The Bone House

by Brian Freeman

  He followed the land as it turned back south into the deep inlet in the island's coast known as Washington Harbor. A long white beach tracked the water. The base of the inlet was known as Schoolhouse Beach, made not of sand but of millions of ivory rocks polished smooth by the currents. He'd gone there with Glory many times in the summers. If he looked hard enough, he could picture her there, in her bikini on a red beach towel, or skinny-dipping in the cool water on a late weekday afternoon. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that Mark Bradley lived on the east side of the beach, in a house hidden inside the trees.

  Troy aimed for a forested stretch of shore, out of view of any of the beachfront houses. Most were unoccupied now anyway. Looking down, he saw the water growing shallow. He raised the motor and drifted. As he neared the beach, he climbed over the side and dropped into the knee-deep water, which knifed him with cold. He splashed on to the rocks, dragging the boat with him, until it was far enough out of the water to be too heavy to move. He left it there. He wasn't sure if he'd go back for it or if he'd slip on to the ferry in the morning with Keith's help.

  With any luck, no one would have discovered Mark Bradley's body by then. He'd be free to escape back to the mainland.

  Troy climbed the beach to the edge of the trees and followed the curving shoreline to the east. Heavy rain continued to dimple the half- moon of harbor water, causing overlapping circles. The wet rocks scraped under his feet. He was wet and frozen, but he was determined. He checked the silver revolver under his jacket. It was heavy in his hand. He'd found the gun a year earlier in one of the abandoned barns that he and Keith explored in the off season. Something about having a weapon made him feel strong. He'd cleaned the revolver as best as he could, oiled it, and tested it. A few times, he and Glory had slipped into empty fields and fired at pop cans placed on barbed wire fences. She liked the power of the gun too. She said it turned her on.

  Troy reached the beach road that led from the water to the island cemetery. There was a park here, which was crowded with picnickers during the summer. Now, in the rain, as night fell, it was deserted. He chose a bench and sat down to wait. He was only a few hundred yards from Mark Bradley's house, and he could travel along the beach and arrive through the trees. No one would see him. He could creep up next to the house where he had a good shot and squeeze the trigger. That was all it would take. A split second to get justice.

  Beyond the trees, on the beach, it rained and rained. It would be dark in minutes. When he had the cover of night, he would move.

  * * *

  PART FOUR

  ASHES TO ASHES

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-One

  Hilary was near the city of Green Bay on Highway 57 when Katie called her.

  'I wanted to make sure you were still coming,' the girl said. 'Are you getting close?'

  Hilary squinted through the windshield at the highway signs. The road was slick, and visibility in the driving rain was poor. She'd already had a near-collision with a deer bounding across the highway lane. 'I'm about five miles from the university. Where should I find you?'

  There was a long pause. 'I'm not actually on campus right now,' Katie admitted.

  'Where are you?'

  'I'm parked across the street from Gary Jensen's house.'

  Hilary tensed and almost dropped her phone. 'What the hell are you doing there?'

  'I'm sorry. I needed to do something, so I followed him. I'll explain when I see you.'

  'Stay where you are, and I'll meet you. Where is this place?'

  'If you're close to the university exit, you can't be far. You can take a right turn off the highway toward Wequiock Falls Park. That's where I am. Jensen's house is diagonally across from here.'

  'I'll be there soon,' Hilary said.

  She saw a sign for the county park two miles later, and she braked and turned sharply right. One long block from the highway, five roads came together at an intersection like a giant starburst. Telephone wires criss-crossed the sky overhead. The land around her was open; she was at the flat summit of a hill above the bay. A cornfield was on her left. The dead-end road into the park was on her right. On the opposite side of the intersection, she saw a two-story red-brick house shrouded by mammoth trees.

  Jensen's house.

  Hilary turned into the park and spotted a red sedan parked off the grass in the shelter of an oak grove. She pulled in behind it. When she got out, she peered through the rain-streaked driver's window and saw nothing inside. Her heart leaped with concern.

  'Hey.'

  Hilary heard a hushed call. Near the intersection, under the shelter of one of the trees bordering the crossroad, she saw a girl waving her arms. Before Hilary could move, the girl jogged across the wet grass and joined her by the cars.

  'Katie?'

  The girl nodded. Her short dark hair was plastered to her skin, and her glasses were dotted with rain. She was medium height and bony, with a nervous twitch to her limbs. She wore a black jacket zipped to her neck and black jeans. She smelled of fresh cigarette smoke.

  'You're soaked,' Hilary said. 'Let's sit in the car.'

  They got into the Taurus, which was warm. Hilary swung into a U-turn leading back toward the road that led to Highway 57. When she found another break in the trees on the shoulder of the park road, she pulled to her left and stopped. The car was mostly hidden by trees, but they had a view diagonally across the intersection to the brick house.

  Beside her, the girl's fingers jerked in a nervous rhythm. 'Do you mind if I smoke? I'm so keyed up.'

  'Put the window down,' Hilary said.

  Katie did, and she extracted a damp cigarette pack from her jacket and lit up. She blew the smoke out the window. She calmed down as she inhaled, and she closed her eyes briefly.

  'I'm so glad you came,' she said.

  'What's going on? Why are you here?'

  Katie tapped ash outside the car. 'I couldn't sit in the dorm and do nothing. I'm a reporter, so I figured I'd follow the story, you know? I went to the athletic department to find out if Gary was at work today.'

  'Was he?'

  The girl shook her head. 'He called in sick.' 'And you still haven't heard anything from Amy?'

  'No, I've called and texted her, but nothing. I think he's got her, the bastard. Jeez, I was stupid.'

  'How did Amy get involved in this?'

  'We were in Florida with the dance team. Amy found out about the girl who was killed down there. She said on the bus that she saw Glory and Gary together, and she heard Gary going back to his room late the night she was killed. There are a lot of rumors around town about Gary's wife, too. She died in an accident, but some people aren't sure it was an accident. Anyway, Amy got it in her head that Gary may have been involved in Glory's death.'

  Hilary nodded. 'Were you in Florida with Amy?'

  'Yeah, I snuck along for the ride, but I didn't see anything weird down there. I hung out with the dancers during the competition so I could write a story for the paper.'

  Hilary stared at the house tucked among the trees. She couldn't see lights inside.

  'You said you knew Gary was inside,' Hilary said. 'Have you seen him?'

  'Yeah, I told you I checked out the athletics department, right? He was sick? Well, when I got back to the dorm, I saw him coming out of the front door at Downham. That's our building. He didn't look sick.'

  'Did you talk to him?'

  'Sure. I played dumb, because I'm not sure if he knows that I'm Amy's roommate. I mean, I know him, and he knows me, because of my job at the paper, but that's it. At least I was able to ask him why he was at the dorm.'

  'What did he say?'

  'He had a good excuse. Like he'd been working on it. He said Amy came over to his house to talk about dance strategies, but she said she wasn't feeling well, and she left right after she arrived. So he came by to see if she was OK.'

  'He could be telling the truth,' Hilary said.

  'Yeah, or he could be giving himself an ou
t.'

  'Did you spot her car?'

  'No, I drove around and looked. It's not here. He could have ditched it somewhere. Or maybe it's in his garage.'

  Hilary frowned. 'Let's go to talk to the police, but I'm not sure they're going to do anything. Not yet.'

  'We're running out of time,' Katie told her, grabbing Hilary's arm as she placed it on the wheel, if Amy's alive, we need to do something now.'

  'What do you mean?'

  The girl flicked her cigarette out the window into the wet ground. She took a deep breath and coughed into her sleeve. 'After I saw Gary at the dorm, I followed him. He made one stop, and then he came back here. That was an hour ago. If you didn't get here soon, I was going to go over there myself.'

  'Don't be crazy,' Hilary said. She looked at Katie's face and then added, 'Where did he stop? What did he do?'

  'He stopped at a hardware store,' the girl told her. 'He bought a large roll of plastic sheeting and a shovel.'

  Delia grew nervous when Tresa didn't come home.

  She dialed her daughter's cell phone number, but there was no answer. She called the store in Egg Harbor where she'd sent Tresa for groceries, and the manager told her it had been more than an hour since she left. Tresa should have been back long before now. It wasn't like her to be late without calling.

  Delia stood outside on the porch, watching the empty driveway and the rain falling on the unkempt yard. She struggled with a horrible sense of anxiety. Part of it was her grief over Glory, which triggered an immediate, irrational fear when Tresa was overdue. Part of it was guilt, as she wondered what awful chain of events she had set in motion because of Troy.

  Vengeance was so seductive. She was tired of the world taking things from her and offering no retribution. Mark Bradley deserved no mercy, not after what he had done to her and her family. Troy killing him would be a way to right the scales. One man would finally pay the price for the others who had escaped.

  It was a simple thing, but she knew it wasn't simple at all. She could hardly breathe. Her mind cascaded through all the things that could go wrong before this was over. Troy was a fool. He would be caught before or after he'd used his gun; he'd go to jail for years. Or he'd be killed in the attempt. She didn't want the boy's life on her conscience. Too many people had died already.

  Delia made a decision. She dialed Troy's phone. Wherever he was right now, on the boat or on the island, she had to get a message to him: Stop. Don't do this. She needed to end this craziness before it started, but her call went nowhere. Troy had switched off his phone or he was without signal. It was already too late; the wheels were grinding forward, and she couldn't stop them. She was in the middle of it now, leaving an electronic fingerprint that tied her and Troy together.

  Her phone rang.

  'Thank God,' Delia murmured. She assumed it was Troy calling back. Or it was Tresa. Either way, she felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe she could put the demons back in their box.

  'Yes, hello, who is it?'

  'Oh, hi, is this Delia? Delia Fischer?'

  The voice was familiar, but she didn't recognize it. 'Yes, that's me.'

  'Delia, hello, this is Bobby Larch. You know, up in Ellison Bay? Our daughters went to school together.'

  Delia sighed and grew impatient. People were always calling about community activities. School meetings. Fundraisers. Right now, she didn't want to have anything to do with anyone. 'This isn't a very good time, Bobby.'

  'I'm sorry to bother you, but this has been weighing on my mind. I'm a parent like you, and I figure I'd like to know if my daughter was doing something like this. It doesn't matter how old they are, they're still our kids, right?'

  Delia was distracted, and she had trouble following his words, but then her brain caught up with him. Tresa.

  'What is it, Bobby? What are you saying?'

  'I work up in Northport at the ferry dock. The thing is, right as the five o'clock ferry was getting ready to go, your daughter Tresa came racing up, saying it was an emergency and she had to get on the boat. I suppose if I'd been thinking, I would have said no, but I let her drive on. It may not be anything important, but I also know that Mark Bradley's wife left the island on the previous boat, so the more I thought about it, the more I figured it was something you should know about, what with everything that happened last year and all. I know you'd want her to be safe.'

  Delia struggled to find her voice. 'Yes. Yes, I do appreciate the call, Bobby. Thank you.'

  She hung up without letting him say anything more. Her chest felt heavy, as if a fist were constricting her lungs. She should have guessed immediately. Tresa had seen Troy's truck. Her daughter must have crept inside and heard what they were discussing, and now she was there, on the island. With Mark Bradley. In the line of fire when Troy made his way to the house. Tresa, Tresa, what were you thinking?

  Delia pulled at her hair in panic. She beat her forehead with closed fists, trying to decide what to do. She clutched her phone and dialed Tresa again, and then Troy, and both times she got nothing but the infuriating loop of voicemail. She was helpless. Cut off.

  Just like Harris, she'd lit a fire, and now it was out of control.

  There was only one option. One way to stop this. She had to get help. Delia dialed another number, and this time she felt a huge relief when the sheriff answered immediately.

  'Felix? Oh, God, Felix, it's Delia. Are you back on the island yet?'

  'Yes, I just got home. Why?'

  'You have to help me. I've made a terrible mistake.'

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Most of the back roads on the northern tip of the peninsula dead- ended in the woods or at the lakeshore. Cab drove back and forth along narrow trails with names like Europe Bay, Lost Lane, Timberline, Juice Mill, and Wilderness, and he saw the same things: farm buildings, locked gates, boat launches, and hiking trails, all of them deserted. None of it meant anything to him, and all the while, it got darker around him. It was already night inside the trees. The relentless rain poured down over the car.

  He parked on the road to the state park and turned off the engine. He knew he was wasting his time here, going around in circles. Running blind.

  Cab glanced at his phone and saw that he had a single bar of signal. He didn't know how long it would last. Signal came and went with the wind here. Quickly, before the air currents switched directions, he called home to Florida. It was odd that his brain supplied the word. Home.

  'Lala, it's Cab,' he said when she answered.

  'Well, well,' she said. 'The tall blond stranger.'

  Hearing her voice, he could picture her face. Her dark skin. Her fierce eyes. Ebony hair. The last time they'd talked, he'd been drinking, and this time, she was the one who sounded buzzed, with a mellowness in her voice. It was softly sensual. It reminded him of the one time they'd made love and how oddly vulnerable she'd been in his bed, not wild and uninhibited as he would have expected. He could picture her naked body and remember the tiny flaws - the freckles, the scar on her knee, the barest pooch - that made her not perfect but more beautiful for being that way. They had danced around that night ever since, with Cab doing what he did best. Running blind.

  'Where are you?' he asked.

  'I'm in your condo,' she told him. 'I hope you don't mind.'

  He was surprised but pleased. 'Not at all. I told you to go there.'

  'My air conditioner still isn't working. I felt like I was back in Havana. I had to do something.'

  'It's fine.'

  'I'm drinking your wine.'

  'Good.'

  'It's really, really good wine.'

  'I know.'

  'I've had a lot of it.'

  'That's why it's there.'

  'I suppose you want to talk about the case,' she said, drawing out the word with a snarl.

  He did, but he didn't. He needed her help, and he didn't know how long his cell signal would last before it evaporated into the sky. Even so, he simply liked hearing her
voice out here, in the middle of nowhere. 'What else did you want to talk about?' he asked.

  'I did something bad,' she said.

  'I doubt that.'

  'No, no, I did. I went through your nightstand drawer. I told myself I was looking for a rubber band for my hair, but I was just snooping.'

  'What did you find?' he asked.

  'A picture.'

  Cab knew which one. 'OK.'

  'She's pretty.'

  'Was.'

  'Was. Sorry.'

  'Her name was Vivian,' he said.

  'You want to tell me about her?'

  Cab took a long time to reply, and Lala let him off the hook.

  'Never mind, you don't owe me your life story. I like the idea that some woman was able to get to you. I sure couldn't.'

  'Not true,' he said.

  This time Lala was the one who was slow to answer. 'Did she break your heart, Catch-a-Cab?' 'Something like that.'

  'And now all of us have to pay, huh?'

  'Something like that,' he repeated.

  'That's pretty screwed up.'

  'Yeah.'

  'I'm saying things I shouldn't,' she said. 'I'm sorry. It's the wine. I better shut up.'

  'Don't.'

  Lala hesitated anyway. 'There's something I never told you.' 'What?'

  'Shit, what am I doing?' she murmured.

  'Tell me.'

  'I don't hook up,' she said.

  Cab tensed. 'I don't understand.'

  'I don't do it. Some women do. Not me.'

  'I'm still not sure—'

  'Couldn't you tell?' she interrupted him. 'I've made love to three men in ten years. I was engaged to one. I thought I was in love with another. And then there's you.'

  She'd been right. He wasn't ready for this. 'Lala.'

  'You don't have to say anything.'

  That was a lie. She wanted him to say something. He needed to say something. He kept looking for a door. Looking for a key. That was the irony, because he had a key in his pocket, and he needed a lock to go with it. Say something. But he didn't, and he waited too long.