The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "That's what you wanted to tell me?"

  "It's part of a larger pattern." Tess leaned forward, holding her latte in both hands. "It's like your brain's gone inside your computer and won't come out. It can't. It's all filled up with numbers and money things."

  "Money things?"

  "Investments, annual reports, interest rates, bond prices—God only knows what. I'll bet you know to the

  penny what each of your clients is worth."

  Susanna took no offense. "That is my job, Tess."

  She shook her head, adamant. "You go beyond what the average financial planner would do."

  "Good. I'd hate to be an 'average' financial planner." Susanna glanced over at her desk, her monitor filled with numbers, which was probably what had unnerved Tess. "I want to be very above average."

  "You see? You're driven. You're a perfectionist. It's causing you to lose perspective on the rest of your life." Tess set her jaw, aggravated now. "Damn it, I'm making a good point here. Your life is out of balance."

  Susanna slid to her feet and walked over to the table where she had her coffeemaker, a tin of butter cookies, pretty little napkins and real pottery mugs for herself and her clients. "I've hired a part-time assistant," she said. "She comes in two mornings a week."

  "You should have at least two people working full-time for you. You told me so yourself last fall."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes, you did."

  Susanna poured herself a half cup of stale, grayish coffee and turned back to her friend. "All right, I'll dust my computer. Promise."

  Tess groaned. "You are so thick."

  "Hey, that's my line. That's what I tell Jack—"

  "There. Jack." Tess set her latte on an antique table Susanna had picked up at an auction, a nice contrast with the more contemporary pieces. Balance, she thought. If Tess approved, she didn't say. She narrowed her blue eyes on Susanna. "You haven't told him how much you're worth, have you?"

  "Why would I? He pays attention to money even less than you do."

  "Susanna, you have to tell him!"

  Susanna returned to her desk, feeling stubborn now that they were talking about her husband. "Why?"

  "He's going to find out, you know. That's what you're afraid of, isn't it? He's a guy's guy. He might not like having his wife sneaking around making millions."

  "It's his money, too."

  "Uh-huh. And he's a Texas Ranger. You've always said it's all he's ever wanted to do, even when he was at Harvard. Suppose he'll think you'll want him to quit?"

  Susanna frowned. "I'd never tell him what to do, anymore than he'd tell me."

  "Yeah, what about all the other Texas Rangers? What will they think if one of their own's suddenly worth eight million?"

  "Ten," Susanna corrected.

  "Ten million? Damn, Susanna. Maybe it's time to hire bodyguards—or make peace with your husband. Talk about armed and dangerous."

  "Nobody knows how much I'm worth. You, my accountant and my attorney." Susanna could feel her heart pounding, but she kept her tone breezy, as if none of this really bothered her. She knew Tess wasn't fooled. "It's not as if I've radically changed my lifestyle."

  "Moving to Boston, buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. That's not radically changing your lifestyle?"

  Susanna dropped onto her chair in front of at her computer. "I was only worth five million when I left San Antonio."

  Tess swooped to her feet. "God, you're impossible. If you get kidnapped and held for ransom, don't expect me to come here and figure out how to fork over the money." She hoisted her microfiber satchel onto her shoulder. "I've got to run. I have one more devil of a client meeting." She sighed, shaking her head. "Susanna, please—you'll think about what I said?"

  "Tess, you know I will—I appreciate your concern. Thanks for stopping by."

  "Come up sometime. Bring the girls. I know it's winter, but the ocean's still beautiful."

  After Tess left, Susanna stood at the tall, arched windows overlooking historic Old Granary Burial Ground, snow drifting against its thin, centuries-old tombstones. No radical changes in her life. Who was she kidding?

  Tess was right.

  As if to prove her point, the doorman buzzed her and announced Destin Wright was there to see her. Susanna dropped back onto her desk chair and felt an instant headache coming on. She'd been putting Destin off for days. She sighed. How could telling her husband about ten million dollars and a murder suspect showing up in their kitchen be any harder than dealing with Destin Wright? She said into the intercom, "Send him up."

  He would take the old elevator, she knew, not the stairs, and he'd find a way to irritate her within twenty seconds of arriving in her office. She got up and unlocked the door, just so she wouldn't have to let him in.

  He didn't knock. He pushed open the translucent glass door and grinned at her. "Yo, Susanna. How's it

  going? Was that Tess I just saw leaving the building?"

  "Yes, she stopped in for a visit—"

  "I wasn't invited to her wedding, you know."

  Susanna felt the blood pulse behind her eyes. "Destin, you and Tess aren't even friends."

  "What? We grew up together."

  "You're ten years older than she is."

  "So?"

  Susanna gave up. Destin Wright had grown up on the next street over from her grandmother's house, never, apparently, making a secret of his desire to get out of the neighborhood at his first opportunity. He was in his mid-forties and fit the stereotype of the preppy Harvard grad with his blond good looks, except he'd quit a local junior college after one semester. He'd started an Internet company a few years ago and made millions, then went broke almost overnight. He'd had a fun idea, but no real business plan, no profits—and wildly expensive tastes. Now he wanted to start over. With Susanna's help.

  "Destin…"

  He held up a hand. "No, wait. Hang on. I'm not here to pester you about money." He grinned sheepishly, as if he'd known he'd pushed her too far with his various comeback schemes. He was charming, energetic and incredibly self-centered, with a sense of entitlement that knew no bounds. He had on an expensive camel coat left over from his high-on-the-hog days. "I just wanted to tell you I followed your advice and wrote up a business plan. The whole nine yards."

  "Good for you, Destin."

  He scratched the back of his neck, eyeing her. "I was thinking you could take a look at it. As a favor."

  Susanna shook her head, adamant. "You know I'm not getting involved in this project. I've told you. This isn't what I do, even if I thought it was a good idea to help out someone from Gran's neighborhood."

  "One little look?"

  "No. I'm sorry. I can recommend people—"

  "I can't pay anyone. Come on, Suze, you know the score. I need to do a deal, barter a little. I've downsized as much as I can. Hell, I'm about to have my BMW repossessed."

  How he'd ever pulled together the attention span and backing to start a company in the first place was beyond Susanna. Luck, guts, flare, charisma, just enough skill. If he'd come to her sooner, she might have been able to help him save some of his personal wealth when the dotcom craze came crashing back to earth, but the same relentless optimism that had drawn Destin Wright into starting a risky business made him stick with it too long. He just hadn't seen the bottom coming. When he hit, he hit hard.

  "I just need some angel money," he said, unable to resist.

  "If you have a good idea, you'll get it. But not from me."

  "A hundred grand would get me off the ground—"

  "Not a dime, Destin." She'd learned from hard experience that she had to be very clear and very straight with him. Subtle didn't work with Destin. "I'm not changing my mind."

  "You could be a founding partner. Suze, you're bored, you know you are. This'd be exciting, a new company, your business experience and smarts hooked up with my ideas and energy." He paused, obviously waiting to see if his words were having any impact on her. When they didn't, he sighed
. "Okay, okay. You've got a full well, and you don't want me dipping in my rusting, leaking bucket. I understand." He was remarkably good-humored for a man who'd been told no for at least the fourth time. He grinned suddenly. "I'll just have to work harder to convince you. If you could take two seconds and peek at my business plan—"

  "I can offer you cookies and a cup of bad coffee," Susanna said. "That's it."

  He dropped a shiny black folder on her desk. "If you get a chance," he said, leaving it at that. He started for the door. "I'll see you around the neighborhood. You know, people are starting to talk about how much money you have. I heard one guy say he thought it was at least five million."

  "People like to talk."

  "If you're worth five million, you wouldn't miss a hundred grand, even if you threw it down the toilet, and I'd—"

  "Destin." She shook her head, unable to suppress a laugh. "Look, I'll talk to some people. If this idea doesn't work out, another one will. You'll be okay."

  But he barely heard her. He hadn't come for a pep talk from her. He wanted free advice and money. He headed out, and Susanna sank back against her chair, wrung out. Destin never knew when to quit—and sometimes she wondered if she quit too soon.

  She thought of Jack, what he might be doing late on a Thursday afternoon. Would he quit on her? Had she already quit on him?

  Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she quickly shut down her computer and packed up her briefcase, turned off the coffeepot. It had been a lousy day, but at least tonight was chowder night at Jim's Place.

  Five

  Jack unlocked the door to his empty house and stood in the kitchen, staring at a picture of Maggie and Ellen on the refrigerator. He'd taken it over the holidays. They had their midwinter break coming up, but they were spending it in the Adirondacks at Susanna's new cabin. Snowshoeing. Cross-country skiing. "Freezing our butts off," Maggie had said less than enthusiastically in their last conversation.

  He could join them. He had that open invitation from his wife to see the cabin.

  He smiled, thinking of what Susanna would do if he turned up out of the blue with a pair of snowshoes strapped to his back. He'd made it clear it was up to her to come home and figure things out here, not up to him to go there. It wasn't just a matter of digging in his heels and forcing her to toe the line—it made sense. Maggie, Ellen and Iris would all be distractions. He and Susanna needed time alone, on familiar turf.

  So far, that strategy wasn't working. Whatever time they'd managed to have alone during this endless stalemate, they'd spent in bed. That suited him, but it wasn't getting the job done—Susanna was still living with her grandmother in Boston. And he had to admit he was using his work to distract himself, taking the hardest cases, working the longest hours.

  He got a beer from the refrigerator and went out onto the patio and found a spot in the late afternoon sun. There'd been nothing on Alice Parker since she'd cleared out of San Antonio a month ago. Her former police chief boss said he hadn't heard from her. She had no family left in the area. Her parents were drug addict transients who hadn't been heard from in years. They'd abandoned Alice to the care of her paternal grandmother when she was twelve, a good woman by all accounts, but she died five years ago.

  "She's probably feeding the kangaroos in Australia by now," the chief had told Jack.

  He wasn't so sure. Alice Parker had unfinished business in south Texas, and he'd be happier knowing where she was.

  Jack stared up at the vibrant, golden sunset. He supposed he should get some supper, but he didn't want to move. He wanted to sit here a while and think about the Rachel McGarrity murder investigation, Beau McGarrity, Alice Parker, a contaminated crime scene, a fabricated witness and his wife.

  He had a mind to check with a travel agent in the morning and see about flying into the Adirondacks. What was the closest airport? Albany? Montreal? Burlington, Vermont? He'd rent a car, and he'd drive out to Blackwater Lake, find this damn cabin and surprise the hell out of one Susanna Dunning Galway.

  * * *

  Susanna slid onto a stool at Jim Haviland's bar and ordered a bowl of clam chowder. The girls were with friends, and Gran had already been in and was home watching a game show, still trying to decide whether she'd come up to Blackwater Lake with them on Saturday.

  "Destin was in earlier asking for you," Jim said, setting the steaming chowder in front of Susanna.

  She groaned. "I hope you told him I never come in here anymore. He's driving me nuts. I'm tempted to invest in this new idea of his just to shut him up."

  "Is it a good idea?"

  "I don't know. I won't let him tell me about it. Jim, I just can't give him the kind of money he's asking for—"

  He held up a big hand. "Hey, you don't have to explain to me."

  She sighed. "Destin's not a bad guy."

  "He's an asshole," Davey Ahearn blurted from the other end of the bar. He shrugged, apologetic, when Susanna looked at him. "Excuse my language. Ask Des-tin how much he gave back to the neighborhood when he made it big. See what he says. You're rich, Suzie-cue. You give back."

  She tried her chowder, which was thick and creamy—perfect. "What makes you think I'm rich?"

  Davey grinned. "I'm a plumber, remember? I hear things. I know what you pay for your office in town, and I know what you gave to the family of that firefighter who got killed over Christmas."

  She frowned at him. "That was supposed to be an anonymous gift."

  "One or two less zeroes in it, it might have stayed anonymous."

  Jim Haviland tossed a white bar towel over his shoulder. "Tess told me she stopped by your office a few weeks ago and gave you a lecture. She called this morning. Says she hasn't seen you and asked if I saw signs it was taking."

  Susanna ground pepper into her soup, carefully avoiding Jim's critical look. "What did you tell her?"

  "I told her hell, no, it wasn't taking. Look at you. Head to toe in black."

  She glanced down at her black sweater and black jeans. "I like black."

  "Wicked Witch of the East," Davey said, humming a few measures of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead."

  "We never got to see the Wicked Witch of the East." Susanna kept her voice steady, determined not to let these two men get the better of her. "Just her legs and her ruby slippers. Maybe she wore red."

  Davey shook his head. "Nope. Black. All black."

  Jim waited on one of the tables, then came back behind the bar. There was always a crowd on chowder night, not that it changed his pace of operations. "You haven't been coming around much lately," he told Susanna.

  "I've been swamped."

  "All that money," Davey said. "Must be time-con-suming adding it up."

  "I'm ignoring you, Davey Ahearn."

  "It won't work. That's why you haven't been coming around much. You know we're not going to leave you alone about that guy who killed his wife."

  Her stomach twisted, and she stared at her chowder, suddenly no longer hungry. "Davey, for God's sake…"

  "You still haven't told Jack," Jim said gently.

  She shook her head. "I told you, there's no point. It's been over a year. The woman who screwed up the investigation is out of prison, and Jack—I don't know, he's chasing escaped convicts or something. This thing's over. Whatever happened to me is irrelevant." She believed that, even if Jack would want the final word— even if Rachel McGarrity's murder remained an open case. She added stubbornly, "Whether I say anything or not won't make a difference."

  Jim dumped ice into a glass, working on drinks for his customers. "It would to your husband."

  "Don't you think a wife deserves to have some secrets from her husband?"

  Davey snorted. "Only about the occasional trip on the sly to the dog track."

  "When are you heading to the mountains?" Jim asked her, mercifully changing the subject.

  "Saturday morning." Susanna dipped her spoon into her soup and smiled. "I'm taking black pants, black shirts, black socks—"

  "Bla
ck underwear?" Davey asked without missing a beat.

  She couldn't suppress a laugh, but said to Jim, "Can I throw my soup at him?"

  "No way. I gave you extra clams." He then shifted from one foot to the other in a rare show of discomfort.

  "Look, Susanna, before you go, especially if Iris is staying behind—you might want to meet her new friend."

  "Ah. Audrey. I've been meaning to. Gran says they eat together here once in a while."

  "Two, three times a week. She's from Texas, you know. Houston."

  Susanna set her spoon down carefully, not wanting her shock to show. "No, I didn't know. Gran's never said, and I never thought to ask. Tell me more."

  "I don't know much more," Jim said. "Audrey Melbourne, from Houston, small, curly red hair, lots of makeup and jewelry. She turned up not long after New Year's saying she was thinking about relocating to Boston but didn't like the high rents. She found a place to live a few blocks from here, says it's temporary. I'll admit, I didn't think she'd come back in here after that first night, but she and Iris have kicked up this friendship…" He trailed off, eyeing Susanna. "You okay?"

  "Melbourne…" She almost couldn't get it out. She was shaking visibly now, unable to contain her shock. Davey eased off his stool, obviously ready to come to her aid. She tossed her head back a little, trying to rally. "The next time this woman comes in, will you call me? You have my cell phone number? I want to meet her."

  "Susanna." Jim's blue eyes drilled into her, and she remembered he had long experience with his own daughter and her half-truths, including her recent dissembling about her haunted carriage house and the dead body in the cellar. He set the finished drink he'd been making on a tray and pulled her soup bowl away, dumping it into a dishpan to bring out back. "If there's something I need to know about Audrey Melbourne, you

  need to tell me. Now. No screwing around."

  "She—I don't want her near my grandmother."

  "That goes for Maggie and Ellen as well?"

  Susanna stared at him dully, unable to think. "What?"

  "The twins. They had soup with Iris and Audrey a few nights ago, when you were at your tai chi class."