Other Stonechild and Rouleau mysteries:
Cold Mourning
Butterfly Kills
Tumbled Graves
Shallow End
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn’t have happened did.
— W.H. Auden, “A Walk After Dark”
For my girls, Lisa and Julia
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Stonechild and Rouleau mysteries:
epigraph
dedication
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
chapter forty
chapter forty-one
acknowledgements
copyright
Cover
Title Page
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Acknowledgements
chapter one
When David McKenna opened his eyes, the morning light had weakened and filled the hospital room like clear, cold tea. He turned his head to see Evelyn still in place, her arm resting on the side of the bed and her head bowed. He wanted to tell her to go home but knew she wouldn’t. She stirred as if sensing that he was awake, and a moment later, he felt her hand work its way into his. They hadn’t been this intimate for years and her touch left him with mixed feelings. Mostly regretful ones.
“What time is it?” he asked. He licked his lips, chapped from his long sleep in the dry room.
She glanced at her watch. “Nearly four o’clock. Do you feel better? You slept a long while.”
“Yes,” he lied. “You should go home and get some rest too.”
“I will. The kids are on their way.”
“No need for that.” He knew there was but wanted more time. More time to work in his garden, read books he’d always meant to, feel the wind off Lake Ontario on his face.
More time.
Evelyn must have buzzed for the nurse because she entered the room almost immediately and the pain that coursed through him was exchanged for the floaty oblivion he’d grown to crave. He’d never thought he’d end his days an addict, but terminal disease had a way of turning a lifetime of decisions on its head.
He dozed and half woke. Someone had straightened his pillows. Moistened his lips with crushed ice.
Evelyn’s chair was empty and he wondered if she’d even been there. The dreams were real and reality a dream.
He drifted off again to the smell of juniper and rotting leaves. He was a boy running through his grandfather’s field.
Jumping. Leaping. Free.
Sun cut through the hazy air, reflecting off the water flowing down the bank. He stopped and stared as a cloud crossed in front of the sun and darkened the marshes. The girl lay on her side as if sleeping, her long dark hair tumbling down her back, trailing into the mud. He stepped closer, needing to look even as the cold and horror filled him. He was no longer a boy, but a man with a man’s grief.
He struggled to remain upright. Fought to keep from screaming.
“Wake up, Zoe. Wake up.” He narrowly missed tripping on a tree root in his haste to reach her.
As he raised his face to the river, now transformed into boggy reeds, she pushed herself up onto her side and turned to look at him over the blood-streaked shoulder of her ruined sweater.
“You found me at last,” she said. Her smile was filled with the sweetness that he remembered. Her eyes filled with tears. One escaped and dribbled down her cheek and came to rest on her chin. She sat up in a sudden motion and reached out both arms toward him. Blood dripped from her neck where it had been cut with a hunting knife. Her smile brought back the sunshine.
“I’ve been so scared of the dark, but now you’re here to keep me company while we wait for the others.”
He took her hand, so small and cold in his. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of this. For not being able to stop it.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. She sat up straighter, a look of concentration on her face, her brow furrowed into crooked lines. She turned her face toward the reeds and tall grass with the woods a line of darkness behind and glanced back at him. A mist had stolen in and her face was fading into the fog. He could hear her voice high above the sound of rushing water. “Do you hear that, David? Do you hear them?” The panic in her voice was mirrored in her face. “The wolves are getting closer. We need to get out of here. We’re nearly out of time.”
chapter two
“You have one fine set of knockers, you know that, right?”
Lauren propped herself up on the hotel pillows and knocked a cigarette out of the pack on the bedside table. She blew a perfect smoke ring while Salim’s tongue worked its way from one breast to the other and licked its way down her stomach. Her hand found the top of his head and gently pulled until he stopped and looked up at her. His black eyes reminded her of a cat’s, sly and otherworldly.
“What?” he asked.
She kept the regret she was feeling out of her voice. “I don’t have time for round two. I’m leaving the city for a while.”
“Where’re you going?” His finger circled her belly button.
“My father’s not well and I promised my mother I’d … God, don’t stop whatever it is you’re doing.”
He grinned. “Did your schedule open up all of a sudden?”
“Yes. I mean no.” She pushed herself off the pillows and lowered her face to kiss the top of his head. She was going to have to be the one to show some self-restraint. She said with feigned conviction, “I have to go and you have to get back to the office, Salim.”
He rolled onto his back and crossed his hands over his chest. The loud release of air through his nose expressed his frustration, but she ignored him. She stood and stretched her arms over her head, breasts and belly pushed forward, all the while knowing that he was looking at her body and liking the feeling. She dodged his hand as he reached over to pull her back on top of him.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he said, his voice low and thick with lust.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
He plumped up the pillows she’d vacated and flopped against the headboard. “When you hired me, I had no idea this is what you had in mind, but I’m not complaining.”
“No, I don’t suppose you are.” She crossed to the desk where she’d laid her clothes across the back of the chair. “I need to have the kitchen drawings completed before Monday morning.”
“You’re going to owe me one if I have to work on my day off. I have an idea how you can pay me.”
“Whatever it takes.” She smiled. “You’ve almost nailed the design but she’s not happy with the position of the island and the flow into the dining area.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Will you be back early in the week?”
She hesitated on her way to stepping into her panties. “I have no idea how long I’ll be away. Let me know when you’ve saved the drawings and I’ll access them from my laptop. If worse comes to worst, you can take the meeting with the client and I’ll call in.”
“Hurry back.”
“Believe me, I wouldn’t even be going if I had a choice.”
Three hours later, Lauren sat in the driver’s seat of her Honda Civic, forearms resting on the steering wheel, staring at her parents’ house on Grenville Crescent. The last time she’d been home had been the year before in the spring for her dad’s birthday, having gone south for Christmas on an all-inclusive holiday with Salim to avoid the usual holiday depression. The trip home in April had been a quick overnight visit, and then back to the safety of her life in Toronto. Her parents had lived in this house since their wedding day forty years ago. A seventies split-level with a two-car garage on a treed lot — oak and maple now bare of leaves. Shingles on the roof were lifting in spots where snow hadn’t accumulated. The white siding had turned a dull beige in the fading sunlight. A light snow had fallen the last hour of her drive from Toronto and coated the driveway and sidewalk. Her father would have cleared both by now if he’d been home.
She looked to the right of their property, at the Orlovs’ house, and saw the same slow decay taking over the property. Boris and Antonia had been living there as far back as she could remember. They’d never had any kids and Lauren had resented them for it when she was younger. She’d longed for a girl next door to hang out with instead of her two brothers.
On the other side of her parents’ house, the woods stood thick and dark, the deciduous tree limbs bare of foliage. A path cut through the trees, marking an opening to the Rideau Trail, almost four hundred kilometres of interconnected pathways through the back country between Ottawa and Kingston. She’d planned to bike the length of it once but never had. A boulevard of trees across from their house in the middle of the road blocked out the neighbours and made her feel as if they lived in the country.
She took another drag from the cigarette burned down to a stub between her gloved fingers. A car she didn’t recognize was in her parents’ driveway and she wondered which of her brothers had made it here ahead of her. Probably Adam. Tristan and Vivian would make an entrance as usual, or at least that’s how the vivacious Vivian would arrange it.
She began to feel the chill through her thin wool coat, so she butted her cigarette out in the ashtray and opened the car door at the same time that her mother opened the front door of the house. Her mom stood backlit by the hall light. Clemmie was next to her, tail a waving flag as he looked up, waiting to see if they’d be going for a walk. She swiped a hand across her eyes and swore softly.
Damn it all to hell. I hate that I have to be here. I hate that this is happening.
Lauren hugged her mom, who hugged her back with one arm, her ear pressed to a cellphone. “Just talking to Ruth,” she said. “I’ll order pizza when we’re done. Take your old room.”
Lauren felt the familiar disappointment. Against all reason, she’d hoped for a warmer greeting this time with her dad so ill, but her mom put little pressure into the hug and turned away as she waved Lauren inside, already saying something into the phone. Lauren carried her suitcase upstairs and lay on the single bed for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing in the smells of her childhood. She knew that it was only the fabric softener, but it was the same fabric softener her mother had bought forever.
Welcome home, Lauren.
She found Adam in the den working on his laptop. He glanced up at her and back down at the keyboard. “Hey, kid.”
“Hey,” she answered and sat in the chair next to him. Clemmie flopped at her feet. She reached down to scratch behind his ears. She and Adam had never had a demonstrative relationship, but a hug wouldn’t have killed him. “Mom’s finishing up a phone call with Aunt Ruth and then she’s going to order pizza.”
“I’m starving so that’s good news.” He typed a few more words before shutting his laptop. He smiled at her. “I like your hair short and white. Very on trend. Hipster.”
She touched the back of her neck, surprised at the compliment. “Thanks, I think. When are Tristan and Vivian expected to arrive?”
“Mom said tomorrow morning.”
She studied her brother, whom she hadn’t seen in over a year. He looked tired, his brown eyes that could snare a woman’s interest with one glance bloodshot, and the way he slumped into the couch, dripping exhaustion. He’d lost weight since the last time they’d met up in Toronto on one of his stopovers. “Are you still on the western and northern routes?” she asked.
“I accepted a new itinerary at the end of the summer. I’m flying between Vancouver and Hong Kong now. Didn’t Mona tell you?”
“No, but we haven’t spoken in a while. That’s a big change. Did you ask for it?”
“I was ready for something else.”
“How does Mona feel about that?”
“Good, I guess. I’m home more now since half the stopovers are in Vancouver.”
“I was hoping to see her this trip.”
“It’s hard for her to leave her class and Simon isn’t good when his routine is disrupted, but she’ll come for the funeral.”
They were silent for a moment, thinking about their father’s impending death without the idea of his passing seeming real. Lauren didn’t want to contemplate the change this would bring to her family … at least, not before it happened. “What grade is Mona teaching this year?”
“Four, and Simon just entered grade three at the same school. He’s got a full-time teacher’s aide with him, which is helping.”
Even though they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, she knew her brother well enough to hear the frustration underlying his words. “I imagine it’s been tough for you.” She remembered how hard he’d taken having a son with special needs. Mona had wanted to try for a second child but Adam had so far refused.
“Tougher for Mona,” he said. “Your kitchen and bath design business appears to be doing well.”
“Can’t complain.”
She started to talk about her latest kitchen project but before she’d finished her first sentence, Adam opened his laptop again and clicked on a couple of keys. He glanced up at her and back at the screen a few times, pretending an interest in her work that she knew he didn’t have. She let her words trail off after a few moments and stood up. Clemmie was instantly on his feet, eager chocolate eyes fixed on her face. “Just heading out for a walk with Clem,” she said.
“Right, see you later then.” Adam glanced up and smiled one last time. She heard the keys tapping in earnest as she went in search of her coat and the dog’s leash.
“Well, Clemmie,” she said as she bent down to grab his collar, “At least you’re always glad to see me.”
Kala Stonechild pulled into the parking lot next to Joliette Institution for Women and took a moment to survey the red-brick building behind a high metal fence capped with barbed wire. The trip had been a slow drive: three and a half hours from Kingston to Montreal, hampered the entire way by blowing snow, with the town of Joliette an additional hour and a quarter on Autoroute 40. Traffic had moved at a crawl the entire way.
She got out of her truck and stepped into a snowdrift. Snowflakes wet her face and gathered in the creases of her jacket. Cutting across the open space, the wind gusted and swirled wet flakes around her as she pushed her way to the entrance.
She was met by a guard, who radioed to somebody to come out and accompany her inside. In the meantime, she showed her ID and signed in before puttin
g her phone and valuables into a tray and walking through the scanner. The place had the institutional smell of cleaning products and the lonely feel of hopelessness. Kala already felt depressed at the thought of the empty hours spent inside these walls by women who could not leave until they paid for their crimes, the majority of which had to do with drugs and prostitution.
The caseworker who shook her hand was a tall, stout woman with curly red hair and a kind, freckled face. “My name is Linda. Thank you for coming all this way. We were pleased when Rose asked to see you.”
“How has she been doing?”
They started walking but stopped in front of a metal door. A second later, someone inside pressed a button and the door opened.
“A few months ago, she started going to the trailer where the Indigenous inmates gather for circle and therapy. This seems to be helping her get out of the depression. Today, they made bead bracelets and I hear that she participated.”
Linda said this as if it was a big step forward but Kala felt sad at the thought of how small Rose’s life had become. They waited for a second door to be unlocked from the inside. The caseworker looked sideways at her. “When I started working here, the inmates with mental issues were in the minority. Now, I’d say close to seventy percent have mental issues. We don’t have nearly the resources to deal with the crisis.”
“Has Rose been in solitary?”
“No. She lives in one of the residences with four other women. They cook for themselves and have some freedom to move around. Rose has been a model inmate but makes no effort to develop relationships.” Linda paused for a moment. “She works every weekday in the prison shop sewing underwear for male inmates in other pens.”
“It’s good that she keeps busy.”
Kala wasn’t surprised that Rose had kept people at a distance. From what she remembered of Rose on the rez when they were younger, she’d been a tough teen with no liking for people. Linda led her down a green corridor that fed into a large room with a guard behind bulletproof glass at one end. He nodded at them and Linda raised a hand in greeting. Tables and chairs were bolted into the floor at discreet distances from each other. The room colour was a slightly brighter shade than the green corridor, but still depressingly institutional.
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