The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

"Gran…we can show Sam and Jack the boot print."

  She seemed not to hear. "Most of the places on the lake are seasonal. The Herrington property is vast. The house is boarded up, and the teahouse where Jared and I used to meet…" She trailed off a moment, as if drifting back in time, but quickly recovered her train of thought. "I suppose it's not really Herrington property any longer. I suppose it eventually went to his son—his mother remarried a few months after I found Jared and buried him. A Philadelphia businessman. Tucker, his name was. Brighton Tucker. He adopted little Jared."

  Taken aback, Susanna took her grandmother by the elbows and held her, turning her away from the harsh wind. "Gran—what did you say? Jared's widow married a man named Tucker?"

  "Yes, I remember, because I didn't think she should make little Jared change his name to Tucker. But she did, and I never said a word. He's your father's half brother, but I—well, Kevin doesn't know about him. We just didn't put those things out in the open in those days." She anchored her ski pole in the snow and sank against it, her earlier energy obviously deserting her. "They had no interest in coming back up here. The property just sat. Oh, that happened even before I left the lake, years and years and years ago."

  With the snow, the wind and the shock of Gran's words, Susanna almost couldn't breathe. "Gran… Beau McGar-rity's wife, the woman who was murdered—her name was Tucker. Rachel Tucker. She was from Philadelphia."

  "Oh, dear." Iris's eyes widened, and the wrinkles in her face seemed more prominent. But she rallied, leaning hard on one ski pole, pointing up the lakeshore with the other. "Destin's got himself mixed up in a terrible mess. If you'll just go a few yards down this path and along the cove, you'll be able to see if he headed for the teahouse or someplace, or if he split off and looped back through the woods. At the rate it's snowing, we could lose his tracks. I should have thought of this yesterday and checked—" She broke off her self-recrimi-nations and set her second pole back into the snow. "You'll still be within shouting distance for Sam."

  "You go on inside," Susanna said. "Tell him what you told me."

  Her grandmother nodded, but didn't move. She bit her thin, purplish lower lip, blinking rapidly. "Susanna, I didn't know. This was all so long ago…"

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay?" Susanna managed a smile. "That's what Jack would say, right? This might just be a coincidence. There must be a gazillion Tuckers in Philadelphia. Please, go back to the cabin."

  "I'll wait out here for you," she said stubbornly.

  Her grandmother was shivering, not so much from the cold, Susanna realized, as the shock of the possible connection between her lover of more than a half century ago and a woman murdered in Texas. "No, it's okay, Gran. Sam's probably chomping at the bit already. I'll be fine. Trust me, you'll hear me yell if there's a problem. I'll check to see which way the tracks go, then I'll hustle back here."

  Obviously reluctant to leave her, Gran nonetheless started retracing her tracks to the cabin, moving steadily, carefully. Susanna watched her take a few steps, decided she'd be all right and set off along Destin's presumed path, staying close to the boot prints but trying not to obliterate them with her snowshoes. She used her poles to help her pick up speed. She needed to make short work of this little mission. Then she needed to talk to Jack and Sam—and someone needed to find Destin Wright and warn him he'd put his stupid head in the lion's mouth this time.

  Rachel McGarrity was a Tucker from Philadel-phia…Jared Herrington's widow had married a Tucker from Philadelphia…Beau McGarrity had followed Susanna in the days before his wife turned up murdered in their own driveway.

  Susanna pushed the rush of questions and possibilities to the back of her mind and focused on making her way along the trail, the wind slapping snow into her face. She followed the boot prints down to the lake's edge. As Gran had suspected, they didn't veer off into the woods—they stayed right along the shore.

  The wind and the now heavy snow had already made the tracks difficult to make out. Susanna picked her way carefully among the rocks and thick, milky white ice that had pushed up onto shore from the lake, rounding a small cove. She'd go out to the point, see what she could make out and then head back.

  She used her poles and bore down on her snowshoe cleats to maneuver along the edge of a rock outcropping. It gave way to a treacherous, vertical rock ledge twenty or thirty feet above the lake, but she took a sharp, steep path straight down to the shore. She could barely see in the blinding snow and wind. There was little she could do now but turn around, get local trackers out here to see if these prints amounted to anything. For all Susanna knew, they could be Jack's, from one of his restless bursts outside.

  At the end of the path, she realized she'd lost the tracks. Destin must have gone along the top of the ledge, as treacherous as it was, and stayed off the lake, where he'd have been more exposed on the ice.

  She was beyond the protection of the trees and rocks now, the wind gusting hard out in the open, slapping into her face, spraying snow against her cheeks and into her eyes. She moaned at the shock of cold, her eyes tearing, blurring. She blinked, clearing her vision, and started back up the steep path that would take her to the cabin.

  Then she saw him, just as she turned onto the path, and jumped back, yelling out in horror and shock even as she took in the camel coat, the expensive cream cashmere scarf flapping on the ice.

  His body was slumped in the snow and ice three or four yards from her, on the lake, at the base of the vertical ledge.

  Destin Wright hadn't made it off Blackwater Lake.

  Susanna couldn't take in that he was dead. It refused to register in her numb mind. Maybe there was a chance he was still alive. Maybe he'd just gone to sleep.

  She had to get to him. She had to know for sure before she went for help.

  She pushed down hard on her ski pole, but it hit ice, throwing her off-balance. The toes of her snowshoes crossed as she tried to adjust, and she fell hard onto one knee, losing one of her ski poles and just managing not to stab herself with the other. She untangled herself and used the one pole to get to her feet, her knee aching, snow down her neck and up her sleeves. She'd dressed for a quick run around the yard with her eighty-two-year-old grandmother.

  The wind and snow were fierce on the open lake, blowing straight at her, the snow like tiny ice needles. "Destin," Susanna called, then louder. "Destin, hang on!" And she turned and yelled down the lake toward the cabin. "Sam, help! I need help down here!"

  But with the wind and the curve of the shoreline, she doubted he would hear her, and she couldn't wait for him—she had to see if Destin was still alive.

  She could feel the lake ice under the snow cover, and even on snowshoes, she moved carefully, as quickly as she could, her stomach twisting when she crouched down at the fringed end of Destin's scarf.

  She didn't want to look, but made herself do it.

  His skin was bluish white, and snow had collected on his eyelashes. There was ice in his blond hair. Susanna touched the sleeve of his coat, but his arm was like a block of ice.

  "Oh, Destin," she whispered, choking on the wind, the cold, her own shock. "Destin—I wish I'd given you your damn angel money. My God."

  He could have fallen off the ledge. It was icy, and the trees grew right to the edge of it. He was in boots, a city guy despite his bragging about his winter sports experience. But she didn't know. She didn't know what had happened, and she needed to call the police and get them out here, get back to the cabin and tell Sam, find her husband.

  She wanted Jack now. She wanted him here, with her.

  She knew what she had to do, and she'd do it. But she wanted him at her side.

  The simple admission brought her up short, and she stood up, the wind howling out on the lake, whipping more tears out of her eyes. The snow was coming down hard, collecting on her outer layers. Across the frozen lake, she could see nothing but blinding white, obliterating the mountains, the opposite shore. She realized how isolated she was, with
poor Destin dead at her feet.

  She moved toward the ledge, hoping it would block some of the wind. She was careful not to get too close to the edge, where the ice was rough and difficult to negotiate. Her snowshoes felt heavy now, her knee throbbing and bruised from where she'd fallen. She made her way to the steep, icy path, noticing the displaced snow where she'd fallen. She leaned forward, pressing hard on her toe cleats. If she hit her head on ice or rock, she'd be dead, too.

  Two figures materialized at the top of the path, like a mirage. Alice Parker in front, Beau McGarrity in back. Susanna recognized them both even as she stared up at them. Alice's curls were caked with ice and snow, hanging in her face like red icicles.

  "Destin's dead," Susanna said, her voice cracking from the cold, the strain. "Did you—"

  "That's what Beau wants everyone to think. That I killed Destin. That I killed his wife." Alice's voice was dull and thick, as if she had no strength left in her. She had the ski pole Susanna had lost earlier and leaned heavily on it. Her eyelids were drooping. "He planted something of mine at the crime scene. My change purse.

  My grandma gave it to me when I graduated high school, and it had my initials on it."

  "Isn't she pathetic? A murderer who wants us all to feel sorry for her." Beau McGarrity shoved Alice from behind, then caught her before she could fall down the icy path. "I didn't want to believe it, Mrs. Galway. Alice Parker befriended my wife. I didn't want to believe she—a police officer—would kill her friend and try to frame me for it."

  Susanna decided this was not the time to confront either of them. "I don't know what's going on here, but let's none of us do anything we'll regret later. Jack and Sam Temple are here. They're on the case with the local authorities. It'll all get sorted out."

  Alice seemed to want to lick her lips, but couldn't manage the effort. She mouthed words that didn't come out.

  "Alice," McGarrity said, and it wasn't a warning— it was a command.

  Susanna instinctively took a step backward on the steep path, but she was too late. Alice raised the ski pole and whipped it at her, the sharp tip catching Susanna in the chest as she spun around, diving toward the lake and the cover of the rock ledge.

  Her other ski pole flew out of her hand, and she tripped over her snowshoes, tumbling headfirst back down the path. Her shoulder slammed against the icy ledge, and she landed on her hurt knee and pitched forward into the snow. Her left hand plunged through an icy crust, tearing off her glove, scraping her wrist and arm up to her elbow.

  She cried out in agony and fell onto her stomach, lying still. With her right hand, she reached for her ski

  pole, prepared to defend herself against another attack.

  But there was silence. Even the wind had died down.

  Her heart raced painfully, and she slowly extricated her injured arm from the snow, trying not to add more scrapes as she pulled it back through the crust. It was red and bleeding, aching with the cold. With her uninjured hand, she dug out the glove that had come off and eased it back on, shuddering at the pain.

  She got to her feet, unsteady, terrified. Why the hell had Beau ordered Alice to go after her with a damn ski pole if he wanted her to believe Alice was framing him?

  "Dead people can't tell tales," she muttered. "That's why."

  Or he'd just say Alice seized the moment, and it had nothing to do with him. He was the innocent victim.

  Always the innocent victim, Beau McGarrity.

  Susanna pushed her questions aside and focused on what to do next. Her left snowshoe had come off. She got it back on, taking off the glove on her good hand to adjust the bindings. They were frozen, covered in snow. She did the best she could. If she had to walk in her boots, she'd walk in her boots. She didn't care. She needed to get to the cabin, to Gran and the girls.

  She had no energy left to yell, but she tried. "Sam…Jack…"

  Her face was wet with snow, her hair hanging in frozen clumps. She lifted one foot, bringing it down where she'd already mashed down the snow. She didn't look back at Destin Wright. She didn't bother with her one ski pole. She didn't go back up the steep path. She stayed on the edge of the lake, making her way toward her family.

  Twenty

  Alice trudged through the deep snow with Beau Mc-Garrity right behind her, occasionally shoving Destin's H&K in her back to urge her to pick up her pace. She could hear him breathing hard, as much from the excitement as exertion. His mind must be racing. She figured he had about a dozen different versions of how he could play this out, none of them good.

  "You and Rachel were plotting to kill me and get my money," he said.

  This was one version. The Paranoia Scenario. Alice shook her head. Or thought she did. She was numb from exhaustion and the cold. Her mind felt dull, but she remembered that someone suffering from hypothermia should try to keep talking. "Rachel didn't care about your money. She had plenty of her own. And I was just her friend. I wanted to be a Texas Ranger." It sounded so romantic now, so pathetically out of reach. She mumbled, not sure McGarrity could hear her, "Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Texas Ranger."

  They were following snowshoe prints on a path that seemed to lead through the woods back to Susanna's cabin. They both had on boots, and Alice wasn't sure when her legs would give out and she wouldn't be able to lift them high enough to take the next step. If not for the snowshoe prints, she'd have collapsed not long after they'd left Susanna on the lake.

  "Rachel was writing a book about her grandfather and his affair with Iris Dunning," McGarrity said. "After he died, his own wife wouldn't even take him back home to bury him. Iris found his frozen body out here in the woods and buried him herself. Rachel planned to include that sort of sordid detail in her book for all the world to read."

  "That all happened a long time ago—"

  "She refused to show me her notes. I had to find them on my own. She planned to write about how bitter her grandmother was, how she and Jared Herring-ton were estranged long before he took up with his little Adirondack guide."

  "I don't think Iris was ever little," Alice said dully. "She's pretty tall by my standards, and I'll bet she was tough in her youth."

  "Rachel planned to make contact with Susanna Galway and tell her everything."

  "So?"

  "She was in the process of turning her life—my life—into a spectacle. I saw her notes. I saw her ideas for publicity and promotion, pictures, magazine spinoff articles about how she'd come to Texas and married the man of her dreams all because she'd wanted to find her father's illegitimate half brother."

  Alice tripped on her own feet, and Beau nudged her in the back with the gun. "Don't try anything stupid."

  "What, like walking?"

  He ignored her. "You knew about the book."

  "No, Mr. Beau, I didn't know a damn thing. I wish I had."

  "That's why you killed her. Rachel came around at the last minute and promised me she'd burn all her notes and let the past be. You were furious. You saw your chance for the big time slip away. No book, no money for digging around in your new friend's past."

  The Paranoia Scenario converged nicely with the Great Savior Scenario. Beau McGarrity as avenger of his wife's death, the man who'd bring her murderer to justice—or just shoot her. It depended, Alice imagined, on what Beau and she did next.

  "Okay," Alice said. "That's why I killed her. Why did you kill her?"

  He sniffed. "You think you're so clever."

  "I'm guessing you two had your fight over the book, and then I pipe up with that comment about smothering you with a pillow—you took it literally. You let your imagination and paranoia take over and got yourself so carried away with what we were up to that you went and shot her."

  "You're weak, Alice. You of all people know the power of the bad seed."

  She thought of her grandma, her parents when they weren't drinking. They were good people. Alcoholism was a disease. Even as dehydrated and frozen as she was, Alice could feel the tears hot in
her eyes.

  Her grandma had always told her to watch out for the mean and crazy ones.

  Beau was one to talk about bad seeds. He'd murdered an innocent woman. His wife. Rachel, a kind and sweet woman who'd just wanted to write a book about her poor grandfather, a man who'd been dead for more than sixty years. But it wasn't the kind of publicity Beau wanted—it wasn't the kind he could control. And Rachel wasn't the kind of woman he could control. He'd seen it all in those days before he'd hid in the azaleas and shot his wife in the back.

  "Susanna Galway knows more than she's letting on," he said. "She has right from the start. Why else wouldn't she tell her husband about our little visit?"

  Alice didn't even try to tackle that one, not again.

  She prayed Susanna was still alive. She'd expected Beau to go after her, but Susanna had scooted out of reach, using the steep ledge and the harsh conditions to her advantage. He would have had to creep down the treacherous, icy path and climb over poor, dead Destin. Susanna would have had plenty of time to get the jump on him and whack him or trip him with her remaining ski pole.

  He hadn't bothered sending Alice. She'd used up the last shreds of her energy swiping at Susanna and knocking her off her feet.

  He'd debated trying to shoot her. "We're on a freaking lake," Alice had told him. "Two Texas Rangers are here. The local police are hunting us. Do you really want this place echoing with gunshots? Do you want to risk tripping on the ice and shoot- ing yourself? Susanna's probably unconscious. She won't last thirty minutes out here. And I'm already your hostage. Count your blessings."

  He'd backed off. Alice didn't know if her reasoning had convinced him or he'd simply looked at the situation and realized he'd be risking his tactical advantage to go after Susanna Galway. Beau liked to think he only did things for logical reasons.

  Mean and crazy. That was Mr. Beau. He wasn't crazy as in a treatable mental illness. Grandma hadn't meant that when she talked about his sort. He was crazy as in he didn't think like other people. No empathy. Lots of rage at the impure. Stuff like that. As far as Alice could see, his favorite scenario was to pin his wife's murder, the break-ins, the mess with the tape, Destin's death, whatever turned out to have happened to Susanna—to pin all of it on her, Alice Parker, the corrupt police officer, the fabricator of an eyewitness against him, the contaminator of evidence in a murder. The nitwit, the loser, the dreamer.