The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "I have news about Davey Ahearn's truck," Temple said. "I was going to call it in, but since I feel a certain sense of responsibility for it getting stolen—"

  "Over here," Davey said from their table.

  The Ranger turned, and when he saw Iris, he smiled. "Evening, ma'am."

  She beamed, and Jim wondered if old Iris Dunning had herself a crush on a handsome, black-eyed Texas Ranger.

  Davey was getting impatient. "What's this about my truck?"

  "It turned up."

  "No kidding. Where?"

  Sam Temple didn't answer. Instead he shifted back to Jim. "I'm not here on official business. My captain wouldn't authorize me to fly up here just to notify someone about a stolen vehicle. Besides," he added in that slow, deep Texas drawl, "I don't know as the Somerville police and the Massachusetts State Police want to see me back in their state anytime soon. The police in New York even less so, since I never got around to introducing myself before all hell broke loose up on Blackwater Lake."

  "You feel bad about that?" Jim asked.

  The black eyes flashed. "No, sir, not a whole lot."

  "My truck," Davey said, growing impatient. "Where the hell is it?"

  Sam Temple swiveled around to him and grinned. "San Francisco."

  * * *

  Alice Parker took an evening flight out of San Francisco. She had a new name, a new birth certificate and a new passport, courtesy of her prison contacts. She liked the name Audrey Melbourne a lot, but she knew the authorities were expecting Audrey to bolt for Australia and would be on guard. She'd decided on Sidney Rutherford. It sounded dignified, and it reminded her of Rachel. And of Iris Dunning.

  She had a new look to go with her new name—sort of Old Money Philadelphia with a splash of south Texas. She'd cut her hair real short and dyed it white-blond, and she'd gotten rid of all her jewelry. She just wore the most expensive watch she could afford, which she'd bought from a sidewalk vendor in San Francisco. It was probably a knock-off, but she didn't care. It felt like quality.

  Her new identity was the only flat-out dishonest part about her trip, that and being wanted for questioning by the authorities in Texas, Massachusetts and New York.

  And her plan to slip into Australia and never, ever leave.

  For the first couple of hours, she kept waiting for the captain to walk back to her and tell her she had a phony passport. She hoped he'd just throw her off the plane. She'd rather plunge into the Pacific Ocean than go back to prison. She wouldn't mind having to testify against Beau McGarrity, but they already had him.

  Damn, she thought, they did. They had him.

  No one came for her, and she stared out the window, seeing only her own reflection. She thought she looked all right. She'd been a police officer and a prison inmate. She'd tramped through a blizzard with a mean, crazy son of a bitch with a gun at her back. She'd helped catch him, and then she'd driven off in a stolen truck—how she'd made it as far as San Francisco, she didn't know. Lucky, maybe, for once. She'd found a seasonal camp with a covered Jeep parked outside and exchanged its New Jersey tags with the Massachusetts tags on the truck. She remembered how her frostbitten fingers had bled, but she hadn't felt it. Not even the warmth of the blood oozing out over her hand.

  She'd damn near lost a couple of fingers and toes. Thawing out had nearly killed her. She'd never look at frozen chicken parts the same way.

  When she got to San Francisco, she got herself a job at a twenty-four-hour diner in a not-so-great part of the city. She'd worked like a dog these past six weeks, slapping plates of eggs and chipped mugs of coffee in front of bleary-eyed customers and smiling so they'd tip her well. She lived in a cheap, dirty room in a squat, ugly building filled with very nasty people.

  It would have been a lot easier if she and Destin had managed to shake loose a hundred grand from Susanna Galway, but that wasn't meant to be. Alice regretted ever making him think it was. She knew she'd regret it to her dying day, no matter how many times she changed her name.

  She was making a fresh start, but she would do what Iris had tried so hard to get her to do those first few weeks in Boston, as simple—and as difficult—as that was. And that was not to lie about who she was.

  Except for her name, which was a practical matter.

  Rachel had lied to Beau about who she was, and he'd shot her in the back and tried to frame Alice for her mur-der—but that wasn't Rachel's fault. He'd had no business shooting her, thinking she and Alice were plotting to kill him for his money. Mean, crazy bastard. And getting all obsessed about Susanna and wondering if she was part of the plot to kill him, trying to put a fast one over on him. Alice couldn't recall ever thinking she was

  the center of everyone's world like that.

  But she knew she had much to atone for.

  Before she got on her flight, she'd mailed Iris the framed picture of her and Jared Herrington out on Blackwater Lake so long ago. Alice had found it in Davey Ahearn's truck. She hadn't included a note. She couldn't think of what to say.

  She drifted off to sleep, and hours and hours later, when the lights came back on in the cabin and the flight attendants started moving around and people popped up their shades, Alice looked out her window. She saw the bridge and the Sidney Opera House, and she started to cry.

  She had another chance. One last chance.

  Twenty-Four

  The huge, old trees in Old Granary had sprouted fat, red buds. The grass was turning green, and yesterday Susanna had walked along Commonwealth Avenue to see the famous magnolias and their pink blossoms.

  She'd just finished meeting with two clients, a young couple who wanted to get their finances in order before they had children. As they got ready to leave, the woman asked her husband to go on ahead— then told Susanna she was already pregnant, but he didn't know.

  "I know we need another year, at least," she'd said.

  Susanna had smiled. "Another year for what?"

  "To get our finances in order."

  "But you're pregnant now," Susanna had said. And she assured the young woman that they could make adjustments in their financial plan. Things change. You start over. Life didn't always go precisely according to one-year, five-year, ten-year plans. In fact, it seldom did.

  Did she want the baby? Oh, yes. What about her husband? He'd be thrilled. And the woman saw it herself— there was no problem.

  She could see them talking out on the sidewalk in front of the old graveyard, and she would bet a good chunk of change that the husband already knew about the baby. This was the part of her work she loved best, she realized. The people, their hopes and dreams.

  She still had many of her original clients from San Antonio—and if she went back, most of her Boston clients would stay with her.

  When she went back, she thought.

  She hadn't seen Jack in two weeks. It was like an eternity.

  He'd been in constant touch with Maggie and Ellen. He wanted to make sure they received proper, thorough post-traumatic care. He was being a good father to them.

  This time, she was the one who went emotionally remote on him. She'd felt herself pulling away for reasons she didn't fully comprehend. He didn't push, and she didn't know what that meant. She loved him—he loved her.

  But she didn't know if they could put what they'd had back together, before Beau McGarrity, before Alice Parker and Destin Wright and nearly losing Maggie and Ellen on Blackwater Lake. Before learning about Gran and Jared Herrington, and Jared's older son, and his granddaughter, shot to death by her husband in south Texas when he learned she'd lied to him about who she was, believed she was tarnished, out to use him, even kill him.

  The money and not telling Jack about Beau McGarrity straight off didn't seem to matter so much.

  McGarrity hadn't come into her kitchen that day just to talk her into believing in his innocence, intervening with her husband. He'd come to assure himself she wasn't helping his wife write a book and hadn't been a part of her and Alice's supposed plot to kill h
im. He'd come because he knew Rachel was Susanna's cousin.

  She watched the couple head up Tremont Street, arm in arm, smiling at each other, and thought of herself and Jack twenty years ago when they were students. How could they go back to where they'd been?

  The doorman called up, rousing Susanna from her morose thoughts. He had a delivery. Good, she thought. A distraction. She ran out into the hall and met a local florist, a young woman, coming out of the elevator with a huge, white box tied with a pale pink ribbon. Susanna stopped her at once. "You must have the wrong person."

  The florist looked at her over the box. "You're not Susanna Galway?"

  "No, I am—"

  "Then these are for you. Where should I put them?"

  Stunned, Susanna mumbled that she'd take them. The florist retreated into the elevator.

  Susanna returned to her office and laid the box on the antique table in front of her leather couch. She ran through the list of possibilities as she untied the ribbon. A grateful client? Her parents? It wasn't her birthday, and she hadn't done anything worth celebrating, except survive a murderer—and that was a while ago. Not long enough ago to forget. Never that.

  Maybe the flowers were for Maggie and Ellen. They were starting to hear from colleges now.

  She lifted the lid on the box, and inside were a dozen long-stemmed pink roses. Each one was perfect. There was a small card. Her hands shook as she tore it open.

  "To my darling wife…your loving husband, Jack."

  Her heart jumped. Then she shook her head. This was not possible. Jack didn't use words like "darling" and "loving." He'd say "darlin'" in an exaggerated Texas drawl when he was being sarcastic or deliberately sexy, getting under her skin.

  Gran and the girls must have talked him into sending flowers. Or goaded him into it. And called in the order themselves and told the florist how to sign the card.

  Oh, but they were beautiful roses. Susanna touched their soft petals, then read the card again, feeling her entire body sigh. Your loving husband, Jack…

  "Look at you," he said from her doorway, as if she'd conjured him. "And I thought you weren't sentimental. I'll have to send you roses more often."

  "Jack!"

  She swept across the room and jumped into his arms, kissing him as he caught her around the middle. He held her close, letting his hands slide over her hips. He laughed softly. "If I'd known you could be had for a dozen pink rose, I wouldn't have bothered with the rest of it."

  She draped her arms over his shoulders. "The rest of what?"

  "One thing at a time." He set her down and walked over to her desk, eyeing her computer. "Do you trust me to shut down this baby? Or might I lose a million dollars?"

  She couldn't answer. Her throat was too tight, every nerve ending in her body on high alert. He started pressing buttons, and finally she ran over and slipped between him and her keyboard. "I'll do it."

  He grinned. "I thought you might." He ran a finger along the back of her neck as she worked, curved it around to her throat. "There's been a plot against you. Nothing you can do but roll with it."

  She hit buttons, shutting down her computer, then her printer. "I love you, Jack."

  "I know."

  "I always have. I never doubted my love for you—"

  He placed his hands on her waist and turned her to him. "Susanna, I know."

  She licked her lips, feeling slightly dizzy. "I never took your love for granted."

  "You didn't? You should, because it's yours, forever." But he smiled, kissing her lightly. "None of this will help you now. Events are already in motion."

  "What events?"

  He released her and walked around her desk, back to the flower box. "I take it you haven't checked all your bank balances today? Or should I say our bank balances?"

  "Jack—Jack, I'm not moving another muscle until you tell me what's going on."

  He put the top back on the roses and tucked the box under one arm. "Might as well go along with the program, darlin'. If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out of here, I will."

  He'd do it. He had that look about him. Over his shoulder, down three flights of stairs with a box of longstemmed roses. He wouldn't bother with the elevator. More fun taking the stairs. All in a day's work.

  "Sam tried to get me to take handcuffs," he said, his eyes very, very dark.

  "Jack," Susanna breathed, "this is about the sexiest thing—"

  "Romantic," he corrected, and his half smile just about undid her. "I'm wooing you."

  She turned off the coffeepot, grabbed her jacket and followed him down to the lobby. A sleek, black car was waiting for them at the curb in front of her building. The driver opened the back door, and she and Jack got in. A few seconds later, they sped off into the city traffic.

  "Do I get to know where we're going?" Susanna asked.

  "Airport."

  She shook her head. "This isn't the way to the airport."

  "Small airport west of the city. My plane's there."

  "Your plane?"

  He glanced at her and winked. "If you can buy a cabin in the Adirondacks without telling me, I can buy a plane—"

  "But how? How did you get the money?"

  "It's in my name, too."

  "We don't have that kind of cash in our checking account. You don't have the necessary information and access—"

  "I hope Maggie and Ellen put their minds to good use in college," he said, "because if they turn to larceny, we're all in trouble."

  Susanna sat back against the leather seat. "I see. They stole my passwords and hacked into my computer."

  "Said it was a piece of cake."

  "How big a plane?"

  "Our daughters are making noises about going to Harvard. They say they can come back to Texas for graduate school and the rest of their lives. That'll mean a lot of flying back and forth, and with your grandmother up here and your folks spending summers on Lake Champlain—"

  "Jack?"

  He slipped an arm over her shoulder and drew her against him, kissing the top of her head. "It's a damn fine plane, Susanna."

  "You're flying it?"

  "I am."

  "Can I ask where?"

  His gaze darkened slightly, and his hold tightened on her. "We need to go back to Blackwater Lake."

  * * *

  Most of the ice had gone from the lake, and the snow had melted in the open areas and along the hillsides that got the most sun. The rivers were full. It was the time of year for ice jams, floods, sap runs and mud, one of the quietest seasons in the Adirondacks, when even many locals liked to get away.

  For Jack's purposes, it was the perfect season.

  He thought the plane was a damn fine idea. A five-or six-hour drive would have done him in. He'd have had to pull over and make love to his wife on the back seat, and that probably wouldn't meet Maggie and Ellen's basic test for what was romantic and what was not. Although he had the feeling Susanna wouldn't have minded.

  He had arranged to have a car waiting at the Lake Placid airport. Susanna was asking about her luggage. "Gran and the girls packed your bag," he told her, then added, "except for what I packed for you."

  He heard her small intake of breath and saw the flash of anticipation in her very green eyes, and he knew the flowers and the car and the plane weren't what were getting to her. But, he'd promised Maggie and Ellen he wouldn't skimp on the romance. He'd woo her, good and proper.

  They didn't know he'd decided to take her back to Blackwater Lake. That was his idea, not theirs.

  When they arrived at the cabin, Susanna shot out of the car and ran down to the lake. He followed, sensing the change in her mood, expecting it. He saw her sink into the soft spots in the wet ground, but she paid no attention, making her way to the lake shore, clambering over rocks. Finally, she stood on a flat boulder, the wind catching her hair, the sun setting in streaks of deep orange and purple that surrounded her, enveloped her. The mountains rose around the lake, still capped in snow.<
br />
  Jack walked out to her rock, and she turned abruptly to him, tears shining on her cheeks. "It's beautiful here."

  "Yes."

  Her hands were balled into tight fists, and she shifted back to the lake. "If I'd told you about Beau McGarrity from the beginning, Alice never would have tried to use the tape to blackmail him. She wouldn't have come north. He'd have stayed out of our lives."

  "He was already in our lives, Susanna," Jack said, careful. "And Alice would have found another reason to come up here, because on some instinctive level, she knew this was where she'd find the answers she wanted. Maybe you did, too. And me. Maybe your grandfather pulled us here so we could finally put all the pieces together."

  "You don't believe that. You're all facts and hard evidence—"

  "There are so many things each of us could have done differently, and probably should have, but you did nothing that endangered anyone. Nothing, Susanna."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  "Everyone does. I've gone through this entire story in every detail with law enforcement and prosecutors in three states for the past six weeks. Beau McGarrity was an infection in our lives before any of us knew it." Jack tried to keep his voice from getting too hard. "We can both beat ourselves up forever for not seeing it sooner."

  "I don't want that," she said.

  He touched her cheek. "Then you'll come inside?"

  She nodded. "I should put my roses in water."

  But once they were inside, Jack made sure she realized she had more to worry about than roses. He'd made a few arrangements ahead of time. Chocolate, champagne, wine and enough food for three days. He'd instructed Gran and the girls not to pack any hiking clothes. This was to be an indoor long weekend.

  After she got her flowers into a pitcher of water, he handed her the small bag he'd packed himself. "Take a look."

  She sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, and he built a fire while she went through her bag. Lavender soap, bath salts, bubble bath, essential oils whose labels promised an enhanced sense of romance, scented candles and a ring—a very expensive ring he knew his wife would never buy for herself. Davey Ahearn and Jim Haviland had talked him into it. They said she needed more sparkle. She wore too much black.