by Quinn, Lucy
They kept talking, but I couldn’t make their words out very well, and from the darkness, I could see them just well enough to know there were shadows out there. They were moving toward the edge of the yard. Toward the gully.
I glanced in the direction where Derek was waiting, down at the darkest end of the dark half-valley. I still couldn’t see him. Not even the hint of him. It was down far enough, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be seen at all. Still. Depending on where they were headed…
They’re heading down toward the grave, I texted.
His reply was immediate. Grave?
That circle of light with the American flag sticking out of it.
They came to a stand-still in front of the grave, all huddling around it like they were looking at something on the grave stone.
Can you hear anything they’re saying? I texted Derek.
I didn’t get a reply. Either he was trying not to use his phone while he was down there, or he’d walked his bike back out to the road. Either way, I was in trouble. I was stuck down here, too far to hear what they were saying, too close to try making a run for it.
After several minutes and another text, I finally got a quick message from Derek. They’re coming back. Careful.
Sure enough, their voices, which had become murmurs with the distance, became more audible, and they were paired with the shuffle of feet.
“Mike needs me at home,” was the first thing I heard Jenna say, and before I knew it, she was up the stairs.
“Tell him I’ll be over in half an hour,” Stefan said. His footsteps followed hers. “I’m going to head back to that B&B to try and talk to that California chick one more time.”
“Don’t stay there too long,” Jenna said. “Mike wants this all to be handled before Malcolm gets back to work tomorrow morning.”
I shuddered a little as they mentioned the sheriff’s name. Was he in on this, too? Nikki’s footsteps were the last to go up the steps. I wanted to look at them, but I didn’t dare move around. I could see their shadows move over my head as they walked to the porch door.
“Just don’t tell Mike that you saw Vangie Vale at the B&B,” Nikki added, bringing up the rear.
Jenna opened the door to the house. “I won’t.”
“The last thing we need is him trying to threaten her.” Stefan brought up the rear, like he was waiting for the women to enter first. “We can handle this without involving him.”
“He’s just protective of his son,” Jenna said.
And then the door closed behind them
I wasn’t totally sure that all of them were gone. Had Nikki gone inside, too? Jenna’s voice had faded away, and I thought Stefan was gone. But I couldn’t tell if there was still someone over my head. There was a little shadow right above me, but if someone had hung back, they probably knew I was there.
I held my breath, waiting for the shadow to move.
It didn’t.
Chapter 27
My heart was hammering so hard, I was sure whoever was above me could hear it, too. I gripped my phone, ready to dial 9-1-1 if I had to. Nikki might be above me, looking down through the slats, so I couldn’t risk texting Derek. The light of my phone would give me away.
I couldn’t breathe, for fear that the person was listening too hard.
A creak sounded and the shadow moved just a touch. My throat went dry and my vision narrowed to a point. Every horror scenario I’d ever imagined went racing through my head, and I wondered if a relatively in-shape woman who occasionally ate too many sweets could have a heart attack from fear at thirty-three.
The door opened and Nikki’s voice rang out, “Stefan, are you coming in?”
“Yeah,” he said, and the shadow moved a few inches. “I just got another text from Mike. You should read this.”
Another piece of shadow moved above me, just visible through the slats, and I heard Nikki gasp. She joined Stefan on the porch.
“Can you go over there right now?” Nikki whispered.
“And not try Scarlet again?”
“No, that’s not important now.” Fear made her words shaky. “I thought you said no one saw you.”
“Well, apparently, I was wrong.” Stefan’s sigh was a little louder than his words. His feet moved around a little, like he was shifting his weight. “You have to talk to Austin about this.”
“I can’t.” Her response was so firm and quick; this had to be a repeat conversation.
“I don’t understand you, Nik.” His tone went soft, almost emotional. “Why are you still trying to protect him?”
“I’m not having this conversation right now.” Her words tumbled out fast, and when the door opened, she followed with a quick, “Hey, Jenna. We were just coming in.”
All the shadows finally dissipated, and I let my breath out, long and slow. I immediately turned my phone over and found two different text messages from Derek.
Where are you? and Are you coming back? were dated a few minutes apart, and I quickly responded that I would be on my way as soon as I knew they were gone. When the light finally went off in the living room, I made my way quickly through the shadows in the backyard, careful to avoid the lit-up grave. I ran down to where I thought we’d left the bike. I whispered Derek’s name a few times, but I couldn’t stop, not now. I kept going, heading past the road.
Finally, Derek whispered my name back, and I walked toward the sound, deeper into the gully, away from the houses. There was even less light down here, and I could barely see the white patches of snow that still remained.
I felt the warm touch of his hand on mine and kept walking until I hit his chest. My breath was coming so fast, it was a miracle I wasn’t choking on it.
“I thought you got caught,” he said, wrapping his arms around me until I was completely covered in warmth. “You’re shaking.”
“Stefan stayed out on the porch after the others went in,” I said, hearing the tremor in my own voice, and feeling the emotion still stuck in the back of my throat. “I thought he was going to catch me.
“Well, you’re safe now.” He pulled me back to arm’s length and bent down. I could just make out the form of his head, and it was obvious he was trying to look into my eyes. But I couldn’t see much of anything. “I walked down a bit and stood in the gully under the grave, Vangie. I heard everything.”
“You did?”
“Let’s get out of here and get you someplace warm.”
I couldn’t form any words yet, so I just nodded. I could use something warm right about now.
Derek and I walked his bike down the lane until we were almost to the street. He helped me onto the back and started it, easing down the street. I looked back at Nikki’s house, but it was dark. The pickup truck was gone, the white car was gone, and it looked like Nikki had either left herself or left with one of them. The only light on was in Austin’s bedroom along the side of the house.
We rode back to my vehicle, and Derek followed me to the bed and breakfast. I was pretty certain that Stefan would stay away from the B&B after his conversation with Nikki, and I wanted to see what Scarlet needed. And sit somewhere warm for a change.
Scarlet let us inside and took us into the dining room, where there was an electric tea kettle that I immediately turned on. We sat in the semi-darkness around the creaky old table, and she folded her hands in front of her.
“They’re re-opening Claire’s case.” Scarlet delivered the line like an actress, and I tried to show an appropriate amount of shock to be a pleasing audience, but truth be told, I had assumed they would.
“Malcolm called her,” Derek said in a low voice. “Just before Van Andel came over. Told her not to leave town.”
“Right.” Scarlet nodded. “It appears that a witness came forward saying they saw Henry driving away from the gas station—actually, that would have been me driving away—while Claire ran after him.”
I gave a little shake of my head and dropped my jaw for effect. Henry would have been so proud. Oscar.
“Right.”
“But we al—” Derek started, but I kicked his shin softly under the table. Scarlet was too busy soaking up all the drama. Safe drama, anyway. It was best to let her have her moment.
“So, you have to stay here?” I asked. “Or are you leaving?”
“Oh, now that they reopened the case and I’m not a suspect, I booked myself on the first morning flight back to LA. I leave here at four in the morning.” She reached inside the folds of her white sweater. “I want you to have this.” Her elegant fingers emerged with a little brown notebook.
“Thanks,” I said, holding my hand out, but she hadn’t given it over just yet. Each movement was excruciatingly slow.
“It’s everything I could remember about the last three days.” She finally set it into my open palm. “And an account of the conversations I had with Henry about the child and everything.”
“What should I do with it?” I asked.
“Keep it. On the off chance that their investigation goes South again, I’d like to know that someone was here watching out for Henry.”
Derek’s lips tightened, and the tension in the room was suddenly tactile. Henry had clearly been one of Scarlet’s favorite people in the world, but he had assaulted Derek’s wife, and never seen punishment for it. It was understandable that he would be mad about someone attempting to protect Henry. He’d certainly been mad at me on and off for a few days.
I just wanted justice to be done. For everyone.
“When I get back to Los Angeles, they’re going to start dividing up Henry’s estate according to his will,” Scarlet said, rising from her seat. “If I come across anything that’s relevant, the sheriff asked me to share it, but right now, he doesn’t know about Henry’s child, and I’d rather it stayed that way.”
“You don’t want to know who it is?” I asked, a little dumbfounded.
“The lawyers will figure all that out.”
“So, did Henry have a will?” Derek ventured, his features still tight.
“He did, and his lawyers will know how to divide his estate. His mother has passed, but I know he updated it after that. So I’m not sure where everything will go.” She tightened her arms around her body, the white sweater coat folding around her like fur. “But I’d like to keep Henry’s name out of the press as much as possible. And, of course, whatever we can do to protect the child.”
The child.
Those words echoed in my ears. It still felt, sometimes, like Scarlet thought of Henry’s son as a baby, somewhere, being cared for by some nameless, faceless person in a nursery. But he wasn’t nameless or faceless to me. And I wanted more than anything to protect him. He was, after all, the real innocent here.
“Wait,” Scarlet said, turning on me like she’d just realized something. “You asked if I wanted to know who the child was. Does that mean you know who it is?”
I shifted in my seat, looking at Derek. He had a similar quizzical look on his face, and I had to let out a little, choked laugh. “Wait. Neither of you know who it is?”
“No,” Derek said.
“I don’t.” Scarlet resumed her seat. “If you can tell me, it would save the lawyers a lot of paperwork, maybe even the cost of hiring a private investigator.”
“I thought it was obvious,” I said with a shrug. “It’s Austin Krantz.”
Scarlet blinked at me, like she hadn’t even considered the thought, but Derek was already shaking his head. “No, it’s definitely not Austin Krantz.”
“It is.” I reached for my purse, but I’d left it in the car. I had all the proof in my bag. The pictures of Mike and Henry, the Wikipedia page with Auggie’s date of death, the birth calculator still in a window on my phone, and the sermon notes about Auggie’s second funeral. “Auggie Krantz died before he could have possibly conceived Austin. Plus, Claire was shipped off to Minnesota right about the time Nikki came back to Saint Agnes and told everyone she was pregnant.”
“But that’s not possible,” Derek said, wiping his hand across the dark wood of the table. “I just heard Stefan Van Andel say that he was Austin’s father.”
The news landed on me like a cartoon piano, and for a long moment, I stopped breathing, waiting while things clicked into place. The strange, constant involvement of Mike and Jenna Van Andel, the little pow-wow at Nikki’s house, the interview at the sheriff’s office.
Everything.
Lined.
Up.
The electric tea kettle popped off, hot water ready, but I wasn’t interested in tea anymore. All I wanted to do was collapse, like I’d just solved a huge crossword puzzle.
Stefan Van Andel was Austin’s father.
The death of Henry in the jail could easily have been Mike and Stefan Van Andel collaborating together. Colluding. The security cameras in the holding cells didn’t work. If Stefan had managed to be on duty that night, he would have had an easy path. “You mean the deputy who was just here?” Scarlet asked, looking at Derek. “When did he say that?”
“We followed them,” he said. “Just now.”
“So, if Henry isn’t Austin’s father, then who is Henry’s son?” I looked between the two of them, and they just stared back. No one seemed to have an answer for that, so I shifted my gaze to Derek. “What else did they say out there?”
“I couldn’t hear all of it. But Stefan wanted to come clean about being Austin’s father, and Nikki said Mike wouldn’t allow it. She said they’d tried too many times in the past.”
I had been so certain that Henry was Austin’s father.
This was too much. I had to stand up, walk around, get some air. It was like waiting for something for what seemed like forever, only for it to be a complete disappointment when it showed up.
“Well, if this kid isn’t Henry’s son, then he’s of no consequence to me,” Scarlet said, rising again and walking toward the door. “I trust you can let yourselves out.”
Before I could turn around, she was gone. No goodbyes, no reminiscing, no nothing. Just dead air.
As I walked out of the bed and breakfast with Derek, I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions, but after the way we’d spied on Nikki, Stefan, and Jenna, I didn’t trust outside anymore.
I told Derek to keep his phone charged. My next step was to read Scarlet’s diary, see if there was anything helpful in there.
“Is there anything else I should know before I go?” I asked in a low voice. Derek’s bike was parked behind the Tank, but he stood so close, I could smell his leather jacket.
“From Nikki’s house?”
“Or anything,” I said. I felt like there was something Derek still wasn’t telling me. Maybe it was something that would make me suspicious of him, and that was why he didn’t want to tell me. Maybe it was just a half-formed idea.
He leaned against the car, keeping his head and his voice low. “Well, I’d like to know why Jenna Van Andel cares so much about not telling Austin anything.”
I didn’t tell him about my suspicions regarding Henry’s death. Jenna was probably protecting her husband. I didn’t care about Jenna Van Andel right now. I was too concerned with Stefan.
“Do you think it’s possible that Stefan will sabotage the investigation?” I asked.
“Anything is possible.”
“Should I tell Malcolm what we overheard tonight?”
That was the real question I was worried about. We had information that proved Stefan’s motives, but if we told Malcolm, we’d have to admit that we’d followed Stefan instead of calling Malcolm about our suspicions.
He wasn’t going to like that.
“Do you think there’s a possibility that it’ll come out some other way?” Derek asked, touching my arm like he was consoling me. Were my emotions written on my face?
“I know Nikki has a vested interest in keeping that quiet. And Jenna and Mike, if they’ve been helping her cover it up. And, of course,
Stefan. He’s married. I don’t think his wife would take kindly to knowing there’s a bastard kid out there somewhere.” As I said the words aloud, it struck me what life must have been like for Henry. Always carrying the knowledge he had done something genuinely bad to someone.
I hoped that Henry had made his peace with God before he died. That wouldn’t have been an easy task. I still hadn’t made amends for the things I’d done.
“Claire didn’t keep a journal or anything, did she?” I asked, maybe too much hope behind my words.
Derek shook his head. “She wasn’t the type to want to remember things.”
Those words were so sad, and they came out of him with such a forlorn sigh, I almost couldn’t respond. Derek was going to be carrying a lot around, himself.
I said goodbye to Derek and drove home, trying not to dwell too much on whether or not I would tell Malcolm what we’d overheard.. We would have to keep an eye on the investigation, I decided, and if it felt like the knowledge of Austin’s parentage was going to be a necessary detail for Malcolm to know, then I would tell him.
I couldn’t let Claire’s killer go without justice.
By the time I got home, it was bedtime, and I took a long, hot shower to get the feel of grime off my skin. But even after I crawled into bed and started reading Scarlet’s journal, I could still feel the lingering touch of Stefan Van Andel’s hand on the small of my back as he’d walked me to my car in front of the bed and breakfast. I set my alarm for 2:30 a.m. and hoped that Leo would be there when I arrived at the bakery the next day.
I needed to make some macarons to clear my head.
Chapter 28
I woke up with Scarlet’s journal spread across my chest, and peered over at the clock. I’d woken up before my alarm, which was unusual, but I was fully awake. I showered again and put pins in my hair so I could wear the hairnet more easily.
On the way out of my bedroom, I picked up the journal, still open to the place where I had apparently stopped reading. She’d filled about forty lined pages with notes—some in narrative form, some in bullets—about what she remembered.