Devlin's Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “India, I want to warn you not to do anything you’ll regret,” the chief told her sternly.

  “Don’t worry,” she told him as she opened the door to leave. “If I find her before you do, I won’t be the least bit sorry.”

  Chapter 29

  “What are you thinking? Nick asked, watching India’s face change expression as she pored over the front page of the newspaper. “Your face has taken on a very serious look, but you have a sort of gleam in your eye.”

  “Hmmm?” She glanced up. “Oh. I was just reading about this case that the county D.A. is trying next week.”

  “And…” He gestured for her to continue.

  “And”—she grinned—“I was thinking about how I would handle a case like this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Two nine-year-olds have accused their basketball coach of sexually abusing them. The coach is a pillar of the community. Well known. Well regarded.”

  “And the kids?”

  “Both from the low end of the economic spectrum. The parents of one of the boys weren’t even going to pursue it.” She spoke thoughtfully, as if from another place.

  “Why not?”

  “Because they know that the coach will have the best lawyer money can buy representing him. Which he does.” She tapped the paper. “Howard Branneman.”

  “You know him?”

  “Our paths have crossed.” She grinned. “Very similar paths, I might add, to this very scenario.”

  “Who won?”

  “Let’s just say that Mr. Branneman has made it known he’d like a second shot at me.” India laughed.

  “You won the first round?”

  “Twenty-five years without parole.” She nodded. “That’s what his client got.”

  “Twenty-five years,” Nick repeated. “It could have been worse.”

  “His client will be eighty-seven years old by the time he’s released. If he lives that long,” she said dryly.

  “Why don’t you give Branneman what he wants?” Nick tossed the paper back to her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Another shot at India Devlin.”

  “The case is being tried here, in the county … Oh, I get it.” She nodded. “You’re trying to say that if I went to work for the county, I could take on Branneman again.” She shook her head. “I’m sure the case has been assigned already. It would be a good one to try, though.”

  She rested her chin in her upraised palm and stared out the window.

  Behind her, Nick grinned. This time there had been no protests about Paloma and being needed there, no mention of the work she’d left behind. It was, he thought, a very good sign.

  Five feet away, the phone began to ring. He was whistling when he went to answer it.

  “India, it’s August.” He handed her the receiver.

  “Hi. Oh? How long ago did she call?” India bit her bottom lip. “Really? I’ll call her right back. Is she at the office? Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

  She hung up the receiver but kept her hand on it, asking Nick, “Do you mind if I call my office?”

  My office. Still. So much for reading the signs.

  “Go on,” he told her, and he turned away, trying to ignore the light in her eyes.

  “Roxie … hi. My aunt said you called … what’s up?” She leaned against the wall, her eyes focused on the bay outside the kitchen window. “I thought that case wasn’t on the calendar till the spring. Yes, I remember it well. Did you find my notes?”

  India began to pace back and forth, slowly, deliberately, as he had seen her do in court. The phone was propped on her right shoulder.

  “I’m sure they’re in the file, Roxie. … I put them there myself.” India frowned. “I probably have them on a disk somewhere. Check the computer in my office and… Are you serious? What fool would have erased all my files?” Her foot tapped out her agitation. “I know I have a copy of the disk, probably in the box of things that’s been sitting on my dining-room table for the past six weeks. How soon do you need the information?”

  India sighed. “I’ll drive up tomorrow. We can have lunch and you can bring me up to date on ‘All My Children.’”

  She hung up the phone and turned to see Nick watching her.

  “I didn’t know you watched soap operas,” he said.

  “What? Oh. That’s how I refer to my caseload,” she told him. “’All My Children.’”

  He nodded. Suddenly it was her caseload again.

  “I don’t think this is a good time for you to take off for Paloma. Not with a killer on your heels.”

  “Maris won’t even know I’m gone. And I’ll only be in Paloma for one day.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m certain.” She nodded. “I’m going to go to my house, I’ll get the disk, I’ll go to the office and have lunch with Roxie.”

  “I think I want to go with you.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I don’t think you should go anywhere alone.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “Would it make you feel better if I called Paloma’s finest and asked someone to meet me at the townhouse?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “Nick, it’s unnecessary.”

  “Humor me.”

  She shrugged and picked up the phone. “Yes, I’d like to speak with Detective Brown, please. … Yes, it’s India Devlin. Yes. I’m fine, thank you. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  “Done,” she said when she had hung up the phone. “Are you happy now?”

  “Yes,” he said, though he didn’t look very happy at all.

  It was too soon for her to go back, he thought as he looked out over the water.

  It wasn’t out of her system yet. She would sit down and spread that file out and that would be the end of her staying in Devlin’s Light.

  He watched her toss bread crumbs off the deck to the ducks and wondered if he had already lost her.

  “I’ll be a little later than I thought,” India was telling him at one o’clock the following afternoon.

  “What’s the problem?” Nick felt the little trickle of apprehension bite at the back of his neck.

  “No problem. But my boss asked me to stop in around four.”

  “So he can make a pitch for you to come back?”

  “Probably. And I figured as long as I’m here, I might as well have dinner with the gang.”

  “India, I don’t think you should do that. I think you should be home before it gets dark.”

  “Excuse me?” she said quietly.

  He could hear her eyebrows rising all the way to the top of her forehead.

  “India, you seem to forget that there’s a killer after you.”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything, Nick. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to hide in that house on Darien Road until Maris comes looking for me.”

  “Just the same, I think you should be home.”

  “Nick, stop it. You’re not my parent.”

  “What am I, India?”

  “You’re the love of my life, Nicky.” She sighed. “I’ll be home when I’m finished here, and I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be at the house when you get back.”

  “Look, it might be late. Why don’t you ask Aunt August to let you sleep in Ry’s old room?”

  “I’d rather sleep in your room.”

  “We’ll see what we can work out. Look, I have to go. Roxie’s waiting for me. I’ll see you later.”

  It was much later—almost midnight—when India pulled into the drive. She parked the car closer to the house than she normally did and looked around for the police officer who was supposed to be watching the house. In the shadow of the back porch, she saw Taylor and waved to him. She felt reassured, knowing that he had been waiting for her, that he watched her as she unlocked the door and slipped quietly into the kitchen.

  “India?”

  Her name, whispered, hung in the air.

  “Where are you, Nick?”
<
br />   “In the sitting room.”

  He was alone in the dark; she could not see his face and so did not see the look of total relief that she had come back, that no harm had befallen her. He opened his arms and she slid into them.

  “You were worried,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I told you I’d be fine,” she reminded him.

  “I guess I was afraid…”

  “Don’t be.” She placed a finger against his lips to silence him. “When did everyone else go to bed?”

  “Around ten.”

  “Really?” She toyed with the hair that curled over his collar. “Then I guess Aunt August and Corri are sound asleep by now.”

  “Most likely.” He nodded. “Indy, there’s something we need to talk about. Something I need to tell you.”

  “Later, Nicky. Right now I’m very tired from the trip, and I want to go to bed.” She stood up and took him by the hand, leading him to the back of the house. “If we were very, very quiet…” She started up the back steps.

  “I can do quiet,” he assured her. “I can do very quiet.”

  “I never showed you my collection of perfume bottles,” she whispered softly.

  “Tonight would be a good night for that,” he agreed. “It would be a very good night.”

  “Nick, you can’t fall asleep here,” India told him. “If Corri comes in in the morning and finds you in my bed, it would not be a good thing.”

  Nick grunted a soft protest, knowing she was right but not liking it.

  “The day will come when I won’t be sneaking in and out of your bed.”

  “No doubt,” she said, smiling, “but since it’s not here yet, you have to get up and go on down the hall to Ry’s room.”

  Reluctantly, Nick swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood up and quietly gathered his clothes. He bent down to kiss her one more time, and she asked, “Are you sure you know where Ry’s room is?”

  “Ummm-hmmm,” he murmured sleepily. “We have to talk, India. Something you need to know.”

  “And tomorrow you will tell me,” she said. “Nicky?”

  “Hmm?” He turned in the doorway.

  “I love you.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart, for telling me that even as you kick me out of your bed in the middle of a very cold night. I love you too.”

  “Goodnight, Nick.” India grinned and got cozy under her blankets, reluctant to see him go. She wanted his warmth, needed to sleep curled up in the circle of his arms.

  From downstairs, the clock on the mantel chimed two o’clock. India turned over and smooshed her pillow under her head. An hour later, she was smooshing it in the opposite direction. There was just too much on her mind. The case that she and Roxie had discussed was one that had been of particular interest to India. She was certain it could be won. Certain that if questioned the right way, the defendant would break on the stand, in spite of his protestations of innocence. It had been hard to turn it over back in December, harder still today to walk away from it. And then there had been the meeting with her boss.

  A subtle sound at the end of the hall caught her attention, and she held her breath, listening, as the faintest footsteps seemed to echo at the foot of the stairs. Had Nick gone downstairs for a snack?

  Maybe she would join him, she thought, thinking back to the dinner she had only toyed with earlier. She had felt torn, as she had known she would, and it had been difficult to be the odd man out. She had sat in the crowded bar and picked at the fajitas that had been placed before her, while her former colleagues tossed the familiar and easy banter back and forth. Now, at almost three-thirty in the morning, she was starving. Maybe, if she asked very nicely, she could talk Nick into making waffles.

  Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she stood up and, with quietly measured steps, made her way down the hall. From the time she had been in high school, she had known which stairs creaked and which could be trusted to permit her to come and go without detection. The house lay still and cold around her, and she wished she’d had the sense to put on her robe over her nightshirt.

  An indistinct sound caused her to freeze in midstride.

  It wasn’t coming from the kitchen, and it wasn’t Nick.

  India sank back into the shadows of the front hall and listened. Someone was in Ry’s study shuffling papers. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out who that someone might be. India paused to consider her options. She could try to get back upstairs and wake Nick. She could try to get to the door to find Taylor. Either way, she ran the risk of alerting Maris, who could so easily flee.

  Or she could take Maris herself.

  There really wasn’t a choice, as far as India was concerned. On the tips of her toes, she crept into the sitting room and, with nimble fingers, sought the fireplace poker.

  Without thought of the consequences, she slid along the wall toward the study. The door moved almost imperceptibly, but she caught the motion. Still against the wall, she raised the wrought-iron poker over her head and swung as the dark figure emerged from the unlit room. One smack sent the figure to the floor.

  With a whoosh of an exhalation, India dropped the weapon on the floor and knelt to turn the figure over.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried. “Taylor! I forgot all about Taylor!”

  “So it would seem,” said a voice from behind her in the darkened hall.

  India turned to face her former sister-in-law.

  “Thanks, India,” Maris said. “I was wondering how I was going to get rid of him. Guns are so noisy, and knives are so messy. You know how I detest a mess.”

  “You bitch,” India hissed, every muscle tensing with the effort to remain still, to determine if her adversary was armed and, if so, with what sort of weapon.

  “Now, is that any way to greet long-lost family?”

  “You were never family. What trick did you use to get my brother to marry you?”

  “Why India, you know that the oldest trick still works best.” Maris laughed derisively.

  “You told him you were pregnant?”

  “Can you believe he fell for it? ‘Ry, what will I do? Who will take care of my baby and my sweet young daughter?’ Of course, three weeks after the wedding, I had a ‘miscarriage’… but, well, Ry was such a sucker for that little brat, I could probably have gotten him to marry me anyway.”

  In the dark, India could all but see Maris’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. There was no touch of Corri’s sweetness anywhere in the face that stepped into the dim light that flooded in from the streetlamp outside the front window.

  “She’s not yours,” India stated flatly. “Corri’s not yours.”

  “Of course she’s not mine. Do I strike you as the maternal type?”

  “Whose, then?”

  “It seems my cousin Angela had a real wide streak of bad luck a few years back. Got herself knocked up and run over by a car inside of eleven months. Corri was two months old when she died. My mother took care of the baby. Not that it matters.”

  “It matters,” India said softly.

  “Oh, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Now you want to adopt her. This whole family suffers from severe white-knight syndrome, you know that? You’re every bit as sappy as your brother was, India. And almost as annoying. I’ll tell you, it was worth ‘drowning’ to get away from him.”

  “Why did you marry him, then?”

  “India, have you been gone so long that you don’t know that the Devlin family owns the largest section of privately owned beach on this side of the Delaware Bay?”

  “It’s not exactly the French Riviera, Maris. That stretch of beach couldn’t be worth that much.”

  Maris laughed. “You are very short-sighted, India. I’m surprised you haven’t been able to figure it out.”

  “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

  “Well, you’re right about that stretch of beach not being the Riviera. The sand is coarse and it’s always got dead, smelly things on it. Most notably thos
e big, disgusting horseshoe crabs.”

  Maris looked at India meaningfully.

  “You still don’t get it? Let me give you another clue. India, what is the only thing that horseshoe crabs are good for? Other than covering the beach with all of those disgusting, slimy eggs.” Maris laughed derisively.

  “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

  “You know, Ry always bragged about how smart you are. I was so sick of hearing your name. India this and India that. I couldn’t stand you. Everyone thinks you walk on water. It’ll be such fun to watch you sink.”

  India’s fists clenched tightly.

  Maris sighed with studied exasperation. “I can see I have to explain this to you. India, do you know what LAL is?”

  India frowned, trying to recall. “Some substance from horseshoe-crab blood. Nick mentioned it once.”

  “Limulus amoebocyte lysate. LAL. It’s the standard agent used internationally to test medical drugs for contamination by bacteria. It sells for three hundred dollars an ounce. It’s also being tested as a cancer inhibitor. The government regulates how much blood can be taken from a crab—can you imagine?—but if you owned access to a steady supply of crabs, if you owned a large enough section of beach, the government would never know how many crabs were bled or how much blood was taken from each.”

  “A laboratory that had an unlimited amount of blood could control the market,” India said flatly.

  “Bingo.”

  “You married my brother with the intention of killing him for the beach …”

  “And can you imagine my horror when I found out that I would have to share it with you?” Maris rolled her eyes. “Of course, I didn’t realize that at first. My mistake—I should have investigated better.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill him early on and get it over with?”

  “Now, how obvious would that have been? Man marries penniless woman, three weeks later is found dead? Duh.” Maris rolled her eyes. “The spouse is always the most logical suspect, India, you of all people should know that. No, I had to put some distance between me and the event, if you will.”

  “So you pretended to be dead for two years? How did you plan on resurrecting yourself?”

  “It’s all so simple, India. You want to hear the story that I’m going to tell when I come back? It’s such a heartbreaker.” Maris leaned back against the wall, her left hand on her hip, the right hand still out of sight in her jacket pocket. “When the storm came up, my little boat was tossed about like a toy. The current took me miles from Devlin’s Light. Then, as the storm intensified, poor little me was tossed out of that tiny rowboat like a rag doll and into the bay, where I was struck on the head by my boat. Fortunately, a passing boat saw me fall out and rescued me. Sadly, when I awoke, I had no recollection of my name or anything else, for that matter. It’s taken two years of therapy for me to regain my memory. And here, now, I return to Devlin’s Light, only to find that, in my absence, my beloved husband has been killed.” Maris raised her left hand to her face in a motion of sheer melodrama.