“Through the chicken door?”
“No. I imagine not.”
Owen pushed past him to the front door, but Ellis couldn’t move. He leaned on his walking stick, feeling deflated-embarrassed. Had Mattie been hiding in the shed all day? His brother and his niece and nephew would witness Abigail Browning calling the authorities from his phone.
She touched his arm. “Ellis?”
He gave himself a mental shake. “The potential consequences for Grace-”
“Because Mattie Young hid in your garden shed? People aren’t that shallow, Ellis, and we still don’t have Mattie’s side of the story.”
Despite her conciliatory words, Abigail’s expression told him she didn’t need Mattie’s side of the story. “Go ahead,” he said, motioning for her to move past him.
She shook her head. “You first.”
“What? Oh.” He inhaled through his nose, irritated now. “You want to be the last one out. You don’t want to risk that I might tamper with evidence.”
She didn’t answer.
Ellis walked out into the beautiful evening air and stood next to Owen. “Abigail won’t care who she catches in the cross fire,” he said, more to himself than to the man next to him. “She never has.”
“She cares. She just can’t let it stop her.”
“How can you be so calm?”
Never one to overreact, Owen gave him a wry smile. “I don’t know about you, Ellis, but I’m having a hard time thinking anyone who’d crawl out of a chicken door is all that dangerous.”
Ellis tried to return the smile and match his neighbor’s sense of humor, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have Owen’s knack for distancing himself from a difficult situation in order to maintain his composure. Owen had learned to thrive in a crisis. Ellis was different. He did what he had to do, but he didn’t look for adrenaline highs. He preferred a quiet life. He didn’t need to get out there like Grace and subject himself to the scrutiny of a background check, political gamesmanship, having his every decision examined and politicized. Nor did he need to put his life on the line the way Owen did.
And Abigail.
She was complicated, and yet, right now, her mission was simple and straightforward. Find Mattie. Figure out if he was Chris’s killer.
But as he used his walking stick to make his way back across the yard, all Ellis could think was that his own life was spinning out of control. It had been for a long time. He’d taken too long to see what was happening. Now he was beginning to realize that the only way to stop it-to bring his life back into balance-was to be bold.
He wasn’t like Abigail and Owen, he thought. Boldness and courage weren’t in his nature.
“You’re a behind the scenes type, Ellis,” Jason had told him a thousand times. “You get other people to do what needs to be done.”
He’d meant it as a compliment.
Ellis glanced back at the shed, the door swung wide open. Where are you, Mattie? What have you done?
Spinning, spinning.
Calming himself, Ellis placed a palm on his rapidly beating heart and took a deep breath. He hated being thrust in the limelight, but now he had no choice. The police would arrive in droves. They’d have search teams, dogs-who knew what.
Out of control.
It wasn’t his brother or his niece who needed his counsel this time.
This time, it was his turn to listen to his own good advice.
Evening fog rolled in over the island, unexpected, impenetrable, as if Mattie Young had conjured it up himself, willed it to cover his tracks and slow the search for him.
As he took his plate to the sink in his uncle’s perfect kitchen, Linc realized he was rooting for Mattie, and not just because of the blackmail and how terrified he was to have anyone find out about it.
He was rooting for Mattie because the guy was such a loser, and everyone was against him. Everyone was after him. Linc had seen cops go off through the gate, into the woods, with a German shepherd the size of a tiger.
The stupid bastard didn’t stand a chance.
Maybe he’d take the four grand and start fresh. Maybe he’d hit bottom this time, finally, and blackmailing Linc over something he’d done at thirteen would turn him around.
Attacking Abigail. Hiding in a garden shed. Crawling out of a chicken door.
He’d see what a creep he was and decide he wanted a different life for himself.
And, Linc realized, he was rooting for Mattie because of his father’s attitude.
The great Jason Cooper, who’d been born to privilege, who’d never had to fight alcoholism-who’d never lost a friend to murder.
Linc knew his father had never cared about Chris Browning. That his murder remained unsolved and Chris’s widow stayed on the case, relentless, not giving a damn who she pissed off, was just an annoyance to him.
“Linc?” A note of concern had crept into his father’s voice, but Linc had no illusions that it was about him. His father would only worry that his afterthought of a son would do something to attract police attention. “Son, why don’t you have a cup of tea with us. Then we’ll go home. Mattie will have an explanation for why he was in the shed.”
To pressure me with Abigail’s missing necklace. Linc rinsed off his plate. It was handmade pottery, as carefully chosen as everything else in his uncle’s kitchen-the cool tile floors, the muted colors, the custom cabinets. Dinner had been clay-pot chicken with rosemary from the garden, locally grown early peas, crusty bread from a Bar Harbor bakery. Linc had shoved his food around his plate, pretending to eat.
“I don’t want tea,” he said, turning from the sink.
Grace sighed, her reserves worn thin. “Oh, Linc. This day’s been difficult enough without you getting sullen.”
“I’m going to look for Mattie.”
“No!”
His sister jumped up, but their father shook his head, saying calmly, “Let him go. The mosquitoes will chase him inside soon enough.”
“But Mattie attacked someone today.”
“Abigail,” Jason said, as if that explained everything.
Grace spun around at him. “You make it sound as if she deserved what she got.”
“Not deserved.” He didn’t raise his voice. “She’s capable, Grace. She’s an experienced homicide detective. She can handle herself.”
“Mattie could have slit her throat today.”
“I don’t think so. He had a rusted saw that probably hadn’t been sharpened in fifteen years, and he had only a split second to act-not enough of an opening for someone of his abilities and limitations to have succeeded in doing more than what he did.”
“You can be so calculating sometimes,” Grace said.
“I’m just trying to be objective and understand the situation.”
Linc had heard enough. He let the screen door bang shut on his way out. Abigail and Owen had headed out to look for Mattie even before the police had arrived, but as well as they knew their way around the surrounding woods, Mattie knew them better. He’d grown up there, he’d photographed them. With the fog and the oncoming darkness, no one would find him unless he wanted to be found.
The police hadn’t asked Linc outright if he’d seen Mattie. He hadn’t volunteered what he knew, but he hadn’t lied.
One of the FBI agents-Special Agent Capozza-stood in front of the shed door, brushing at a cloud of mosquitoes hovering over him.
Linc gave him a sympathetic smile. “They’re bad tonight, aren’t they? Early morning and early evening are the worst times. You want to be careful of West Nile.” He peered past him into the shed. “Was Mattie in there for sure?”
“You’ll have to talk to Lieutenant Beeler or ChiefAlden.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Capozza whacked a mosquito on his arm, grimacing when it spurted blood. “Looks like I got that one too late. Your father and sister still here?”
“They’re having tea in the kitchen. I want to go look for Mattie.”
“Why?”
Linc felt a surge of emotion. “Because he’s my friend. Because I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone. I don’t want some trigger-happy cop to shoot him just because-”
“Whoa, whoa. Watch what you say, Mr. Cooper.”
“He didn’t kill Chris Browning.”
The FBI agent tilted his head back and eyed Linc. “Why do you say that?”
“Chris was my friend, too. And he was Mattie’s friend.”
“Sounds like everyone’s friends up here.” Capozza wasn’t paying attention to the mosquitoes now. “But we’ve got a string of unsolved burglaries, an unsolved attack and robbery, an unsolved murder, and now-”
“I need to go.” Linc sniffled, pushing back an urge to cry. “Ellis has bug repellent inside if you want some.”
“Suppose you and I go in together and find it?”
“What?”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
An hour later, Linc sat stiffly in his sister’s car as they headed back to Somes Sound. She was driving too fast for the conditions. Thick fog, high emotion. He was too scared to say anything in case he threw off her concentration and she wrapped them around a tree.
“What did you and Special Agent Capozza talk about?”
“Nothing much. How well I knew Chris. How well I know Mattie. I didn’t tell him anything people around here don’t already know.” I didn’t tell him about the blackmail and the four grand.
“Did he ask about me?” She gripped the wheel with both hands. “Because I deserve to know if he did.”
“He was trying to get all our relationships straight in his head. That’s all.”
She took in his words with a nod. “I don’t want anything to happen to Mattie, but if it does, it’s not my doing. Or yours. Or Father’s, no matter how frustrating he can be. And Ellis-did you see him, Linc? He’s a wreck.”
“He just doesn’t want Mattie to slit his wrists under one of his rhododendrons.”
“Linc!” She pounded on the brake, the car screeching to a halt in the middle of the fog-enshrouded road. “Damn you. You inconsiderate little bastard. I’ve stood by you as you’ve flunked out and gotten yourself thrown out of school after school.”
“Two.”
“Two colleges. How many prep schools? Father and I both pulled strings to get you into good schools. He’s not an easy man, but he’s only ever wanted the best for you.”
“What’s good for me is good for him.”
“Just stop.”
Linc sank back into his seat and sighed, as if he didn’t care how upset she was. “I wish you’d start driving before someone rear-ends us.”
“I was proud of you for going to Owen and asking him to train you.” Grace was half crying. “I hope he does. I hope it works out. You can make a difference, Linc, if you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself and being mad at the world.”
“Who says I want to make a difference? Maybe I just want to train with Owen so I can look good.”
“He’d see through you in a heartbeat.”
Linc paused for a beat. “If you admire him so much, why don’t you marry him?”
“We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”
“Because you’re in love with a dead man.”
His sister reacted instantly, slapping him across the face.
In the darkness, his face stinging, Linc could see tears shining in her eyes as she turned back to the wheel and pressed her foot on the gas.
“Oh, shit.” He choked back a sob. “Shit, Grace. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not staying here. I’ll leave tomorrow. I have plenty to do back in Washington.” She was crying openly now. “Linc-my God, Linc. I love you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“Nothing will, Grace. I promise.”
“I’m here for you. Always. Do you understand?”
Tell her. But he couldn’t. “I do understand. And you-I’m here for you, too.”
She smiled at him, tears still streaming down her face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
“I mean it. Grace-I really am sorry about what I said. About Chris.”
“Chris. My God, Linc. I did love him.” She sucked in a breath, slowing in the thickening fog. “We were just never meant to be.”
“Did he ever love you?”
“He loved Abigail.”
CHAPTER 22
I don’t want to think about death tonight.
I want to think about love.
I don’t want to think about violence.
Again. Love.
I don’t want to hear Abigail’s voice.
Love.
My heart bursts with a love so deep and pure and fulfilling that it alone is all I need to sustain me.
So few ever have this kind of love in their lives.
I don’t pity them so much as I stand apart from them.
Separate.
Alone.
Isolated.
All those words come to mind and yet don’t describe how I feel, because they imply loneliness and desperation. Incompleteness. But I am not lonely or desperate or incomplete.
Because of my love.
I love.
It’s not just a state of being but of action.
Love as a verb.
I’ve lied. I’ve misled. I’ve cried. I’ve killed.
Ways of loving. All of them.
I feel so free, writing in this stream of consciousness manner. Allowing myself to put aside all my inhibitions.
I don’t want to kill again but to say I won’t is to say my ability to love has weakened.
And it hasn’t.
It won’t.
Not ever.
CHAPTER 23
Wherever Mattie was, he’d be there through the night. Abigail didn’t like the idea, but who did? The warm day had turned cool with nightfall and the fog. If he didn’t have proper attire, a good blanket, water, food-if he panicked and got lost, or kept running in the woods-then anything could happen.
She watched Owen, crouched down on one knee, build a fire in his woodstove. She’d pulled a fleece throw over her as she sat in one of his fireside chairs, but he showed no sign of cold or fatigue. “If you’d climbed Cadillac and got whacked today, you’d be as wiped out as I am,” she said.
“You didn’t climb up Cadillac. You drove up.”
“I walked all over the summit. And it was freaking dawn. That counts.”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. “The only reason you’re shivering is because of what you have on.”
“Not enough?”
He turned back to his fire-building. “Depends on how you look at that one.”
She gave him a shove in the back with her foot. She’d left her wet shoes at the door. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re in the wrong clothes for charging through the woods in these conditions.”
“And you?”
He struck a match. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-uh. You’re in jeans. Jeans aren’t the best choice for cool, wet conditions. They’re not good insulators, especially when wet. See? Not bad for a city cop.”
The kindling and rolled-up newspapers caught fire, bright flames crackling as Owen shut the screen and leaned back on his outstretched arms, stretching out his legs. His toes were almost in the fire. He’d taken off his shoes, too. His feet struck her as casual, intimate.
They’d joined the search for Mattie, but the trail was cold, visibility marginal. Any sign of him-footsteps, trampled plants-ended after a few feet. He could be anywhere.
“Who knows about Mattie,” Abigail said. “I’ve never seen him in anything approaching clothing appropriate for a night out in the elements.”
“He could have supplies with him.”
“Or he could be shacked up with a friend, or hiding on some derelict pal’s clunker of a boat. He could have caught a ride off the island with someone…”
“Abigail-”
“I’m j
ust saying.” She breathed out a sigh. “I don’t want to find him dead, Owen. No one does.”
“Do you have any clue what he’s up to?”
She shook her head. “I wish I did.”
“Think he’s your caller?”
“I don’t know. The caller supposedly wants to help-” She broke off. “Whatever Mattie’s doing, it’s not helping.”
“Your caller-whether it’s Mattie or someone else-isn’t helping, either. Just stirring the pot.”
“Good point.”
The local and state police and the two FBI agents had all departed from Ellis Cooper’s house. Ellis had pointedly refused to have any cruisers posted in his driveway, insisting to Lou Beeler that he wasn’t afraid of Mattie-that it wasn’t as if Mattie had done anything horrible-if he’d done anything at all.
“Ellis might as well have said I was bad luck,” Abigail went on.
“He’s upset.”
“Jason and Grace weren’t much better. But I only came up here after I got the first call. Maybe whatever Mattie’s up to has more to do with what the Coopers have going on than with me. The appointment, the sale of the house-they could be the catalyst.”
“Could be,” Owen said.
She slipped her arms over his shoulders and down his chest, leaning forward and touching her cheek to his. “You don’t care, do you?”
He grabbed her hand. “At the moment, no.” And in one move, he’d lifted her off her chair and over his shoulders, onto his lap, his arms circled around her. He grinned. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t put up a fight.”
“Fight? I’m injured.”
“I thought it was just a few scratches.”
She draped her arms around his neck. “It is. Traipsing over hill and dale after Mattie didn’t hurt my leg. It’s a little stiff, but that’s it.” She smiled, feeling the heat of the fire on her back. “I just didn’t want you to think I’m easy.”
“Easy isn’t the first word that comes to my mind when I think of you. More like determined, single-minded, dedicated…”
She rolled her eyes. “Gee, I’m feeling better already.”
He tightened his hold on her. “Attractive. Sexy. Brown-eyed.”
The Widow Page 18