by J. S. Marlo
An overdose of morphine would be more merciful than Rowan deserved. After he was done treating his teenage patient, he’d stop by the hospital pharmacy and slip out a few doses from under the nose of the attendant.
It was too bad she’d transformed the wine cellar into a war zone. Her selfish actions had forced him to tamper with the light socket. In a few hours, the fire smoldering within the wall would spread. By then, he would be at the hospital where dozens of people could vouch for his presence. Upon his return from his trip to the mainland, his friend Jimmy would be devastated to learn a faulty wire had caused a short circuit and destroyed the cellar, but such was the price of silence.
Had he had the means to falsify Rowan’s dental records, he would have left her dead body inside the inferno. With her death imminent, he needed to figure out how to dispose of her body.
The ocean might claim her after all.
***
Avery could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d been rattled in his life. The day his mother died in a car accident. The day Grandpa Stone passed away from cancer. The day Rachel was killed. And today, the day he faced a ghost.
Under different circumstances, he might have dismissed the genetic anomaly as a random occurrence, but not when Rowan’s father, brother, and little niece shared the same trait. Bill had to be an O’Reilly, and one name popped into his mind.
“Wilmot?” The man had changed his name from Wilmot to Bill. Wilmot—Will—Bill. An easy word association, and Avery should have clued in earlier. “You never drowned.” It explained why the broken man facing him placed flowers on Mattie’s and Thelma’s graves. “Thelma was your wife. Mattie was your daughter. And Rowan is your granddaughter.”
“I don’t deserve a granddaughter. I don’t deserve anything.” The lament carried across the tombstones. “I drove my son away. I killed my wife. Mattie should never have given me a second chance. Rowan is dead because of me. I’m the only one to blame.”
The admission stabbed Avery in the heart. Intentionally or not, they’d both caused someone’s death and been condemned to live with the memory. Steeling himself against his conflicting emotions, empathy and anger, he struggled to keep an even voice. “I’m listening, but I’m warning you, I’m an RCMP officer, and everything you say will be used against you.”
“Do I look like I care?” He dropped onto both knees by his wife’s grave. “I lost everything.”
Guilt already ate at the man’s soul. Getting him to talk shouldn’t be too difficult. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Bill? It’ll make you feel better.”
“I loved her, I really did, but I loved drinking more.” His voice had dropped to an eerie whisper. “I had a temper back then. Couldn’t control it. I said many things I regret, and I hit Thelma. Once. The only blow I ever struck, and my son, Rowan’s father, saw it. That’s the day I lost him, long before he found the courage to run away from me. Rowan is so much like him. Stubborn, feisty…and righteous.”
The use of present tense and the pride in Bill’s voice bemused Avery. “Rowan is one amazing woman, Bill.”
“I know, and I saw you noticed too. You would have been good for her. Why she chose Malcolm is beyond me.”
Nice to know he would have gotten grandpa’s seal of approval, for what it was worth. “What happened next, Bill?”
“My son left, and I was too drunk and enraged to forgive him. Why my wife stuck by me after what I did, I’ll never know.”
“I’m guessing she loved you.” Another battered woman, like the woman who shot Rachel. “How did you kill her?”
“She was tired, and she didn’t want to come, but I convinced her. It was a gorgeous day. The storm moved in from nowhere. I was too drunk to steer clear. The wave crashed on deck. One moment Thelma was next to me, the next she was gone. The boat capsized—I woke up in the barge of a man who didn’t speak English. He dropped me off on shore.”
“Go back, Bill. Who killed your wife? You or the storm?”
As Bill lifted his head in his direction, the sun highlighted the tears brimming in his eyes. “What difference does it make? If I hadn’t forced her to come, she would still be alive.”
The man felt responsible for his wife’s death, but he hadn’t directly caused her death. “The storm killed her, Bill, not you.” As he spoke the words, the guilt gnawing at Avery’s own soul subsided. He’d done everything in his power to protect Rachel, but in the end, a bullet had killed her, and that was something he couldn’t have predicted or stopped.
“That’s what Mattie said when she gave me a second chance. I stopped drinking for her. I owed it to her mother. She wanted me to come home, but I was ashamed.”
Mattie had been a devoted daughter. “So you did come home, but under a different name.” No wonder Caster didn’t find anything substantial on Bill Smith. The guy never existed.
“I shaved my head, changed my eyes, and never touched a bottle again. Except for Jordan, no one recognized me.”
And Jordan never betrayed his friend. “Did you know Mattie changed her will in favor of Rowan?”
“Of course I did. It was my idea, and it was a bad idea.” With his thumb, he caressed the name of his wife. “Buccaneer had always belonged to the O’Reilly women, but Mattie never had children. I thought it was only fair the house passed to my son’s daughter.”
So far, the account corroborated Lancaster’s findings. “I take it Rowan doesn’t know.”
“Of course not.” His voice had risen and regained some of its strength. “After my son ran away, Thelma and Mattie stayed in contact with him. When I found out, I was furious. Whiskey spoke back then, not me. I forbade them to ever communicate with him again. My son—he died months later. Reaching out to his widow would have been the decent thing to do, but I was a drunken coward. What would Rowan think of me if she knew I was the one who stopped her grandmother and aunt from knowing her and her brother?”
Sunk at the bottom of a bottle, then eaten by remorse, he’d stayed away from his son’s family, and somehow he’d convinced his daughter not to contact them. “You do know you have a great-granddaughter, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A sad smile added wrinkles to his face. “And she’s gorgeous. When they learn of Rowan’s fate, I’ll never get to know her either.”
Daylight would be another thing he’d never see again. “So where’s Rowan? What happened to her? Did she discover your identity? Did you fight and lose control?”
“No!” He leaped to his feet and made fists, but he kept his arms down at his sides. “You think I—” A long sigh deflated his chest. “I might as well have killed her too. If I hadn’t told Mattie to change her will, Rowan would never have come here, and she wouldn’t have drowned.”
Exasperated by the guilt trips shackling the man, Avery grabbed him by the shoulders and jolted him. “Listen to me, Bill. She’s not at the bottom of the ocean.”
“She’s not? Then where is she?”
The trail of evidence had led him to Bill, but the earnest look of surprise on the older man’s face disputed his conclusion. He sounded sincere, and Avery believed him. “Someone staged her disappearance, Bill.”
“Someone took Rowan? Who? Why?”
It annoyed Avery that he’d hit a dead end. “I don’t know, but I’m afraid it might be related to Mattie’s murder.”
“Mattie? Murdered?” A ghostly shade of white sickened Bill’s skin. His knees buckled, and he grasped his wife’s tombstone for support. “But she fell from that damned ladder. It was an accident. She should have waited for me. I’d told her to wait for me.”
“She was afraid of heights, Bill. Didn’t you know that? She wouldn’t have climbed that ladder.”
“She told me she’d take care of the wasps herself if I didn’t hurry back, but I ended up talking with Jordan. I never thought she’d gather the courage to—” Stress and shock dug deep burrows on his face, aging him by the second. “If only I’d shown up earlier. Are you sure it
wasn’t an accident?”
Sudden doubts clouded Avery’s mind. “There was black shoe polish on the broken steps. Did you kick the ladder with your boots?”
“What shoe polish?”
In the kitchen, Gail had berated Bill for wearing his boots. “The black marks you left on the kitchen floor with your boots.”
“The black marks?” Bill’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Malcolm is the one who streaked Gail’s floor with his expensive shoes. Are you saying he broke the ladder and caused Mattie’s fall?”
Innocent until proven guilty. Avery had lived by that rule all his adult life. “I don’t know. Is it possible he came to visit Mattie that afternoon? Would he have anything to gain by her death?”
“No. He works every afternoon except…except Wednesday. Mattie died on a Wednesday. But why? Malcolm wanted to buy Buccaneer, and he offered lots of money for it. Mattie and I sure had some heated discussions about it. If not for Rowan, she might have sold, but she agreed to keep it in the family.”
Gail had overheard some of those discussions, but missed the context. “Any idea why the doctor wanted to buy Buccaneer?”
“No, but even if he’s behind Mattie’s death, he has no reason to hurt Rowan. He wouldn’t kill her for breaking up with him…would he?”
“She dumped him?” If the doctor dated her to get access to Buccaneer, the breakup might have incensed him. Jealousy and revenge were powerful motives. “I need to find out where Malcolm was last night, and you’ll help me.” Convinced he could trust the man, Avery bent down to retrieve the sunglasses he’d knocked off the man’s face. “And keep those on. Rowan shouldn’t learn the truth by accident.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Avery parked in front of Malcolm’s clinic and killed the engine. In the passenger seat, Bill tensed like a rubber band ready to snap.
“Doctor or not, if the bastard touched Rowan, I swear I…” The threat lingered as the man expelled a shaky breath. “I don’t think I can go in there.”
The sudden breakdown didn’t surprise Avery. Years of lies combined with the death of his daughter and disappearance of his newly found granddaughter was bound to take an emotional toll on the old man.
“I’m a stranger in this town, Bill. The secretary won’t confide in me.” Not after he ruffled her feathers by walking out of the clinic. As a local resident, Bill stood a better chance of getting answers than him. “Now, go. Do it for Rowan.”
After what seemed like an eternity later, Bill returned to the vehicle and sank into the seat. “Malcolm is busy at the hospital. He canceled his morning appointments. That’s all I got.”
“You did good.” He turned the engine on and stepped on the accelerator. It wasn’t a strong lead, but it beat a dead end. “We’re going to the hospital for a visit. Start thinking about some imaginary ailment.”
“You expect me to—” Bill gave him a dubious glance. “That’ll never work.”
The handyman had quickly caught on to his scheme. “As Malcolm’s patient, you’re less likely to arouse suspicion, and the nurses may be more inclined to indulge your questions about him.”
“I doubt that.”
“Just turn up the charm. The nurses won’t be able to resist you.” When Bill didn’t voice any further objections, Avery assumed the man had agreed to his plan. “I want to show you something.” As he drove, Avery retrieved the two rivets from his pocket and presented them to Bill. “I found the broken rivet in Rowan’s new car and the other one in the shed. What are they for?”
After taking them, Bill rolled them between his fingers. “I use them to fix Jimmy’s wine barrels. They secure the hoops to the wooden staves, but that broken rivet could have come from other things or places.”
Like the dealership or the car factory. “I know, but it could also come from the person who drove her car home.”
The old man shook his head. “Something doesn’t make sense, Mr. Stone. If Malcolm is involved, why did he come looking for Rowan this morning? Wouldn’t he have stayed away?”
“Not necessarily.” Malcolm’s behavior didn’t rule him out as a suspect, and despite the calm demeanor Avery projected, he feared for Rowan’s life. “It could be a way to deflect suspicion away from him.”
“But why would he put her shoes on the beach, if she’s not in the ocean?”
To make it look like an accident, like Mattie’s death, or to make people stop looking for her—or both. “Rowan would never go down without a fight, Bill, and her body would show signs of her struggle. Whoever is responsible can’t afford for the police to find her body, not after he staged it to look like a swimming accident. She’s nowhere near that beach. I’d bet my badge on it. He’s keeping her captive somewhere, waiting for the police to stop searching before he disposes of her.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t…” The tremors shaking Bill’s voice also rattled his body. “Doesn’t mean she’s not…”
“She’s alive, Bill.” Avery refused to believe otherwise. “I’ve dealt with arrogant perps like Malcolm before. He’s the type to keep his victim alive for days, if not weeks, to relish his revenge.” To make his victim suffer. If Malcolm touched Rowan, Avery swore to make him pay, one way or another.
“We need to find them, Mr. Stone, before he hurts my granddaughter.”
“Yes, we do, and that’s why you need to get a grip.” Circumstances and fate had thrust Bill his way, but Avery needed more than his help; he needed to be able to count on the man should the situation escalate—like he used to rely on his former partners. “Rowan depends on you, Bill. You need to think with your head and stay calm and focused. Can you do this?”
“Yes.” Shoulders squared, Bill looked straight at him. “Yes, I can.”
The hospital had been built on the outskirts of town, and it provided ample free parking. After dropping Bill near the entrance, Avery parked his Blazer in the shade of a poplar tree near the stalls reserved to the hospital staff. Its roof down, Malcolm’s yellow convertible was partially concealed between a Hummer and a minivan.
The doctor was on the premises.
Months ago, Avery had misjudged the threat posed by a violent man’s wife, and it’d cost Rachel everything. The guilt he’d experienced over her death had crushed his soul and taken him to the brink of destruction. Haunted by the insufferable memory, he’d wanted to die. Rowan had been the spark that had ignited the healing process. Without her, I’d be at the bottom of the ocean. Now it gnawed at him that his dislike for the doctor might cloud his judgment, that he might be chasing the wrong suspect. This wasn’t a mistake he could afford again, not at the risk of losing Rowan—or losing himself. He’d gone to hell and back, and it wasn’t a trip he could bear making again.
Under the guise of stretching his bad leg, which wasn’t as stiff as usual, Avery grabbed his cane from the backseat and exited his Blazer. Some people ventured in and out of the parking lot, but no one paid attention to his seemingly random wandering between the parked vehicles. When he neared Malcolm’s BMW, he slowed to a crawl and searched the inside of the car with his eyes. A maroon spot, the size of a quarter, stained the front edge of the beige driver’s seat.
Eager to take a closer look, he paused by the driver’s side and bent over the door. His thighs pushed against the warm metal, and above his head, the sun shone onto the interior. At first sight, the stain resembled blood, but the way it seeped into the leather suggested a different liquid. Something in the crack of the seat cushion glittered. He reached out and retrieved a shard of glass, tainted brown.
A door banged, and hurried steps resounded in the parking lot. Avery straightened, and as he pocketed the broken glass, he turned toward the entrance of the hospital.
His face red and blotchy, Bill rushed between the parked vehicles.
***
Sirens pierced through Rowan’s hazy mind, and memories flooded back. The cellar, the prick of a needle, the—
Chris. Her eyes flew open, but darkness kept he
r in its crease. Something pressed around her head, over her eyes. She reached for the blindfold. Pain seared her arms as a strap cut into her wrists. A scream rose from her throat and died out against the moist fabric stuffed in her mouth.
Panic rose. She lay on the ground, gagged and bound. Water moistened her toes. She recoiled, and tears pooled in her eyes. Her legs and feet were tied. She couldn’t move.
Stay calm and breathe. Slow. With the nose.
As she slowly breathed in and out, a familiar scent tickled her nose. Seawater. The sirens blaring in the distance didn’t drown out the sound of the waves crashing on the beach or the birds squawking around her prison. Her ears and her nose insisted she was no more than a few meters from the ocean. She shifted her head sideways and paused. The cement floor was gone, replaced by the smooth veneer of wood against her cheek.
Chris hadn’t killed her, yet, but he’d moved her from the cellar after drugging her. She needed to escape before he came back.
One agonizing inch after another, she slithered away from the water numbing her feet but, to her despair, the friction of her head against the floor didn’t dislodge the blindfold. It only increased the headache building within her skull.
As her feet rubbed against each other, something snapped, and her sandals fell off. Hope swelled inside her chest. She was now barefoot, but no longer tied up at the ankles. Heartened by the small victory, she rubbed her face against the floor to dislodge the blindfold while wiggling her legs.
Her foot hit something, and a rumble started above her head. The noise intensified.
She tensed in fearful anticipation.