“We’re going to run that way,” I said, pointing away from the car. “Don’t look back.” I don’t want her to look at him.
My daughter nods, and her eyes are wet, but she starts to run and I follow, placing my body between her and Gabriel.
She is slow. Too slow. I glance over my shoulder and he has nearly reached my car.
“Go, Morrigan. Keep going,” I pant. I can feel a target on my back.
He’ll have to go through me to get my daughter.
The rumble of an engine sounds to our left and Christian’s old Hummer speeds toward us, snow flying from his tires. I pull Morrigan behind a tree, clutching her tight to me. I risk a peek around the trunk and estimate we’re fifty feet from the car. Christian stops next to my Subaru while Gabriel runs in the opposite direction. Coward.
Christian jumps down from his seat, his gaze locked on Brent’s bloody form. He looks to me and I point at the running figure, unable to speak, let alone shout for him to hear me. As he turns, I see the rifle in his hands.
My blood runs cold. I made a wrong assumption about my father. Did I make one about Christian too? Have I traded one killer for another?
He rests his elbows on the hood, sighting the rifle after the escaping figure. I collapse on the safe side of the tree and close my eyes. It’s not Christian. I wait for the shot, but it doesn’t come. I look around the tree again and see Christian staring at the retreating figure. Why didn’t he shoot? He looks back at me.
“Are you okay?” he shouts.
I have no energy to answer. I nod. He slowly treks through the snow to us, his rifle over his shoulder.
My skin crawls as I look at the gun. My uncertainty returns. Morrigan squirms in my death grip. “Let me go, Mama! Christian!” He raises a hand to acknowledge her, his steps steadily bringing him closer.
Is he coming to kill us? Terrified of what I might smell, I shakily inhale through my nose.
Warm scents of earth reach me. Salt from the ocean. His usual scents.
I weep in relief. There is also a sour fear and anger, but it is not directed at us.
He crouches next to us in the snow and Morrigan lunges at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. I ache to do the same, but I can’t move. All my stamina is gone. His eyes are serious as he studies me. “What happened to Brent?”
“Gabriel shot him,” I whisper. “We were next.”
He is silent, a struggle in his gaze. He pulls off his gloves, melts some snow in his bare hands, and then applies the moisture to my face, using his glove as a cloth. Brent’s blood. I look at my jacket. It is black, but spots shine where the blood—and worse—landed.
He continues to wash my face. “I’m so sorry, Salome.”
“Did you see him?”
“I did. I saw him through the scope.” He paused. “I couldn’t fire.”
“I understand. He’s your brother. But we have to keep going. I can’t stop.”
“I won’t let him find you.”
“He already did.”
He takes my hand and holds it against his heart. “I didn’t know. I truly didn’t know it was him. I would have never brought you here if I’d known.”
“Why did he do it? Why kill your father . . .”
“I don’t know.”
Odors of lies float between us, and my heart sinks.
We leave Brent where he died.
“I’ll come back for him,” promises Christian. “But I need to get you two to safety first. Nothing more can happen to him.”
I hear his unspoken words. But much, much more can happen to you and Morrigan.
I know Christian has an idea why Gabriel hunted me, but he is silent. We drive. We don’t stop at his glorious home. We leave it far behind us. Hopefully Gabriel has been left far behind too.
The Hummer drives on the snow as if it were dry pavement. “We’ve got to go to the police,” he tells me.
“No! We can’t.”
“Why on earth not? How am I supposed to explain the dead man on my property with half his head gone?” he shouts at me. Fear fills the vehicle. His and Morrigan’s. I look back to my daughter, who is watching and listening, her eyes wide.
I glare daggers at him. “The police might be compromised.”
“How? How can that happen? This isn’t a movie.” His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel.
“I told you about my father—”
“Yes, you told me he was a kill—enforcer for some crime organization.” He spots Morrigan’s face in the rearview mirror and softens his tone.
I turn and hold Morrigan’s gaze, my smile warm and loving as I wish for her to sleep. Her lids lower and she fights their heaviness, but I prevail. Her chin bobs against her chest as she sleeps. Guilt swamps me. I haven’t done that since she was an infant and I was in desperate need of sleep, but she can’t hear this conversation.
“This organization had eyes everywhere,” I said quietly. “Even though they did nothing to stop my father from going to prison, he could still have loyal friends. Anywhere. They might honor him for keeping his mouth shut about their boss.”
Disbelief surrounds Christian.
“I’m deadly serious, Christian. This is why my mother changed her name and lived like a hermit in the woods. Everything I’ve ever done has been with the knowledge that he might be looking for me. My bank accounts are in another name, my phone, my cards.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you leave the state? The three of you stayed within thirty miles of where he operated.”
“My mother couldn’t leave. I can’t explain it, but it’s true.” How can I explain her connection to the woods?
“And now you know it wasn’t your father who killed your mother.” He looks at me again. “You can go to the police.”
Ice runs up my spine. “No. Just because this wasn’t him doesn’t mean his people aren’t looking for us.”
“It’s been forty years!”
“I can’t risk it.” Gabriel’s face fills my mind, and I catch my breath. “What if he hired Gabriel? How did he get to him? Who else has he reached?”
“I don’t think that’s what happened.”
Again I smell his secrets. I study Christian’s profile. Such a damned beautiful man and a good one. I’ve known his heart since I was eighteen, and I feel horrible that I doubted him for those few minutes in the snow. If he is lying to me, it’s for a good reason. He’ll tell me when the time is right.
“If you won’t go to the police, then where are we going?”
I press my hands to my eyes. I don’t know. I’ve always been ready to run, but I never knew where was safe. Locations spin through my head, and I reject them all. “I think it’s best if Morrigan and I just drive away. We’ll keep going until I find a town that feels right. My business is online. I can manage it from anywhere.” I will have to repurchase my supplies and build my stock anew. It’s a small price to pay. I picture all my hard work in my storage room in the barn. Maybe Christian can pack it and ship it to me . . . once I find a new home.
My head jerks up. “We have to go back to my mother’s house.”
“Are you nuts?”
“I can’t leave without some things from there.”
“Why didn’t you grab them when we went to pick up those other things? It wasn’t easy getting in there between the police visits.”
“I know. But I forgot about her rings.” I place my hand on his shoulder and focus my energy. “They’re very important to me.” My manipulation skills are rusty, and they were never strong in the first place, not like my mother’s. I hate that I’m using them on my closest friend, but this is necessary. That’s twice in five minutes that I’ve manipulated my loved ones. A sign of how desperate our situation is.
“Okay. We’ll go there, but it’s just for a minute. Then we’re heading south until we’re out of the snow, and I’ll rent you a car so you can leave.”
“No. Morrigan needs to rest and I need sleep. We’ll spend the night ther
e and leave in the morning.”
“At a crime scene? You’d let your daughter sleep in that house?” he hisses. “What if the police show up?”
“I doubt they’ve been anywhere near it since the last two snowstorms. And I can make it good for Morrigan. She won’t see.” I check and see she’s still asleep.
I feel him look sidelong at me. He knows about some of my skills, but not all. He needs to trust that I will do what’s best for my daughter.
“Clearly Gabriel knows the location of the cabin,” he states. “If he’s after you, he’ll look there.”
“I think he believes that I wouldn’t go there . . . just as you were stunned that I wanted to.”
“Not good enough.” He stares straight ahead, anger and fear surrounding him.
“I can’t stay in a hotel. Not under your name or mine. He knows we’re together. I have nowhere else to go.” He opens his mouth, but I speak first. “And don’t suggest a friend’s house. Gabriel is too dangerous. I won’t risk anyone else.”
“One night. No more.” His voice shakes. “I’ll be up all night guarding the fucking door. And after I see you off, I’ll go back to deal with Brent. And Gabriel.”
I hate that I’m leaving him in a difficult spot, and I wonder what he’ll do about his brother.
Will he report him to the police?
“Come with us.” Even as I say it, I know it will never happen. Our affection for each other is strong, but it’s never been a romantic love. His life is not meant to merge with mine.
“I can’t.”
I feel his pain. And I feel his wall. The same wall that he has raised between us before. I don’t understand its source. It extends all the way back to the night we first met, but I don’t try to break it down. I know it is strong and honorable, not meant to be destroyed.
I nod and turn back to watch the road.
THIRTY-FOUR
Simon’s meow escalated in volume.
“Jeez. Hang on.” Truman set the cat’s bowl on the floor in his kitchen. Without a second glance at him, the black cat daintily began to eat her breakfast, wrapping her tail around to her front feet.
Truman watched for a moment, fully aware he was a slave to the feline queen. She’d picked him, not the other way around. Showing up at his door every day until he let her in. If it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have any pets, but apparently she’d decided what was best for him.
His cell phone rang, and he checked the time on his microwave, wondering if he was late to work. To his relief it wasn’t even seven.
Detective Bolton greeted him. “I think you need to see something.”
“What do you have?” Truman poured coffee into his usual travel mug.
“I’m out at Christian Lake’s home. Gunshots were reported in this area yesterday, but we couldn’t check on them until this morning.”
He froze in the act of screwing the lid onto the mug. “No one responded to a gunshot call?”
“Only one call came in, and it’s not unusual to hear shots out in a rural area.”
“True. But why are you calling me? The Lake home isn’t in my jurisdiction.”
“Because first I called the FBI, but Ava and Eddie are still in Portland. Jeff said Mercy has been covering the case locally for those two, but I got her voice mail when I called.”
Truman’s heart sped up. “She’s gone to her cabin for the weekend, and her cell service is sketchy up there. I only get through about half the time. Is Jeff sending another agent out there?”
“He’s going to try.” Impatience rang in Bolton’s tone. “I know you’ve kept your nose in this case, and I’d hoped your perspective could help us figure out what the hell happened up here.”
“What happened?”
“I’ve got a dead body. Brent Rollins. He was shot in the head and he’s hanging out of Salome Sabin’s Subaru.”
The hairs on his arms lifted. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I was. The Lake home is deserted, and I can tell there was a struggle here.”
“I’m on my way.”
A deputy escorted Truman on foot to the crime scene. At least the snow had stopped and nothing new had fallen overnight. After twenty minutes of huffing and puffing, they reached Bolton. Two county vehicles and Bolton’s SUV were parked fifty yards back from the scene. They must have arrived at the scene before realizing they needed to keep other vehicles—like Truman’s—off the property to preserve the tracks in the snow.
They got lucky with the weather.
From a distance Truman saw the victim in the car. His head slumped out the driver’s window. Truman followed Bolton to the Subaru, swallowing hard as he recognized Rollins even though part of his skull was missing.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Amen,” answered Bolton.
“Who shot him?”
“That’s the big question.”
“You said you checked the main house?”
“Yep. It’s empty. All the doors were unlocked, and there was food left on the kitchen counter as if someone left in a hurry.”
“Any missing vehicles?”
Bolton twisted his lips. “There are two empty spaces in that huge garage. I didn’t see the Hummer, but who knows if something else is missing. I put a BOLO out on the Hummer.”
“I know he has a black Lexus SUV.”
Bolton’s face cleared. “I didn’t see one in there.” He turned to one of the deputies. “Get the information on a Lexus SUV owned by Christian Lake and put out another BOLO.”
Truman stepped closer to the Subaru and looked through the shattered rear driver’s-side window. A chaotic grouping of groceries and blankets filled the back of the Subaru . . . as if someone had packed in a hurry. On the floor on the passenger’s side was a small pink hat. “Shit.”
“I saw it,” Bolton replied.
“Might be from another day,” Truman stated. “It is her mother’s car.”
Both doors on the other side of the car hung open, and a broken trail in the snow led away from the car.
“Where’s that go?”
“About fifty feet to that tree. It looks like they crouched behind the tree. And there is a second path where someone else joined them.”
Truman noticed how the trail from the Subaru was frantic and messy. The second trail to the tree was distinct footsteps.
“At some point they all came back to the road.” Bolton pointed at a wider broken path that led from the tree to about twenty feet from the Subaru.
Truman spotted familiar wide tire tracks on the road where the third trail ended. “They got in the Hummer.”
“Right. But were they forced? Did they go willingly?” Bolton shook his head at the possibilities.
Truman moved to the broken driver’s window, looking past the grisly corpse. Blood spatter covered everything in the front of the car: windshield, dashboard . . . but a large section of the passenger seat was clean. And so was part of the passenger door.
“Someone was sitting in the passenger seat when he was shot.”
“Agreed.”
“Salome?”
“That’s my first guess. The clean area is the size of an adult.”
Frustration filled him as Truman stared at the spray of blood on the windshield. “But we’re speculating. Was Rollins helping them or forcing them to leave with him?”
“My money is on helping. The Subaru tracks lead back to a small cabin where it appears Salome and Morrigan have been staying. There was a grocery receipt on the counter. It had Rollins’s name from his credit card on it.”
Truman had a moment of relief that the mother and child had been in a safe place. But the dead man in front of him testified that their safe place had turned ugly.
“Rollins was helping them hide, but did Christian know the two of them were on his property?”
“Christian Lake is also missing.”
Both men looked over at the Hummer tracks.
“There’s one more thing.�
�� Bolton led Truman away from the car and up a gentle slope among the pines. Twenty feet from the car was another broken trail in the snow.
“The shooter.”
“I believe so. We’ve followed the path. It starts at the house, goes almost to the cabin where Salome was hiding, but then it makes a sharp turn toward the road. Right here it reverses direction and goes back to the house.”
“Do you think he was heading to the cabin but heard the car leaving?”
“It’s a theory.”
“Is Christian Lake the shooter or driver? Or neither?” Truman tried to keep an open mind.
“He could have been in the Subaru passenger’s seat.”
Truman thought it was doubtful but nodded.
“Another possibility is that the target was Rollins,” said Bolton. “I know the FBI suspects that Salome fled because she was afraid she’d be killed, but maybe she was the shooter here. Maybe Brent took off with her kid.”
“Shit.” Bolton was better than he at exploring all possibilities.
“What about Gabriel Lake? Last I heard, he was staying at the big house.”
“I’ve tried to reach him. I know he’s been avoiding all investigator calls, so I’m not surprised.”
Mercy should see this. Truman pulled out his phone and called twice. No luck.
Unease bubbled under his flesh at her silence. She’s fine. This happens every time she goes up there.
“Want to see the cabin?” Bolton asked. “Then we’ll do the house.”
“Sure.”
During their walk Truman checked in with his department. It’d been a quiet morning so far, and Ben had everything under control. Truman informed Lucas he’d be out of the office most of the day, but to call him if needed. He hung up with a twinge of guilt, knowing it was a personal reason that would keep him out of the office, not work.
He followed in Bolton’s steps. Each one was nearly a foot deep.
His unease didn’t lift.
A Merciful Secret Page 25