by Josh Lanyon
Griff tapped on the door frame and Mrs. Truscott jumped and then turned in her chair. She didn’t look any less alarmed when she saw who her visitor was.
“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.
“I don’t think...” She didn’t finish it. Unconsciously her dark gaze slid to the framed photo on the window ledge above the desk.
Even from that distance Griff recognized the photo. Or at least half the photo. The other half, the half with a much younger and happier-looking Mrs. Truscott, had been cut out of the photograph Griff knew. What remained was the only picture he had of his mother.
Here was the last piece of the puzzle. Literally the last piece.
Griff stepped forward, eyes on the framed image. Mrs. Truscott watched him almost fearfully.
“My mother,” he said.
“No.”
He stared at her. She looked stricken, but she shook her head. “No.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t...”
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry?
“But why? Why didn’t you...” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking. Where did he start? He felt winded, as though he didn’t have breath for all the questions it would take to make sense of this.
“I was afraid the minute I saw you,” she said. “All these years I tried to convince myself. But the minute I saw you, I knew in my heart it was true.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself it couldn’t be true. You didn’t seem to know, so how could it be true?”
Was that supposed to be an explanation? Because every word she spoke confused him more.
“Your sister. The one who supposedly died in a state institution. She didn’t die, did she? Not in any institution.”
Mrs. Truscott’s face softened, her tone took on an almost pleading note. “Her little boy passed when she was in the hospital the last time. She had trouble—she didn’t always—”
“No. You can’t stop. You have to tell me,” Griff said when she lurched to that painful halt.
“I know. I’m trying.” Mrs. Truscott put her face in her hands, and in that moment she looked so much like his mother, he almost put his arms around her.
But she wasn’t his mother. Even his mother had not really been his mother. And in a minute he was going to have another anxiety attack. At least this time it was understandable.
Mrs. Truscott said from behind her hands, “She could be fine for months, even years. She would come and go, I wouldn’t hear from her and then I would. And she’d be perfectly fine. But other times she wasn’t herself. She’d have to go away. She was better after she had her boy. Gareth, she called him. But then she had one of her breakdowns and she had to go into the hospital again. And while she was there, Gareth...died. He was living with our mother at the time, and he died of appendicitis.”
Griff’s chest still felt tight, he couldn’t get enough air to speak, but that was okay because he didn’t need to speak. He needed to be quiet and calm and listen. None of this could hurt him. It was all over now. It was all in the past.
Mrs. Truscott raised her head to meet his eyes. “When she got out, she blamed our mother. It wasn’t our mother’s fault. It wasn’t. But they had never been close. So it wasn’t such a surprise when she didn’t get in touch.”
He said harshly, “That’s not the part I care about.”
“No.” Mrs. Truscott looked down at her work-roughened hands. “She used to come here sometimes and help out. When she was well, I mean.”
“And she was helping out that night? The night of the party?”
“No. No, but I always wondered, because the Mather children thought they saw me in the nursery when I couldn’t have been there. She knew her way around the house. And...”
“And what?”
Mrs. Truscott seemed to struggle with herself. “She tried it once before.”
“What?”
“Not here! I’m not saying that. But once before, a long time before, I was with her when she started to walk off with a baby carriage. The baby wasn’t in it, and at the time I didn’t think anything of it. But later...later I wondered.”
“But then you must have made the connection after Brian—” Griff stopped. He felt like his head was going to explode. He was still referring to Brian—himself—as though he were another person. He was still thinking of Brian in the third person.
Mrs. Truscott was running on. She sounded almost eager now, rushing to convince him, to make him believe. “When I tried to contact Amy, my mother said she had left a few days earlier, that she’d got a job and was moving out to New Mexico. She used to do that. She used to take off without any notice. I believed it.”
“You believed it? You were right here in the middle of a kidnapping and you never made any connection?”
“You’re forgetting that the ransom note came the next day. I knew that wasn’t Amy. Never. Never in a million years. Everyone believed Odell took Brian. I believed it too.”
“You didn’t believe it. When I asked you, you said you weren’t sure about Johnson’s guilt.”
“But I didn’t believe it was Amy.”
“You didn’t want to believe it was Amy.” It was so weird to say his mother’s name in this context. So weird to think this was his life, his past.
“Of course I didn’t want to believe it! But...” she stopped again.
“Why me? Why this family?”
“I don’t know. You were a friendly little thing. You liked her. You liked everyone. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just the opportunity presented itself.” She met his eyes, her own miserable with guilt and grief. “I’m sorry.”
Her face. So like his mother’s. How had he not instantly recognized the truth the moment she opened the door to him?
“Sorry. Wow. I don’t know what to say to that. For twenty years...” His voice gave out and he realized how close he was to breaking down. To breaking apart.
Why? He was all right. His mother—no, Amy Truscott—had loved him, taken care of him the best she could. He was whole and healthy and all that was in the past now anyway.
And if he didn’t get out of this room, this house, he was going to be sobbing like the lost little kid he had once been.
“Is she dead?” Mrs. Truscott asked.
He nodded. She began to cry, and he felt for the door, stepped through the blur into the hall.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, and the fear was back in her voice.
He couldn’t answer. He had no idea what the answer was. He kept walking.
She called something after him, but he didn’t hear it.
* * *
He had to talk to someone, needed desperately to talk to someone. Strangely, the only person he could think of was Pierce. And that really was strange given how furious he had been with Pierce. But that was a million years ago.
He walked through the kitchen, out the back door, and started down the path to the guest cottage. Clouds were gathering overhead. It was going to rain again. He could see Nels Newland in one of the distant sunken garden rooms, digging a hole for a new rose bush. Was there something he was supposed to ask Newland?
He turned off and took the steps down to the cool green and flowering rooms because he wanted to be alone, and because in a strange way it felt like this garden was where the story had begun on a long ago night of fairy lights flickering through the trees, and old jazz songs drifting up to the stars.
He dropped down on one of the marble benches, abruptly more tired than he had ever been in his life. A thousand miles from Wisconsin to Long Island couldn’t touch the distance he had traveled that morning. Numbly he watched the yellow butterflies flitting from flower to flower.
He didn’t remember dialing Pierce’s number, but suddenly Pierce spoke against hi
s ear.
“Mather.” Pierce sounded brisk and distant and yet at the same time immediate and familiar. As though they’d known each other all their lives. But then he had known Pierce all his life. Or at least at the beginning of his life.
His eyes blurred. He opened his mouth but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t seem to pry them out, squeeze them past the blockage in his throat.
“Griff?” Pierce’s tone changed.
He got out a shaky breath. Poor Pierce probably wondered if he was getting an obscene phone call. No such luck.
“Are you okay, Griff?” Pierce’s voice was so uncharacteristically gentle, the tears dazzling Griff’s eyes spilled over.
He let out another of those shuddering sighs and said, “I think I was named for the stone statues in the front courtyard.”
“Where are you?”
“At the house. In the sunken garden.”
Pierce sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, listen to me. You need to leave. Now. Don’t go down to the cottage, don’t go inside the house. Just turn around and leave. Go to my house. Or go to my office. Just go. Get out of there.”
“There are cops all over the place.”
That wasn’t true though. There had been cops at the gate but he hadn’t noticed a police presence in the house, and he wasn’t seeing any uniforms patrolling the grounds either. The cops had the murder weapon, the library was sealed off, and the raincoat apparently worn by the killer had been hanging in a closet in the main hall. Maybe they thought there was nothing else to look for.
“Griff, there was a house full of people last night. We’re talking about someone who was desperate enough to take that chance. And having gone that far, there’s no way he’s going to stand by and let you waltz in and scoop up all the marbles.”
That got through. Griff sat up straight. “No one knows about me.”
“You’re not hearing me. There is a real and immediate threat, and it is specific to you. To you. Michaela was here when I told Jarrett that you are Brian.”
“You did what?”
“Griff, we don’t have time for this. Leave the premises immediately.”
“You told Jarrett before I had a chance to even figure out things for myself?”
He could hear the effort Pierce was making. “I had to tell him. It was either me or Nassau P.D., and I thought it would be less of a shock coming from me.”
“What is it with you, Pierce? I’ve never met anyone more highhanded and—”
“I’m hanging up now and calling the cops.” Pierce clicked off.
Griff stared in disbelief at his phone. Anger had replaced his numbness. He rose and crossed the lawn, starting back up the moss-stained stairs. Overriding everything else was the need to get to Pierce Mather as soon as humanly possible and tell him to his face what a complete and total asshole he was.
He was halfway up the steps when a shadow fell across him. Someone was coming swiftly down the staircase. Griff looked up in time to see the incoming sole of a boot aimed directly at his face. Instinctively, he grabbed for the boot, locking arms around the attached jean-clad leg, and yanked sideways.
Momentum carried them both off the narrow staircase. It was only a six-foot drop, but it still knocked the wind out of Griff as he landed spread-eagled beneath his assailant. The other man’s boots bounced onto his chest. His fist landed in a vulnerable part of Griff’s anatomy.
Griff had been in the occasional scuffle, but no one had ever tried to kick him in the face before—let alone grab him by the nuts—and his reactions were not as fast as they should have been. He tried to slither away, hauling long, desperate drags of oxygen into his lungs. His bruised chest hurt like hell, but then suddenly he could breathe again. He attempted to block with his arms as the other man took another kick at his head. The blow that landed on his forearm felt like it fractured the bone. He tried to roll out of range.
“Why the fuck couldn’t you stay dead?” Ring panted. His next kick landed between Griff’s shoulder blades.
It was like being hit by an anvil. Griff yelled his pain and scrambled up, trying to get away. That was his entire focus. Get away—because there was no way he was a match for Ring Shelton in this kind of brawl. It was like fighting a grizzly bear.
“It’s all over,” he cried. “The cops are on their way. They know everything by now.”
But maybe it wasn’t about that anymore. Maybe it wasn’t about anything more than discharging that raw, physical rage on the only available target.
Ring launched himself forward, his arms clamping around Griff’s waist, throwing him backward. Ring landed on top, his meaty hands closing around Griff’s throat. Massive hands crushing his windpipe. Griff slammed his fists against Ring’s head. He wriggled, kicked, tried to throw Ring off, but it felt like a boulder had landed on his chest.
He couldn’t breathe. Could not breathe.
Griff’s hands slapped down on Ring’s, he desperately felt for little fingers, trying to drag Ring’s hands away from his throat. He could hear Ring talking to him but it was like listening from underwater. Stars shot behind his eyelids. His vision began to blacken at the edges.
He wrapped his fingers around a digit that felt like a sausage and yanked with all his might. Someone roared in the distance, Griff gulped in air, and then a blow like a hammer smashed into his head.
He fought. He was fighting with every last breath, but his arms were getting heavier and heavier. The sunlight faded out to night.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cool sweet oxygen filling his nostrils, filling his lungs.
Griff dragged in a deep breath. His eyes snapped open. The vise around his throat was gone. The mountain sitting on his chest had moved—and was groaning in a pile of rubble next to him.
“You all right?” a gruff voice asked.
Griff peered up. A burly figure stood over him holding a shovel. Nels Newland.
Griff nodded, pushed to his feet and nearly toppled over again. Weaving, he stared down at Ring who was muttering to himself. Blood trickled down the side of Ring’s face into his beard.
“I guess you do annoy some people,” Newland commented.
Griff turned to him. “I guess I do.” He took a couple of steps back and his legs seemed to give way. He sat down in the wet grass.
Newland frowned down at him.
Griff stared up. A thought occurred. “May Chung told me to ask you...”
“Ask me what?”
Griff shook his head. What the hell did any of it matter now?
Newland’s craggy face twitched in annoyance. “Oh, I know what she’s thinking,” he said.
Ring rolled over and began to crawl on his belly toward the stairs. Newland raised his shovel again, as though about to squash a slug. But there was no need. Suddenly cops were pouring in from every direction. Two burly uniformed men scrambled down the stairs. A couple of young, energetic types jumped from the wall surrounding the garden—only to discover that it was a longer drop than they’d realized.
Newland watched the air dance performance and made a derisive sound. He turned back to Griff. “I’ll tell you what May Chung is afraid of. She’s afraid you’re going to write something bad about her father because he was the one who hired Johnson. Well, I’ll tell you the truth. I did know Johnson before. I met him at the racetrack and he seemed like an okay fella. How was I to know he’d driven the getaway car in an armed robbery? I did recommend him to Tuppalo. And he did know how to drive. He was a hell of a driver. How was I supposed to know about the rest of it? Of course I didn’t know!”
The biggest and burliest of the cops approached Griff, keeping a wary eye on Newland and his trusty shovel. “Are you all right, Mr. Arlington?” he asked.
* * *
Pierce did not show up while Griff spoke t
o the police. He had been instrumental in getting the cops to locate Griff. He had been instrumental in pointing the investigation toward Ring Shelton. Shelton’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurants were in financial hot water—boiling hot water—and “Brian’s” resurfacing and Jarrett’s decision to reinstate the original will had been the worst possible news at the worst possible time.
Unfortunately Griff’s appearance had probably exacerbated the situation. All that discussion of murder and mystery had planted an idea in a brain that was already receptive to the notion of violent solutions.
Detective Patrick apologetically explained it all to Griff. Apologetic because Pierce had already shared his anticipation of the results of Griff’s DNA test with law enforcement, and Griff—Brian—was being treated with kid gloves. Yes, everyone was being very careful with Griff. In fact, they were handling him like a time bomb that was ready to go off any second.
The weird part was that as angry as Griff was with Pierce—with his highhandedness, with his arrogance, with his interfering—what really hurt was that Pierce didn’t come when he needed him.
He didn’t come during all the time that Griff talked to the police. Hours. Hours of talking to the police. Of telling them everything he knew. Not just about his investigation into Brian’s disappearance, which now seemed pitifully, ridiculously little. He talked about his mother, about growing up in Janesville, he talked until his voice was so hoarse he was whispering.
Where was Pierce?
Why didn’t Pierce come to him?
Griff listened to Detective Patrick explain everything. About how in the end it was really just about money. Just like his mother—no, Amy Truscott—had said. Ring had wanted, needed Brian dead because Brian stood in the way of financial salvation.
They all needed money.
No. Not true. Muriel didn’t need money. But she wanted it. She felt the estate was due her because she was Jarrett’s oldest child. It wasn’t just that though. She wanted back the child she had given away because, unlike her sister, she didn’t have the nerve to have a baby out of wedlock. She wanted her son back and she wanted to be paid for the time she had done without him.