by Lisa Jackson
Delacroix didn’t smile, just said, “Thanks,” as Reed showed up and stuck his head inside. “Done here?”
“Got everything I need, I think,” Delacroix said, and walked off.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, his gaze finding Nikki’s.
“I’ll live.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “I’m kinda counting on that.”
“You?”
“Fine. It’ll be a little while yet. Meet you at home?”
“Sure.” She wanted to ask him a dozen questions that were flitting through her mind, all about the Cravens family and the Beaumonts, but they would have to wait. Reed had his game face on, deep into the investigation.
“Don’t wait up,” he said, and at least offered her a wink that caught her off guard and caused her heart to trip a little.
“I won’t,” she said as she started the ignition, but they both knew she was lying.
CHAPTER 25
“Do you have any new leads?” Nikki asked her husband as he walked through the back door and tossed his keys into the dish on the edge of the counter. She’d been working in the kitchen, waiting for him, reading Ashley Jefferson’s blog about the pitfalls of being the mother of two rambunctious kids.
“And I’m glad to see you, too,” Reed said before brushing his lips across her cheek.
“I am, of course I am.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, felt his arms slide under her robe to encircle her waist. “You know that.” She sighed, then kissed him full on the lips.
“That’s better,” he teased, and patted her on her rump.
“Chauvinist.”
“I’ve just missed you.” His eyes sparkled.
“It’s just that—”
“That your curiosity got the better of your manners.”
“Okay, fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Of course I missed you. I’m glad you’re home. But I still want to know what’s going on.”
Reed disentangled himself and bent down to pet the dog who was wiggling at his feet. “I’m glad to see you, too,” he told Mikado, and then when the dog raced to the slider, Reed opened it for him and the dog shot outside. “You’ve been watching the news.”
She nodded. “Do you know anything else? Is Bronco’s death related to the Duval girls’ homicide?”
“Don’t know yet.” He slid out of his jacket and shoved a hand through his hair.
“But he found the bodies. And the land was owned by the Beaumont family. And he probably used his grandfather’s key and—”
“You heard the interview,” he said, shaking his head. “I wondered.”
Not only had she heard parts of it, but she’d recorded it and gone over it bit by bit, using what she’d learned from Jasper Cravens to do some more research.
“Couldn’t help it.”
He sent her a sharp look and she held up a hand.
“Okay, so I eavesdropped. The car window was open.”
“And you didn’t bother to shut it.”
She wanted to argue but couldn’t. “No, I didn’t.”
“Sit down,” he said, and took a seat at the table, waving at the chair opposite him. “Look, before we get into the investigation, don’t you think we should talk about the fact that you found a dead body, that you were at Bronco’s house, obviously looking into the Duval girls’ murders and—”
“Pierce, I—”
“And all that talk about doing research on the Beaumont history was a cover. I figured so at the time, but I didn’t want to hear any more lies.” She didn’t argue and he grabbed one of her hands. “We can’t go on like this.”
“What?”
“You know it and I know it.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“I haven’t, so just hear me out.” He took one of her hands. “We’ve been through a rough patch. More than a rough patch. And a lot’s been going on. Maybe I’ve been a little testy, but you’ve pushed me.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Just hear me out. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“I’ve thought things over and I decided that yes, I’ll give you an exclusive on the story when the time is right.”
“So we can work together.”
“Absolutely not, but if you just don’t get in the way and don’t do anything that could potentially screw up my case, then when we’ve got whoever is behind this, the story is yours. I talked to Okano today and the higher-ups. Everyone’s in agreement.”
Katherine Okano was an assistant D.A., a smart no-nonsense woman who had worked her way up in the department and given Reed a chance when he was looking for a job. She, looking over the tops of rimless glasses, had listened to him and frowned, thinking everything over before giving him the okay.
“And I have to stop looking into things? My story on the history of the Beaumont estate?”
“That wasn’t just BS to get close to the investigation?”
“Approved by Fink. You know that.”
He stared at her long and hard, then squeezed her hand. “As long as you don’t get in my way and stay out of trouble and, Nikki, whatever you do, don’t do anything where you could get hurt.”
“Okay.” She nodded and said honestly, “I’ll do my best.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, which she found ridiculously sexy.
“I think l should tell you what I pieced together.”
“While researching your story on the history of the place.”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “I found out that Margaret Duval had an affair with Baxter Beaumont way back when.”
“I’m listening,” he said, but got up to let Mikado inside.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I heard something of the sort. Though I hadn’t heard Baxter’s name.”
The dog came over to Nikki and placed his head on her thigh. She ruffled his neck and scratched behind his ears.
“I’m just trying to piece it together myself, but Tyson told me about it.” She explained about her run-in with Baxter’s son and what Tyson had explained about his grandmother’s nurse. Then she added the gossip she’d overheard at the Red Knuckle. “And then I did some calculations. Look, I know this is a little far-fetched. I have no source on this, no reliability. Just maybe a feeling.”
“I deal in facts.”
“Fine, I know. But I think it could be possible that Rose Duval might be Baxter Beaumont’s daughter.”
“What?” He was walking to the refrigerator and stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s a pretty big leap.”
“Maybe. But a possibility.”
He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer, then twisted off the top. “And she’s the daughter who escaped . . . well, maybe escaped. We’ve already had someone claiming to be the missing Rose.”
She was out of her chair. “Really?” This was news she hadn’t heard, her pulse ticked up. “And?”
“A fraud,” he said. “We’ve got her DNA and are already processing it, but her story didn’t hold any water.”
“Tell me.”
“She came in with her husband, claimed she had a memory loss.” He sketched out the meeting with Herman and Greta Kemp. “Delacroix called her a fake from the get-go and it was obvious that they were hoping to cash in on the fame.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.” He took a long drink from his bottle. “We live in a whacked-out world. Fame. Money. Power. That’s what everyone’s looking for these days.” He winked at her. “I know that’s why you hunted me down.”
“Hunted you—?” He was teasing. Despite how serious the conversation had gotten. “I guess you know me,” she said. “A gold digger through and through.”
* * *
Owen Duval was sweating, his nerves strung to the breaking point, his thoughts ragged and he didn’t need any reporter begging for a story to tell “his side” of what had happened to his sisters. “No,” Owen said into the phone, pacing around the small confines of his apart
ment. “No interview.” He cut the connection with the pushy reporter and walked to the window to peer through the shades. The street was empty and dark, the cars parked along the curb all those he recognized as belonging to neighbors. Good! More importantly, there were no news vans that he could see. Double good. Those vultures must’ve found some other piece of carrion to pick at.
His head throbbed and he picked up his drink, his third—or was it his fourth?—of the night, then tossed back the last three sleeping pills in the bottle.
Thankfully that old busybody Helen Davis who rented to him was gone for the next couple of days, visiting her grandkids or whatever. She’d told him exactly where she’d be going—maybe somewhere in Florida? Orlando? Tampa? Who knew and who the fuck cared? She’d asked him to check on her cat, but he’d barely been paying attention. He really couldn’t be bothered with the damned cat seeing as he was the primary suspect in the murder of his sisters.
God, what a mess.
Then again, his whole life was a waste.
The voices . . . they kept reminding him of what a loser he was. If they would just shut up, but oh, no. They only went quiet for a while after teasing him. Then they would suddenly start whispering again, always waiting for just the right moment to remind him of how he’d screwed up.
And they were coming back tonight. Starting to scatter around his brain, scraping and scratching, making him think he might be going out of his mind. He topped off his glass with whiskey, turned on the TV and turned off the lights. Then he sat down in his favorite chair and watched.
Of course the news was on.
This time the story was about the murder of Bruno Cravens.
“Jesus,” he whispered. He’d known Bronco. They’d run in different circles in high school and were in different classes, but they were acquaintances. He took another swallow and grabbed his remote to increase the volume.
Details were sketchy, but Bronco’s body had been found at his home, the victim of a homicide. Well, there was no surprise there. Bronco had been a two-bit criminal, had been in and out of the slammer, probably owed someone money for drugs or a gambling debt.
The news reporters were trying to link his murder with the discovery of the bodies of Holly and Poppy. At the thought of his sisters the old pain resurfaced, a heaviness that he felt in his heart. God, would it never end?
No. It will never cease. It will chase after you until your last dying breath. You know what you should do.
He ignored the voices. Knew they were evidence that he was crazy. He opened the drawer of the table next to his chair and retrieved his gun, a pistol he’d had for years, a pistol Harvey had given him when he was a teenager. God, that was a lifetime ago. For now he set it next to a box of tissues on the small side table and took another drink. Then he switched stations, found a talk show host whose jokes were as old as he was.
He glanced at the gun as he sipped. Picked it up. Felt its weight in his free hand.
Do it, the voices said, as they always did, just end it all. You don’t need this pain, this guilt. How many years are you going to put up with running and hiding and knowing that everyone you meet thinks you’re a murderer. Wasn’t it bad enough when they just thought you’d hidden the girls, done something horrible to them? Now they know about Holly. About Poppy.
Their faces came to him.
Innocent and bright, all big, toothy smiles, freckled noses and near-white curls. Holly had just become sarcastic, interested in boys and getting into trouble, starting to give Mom and Harvey fits. Owen had even caught her trying to sneak out a time or two. Poppy, still all legs and arms and coltish, her beauty just starting to peek through her gawky preadolescence. And Rose—little Rose, still a little imp. Too young to have gone to the movies with her older siblings and now . . . oh, Lord.
The world will be a better place without you. If you end it all, your secrets and Rose will be safe. Maybe. How will you ever know? You have no idea what became of her and probably never will. She might not be alive. You’ll never know and that understanding will eat you alive, is eating you alive.
“God help me.”
God. Jesus. All the Bible stories he’d heard and memorized as a child under his mother’s watchful eye.
How many pieces of silver did it take to betray Christ? Thirty? Does it matter?
A soft, pervasive voice came to him, the most seductive of the lot: End it all, Owen. End it now. Things will be better. For your mother. For everyone. You could find peace at last ...
His throat clogged. He would never be forgiven.
You won’t be anyway. It was true. The rest of his life would be filled with this torment.
Tell them. Leave a note. Let the truth out . . .
He couldn’t. He rotated the gun in his hand, put the barrel to his chin, finger on the trigger. As he’d done a thousand times before. Rehearsed.
Squeeeak.
The sound caught him off guard, caused his heart to stop for a second.
He turned down the volume and looked around but saw no one. The old house was just settling again. He’d heard that same squeak or one similar to it a million times when he was alone.
Heartbeat slowing, he turned his attention back to the TV.
Still holding the gun, he reached across to the table for his drink and downed it in one final draught. He was feeling the alcohol racing through his blood, mixing with the downers—over-the-counter stuff—he’d taken to help him sleep. He’d tripled the dose, just to make certain he would sleep, and now his lips were numb, his tongue thick, his fingers wobbly as they held the weapon.
Owen’s dead now.
He can’t feel the pain any longer.
He doesn’t have to live with his demons.
He’s at peace.
Just do it.
The gun was heavy. So heavy. And awkward. It nearly slipped from his hand. He leaned his head back against the chair for support and his hand dropped to his side, his grip slipping, his finger still on the trigger.
You’ll be asleep forever.
And they’ll all feel bad about it.
It will be their turn to be tortured, to experience guilt.
His eyes drifted shut and he felt drool on the corner of his mouth. He reached up to wipe it away, but the gun in his hand was too heavy and he couldn’t—
“Just do it,” the voice said, and it was a soothing whisper, unlike the other mice-like squeaks still yabbering in the echo chamber of his mind. “Let me help.”
“Whaaa?”
He felt strong fingers wrap over his and help him raise the gun.
“No . . . I . . . dun . . . I dunno . . .”
The barrel, cold metal, touched his temple.
“Do it, do it, do it.” A raspy, determined whisper in his ear.
“I . . . I . . . wait . . .” This was wrong!
Too late.
The grip over his fingers tightened.
Owen’s eyes flew open.
Was this a dream?
Fuck, no!
Adrenaline poured through his blood. He started to struggle.
The finger—was it his?—Oh, God! Pressured, it clenched over the trigger.
Blam!
The pistol fired.
Lights flashed behind Owen’s eyes for one millisecond.
Then Owen’s world died with him.
CHAPTER 26
The sky was gray and ominous, promising rain.
Not a perfect day to go snooping at the old Beaumont house, but Nikki was running out of time. With one eye on the darkening sky, she drove past the main gates to the spot where she’d parked on the day the Duval girls’ bodies had been found. From her conversation with Tyson Beaumont the other day, she knew that security cameras and alarms would be placed around the old mansion and estate in the coming week, and she didn’t want anyone to see what she was doing. So, she figured, it was basically now or never.
A beat-up old pickup with a camper was already parked near the trailhead, no one around, and she
assumed the driver was a fisherman who’d made his way to the river. She pulled her Honda to a spot nearby, got out and hurried to the path leading through the woods.
The air was thick and muggy enough that she began to sweat as she jogged along the deer trail and through the thickets, the gloom of the day permeating the woods. This time she avoided the river and took a fork in the path that would lead directly to the clearing and the outbuildings near the old house.
Rain began to fall, droplets falling through the trees to the forest floor, the wind causing leaves to shiver. She threw up the hood of her light jacket and kept walking. The questions that had been swirling in her mind propelled her onward. Why were the Duval girls taken from the theater? To kill them? Why bury them here at the Beaumont estate? What’s the connection? Or was this place chosen randomly? Who would know about the secret hiding spot? Margaret Duval? Nurse to Beulah? Mother of the sisters who were killed? And why or how did Rose escape? Was that all part of the plan? Whose plan?
Who the hell had access to the house? The Beaumonts? Baxter or Connie-Sue, his wife, or his son, Tyson? Margaret Duval, who had once been the nurse here—mother of the victims? Or any of the Cravenses? Wynn or Jasper or Bronco? They had access and their cabin had once belonged to the Beaumonts.
Or someone connected to the Marianne Inn? That old lodge kept coming up, and the boat that she thought she’d seen beneath the drooping branches of the willow tree. Who was in that boat?
The rain kept falling ever faster, the path growing muddy, leaves dripping. Nikki felt that she was getting closer to finding out the truth but was missing something vital, the damned link that brought it all together.
She kept moving, pushing wet branches aside, her thoughts a jumble. As she reached the edge of the thicket, she stopped and surveyed the place. Even though Tyson had indicated there weren’t any cameras inside the fence line yet, she couldn’t be certain. The house stood as she remembered from her last visit, but instead of the beehive of activity of a newly discovered crime scene with police officers and EMTs on the scene, the area was empty, devoid of life. Not even a bird in the dismal sky. The huge house was dingy and sad, the roof collapsed in one section, bricks crumbling in the chimneys as it loomed on the hill. Traces of crime scene tape flapped in the wind, while draping Spanish moss danced eerily, turning and floating, like wispy ghosts. The sky was somber and dark, the grass tall and shimmering in the breeze. All of the outbuildings were dark and empty.