Convenient Lies

by Robin Patchen

  She blinked. Fresh tears filled her eyes.

  “But this monster? This man who lied to you about his wife, about his business, about his family? This man who kills innocent people? Is he capable of love?”

  “In his way, I think.”

  “And when he doesn’t get his way? Then what? When you tell him that after you stole his son and ran away, his baby got sick and died... Will that monster forgive you?”

  She reached out and took the certificate out of his hand. She slid it back into the envelope with trembling fingers. “As long as Johnny’s safe, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to Johnny. It matters to me.”

  She closed the metal clasp and rested the envelope on her lap. “You’ll manage.”

  He stared at her, at those red-rimmed eyes. Her hair, nearly her natural color, her skin paler than usual, the few freckles over the bridge of her nose more pronounced. Her lower lip trembled, giving away her fear. And determination.

  He knelt beside her chair and took her hands. “All those years you were gone, I never stopped thinking about you. There were other women. I got married. And I loved her. I loved a lot of them, to a degree. I decided to love them. I wanted to love them. But all those years, no matter how much effort I put into it, no matter how many women I met, I could never stop loving you. I think it’s the reason I spent so much time with your grandmother. To be near someone who was near you. Knowing you were alive and well, it’s kept me going. Even though you weren’t here.” He lifted her hands, kissed her fingers. “I can’t imagine a world without you in it.”

  She gently tugged one hand away and trailed a finger beside his eye, along his jawline. She leaned forward slightly, and he closed the distance between them. This kiss wasn’t filled with passion but sadness. She tasted of tears.

  When he felt her pulling away, it took all his strength to let her.

  He rested his forehead against hers. Her breath warmed his cheek.

  “I love you, Brady.”

  He couldn’t stop these tears, and he couldn’t force himself to turn away to hide them.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Don’t answer,” he said.

  “It could be Caro.” She pushed the chair back, stood, and pulled the phone from her back pocket. “Hello?”

  Her eyes widened. “Julien.”

  Fifty-Eight

  “It’s lovely to hear your voice, ma cheri.”

  Rae scanned the dingy conference room of the police department. Julien’s voice didn’t belong here. Julien and his French accent dripping with charm and lies belonged far away, in Paris or Tunis, not here. Not in her safe place. “What have you done?”

  “Your babysitter is here, and she’s safe for now. You need to come home.”

  “You’re at the cabin?”

  “Your house. It’s quite charming.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I don’t think Boyle ever would have told us where you were. It was so thoughtful of you to call him.”

  Come home, she’d said. She’d given herself away.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, an image of Nate flitting through her mind. He’d been a loyal friend to her for a decade. And she’d probably gotten him killed.

  “Hurry home,” Julien said. “And I’d prefer you come alone.”

  “I’m coming. Just don’t... Please don’t hurt anybody.”

  A moment of silence passed. “I’ll be waiting.”

  The line went dead.

  Fifty-Nine

  Brady watched as Rae’s face lost what little color it had left. She stumbled toward the door of the police station conference room.

  Brady grabbed her elbow. “What happened?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Rae, what happened?”

  “Get out of my way!”

  Brady gripped Rae’s upper arms, trying not to hurt her as she struggled to free herself.

  “You have to listen to me,” he said.

  Her eyes were wild. “You don’t understand.” Her voice rose in pitch and volume. “Julien’s there.”

  He held her tight. “Don’t panic.”

  “He’s got Johnny. I have to go.”

  Brady shook her gently and tried again. “Listen to me. We have to think.”

  “There’s nothing to think—”

  “Reagan, listen to me.”

  She blinked. Sheer terror in her eyes.

  “I love Johnny too.” His admission silenced Reagan if only for a moment. It threw him off-balance. He’d already lost one son. There was no way he was going to lose another. “I’m going to do everything I can to protect him.”

  “But—”

  “You can’t fight Moreau. You told me that yourself.”

  “He has my son.”

  “You told me he wouldn’t hurt him.”

  “But Caro—what about her?”

  Caro was a problem. Not that it changed anything. “How will surrendering yourself to Julien help Caro? Why wouldn’t he just kill her as soon as he has what he wants?”

  She started to protest, but Brady continued. “Johnny needs you alive, Rae. He needs his mother alive and thinking clearly.”

  “But what if Julien takes off? What if he leaves with Johnny, and I never see him again?”

  “We’ll get officers there to watch the cabin. They won’t let him leave. What did he tell you?”

  “He told me to come to him. He’s at my house. Not at the cabin.”

  “Okay.” He opened the door. “Eric, get in here.”

  Rae continued. “Julien might not kill them, but he can hurt them.” Her shoulders slumped, and Brady pulled her into his arms. Her weeping broke his heart, but he needed to focus.

  He stepped back. “Sit down.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head and pointed at the chair. “Trust me.”

  Eric stepped into the room.

  If Julien had Johnny and Caro, that meant he’d somehow gotten past the police officer Brady had stationed at her cabin. “Get Donny on the line.”

  “He was supposed to check in a few minutes ago. I’ve been trying, but I can’t reach him.”

  Brady swore, imagining his young officer hurt—or worse. “Get someone out there to check on him, and send two radio cars to the McAdams place immediately. I want one in the front, one in the neighborhood behind. We have a hostage situation.”

  Eric’s jaw dropped. “A hostage—”

  “Call the chief and tell him, but ask him to keep it quiet. I need to think this through.”

  Eric ran back to his desk and grabbed his phone, and Brady turned to Rae. The look in her eyes held such despair that he nearly looked away. “You with me?”

  “What are we going to do? We have to get him back.” Her gaze found the manila envelope. “Julien knows now. My plan—”

  “Listen to me.”

  She looked at him and sniffed.

  “The evidence. Where is it?”

  “In the safe deposit box.”

  “Good. Moreau needs that evidence. It might not be enough to put him away, but I bet it’d be a good start.”

  That seemed to register. “True.”

  “So he can’t leave with Johnny, and he can’t kill you, not until he gets it.”

  “But what about Caro?”

  His hostage. Leverage. “He has no reason to hurt her.”

  “He has no reason not to.”

  “Is he a monster, or isn’t he?”

  Rae shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  Eric stepped in the room. “I’d already sent Sanders to the cabin. He just called. Donny’s unconscious, but he’s alive. Looks like he took a blow to the head.”

  “Ambulance on the way?”

  “Yes. Collins and Murphy are headed toward the McAdams house. ”

  “Let me know when they’re on the scene.”

  Eric nodded. “One more thing. Gordon Boyle’s here and insists on speaking with you.” Eric stepped aside, an
d Gordon Boyle stepped into the doorway. His wife, Ellen, and their son, Finn, stood behind him.

  “Gordon, I’m sorry, but we’ve got a situation here.”

  “It’s about Nate. He said he was flying to Manchester, but he didn’t get off the flight.”

  Rae stood. “It’s my fault.” She focused on Brady. “Julien has Nate. He told me.”

  Gordon looked at Rae. “What does this have to do with you?”

  Rae explained the situation through her tears.

  Gordon and Ellen sat heavily in the chairs while she related her story. Finn paced between the coffee maker and the window.

  “After I called Nate,” Rae continued, “I realized Julien could track me down through him.”

  Brady turned to Gordon. “It looks like her husband and his thugs grabbed him.”

  “This Moreau,” Gordon said. “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s a terrorist,” Brady said.

  Gordon went from pale to ashen. He wrapped his arm around Ellen. She was dry-eyed, shocked. Gordon reached past Ellen and tried to grab Finn as he passed by, but the boy angled out of his grasp.

  “So you’re saying he’s here, her terrorist husband?” Finn pointed at Rae, then looked at Brady. “If you know he’s here, why don’t you go get him?”

  Brady met Rae’s eyes and shook his head to tell her to keep quiet, but she obviously didn’t get his message.

  “He’s at my house with the baby and—”

  “Caro.” Finn’s jaw dropped. “She was babysitting. I took her to the cabin. He found it. How did he...?” He looked at Rae. “So you put both my brother and my girlfriend in danger?”

  “I’m going back.” Rae stood, sniffed, and wiped her eyes on a napkin. “If I surrender, he’ll let Caro go.”

  Brady waited until he could speak calmly. “Absolutely not.”

  Rae grabbed her bag and hefted it over her shoulder before she turned back to Brady. “I can’t be responsible for any more deaths. Don’t you understand? If I die... Well, that’s what happens when you marry a killer. But Caro? Johnny? Nate?”

  “It’s out of your hands.”

  Eric stepped inside. “The chief’s on his way. He called the state. And I called in the rest of the guys.”

  “Good.” Brady turned to Rae. “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere. You need to let us handle this.”

  “But—”

  “Rae, you have to trust me.” His gaze held hers until she nodded once and sat. He looked at the Boyles, at Finn, who seemed to be trying to light a fire on the carpet with his pacing, then at Rae. “We’re going to formulate a plan. You guys hang tight, and we’ll—”

  “Are you going to try to get into her house?” Finn stopped pacing.

  “All those windows,” Brady said. “I don’t know how—”

  “I do.” Finn walked around the table and stopped in front of Brady.

  Things were clicking in place. “Want to explain that, son?”

  Finn sighed and turned to Rae. “I was going to tell you everything, anyway.” He stopped, swallowed, and turned back to Brady. “Me and... No. I’m the one who’s been breaking into the house.”

  “Oh, Finn, you didn’t,” Gordon said.

  Brady looked at the older man. “Please let him talk.”

  Gordon nodded and tightened his grip on his wife.

  “Go on, son,” Brady said.

  “I overheard Dad telling Mom that Miss McAdams’s father”—he glanced at Rae—“hid a bunch of gold in the house a long time ago, and he didn’t know what happened to it. I’ve been looking for it.” He looked at Rae. “I’m sorry I scared you last week. I just...”

  “There was somebody else with you that night,” she said.

  He shrugged and turned back to Brady. “I can tell you how to get in the house.”

  Sixty

  Rae never thought she’d be thankful for prowlers. But as Finn took his seat at the far end of the table, a tiny flutter of hope rose. Maybe she could still rescue her son from his father. Maybe.

  Brady took the seat beside him. “You know how to get in the house?”

  “It’s sort of a long story. See, years ago—”

  “We don’t have time for the whole story,” Brady said. “If you cooperate, that’ll help when you go in front of a judge.”

  Finn swallowed hard. Seemed to be processing those words, a judge.

  “How do we get into the house?” Brady asked.

  “There’s a passage. It leads from the barn to the pantry.”

  “The pantry?” Rae shook her head. “There’s no passageway in the pantry.”

  Finn turned to her. “The shelves at the back. They’re hinged. There’s a latch under the bottom shelf, a little slide-thingie you can access from either side. You slide it back, then you just pull, and the door opens into the passageway.”

  Rae said, “It’s crazy, though. What about the basement...” Her words trailed off as she thought of it. The pantry had been added onto the house. It stuck out on that side, so there would be no basement beneath it. “I can’t believe this. All these years...”

  “Where’s the opening?”

  Finn looked back at Brady. “The floor in the barn. Under that old rug.”

  The ruined rug. “But how did you get into the barn?” Rae asked.

  He pulled out his keys, sifted through them until he found the one he was looking for. He showed it to her.

  “Where did you get this?” Rae asked.

  His face turned red. “Your grandmother kept the key to the barn in that junk drawer. I went over there sometimes to help her move stuff, so I knew where it was.”

  Brady shook his head. “But how did you find the passage without Dorothy seeing you?”

  “Thursday nights. She never missed a cribbage game.”

  Gordon shook his head. “Son, I can’t believe...”

  “Good,” Brady said. “Give me that.”

  Finn slid it off his key ring with shaking hands. He handed it over.

  “How long is the tunnel?”

  “Maybe twenty-five feet.”

  Rae pictured the space. The rug was on the side of the barn nearest the house. The pantry was on that outside wall in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be very far.

  Brady asked, “Can we stand and walk through it, or—?”

  “Yeah,” Finn said. “We figured it’d be a crawl space or something, but no. It’s as tall as me. You might have to bend, but—”

  “Wide enough for one person, or more than one?”

  “Barely one.”

  Brady looked past the kid, seemed to be considering that. He looked at Finn again. “So how long would you figure from the time we get to the barn until we get into the house?”

  “Uh...” Finn glanced at his dad, then back at Brady. “Maybe two minutes?”

  “Anything else you think I should know?”

  “The hinge creaks. We greased it awhile ago, but I noticed a little creak coming back.”

  Rae imagined those boys breaking into her house, greasing that hinge so it wouldn’t make any noise. Very industrious. Imagine if they used those powers for good.

  Actually, right now, Finn was.

  Brady nodded. “You might have just saved the day.” He met Gordon’s eyes, then Rae’s. “Stay here. I’m going to figure out what to do next.”

  Gordon said, “You’ll find Nate?”

  “We won’t know anything until we question Moreau. We’ll do whatever we can.”

  Gordon nodded while Brady left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Rae stood to follow him.

  “Miss McAdams,” Finn said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have... I didn’t think Gram knew about the gold, and you never came home.”

  “Thank you for being honest.”

  “I’m sorry I scared you the other night.”

  That prank seemed pretty unimportant in light of the current situation. Still...“The next time I went in the barn, the rug was right where it w
as supposed to be. Did you go back?”

  He turned red all over again. “Early the next morning. I put everything back the way it was supposed to be, so you wouldn’t know. I’d been trying to tell...” He glanced at his dad. “I’d decided not to go back again.”

  “But your friend didn’t want to give up the hunt.”

  He stared at her a minute, then at the table. As if it mattered.

  “Did you tell Julien how to find the cabin?”

  “No! I would never...” Finn swallowed again.

  “Your friend then? Did he drive to the cabin with you two?”

  “He was with us when you called Caro.”

  One more possible hostage. Just what they needed.

  She was itching to find out what was going on. She needed to tell Brady about the other possible hostage, not that she’d interrupt their planning to do that. She forced herself to stay seated.

  “So.” She looked at Finn. “Did you find it?”

  Finn’s head snapped up. He met her eyes, shook his head. “I swear, we didn’t take anything.”

  “It’s not in the passageway?”

  “As far as we can tell, it’s not anywhere.”

  All of this for a handful of gold coins. Coins that were probably gone for good.

  Gordon lifted his head, glanced at Rae, at Finn, then around the room. His eyes were red-rimmed and brimming with fear. Both his son and hers were in danger. And on both counts, it was her fault.

  Ellen held her husband’s hand. Her eyes were closed, probably praying. Ellen and Gordon had been going to church with Gram for years. Gram would be praying, if she were here.

  If only Gram were here.

  A sob formed deep in Rae’s chest. She couldn’t just sit there. She stood and rushed out of the room before any of them could stop her.

  She halted right outside the door. At least ten people filled the squad room. Two women, the rest men. All fit and ready. Some wore uniforms, others plain clothes. Two wore different kinds of uniforms. State police, probably, but she couldn’t tell from the back.

  They were all looking at a white board. Brady stood beside it, taller than everyone else, marker in hand. He’d drawn an outline of her property. On the edge of the white board, he’d drawn a very rough layout of the main floor of her house.