by Lisa Jackson
“Promise me, Austin. You have to bring Lester in alive. He has to be safe.”
“If I can.”
“Promise me!” she insisted, her voice rising, and he thought of her in her wheelchair, staring out the window, her fingers gripping the arms. “If I could, I’d be there with you, but I can’t, so you have to do this for me. For us. Our family.” Her voice broke, but he knew she was dry-eyed. She’d learned not to cry years before.
“I promise, Mom,” he finally said, though he was certain they both knew he might not deliver.
“Don’t get the police involved. They’ll . . . they’ll shoot to kill and you know it.”
She was referring to his own stint as a cop. It had been short-lived, but he knew the police, too, wanted to catch Reece and bring him to justice. “I know they’ll do their best.”
“Oh, Austin. Don’t let them—”
“I’ll try to bring him in alive. Get him safe.”
“Thank God.” She sounded so relieved and his heart twisted a bit. “Just go find your brother.”
He hung up with that same hollowness in his soul he felt whenever he talked to her. She was dying, prematurely, but living on borrowed time according to all the doctors.
He knew it.
She knew it.
Reece knew it, too. That’s why he’d surfaced again, taken the chance and contacted a mother he’d barely known, a woman who had let a rich, if abusive, father take away her firstborn. Lester had been a wild boy of four when she started a new life with a new man who wasn’t much better than the first, but a man who gave her a second son whom she’d named Austin, for the town to which she’d fled.
Lester Reece had then grown up privileged and educated, but he had suffered at the hands of his father and a series of stepmothers who were more than a little responsible for his criminal ways, at least according to his defense team at his trial.
Dern, on the other hand, had been raised in a relatively stable, if poor household with his other siblings. His old man, a ranch hand who had taught his boy his trade before taking off when Dern was ten, had been a hard-drinking, hardworking man who seemed to like horses better than people.
To this day, Dern never knew what happened to him.
When his mother, a few years later, had taken up with a new man, a stepfather Dern didn’t care to know, he’d moved out. It wasn’t until much later, when he was doing his time in the service overseas, that he’d learned the truth. Reba, facing her first serious health scare, had written him, finally explaining about her first short marriage and the child she hadn’t seen in over a quarter of a century, a man who was accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend, a man who was dangerous.
She’d felt guilt for abandoning him, but Dern had thought Lester Reece was best left alone. He didn’t need to meet this half brother who had a tendency to cut up women.
Then Reece had been caught, tried, and sent to the mental hospital. Good riddance, Dern had thought.
Until the son of a bitch escaped and pulled the best damned disappearing act in recent history. And now his dying mother wanted to know that he was safe and not hurting anyone else.
So that was Dern’s mission.
He looked at the dog again, frowned, and opened his bottle of Jack once more. With one finger pointing at the dog, he took a long pull, felt the whiskey warm his throat, then said, “We’ve still got our deal, right? No judgments.”
Rover thumped his damned tail just as Dern heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to his apartment. The dog gave off a soft, and much-too-late warning bark.
He glanced at the clock. It was after ten-thirty. Odd time for a visit. Who knew what was coming? Quickly, he pocketed his phone. When he opened the door, Ava Garrison stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.
His gut tightened as she turned those incredible gray eyes up at him. Shit, what was she doing here?
“I saw that your light was still on, that you were still up and . . .” She shrugged. “I’d like to talk to you.” Then, as if realizing she could be interrupting something, added, “If you’re not busy.”
“Come on in.” He pushed the door open a little wider so she could enter and see that he was entirely alone, only the muted TV and the shepherd for company. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Stepping inside, she glanced at the small plank table in the kitchen and the open bottle of whiskey. Without a second’s hesitation, she nodded. “You know what? I could use one.”
CHAPTER 41
“. . . and so that’s what happened last night,” Ava admitted, staring into her small glass of whiskey where a couple of ice cubes were slowly melting. She’d decided she had to tell Dern her side of the story because she was certain he’d heard about her fight with Jewel-Anne the night before in bits and pieces from members of the staff, and she wanted him to hear her version. “I got angry and pushed it too far, but I couldn’t take the lies and the gaslighting another minute.”
“Don’t blame you.” Dern was straddling his chair, arms resting over the back, his drink for the most part untouched. Without interrupting, he’d listened to her tale as she’d explained about Jewel-Anne’s complicity in terrorizing Ava, the recording that was wired to play a little boy’s frightened screams, and the fact that Jewel-Anne claimed to be Noah’s birth mother.
“That was something I didn’t remember at all. There’s just a big blank hole there. I was pregnant, though not as far along as Jewel-Anne was . . . and with Kelvin’s death and Jewel-Anne’s paralysis . . .”
“But she can walk. She’s not paralyzed.”
“She can stand, and she’s working with a PT. On the camera, I saw her moving but not walking exactly. More like hauling herself along with her upper body.” Ava felt a twinge of guilt at that, at the fact that she’d let her pent-up rage control her actions. “I know she’s been through a lot, but man . . .”
Dern reached across the table and took her hand. “So have you,” he said, his strong fingers tightening, as if to reinforce his words. “She tried to ruin your life by manipulating you, making you think you were losing your mind, teasing you with terrified recordings of a child you thought was your son.”
Her heart warmed at his words. Could she trust him? Who knew? But at least for the moment, he seemed sincere and that alone brought a lump to her throat, made her feel closer to a man she barely knew. “Thanks,” she said.
Again his strong fingers tightened, and for just the tiniest of seconds, his thumb ran over the inside of hers.
She glanced up, caught him staring at her, and in that instant she once again imagined making love to him. She pulled her hand away quickly and cleared her throat. “Anyway, I thought I’d better give you my version, though after our last fight—”
“We didn’t just fight.” His gaze found hers again, and she remembered all too vividly what it had felt like to kiss him and feel his rock-hard body against her own.
“We didn’t.” Feeling suddenly awkward, she picked up her glass and swirled the contents, sending the ice cubes swaying in the amber liquid. “But I think I accused you of being part of a conspiracy or something.”
He smiled slightly, a crooked grin buried deep in his beard shadow. “Or something.”
“So . . . I’ve decided it’s not such a bad thing to have someone looking out for me.”
The grin widened. “Let me guess: You could have used someone on your side last night. The bodyguard you thought was a pain in the backside.”
She finally smiled back and hated the warmth she felt with him, here, in the small apartment, the dog basking by the woodstove, an open bottle of whiskey between them. How had that happened? It was almost as surreal as the rest of her life.
As if he felt it, too, an intimacy that was far too seductive, he broke eye contact. “How’s Jewel-Anne?”
“I don’t know. She’s been hiding in her room most of the day. Came out for lunch and to throw me a few dirty looks, took her dinner in her room, and has holed up there.
I guess . . . I guess I should feel sorry for scaring the crap out of her, but I don’t, not after what she did to me.”
“What happens now?”
“Same as before. I keep looking for my son,” she said, and took a final swig from her glass and stood.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, I think I’m cleaning house. If I can find a way to get Jewel-Anne and her siblings out of Neptune’s Gate, I’m going to do it.”
“What about the staff?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“So, then, it’ll be just you and Wyatt?” he said, kicking back his own chair and walking her to the door. “Marital bliss.”
“You were married once, right?” she asked him.
“For a short time. I think I told you.”
“Then you know sometimes there’s not a whole lot of ‘bliss’ involved.” Her memory suddenly kicked in and she recalled her separation from Wyatt, that he’d lived in Anchorville for a while. But after her hospitalization, he’d been back, sleeping in another room while they “figured things out.”
“My marriage has been dead for a long time, Dern. Unfortunately, I was the last one to realize it.”
Before she did anything stupid like brush a kiss across his cheek and invite more trouble, she slipped outside, into the cold November night. No moon was visible, the rain was lashing, and the big house was dark for the most part, but a light shone from Jewel-Anne’s room and Ava decided it was time to have another talk with her cousin. She wouldn’t let things get out of hand like they had the night before, but she was certain that the key to Noah’s whereabouts was his father, and she needed to know who he was.
And the only person who could answer that question was Jewel-Anne.
Be calm, Ava told herself. Make her think she has the upper hand. Play into her vanity, make her think you are too slow to figure it out and she won’t be able to keep herself from teasing you with bits of information, allowing her to feel superior. Whatever you do, don’t get violent . . . just play her as she’s trying to play you.
She headed through the back door and walked across the darkened kitchen. The house was silent aside from the hum of the refrigerator and the drip of a leaking faucet. As she passed the sink, she stopped briefly to tighten the handle and then walked through the foyer to the stairs. Faintly, from the wing housing Jewel-Anne’s suite, she heard the sound of music, some old Elvis tune, of course, about fools rushing into love.
The song was getting louder as she approached Jewel-Anne’s bedroom and that gave Ava pause. Since when did her cousin blast music? And especially in the middle of the night. Jewel-Anne was usually plugged into her headphones.
Weird. But then what wasn’t when it came to Jewel-Anne?
She rapped on the door and waited.
Nothing.
Maybe her cousin just couldn’t hear over Elvis’s warbling.
“Jewel-Anne? Can I come in?” She pounded again, more loudly.
Again, no response.
Twisting the doorknob, she pushed open the door and stepped into the younger woman’s inner sanctum of pink, ruffles, and dolls. “Jewel?” she called. She wasn’t in her bed, nor the sitting area. Her computer was glowing on her desk, her iPod plugged into it and playing through the laptop’s speakers. Her wheelchair was empty, abandoned near her walk-in closet.
Ava felt a first shiver of dread. “Jewel?” She snapped off the iPod and the room went silent. “Are you okay?” Snapping on the light for the closet, a huge room large enough for her wheelchair to turn around, the shelves and hooks all retrofitted for a short person.
Empty.
Which left the bathroom. Ava tapped on the door. “Hey, Jewel. It’s me. Ava. I want to apologize and maybe we can talk?”
Bracing herself for a snotty “Go away!” she lingered at the door.
No sound emitted.
This wouldn’t go well, she knew, but she tried the door anyway and stepped inside. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I just want to . . .” The words died in her throat as she took in the scene in front of her.
Jewel-Anne, wearing a black wig and completely dressed, was lying in the tub. Her long throat had been slit ear to ear, a red smile of blood draining down her front. Tucked next to her were two dolls, each staring upward, their plastic necks cut, their heads nearly severed, the gashes colored a dripping, dark red.
They both had straight black hair.
The scream that erupted from Ava’s throat shattered the still night air. Shaking, disbelieving, a moment later she forced herself to take Jewel-Anne’s pulse, but of course there was none; her flesh wasn’t even warm. “Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh . . .” Ava backed out of the room, stumbling against the wheelchair as she scrambled to get out. “Help!! Call 911!!!” she cried before realizing she had her own cell phone and scrabbled in the pocket of her sweater for the damned thing. “Help!” She punched in the numbers and was connected with an operator.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your—”
“Send help! There’s been a murder! On Church Island!”
“Ma’am, can I get your name?”
“I’m Ava Garrison and we need help. My cousin Jewel-Anne Church, she’s been killed! Oh, God, please just send someone to Neptune’s Gate on the island!” She rattled off the address as footsteps sounded in the hallway and Demetria, groggy and frightened, stumbled into the room.
“What happened?” she demanded, flying past Ava and toward the bathroom. She let out an ear-piercing scream that sent Ava’s insides quivering. Then the whole house came alive and Ava, in shock, leaned heavily against the wall of Jewel-Anne’s suite. Wyatt, in pajama bottoms and nothing else, ran into the room. He checked the bathroom, then backed out. In a raw voice, he asked, “Dear God, Ava, what have you done?”
The call came in at twelve fifty-seven, according to the glaring readout of his digital bedside clock. Snyder had been deep in the middle of a damned good dream about his days as a high school football star when it was interrupted by the shrill ring of his cell phone and Sheriff Joe Biggs telling him about a possible homicide on Church Island. The victim: Jewel-Anne Church, birth mother of the missing child, lover of Lester Reece, and handicapped woman who lived at Neptune’s Gate. Biggs told him that two officers had been dispatched and were at the house, securing it and rounding up witnesses.
He collected Lyons, who, even roused from bed, managed to look fresh as a goddamned daisy. Her hair was clipped away from her face and she was just wearing jeans, boots, and a heavy jacket, but to Snyder, she was too damned attractive for her own good. She’d brought a small case that he knew carried her tablet computer.
“Can you believe this?” she asked, her eyes luminous as they drove to the marina where the sheriff department’s craft would ferry them out to the island. It was raining hard, the wipers working double time.
“None of it.”
“Biggs has ordered dogs and a manhunt of the entire island. At dawn.”
“What?”
“He’s covering his bases. Too many sightings of Lester Reece for him to keep ignoring them.”
“He called you, too? Personally.”
“Seems to have a major stake in what goes on out there.”
“So you told him that Reece is the biological father of the missing boy?”
“Well, I said possibly—no, more like probably.” She fiddled with the heater, trying to warm the interior of his old Dodge.
This was getting out of hand fast. “How’d Biggs get word? Dispatch usually doesn’t call the sheriff.”
“No. He said it was someone from the island, an ex-in-law.”
Heat started blasting from the vents, just as they reached the waterfront. A launch was waiting, idling at the dock, a deputy at its helm.
“The cook,” Snyder said.
“Yeah, and this cook said that there was a big ruckus the night before, that Ava Garrison nearly killed her cousin by almost tossing her over the second-story balcony. Jewel-Anne Church.”
“And she’s the victim?”
Lyons nodded. “Looks like it.”
“Guess we’ve got suspect number one,” Snyder said, feeling tired.
“Except things are never as easy as that.” She was already unsnapping her seat belt.
“Nope, they never are,” he said as he rammed the car into park. Climbing out, he was hit by a blast of icy wind blowing off the Pacific. “Showtime.”
“Let’s get to it.” Flipping up the hood of her jacket and carrying her tablet computer in its case, Lyons was already hurrying toward the dock.
Snyder had to run to catch up to her, and as he did, his cell phone rang. The message was a simple confirmation that Evelyn McPherson’s next of kin had been notified. The press was already getting the information, and therefore the people isolated on Church Island would hear the news of the psychologist’s death.
If nothing else, at least he’d get to see their reactions, which could be helpful, as now three women connected to Ava Garrison had been killed, and nearly everyone else she dealt with lived on that friggin’ island.
“Move it, Snyder!” Lyons was already in the boat.
Stashing his cell in his jacket, he climbed in after her. “Next of kin for McPherson’s been notified,” he told her.
“Good. Let’s see what the Island People have to say about that.”
Within half an hour, over choppy water, whitecaps frothing around them, dark clouds obscuring the stars, they pulled up just past Monroe at the private dock of Neptune’s Gate. The wind was screaming in off the sea, rain lashing as they made their way, with the deputy, to the front steps.
“Like something out of a horror flick,” Lyons said, eyeing the huge mansion built before the turn of the last century. “Big, creepy house, the middle of the night, a weird family of misfits. And a murder. It’s got all the elements.”
A female deputy manned the front door, keeping a log of anyone who came in and went out. She explained that her partner was keeping all of the witnesses in a family room/den off the kitchen and that the victim was upstairs, untouched, found by Ava Garrison, the woman who owned the place.