by Janet Dailey
“I guess so. But we could both use a break for a couple of days. I’ll let you know if I find anything at the trailer. Meanwhile, don’t take any stupid chances.”
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
He left without another word, striding toward the Jeep, climbing in, and driving away without a backward glance.
Heartsick, Emma stood looking after him. Was this their first lover’s quarrel, or was it the beginning of the end? She would never have set up a meeting between John and David. But it was almost as if she had. And John, proud man that he was, would not be quick to forgive her.
In his most private heart of hearts, John carried a wound that would never heal. That wound was the loss of his son.
Today had taught her a bitter lesson. John might care for her. He might even come to love her. But that wound in his heart went deeper than even she could ever reach.
* * *
By the time John finished changing the Beaver’s oil and refilling the fuel tank, the sun was going down. Restless now, and needing to move, he secured the plane, slipped on a fleece jacket against the chilling breeze, and set off up the deserted shore.
The incoming tide lapped at his boots as he strode along the rocky beach. A lone bald eagle soared against the glowing sky. Pausing, John watched its flight until it vanished beyond the trees. As a young boy, he’d wished for wings like a bird so he could fly away from the ugly realities of an incarcerated father and an alcoholic mother. Now he had those wings, and he felt more at home in the air than on the ground. In the air there was no anger, no ugliness, just him, the plane and the sky.
He’d been harder on Emma than she deserved. She should have warned him that she was working with David, but she’d been told not to. How could she have known that he would walk into the restaurant and find himself face to face with his son?
That look of alarm in David’s eyes when their gazes met would haunt him for a long time to come. Marlena had done a good job of convincing the boy that his natural father was a drunken, evil monster—and maybe, in part, that’s what he had been. But even in the worst times, he’d never laid a hand on his wife or his son. And even when he was drinking, he’d always worked hard to provide for them.
Ketchikan was a small town. He’d had other chances to confront David, but he’d gone out of his way to avoid the boy. It was that look—the surprise that bordered on terror in those dark eyes so like his own—that struck like a bullet to his heart. He didn’t want to see that look. He didn’t want to lie awake at night, remembering it.
Next spring, David would be eighteen years old and ready to graduate from high school. If Marlena had any say in it, he would go away to college, find a new life far from Ketchikan, and never again set eyes on the man who’d fathered him. The best John could hope for was to be at peace, knowing his son was happy.
And Emma . . . He’d never expected anyone like her to come into his world. Her warmth, her strength and her sweet vulnerability touched him in ways he’d never known before. But how could he expect her to stay and share his life, when he had so little to offer? And a deeper question—how could he keep his fear of losing her from driving her away, as it likely had today?
The last rays of sunset reflected streaks of mauve and violet in the water. The breeze had turned colder. Turning up his collar, John thrust his hands into his pockets and walked back along the beach to the harbor.
CHAPTER 10
Emma should have known what to expect. She and Pearl were getting ready to open for lunch the next day when a familiar black Escalade pulled up to the curb outside. Marlena, in her designer jeans and stiletto-heeled boots, strode into the hotel lobby and rapped on the glass door of the restaurant.
Pearl unlocked the door and held it open. Ignoring her sister-in-law, Marlena zeroed in on Emma like a heat-seeking missile.
“David told me John came in here last night, and that they spoke to each other. He was very emotional, very upset. John was your friend, he said, so that’s why I’m talking to you. Keep him away from my son, missy.”
“My name is Emma—right here.” Emma pointed to the name badge on her uniform. Marlena was a tall woman, especially in high heels. Groomed to the nines, she loomed over Emma in her ill-fitting uniform and blue and white sneakers. But Emma had made up her mind not to be intimidated.
“Well, Emma,” Marlena snapped. “I’m here to tell you, I have full legal custody of David, and I won’t put up with your meddling. If I hear anything about your inviting John here while David is working, the boy won’t be working here anymore. And you’ll be facing a lawsuit.” She swung to face her husband’s sister. “As for you, Pearl—”
“Pearl was on break,” Emma said. “And John came in to talk to me. He didn’t even know David was working here until they saw each other. Even then, they only spoke a few words.”
“And you expect me to believe that.”
The woman was actually calling her a liar. Emma’s temper flared. She held it in check for John’s sake and for David’s.
“John doesn’t want to make trouble for David or you, Marlena,” she said. “Neither do I. I won’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong. But I know John won’t let it happen again.”
“He’d better not, or he’ll find himself in court,” Marlena said. “He was a bad husband and a bad father. He cared more about the next bottle of booze than he did about his family. Two different judges ruled that he was an unfit parent.”
“He’s changed, Marlena. Anybody who knows him will tell you that.”
“Nobody changes, especially John. He’ll always be an alcoholic, and I won’t have him trying to influence my son.”
“Influence him? What are you talking about?” Emma demanded.
“Don’t you know anything?” Marlena glared down at Emma as if she were speaking to a backward child. “Alcoholism is a disease. It’s passed down in families. John’s mother was an alcoholic. So is John. If David inherited the trait, one drink could be enough to tip him over the edge. That’s why I can’t let him be around John—ever.”
“Marlena, John would never—”
“No, that’s enough.” Marlena cut her off. “You don’t even know him. Maybe you think he’s wonderful. Maybe you’re even in love with him. But you don’t know what he can be like.” She turned to Pearl. “You promised to look out for David. Do your job.”
“He’ll be fine, Marlena. I won’t take my eyes off him.” Pearl spoke calmly, as if she’d long since grown accustomed to her sister-in-law’s rants. “Now it’s time for us to open these doors for customers. So run along, dear. I’ll call you if there’s a problem.”
“There’d better not be a problem.” With those words, Marlena stalked outside and drove away.
Pearl unlocked the doors, and turned over the OPEN sign. But if there’d been any customers waiting for an early lunch, they’d gone elsewhere.
“I think I need to sit down.” Emma sank onto a chair, her legs unsteady beneath her.
Pearl gave her a knowing smile. “Don’t take it to heart, honey. Marlena’s been a drama queen for as long as I’ve known her. I try to cut her some slack because she came from a pretty tough background. Horrible family. Like something out of that old movie, Deliverance. You can’t imagine.”
Yes, I can, Emma thought, reminding herself that Pearl didn’t know about her time with Boone.
“Marlena’s fought her way up from her roots, but she’s still insecure—the clothes, the car, the manicures, it’s all part of what she needs to convince herself she’s as good as anybody else. My brother adores her, and she’s good with their kids. But she can be pretty . . . intense, for want of a better word.”
“And John?” Emma rose and began setting napkins and cutlery on the tables.
“He’s part of the past she wants to put behind her. I guess she had a pretty bad time of it with him. I can’t say I blame her for leaving. I know John’s been sober a long time, and that he’d never influence D
avid to drink. But you won’t convince Marlena of that.”
“So I guess the best thing to do is just accept the situation for what it is.” Emma found herself wishing she could confide in this warm, understanding woman and tell her how John yearned to have his son in his life. But she’d already stepped into enough trouble. Maybe some things were better left unsaid.
The first lunch customers began to trickle in. By noon, every booth and table was full. Emma was constantly busy, bustling between the dining room and the kitchen. Still, her thoughts kept straying to John. She knew he’d planned to drive to Boone’s burned-out trailer and look for evidence today, but she had no idea what he was hoping to find. Maybe if they hadn’t had the blowup over David, he’d have told her.
Last night he’d said they needed a break. Still, she couldn’t help hoping he would change his mind and call her. She missed hearing his voice. She missed knowing he was safe and that he cared about her. But her phone had remained stubbornly silent until she turned the ringer off to go down to work.
Was he all right? Had he forgiven her for not telling him about David?
Stepping into a quiet corner, she slipped her phone out of her pocket and checked for voice and text messages. Nothing.
Stop worrying, she told herself. The man’s been in your life just a few days. And now you’re tying yourself in knots because he hasn’t called. Grow up and deal with it, Emma Hunter.
Emma thrust the phone into her pocket and went back to work. But despite her resolve, she couldn’t still the echo of Marlena’s caustic voice in her memory.
Maybe you’re even in love with him. . . .
* * *
Once John had found the old logging road, it wasn’t hard to follow. The worn ruts, clear of overgrowth, showed signs of regular and recent travel, including food wrappers and beer cans tossed out along the sides.
There was no way to know if Boone had been back to the trailer since the burnout. The absence of fresh tire tracks since the last rain suggested that he wasn’t there now. But John knew better than to take anything for granted. The loaded .44 was in his shoulder holster, close at hand. Boone was as wily as a cougar and even more dangerous. He could be anywhere.
Aside from its serious purpose, the drive was a pleasant one. The day was cool but sunny, the air fresh with the fragrance of spruce and hemlock. Squirrels, gathering their winter supply, frisked among the branches. Jays squawked and scolded. A bull moose, with a massive rack, wandered across the road, taking its time. John backed up to give the huge animal plenty of room. With the rut season on, the big boys were known to be ill tempered. They would charge anything that looked like a challenger—even a Jeep.
Given his own frustrations, John couldn’t say he blamed them.
The deeply rutted road was slow going. John had plenty of time for his mind to wander. Mostly it wandered to thoughts of Emma.
That kiss yesterday had got him believing they had the start of something good. But they’d both been burned by relationships, and they both had trust issues. All it had taken was a small misunderstanding—like her failure to tell him about David—to set off all the old alarms. Emma was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. He loved her courage, her tenderness, her quirky sense of humor. And the more time he spent with her, the more beautiful she appeared to him. But unless they could learn to have faith in each other, their relationship was doomed.
Maybe he should have called her this morning. It was too late now. There was no phone service this deep in the bush. Maybe tonight, when he got back to town, he could do some fence mending. But he didn’t want to stop by the restaurant if David would be there. And tomorrow he’d be flying the mail run. Most of that time, he’d be out of touch.
Never mind. He’d sort things out when he got back to town. One way or another, he needed to make things right with her.
Three hours after leaving the highway, he sighted the clearing, with the burned frame of the trailer, through the trees. The place appeared quiet, but just to be sure, he parked the Jeep thirty yards away, behind a stand of devil’s club, and approached on foot with his pistol drawn.
There were no boot tracks in the bare, wet earth and no other signs that anyone had been here since the last rain. After checking around, John holstered his gun and got out his phone to take photos of anything he found.
He took a few shots of the trailer, a black skeleton with the charred remains of bath fixtures, kitchen appliances, metal pipes, and broken glass inside. The cast-iron pan where Emma had poured kerosene to start the fire lay next to what was left of the stove.
The exploding propane tank behind the trailer had likely done most of the damage. If Boone had been inside when it blew up, he wouldn’t have survived.
Reminding himself that he was here to find incriminating evidence against Boone, John moved in closer. Right away, he noticed two metal gasoline cans, barely scorched, lying empty some distance from the trailer. What if Boone had put out Emma’s fire, then, after failing to recapture her, gone back and burned the trailer himself? Anything he had to hide from the police would have gone up in flames, and Emma would have been blamed. The delay between the first and second fires would explain why neither he nor Emma had noticed any smoke.
Boone’s burns could have been caused by either blaze. Whichever way he might have come by them, he would have blamed Emma.
John photographed the gasoline cans and continued his search. Emma had mentioned that she’d left her luggage inside the trailer. But John could see no remains, such as locks, hinges, or metal framework. And there was no trace of any personal items that might have belonged to her. Again, that argued for the case that Boone had removed them before starting the second fire.
So what was he looking for now? After taking a few more photos, John began walking in a slow, outward spiral around the trailer, his eyes on the ground. He couldn’t afford to miss anything—not when the tiniest object could provide a vital clue.
A bobby pin—it didn’t mean much by itself, but he took a picture. The metal cap off a lipstick tube—interesting, but no proof of anything.
He had reached the edge of the clearing without finding anything that would’ve made the long drive worthwhile. He was about to give up when his gaze caught a glint of something under the edge of a blackberry thicket. If the sun hadn’t been shining overhead, he would have missed it.
Crouching, he used the barrel of his gun to raise the prickly branches. What he saw caused his breath to catch. He stared at it as if he’d found the Holy Grail.
It was a pair of glasses—big and round with harlequin frames and thick lenses lying half-buried in the dirt.
. . . plain as a mud fence. Big thick glasses . . .
Sherman Philpot’s words shot to the surface of John’s memory. Sam Traverton had suggested that Boone’s earlier bride might have left on her own. But she wouldn’t have left without her glasses.
Knowing he mustn’t touch anything, John used a stick to prop the branches out of the way while he photographed the glasses. He took several distance shots to show the location, then close-ups from every possible angle. One lens was cracked, and the frames looked twisted, as if they might have come off in a struggle.
John had little doubt that the woman was dead or that Boone had been responsible. Maybe she’d died accidentally or been killed by an animal—such things happened out here in the bush. Maybe she’d been killed while trying to escape. Or maybe her murder had been planned from the beginning.
So far, there was no way to be sure. But John was already imagining what Emma’s fate might have been if he hadn’t come to her rescue.
He finished his search, went back to the Jeep, and started the long, slow drive home. He’d found a few odds and ends, but only the glasses stood out as evidence. If Philpot could identify them in the photos, surely that would justify a search of the area and hopefully lead to Boone’s arrest.
The question now was, would Philpot cooperate or was the fake reverend a closer friend t
o Boone than he’d let on?
* * *
David had shown up for work at his regular time. He was his usual cheerful, friendly self, leading Emma to suspect that Marlena had exaggerated her son’s emotional state. But she knew better than to mention his mother’s visit, or to meddle in a volatile situation that was none of her making.
Business had been brisk all day. Pearl had mentioned that this might be the last of the nice weather before the cold autumn storms moved in. Everyone who came by seemed to feel the same urgency to be out and about, getting things done and enjoying a pleasant meal before battening down the hatches for harsh Alaskan weather.
By late afternoon the flow of diners had trickled off. But the restaurant was still busy. Emma was getting tired. She was functioning on autopilot when a new customer, wearing a sweatshirt and a red baseball cap left over from the Trump campaign, came in and sat down at a table with his back toward her.
Pen poised over her order pad, she walked around the table. “Hi,” she said. “Welcome to The Silv—”
The words died in her throat as the man smiled up at her.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the man she’d known as Reverend Sherman Philpot said in a ringing voice. “If it isn’t Mrs. Boone Swenson, in the flesh.”
Pearl’s head swiveled in their direction. Only a quick grab saved her from dropping the tray she was carrying.
Emma’s legs had gone wobbly beneath her. Until now she had almost believed that she could move on past that fake wedding and the nightmare that had followed. But the sight of Philpot, grinning up at her with that missing tooth, brought it all back.
“So I take it things didn’t work out between you and ol’ Boone. Pity. I thought you made a right handsome couple.”
A few other people were turning their heads to look. Emma felt as if an iron band had clamped around her ribs. She could barely breathe. She glanced around to see if David had heard. He was nowhere in sight.
“So are you going to take my order, Mrs. Swenson?” Philpot asked, clearly enjoying her discomfort.