worked so hard trying to make a success out of the place so that they could bring Ernie into a thriving business. And he preferred to pump gas.
Well, the boy was nearly eighteen. By his age, she'd certainly dished out plenty of disappointment to her parents. She just wished … Joleen set her pen aside. She just wished her son would smile more.
She heard him come in the front and brightened instantly. It had been so long since they had sat and talked in the kitchen. Like the old days, when he'd come home from school and they'd had cookies and worked on long division together.
“Ernie.” She heard him hesitate on the stairs. The boy spends too much time in his room, she thought. Too much time alone. “Ernie, I'm in the kitchen. Come on back.”
He walked through the doorway, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. She thought he looked a little pale but remembered he'd been sick on Monday. Just a touch of graduation nerves, she thought, and smiled at him.
“What are you doing here?”
It was like an accusation, but she made her lips curve. “I took a few hours off. I can never remember your schedule. Aren't you working today?”
“Not till five.”
“Good, then we'll have a little time.” She rose and took the head off the fat, white-hatted ceramic chef that served as a cookie jar. “I picked up some chocolate chip.”
“I'm not hungry.”
“You haven't been eating well for a couple of days. Are you still sick?” She started to put a hand to his forehead, but he jerked back.
“I don't want any cookies, all right?”
“Sure.” She felt she was looking at a stranger whose eyes were too dark, skin too pale. His hands kept sliding in and out of his pockets. “Did you have a good day at school?”
“We're not doing anything but marking time.”
“Well…” She felt her smile falter and bolstered it up. “I know how that is. The last week before graduation is like the last week before your parole comes up. I pressed your gown.”
“Great. I got things to do.”
“I wanted to talk to you.” She fumbled for her lists. “About the get-together.”
“What get-together?”
“You know, we discussed it. The Sunday after graduation. Grandma and Pop are coming down, and Aunt Marcie. Nana and Frank, too, from Cleveland. I don't know where everyone's going to sleep, but—”
“Why do they have to come?”
“Why, for you. I know you only got two tickets for the actual graduation because the school's so small, but that doesn't mean we can't all get together and have a party.”
“I told you I didn't want one.”
“No, you said you didn't care.” She set down the list again and struggled with her temper.
“Well, I do care, and I don't want a party. I don't want to see any of those people. I don't want to see anyone at all.”
“I'm afraid you're going to have to.” She heard her own voice, flat, cold, uncompromising and realized it sounded just like her own mother's. Full circle, she thought, wearily. “The plans are already made, Ernie. Your father's mother and stepfather will be here Saturday night, along with some of your cousins. Everyone else will get here Sunday morning.” She held up a hand, warding off his complaints like a traffic cop holding back cars. Another of her mother's habits, she realized. “Now, you might not want to see them, but they all want to see you. They're proud of you, and they want to be a part of this step in your life.”
“I'm getting out of school. What's the big fucking deal?”
“Don't you speak to me like that.” She stepped toward him. He was taller by inches, but she had the power of motherhood on her side. “I don't care whether you're seventeen or a hundred and seven, don't you ever speak to me like that.”
“I don't want a bunch of stupid relatives around.” His voice began to hitch, and he panicked because he couldn't stop it. “I don't want a party. I'm the one who's graduating, aren't I? Don't I have a choice?”
Her heart went out to him. She remembered what it was like to be trapped in parental borders. She hadn't understood it either. “I'm sorry, but I guess you don't. It's only a couple of days out of your life, Ernie.”