Father lay on his back, staring upward, his eyes wide but seeing nothing. Icy and damp, both frozen and thawed. Both alive and dead. He wore his coat. His legs lay slightly bent, his arms flung to the sides, as if he’d collapsed and then frozen solid. He looked oddly beautiful, glistening in the lantern’s glow.
He’d gone out that night and never returned. Never slept in his bed. He’d been here all winter. Dead and frozen.
Birdy lay on her stomach beside him. I couldn’t see her face, but I would know that coat of patchwork hides anywhere. A dark gash split the back of her head, separating her thatch of short hair.
Horror rose in my throat. Who did this? And why?
Why?
A soft crunch behind me, and I turned to see Rowan a few steps away, staring at the bodies with wide, horrified eyes. His gaze lifted to mine. “Oh, Valentine,” he breathed. “Explain this to me.”
22
A moan slid through my lips. “I don’t know. I just found them. I didn’t know they were here.”
Rowan stepped closer, studying the damp, glistening bodies with a combination of fascination and revulsion. “They’ve been here all along?”
“I think so. Yes. I never come out here. This is the first time I’ve come out here in years.” Rowan’s eyes darted to mine, catching the lie, because he’d seen me here just yesterday—holding a shovel, flushing with guilt. “Not inside,” I insisted, my voice pleading. “I swear it. I would have told you, Rowan. I would have told you if I knew … if I knew my father—” My voice broke.
His tone softened. “What brought you out here tonight?”
The smell was starting to make me nauseous. I swallowed against it. “Mr. Frye. He’s been stealing lumber. That’s why I was out here yesterday.” I lifted a weak hand in the direction of the missing stalls. “I saw him again—and he said he knew what I’d done. I thought he meant—” I caught myself.
Rowan’s attention sharpened. “What?”
“It … it doesn’t matter. He offered to dig a hole, and that’s when I knew—I just knew—” A sob escaped.
Rowan finally came to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He took the lantern from my hand and led me away from the melting corpses, out the back door of the building. I gulped clean air—gasped and swallowed and pushed myself away from Rowan—away from the building—breaking into a run. I didn’t stop until I’d reached the yard.
Rowan finally caught up and pulled me against his chest, his arms enfolding me. I buried my face against him. “I didn’t know they were there,” I croaked.
“I know. I know you didn’t.” His arms rocked me back and forth as I wept. “I know, Valentine.”
When I stopped crying, he handed me his handkerchief, then led me inside. I sat in the rocking chair while he crouched at the fire, building it up, his back to me. But he took longer than necessary, and I could see his taut wariness. I could almost see his mind turning.
The fire grew and the room warmed, but I couldn’t stop shivering. I dried my eyes with shaky hands, sniffing back tears.
They were murdered in the stable. And Mr. Oliver didn’t die of a heart attack. I couldn’t think who would do this—or why—but I knew that Nigel Blackshaw’s death lay at the heart of it all. I’d spent all winter refusing to look at it, but it hadn’t gone anywhere, following me like a shadow.
Rowan brought the hearth stool and sat close to me. “Do you think Mr. Frye killed them?”
I sniffed. “No. He thought I did it.”
“You?” He frowned at me. “That’s mad. Why would you kill your own father?”
I stared into the fire, unable to meet his eyes or answer his question.
“Valentine?” Rowan prodded.
A log collapsed, sending sparks upward. My chest felt hollow. I tugged my knitted shawl tighter, trying to hold myself together.
Rowan’s voice stretched with suspicion. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
My ribs crumpled, and I bowed my head. The secret was too heavy. It tumbled from my mouth. “I killed your father, Rowan. My mother didn’t do it. She was innocent.”
He didn’t move or speak. All I could hear was the crackling of the fire.
I lifted my head and found his eyes narrowed on me, his head cocked as if listening for something.
The truth.
I drew a shallow breath. “My father took the gun from my mother and set it on the ground. And I picked it up. Not to shoot him. I didn’t mean to kill him. But it must have been cocked, because it fired. It wasn’t my mother who killed your father, Rowan; it was me. But it was an accident.”
A muscle in Rowan’s cheek tightened. “I don’t understand. Your mother confessed.”
I lifted a limp shoulder. “To protect me, I suppose. I can’t ask her because she isn’t here.” I drew a shuddering breath. “Can you ever forgive me, Rowan?”
Firelight flickered across the handsome angles of his face. He looked strangely devoid of emotion. No anger or blaming. No hatred. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said evenly. “It was an accident.”
I released a slow breath. All these months of dreading this moment, for no reason.
His eyes shifted. “So … you’ve known all this time and never told me? That night I walked you home from the Honor Tea, when we promised to tell each other—”
“I didn’t know. I only found out after.”
“After.” His voice tightened. “How long have you known, Valentine?”
I swallowed. “Since Christmas.”
“Christmas.” He looked stunned.
“I wanted to tell you, Rowan, I did. It’s been unbearable. But I swore to someone that I wouldn’t. I made a solemn promise.”
“A promise?” His voice hardened. “You promised me something too, but this person obviously means more to you. Who is it—Sam?”
“No!” I cried, appalled. “Not Sam.”
Rowan waited, his eyebrows raised, but my mouth opened and closed without words. I couldn’t mention Judge Stoker.
He gave a bitter laugh and stood. “She’s been right all along.”
I rose to my feet. “It isn’t like that, Rowan. She isn’t right.”
He walked toward the door. My heart dropped, thinking he was leaving, but he turned and strode back. “What about your father and Birdy? What happened to them?” His eyebrows arched. “Another accident?”
My own temper flared. “How can you think that?”
“Because you’re hiding something,” he snapped. “I knew it when I caught you by surprise yesterday and you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Yesterday … yesterday I didn’t even know they were there! I was following Mr. Frye!”
“Mr. Frye? What does he have to do with all of this?” Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “Did he kill them? Are you protecting him for Sam’s sake?”
“No! He just happened to find them when he was stealing lumber—and I wouldn’t protect someone who killed my father!”
“Unless it was Sam,” he said in a hard voice. His lips curled in a smirk. “That’s it, isn’t it? Sam killed them, and you’re protecting him. The two of you have been waiting for the ground to thaw so you can bury the evidence. But Mr. Frye found them first, so you went out there with a shovel—”
“Are you mad?” I cried. “How can you believe any of that?”
He spoke through gritted teeth. “Because there are two dead people in your stable—clearly murdered. And I saw you out there yesterday with a shovel, looking guilty—not happy that I was back in town, but wishing I would go away. So, don’t try to tell me that you don’t know anything about it. No more lies and secrets, Valentine!”
I saw the hurt in his eyes, and my own anger collapsed. Father and Birdy were dead, and Rowan thought his grandmother was right about me. My legs trembled. I went to the rocking chair and sank to it.
Rowan remained where he was, his fists clenched at his sides. “Just tell me the truth, Valentine.”
“I’ll tell yo
u everything,” I agreed numbly.
Slowly, cautiously, he lowered himself to the hearth stool—as close as he’d been a moment ago, and yet much further away.
I swallowed against my tight throat. “Back in December, Mr. Oliver told me that my mother was innocent. But I didn’t believe him. Because I didn’t know.” I lifted my eyes to Rowan. “When you walked me home from the Honor Tea, I had no idea.”
I told him about my father’s strange reaction when I’d asked him about it. How I went to the rectory the next morning, looking for answers, and found Mr. Oliver poisoned. I told him about the missing blue tea tin. And Molly Gillis.
“It was the day after Christmas when I learned that my mother hanged because of me.”
Rowan’s expression softened as he listened. When my voice grew hoarse, he fetched me a mug of water. As I drank, he put another log on the fire, then returned to the stool.
I clutched the empty mug in my lap. “I wanted to tell you, Rowan. But then you started walking me to school. And I sat in the middle of the room. I made friends, and I just … I just wanted to pretend it never happened. To become someone different.” I dared to look at him. “I was afraid it would change how you felt about me.”
Firelight danced in his blue eyes. “It was an accident,” he said quietly. “I would have understood that.”
“But … would your grandmother?”
He didn’t reply.
“I kept telling myself that my father’s and Birdy’s disappearances had nothing to do with it. So I could escape the past. But now, I see how foolish I’ve been.” My throat thickened. “Someone murdered them because of what I did that night. I don’t understand why, but I caused it.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.” He frowned at the fire. “It just doesn’t make sense. Who would do something like that?”
I looked up. “It wasn’t Sam.”
“I know,” he said gently. “I’m sorry I accused you, Valentine. I was just angry and confused and … I’ll admit, incredibly jealous.”
“I never told Sam any of this. He doesn’t know I killed your father.”
Something seemed to relax inside Rowan. He drew a slow breath and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed. His shirt was rumpled, and I resisted the urge to smooth it across his back. I wondered what it would feel like to slide my hands across him, to feel warm skin and taut muscle beneath the fabric.
He spoke to the floor. “We need to tell Sheriff Crane, and he’s going to suspect you, Valentine.”
The warm feeling in my belly chilled.
He continued carefully, his head bent. “Everyone thinks Birdy killed Mr. Oliver. But she’s dead in your stable, and people are going to remember that you were there when Mr. Oliver died. And your father is dead too.” He straightened slowly. “You’re connected to all three of them, Valentine. It just doesn’t look good.”
Mrs. Utley would start talking and the stories would grow, unbound by facts.
A new dread rose. “Rowan … your grandmother…”
“I know,” he said heavily. “I’ll convince her you’re innocent.” But I saw the impossibility of that in his eyes.
I swallowed. “Well. When the real killer is found, people will know it wasn’t me. I’ll tell Sheriff Crane that I killed your father, and then he’ll understand what’s behind it all and find the person who did this.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Valentine. Admitting that you killed someone will only make you look guiltier. And … if my grandmother finds out that you killed my father—” His head tilted with regret. “She’ll be a voice against you, Valentine. And my grandmother has a very strong voice.”
I remembered what Judge Stoker had said about Mrs. Blackshaw blackmailing him into a rushed trial for my mother. If I wasn’t careful, I would end up on the gallows in three days myself. Fear shivered up my spine.
“We’ll go to Sheriff Crane together,” Rowan said. “I’ll assure him that you had nothing to do with it. I’ll tell him how surprised you were when we found them.”
My thoughts shifted. “You can’t be part of this, Rowan. All the gossip.”
“You think I care about that? Not for a moment.”
But I knew that he needed to care—if not for his sake, then mine. I remembered Mrs. Henny’s warning about a girl without a chaperone. “It’s dark outside, Rowan, and you’re here at my house alone, just the two of us. It makes me look…”
Rowan looked away, unable to refute it.
My voice strengthened. “It’s probably best if you stop coming to my house for a while. People will be watching me closely, and it will just give them one more thing to talk about. More stories to invent.”
He stared into the snapping flames, his jaw tight. It was too warm this close to the fire, and a bead of sweat slid down his temple. “I’m not going to abandon you because of a few rumors, Valentine. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Mrs. Blackshaw thought that I wanted to ruin Rowan’s reputation over some financial matter that happened twenty years ago. True or not, the result of this scandal would be the same. Rowan would be dragged down into the mire of my life, his name added to the nasty stories and innuendo, our relationship turned into something sordid and wicked. No senator or governor would agree to mentor him then.
But I would never convince Rowan of that. Not for his sake, only mine.
I forced my voice to harden. “All winter, I should have been searching for my father and Birdy and finding a killer. You’ve distracted me, Rowan. It’s been a lovely distraction, but now, I need you to stay away. You have to stop visiting the house and walking me to school. You don’t help me by adding those rumors on top of everything else.”
He scowled at the fire; I’d succeeded in wounding him—hopefully enough to protect him.
I rose to my feet. “You should leave first. I’ll wait five minutes, then go to Sheriff Crane.”
Rowan stood slowly. “I can at least walk with you. I’ll leave before you knock.”
“No.” I resisted the temptation. “Someone might see us walking together in the dark.”
He attempted a weak smile. “We’ve walked in the dark before.”
“But that has to stop. I’m alone in the world now and have to be more careful. I’ll need to find a job after graduation, and no one will hire a girl who walks with boys after dark.”
“Valentine.” Rowan waited for me to look up and meet his riveting blue eyes. “You’re not alone in the world. But I’ll stay away, if that’s what you want.”
Those eyes. They set me on fire and calmed me at the same time.
“It is,” I said in a tight voice. “Please go, Rowan.”
And he obeyed.
* * *
Sheriff Crane lived on the far side of town. The night was inky black, the road deserted. Flickering candlelight in the windows lit the way. A curtain fluttered, and I imagined eyes watching. A dog barked in the distance.
Father and Birdy were dead.
With every step, that truth settled a little deeper.
They’d been gone for months, so of course that possibility had occurred to me. But seeing them—
Poor Birdy, with her head broken.
And Father.
My throat tightened with grief. Who’d done that to them? I felt numb with the shock of it. Empty with the loneliness of it. Father hadn’t been much of a parent, but I’d always known that he was there, just out of sight. At night, I’d heard his heavy movements in the house. I’d felt his heartbeat.
Now—
I had no brothers or sisters. No grandparents. No aunts or uncles or cousins. Only the name of a stranger in New York City who might never receive my letter.
Perhaps the Barrons were cursed. First, Daniel and the fire. Then, financial ruin. Then I killed Nigel Blackshaw and my mother hanged. And now, Father murdered. Would I be next—hanged though I was innocent, like my mother?
I wondered if Sheriff Crane would believe me
when I said I’d just discovered their bodies tonight. Or if he would arrest me at once.
I wouldn’t tell him about Mr. Frye, I decided. If Mr. Frye were questioned, he would tell the sheriff I’d done it, sneering the words with certainty. And if Mr. Frye were arrested for stealing lumber, Sam’s family would suffer.
Sam’s family.
Everyone had a family.
I reached Sheriff Crane’s house and knocked. He opened the door, and I told him in a strange, flat voice that I’d found my father’s and Birdy’s bodies in the stable. He reacted at once, gathering his coat and gloves and telling his wife that he was going out. I watched as he hitched a horse to a buggy, then he helped me up, and we rode two blocks to the home of his young watchman, who was told to fetch Mr. Wilson’s wagon and meet us at the old Barron place.
Sheriff Crane asked me questions on the dark ride back to my house, and I answered as honestly as I could. No, I hadn’t known my father and Birdy were dead—or in the stable. If I were to guess, they’d been there since December. Yes, I suspected foul play. Birdy had been hit in the head, but I wasn’t sure about my father. No, I didn’t know who’d done it.
I didn’t know much of anything.
I sat alone in my kitchen, listening as men’s voices rose and tumbled outside. I heard footsteps and wagon wheels. The whinny of a horse. An hour ticked by, and my stomach rumbled, reminding me that I’d never eaten dinner. But I had no appetite. The young watchman came into the kitchen and asked if I knew who’d left men’s footprints in the soft mud outside the stable, and I said no—lying to protect both Rowan and Mr. Frye.
“Oh, Valentine,” Mrs. Henny said in her hushed voice, entering the room. “This is dreadful. So very shocking. I am so very, very sorry.”
It was her kindness that broke me. I bowed my head and wept, and after a few awkward pats on my shoulder, she left. But she returned with chamomile tea. She struggled to heat water at the fire, muttering about my lack of stove, then handed me a steaming cup.
The tea soothed me, and I was grateful when Mrs. Henny brought a chair from the table and sat beside me. We didn’t speak, but she made sympathetic sighs and hums, and I didn’t feel so alone.
Girl at the Grave Page 17