Something Borrowed, Something Blue and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  Me and names. I sucked.

  My sock feet slipped on the polished wooden floors, the warm gold mixed with deep red and near chocolate of the multi-toned hardwood, reflective enough it picked up the sunlight streaming in the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the lake. The big open-concept kitchen welcomed me, though Malcolm was gently leading his love down the two wide, deep steps into the living room, settling her on the plush cream sofa and gesturing then for me to join them.

  I did, my feet deep in the thick fur rug, my butt just hitting the seat next to Siobhan when the front door slammed open and Dad barreled through.

  Malcolm didn’t have to wave off his bully, the suit stepping back and letting my father in. So they had an arrangement of their own, did they? Good to know. Regardless, Dad took one look at me and inhaled, likely to ream me a good one for going off on my own.

  And froze as his gaze fell on Siobhan.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty One

  She giggled, like a girl, eyes sparkling before she met my gaze with hers. “Adorable when they are silent, aren’t they, these men in our lives?” Her slow, even wink, paired with that lovely lilting Irish? Okay, I might have been overtired, but even I grinned and I wasn’t having the best week.

  Dad collected himself pretty quickly. “You were to stay at the clinic,” he growled. “Until someone came for you. You’re not to be alone, Fee.”

  That got Malcolm’s attention, Siobhan’s face creasing into a frown.

  “Why, John, what’s going on?” She looked back and forth between me and Dad. “What’s happened?”

  Dad filled them both in while I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, wishing he hadn’t. Because I recognized the look on Malcolm’s face. Kind of a mirror to the one that Dad wore. Now that I knew the Irish crime boss was my godfather—and the woman next to me my godmother—I figured I was doubling up on the overprotectiveness that typically just came from John and Lucy Fleming at times like these.

  Just what I wanted in my life right now. Another set of parents. And ones that didn’t exactly think the laws of the civilized world applied to them, either.

  Malcolm was on his feet, gesturing for his boy, before Dad was done. “Find Robert Carlisle,” he snarled, his own Irish accent thicker than ever, “and bring him to me.”

  Dad cut that off immediately. “We have no proof yet,” he said.

  “I don’t need proof, John,” Malcolm shot back.

  “My love.” Siobhan’s tone was light and soft but it carried weight. She patted my hand before speaking again. “We’ll deal with this shortly. When we get John’s proof. And, if no proof is to be found, well.” She smiled at me, so adorable and yet so freaking deadly I shivered. “We’ll still deal with it.” She kissed my cheek. “Won’t we, my darling Fiona?”

  Oh my god. I’d been thinking about her as a lovely older woman who suffered a stroke, a grieving mother, an innocent in all this. But that was about as far from the truth as anything, wasn’t it? Siobhan Doyle was no naïve girl on the outside of the mob’s business.

  She was one of them.

  Wow. Was I happy to have her on my side.

  “For now, boys, please.” Siobhan gestured for them to join us and, with some reluctance though obeying her anyway, they did. “I have something to tell you both, a secret I’ve shared only with my darling Fiona. It’s time I told you, too.” She breathed deeply, one shaking hand pressing to her forehead. Malcolm made an instant sound of concern and leaned toward her but she shook her head then, and instead sank deeper into the sofa, pulling me back with her, holding my hand firmly in her lap. “Now, don’t be like that, Malcom Murray. I’m as fit as I’ll ever be from here on in. Just a headache. They come and go, from time to time.” She squeezed my hand, though she let go the pressure quickly. “I’m not as hale as I used to be,” she confessed. “Though but by the grace of God, my mind has survived. For that, I will be eternally grateful.”

  Right, Irish. Roman Catholic. I wasn’t going to argue her religion, not so sure God had anything to do with her recovery. She seemed pretty determined to me. Likely it was her, all her. And besides, what had God done to get me married, right?

  Grumble, mumble. Mysterious ways, my ass.

  Siobhan proceeded to tell the two men in her life who shared her grief her belief my namesake was still alive. The look on their faces, the anger that crossed their expressions, mirror images of one another. And, in that moment, as I looked back and forth between them, I saw their kinship, how alike they really were and that, despite Malcolm’s background, Dad’s, in a different life they would have been brothers and best friends.

  More tragedy.

  “Siobhan.” Malcolm’s anger faded into shocked disbelief and then back to anger again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What, that our daughter might have been alive and instead of coming home ran off somewhere, possibly with someone else’s husband?” She snorted. “You would have written Fiona off after sending a pack of your bullies to punish her and we both know it.”

  Guilt flared on his face. “I wouldn’t,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced enough in his own answer to be saying so.

  “You would.” She jabbed a finger at him. “I needed you to find her, not blame her. And you.” She spun on Dad with that same finger. “You and he were peas in a pod. What you knew, he would have known. And so, I kept the secret, hoping you would work together, find our daughter, bring her home to me.”

  Except they hadn’t.

  She seemed to know where my mind went.

  “And then time went on,” she said, her own regret burning in her voice, “and too much had passed for me to confess so I kept my peace and prayed, hoped, dreamed she might find her way back instead.”

  Again, except.

  “My boys,” Siobhan released me, reaching out one hand across me to Dad, the other to Malcolm. Both men reacted instantly, taking her slim fingers in theirs, with the kind of tenderness that told me so much and left me burning with the need to rewind time and know them in the days after Fiona disappeared. Because I was getting a glimpse of the past, sitting there with their hearts bared to each other as if not one second had ticked by. And it was clear, so clear to me, that Siobhan Doyle, not Malcolm or Dad, ran this particular show.

  Made me wonder what Mom thought of her. And if they were friends, too.

  Siobhan’s voice was soft but firm when she spoke. “I want you to let this go.” She met Dad’s eyes. Then Malcolm’s. “Both of you.” They denied it instantly, head shakes and lips parting but she was firm. So firm. I instantly admired and loved and feared her all at once. “Yes,” she said. “Too many years have we let this come between us. And neglected this petal.” She dropped their hands to turn to me with a smile, cupping my face in her grip, kissing me ever so gently. “I hear you’re getting married. May I attend your wedding, goddaughter?”

  I thought I was done crying.

  Nope.

  Siobhan blinked back her own tears before smiling at Dad and Malcolm. “All those years ago, I ordered you to find her. Find our Fiona. And, in doing so, Malcolm, my love,” she wiped at the wetness on her cheek, “I lost you.”

  He was weeping openly himself, silently, while Dad sagged back into the chair he occupied, still and quiet.

  Siobhan wasn’t done.

  “I lost so much that day,” she told me then. “My daughter. My true love. I made friends,” she gestured at Dad, “and gained a goddaughter. But in my unwillingness to release Fiona, the grief of her disappearance, I wouldn’t allow myself to accept the truth. That life goes on and she made her choice, my girl did.” She sighed then, patted my hand. “The stroke, you see. Laid me low. But showed me, clear as a bell, what I needed to do as soon as I was able.” She beamed a smile at Malcolm who smiled back, sorrow still there but love for her as strong as ever, I could only imagine. “Oh, pet,” she whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  A low cry and an embrace later and it was
pretty obvious Malcolm had no trouble whatsoever with that request.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Two

  I could tell Dad was angry on the drive back, and not just that irritated frustration he got sometimes when things didn’t pan out the way he wanted. His total silence, paired with how his right hand shook just a little when he took it off the steering wheel of his pickup for a moment as he adjusted the heat in the cab, mas more than enough indication.

  I’d only ever seen him this level of furious once in my life. The night before I left Reading for what I thought was forever.

  Instead of prodding him and making things worse, I settled back, staring out the passenger’s window, watching the mountains on the other side of Cutter Lake, remembering not just the couple we’d just left, but my pause at the door, as I walked out behind Dad’s storming retreat.

  “I don’t know your name.” I’d looked up into his eyes, that man I’d always called a bully and, in that moment, he became a person to me once and for all.

  “Darius,” he said, in that soft tenor of his, smiling almost shyly. “Thanks for asking, Miss Fleming.”

  His was one name I would never, ever forget.

  We were almost to town when I received a text from Vivian. My office, now.

  “I have to go to town hall,” I said to Dad.

  He didn’t respond, instead dropping me at the front door before peeling off again. Was he forgetting in his anger he’d just left me alone when he’d been furious with me about doing so in the first place? I sighed, tired and almost at the limit of my endurance, resigned to the fact we’d lost, though it pained me and slowed my feet to a weary drag all the way to Vivian’s office.

  Hugh looked appropriately hangdog when he let me in, closing the door behind me. But when I squared myself to have Vivian take my badge away, hand rising to my belt under my half-open coat to relinquish it, I was shocked instead by the sudden flurry of motion and her arms thrown around me.

  Vivian shivered as she hugged me, breathing harsh, body tense and wound so tight I was sure she’d shatter if the wrong kind of pressure was applied. I hugged her back, dazed by the act of vulnerability and not sure what to do.

  When she finally pulled away, I saw the terror on her face and reacted in typical Fleming fashion, guiding her to one of the plush chairs that lined the wall of her office, sitting next to her, holding her hand (thanks, Mom) while I pulled out the very last of my willpower and reserves and nodded (you too, Dad). “It’s going to be okay.”

  She shook her head, her perfectly styled hair slipping free of the careful roll she’d created, her eyes faintly red as if she’d been crying. “It’s not, Fee,” she whispered, hoarse, crackling. “I’m in over my head and I have no idea what I’m going to do.” She clutched at me. “Having you as sheriff was going to be my support, my backup. But if Geoffrey gets his way…” she cleared her throat but didn’t seem to recover even a little bit as she sagged into the velvet seat. “I thought I was smart enough, Fee, clever. That I could convince her I was one of them, make my way into the inner circle. Uncover what I needed to find.” She bit her lower lip, devoid of her trademark lipstick, slim body no longer appearing like an ice sculpture, but weak and powerless. “I was wrong, so wrong and now everything is falling apart and I still don’t have the proof I need.”

  “Proof of what, Vivian?” I held onto her hand as if it were the only thing keeping her with me and she returned the clutch with the same desperation. “Please, you have to trust me at last. I’m here to help you. We’re on the same side.”

  Her huge, icy eyes blinked quickly several times before she lurched toward me and her free hand caught the back of my neck. She pulled me in to her and whispered directly in my ear, as though what? Fearing her office was bugged?

  “I’ve been trying to find proof that Marie Patterson murdered my father.”

  I jerked away with a hiss, but she wasn’t done, tugging me back toward her again.

  “And I’m positive she had him killed because of what happened to Victor.”

  She was so alone. I saw it, now. The strong and courageous woman she’d been all along, carrying this burden in her heart, keeping everyone else out, including those who could have helped her, instead choosing to pursue the woman she believed was tied to the deaths of her brother and father.

  All the old angst and dislike and judgment? Died a quick, fiery death in the face of her misery and understanding she’d miscalculated all along.

  Or had she? “How do you know?” I asked that, innocuous enough, out loud.

  Vivian swallowed again, leaned in, her breath tickling my ear. “I barely remember the day Victor died.” She hesitated before clenching my hand tighter and rushing on. “Robert said you let him drown.” That last word was a faint wail even at a whisper. “I hated you, Fee. I believed him and I spent my whole young life hating my only real friend.”

  Could she twist the knife of guilt and regret in any deeper? No, this wasn’t on her. It was on my cousin, and, if Vivian was right, on Marie Patterson.

  “I don’t remember everything yet,” I said. “But I do know I did everything I could.” I was positive of that, guilt trying to convince me otherwise. And failing.

  She flinched, nodded. “I know that now,” she said. “And yet, I believed because I wanted to blame someone and you were convenient. And then Daddy died.” She inhaled slowly, while I felt her begin to pull herself together. So resilient, the Queen of Wheat.

  No. I’d never call her that ever again. My friend.

  “I’d always suspected something wasn’t right,” she went on. “Daddy and Marie had a falling out shortly after Victor’s death. She’d gone into seclusion and my father went to see her.” She met my eyes then. “He drowned on their dock, that day.”

  Wait, what? “The Patterson’s private dock?” What were we even doing there?

  She nodded. “Before you ask, I don’t recall why we were there. Maybe with Daddy?” Vivian sat back then, spoke openly, clearly giving up on any attempt to hide from whoever might be listening. Quitting or on purpose? I had to trust she knew what she was doing.

  “Vivian, why Victor?” That was the lynchpin of all of this, wasn’t it? “He was just a little boy.” What could he possibly have done to warrant being murdered? Or was it an accident and did Robert just freeze and panic and we were both making something of nothing?

  But Vivian’s face tightened like she was certain and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. “Victor told me he had a secret,” she said. “About Marie. But he didn’t get to tell me. He loved keeping secrets.” She shook her head. “Used to tease me with them, though he always told me eventually.” She sniffed, tears trickling down her pale cheeks. “I used to hate him for it. That day, before we went to the lake, I told him I hated him.” She broke down for real then, hands leaving mine, covering her face as she sobbed. I hugged her and rocked her a bit while she emptied out her guilt.

  “He knew you loved him,” I said.

  She didn’t respond to that, taking a firm and visible hold on her grief as she met my eyes. “Aunt Hettie had something,” she said. “Papers from Daddy. I went looking for them and couldn’t find them.”

  Wait, that rang a bell. And then I remembered. “Sadie Hatch.” Vivian had asked about paperwork her aunt had hidden away while the old soothsayer had created, instead, a likeness of Victor to torment her with the help of her clever computer whiz grandson, Denver.

  Vivian shrugged. “I was desperate,” she said. “I knew it would never work. But I had to try. And, honestly? Sadie might have been trying to bilk me out of money, but when she brought up Victor it helped me put pieces together I hadn’t considered.”

  “That your brother’s death was tied to your father’s,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “I finally uncovered a letter from Daddy to his sister, and one to me. Telling me that he suspected Marie had killed Victor and that he was trying to figure out why. But he died in the accident befor
e he could even tell me he’d left me a letter.” She wept again. “I was in Paris with Grace. I had no idea anything was wrong until Mother called to tell me Daddy was dead.” Vivian seemed drained now, shrinking in on herself, as if the pink suit she wore were only a shell holding her together at the seams.

  She rose on wobbling heels, went to her desk, returned with a few sheets of paper she handed me.

  I took them, standing to join her, jaw tight and my determination returned even if she was in the position I’d been in when I got here, last legs be damned.

  “Get your coat, Ms. Mayor,” I said. “We’re going on a field trip.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Three

  If Vivian expected, about ten minutes later, to be seated on Mom and Dad’s sofa, sipping a hot cuppa my mother pressed into her hands, listening as I outlined to the gathering (funny how easy it was to assemble my posse and yet so heartening, at the same time) exactly what I remembered about the day Victor French died.

  I relived it in an under layer of memory that revealed further truths as I spoke, flashing to the water, so cold, Victor sinking. And Victor, eyes panicked but determined, pushing Vivian into my arms, his pale gaze locked on mine, begging me to save her.

  “I was going to go back in for him, too.” I was. That was the seat of the guilt. That he’d made me choose, forced me to pick her over him. I knew I was crying and did nothing about it, grateful my fiancé didn’t leap to my aid, that even Daisy with her penchant for tissues at times like this let me be. It all came rushing over me like the waves had that day, in a final gush of memory I couldn’t control. “But by the time I had Vivian on the dock, Victor was under the water and there was nothing I could do.” I had barely been able to stand, frozen by the chill. What time of year had it been? I didn’t remember anything beyond the gray sky, the icy, steel-colored waves, the bare trees. “Robert stood by and did nothing, watched Victor drown.” That was the worst of all, really, reliving his shadow hovering, then running off into the gray while Vivian screamed and screamed her brother’s name, his pale hand sinking under the water. “The question remains, though. Did Robert let him die or was it just cowardice?”