Marshall claimed the reason he hadn’t immediately called the police after Clara’s confession was that he’d been in shock and needed time to process. He was afraid for his daughter’s life and for his own. His first priority had been getting away from his murderer wife. By the time he’d calmed down enough to think straight, the sun was starting to come up.
But all Brett could think was that he’d done it on purpose. By waiting so long to tell them, he’d given Clara hours, a half a day or more even, to escape.
Once they understood what they were dealing with, Irving sent out a bulletin to state and county agencies as well as border patrol. Then he tracked down Clara’s mother and confirmed with her that she hadn’t seen or heard from her daughter in almost a week. Not since the Halloween festival and Marshall’s arrest.
“She’s worried sick,” Irving reported back to Brett. “Says she’ll let us know right away if she hears anything from her.” He hesitated and added, “I asked her about the day Margot disappeared.”
“And?”
A scowl furrowed his brow. “She seemed confused at first, but when I told her that Margot went missing later in the day than originally thought, she kind of just collapsed. She was shaking and crying. Eventually, I got her to calm down long enough to tell me why. Apparently, Clara was working at the grocery store that summer. Geana got her a job part-time stocking shelves. She was supposed to work from four to eight that day but didn’t show up, and when Geana called the house, no one answered. When she got home later that evening, she found Clara sick in bed. Clara claimed she’d been throwing up and could hardly move from the pain.”
“And Geana believed her.”
“She had no reason not to,” Irving said. “Plus, according to Geana, she was sick. She was pale and shivering and hot to the touch.”
“What about cuts? Bruises? Anything to suggest she’d been involved in a fight?”
Irving shook his head. “She doesn’t remember seeing anything like that.”
On a hunch, Brett asked Marshall to draw her a map of where the hunting cabin was, and she sent an officer out to check, but the place was empty. There were signs of Jimmy’s captivity, though, and the officer found Jimmy’s car abandoned a few hundred yards away on an overgrown fire road. Marshall had led them to the right place, then. It was just Brett’s hunch that was wrong.
Clara wasn’t stupid. Once she realized the careful lies she’d crafted over the past twenty years were coming undone, she certainly wouldn’t stick around Crestwood for long. Brett could only hope they’d learned the truth soon enough to catch her before she vanished for good. County, state, and border agents had a description of Clara’s car as well as her driver’s license photo. There wasn’t anything Brett could do now but wait and see how this played out. They’d either get lucky, or they wouldn’t.
In the precinct break room, Brett poured herself a cup of stale coffee. Irving intercepted her before she reached her desk.
He plucked the cup from her hands and shook his head when she tried to take it back. “Go home, Brett. You’ve done all you can. You’ve got every cop in the state out looking for her. If she’s still here, she’ll turn up. And if she’s not, there’s no point spinning yourself in circles, is there? Might as well get some rest while you have the chance. The prosecutor’s office is sending someone over early tomorrow to figure out what they want to do about Marshall. You’re going to want to be here for that.”
“Even if I did go home, I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not while she’s still out there.” She snapped her fingers. “What about roadblocks? We haven’t done that yet. We could set them up on some of the major highways going in and out of town.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask. Henry hasn’t left yet.” He pointed at the chief’s office, the window glowing warmly in the twilight haze of the squad room.
Brett tapped on the door and entered.
Henry hung up the phone. Before she could get a word out, he said, “I’m worried about your grandmother. I’ve been trying to reach her for the last hour, but she’s not answering the phone.”
The news surprised her. It was nearly seven, around the time Amma typically had dinner. If she was at home, she would have answered. Brett supposed Jimmy might have taken Amma out to one of the restaurants in town, but that didn’t seem likely considering what he’d suffered the past two days and how exhausted he’d seemed when she’d dropped him off earlier. Maybe the phone was just disconnected. It had happened before. Amma, tired of telemarketers, unplugged the cord from the wall. It had stayed that way for days before Brett finally noticed. Or maybe she’d wandered off again, and Jimmy had gone looking for her.
“I’m sure she’s fine.” Brett pushed aside a growing sense of unease. “I was about to head home anyway. I just wanted to ask about roadblocks.”
Henry looked confused.
“For Clara Trudeau.”
“Right, yes, I’ll call State Patrol and see if they can get something set up.” Henry reached for the phone.
Brett didn’t hang around to see what happened. She hurried from Henry’s office to grab her jacket and keys.
“Call me when you find her!” Henry shouted at her back.
The house on Bayshore Drive was a blazing beacon in the dark. Light spilled from every window. Amma’s car was parked in the driveway, unmoved from where it had been parked when Brett left this morning. She swung open the front door and scraped her boots on the welcome mat, calling out that she was home. Upstairs, Trixie started to bark. The sound was muffled like she was locked in one of the bedrooms.
“Amma? Jimmy? Hello?” Brett moved through the living room into the kitchen.
On the stovetop, a pot of water had boiled down to nothing and was beginning to smoke. Brett flicked off the burner. A package of unopened pasta sat on the counter next to the stove. A pile of unchopped lettuce wilted on the cutting board.
“Is anyone here? Jimmy? Amma?” She rushed through the house, checking all the rooms. Upstairs, she found Trixie and Pistol shut inside the guestroom. The dogs rushed her, delighted to see a friendly face. “Where is everyone?” she asked them and got only tail wags in response.
Back downstairs, she opened the french doors, and the dogs ran out, chasing each other around the grass. Brett called for Amma and Jimmy again. Her voice echoed in the dark. Waves splashed against Amma’s sailboat, still tied to the dock. She squinted into the shadows, scanning the beach for any signs of her grandmother, but seeing no one. Trixie had made her way down to the boathouse, where she scratched at the door whining. Brett whistled both dogs back inside and called Henry.
“I’ll send a car over,” he said, panic in his voice.
“Just wait a few more minutes, Henry, please.”
“Brett, if she’s wandered off—”
“I can find her,” she insisted. “Listen, Clara needs to be our top priority. I don’t want anyone pulled from that search if we can help it. Amma and Jimmy probably went out for a walk. I’m sure they’ll be back any minute.” But even as she said it, she knew Jimmy would never go for a walk without Trixie.
Henry exhaled loudly and said, “One hour. That’s all you get.” His tone was stern now, decided. “If you haven’t found her by then, I’m sending a car over to help.”
“Fine,” Brett said and hung up.
She removed her shoulder holster and gun, setting both on the counter, alongside her badge and handcuffs, then rubbed at a knot twisting in her neck.
Pistol wound circles around her feet. Trixie stood by the backdoor, staring out into the night. Brett dug in a drawer for a flashlight and went outside again, leaving the dogs behind. Her feet whispered through the damp lawn.
“Amma?” she called out again as she moved toward the boathouse.
A light flickered across the small window, and a shadow moved inside. Relief rushed through her, followed quickly by something that felt like fear. Her hand reflexively reached for her gun, only to rem
ember she’d left it in the house.
“Amma?” Her voice was too loud in the quiet stillness. “Is that you?”
Brett hesitated when no one answered, torn between going back for her weapon and continuing forward unarmed. If it was her grandmother, rummaging through the detritus of her life with Pop, Brett didn’t want to give her a heart attack by running in with her gun drawn. Then again, nothing about what she’d found so far—the dogs locked in the bedroom, the pot nearly in flames on the stove—made her feel confident that Amma was safe.
Before Brett could make a decision, a ragged scream pierced the dark.
Chapter 38
Brett didn’t think. She just ran. Onto the dock, crashing through the door of the boathouse, screaming Amma’s name. She stopped short just inside the threshold. In the beam of the flashlight, her worst fears were revealed.
Amma sat on a wooden stool in the center of the room, shivering from cold or fear or both. Her hands in her lap were bound with rope. A red bandana had been shoved into her mouth as a gag. Beside her stood Clara Trudeau, a knife pressed to the soft curve of Amma’s neck.
“Nice of you to join us,” she said. “I wouldn’t come any closer, though, if I were you.”
“Put the knife down, Clara.” Brett lifted both hands to show she wasn’t a threat. The flashlight beam swept the rafters. “Let’s talk this through. We can work something out. But you have to put down the knife. Kick it over to me,” she said, “and let’s go inside and have a real conversation about all of this.”
“Shut up.”
Brett recognized the knife as one from a set she’d gotten for Amma and Pop a few Christmases ago. Clara gripped the handle tightly, but if Brett could get close enough, she thought she might be able to disarm her.
She shuffled a step closer, but Clara tensed, then shook her head and pushed the blade right up against Amma’s skin. “Don’t even think about it.”
Amma whimpered. Brett tried to offer her a reassuring smile, but all she could manage was a brittle grimace.
“Look, Clara,” she tried again. “I can help you, okay? I’m on your side here. Just tell me what you want.”
Clara tilted her head and studied Brett in the dim moonlight filtering through the boathouse’s single window. “You’re just like her, you know. You manipulate people like she did. Do you think I’m stupid? She thought I was stupid.” Then she laughed, a single sharp note. “You can’t give me what I want anyway. No one can.”
“Try me,” Brett said.
Clara’s eyes narrowed to hard slits, and a shudder ran across her shoulders. Her words were thick with sadness when she said, “I want to start over.”
“Okay,” Brett said. “Okay, you can do that. I can help you do that. All you have to do is drop the knife and come with me to the station. Turn yourself in.”
A sad smile teased Clara’s lips. She shook her head. “I can’t change the things I’ve done. I can’t go back. You know I can’t.”
“No, but you can go forward,” Brett insisted. “You still have a chance to make this right.” When Clara still didn’t move, Brett added, “Think about Elizabeth.”
She flinched at the sound of her daughter’s name. The blade nicked Amma’s skin, and Amma gave a muffled cry and pulled back sharply. A trickle of blood appeared on her throat. Brett almost lunged at Clara right then, but she held herself still. She’d found a crack to chip away at, and so she pressed on.
“I know how much you love her. Elizabeth’s lucky to have a mother like you, you know, a mother who would sacrifice so much. You would do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”
Clara’s lower lip trembled. She nodded.
“So do this now,” Brett said, reaching her hand into the space between them. “Give me the knife. Show Elizabeth that her mother’s not a monster, that there is still good in you.”
Her sad smile returned. “I’m not sure there was ever a time in my life when I was good.”
“Clara. Give me the knife.”
Brett saw when Clara decided to give up. The change was subtle. Her shoulders sagged. She lowered the blade and stepped away from Amma. One hand swiped furtively at her cheek. Brett stepped forward to take the knife, and it all should have been over in that moment.
Outside, a dock board creaked. Clara tensed. Her gaze shifted over Brett’s shoulder. Someone stepped into the doorway, and a long shadow stretched across the boathouse floor. Brett could feel the atmosphere shift, how Clara was once again retreating into the darkest parts of herself. Whatever chance Brett had of bringing this night to a peaceful end was gone. She didn’t have much time. In that brief second when Clara was distracted, Brett lunged.
She grabbed Clara’s wrist and shoved her toward the back of the boathouse. They stumbled over crab nets and a pile of sails before falling to the floor. Clara dropped the knife. Brett scrabbled to find it. Clara grabbed her ankle and pulled her back.
“Don’t move!” Jimmy’s voice boomed through the small space.
“Jimmy! Get Amma out of here!” Brett grappled with Clara, who was climbing on top of her, clawing at her face and eyes.
“I said, don’t move! I have a gun!”
Clara hesitated. Brett took the opportunity to swing her elbow and clock the other woman hard in the jaw. Clara grunted and fell back against a pile of traps, circular metal cages tied with ropes and buoys that reeked of brine and seaweed.
“Jimmy.” Brett rose to her feet and held out her hand. “Give that to me. Then take Amma and get her the hell out of here.”
Amma struggled a moment, rocking before finally standing to her feet. Her legs weren’t tied, only her hands, but she was trembling hard, which made walking difficult. She teetered a few steps toward Jimmy, who reached out to her and, at the same time, lowered the gun. Brett grabbed for it, but before she could get her hands around the grip, she was hit from behind by something heavy that reeked of fish. She spilled forward, knocking into Jimmy, who stumbled against Amma. In his attempt to keep the older woman from falling, Jimmy dropped the gun on the floor. Then, in his attempt to pick it back up while keeping Amma close, he kicked it into the shadows on the other side of the boathouse.
“Shit!” Jimmy cursed, shoving Amma toward the door before diving after the gun.
Brett struggled to get out from under a tangled mess of ropes and crab traps. Finally, she flung the gear off and leaped to her feet. But she was too late. Clara had found the gun first, and she was pointing it straight at Jimmy.
“No!” Brett shouted.
The explosion inside the tiny room left Brett’s ears ringing. Jimmy cried out and dropped to the floor, clutching his leg. Brett rushed to where he’d fallen and dropped down next to him. He moaned and cursed. “Fuck! She shot me!”
He was bleeding from his right upper thigh, and Brett worried the bullet might have hit an artery. Jimmy was still conscious, which was a good sign, but the sooner she slowed the bleeding, the better. She whipped off her belt, wrapped it around his leg, and cinched tight. Jimmy screamed louder. Then his scream faded to a whimpering groan, and his eyes fluttered like he was about to pass out. She smacked him gently across the face.
“Don’t you dare, Jimmy,” she said. “Stay with me, okay? Stay right here.”
As she worked on slowing the bleeding, she glanced over her shoulder. Clara had taken the gun and run off. Amma was gone, too.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said, his teeth clenched with pain.
Blood slicked her hands and pooled on the floor. Too much blood. She checked the wound. It was still bleeding, though less than before. She smiled at him so he wouldn’t see how worried she was. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I was only gone a few minutes,” he said. “I just wanted to get the rest of my stuff from the motel room, that’s all. I wanted my notebook. I wanted to get it all down, all the—” He hissed in pain. “I thought she’d be okay. I told her to stay inside and keep the door locked.”
She wrapped his hand around one end of the belt. “Hold it like this. Don’t give it any slack. Keep it as tight as you can, even when you get tired, okay? Jimmy, okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“I need you to stay alive.”
“I love you, too, Brett,” he said with a grimace.
She left him there and, praying Amma had made her way up to the house to call for help, went to find Clara.
It didn’t take long. Clara had made it only as far as the end of the dock where Amma’s sailboat was tied. She was bent over, struggling to unwind the ropes from the dock cleat.
“Clara, stop,” Brett called out to her softly.
Clara straightened and whirled around, gun raised and pointed at Brett.
Brett froze, her breath catching in her chest as she tried not to think about dying. What would happen to Amma? Who would feed Pistol? Who would tell Jimmy that she had loved him, too, from the very beginning, the very first day when he walked into that bar and bought her a basket of fries? She knew it would hurt but hoped it would be over fast and that Margot would be waiting for her on the other side.
Seconds stretched to what felt like an eternity, but Clara still didn’t shoot. Slowly she lowered the gun, though she kept both hands wrapped around the grip, her finger on the trigger.
“All of them deserved it, you know,” she whispered hoarsely. “They were terrible, selfish people. Every single one of them. Even your sister. I did what I had to do to protect myself and to protect my family. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”
Brett shook her head, but she couldn’t get any words to come out of her mouth.
For an instant, remorse flickered across Clara’s face. Then her hard defiance returned. “I’m going,” she said. “If you try to stop me, I will shoot you. Don’t make me shoot you.”
She crouched by the rope. With her eyes still fixed on Brett, and one hand holding the gun at the ready, she reached to untangle the boat from the dock.
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