Gran stirred the bubbling pot of chili. "It'll turn up."
Sam shook his head. "I don't know. Six million acres of wilderness. A foot of fresh snow. Cold. Ice. Mountains. Lakes, rivers and streams. Campsites. Alice can go for a long time before anyone finds her."
"She won't stay up here." Gran set her spoon on the stove, looking tired but remarkably cheerful. "She wants to start a new life in Australia."
Sam shrugged. "She also wanted to be a Texas Ranger."
"I think she'll make it to Australia," Gran said wistfully. "I really do."
"You want her to get away?"
"She thinks she came north for money and revenge for all she lost, but she didn't." Gran nodded, almost to herself, with conviction. "She came for vindication. She came for justice. She served as the catalyst that put Beau McGarrity behind bars."
Sam stared at her, dumbfounded. "Ma'am, I'm not going to argue with you about anything but hot peppers, but you are dead wrong. Alice Parker committed about two dozen different crimes. Breaking and entering, assault, extortion—"
"Yes, but in the end—"
"In the end, she stole a truck."
Jack got up from the castle puzzle. He'd been staring at it for twenty minutes. He was wearing a dark sweater, looking warm but still grim, still digesting, Susanna knew, how close he'd come to losing his family. Really losing it. He'd been upstairs earlier with the girls, making sure they were comfortable. Ellen had said she planned to sleep for a hundred years. Maggie still didn't have the energy to talk. And Susanna knew she couldn't have made it up three steps before she collapsed. Fatigue and shock had left her limp and shaky, and the images of her daughters' bleeding and frostbitten, of Destin's hard, frozen body, tore at her peace of mind.
"Give it up, Sam," Jack said. "Iris isn't changing her mind."
Sam grunted. "When I'm eighty, I'm going to be just as opinionated."
"You're just as opinionated now," Gran informed him.
He kissed her on the top of the head and took her by the shoulders, moving her toward the table. "You, ma'am, are going to sit down and let Jack and me finish this chili. I'll tell you one thing I'm not doing when I'm eighty—I'm not chasing any desperadoes through the goddamn frozen wilderness."
Gran sank onto a chair across from Susanna and sighed up at him. "I did all right today, didn't I?"
"Ma'am, you are something else." Sam got her shawl off the couch and draped it over her shoulders. "I, on the other hand, got my ass kicked today."
"Sam, I'm sorry," Susanna said. "We nearly got you killed."
He looked over at her, and she saw that his eyes were very serious. "That's the other way around. I'm the Texas Ranger who was assigned to keep you warm and safe."
"Uh-huh," she said. "You had your badge and your gun, and you had every reason to think they'd be enough."
He winked at her, seeming to understand she was trying to ease his guilt. "I could poke eyes out with that badge."
"He shot you, Sam," Susanna said quietly. "He meant to kill you. If you hadn't—"
"It worked out."
Jack got two beers from the refrigerator, poured one in a glass and took it to Iris and kept the other for himself. "None for you two," he told Sam and Susanna. "You're on pain medication."
Susanna shook her head. "No, I'm not. I haven't taken any yet."
"Wait'll the adrenaline wears off," Sam said. "You're going to hurt like hell."
"It'll make me drowsy. I don't know if I want to sleep." And an image flashed in her mind of the frost on Destin's eyelids.
Jack brushed a hand gently along her shoulder. "Beer's still not a good idea."
Iris reached across the table and grabbed Susanna's hands, scooping them up into hers as if she could read her granddaughter's mind and see the terrible images that were there. "Destin was in charge of his own destiny." Her green eyes shone with intensity, certainty. "You didn't tell him to become so obsessed with money and himself that he couldn't see anything or anyone else. His death isn't your fault. Or mine."
"Yours? No, Gran—"
She cut Susanna off with a curt shake of the head. "I should have told you about Jared years ago. You and Jack might have made his connection to Rachel McGarrity sooner. That was a decision I made a long time ago, before any of you were born. But," she said, lifting her beer glass, "I didn't create Beau McGarrity."
"He's a sick, evil bastard," Susanna said. "To do what he did today—"
"I felt Jared with us today, out here on the lake." Gran's voice was wistful, and she sank back in her chair and sighed softly. "He was with Maggie and Ellen. I
know he was."
"Gran…"
She smiled. "I'm fine, Susanna. I truly am."
And she was. Susanna could see it. Her grandmother was fine. They all were, whatever physical and psychological recovery lay ahead. "The police say Destin's death might have been an accident. He could have slipped or tripped. They think the autopsy will show he died when he hit his head on the rock ledge. He wasn't shot—"
"No way was it an accident," Sam said. "There was another set of footprints at the top of the ledge. Beau pushed the poor bastard."
Gran sipped her beer. "Sergeant Temple, you do tend to look at the dark side, don't you?"
"I'm trained—"
"You're trained to look at the facts and the evidence," she said, smug.
Sam grinned at her. "That's it. I'm putting hot peppers in the chili."
But Gran just laughed, and when Sam and Jack served the bowls of steaming chili, the hot peppers were in a small dish on the side. Just to be a smartass, Sam set out a plate of saltine crackers.
Susanna only managed a couple of spoonfuls of chili before she started to slide under the table. Jack caught her firmly around the middle and got her to her feet. "To bed with you," he said.
But when he started to half carry her, half lead her to the downstairs bedroom, she shook her head. "I want to sleep upstairs with Maggie and Ellen, in case they need me during the night."
He didn't argue, and as they went up the stairs together, she felt her feet lift off the floor and let herself sink against his warm chest. He made a bed for her on the floor between the girls' twin beds. Old blankets, throws and quilts from a chest in the hall. Susanna mustered enough energy to grab a pillow from the sofa bed.
She checked on Maggie and Ellen. They were asleep, their cheeks warm to the touch.
"We almost lost them today," Susanna whispered.
Jack touched her hair. "We didn't."
But it had been so close.
She collapsed onto her makeshift bed, and Jack brought her the comforter and laid it over her. She could hear the wind dying down outside, and her mind played through the worst scenes of the day. One after another, over and over. Finding Destin. Coming upon Alice and Beau. Making her way through the storm back to the cabin. Seeing Jack, Sam, Gran and knowing—knowing all of it in that instant, terrible moment of awareness. Beau McGarrity had her daughters. He'd taken them at gunpoint. And they were in mortal danger.
She would replay those images for a long time, for the rest of her life. But that was okay. She could hear Maggie and Ellen's rhythmic breathing above the waning storm outside, and she knew her daughters were safe.
She slept for a while, and later, when she awakened in the dark and almost cried out in panic, she became aware of Jack standing in the doorway, silent, not sleeping.
Twenty-Three
Boston was in the middle of a thaw and excited about how the Red Sox looked in spring training down in Florida, a city on the verge of its usual bout of premature pennant fever. Jim Haviland didn't blame them. This was the Red Sox year. Had to be.
And talking baseball beat talking murder and mayhem, hands down. It had been three weeks since Iris Dunning and her family had rolled back down from the Adirondacks. New York and Texas were still sorting out who got to put Beau McGarrity on trial first. Massachusetts was cooperating—they didn't want him.
Alice Park
er was still missing. No sign of her since she'd made off with Davey Ahearn's truck in the storm.
Jack Galway and Sam Temple were back in San Antonio, although Jack was spending a lot of time up north, not just because of official business, Jim thought, but because of Susanna. His damn wife was still here. She had her reasons, some of them good, like the girls needing time to recover and get back to their routines—but not all her reasons were good. She had a life here she wasn't so sure she wanted to give up. Jim could feel it. If the past year hadn't changed everything, the past weeks had.
She was at a back table with Tess, who was showing off her plump stomach. "I haven't thrown up in two whole weeks," she said.
Susanna laughed. "Well, I'm glad. I thought I'd never stop throwing up with the twins—"
"Hey," Davey Ahearn said, swinging around on his bar stool to glare at the two women. "I'm trying to eat a bowl of chowder here."
Tess grinned at him. "And I used to think you were tough."
They went back and forth like that for a few minutes, until the two women decided to take a long walk and burn off their two bowls of clam chowder each. It was in the upper fifties, perfect for walking, Susanna said. But Jim had noticed she was doing a lot of walking these days. The weather didn't seem to matter.
"I miss my truck," Davey said when they'd gone.
Jim scowled. He'd been listening to Davey go on about his damn truck for three weeks. "You were trying to sell that truck."
"Yeah, and I was going to get good money for it, too. I wanted to sell it to someone in the neighborhood, so I could see it around. I liked that truck. I got a lot of good miles out of it." It was getting harder and harder, Jim thought, to tell when Davey was making a serious point or just having some fun. "You know, if Destin had gotten over that goddamn BMW and bought my truck, he might not be dead today."
"I'm not even going to try to follow that logic," Jim said.
The bar was crowded, but most of the customers were served. And no reporters. That seemed to make everyone happy. They'd had reporters crawling all over the neighborhood for almost a month, scrounging up any tidbit they could on Iris Dunning and the tragic story of her rich, long-dead lover.
Kevin's dad. Jesus, Jim thought. And Iris a bona fide mountain woman.
"He couldn't make his peace with not having money," Davey said philosophically, still on Destin Wright. "And Susanna. She can't make her peace with having money. But, ten million's a hell of pot to find at the end of the rainbow."
"She made the ten million herself. She didn't just find it."
"Even worse," Davey said. "Think Jack's made his peace with it?"
"Yeah. He's figured out what most everyone else already knew. Money's not going to change him."
"He's a goddamn Texas Ranger down to his spurs."
"I don't think they wear spurs." Jim sighed, shaking his head. "Money's not why Susanna's still in Boston."
"No?"
"No."
Davey frowned. "Then why is Susanna still in Boston, Jimmy?"
"Well, there are practical considerations. The girls need to heal, and they need the stability of their school, their friends up here. They're planning to finish out their senior year. Makes sense." Jim drew a couple of drafts for a pair of construction workers who'd just come in. "I think Susanna's just waiting for that rock-head husband of hers to sweep her off her feet."
"He's been up here—"
"That's different. By my book, they're still separated."
Davey gave the matter some thought. "Nah. Su-sanna's hard as nails. Jesus, how do you think she ended up being worth ten million? She doesn't care about being swept off her feet. She'd just tell you you're being old-fashioned and dense."
"Tess would agree," Jim said. "They might be right."
"Doesn't matter, because Suzie-cue might as well wait for a cold day in hell as wait for Jack Galway to get all mushy and romantic."
"She had her cold day in hell," Jim said quietly.
Davey sighed and nodded. "Yeah, Jimmy. That she did. They all did."
Iris Dunning came in, still wearing her red knit hat despite the fifty-seven degree temperature. She hung her winter things on the coatrack and sat up at the bar. "I ran into Tess and Susanna on my way over. Oh, Jimmy," she said. "Tess looks so good. She's smart and talented, and now she's having a baby. It's amazing how things work out. Do you remember last spring, when she found that body in her cellar?"
Jim did indeed. "It was a close call."
"It still gives me nightmares," Davey said. "I hate dirt cellars."
"But good came out of it," Iris said.
Jim put a bowl of chowder in front of her and tended his other customers, noticing when a man he didn't know walked in. He noticed strangers more these days. This one was tall and good-looking, blue-eyed, and when he unbuttoned his overcoat and smiled politely, a little nervously, Jim thought there was something familiar about him. He couldn't say what.
The man walked up to the bar and stopped short, and for a second looked as if he was going to bolt. But he rallied, and he said, "Iris Dunning?"
She turned, and the recognition was instantaneous. "Dear God. You're Jared's son. Jared Herrington—"
"Tucker," he finished. "Jared Herrington Tucker. My mother remarried after my father died, and—" He inhaled, awkward. "I wasn't sure I should come."
"I'm glad you did. Please, sit up here next to me. Oh, my." She seemed to want to touch him, but didn't, and Jim thought he could see something of the girl she'd been in her shining green eyes. "You're so like your father. If he'd lived to be your age…"
Jared Tucker settled onto the stool next to Iris, and Jim noticed the expensive sweater under the overcoat, the expensive watch. Down the bar, Davey mouthed, "Kevin," and Jim saw it now. The man reminded him of Kevin Dunning, Iris's son, Susanna's father, one of Jim and Davey's best friends.
"Rachel was my daughter," Jared Tucker said.
Iris nodded sadly. "I'm so sorry about what happened to her."
"We—my wife and I never thought she was the type to get swept off her feet like that. We only met Beau a few times. I'd like to say we saw through him right from the start, but we didn't." He broke off, leaving Iris to fill in the blanks. "She didn't tell us about her interest in you and your son. I don't know, I think she might have thought we'd be embarrassed."
"She could have been trying to decide what was hers to tell and what wasn't," Iris said.
"We didn't make the connection. We thought she went to Texas on business."
"Nothing she did justified what Beau McGarrity did," Iris said with conviction.
"No. Nothing."
Jim made a move to leave the two of them alone to talk, but Iris touched his hand, held on to it to make him stay. He'd known her since he was a little kid. She was like an aunt to him. He patted her hand and served her and her lover's son bowls of hot chowder.
Jared Tucker stared at his chowder. "My mother told me about your relationship with my father. Often. She was a bitter woman. She did what she could to distance us from what remained of his family. I loved my mother, Miss Dunning, but I wanted you to know—" He looked at her, shadows under his blue eyes. "I'm very glad my father had you in his life."
"I loved him. I loved him with all my heart and soul." She smiled at Jared Tucker, brushed the top of his hand as if he were a little boy. He had to be close to seventy. "Your dad was there with us on Blackwater Lake, Jared. He wanted us to know the truth about what happened to your daughter. His granddaughter."
The man's eyes filled with tears, and he grabbed his soup spoon, trying not to cry. "She came here one day. She never introduced herself. Rachel always tried so hard to do the right thing, always looked for the good in people. She said she watched you have chowder with your friends and decided she didn't want to drag you back to the past. A few months later, she went to Austin."
"She was an interior designer," Iris said softly.
"Yes."
"My son is an artist."<
br />
He nodded. He set down his spoon, his chowder still untouched. "My wife and I were supposed to go down and see Rachel the week after she died." Jared's tone was steady, laced more with sadness than hatred or bitterness. "Perhaps we should have done more to find answers to what happened."
"You were grieving," Iris said.
"We still are."
Jim winced, and at the end of the bar, he could see Davey Ahearn had let his chowder go cold. But he'd obviously heard enough pain and sadness. "That fucker McGarrity," he said.
"Davey!" Iris shrank back, horrified. "Jared's daughter—"
"Yeah, I know. It's a bitch, what happened."
Jared Tucker surprised everyone by sighing instead of throwing his soup bowl at Davey. "That sums it up, doesn't it?" He smiled at Iris. "I can see why you've stayed here all these years."
Davey caught Jim's eye, as if to tell him he knew he'd saved the day with his crack.
Then Jared took in a deep breath and said, "Tell me about my brother," and Jim knew the guy was okay.
Davey shifted on his bar stool, scratching his handlebar mustache with one finger. "Oh, yeah, wait until you meet Kevin and his wife. A white-bread fellow like you. Eva's the wife's name. Artists. Totally daffy. Kevin did a portrait of me once, and I came out looking like Yosemite Sam."
Tucker was silent a moment, and Jim wondered if Davey had gone too far this time. Even he seemed to realize it. But suddenly Jared Herrington Tucker grabbed the pepper grinder and said, "My father—Kevin's and my father—wrote poetry."
They talked, then. Davey, Jim, Iris, Kevin's half brother. After second bowls of chowder and another round of beer, Iris made them move to a table because her back was hurting from sitting on the stool. Jim stayed behind the bar. He felt good. For the first time since Susanna Galway was sipping margaritas at his bar and mumbling about the stalker and murderer she'd left behind in Texas, Jim Haviland could say he felt good.
Then the bar door opened, and Sam Temple, Texas Ranger, walked in. "Doesn't it ever warm up in this damn city?"
"This is warm," Jim said.
Temple sat at the bar. No cowboy hat, no badge and no gun that Jim could see, but he had on the boots and the black leather jacket. The Tufts graduate students had exams. They weren't in.
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