by Deirdre Dore
What he did know was that he didn’t like this big dude showing up out of nowhere and asking questions, especially if Tavey had found something of Summer’s this morning. All they needed was more attention on their little town, especially after the serial killer incident last fall.
The big guy shifted from one foot to the other but didn’t seem uncomfortable unless he looked at Raquel.
“I’d like to talk to you, Ms. Collins. About your family. About the foundation, Once Was Lost.”
Tyler heard Tavey catch her breath. He glanced down to catch her looking over at Raquel. He could guess what she was thinking. As far as he knew, Tavey never passed up an opportunity to talk about Once Was Lost. Tyler saw her on the news frequently, either in one of her tidy little suits or in the trail gear she wore when working with the dogs.
Raquel and Tavey seemed to be conducting some kind of silent communication, which ended with Raquel shrugging and giving the big man a narrow look.
Tavey turned away from Raquel and addressed Burns, linking her fingers together in front of her.
“I’d be happy to speak with you, Mr. Burns. However, now is not—”
A loud honk interrupted her, and they all turned to look down the drive. A dark gray Ford with two people in the cab crawled up the drive.
“Chris and Ryan,” Tavey commented in an aside to Tyler.
Tyler grunted. He was happy enough to see Ryan. He respected the FBI agent and appreciated the heads-up he’d given Tyler regarding the evidence he’d found at the abandoned paper mill.
Ryan pulled the truck up next to the Jeep and was temporarily blocked from sight until he and Chris came around the back of the Jeep to join their little group. The three teenagers, Thomas, Bessie, and Atohi had also come outside and were standing by the porte cochere watching to see what was going on.
Tavey waved a hand. “Go back to breakfast, everyone. We’ll be in in just a minute.”
They grudgingly went, Atohi urging the others in with his long brown arms.
“Hi, who’re you?” Tyler heard Chris ask in her cheeky, offbeat way. She was a curvy, pretty woman with a mass of curly brown hair and catlike gold eyes. She was a smart aleck and a little strange, but Tyler had always liked her. She seemed to be a good match for Ryan, the watchful man at her side, sociable and funny where he was more of an observer.
“I’m Brent Burns.” The big man held out his hand to Chris first, a move that Tyler noted with interest. The guy wasn’t stupid, that was for sure.
Chris shook it, but her face was set in a scowl.
“You’re George Mills’s nephew,” she pointed out, nodding to Burns for the benefit of the rest of the crowd. “The documentary filmmaker.”
“Yeah,” Burns agreed after he’d shaken everyone’s hand, looking around at the group surrounding him with interest. “People don’t usually recognize me.”
“Really?” Tavey said drily, taking in the man’s massive size. Tyler felt his hands curl into fists and made a conscious effort to relax them.
“What do you want?” Chris pressed, stepping closer. “Your uncle isn’t exactly our favorite person.”
Burns nodded expansively, including everyone. “I’d like to talk to you all, actually, about what happened, tell the story of Summer from your point of view, but the focus of the piece will be on the Collins family, their history, and the nonprofit you all started.”
“Why?” Raquel spoke up. Easily the shortest of everyone there, she nonetheless knew how to make herself present. Her hands were once again shoved in her cargo pants, her posture carefully nonchalant. “What are you hoping to get out of it?”
Burns met her eyes. “A good story.”
Raquel nodded. “Not the truth?”
Burns shrugged, his eyes serious for the first time. “Truth is complicated. I’d love to talk about it sometime.”
Chris punched Ryan in the arm. “Maybe you should talk to him about truth.”
Ryan smiled wryly.
Silence held sway for a moment as Burns looked from person to person, waiting for an explanation for Chris’s cryptic comment. None was forthcoming. Tyler could guess, having worked with Ryan before, that Chris’s penchant for storytelling fell on the side of lying in his mind, and no doubt it had caused a conflict or two between them.
“Well,” Tavey addressed everyone, “we have other things to deal with this morning. I’m sure you’ll understand, Mr. Burns, if we don’t invite you in at this time. We can discuss the details of this project tomorrow if you’d like to come by my store in the afternoon.”
Burns looked amused again. “I’d like to stay, observe everyone.”
Tavey frowned politely. “Without a contract, an agreement? I’m sorry, Mr. Burns, but I won’t allow my privacy invaded without some discussion of rules.”
Burns nodded and clicked off the recorder. “Then I’m not a documentarian for today. How about a guest? Visiting from a long way away.”
Tyler felt his eyes narrow as Tavey hesitated. She would be a sucker for that particular gambit, Tyler knew. Her grandmother had been a big believer in hospitality. He had benefited from it on more than one occasion, the most spectacular of which had been when he was ten years old.
It had been a cold winter, a year after Summer’s disappearance, and his uncle had been attacked and hurt a month before when that gang of men had decided to take the law into their own hands. When he was well, Abraham did his best to see that Tyler’s father behaved himself and didn’t abuse Tyler’s mom or Tyler. But with Abraham hurt, Tyler’s father had decided to take the opportunity to teach Tyler a lesson, though what Tyler was supposed to learn remained a mystery.
Late one evening, he’d beaten Tyler and thrown him outside onto the porch of their one-story house in town. Tyler had decided to walk to the church a few blocks away and see if anybody would help him. A few people had seen him, he was sure, but hadn’t stopped to help or offer him a ride. The wind had been brutal that night, tearing at his thin T-shirt, scouring the cuts and bruises on his face with icy slaps. The church had been closed; he’d banged on the wooden door for a while, feeling the bite of the cold stone steps, and thought maybe he was going to die like that, but then a shiny black car had pulled up to the curb, and Tavey had gotten out of the backseat wearing a tiny fur coat and a red velvet party dress. Her long brown hair had been half pulled back and she’d worn a string of pearls around her neck. Even as a child, she’d dressed like a grown woman.
He’d squinted the eye that wasn’t completely swollen shut, certain he was imagining things. He hated Tavey. She’d accused his uncle of killing Summer. She was the last person he wanted to see him like this. A man joined her, a tall, white-haired man with a wrinkled face.
“Put him in the backseat, Wayne, please. When we get home we’ll call the sheriff’s office.”
“Don’t need your help,” Tyler gasped. He was pretty sure one of his ribs was broken. He hurt. He hurt all over, but he didn’t want help from her.
“Tavey, why have we stopped?” He heard an older woman’s voice as if from a long way away.
“It’s Tyler Downs, Gramma. He’s hurt.”
“Think that boy needs a doctor,” the man commented, taking off his gloves as he bent down to his haunches and touched Tyler’s face.
“No d-d-doctor,” Tyler said, his teeth chattering. “F-f-fine.”
“You’re not fine. Now be quiet,” Tavey told him in that bossy way she had, like she was born to tell everyone what to do.
“We can’t leave him here, Gramma. It wouldn’t be right.” She turned to call over her shoulder. Tyler realized that her grandmother was still in the car. “We’ll have to call Doc Clive.”
Tyler breathed a small sigh of relief. Doc Clive was the local vet. He lived outside of town.
“Wayne,” her grandmother called, “pick the boy up gently, we’ll tak
e care of him tonight. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
Tyler struggled briefly when the man reached for him. He didn’t need to be carried, but Tavey put one gloved hand on his arm to hold him still. “Be still, Tyler. Wayne is going to carry you to the car. If you wiggle, he could fall and hurt himself.”
Wayne chuckled, lifting Tyler gently. “Boy don’t weigh more than a sack a ’tatoes, Miss Tavey.”
Tavey followed behind him as he carried Tyler to the car.
Wayne set him on his side next to Tavey’s grandmother, his head on a bundle she’d made out of her fur coat. She smelled of roses and Aqua Net hair spray. Tavey sat in the front but immediately turned to look in the backseat.
Tyler remembered Tavey’s pale face looking at him—she’d looked angry, her eyes red and her cheeks flushed.
Tyler closed his eyes, not wanting to see Tavey angry. She was angry all the time when she came to yell at his uncle, angry and sad, missing her friend.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and felt Tavey’s grandmother stroke his hair gently with her pale fingers.
“It’s all right, Mr. Downs. As my late husband used to say, ‘Welcome, stranger.’”
Tyler remembered the gentle rocking of the car, the feel of clean leather beneath him, and Tavey saying, “Gramma, he’s hurt bad, isn’t he?”
“Badly enough, darlin’. Badly enough.”
TYLER HAD STAYED in the Collinses’ house for an entire week, recovering.
Tavey visited him every day, usually at breakfast. She’d walk in with the housekeeper, Mrs. Pascal.
“Hi, Tyler.” She’d smile at him. “Are you feeling better today?”
It didn’t matter how rude he was to her, trying to keep her at a distance, or how often he told her to get lost. She always returned, sometimes with her friends, but usually alone, and would read to him. He’d never liked books before that, though Abraham was always trying to get him to read.
Sometimes, just as he was falling into a doze, he would hear her stand and she would touch his hair gently.
He’d always pretended to be asleep, but after several days, he began looking forward to the soft brush of her fingers in his hair.
On the second-to-last day in the Collinses’ house, an officer from the sheriff’s department had come by, taking off his hat indoors, his shoulders hunched as he stood in the richly decorated guest room where Tyler had been recovering.
“Well.” The sheriff had pushed a pair of thick glasses up on his face and scratched his handlebar mustache. He looked around. “Man doesn’t quite know where to sit in a room like this.”
Tyler had nodded, not wanting to like the big man, but he felt the same way about the room, which Tavey had assured him was the nicest in the house. The curtains were some kind of thick flowery fabric and the bed was huge, bigger than his whole bedroom back at his house. There were thick carpets on the floor and a real stone fireplace. The officer carefully pulled a delicate-looking chair closer to Tyler’s bed and eased himself into it, settling gradually.
“Well,” the sheriff said again, “it seems like your situation at home ain’t so good, Tyler. Why don’t you tell me what’s been goin’ on?”
Tyler shook his head. “No, sir. Ev’rythin’ is fine.”
The man snorted. “I forgot to tell you my name. I’m Sheriff Daughtrey, but you can call me Jimmy. How about that?”
Tyler nodded.
The sheriff appeared lost in thought for a moment, scratching his face. “Mrs. Collins is a real nice woman. I was friends with her husband; he passed away last year. You know that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me Jimmy,” the sheriff corrected. “Here’s the thing, Tyler. I had a talk with your dad yesterday, and he isn’t going to be hitting you or your mom anymore.”
Tyler blinked, but his eyes remained flat, his face expressionless. “Yes, sir.”
“Seriously, son. He won’t be hurting you anymore.”
“Okay,” Tyler agreed.
The sheriff sighed. “Well, I suppose you’ll see, in time.”
The man had brushed off his pants and stood next to Tyler’s bed. “Mrs. Collins is going to take you home tomorrow, Tyler. I’ll be there. And I’ll be stopping by often.”
“Yes, sir.” Tyler would believe it when he saw it.
Sheriff Daughtrey had kept his word, though, stopping in every so often to check on Tyler and his mom. He’d even taken Tyler to his uncle’s to check on him from time to time. Tyler’s father died just after Tyler turned fifteen; he’d been drunk and managed to crash into an oak tree, killing himself, but mercifully no one else.
Tyler had gone to college and worked for several years in Atlanta before joining the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, working with Jimmy until he’d died of a heart attack early last year. Before he’d died, Jimmy had told him something that Tyler still had trouble believing. Tavey’s grandmother had paid Tyler’s father cash every month on the condition that he not beat Tyler or his mom, and the sheriff had reinforced that agreement with a threat to break both of his legs if he did.
“ALL RIGHT, Mr. Burns, you can join us for breakfast, but we won’t be discussing anything about the documentary and you won’t be recording. Are we clear?” Her words jolted Tyler from the memory, and he watched as she held out her hand to the stranger.
Burns shook it, his eyes smiling again. “Yes, ma’am. And call me Brent.”
“All right, then, let’s get inside before the food is cold.”
Tyler followed more slowly, catching sight of the Triplets on the other side of the living room window. They were unabashedly staring, their eyes on the imposing figure of Burns.
He found himself wondering what they saw when they looked at the man. Yarrow caught him watching them and flashed him an innocent smile. His stepdaughter smiled at him like that sometimes, usually when she was about to do something he wouldn’t like. He shook his head, wondering just how crazy this impromptu breakfast was going to get—three oddball teenagers, various senior citizens, a documentary filmmaker, an FBI agent, a yoga instructor, two cops, Tavey, and, inevitably, the ghost of Summer Haven.
14
TAVEY HAD EVERYONE gather in the formal dining room, since the kitchen wasn’t quite large enough to fit everyone comfortably. The room hadn’t been used since she’d provided Christmas dinner for everyone, months ago, so the long, ornate table her grandmother had had shipped from England was bare except for a cheerful spring arrangement in a blue Oriental vase.
Everyone helped carry quiches, toast, carafes of coffee, fresh bacon, and pretty dishes full of jellies and jams that had come from fruit harvested on Tavey’s property. Raquel’s grandmother, who’d decided to stay back from church, helped Chris set the table with plates and utensils while the Triplets set out cups and saucers. Tavey’s beagles followed everyone around, tails wagging, clearly hoping that someone would drop some bacon.
Tavey had made sure that Burns was seated comfortably and excused herself, meeting Raquel, Ryan, and Tyler in the kitchen.
“Here.” Tavey removed the ziplock bag with the ribbon from the drawer where she’d hidden it and handed it to Raquel.
Raquel studied it, smoothing out a section with her fingers. “I do remember the ribbon, but she could have dropped it anytime, Tavey.”
Tavey nodded. “We should have Chris look.”
“We will.” Raquel nodded and handed the ribbon to Tyler. “I’ll go get her.”
Tyler didn’t expect to see much. What did he know about hair ribbons? But when he took the bag from Raquel and studied the stained ribbon through the plastic, he felt the same cold certainty that came over him sometimes when he was working a case. Next to him, Ryan had tensed, his eyes haunted behind his thick, dark glasses.
They looked at each other grimly.
“What?” Tavey demanded.
Tavey sucked in a startled breath, but after a moment she wrestled herself under control and exhaled slowly through her nose. He watched her, wishing he didn’t admire her spine.
“Okay, you should take it, then, have it analyzed, but I’ll need it back.”
He scowled but wasn’t really annoyed. For some reason, her bossy tone wasn’t bothering him at the moment. He’d resented her ever since she’d started hurling accusations at his uncle, and standing in her beautiful house, reminded that her family’s generosity was the only thing that had stopped his father from killing him, didn’t lessen his irritation. But she was magnificent, really, standing with her back straight, head held high, emotions tightly leashed. He wondered if he was one of the few people who had ever seen a crack in that veneer, seen her lose her temper. It was something to behold, that temper.
“Why?” he asked, though he had an idea.
Tavey lifted her chin even higher, as if daring him to refuse her. “I’m going to give the dogs the scent, whatever is there, and see what they can find.”
Normally Tyler couldn’t imagine releasing evidence in an ongoing investigation, but this was a cold case, and Tavey had ways of getting what she wanted. He just hoped that what she found didn’t lead to his uncle’s property.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he agreed grudgingly.
Tavey met his eyes and it was just like the first time she’d ever seen him, an instant connection.
“Good,” she agreed after a moment. “Thank you.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know if he’d ever heard those two words from her before. He didn’t think so.
Ryan cleared his throat. “If you need the FBI labs to run something, I’m sure it can be arranged. We’re still cataloging all the evidence collected from the paper mill.”