by Kate Kessler
“It could have been from another day, but sure.”
Neve shot her a narrow look. “I notice you bypassed the bar and came right over here. He’s watching you like a kicked puppy, you know.”
Audrey didn’t have to look to know Jake was behind the bar. She felt his presence with every nerve in her body, the secretive jerk. “I wanted to talk to you first.”
Neve frowned. “You okay?”
She was not going to talk about it with him right there. She wasn’t going to talk about it at all—at least not with anyone other than Jake. “Yeah, just a little frazzled. With Grace Ridge and the school, and then Bailey wanting to talk to me—”
“Bailey wants to talk to you? About what?”
Balls. “I don’t know. I had a voice mail from her lawyer. I thought you might know.”
Neve shook her head. “Something about the trial, maybe. She told her father she wants to live with her mother when she gets out.”
Audrey nodded. “I understand that. If I could have gone somewhere else I would have. How did Gideon take it?”
“He’s heartbroken and trying not to be. He loves that kid.”
“That’s why he’s a good dad.”
“Yeah, well, it would be great if Bailey’s mother was a good mom.”
“I don’t know her. She wasn’t from around here, was she?”
“He doesn’t talk about her if he doesn’t have to. The man’s had some shit luck with women.”
“Until now,” Audrey reminded her with a smile.
Neve grinned. “Right. Listen, thanks for the information. I won’t bring it up when I interview the girls—at least not in a way that brings you into it.”
“I appreciate that. I do take privilege seriously, but I want you to find out who killed that girl.”
“Nothing else you want to share, then?”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “Neve, no one is going to come to me on the first visit and admit to murder.”
“I suppose that would be asking too much.”
“And too easy. How’s it going with the phone?”
“Oh, my God.” She took a drink of cola. “There’s so much drama on that thing. The only sensible friend she had seemed to be Alisha.”
“Lish is a good kid.”
Neve nodded. “And she’s a Tripp so she knows better than to put anything in writing.”
“Damn right,” came a voice from beside them. Audrey started. She hadn’t heard him approach. He was like a damn spider. When she lifted her head, he was watching her.
“Got a minute?”
Inside, she sighed. She ought to have known he wasn’t going to let her just waltz in without a hello, even though he’d left that morning without a good-bye.
“Sure.” Then to Neve, he said, “If you want help with the phone stuff, let me know.”
“That’s not a conflict of interest for you?”
“I don’t think so. Plus, I’m fairly fluent in teen passive aggression.”
“I’ll take you up on that. I’ve got some interviews to do, but you want to get together later?”
“I’ll call you.”
“Great. Gideon wants to have you guys over for dinner some night, so we can discuss that too.” Then she took a twenty out of her purse and handed it to Jake. “Thanks for lunch—and for letting me use this place as an office. See you guys later.”
Then she was gone, leaving the two of them. There was only one other person in the place, and that was Bertie Neeley. He sat at the bar with a beer, reading a book. He paid absolutely no attention to them. An intellectual alcoholic. Audrey supposed he wasn’t the first, but how well could a person read when loaded?
Jake slid into the chair across from her. “I’m sorry about this morning,” he said, and it was obvious he meant it. He looked like hell, and that wasn’t an easy thing for him to achieve—at least not in her opinion.
“Are you having second thoughts about the wedding?” she asked. “Is that what’s going on?”
“What?” He frowned. “Of course not. How can you even ask me that?”
“Because you’re being weird and you’re keeping something from me.” She would not ask who Ashley was. She wouldn’t. He would tell her. She had to believe that, because if she couldn’t trust Jake then she couldn’t trust anyone.
“It’s nothing.”
She leaned forward and grabbed both of his hands in hers. “Do not give me that bullshit, Jake. That might have worked for Gracie and Mathius, but it is not going to work for us. You and I don’t have secrets, remember?”
He actually looked away. From her. When his gaze finally came back, it was full of uncertainty. She almost recoiled from the sight of it. His fingers tightened around hers. “I didn’t go supply shopping today. I went to a doctor. Dr. Ashley.”
Ashley was a fucking doctor. Okay, that was more of a relief than it ought to have been. “What kind of doctor?”
“He’s an oncologist.”
It was like a punch to the chest. “What?”
“This is why I didn’t want to say anything. After your mother’s surgery, and your father’s heart attack, I didn’t want you to worry about me too.”
“Jake, just tell me why you went to an oncologist.”
“Last week in the shower I found a lump.”
“Where?”
He tilted his head with a slightly exasperated look. “Where do you think?”
Audrey’s heart was beating a mile a minute. “And?”
“He wants to do an ultrasound before anything invasive. I’m going Thursday to have it done.”
She inhaled a deep breath. She knew there was no reason to panic, but it clawed at her insides all the same. This was Jake. He was her life. If anything happened to him…
“Does it run in your family?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Cancer doesn’t like our bunch. Look, it’s probably nothing.”
“But you’re worried.”
“Of course I’m worried. I just got you back. I was kind of hoping for a happily-ever-after for us.”
In her mind, she could imagine Gracie, with her white hair and sharp eyes. You got steel in your spine, my dar. You make sure you keep it.
Right. She drew another calming breath. “You and I are dying in our sleep—together, sixty years from now. This is probably nothing, but if it is, it’s got a great recovery rate.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Of course he did. He’d probably read everything he could find on it. “That paperwork you were doing last night?”
He actually flushed. “My will.”
“You asshole.”
His hazel eyes widened as he laughed in surprise. “I couldn’t sleep. I was worried—it was something I could control.”
“You should have woken me up. You should have talked to me about it. Jesus, Jake, I didn’t know what was going on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. Just, don’t do that to me. Don’t treat me like I’m fragile.”
“I don’t think you’re fragile. I just didn’t think there was any point of both of us worrying.”
“Both of us worrying is the point. We’re in this together.”
Something changed in his gaze that made her realize she wasn’t the only one with insecurities. Somehow, that only made her love him more. He wasn’t infallible.
“I’m coming with you to the ultrasound.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. “Okay.”
Audrey leaned across the table and kissed him. “Good.”
The sound of an accelerating engine and rubber on asphalt made both of them turn their heads. When it was followed by screeching tires and raised voices, they both rose to their feet and started for the door.
When they stepped out onto the front porch of the tavern, the sun was still high in the sky and there was a car stopped in the middle of the road. It was Lincoln’s girlfriend’s car—and both Lincoln and Marnie were in the ditch. Jake and Audrey shared a
glance before running toward them.
Lincoln looked up when his brother shouted at him. Marnie was on her cell phone. Both of them were pale and looked shocked.
“Call Neve,” Lincoln ordered. “We’re on with 911 now.”
Jake already had his phone out as Audrey looked down. There on the grass was Luke Pelletier. She could tell only because she recognized the sneakers. He was battered and bloody beyond recognition.
“They tossed him from the car,” Lincoln told her, an expression of disbelief on his face. “I think he’s dead.”
CHAPTER TEN
Neve hadn’t quite reached the Granger house when Jake called. She did a U-turn in the middle of the road, flicked on the siren and lights, and headed back to Gracie’s. What little traffic there was on the road quickly got out of her way—and then followed after her.
By the time Neve arrived on the scene, there were already three cars pulled over on the side of the road, and a small crowd had gathered. Jake and a couple other people she recognized as first responders and part of the volunteer fire department were in the ditch with the kid, the grass up around their knees. They’d take care of Luke until the ambulance from Eastrock arrived.
Audrey met her as she got out of her car. “I called Linda. She’s at work, but going to meet them at the hospital. Lincoln and Marnie were behind the car that dumped him—not close enough to see the driver. Black Volkswagen with Maine plates. The last three digits.” She handed Neve a receipt from Gracie’s with numbers written on the back. Neve put it in her pocket to run later.
“The car didn’t stop?”
“No.” This came from Marnie, who stood behind her car, out of the way of those in the ditch. “They threw him out like a bag of garbage. That’s what we thought it was at first. Then Lincoln realized it was a person.” She shook her head, her perfectly highlighted blond hair swinging about her shoulders. She was an attractive woman a few years older than Lincoln, and she’d had a good influence on him. “Assholes.”
“I’ll need to get a statement from both of you,” Neve told her. “Hang around for a bit once the ambulance has come and gone, okay?”
Marnie nodded and Neve left her to drop down into the ditch. It was only three to four feet below the road—part of a hayfield that belonged to an old farm. Luke Pelletier was on his back, looking like he’d been trampled by a moose.
“Has he been moved?” She asked.
Jake glanced up at her. He was crouched beside the boy, his fingers on Luke’s wrist, monitoring his pulse. “No. We’re not sure how badly he’s hurt. His pulse is steady but weak.”
Neve squatted beside him. She was careful not to touch anything as she took out her phone and photographed the teen. “Is that a boot print on his face?” she asked.
Jake nodded. “Looks like the Doc Martens logo on his cheek.”
She took a photo of it. Blood was great for trapping evidence—like ink and glue rolled into one. “What size would you say that was?”
“Men’s eleven.”
She glanced at him. “What size do you take?” And then at his feet. “When you’re not wearing flip-flops?”
“Eleven and a half to twelve, depending.”
So she was looking for someone probably a little smaller than him—not that shoe size was that great an indicator. But she could be relatively certain it hadn’t been a woman to kick Luke in the face.
Luke’s eyelids fluttered. Neve leaned closer. “Luke? It’s Detective Graham. The ambulance is on its way.” She could hear the siren now. “You’re going to be okay.”
He didn’t respond.
“Luke?” Neve glanced up to see Alisha standing on the edge of the road with Audrey holding her back. The girl looked right at her. “What happened?”
Before Neve could answer, Lincoln appeared and took the girl aside—where she couldn’t see the boy.
The ambulance arrived a moment later, and the EMTs had Luke secured on his way to Downeast Hospital in a matter of minutes. Neve stuck around to take statements. Audrey and Jake both told her how they’d heard the car from inside Gracie’s, and then Marnie and Lincoln told her how they’d started following the car when it pulled out of the Falls road.
Neve chewed on that. It was no coincidence that Luke Pelletier had been dumped from a car coming from the same road where Tala Lewis’s body had been found.
“A black Volkswagen,” Alisha repeated, her nostrils flaring. She looked right at Neve, and for a second, Neve was reminded of old Gracie Tripp, who used to scare the crap out of her when she was a kid. “Josh Lewis drives a black Volkswagen SUV.”
Neve merely nodded. She’d run the partial number Lincoln had gotten against Josh’s plates. “I’ll look into it.”
The girl looked like she wanted to say more. Hell, she looked like she wanted to set something on fire. Her uncle Jake took her aside and told her to go home. Neve stopped her just as she was about to get into her car.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Neve said for her ears alone.
Alisha’s eyes widened. “Like what?”
“Like going after Josh Lewis. You let me do that.” Alisha opened her mouth to speak, but Neve cut her off. “You go home now, and stay there. Promise me. And I will personally call you once I’ve talked to Luke and let you know how he’s doing, okay?”
The girl nodded. “Okay.”
“Good girl.”
“You don’t have to patronize me.”
“I wasn’t. We should all be so lucky to have friends as loyal and stupid as you.” It was said with a smile, one that Alisha returned. “Now, get.”
With statements taken, Jake, Audrey, Lincoln, and Marnie went back to Gracie’s while Neve got into her car and got on her laptop to check DMV records. Sure enough, the Lewis family owned a black Volkswagen with the numbers Lincoln had given her.
Pretty stupid of Josh to do this in broad daylight, but then again, why not? Not like there was a lot of traffic around usually. It had been luck that Lincoln had happened along. Maybe the kid didn’t care if he got caught. Maybe he’d say that Luke jumped from the car and he kept going. Whatever his excuse, it didn’t change anything.
She pulled out of the gravel lot and headed east toward the Lewis house. When she parked in the drive, there was only one other car there—Mrs. Lewis’s Subaru. Neve climbed the steps to the house and rang the bell. A few minutes later, Mrs. Lewis opened it.
She looked surprised. “Detective Graham. What is it? Did you catch Tala’s killer?”
“I’m afraid I’m here looking for your son, Josh. Is he home?”
The tiny Filipina woman frowned. “No. He’s just home from college and is out with some friends. Why?”
“Is he driving your Volkswagen?”
“Yes. What is going on?”
Neve gestured for her to go into the house. “I need you to call him, Mrs. Lewis, and tell him to come home.”
“But he’s with his friends. Will you please tell me what this is about?”
Neve followed her into the kitchen. “It’s about Luke Pelletier being beaten and tossed from a moving car, Mrs. Lewis. Now, please call your son and have him come home or I’ll put out an APB on his car.”
Mrs. Lewis pressed her hand to her chest. “Oh, my God,” she said, but she also picked up the phone and started dialing. Neve listened as she told her son she needed him to come home right away. Obviously he put up a fuss, because she had to raise her voice. “I said come home right now, Joshua!”
Neve was waiting when Josh Lewis walked into the house. He was a good-looking kid—tall and athletic. He looked at her and his jaw lifted defiantly. She took one look at his bruised and torn knuckles and shook her head. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Josh.” Then she looked at his feet. He was wearing sneakers. “Let’s start by telling me who left his boot print on Luke’s face.”
Did u hear about Luke?
Alisha sighed as she read Kendra’s text. She didn’t know how to respond. If she said yes, Kendra would wonder
why she hadn’t told her, and Alisha didn’t have an answer for that except she hadn’t fucking wanted to. It was bad enough, Lucy giving her a hard time for being friends with Luke; she didn’t need Kendra down her back either.
Yeah. It happened in front of Gracie’s. She didn’t mention that she’d been there, or that she was waiting for Neve to call her. And she didn’t mention that she was sitting in front of her laptop with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram up just in case someone posted something.
Has he called u? Kendra asked.
Had he called Kendra? It shouldn’t matter, but it did. No, there was no way Luke was calling anyone. He looked like her uncle Jake had after that biker guy beat him up last fall. God, that had been scary.
No. U? Still, she held her breath a little.
No. Let u know when I hear something.
She was not going to agree to the same. Thanx. She tossed the phone on her bed only to pounce on it when it finally rang.
“Hello?”
“Fuck texting.” It was Kendra. “Luke’s sister just told me Detective Graham arrested Josh Lewis.”
Alisha sighed. “That’s why I haven’t heard from her.”
“What?”
Shit. “Nothing. Did your cousin say if she arrested anyone else?”
“Don’t know, but I just saw on Twitter that there’s a cop car at Nick Taylor’s house.”
“I’m not surprised.” Nick was one of Josh’s best friends.
“You think they’ll get in a lot of trouble?”
“I hope so. Luke was really badly hurt.”
“Amie said it wasn’t that bad.”
Amie was a fucking idiot. “Kendra, one of them kicked him in the face.”
“How do you know that?”
She really needed to learn to think before she spoke. Lying took so much frigging energy, and she didn’t have it in her to do it anymore. “I got there just before the ambulance. I saw him.”
“What?” Kendra practically shrieked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I didn’t want to say something I shouldn’t.”
“If anyone deserves to know what’s happened to him, isn’t it me?”
Alisha couldn’t help herself. “Why?”