Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  Lillian gasped. "How did you know?"

  But her brother dropped down beside her and shoved her by the shoulder. "Shut up, Lillian! Don't say anything."

  Sam glanced down at the gravel pit, the vertical drop deadly, Henry and Lillian's initial reason, he thought, for not telling anyone about their little project. Maybe it was why they'd picked this tree, because they knew it was dangerous and the preoccupied adults in their lives wouldn't approve.

  "You haven't told anyone who you saw, not even your Aunt Kara." He kept his gaze leveled on the gravel pit, not on the two kids. He didn't want them to make any assumptions about what he was thinking because of how he looked at them, a wrong gesture, a leap of logic on their part. He needed them, simply, to tell him what they saw that day. "That's a big burden. I'd like to share it. I don't know anyone from Connecticut except you two—I can be objective. I won't jump to any conclusions."

  Lillian whispered to her brother, "We should tell him."

  "He's not a lawyer," Henry said. "Aunt Kara says he can't arrest anybody outside of Texas, but he'll tell the police—"

  "What if we're wrong? What if Uncle Hatch—"

  "Lillian!"

  She started to cry, and Sam shifted, saw that Henry was close to tears himself. "Hey, you two." His voice was gentle, more so than he expected. "Relax. I left my thumbscrews in Texas."

  Lillian tried to smile, wiping her tears with her forearm. "I don't know what a thumbscrew is."

  Sam smiled. "I don't know if I do, either. Look, you don't have to tell me anything. We can sit here and wait for Kara to call or come back and fetch us, or you can tell me where you want to go, and I'll take you there."

  Henry sniffled, sitting on the platform with his back to Sam, his feet hanging over the edge. He kicked out one leg and put his sneakered toe on a high, skinny branch. "Uncle Hatch and Big Mike were fighting. I saw them through my binoculars. They weren't punching each other, but they were really mad. They were out by the pool."

  "I saw them, too," Lillian said quietly.

  "Did they fight often that you know of?" Sam asked.

  "All the time," Henry said, "but not like this. Uncle Hatch thumped Big Mike on the chest. I thought one of his security guards would come out and tell Uncle Hatch to leave, but nothing happened."

  "But Big Mike never touched Hatch?"

  Henry shook his head. Lillian, her ashen face smeared with tears and dirt, fastened her big blue eyes on Sam. "Uncle Hatch stomped off. He was still mad. I could tell."

  "At first we thought it was funny," her brother admitted.

  "Because you were up here spying on them—"

  "Yeah."

  "How long before you saw Governor Parisi in the pool?"

  "I don't know," Henry said, his back still to Sam. "We ate snacks and stuff. Then I heard something down on the hill, and I got my binoculars. I thought it was just a deer—it might have been a deer."

  "This was before Governor Parisi was in the water?"

  Henry nodded. "I saw him a couple of minutes later. He was already in the water. I was still looking for the deer, so I didn't see how he fell in."

  "Henry screamed," Lillian said, "and I was so scared I almost fell, but I looked in my binoculars, and I—I— I saw—" She couldn't say it.

  Sam brushed a knuckle over a fat tear on her cheek. "It's okay, kiddo. You can cry."

  "Mom doesn't like us to cry," Henry said stiffly. "She says it makes her cry, too."

  "Is that what she said, or is that what you think?"

  The boy turned his face toward Sam, tears dripping down his cheeks and off his jaw onto his shirt. "I know it."

  Sam nodded. "When you saw Governor Parisi in the pool, did you climb down and run to help him?"

  "We didn't have our cell phones," Lillian said, as if all kids carried cell phones up to their tree houses. "We couldn't call 911, so we ran as fast as we could—"

  "The security guards were already there when we got to the bottom of the hill." Henry reached up with both hands, grabbed a thick branch above his head and pulled himself easily to his feet. Then he wiped his face with the hem of his shirt. His eyes were puffy, but he seemed calmer, less defiant. "They didn't see us. We stayed in the woods."

  "It was really, really hot," Lillian said, "and there were millions of mosquitoes."

  Sam pulled one knee up to his chest, picturing these two kids on that hot summer day. "So you decided not to stick around. You didn't see him fall. The state troopers were dealing with the situation. There wasn't anything you could do."

  "We didn't want to be in the way," Lillian said.

  "And you didn't want to have to talk to the police and have everybody tramp up here and find out about your tree house. You were afraid you'd get into trouble." Sam leaned back against the tree trunk. "I understand what you were thinking. What happened on your way back up here?"

  Lillian was blinking rapidly, uncertain of what she should say. "It wasn't an accident," she whispered. "What happened to Big Mike—it wasn't an accident. Somebody pushed him. That's what we heard in the woods. It wasn't a stupid deer."

  Jesus, Sam thought. This was what Kara had dreaded, sensed, hoped wasn't true—that her young godchildren had experienced the unique and terrible fear that they'd brushed up close to a murderer.

  "It was leaves rustling," Henry said. "It could have been a deer."

  Lillian was having none of it. "But my binoculars. They stole my binoculars!"

  "What would anyone want with your stupid old binoculars? Come on, Lillian. Aunt Kara says we have to look at the facts and not jump to conclusions." Henry frowned down at Sam. "Right, Sam?"

  Sam didn't answer him. "Did you and your sister look for her binoculars?"

  Henry rolled his eyes. "We looked everywhere. It was all she could think about. ‘My binoculars, my binoculars.'" He imitated Lillian's whining that day and gave a long-suffering huff. "I told her I didn't care."

  His sister stuck her tongue out at him. He looked as if he wanted to kick her.

  "It must have been a rough time for the two of you," Sam said diplomatically. "Kara's a pitbull when it comes to you two. It must have felt good to get out of here after the funeral, fly down to Texas with her. You liked the ranch okay at first?"

  They both nodded, and Henry said, "The horses were the best. Some of the other kids teased me about my accent, but I don't have an accent."

  "I made a friend from El Paso," Lillian said, then added knowledgeably, "It's in west Texas."

  "So that first week or so was okay? Then you started seeing this man, Walter Harrison, and you didn't know what to make of him." Sam paused, but neither child responded. "You made your plan to clear out and dump the whole mess on your Aunt Kara. You thought she could help you because she's your godmother and you know she loves and believes in you, and she's a lawyer."

  Both kids nodded, agreeing for once.

  "But you didn't tell her about your uncle's argument with Governor Parisi," Sam said.

  Henry swallowed. "She and Uncle Hatch…"

  When her brother trailed off, Lillian said, "He likes her, but she doesn't like him."

  Sam nodded. They weren't sure of her objectivity, and they knew, on some level, it'd raise the stakes if they told Kara they had information suggesting Mike Parisi's death was no accident. As it was, Kara hadn't known what to believe.

  "You two can't change the facts of what happened, what people did," Sam said. "The facts are what they are. If Governor Parisi's death was an accident, it was an accident. If someone killed him, someone killed

  him. Nothing you can do."

  "I don't want him to be dead at all," Lillian said.

  "I can see that, and I think Michael Parisi was a lucky man to have you two miss him as much as you do. As for your uncle—here's the deal. Do you think he killed Governor Parisi?"

  They gasped in horror. "No!"

  "Then you've kept quiet about him because you think he might get into trouble. Well, let him worry about
that. He's a smart guy." Sam could feel the tree house hard on his rear end, its confines starting to get to him. "But you know that. So here's what I think is really going on. I think you're afraid that whoever you heard in the woods saw you and will come after you if you say anything. That's why you were so upset when you saw Harrison watching you in Texas, because you figured he was either the murderer or working for the murderer—"

  "We jumped to conclusions?" Lillian asked quietly.

  "You did, but you paid attention to your instincts, and that's good because they can keep you safe. Let me put it this way, kids. I don't like this Walter Harrison character, either, and I've jumped to a number of conclusions about him." He winked, noting how relieved they looked now that their story was out in the open. "Now, do you want me to help you look for Lillian's binoculars, make sure they're not under the leaves or a rock or something?"

  They weren't too enthusiastic about the idea. Sam wasn't, either, but they agreed to it, and at least it got them out of the damn tree house.

  Nineteen

  Kara didn't know if it was the uncompromising presence of Sam Temple or the shock of Henry and Lillian's secrets—or some combination of both—but no one interrupted Sam when he told their story, with their full permission and occasional interruptions to edit.

  They were all gathered on the patio. Hatch, Allyson, Madeleine, Sam, the kids. Two wary state troopers stood near the pool. Billie had whisked Wally Harrison into the kitchen, but Kara had already got Hatch to admit that he'd secretly hired the retired cop to keep an eye on the kids in Texas, never expecting him to do such a poor job. She'd called Sam on his cell phone and told him while he was walking back to Stockwell Farm with the kids.

  Allyson, in particular, listened to him without comment, her chin held high, her eyes shining with tears. Henry and Lillian watched her, as if to see how she'd react to what they'd done, what they'd seen. And she didn't react well. She tried to, Kara thought, but she didn't. Allyson Lourdes Stockwell had the look of a gaunt, terrified woman who wanted to run and hide.

  When Sam finished and no one said anything, his dark eyes settled for a moment on Kara, then shifted to her traumatized godchildren. His face was expressionless. "I'll leave you all to get your heads around what I just told you. I'll be down at the pool if you have any questions."

  Henry and Lillian slid off their chairs and ran after him, each on one side of him, taking his hand.

  "Honestly," Hatch hissed in disgust when they were out of earshot, "I don't know how this all got so out of control. It's ridiculous. I never realized what vivid imaginations those two have."

  "I didn't realize you and Mike had argued," Allyson said quietly, her eyes cool.

  Hatch snorted. "We always argued. My visit is long on the record with the police. His security guards saw me come and go. There was no way I was going to hide it, even if I'd wanted to. I was undoubtedly the last one to see him alive, and we had a whale of an argument." He shook his head and added sourly, "It never occurred to me to inform Henry and Lillian. It was nothing. I left assuming it'd blow over like all our other arguments and we'd be toasting each other's brilliance that evening."

  Kara's position at the round table gave her a clear view of the pool. Sam stayed close to Henry and Lillian as they wandered from chair to chair, aimless, and she felt a tug of emotion at how her godchildren had taken to Sam after what must have been a difficult scene in the tree house.

  "What was the argument about?" Allyson asked.

  Madeleine shifted in her chair. "It hardly matters now, does it?"

  Hatch waved a hand. "I don't even remember—well, I do, but it seems so pointless now. Policy nonsense. We were yelling and beating our chests, and it was all over nothing."

  Allyson, clearly exhausted, didn't push for specifics, and Kara saw the strain of the past days in her friend's face, the way she twisted her hands together and pushed at a ring. "Why did you go behind my back to hire Walter?"

  "That's a loaded question, Allyson. I didn't think of it as going behind your back." Hatch looked uncomfortable, but didn't back away from her question. "First the bonfire, then Big Mike drowning—I suppose I was spooked. Mother mentioned she was worried about the children, having them in Texas with no protection now that you were governor—"

  "Don't put Wally off on me," Madeleine said sharply. "Hiring him was your decision not mine."

  Kara had noted that Sam hadn't mentioned the kids had seen the black sedan in front of her house. If it was Wally Harrison in Austin that night, she thought, it meant he'd either followed them to her house or guessed they would come there. Either way, why hadn't he said anything? Or had he?

  Allyson squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing in pain, but when she opened them again she seemed more composed, even managed a small smile. "At least Henry and Lillian's behavior makes sense, given their point of view. Now that I know what's going on, I can deal with them."

  "Wally was just supposed to check on them from time to time," Hatch said, "not prowl around and scare the hell out of them. Allyson, if I'd had any idea—"

  "What's done is done, Hatch," Allyson said.

  Sam sat on a lounge chair at the shallow end of the pool. Kara watched Henry and Lillian splash water at each other, then at Sam. He must have threatened to come after them, because they scampered out of his reach, laughing. Kara could hear their squeals.

  "Of course," Hatch said, "I didn't know about this tree house of theirs and this whole fantasy they spun around what they saw—not to mention what they think they saw."

  Madeleine shook her head, looking every minute of her eighty years. "Charlie Jericho stopped by this morning, early, and told me about the tree house. This was before we heard Henry and Lillian had run off again. I assured him it couldn't possibly be their tree house." She sighed, settling back against her chair. "Charlie told me he liked the idea of my grandchildren building a tree house on the sly, just not on his property, because he didn't trust us if anyone got hurt. He implied we— I—was lawsuit happy, when I've never filed a lawsuit in my life. He thinks Pete fell on his way up to dismantle it."

  "How's Pete doing?" Kara asked, noticing a tremble in Allyson's hands, slight enough no one else probably saw it.

  "He was released from the hospital this morning," Madeleine said. "Apparently he's cranky and complaining about the herbal teas Bea's making him drink. I think she's picking things out of her garden for them." She smiled faintly, some color coming back into her pale cheeks. "Charlie says Bea's hoping to corner Pete now that he's laid up and talk to him about getting goats. Of all things. I'm sure she's just teasing."

  Allyson got to her feet and said abruptly, "No more bodyguards. Wally Harrison proves my point that Henry and Lillian just need to live their lives as normally as possible. If there's a specific threat—" She broke off, raking one hand through her hair as she looked down toward the pool. "I'm sure the missing binoculars and the rustling in the woods have an innocent explanation."

  "Allyson," Hatch said, "the investigators—"

  "Henry and Lillian will stay with me at the barn tonight." She turned to Kara, smiling graciously, distantly. "You and Sam have been wonderful. I can't thank you enough."

  The governor of Connecticut walked off the stone patio, two state troopers falling in behind her as she headed toward the barn, without even a sideways glance at her children.

  But Kara knew why. She recognized how Allyson held the back of her head with one hand, how, in a faltering gait, she picked up speed, almost running. She'd completely lost it—she was crying, and she didn't want anyone to see.

  Down at the pool, Sam scooped up Lillian in one arm, Henry in the other, and gave them the heave-ho into the shallow end. They went under, all skinny arms and legs, and popped back up, shouting and laughing, splashing him mercilessly now that he'd dunked them.

  "My husband used to throw Lawrence in the pool like that," Madeleine said quietly, getting unsteadily to her feet. "He'd run out, wanting more. Do it again, Dad,
he'd say. Dear Lord, but I shouldn't have had to outlive both a husband and a son." She smiled, unabashed by her tears, and gave Kara a quick, startling hug. "Thank you for looking after my grandchildren. Allyson will come around. She can't possibly blame you for being there, having them put their trust in you."

  Hatch got up, his chair screeching on the stone, and went inside without a word.

  Madeleine glanced after him. "He thinks he loves you, but he doesn't. Not really. He doesn't know who he is. How can he know who he loves? Don't feel sorry for him. You're convenient, Kara. He picked you because he knows he can't have you." But before Kara could get her bearings enough to respond, the older woman smiled. "Why don't you go to your Texas Ranger?"

  She headed inside, calling to Billie about finalizing plans for her cocktail party. Kara was alone on the patio. She walked toward the pool, Sam wet now from the knees down, water droplets sparkling on his dark hair. He was breathing hard from tossing the kids. She grinned at him. "Want me to throw you in there with them?"

  His eyes sparked. "That could be fun."

  But she looked out toward the barn, Allyson still rushing toward it with the troopers on her heels. "I think we're free to go back home."

  "Not a chance." None of the merriment he'd had with Henry and Lillian was evident in his expression now. "Your friend the governor's hanging by her fingernails. I'm staying until I know these kids are safe."

  "Sam—"

  He tilted his head back slightly, staring down at her, his eyes slits. "Do you want to go back to Texas?"

  "It doesn't matter what I want. Allyson's got the damn National Guard at her disposal—"

  "Ask her about Pete Jericho."

  Kara nodded, remembering the tremble she'd seen in her friend's hand at the mention of his name. "It's on my list."

  Lillian got out of the pool behind Sam, her wet clothes clinging to her and dripping onto the deck as she carried a plastic beach bucket of water with both hands. Henry pressed one finger to his lips, begging Kara not to tattle as he fell in beside his sister. She knew Sam could see their shadows, or just sense them trying to sneak up on him, but he let them dump the bucket of water over him, catching him from the waist down because they were too short to get him any higher up.