The muscles in Cozie’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth. “What are you saying?”
Her mouth compressed. “I’m not saying anything.”
Meg’s minivan bounced up the driveway, pulling into the expanse of lawn out back. With the fortitude that was her hallmark, Ethel Hawthorne squared her shoulders and marched out to greet the elder of her two nieces. But Cozie couldn’t face Meg. She saw Daniel on the peak of her roof doing God only knew what. He looked so tall and competent and absolutely at ease with what he was doing. He was in his element.
She didn’t even know what hers was anymore.
In the noise and confusion, no one noticed as she got back into her aunt’s car. The keys were still in the ignition. She started it up, backed out the driveway, and in a minute was streaking up Hawthorne Orchard Road. It was as if her mind were locked in some kind of tunnel vision. She didn’t think about her burning house, her wounded brother, her frightened aunt and sister. She didn’t think about Daniel Foxworth or J. D. Maguire. She only heard the disembodied voice on the phone.
You know who I am. Think about it. You really do know.
She came up on the bumper of a slow-moving car from Massachusetts. The driver checked his rearview mirror and immediately pulled over and let her pass. She wondered just how crazy she looked.
Without bothering with the blinker, she took the turn onto the narrow dirt road up through the orchard. Aunt Ethel’s old car bounced over ruts and rocks as it never had. But Cozie kept her speed under control. She couldn’t risk wrapping herself around a tree.
The Vanackern house was postcard perfect in the afternoon sunshine. Cozie stopped out front. The Mercedes was in the driveway. Julia’s Austin Healey. Cozie imagined Thad washing the soot and tears from his face as he wished to God his family had chosen the Berkshires or the Adirondacks instead of Vermont for their country home.
She spotted Julia on the old tire swing down along a stone wall, through the side garden where, once, she had had the Hawthorne kids over to play. Seth had been just a little tyke, afraid of going too high. The tire hung from a huge old oak whose leaves were still green. Cozie followed a flagstone path through myrtle and flowering shrubs down to the stone wall. The swing had new ropes, and Julia gave herself a little push with her heel.
“Mum hung this for me,” she said without really looking at Cozie. “Daddy wouldn’t. He wanted me to buy a proper swing set, but I wanted a tire swing like the Hawthornes had. I used to think I’d have children one day and they’d play here. Every time someone pulls my swing down, I put it back up.”
“Julia, we need to talk.”
She shut her eyes. “Leave me alone, Cozie. I just want to swing. Mum always said it’s one thing I know how to do.”
“My house is on fire.”
Julia opened her eyes and, looking out at the picturesque landscape, kept swinging. “Dad told me.”
Cozie debated grabbing the rope and dumping her off the tire, but she didn’t move. “Seth’s there. The police are on their way. They’ll arrest him.”
Julia hooked her elbows on the ropes, her gaze still fixed on the field, out away from Hawthorne land. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“There is. You know there is.”
“You’re so tough, aren’t you? You always have all the answers.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if none of what she was saying really bothered her, really had any impact, even any value. Cozie had never heard anyone sound so defeated. “Mum wishes I were more like you: smart, successful, hard-working, willing to speak my mind. A real go-getter like Cozie Hawthorne. She wishes I had your integrity and strength of character.”
Cozie bit her lip until it nearly bled. “I don’t feel particularly strong right now, Julia.”
But she seemed not to hear. “I think she wishes she’d married your father when she had the chance. She could have had you as a daughter instead of me.”
“I’m my mother’s daughter as well.”
“Not in my dear mummy’s eyes. In her eyes, you’re all Hawthorne. She’s always wanted a close family like yours, you know.”
“We have our problems.”
Julia laughed bitterly, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She pushed off once more with her heel. Nothing was going to keep her from swinging. “Don’t, Cozie. Don’t pretend you don’t have what you so clearly do have. That would be like me saying the Vanackerns have their financial problems. No—Mum made her deal with the devil. She became a Vanackern, and she’s suffered for it. She has a husband who barely acknowledges her existence and a daughter who’s brought her nothing but disappointment.”
“I’m sorry if she’s unhappy, but I don’t see you or your father—”
“What do you know of me or my father? I have to say, the one benefit of this whole miserable business has been seeing you suffer.” She used her heel to stop herself, the tire swing jerking back and nearly tossing her on her rear end. But she held on. A burning intensity came into her pretty blue eyes. “It’s something I never thought I’d see: Cozie Hawthorne scared and shaken and not knowing where to turn. But you never once believed your brother could hate you enough to wreck your life, did you? No one could ever shake your faith in your family. Not even me.”
“It wasn’t you, Julia. It’s a little late for that. You tried to feed us Seth and now you’re trying to feed us you.”
“So.” If possible, her cheeks drained of more color. “So you know.” And she laughed, the tears still coming, until she slid off the tire swing and crumpled up in the grass.
Kneeling beside her, Cozie placed a hand on Julia’s heaving shoulders. “Julia, you can’t keep protecting her. Seth was shot. My house is on fire. This has to stop.”
“Oh, it will,” Frances Vanackern said behind them. “It will.”
The volunteers had the fire under control. The house from the kitchen on out would be a total loss, upstairs and down. The rest was a mess. There’d be water and smoke damage. Daniel couldn’t say for sure if it would be worth rebuilding. He was, he realized, dealing with Hawthornes.
He glanced over at the driveway where three of them had gathered. Ethel Hawthorne was having a fit because her niece had stolen her car. Meg was screaming at Seth for having gotten himself shot. Seth didn’t say anything to anybody. He looked ready to drop.
Will Rubeno was cruising up Hawthorne Orchard Road, siren on, probably of a mind to arrest the whole damned lot of them.
Seth managed to extricate himself from his sister, who announced she had kids to take care of and the whole damned town could burn down but it was potty time at the farm. The police, the fire department, and her entire family knew where to find her.
“She’s pissed,” her brother told Daniel unnecessarily. “She’s also scared. She’s waiting for Rubeno to get here so she can send him after Cozie, keep him from arresting me for a while. But I don’t know, once he sees me here—”
“Yeah.” Daniel caught on right away. “We’re going to be a long time explaining.”
Seth looked almost relieved, but it required too much effort, Daniel could see, for him to look anything but done in.
He said, “Cozie thinks she has to do it all, doesn’t she?”
Seth gave a small, grim nod. “Especially when she thinks she’s the one who caused the mess.”
Daniel could well understand. Why was he in Vermont but for a heightened sense of responsibility? He listened to the wail of the police siren. “Rubeno’s getting close.”
Seth didn’t budge. “You don’t still believe I’m the one who tried to kill you and your partner.”
“I never did believe it.” Daniel tore open the door to his truck. “I was just keeping my options open.”
“I wished I’d gone up with you the way Julia wanted. Then I’d never have come under suspicion.”
Daniel froze. “What?”
“I was going with you. You didn’t know? Hell, I assumed she told you and you just figured I’d weaseled out after I’d pla
nted the explosives.”
Another car arrived ahead of Rubeno, and a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties climbed out, shaking her head. “Take me back to New York,” she muttered before turning to Daniel. “So much for bucolic Vermont, huh? You Daniel Foxworth, aka Daniel Forrest?”
“I am.”
“Sal O’Connor. I’m the one who fell for your litany of false references. Water over the dam at the moment. Some guy from Texas called and said I should get my ass up here pronto and give you a message.”
“J.D. Maguire?”
“That’s the name. Kind of guy I don’t cross even if he is a couple thousand miles away. Said to tell you he took the liberty of bribing certain Houston hotel employees, using your funds, and learned the phone records for the Vanackerns show calls made to cities Cozie visited on her September road trip. Frances Vanackern paid for them.” Her brow furrowed. “Is this thing getting as ugly as I think it is?”
But Daniel was already in his truck, and Seth climbed in next to him, and they exchanged glances, their fear unarticulated but intensely real. Daniel could feel it in his gut. But he didn’t give in to it. He started his truck and headed up Hawthorne Orchard Road.
“The police will arrest your brother,” Frances Vanackern said, eerily calm as she picked at the rope on the tire swing. “They will believe me.”
“Because you’re a Vanackern,” Cozie said.
She wanted to keep her talking, buy herself time—for what she wasn’t quite sure. Thad to come out. Julia to do something. Aunt Ethel to notice her car was missing and send in the troops. If she made her own move too soon, there was no telling what Frances would do: she had a revolver tucked in her waistband.
“You Hawthornes have always resisted accepting the way the world works—the way things are. Of course the Vanackerns have certain privileges.”
Julia crawled to her feet. “Mum—”
“Go back to the house, Julia. There’s nothing you can do except make matters worse,” Frances said harshly. “I’ve a bit more to do before we can put this entire ugly experience behind us.”
“Please, Mother.”
Frances didn’t even look at her. “Go, Julia. Now.”
Julia was sobbing, strands of pale hair sticking to her wet face. “I’ll get Dad—”
“Do you suppose you could get his attention? My. That would almost be worth returning to the house to see.” Frances gave Cozie a supercilious look that she didn’t quite pull off; her face was too filled with pain, with a sadness so profound she probably couldn’t recognize that was what she was feeling. “Thaddeus is quite adept at the passive neglect of both his wife and daughter. The public would never know, but we do. Don’t we, Julia?”
“Mother, please don’t. He’s done his best. I don’t hate him. I don’t hate you. I know you’re unhappy. I’ll help you.”
Frances whirled around. “Unhappy? Where on earth did you ever get the idea I was unhappy? Cozie Hawthorne has been rubbing your nose in her achievements, her rich family life, since you were a little girl. Don’t you think I haven’t noticed how you’ve suffered?”
“I haven’t suffered.” Julia’s voice was barely a whisper as she choked back a sob. “Cozie and I have never wanted the same things. We’re two different people. Mother, please don’t do anything else that would hurt you, hurt all of us.”
Frances screwed up her face, like a two-year-old, refusing to listen. “Go!”
Cozie reached out a hand to Julia, who seemed on the verge of total collapse. “Perhaps you should do as she says.”
Julia nodded dully, her sapphire eyes glazed and puffy. “I’ll get help,” she mumbled, and staggered up the garden path.
Frances relaxed visibly with her daughter gone. She even smiled. “She means well, my Julia. She’s never had your strength of character, of course, but I’m afraid with you around, people have neglected to see her good qualities.”
Like her mother for one. Cozie took a step backward, preferring to make her exit before Frances remembered her gun. But she didn’t want to do anything to help her memory. “I’ve always admired Julia. She’s fun to be around, has a great perspective on life—”
“Don’t be patronizing.” Frances’s smile vanished, her blue eyes darkening. “Julia’s a worthless rich girl. That’s what you really think. She’s had it too easy. She doesn’t have the perspective that comes from knowing how to do the little things that make life more meaningful. Julia’s never made apple butter from her own apples. She’s never pulled an egg warm from a hen’s nest. She’s never had to worry about balancing a checkbook.”
“So?”
“So you think less of her because of that.”
Cozie shook her head. “I don’t.”
Frances made a dismissive sound. “Of course you do.”
Arguing wasn’t going to help matters. “Neither of us knows how to burn down a house.”
“That’s right.” Frances almost smiled, pleased with herself. “You don’t. It’s amazing, don’t you think, that with all I’ve accomplished, only Julia has discovered me? Of course, Thad never would.”
Cozie tried to maintain an outward calm, but her pulse was racing, her hands were clammy. She took another step backward, up the slope toward the Vanackern house and Aunt Ethel’s car. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up her burning house. “Julia obviously cares about you. She knows how to do other things, besides making apple butter. If you’d wanted her to learn how to make apple butter, you could have taught her. She could have opened up a cookbook and found out herself. She has different interests.”
Frances’s eyes flashed with a keen distaste for just what interested her daughter. “Men. Your brother. She loves having sex. That’s her main interest. That’s what my Julia knows how to do best.” She was dry-eyed and breathing hard. “Every time I look at you, think about you, I see what Julia should have been. I see what I could have had.”
Poor Julia, Cozie thought. Her mother despised her. But Frances Vanackern had projected all her anger with her daughter, with herself and her husband and their lives, all her disappointment and rage, onto Cozie. If Cozie weren’t who she was, Julia would be different. So let Cozie suffer. Make Cozie suffer. Ruin her book tours, torment her at home, frame her brother, burn down her house.
As Cozie took another step, ready to bolt up the hill, Frances Vanackern reached under her anorak and withdrew her ivory-handled revolver. “You can stop your retreat.”
“Okay.” Cozie’s pulse raced even faster. “Let’s go up to the house together.”
She seemed not to hear. “We’re going over the stone wall into the woods.”
“Why?”
“To end this, to end everything. It’s time.”
“Mrs. Vanackern—”
“Frannie. Your father always called me Frannie. I cried for days after he died. Days. How long did you cry?”
“I still do,” Cozie replied softly.
“He never neglected you, did he?”
She shook her head.
“Over the stone wall, dear. Carefully. Your father and grandfather taught me how to shoot. Once I considered shooting my father when he was sleeping, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Daddy tried his best. I—Thad and I weren’t going to invite him to our wedding. It would have been so embarrassing, having him there, worrying about whether he’d drink too much. But he never knew. I’m sure he didn’t. He died before we would have had to tell him.”
Cozie climbed over the stone wall, which, unlike the stone walls down the road at her place, was free of sumac and gray birches and choke cherries. An image crept into her mind, unbidden, of her brother dutifully pulling out any unwanted growth. But she needed to keep Frances Vanackern talking instead of shooting.
“Thad didn’t want your father at your wedding?”
“No. Thad didn’t care. I didn’t want him there.”
Frances clambered over the stone wall, her gun never wavering. She was a very fit woman. She motioned for Cozie to con
tinue through the small field, toward the woods. The wind gusted, cold. Cozie tried to control her shaking. Crows wheeled overhead, and she could smell the field grass and the goldenrod all around her. To keep herself from panicking, she tried to concentrate on the beauty of the trees and surrounding hills instead of Frances Vanackern’s twisted hatred.
She thought of Daniel Foxworth and knew he’d be ticked off if she got herself killed now, when she could have grabbed him off the roof and had him join her.
But she hadn’t really thought Frances Vanackern, whom she’d known all her life, hated her enough to kill her. Make her miserable, absolutely. But not to kill her.
“You shot Seth?” she asked. She could hear Frances breathing directly behind her.
“I tried to kill him, Cozie. Twice. He’s quite indestructible. I can understand, now, Julia’s attraction to him. I tried to kill him in Houston. Julia had discovered my little calls to you and broke off her romance with him, believing it more than your phenomenal success had triggered my…reaction.” She paused, but Cozie couldn’t guess what she was thinking. “But Seth knew she was upset about something extraordinary. He showed up in Houston insisting on an explanation. Of course he only wanted to help.”
They were nearly to the edge of the field. Cozie slowed her pace, hoping someone would see them before they disappeared into the woods. She wouldn’t mind being rescued right now. Not in the least. Daniel, Will Rubeno, Aunt Ethel and her shotgun—she’d take all the help she could get.
“But Julia didn’t confide in him, did she?”
“Oh, no. She was protecting me. But she would have broken eventually. Seth can be very persuasive. I was hoping Daniel Foxworth would take an interest in her—he’s much more appropriate a match for a Vanackern. Unfortunately he never even got to meet Julia until it was too late and he’d already met you.”
“He could have if she’d been aboard his helicopter as planned.”
Finding You Page 28