ALSO BY ANNA CARLISLE:
Dark Road Home
ALL THE SECRET PLACES
A GIN SULLIVAN MYSTERY
Anna Carlisle
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Anna Carlisle
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-287-1
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-288-8
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-290-1
Cover design by Lori Palmer
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First edition: September 2017
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
1
Gin Sullivan was having the strangest dream. She was running along a narrow, rocky ridge, each footfall loosening clods of earth and pebbles, which tumbled and spiraled thousands of feet down through the open air. On one side, far below, wound the Monongahela River, its lazy curves and gray, opaque waters as familiar to her as the back of her hand. On the other side was a dark void, as echoing and lonely as it was bottomless.
Someone was pursuing her, but—with the strange certainty that sometimes accompanies dreams—Gin somehow knew that turning around to face her pursuer would mean losing her footing and falling to her death. She could hear brush breaking and rocks clattering behind her as the danger drew ever nearer, and now there was another sound, an insistent, rhythmic tone piercing the silence.
“Gin . . . Gin, sorry, sorry—”
Her eyes flew open as the familiar voice next to her ear sent the dream images splintering. The room was cloaked in darkness, but it was nothing like the terrifying void of the dream. As Gin blinked sleep away and shifted up onto her elbows, the faint moonlight coming through the windows illuminated the comforting landscape of Jake Crosby’s bedroom.
There at the end of the bed was the roughhewn footboard built from lumber he had felled himself. There was his flannel shirt, worn thin at the elbows and softer with every wash, hanging off one of the posts. On top of the dresser, in a tarnished silver frame, was a photograph of the two of them taken nearly two decades earlier in the stands at a Trumbull High School football game.
And though she couldn’t see them from the bed, she knew that her jeans and sweater lay puddled on the floor in front of that dresser . . . exactly where Jake had torn them off of her in a fevered rush last night.
“Gin, honey, go on back to sleep. I’ll take this downstairs.”
Jake reached across her for his phone—somehow, in the hours after they’d fallen into each other’s arms, finally exhausted, she’d ended up on his side of the bed—and padded out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She could hear his voice, soothing and low at first, then rising in what sounded like alarm. For a moment, sleep hovered at the edges of her consciousness, but the interrupted dream lingered with its halo of anxiety, and finally she gave up. She rolled over and looked at the clock.
5:18 AM.
Gin ran a hand through her long, tangled curls and pushed back the covers, reluctantly getting out of bed. The cold air instantly raised goose bumps on her flesh as she dug running tights and a pullover from one of the drawers that Jake had cleared for her a few months ago when, without ever discussing how long she would be staying, Gin had moved into his house.
While she was making the bed, Jake appeared in the doorway wearing faded jeans and nothing else. His face was shadowed with the beard he shaved only once or twice a week, and there were fresh scrapes and bruises on his work-hardened forearms, a constant hazard of working in construction. He’d lost a little weight as winter set in and he raced to finish a major project; as a result, the muscles of his torso and abdomen stood out in high relief.
Gin tried not to get distracted by the sight as she pulled on the tights and smoothed the hem of her pullover over her hips.
“That was Gus,” Jake said. Something in his words tipped her off—a carefulness that rippled the surface of his gravelly, sleep-thickened voice. “I need to get to the site.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes.”
The single syllable was clipped and hard. Fear pricked along Gin’s skin.
“What?”
Jake grimaced, looking past her, out the bedroom window to the mist drifting past the trees, their branches black and leafless. “Fire. Bad one. Trumbull already responded, and Munhall and McKeesport are on their way.”
“Oh, no,” Gin gasped.
“Gus thinks we’ll lose the Archer place.” Jake grabbed for the shirt at the edge of the bed and pulled it on, buttoning it with practiced motions. “The roof’s about to go, and the fire’s in both floors.”
Shock was followed by dismay. Over the summer, Jake had bought a parcel of land up on a ridge overlooking the river, a quarter mile out of town, when the elderly woman who owned it died and her estate was split up. He’d worked hard to get it permitted for three large houses of his own design, a project he’d been dreaming of for years. He’d put his best crew on the job, and they’d worked feverishly through the fall, Jake putting on his tool belt along with the rest of them, doing the work he preferred by far to the business aspects of running a growing construction company.
The land had been a good deal, but the bank had its doubts: the houses Jake proposed building were larger and grander than anything that had been built in Trumbull for decades. Jake was convinced that wealthy Pittsburgh families, especially the new denizens of the burgeoning tech economy, would be willing to make the half-hour commute to the city in exchange for the stunning views of the river, the nearby trails and forests, and the quaint downtown that was enjoying a fledgling renaissance. But most lenders couldn’t get past Trumbull’s reputation as a former steel town that had been plagued for decades by unemployment, crime, and poverty.
In the end, Jake had been forced to put up much of his own money to get the project off the ground, pouring nearly every penny of his savings into it. Gin knew that the future of his company depended on the successful completion and sale of the three homes.
She had visited the site half a dozen times at various stages of construction, basking in the pleasure of Jake’s quiet pride as he pointed out the details of design and construction, the thoughtful nuances and distinctive, deceptively simple lines that had defined his reputation as a builder. She had believed in him before the first shovelful of dirt was dug, and her confidence only grew as the homes began to take shape.
The first of the houses had alrea
dy been sold: Leon Archer was a consumer products executive who’d just gotten a very expensive divorce from his Philadelphia socialite wife. The “quiet life” he’d publicly stated he intended to pursue in Trumbull, according to the local gossip, was really a refuge to stash his mistress and their baby until the worst of the scandal had passed. Gin had never met the couple, but she knew Jake had spent many hours honing the details of the plans to Archer’s exacting specifications. The house was meant to be spectacular, a showpiece that would bring more business Jake’s way—and money into Trumbull, as well.
“You’re insured.” Despite her efforts, Gin’s small voice came out sounding more like a question than a statement. After all, they’d never discussed it; Jake kept the details of his company close to the vest.
Jake shrugged miserably. “I mean, insurance isn’t going to make me anywhere close to whole. The value wasn’t in the land, the raw materials . . . it was more about the vision. That was my toe in the door, you know? Selling the dream. Archer’s not going to want to wait around for me to rebuild from the ground up—that baby’s due any day now. And without him in the picture, how am I supposed to talk anyone into buying a half-finished house with a burnt-out wreck next door?”
Gin knew what he wouldn’t say: Jake had counted on the lure of Archer’s quasi celebrity to bring buyers for the other two homes while there was still time to modify the plans with expensive finishes and enhancements that would drive the selling prices up. He had hoped to build one-of-a-kind homes that not only were nearly as large and impressive as the first but would showcase his distinctive style and drum up more business down the road. This was supposed to be the project that would finally let him focus on the work he loved every day, that would allow him to turn down the less desirable projects he took just to keep his crew employed and pay the bills. Demolition work, insurance jobs, commercial, and infrastructure . . . Jake had spent many years bidding on everything that came along just to stay afloat.
But if the prospect of Pittsburgh royalty living right next door evaporated, there would be little to lure the kind of wealthy buyers from the city who would pay a premium for a Crosby home.
Gin knew that practically the only family in Trumbull that could afford such a home was her own . . . and Madeleine and Richard Sullivan would never leave the old steel magnate’s mansion on Hyacinth Lane in which they’d raised their family.
“Be careful,” she blurted as Jake grabbed his boots from the closet.
“I will,” he said, but he didn’t look back before heading downstairs.
* * *
Gin spent the next hour drinking coffee and checking online for updates with the local news on in the background, knowing that Jake would call when he was ready—and that he wouldn’t welcome a call from her until then.
At 6:30, she decided it was late enough to call her parents. She tried the house phone before remembering that Richard had finally made the transition to his cell phone in retirement. She was about to dial that number when she impulsively decided to drive over instead.
She took the ridge road, high above town, to the old “millionaires’ row,” where her parents’ old stone mansion held pride of place at the end of the street. It was the most gracious of the fine homes that had been built a century earlier for the steel barons who ran the plants and factories along the bend in the river below, and Madeleine had grown up inside its walls, just as her own mother had. Gin walked through the formal parlor, past the dining room, whose walls were covered in sky-blue silk, and into her favorite room of the house—the kitchen, which her mother had recently redone with all the bells and whistles while keeping the original beams and stone floors and even the old stove. The effect was inviting and comfortable. Her parents were drinking coffee at the kitchen table and sharing the newspaper, Richard in his Brooks Brothers robe and her mother in a Lanz nightgown that looked almost exactly like every other Lanz nightgown she had worn as far back as Gin could remember.
“Is everything okay?” Madeleine asked in lieu of a greeting.
“It’s fine,” Gin said quickly—too quickly, a reflexive reassurance that she then had to walk back. “I mean, Jake and I are fine, but he got some bad news. One of the houses he’s building caught fire.”
“Oh, my God, I saw that fire on the news upstairs,” Madeleine exclaimed. She kept a small television in her walk-in closet; Richard believed it was uncivilized to turn on the television before evening, but Madeleine overrode him in her private quarters. “Up on Kitts Hill. I didn’t make the connection to Jake’s project—they just kept showing footage of it from down by the bridge. It looked like a giant orange bonfire up there.”
So at least the news helicopters from the city had stayed away. And the police were probably preventing anyone from driving up to the site—for the moment, anyway. There was only one road up, a former fire road leading to the Rudkin estate.
Gin knew that Jake wouldn’t want his misfortune broadcast for the whole world to see. He had far too much pride.
“Let her talk,” Richard said. “Sweetheart, how did it happen?”
“Poor Jake. Sit down and let me pour you some coffee,” Madeleine insisted.
“They don’t know yet. At least, they didn’t when Jake got the call—which was over an hour ago. I was wondering . . . I mean, is there anyone you could call, Mom? I’ve been checking online, but no one seems to know anything yet.”
“Lots of theories masquerading as facts,” Madeleine sighed. She had proved surprisingly adept at social media when she had ramped up her bid for mayor after serving two terms on the Trumbull city council. Now, just a few short weeks after being voted into office by a healthy margin, she seemed like an old hand. “I should be able to find something out for you once city hall opens. Look, you’re going to find out soon enough, because the press release is going out today—we’ve named the new police chief. Though he won’t know anything at this point.”
“Who is it?”
“A guy from county, actually. Tuck Baxter. Have you ever run into him?”
“I don’t think so.” Gin had spent her entire career as a medical examiner in Chicago before returning to Trumbull the past summer; now she consulted part time at the county offices in Pittsburgh. The cases she worked on often brought her into contact with the county police, but the name didn’t ring a bell.
“Word is he got himself into a bit of trouble up in the city,” Richard said, folding the newspaper fastidiously. Gin knew her father golfed with a retired judge and several former councilmen, so she wasn’t surprised that he knew details that Madeleine hadn’t shared with him. Luckily, Richard—who’d retired only that year from a demanding career as a physician—was happy to cede the role of full-time professional to his wife, though the transition to retirement was proving a challenge.
“He’s probably got his hands full anyway, getting settled in. And honestly, there probably isn’t anyone left at the fire department to talk to either—I’m sure they’re all pitching in.”
“Jake said they called in a couple other departments . . .”
“As well they should,” Madeleine said crisply. “Trumbull shows up for everyone. Let someone else help for a change.”
This had been a central plank in her mother’s strategy on the council: attract goodwill to the town by offering to share whatever meager resources they could. Before Gin returned to Trumbull, her mother had regaled her during their occasional phone conversations with stories of hospital drives and school fund raisers and downtown rededications in all the struggling river towns that had once been the backbone of American industry, shipping steel on huge cargo craft in the sluggish brown river waters. There had been a shared sense of struggle against the ruined economy’s immutability, of bracing up against the never-ending storm.
Now that her mother’s Hail Mary efforts to revitalize the town appeared to be working, however, Gin wondered if some of that fellowship was crumbling, a victim of envy. There seemed to be room for only one forgotten town
to thrive so far, and Gin was torn between pride that it was Trumbull and fear that the changes wouldn’t last.
“How’s Jake doing?” her father asked, switching gears. “Lord knows he deserves a break.”
“He’s, um, worried, of course,” Gin stammered. She couldn’t admit that there was a side of Jake that he kept from her, facets that he hid, even now. “But you know Jake. He’s strong; he’ll find a way through.”
“Of course he will. You both will,” Madeleine said. “I’ll walk down to the station as soon as I get in, and when I have anything to share, you know I’ll call you right away.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Gin let out a frustrated breath. “I shouldn’t get so far ahead of myself. It’s probably under control by now.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Richard said mildly. “When are we going to get you two up to the city for a play?”
Gin didn’t have the heart to admit to him that their season tickets to the theater would be wasted on Jake, who was not a fan. It was only recently that her father had warmed up to Jake, and she didn’t want to jeopardize the thaw in their relationship.
“Tell you what, Dad,” she said impulsively. “How about you and Mom come over for dinner instead? Maybe next Saturday? Jake will cook, and I’ll sit around and let him wait on us.”
“That’s my girl,” Madeleine said approvingly, flashing a smile. It was something of a joke between them, as Madeleine had been a homemaker until her forties, when she discovered an interest in local politics. “Does that work for you, Richard?”
Richard leaned contentedly back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “I’ll have to clear my busy schedule,” he said, “but I think I can fit you kids in.”
Gin finished her coffee and declined an offer of a second cup. She was more concerned than she was letting on, but it would be pointless to worry her parents too. They walked her to the door and watched her get in her car, their arms around each other in a pose she’d seen them in many times before. Their hair was gray now, and her father had lost a fair amount of weight, but they had been seeing her off in just that pose for decades now.
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