The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "Scared?" Jim asked her.

  She didn't look a bit scared. "I'm too green at the gills most of the time to be scared."

  "No puking at the bar," Davey said.

  Tess ignored him. "I can't wait to tell Susanna. Do you have her number in the Adirondacks? I'm not getting through on her cell phone."

  "Probably the mountains," Jim said. "I don't think she has a regular phone up there yet."

  "Blackwater Lake." Davey shook his head. "It's as deep in the boonies as it sounds. Hard to believe Iris grew up that far out into the wilds."

  Just then Andrew and little Dolly swooped into the pub, and Jim congratulated them, knowing he had a tendency to sound awkward and repressed when he was talking about things like his daughter being pregnant. He didn't give a damn.

  Davey got down off his stool and gave Tess a big hug. "Don't think I'm going to be godfather to any new little ones. Being your godfather's been pain in the ass enough."

  Jim gave Dolly a present he'd been saving, a new stuffed animal he'd picked up at the New England Aquarium. She was a cute kid, wanted to be a marine biologist these days. But who knew? Last year it was a princess.

  After Tess left with her family, Davey plopped back down at his place at the bar. "You going to start knitting booties, Jimmy?"

  But Jim's attention was on a man coming over from a back table and taking the stool Tess had vacated. He set an empty beer glass on the bar. He'd been nursing it for almost an hour. He was gray-haired, distinguished-looking, wearing an expensive business suit. He had on a college football ring, and he spoke in a twangy South

  ern accent.

  He asked what he owed for the beer.

  Jim told him. "Where you from?"

  "Not here, I'm afraid." He wasn't snotty, but he wasn't friendly, either. Used to people waiting on him. He added, "I'm in town on business."

  "We don't get too many out-of-town businessmen in here. We're mostly a local place."

  "That's what I like about it," the man said. "A friend recommended it. I overheard what your daughter said. Congratulations."

  Jim didn't know why, but the man's words didn't sit well with him. He glanced at Davey and saw his friend had the same reaction. "Thanks," Jim said. "Where you staying?"

  "Hotel in town."

  That could be anywhere. He didn't order anything else, just paid for his beer and left.

  Davey half turned on his stool and looked out at the door as it shut. "Think I should follow him?"

  "Jesus, Davey, no. Why would you do that?"

  "You look suspicious, Jimmy."

  "You think that was a Texas accent?"

  "Hell if I know. If it was, we've got too damn many Texans showing up here, if you ask me."

  "Yeah." Jim frowned, staring at the closed door. "Cops were in earlier, asking about Jack Galway and last night at Iris's place."

  Davey nodded grimly. "Maybe you should give them a buzz."

  "Why, because a man with a Texas accent ordered a beer and congratulated my daughter on expecting a baby? That's thin."

  "Jack leave you his cell phone number?" "No, and I didn't ask for it." "Three Texans in a row. The ex-con, the Ranger, and

  now this guy with the ring. I don't know, Jimmy. I'm starting to think you should tack a Lone Star on the front door."

  Jim ignored him and put another pie in the oven, but he ended up burning the meringue on this one, too.

  Twelve

  Susanna splashed her face with cold water in her little cabin bathroom and recovered her composure. In all the months she'd pictured herself telling Jack about her encounter with Beau McGarrity, she'd said to her-self—for God's sake, don't cry. Just tell him straight up and let him get all official and try to tell her he should arrest her for withholding evidence. She'd be objective, calm and reasonable, understanding of the anger and sense of betrayal he might feel at her long silence.

  That plan had gone to hell when she found out he'd known about Beau McGarrity practically all along.

  In hindsight, she should have told Jack what had happened. It had been her first instinct, and she should have followed it. But clarity was so much easier now when he was here. She wasn't dealing with the reality of a stranger in her kitchen. There'd been so much at stake. The Rachel McGarrity murder investigation. Maggie and Ellen's safety. Her own. Once Jack told her about Alice Parker, it had seemed safer, simpler, better for all concerned for her just to say nothing.

  She noticed in the mirror that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Tough to blame that on the snow, the cold, the face wash. Damn, she'd held back on that cry for far too long.

  Jack was right. That moment she'd decided not to tell him about Beau McGarrity, she hadn't wanted to be married to a Texas Ranger. She'd have taken an accountant, a social studies teacher, a construction worker— except she knew better. Violence could strike anyone, anytime. She'd learned that in her years married to Jack Galway. And she loved him.

  She'd seen him cry once, at his mother's grave in San Antonio. She was killed in a car accident when he was fifteen and his younger sister was just nine. His father worked two jobs and pushed both his son and daughter to excel, to open up their world and possibilities. Jack had gone to Harvard, Kara toYale—and both had come home to Texas, although Kara only recently. Bill Galway had remarried and moved to Corpus Christi, satisfied to spend his retirement fishing and telling people he had one kid who was a Texas Ranger, another who was a lawyer, so between the two of them, no matter what happened, he was all set.

  The Galways were a tough lot, that was for sure.

  Susanna splashed her face once more, dried off and headed back into the kitchen. Jack and the girls were making dinner—spaghetti, salad, garlic bread. He glanced at her but said nothing, and she could tell his mood was definitely dark. At least with her. He seemed fine with Maggie and Ellen.

  She joined Gran at the puzzle table. "We should go to England," Gran said, "and look up this castle."

  Susanna smiled. "I thought you didn't like to travel."

  "Well, England might be nice." She glanced up at her granddaughter and whispered, "You told him?"

  "He already knew."

  "Ah."

  Gran was aware some of the details about what had happened with Beau McGarrity, but not all of them. If she knew everything, she'd have likely gone to Jack herself long before now. Susanna didn't know how she'd managed to keep any secrets, much less a few big ones, given the Dunning propensity for getting everything out in the open. Her work had taught her how to keep con-fidences—so had Jack's. But that was professional, not personal, and a confidence was different from a secret.

  Susanna put in a couple of pieces of the rose garden before Maggie called them to the table.

  During dinner, they talked about snowshoeing, the weather and food, and Susanna could feel the isolation of her cabin with nightfall, the quiet all around them. There were no street noises, no city lights—in summer, the windows would be open, with crickets and owls to listen to, but now, there was just the occasional whistling of the wind as the snow fell. Jack sat next to Gran at the other end of the table, and Susanna managed not to make eye contact with him through dinner. Afterward, she ran everyone out of the kitchen and cleaned up the dishes.

  Gran, Maggie and Ellen resumed their Scrabble tournament once the table was cleared. Jack brought in wood, one load after another, until the wood box was overflowing. Susanna knew he was climbing the walls.

  "You could go out and look for moose tracks in the dark," she said as he started out for another load.

  He gave her a short, intense look, and she knew he had two things on his mind. One was Alice Parker, Beau McGarrity and the missing tape. The other was her. Neither made hanging around a mountain cabin easy to do.

  "Mom," Ellen said from the table, "you should join our Scrabble tournament. We can have four players."

  "It's too late to add a new player," Maggie said.

  Gran drew her wool shawl around her thin shoulders.
"Susanna can take my place."

  Ellen shook her head. "No way. You can't quit while you're ahead. You're winning, Gran."

  "I made a seven-letter word," she told Susanna, pleased with herself.

  "She did, Mom," Maggie said. "Avenues. Can you believe it? It's such a city word for up here."

  Susanna let them play their game and retreated to the couch in front of a fire, trying to concentrate on a book. Jack dumped his last load of wood and tried working the puzzle. He put in one piece and gave up. "I never did like puzzles."

  "Not if they don't involve criminals." Susanna didn't think there was an edge to her voice, but he shot her a look as if he thought he'd heard one. She shrugged under her warm fleece blanket. "You are a Texas Ranger."

  "Am I?"

  He wasn't back to neutral. He was still in interrogation mode. Still angry with her—and himself. An exconvict he'd put in prison had insinuated herself into his family's life for weeks, he'd been hit on the head and he hadn't known about the tape. There was still an unsolved murder in Texas. His professional and personal lives had collided, and Susanna knew he didn't like it. Neither did she. But instead of facing it, she'd fled. It wasn't her style, which made reconciling herself to the past months even more difficult.

  That didn't mean she liked having the professional Jack Galway turned loose on her. Intellectually, she understood her culpability in their current standoff. Emotionally, she was still raw and hurt and furious with him. He'd known about Beau McGarrity.

  Under the circumstances, she felt no obligation to tell him about the ten million. Not yet. Maybe not until his lawyers came hunting for it.

  But the thought of divorce brought an instant tightness to her throat, and she could feel the tears brimming again. She was exhausted, wrung out from the turmoil of her emotions, lack of sleep, snowshoeing, the cold air—just the edge of having her husband back in her life.

  She flipped a page in her book, not that she was able to absorb a single word she read. Jack bit off a sigh and abruptly headed for the kitchen. "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "Star gazing."

  "It's snowing. The stars won't be out."

  "Then I'll count snowflakes."

  She heard the mud room door shut hard and pulled her fleece blanket up to her chin, debating whether to go out and offer to count snowflakes with him. Maybe not, she thought, and flipped another page while Maggie and Ellen groaned when their great-grandmother put the Q on a triple-letter score.

  * * *

  Alice wrapped her damp hair in a soft, warm towel and sank onto her bed in her room at the Blackwater Inn. She could live in this room for the rest of her life. Never mind Australia. Just give her maid service, pretty-smell-ing soaps and a beautiful view right here in the Adirondacks. She'd be fine.

  Her skin was plump and wrinkled from her long, scented bath. She'd snuggled up in the natural cotton terry-cloth robe that came with her room, feeling pampered and special. They had a fire in the living room downstairs, but she was content staying up here in her room, enjoying the quiet and a few minutes of freedom from Destin.

  Jack Galway was up here. That wasn't good news.

  "He scares the hell out of me," Destin had told her when he'd come in from his excursion out to Susanna's cabin.

  But if Jack's presence put more pressure on her and Destin, Alice thought, maybe it put more pressure on Susanna, too. It could work to their advantage.

  Destin was down in the living room, yapping with the innkeepers. Alice stared at the shifting shadows on her ceiling, the swirling plaster strokes. She remembered Rachel McGarrity telling her that the best part of being rich was always having quality. She'd loved fine linens. Egyptian cotton towels, 300-count cotton sheets, Anachini bedspreads, merino and cashmere blankets. Alice tried to learn what the best brands and fabrics were. She wasn't jealous, just curious. Rachel never lorded her wealth over anyone. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth but had been raised to be gracious and kind. Alice's grandma had always set stock on good manners as the true tell of character.

  Rachel wasn't perfect, but never pretended to be, not that Alice had seen. Beau hadn't wanted to know about her imperfections, just as he hadn't wanted to know about his first wife's cancer, like it was her fault—a character flaw.

  Philadelphia blueblood or not, Rachel Tucker McGarrity had bled like anyone else. The medical examiner said she'd died within a minute. She probably hadn't suffered.

  But had she known what was happening to her? Did she know she'd been shot, even if she didn't really feel it? Did she know her husband had just killed her?

  Did she know Alice had inadvertently provoked him?

  Alice knew there were things Rachel had never told her. Why her interest in Susanna Galway, what she was working on. They were getting to that—she'd promised Alice more answers, soon.

  Had she thought as she died, I should have told Alice more?

  Alice shut her eyes, trying to block out the unwanted thoughts and images. She didn't know what the mind could absorb in the last seconds before death. Had Rachel seen Alice's change purse on the driveway and thought it was her friend who'd killed her? Was Beau that evil to have wanted Rachel to believe it was Alice who'd killed her, not him? Would that have given him some kind of sick satisfaction?

  Alice knew she should have secured the crime scene and let the investigative team figure out that her change purse was planted. Instead she'd grabbed it—she'd had to move Rachel's arm—and scoured the area for other evidence that would lead the detectives back to her, trampling evidence in the process.

  What a mess.

  She got up and walked over to the mirror above her dresser, letting her towel drape over her shoulders. She liked her red hair. She might keep it. She'd never really expected the slight changes in her appearance to keep Ranger Jack at bay. Maybe they were simply a start to adopting a new identity. Leaving behind Alice Parker of Loserville, Texas.

  Her cell phone trilled. She grimaced, knowing it was Beau.

  She grabbed her phone from the night stand where it was recharging. "Hey, Mr. Beau—that you?"

  "You're in the Adirondacks," he said. "You followed Susanna after you searched Iris Dunning's house last night."

  His words took Alice by surprise. She shivered, suddenly cold. "Are you in Boston?"

  "Did you find the tape?"

  If she said yes, she had no reason to be in the Adirondacks. Nothing to keep him from tracking her down and beating her to death. She sat on the edge of the bed. Her damp towel had turned cold. She dropped it on the floor and tucked her bare feet up under her, folding her bathrobe over them. She couldn't let her teeth shatter. He'd assume it was nerves.

  He wouldn't take well to her shenanigans with Des-tin Wright.

  "No," she said. "I have reason to believe she keeps it with her. That's why I'm up here." A lie, she thought. A dangerous lie.

  "It's not in San Antonio."

  Alice's heart seemed to stop beating, then start up again with a jolt, rushing blood through her system so fast and hard it hurt. Her fingertips were purple and cold now, no longer warm from her bath. She furrowed her brow, making herself concentrate. "Beau, Jesus, what are you doing? You broke into the Galway house in San Antonio? Are you nuts? You said Sam Temple's keeping an eye on you—"

  "Not that close an eye. You don't need to worry about me." He paused, a tactic, she knew, to ratchet up the tension. His voice never changed, making it impossible to read him, whether he was dead serious or just testing the waters. "Not in that way."

  "You're supposed to stay home and trim your roses and let me do the dirty work. That's what you're paying me for."

  "Miss Parker, if you have presumed in any way to play me for a fool—"

  "Now, don't be silly, Mr. Beau."

  But she thought of the tape sitting in her battered suitcase and Destin Wright down in front of the fire, probably yammering to the innkeepers about how he had a hundred grand in the bag to start over. His angel money.r />
  Beau would probably consider both of these playing him for a fool.

  "You're the smartest man I know," she told him. "You got away with murder. I'd never try to trick you."

  "I'll be in touch," he said, clicking off.

  Alice pulled the quilt up over her and sat cross-leg-ged in the middle of the bed. Now what? Susanna Galway was a sane woman with a perfectly good ten million in her name, and here Alice was, messing with a murderous sociopath for a lousy fifty grand. Probably half that. Beau'd never pay her full asking price.

  It was too late to backtrack on her deal with him now. If he found out she'd lied to him, never mind what he'd pay. She'd be lucky if he didn't chop through the ice on Blackwater Lake and heave her in.

  She wanted Australia. In Australia, she would know only nice people.

  * * *

  Susanna had shut her book and was staring at the fire, heat radiating out to her from its orange flames. Maggie and Ellen had gone upstairs to take turns reading Pride and Prejudice aloud to each other. It was how desperate they were, they'd said. Susanna didn't think so. She could tell they were enjoying this time together, away from the distractions of their lives in either Boston or San Antonio.

  Gran had gone up to her room, too. Susanna had asked if there was anywhere she wanted to go, anything she wanted to see while they were on Blackwater Lake. "The cemetery," she'd said.

  Susanna hadn't argued. "Okay, Gran. I'll take you to the cemetery in the morning."

  She imagined her grandmother in her room, thinking about the people whose graves she'd visit tomorrow.

  She tucked her blanket around her. The fire crackled, and she bit back sudden tears. She didn't know what was wrong with her. Her family was right there with her, and yet she'd never felt so alone.

  Jack came in from the mud room, brushing melting snow off his hair. "It's coming down hard now." He walked over to the fire, and Susanna could feel the cold coming off him. "Where is everyone?"

  "Upstairs. I think they're making themselves scarce."

  He glanced back at her, his dark eyes narrowed. "Good."

  He sat next to her on the couch and took a corner of her blanket, scooting closer. She loosened her grip on the blanket and gave him more of it. "Your hands are freezing," she said, taking one and sandwiching it between her palms, sharing some of her body heat. She noticed they both still wore their wedding rings. They'd been so broke when they'd bought them. They were simple white gold bands, inscribed with their initials and the date of their wedding.