by Luanne Rice
“No,” she cried. “He’s here. Charlie!”
The front door opened, and a young man wearing a ball cap stepped out. Tom’s heart skipped—he had seen the kid’s picture in the paper. He was one of Griffin Chase’s twin sons.
“Can I help you?” the kid asked. A young woman poked her head out from behind him. She had her hands on the shoulders of a small boy. Tom couldn’t believe his eyes—it was Charlie. Gwen had been right the whole time.
“Charlie!” Gwen shouted, tearing toward the house. She threw herself at her brother, holding him in a tight hug, pulling him away from the woman. Tom was right behind Gwen, his eyes on the two adults. Adrenaline pumped through his body.
“Gwen, Charlie,” he said carefully. “We’re going now. Come with me.”
Gwen raised her eyes to him—she was full of joy. It almost made him smile. She clutched Charlie’s hand, walking toward Tom. Tom let them go ahead, glancing behind him at the front door. Only the woman was there.
“Alexander, stop them!” she called.
Tom and the kids made it to the truck.
“I’ve got this, Emily,” Alexander Chase said, and Tom saw him lift a gun, a Sig Sauer semiautomatic, the same model Conor carried. Tom thought of his own service gun, in the safe at home.
“You’re the merman and the mermaid,” Gwen said, staring at Alexander and Emily. “You followed us in your boat and saved Charlie.”
“That’s right,” Emily said. “I’m glad you know that. And we’re going to take care of you now.”
“But we have to go home. Our Daddy’s waiting for us.”
Alexander made a frustrated sound. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
“Shut up,” Emily said to him.
“Come on, Gwen, Charlie,” Tom said, never taking his eyes off the gun. He heard his brother’s voice on the phone in the truck, calling his name, the line still connected.
“Don’t listen to him, Charlie,” Emily said, taking a step forward. “Let’s show your sister around. All the cool rooms and the tower and the swimming pool . . .”
“I know you’re nice, but we’re going with Tom,” Gwen said, arms clasped around her brother.
“They’re not nice,” Charlie said, starting to cry. “They were following us to Block Island. To shoot Daddy when he got off the boat. But Ford did instead. The one who came to our house that day, when Mommy and Daddy started yelling.”
“Stop talking,” Alexander said.
“I heard you, though.” Charlie wept. “I heard you say it. You said he would tell on your father and your father would lose and you said he shot Daddy.”
Tom assessed Alexander. He was tall, looked soft and slightly heavy, and his hand was shaking. He wasn’t comfortable holding the weapon. Tom calculated—would the kid actually shoot them?
“You shot Daddy? Did you kill our mom?” Gwen asked.
“No,” Emily said in a sweet, cajoling tone. “We had no idea the boat was going to blow up. It was a horrible accident. We would never have wanted you to be hurt.”
“Em, please? Stop,” the young man said, glancing at her and pointing at Tom.
“What’s the difference?” she asked. “Who cares what he hears? You know what you have to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Tom said, in as reasonable a tone of voice as he could manage. “You’ve done no harm so far. You saved Charlie. He wouldn’t have made it without you. The explosion was an accident. No matter what Ford may have done, you haven’t shot anyone . . .” He had his arms around Gwen and Charlie.
“Get away from them,” the young woman said.
“You’re not in trouble,” Tom said. “You don’t want to hurt us, I know that. You saved Charlie. That’s the kind of kids you are. We’re going to leave now.”
He scooped Charlie up into his arms, guiding Gwen toward his truck. He kept his eyes on the pistol, his heart thumping. The man’s arm dropped to his side, and he lowered his head—he wasn’t going to shoot. Tom opened the door, pushed both of the children inside.
“You idiot,” Emily said, grabbing Alexander’s arm. “You can’t let them go. After everything? What are our fathers going to say?”
Tom climbed into the driver’s seat. The truck was still running, the phone still on speaker, and he heard Conor’s voice coming over the speaker: “I heard everything. Get the hell out of there.”
“Roger,” Tom said. “Leaving Ravenscrag now.” He jammed the truck into reverse and spun the wheel to turn around, tires screeching on the driveway pavement. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Emily tug the gun from Alexander’s hand and come stalking toward the truck, arm extended.
“Go, Tom, hurry!” Gwen cried, watching her.
Tom shifted into drive and hit the gas, and the young woman fired. He felt the punch in his shoulder as the glass in the driver’s side window shattered and hot blood pouring from the hole in his shoulder, and the last thing he heard was his brother’s voice saying his name over the phone, repeating it, yelling it, drowned out by the shrieks of Gwen and Charlie.
49
CONOR
Conor heard the unmistakable gut-twisting sound of a gunshot, and his brother stopped talking. The line was still open. The children were screaming, a boy and a girl. Now a sharp female voice:
“Come with me, both of you. Right now,” she said.
“I want to go home!” Charlie said, sobbing.
“You killed Tom!” Gwen yelled.
“It’s your fault, Gwen,” the woman said. “I told you and Charlie to come with me. Look what you made me do.”
“Tom!” Gwen cried.
“Come with us now,” a man’s voice said. “Come on, Gwen, you’re safe here. You want to be with your brother, right? We’ll take care of you and figure this out.”
“Charlie, run away from them! We have to get help for Tom!”
Conor heard a loud smack, as if someone had just been hit, then both children sobbing.
“Is this really happening?” the woman asked. “Now we’re stuck with two brats? This was not in the plan!”
“Look, we’ve done our part,” the man said. “I proved myself to Dad. And so have you.”
“The difference is, I never needed to! My parents respect me. At least till now! Is my family supposed to keep these brats forever? Why did the boat have to explode? Fucking unforeseen nightmare—their damn mother should still be alive to take care of them.”
“What do we do now?” the man asked.
Since Ravenscrag was owned by Max Coffin, the woman had to be Emily, Alexander’s girlfriend.
“Proved myself to Dad,” the man had said a moment ago. What kind of dad made a kid prove himself by shooting someone? Griffin Chase, Conor thought, so if the woman was Emily, this must be Alexander.
“Let’s just get the kids inside and call for help,” the man said.
“Call the police?” the woman asked. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, call him—my dad will know what to do,” the man said.
Conor had already sent dispatch a text message to send police and an ambulance to Ravenscrag in Stonington. Tom could be dying. Conor sped onto the highway, listening to every word, every inflection of the voices on the phone. He pressed harder on the gas.
“Tom,” Gwen said, her voice shaking. “Tom needs to go to the hospital . . .”
“I cannot take this anymore,” the woman said.
Gwen started to scream, then Charlie did, the shrieks receding, as if they were being dragged away. Conor listened intently. He heard some scraping and fumbling, as if one of the two captors had stayed behind with Tom’s truck. He heard gurgling, as if his brother were choking on blood, trying to breathe.
“Shit,” the man said. “You’re still alive?”
Conor knew this was his chance.
“Listen to me, Mr. Chase,” Conor barked. “This is the state police. Do not hang up.”
“What the fuck?” the man asked.
“Alexander, I am goin
g to give you some very careful instructions,” Conor said. “I know where you are, and I am on my way. So is an ambulance, so are local police, and Tom Reid had better be alive and on his way to the hospital when I get there.”
Silence.
“I hear him breathing right now,” Conor said. “If anything happens to him, the charge is murder. I don’t know who shot him—you or Emily. But he’s your responsibility right now. You got that? He dies, you’re his murderer.”
No answer.
“Did you hear me?” Conor asked. “You and Emily Coffin had better make sure those kids and my brother are safe. Understand?”
“Shit,” the man said. Conor heard the phone jostle, then disconnect.
Conor called dispatch to get precise directions to Ravenscrag. He was told it was just off Route 1, east of the borough, no street number, the drive flanked by two stone posts with ravens on top. She transmitted the GPS coordinates to his phone.
“Send every available unit,” Conor told her. “Get Life Star in the air right now. There’s at least one gunshot wound, adult male. Emily Coffin and one of the Chase sons are holding the two Benson children, Gwen and Charlie.” He swallowed hard. “The gunshot victim is my brother, Tom.”
“You got it, Detective Reid,” the dispatcher said. “We are all with you, every one of us.”
“Thanks,” Conor managed to say.
He sped toward Stonington. His mind was spinning, the shock of talking to Tom, hearing the shot, then hearing that horrific sound—how many times had Conor heard it in his life, at crime scenes, the death rattle of victims choking on their own blood? How much time did Tom have?
He tried to picture Tom—his older brother who had always been there for him, who had protected him when they were young, the ferociously tough Coast Guard Commander Thomas Reid—dying alone in his truck.
Conor stayed in the left lane, siren screaming, passing cars that pulled over to get out of his way, and when he hit a bottleneck at the Waterford junction of I-95 and I-395, he split the lanes in two and drove down the middle.
By the time he took the exit to Stonington Borough, he heard sirens and looked up to see the Life Star helicopter hovering overhead. Had it already picked up Tom, ready to fly to Yale New Haven, the closest level-1 trauma center?
No, it was landing now. Conor could barely breathe. He followed the chopper, heard the thwap-thwap of the rotors as he tore through the stone gates, up the hill toward the monstrosity of a house he’d seen in the photos of Dan Benson and at the sportsmen’s preserve.
The mansion’s turnaround was full of local and state police vehicles and two ambulances, lights still flashing. Personnel, including tactical units in riot gear, swarmed the front entrance. The helicopter was landing in an open section of lawn just south of the house. Tom’s truck was parked on the edge of the driveway, both driver’s-side doors open. Conor jumped out of his own car and ran to his brother’s.
The driver’s seat was a bucket of blood. It had seeped into the leather seat, coursed down the door side, puddled on the floor mat. Tom was not there. A trail of blood—not drops but thick, smeared swaths of it led from the driveway into a bayberry thicket—as if Tom had dragged himself into the bushes.
Conor strode over, both afraid he would find Tom and afraid he wouldn’t: and he didn’t. He spotted a torn scrap of blue fabric snagged on a low branch and a blood-covered Rolex watch with the stainless-steel band broken. The watch was facedown in the mud, and Conor thought he saw letters etched into the back of the case.
Conor knew, as if his brother were right here to tell him, that the watch belonged to Tom’s attacker, that Tom had ripped it off his wrist in a violent struggle. The thought of his brother being strong enough to fight gave Conor a shot of hope.
He left the evidence in place and walked toward the door of the house. The SWAT officers were exiting the front door, which meant that they had cleared the premises and most likely found no one inside—no one alive, at least.
“Anyone in there?” Conor asked Trooper Rich Sibley, standing by the door.
“No, sir,” Sibley said. “Trooper Allen reviewed security camera footage, and it looks as if two vehicles left the garage twenty and twenty-five minutes ago. We don’t have a description of the suspects or the plates. And the camera filmed in black-and-white, so we don’t have vehicle colors.”
“What about Tom Reid?” Conor asked.
“No sign of him,” Sibley said. “He is top priority. Along with the children.”
“Thanks,” Conor said. He considered the possibilities that his brother had been abducted, along with Gwen and Charlie, or that he had escaped. He knew the troopers would have broadcast a bulletin over the state police radio. The dispatcher at the barracks would inform the CTIC—Connecticut Intelligence Center—which, in turn, would alert all law enforcement agencies in the state. Because it was an assumed kidnapping, the NCIC—National Crime Information Center, run by the FBI—would send a teletype notifying law enforcement nationwide.
Conor walked over to the Major Crime Squad van. Maria Stewart was the forensics chief in charge of this sector of the state. Conor had known her since he was just starting out as a young trooper and she was already making her mark as a forensic scientist. They had worked together on many cases. He found her inside the van, dressing in white coveralls and booties.
“Hey, Conor,” she said.
“Hi, Maria.”
“I just heard about Tom. What’s his condition?”
“No idea. He didn’t sound good on the phone. There’s a lot of blood loss, and he’s not here.”
“Every force in the state is on this, Conor. I promise.”
“Hey, Detective! EMTs! Over here!” a forensic tech called.
Conor raced across the drive and beat the ambulance personnel by a few seconds. A shallow gully stretched the length of a hedgerow, and Tom lay in it. A starburst of blood bloomed on his left shoulder, but his eyes were open, and he nodded when he saw Conor.
Conor jumped in beside him, took off his jacket, and pressed it into the wound.
“Tom? Stay with me, okay?”
“They had Charlie—and they took Gwen. The girl shot me. I was so close to getting the kids out of here,” Tom said.
It killed Conor to see his brother’s eyes fill with tears. Tom squeezed them tight, his mouth clamped shut as if holding the pain inside.
“Sir, let us take care of him,” one of the EMTs said.
“I’m staying with him,” Conor said.
“No. Go find Charlie and Gwen,” Tom said, slurring his words. “That’s what you do—get them, make sure they’re okay. The dog . . . they’ll want to see Maggie. It will make them feel better, just ask Jackie, she’ll tell you about Maggie . . .” Tom’s voice trailed off.
Leaving his brother’s side was the hardest thing Conor had ever done. He watched the emergency workers take vital signs, pack the wound, move Tom onto a stretcher.
Conor watched the EMTs load Tom into the Life Star helicopter, shut the doors, and take off. Conor swallowed past the lump in his throat. He stood still, looking up until the helicopter disappeared from view. Then he got into his car, hit the siren, and sped toward the highway, in the direction of Catamount Bluff.
50
CLAIRE
I took the steep path at the end of Hubbard’s Point Beach and zigzagged into the trees. I had lived in these woods during the days after my attack. I had salved my wounds and bathed in Long Island Sound. I had counted on the ghost of my father and the cries of the mountain lion to keep me safe. Protection came in many forms. My love of nature and my father, and their love for me, had made me strong and brave, and I had survived.
I passed the rocky cove where my part of the mystery had begun twenty-five years ago, that summer night when I found Ellen’s body. I could still see the gold of her bracelet glinting in the starlight.
Had Ellen worn that bracelet in Cancún? Had the Roman coin, dangling from the heavy links, captured the ocea
n’s bioluminescence, the sea fire, the night she had been a witness to Griffin raping Marnie Telford? Spencer’s description of that hour on the beach seared in my brain, and it gave me even more courage, strengthened my will to continue down the path to Catamount Bluff.
I emerged from the woods into the clearing—the open property that ran between the houses and the edge of the trees. I smelled honeysuckle and roses; all the gardens were in bloom. Instead of ducking for cover, I held my head high and strode toward my studio. Waves broke on the rocks, their sound mingling with that of a lawn mower working somewhere down the road.
It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high. We were approaching the longest day of the year. I wondered who was at the Bluff, who might be looking out the window. If they saw me, would they think I had risen from the dead? Wade and Leonora were probably home, ready to start their cocktail hour.
I didn’t care who saw me. Jackie knew I was here, and I was ready for this to end.
Crossing the lawn, I heard a car pulling into our driveway, doors opening and slamming, and distant voices. My back stiffened and my heart pounded—habitual fear. I ran to my studio and stepped inside.
I looked out the window toward the house. No sign of anyone outdoors and no one was coming toward my studio, so I figured I hadn’t yet been seen. Good, it would give me time; besides, I felt reassured by the almost certain knowledge that Conor would be on his way here as soon as he spoke to Jackie.
My studio was tidy. It wasn’t always this way—when in the midst of a project, I lost track of space and spread my materials out all over the place. But having finished my work for the exhibition, I had cleared nearly every surface. The exception was the rustic farmhouse table in the corner—the table itself bought at a flea market in the Berkshires when Griffin and I were first married.
We had gone cross-country skiing, were staying at an old inn just north of Stockbridge. The trails had been beautiful—fields covered with fresh powder on top of a deep packed base, lined with tall pines and spruce, limbs heavy with snow. If there were a manual for romantic winter weekends, this one—at least the first night—would have its own chapter. A fire in our bedroom fireplace, snow falling outside, the coziness of an 1890 inn. Griffin had bought me a first-edition book of poems by Emily Dickinson. She had lived in Amherst, just an hour east.