Lonesome Lake

by Lesley Appleton-Jones

  Olivia turned to face the yard. “That’s Jesse.”

  “He’s your son?”

  “Not yet. We’re in the middle of the adoption process.”

  “Where’s he going? It’s just forest back there, isn’t it?”

  “There is a trail to the lake.”

  Holly glanced at her watch. Nine thirty. “It’s a little late for trail riding,” Holly noted. A teenager with a motorcycle and direct access to the Milbourne property. The meeting had been more informative than she’d imagined it would be.

  Olivia stood up. “I don’t have anything more to add,” she told them, ending the meeting.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Raines drove west to Scotty’s place. Holly stared out of the split-glass windshield into the yellow glow cast by the classic Ford’s round headlights and felt as if she’d traveled back in time. They could have been going to a drive-in movie instead of heading out to interview a suspect. When the pickup hit a pothole, she bounced up and down on the springy bench seat.

  Raines swore softly.

  She glanced at him. In high school, his love for his rusting ‘47 was legendary. Obviously, that affection had remained steadfast—unlike so many of his other loves. “There’s another hole about half a mile down the road you may want to avoid,” she advised. “I don’t think my back can take any more bouncing around in this old jalopy.”

  He just grunted.

  His response told her that he wasn’t feeling chatty. His focus was probably on Scotty. Just to annoy him, she remarked, “How interesting that Olivia’s ward has a motorcycle and access to the trail leading to the Milbourne property. I wonder what his story is?”

  Raines said nothing.

  She persisted. “I’d be interested to find out if Jesse has been over there.”

  More silence.

  “You thinking about Scotty?”

  “Let’s just say I’m trying to think,” he replied, dryly.

  She turned her head to face the passenger window and smiled. Was it perverse, she wondered, how much she enjoyed goading him?

  He continued, “But I agree with you. Maybe the Chief knows something about the kid. I don’t think Olivia is going to volunteer any information.”

  Holly agreed. “She shut me down fast, didn’t she? Makes me suspicious. I’ll check with the Chief.”

  Raines shifted down a gear and made a right into Scotty’s driveway. His Chevy Ram was parked next to the Airstream, but the lights were off in both the trailer and his house.

  Holly checked her watch. “It’s ten. Want to come back in the morning?”

  Raines got out of the truck, jogged up to the front door and knocked. Holly followed him. When Scotty didn’t answer, Raines knocked harder. Silence greeted them. Holly glanced up at the windows, but she couldn’t see anything.

  She shouted, “We know you’re in there, Scotty. Your truck’s here, so stop being a wiener and open the door.”

  Raines mouthed, “Wiener?”

  She whispered, “Just wait.”

  The silence continued for a moment. Until somewhere behind them, a voice drawled, “That’s the best you’ve got, Jakes?”

  They spun around to see Scotty emerge like an apparition from the depths of the woods surrounding his property. Moonlight seemed to glint off his perfect white teeth as he grinned at them, clearly pleased at catching them off guard.

  Holly snapped, “Why are you hiding out here?”

  “I’m not hiding, Jakes. I just wasn’t interested in whatever you’re selling, but you’re so damn persistent.” He walked towards them. “What do you want?”

  “Aren’t you going to invite us in?” she asked.

  “As if I’d be able to stop you,” he muttered, opening the door to the Airstream and turning on the lights.

  As Holly followed him, she gave Raines a smug wink. He didn’t notice. His focus was on Scotty’s back and what appeared to be the outline of a handgun hidden under his shirt.

  No point questioning him about it because concealed carry without a permit was legal in New Hampshire.

  Raines got straight to the point. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Mimi Milbourne?”

  Scotty stared at him. His eyes were reflecting pools. They revealed nothing. “I heard it was bad.”

  “As bad as it gets.”

  Scotty shook his head. “That’s a real shame. She was a nice lady.” He ignored Holly and looked right at Raines. “You were interested in Beaupré. I assumed it was a suspicious house fire and none of my business. I didn’t know Mimi was missing.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Scotty squinted at Raines, and the chilly reception they’d received seemed to cool several more degrees. It was obvious he knew where Raines’ line of questioning was going, and he didn’t appreciate it. “A while ago.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  A muscle tightened in Scotty’s jaw. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m a cop, not a comedian.”

  “We go back a long way, Raines.”

  Raines hammered on. “That’s why I was surprised you didn’t mention you knew her, especially once you found out she’d been murdered. Were you seeing her on a more intimate basis?”

  Scotty didn’t respond.

  Raines continued, “She was an attractive woman, some years older than you, but that’s never stopped you before.”

  Scotty motioned up and down with his hand. “Hell, man. I’m hardly her type. Look at this place. Look at me.”

  Raines took in his worn pair of Salomon hiking boots, faded jeans and a Pusser’s Rum t-shirt with a pirate skull and crossed cutlasses on the front. A red flannel shirt, worn at the elbows, completed the ensemble. “I heard some women are attracted to the bad boys.”

  “You would know,” Scotty countered. “Nothing happened between us. It was strictly business.”

  “What did you do for her?”

  “Primarily insurance fraud. Video surveillance. People doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Like changing a flat tire when they’d filed disability claims stating they couldn’t lift so much as a coffee cup.”

  “Anyone turn nasty?”

  “No. They didn’t even see me.”

  Raines asked, “Did Mimi ever tell you she had problems with anyone in particular?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “How was she to work with?”

  Scotty shrugged. “Professional. Always paid me on time.”

  “And you didn’t see her last night?”

  “As I already said. It’s been awhile.”

  “Were you with anyone else last night?”

  Scotty stiffened. “It’s beginning to feel like Groundhog Day, Raines, and I’m not into reruns. When I need an alibi, you’ll get it.”

  After what he’d been put through on Nate’s case, Scotty’s unwillingness to be more forthcoming wasn’t surprising. Holly doubted they’d get more from him, but she got the vibe he hadn’t had an affair with Mimi.

  Raines pushed. “The bastard made her suffer. Really suffer. So I don’t give a crap about your feelings on reruns.”

  Scotty softened. “I wish I knew something, but I don’t. I spoke to her about a month ago. She needed me to get a signature on an insurance form from someone in the hospital. I’m a notary.”

  “What kind of form?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “Mimi is dead, and this could be relevant.”

  Scotty thought it over for a moment. “I doubt it. The lady is dying, and the form had something to do with her life insurance policy.”

  Holly cut in, “Was it a viatical?”

  Scotty turned his focus to her, apparently interested by her question. “Yes. It was.”

  “Who did you see?” she asked.

  “Edith Smith.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “She’s local. In her late fifties, early sixties. Used to work for my cousin at The Muddy Paw until she got c
ancer. She’s over at Caxton Memorial now. Anyway, she needed money. You know Mimi helped people out who needed money by buying their life insurance policies?”

  “Her husband mentioned it,” Raines said. “Do you know if the viatical was processed?”

  “All I know is that Mimi gave me a replacement document Edith Smith needed to sign. I guess the form she originally signed never made it to Mimi’s office. I took it to the hospital. She signed. End of story.”

  Holly glanced at Raines and raised her eyebrows signaling that she’d been right to be suspicious of Mimi’s viatical deals.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The creaking stairs woke Raines. Seconds later, he heard the front door open and close. Rolling over, he reached for his cell phone. It was one thirty in the morning, and he’d been in bed less than half an hour. After Scotty’s, the Chief had called them in for a briefing, which turned out not to be brief at all.

  His pillow was still damp from the shower he’d just taken. A smell of smoke filled his room, and it took him a moment to realize that it came from the pile of dirty clothes he’d discarded on the bathroom floor.

  He didn’t have to guess who’d just snuck out of the house. He knew it was Abbey. The week before she’d taken his brand new F250 for a joy ride at two in the morning and hit a boulder about halfway down the driveway. Her excuse was that she couldn’t sleep and decided it was the perfect time to learn to drive. Of course, he hadn’t believed her, but at the time of the accident, he’d been more concerned about her welfare than what she’d been doing. Luckily, she’d walked away without so much as a scratch, which had been his primary concern, but his truck hadn’t fared so well.

  When he’d questioned her about what she had really planned to do, she’d had a meltdown and claimed he didn’t trust her. The argument had turned to his brother, as it typically did, and how he’d betrayed Nate.

  Given the teenager’s emotional volatility, he knew it would be a hell of a lot easier to avoid another confrontation by pretending he hadn’t heard her. The only problem was that if she planned on taking another late-night drive, she might not be so lucky.

  He threw back the covers, pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt and ran barefoot downstairs. He found her sitting on the porch steps, lacing up her sneakers. Memphis, his chocolate Labrador, stood beside her and wagged his tail the enthusiastic way dogs do the moment they spot their special human. “Isn’t it a little late to be heading out, Abbey?”

  His niece turned and glared at him, a challenge evident in the firm set of her lips and defiant tilt of her chin. “Or it’s early, depending on your point of view,” she snapped. Standing up, she stomped past him to the far end of the porch, plunked down on a wicker chair, and rocked backwards, balancing on two of the chair’s creaky legs.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and breathed in deeply. The crisp autumn air, sweetened with dying sugar maple leaves and pine oil from browning needles, carried the first hint of winter. The painted porch floorboards felt cold under his bare feet. The temperature had to be below forty degrees. He wished he’d taken the time to put his boots on.

  Because he didn’t want to argue with her again, he forced a smile and said, “That’s another way to look at it, honey.” When she failed to return his smile, he guessed she was still mad at him for refusing to visit his brother. She’d been pushing him to go for more than a year. He tried to think of something to say that would smooth things over but failed.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Nothing.” He stared at her and noticed what she was wearing. Cold dread hammered at his heart. She had on black leggings, a black quilted jacket, a black ski hat and purple running shoes. What had she been sneaking out to do?

  The legs of her chair smacked back down to the wooden deck with a thud. “Why are you staring at me like that? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Raines fought a sigh. “I didn’t say you had.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “You want to know something, Uncle Cal?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Now you’re a cop, you’re always waiting to bust me for something. You’re so suspicious I’m up to something. You were way cooler when you were in your band. When did you become so old? So uncool?”

  At thirty-four, Raines didn’t consider himself old. In fact, he was fitter now than he’d been in his glory days as the front man for Acid Raines. His life had been a blaze of the excess that rock and roll bands reveled in. He’d survived on copious amounts of alcohol, sex and cigarettes capped off with all-night partying. Luckily, he’d never been into drugs, but the rest had taken its toll. Since giving up nicotine and his lively antics on stage, he kept in shape with daily workouts and—much to his everlasting disappointment—a healthier diet, which consisted of more fish than burgers and less beer than water.

  He was aware Abbey’s dig had nothing to do with his age or even his change of careers, though. Raines was well versed in the language of loss and anger. He’d experienced it at a young age and had even written hit songs about it. He knew what she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t deliver. He couldn’t lie to her and pretend that his brother wasn’t guilty as hell. “All I want is to make things better for you and your sister.”

  “You know what will make things better for me.”

  “I wish it were that easy, Abbey.”

  “It is for me.”

  The anguish in her voice nearly broke him, but it wouldn’t be fair to let her believe she’d convinced him. So he said nothing.

  “Please? Just go hear him out. You owe him that much.”

  He didn’t owe Nate a damn thing, but he wouldn’t hurt Abbey any further by saying so. “Come on. Let’s head back inside.”

  She balled her hands into fists. “I don’t get how you can believe he did it. Dad would never hurt Mom. Never. The trial wasn’t fair. The police and that Holly Jakes had it in for him. She used me against him, and she convinced everyone he was guilty. Even you. If you went to hear what he had to say now the lawyers aren’t controlling his every word, you’d believe him.” Her voice cracked. She paused, struggling to regain her composure.

  There was nothing Nate could say that Raines wanted to hear. All Raines felt like doing was pounding his brother into the ground for what he’d done to Sherry and the girls and what he continued to do by proclaiming his innocence. Abbey would never be able to get on with her life while she was wrapped up in Nate’s lies. How could he get her to accept the truth, though? That was the problem. She’d heard all of the evidence in court. How do you change someone’s mind when they have such faith in another person? Raines placed a hand on top of her blonde head. “I’m sorry, Abbey. It’s been a brutal year.”

  She shook it off. “Don’t say you’re sorry when you’re really not.”

  The teen looked pale, and her blue eyes—so much like her mother’s—filled with unshed tears that tore at him. Turning her head away, she pretended to look at something in the distance. It didn’t fool him. The porch light cast a dim glow, but it was bright enough to see her blink away the tears.

  Although he admired her struggle to control her emotions, he knew she did so by holding onto her anger. Abbey was stuck—lost somewhere deep in the grieving process—unable to fully mourn the loss of her mother because of her granite-hewn determination to prove her father innocent. She’d refused professional counseling. No matter how hard he pushed it, she pushed back even harder, which only resulted in her continued entrenchment in her father’s innocence.

  Nothing in life had prepared him on how to raise teenage girls, especially not after they’d suffered such emotional trauma. Committed to helping both her and Melody, he’d visited a psychologist on his own, who’d advised him to provide the girls with a safe home but allow them to grieve in their own time. But how much time should he give them? They’d had over a year and didn’t seem to be doing any better. The idea that he was
failing them filled him with cold terror.

  Life on the road, with nothing more to think about than the next concert or the next undercover assignment for the DEA, had been far easier than parenting two teens he’d barely known. But walking away was not an option. They needed him. He had to find a way to get them through the grieving process.

  Abbey gazed up at him with imploring eyes. “Why can’t you believe me? I know my Dad didn’t do it. I just don’t understand why I’m the only one who believes him.”

  “Abbey…”

  She jumped up and yelled, “Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t get how you sleep at night knowing your brother is locked up in that horrible prison. He’s so miserable.”

  Words failed him. He didn’t know what to do, so he reached out to hug her.

  “Just leave me alone!” she yelled, shoving his hand away and running down the porch steps.

  He watched her head toward the stables and the comfort of her horses. Should he follow her? But what would he say? Perhaps if he’d raised her from birth, he would have found the right words. His failure to help her tormented him, but he was at a loss to know what to do. Whenever he tried to talk to her, it backfired and created more distance between them.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At two o’clock Sunday morning, Holly pulled into her driveway and was relieved to discover that Boonie hadn’t returned. She didn’t have enough energy to muster so much as a lukewarm kiss or, considering the present state of their relationship, the stamina to withstand another argument about the long hours she’d worked. Switching off the engine, she leaned back against the headrest. The temptation to close her eyes and fall asleep right there was seductive, but the thought of her bed, so big and inviting, proved too irresistible. She yanked opened the door and got out. The slug of cold air that hit her did nothing to revive her exhausted body. She needed sleep. She almost salivated at the prospect of snuggling under the covers for the next six hours.

  Heading straight for her bedroom, she did a face plant, fully clothed, into her pillows. What seemed like seconds later, her cell phone rang. The pillows muffled her groans. Without getting up, she palmed the nightstand for the phone.