“Three or four days?” Eliza tried to hide her alarm and failed miserably. “If one of my children did this, Kell, I need to know now. This type of secret can eat away at you, break you.”
The steady look Eliza directed at her had Kell fighting the urge to squirm. They’d never told her about the warehouse or the fire. Or the money. Fin’s plan to create a diary meant they didn’t have to. Julia swore not to tell, and to Kell’s knowledge, didn’t. Still, knowledge flashed in the hazel eyes that had seen through a thousand lies. This was one story, though, Kell couldn’t reveal without permission. Instead, she tried for distraction. “I’ve got an attorney in my office working on getting the reports. I can probably find out what they know the same time the sheriff does.”
“What will that do?”
“It will give us a lead. Help us figure out if someone here tried to avenge Nina or not.” Kell explained, “The autopsy will tell us time of death and the height and weight of his attacker. We’ll be able to eliminate a number of the kids based on that information alone.”
“We?”
Hearing the note of hope, Kell relented. “I’ll come back early next week, once I have the results. We can do our own investigation and put this to rest.”
Eliza voiced the question that had plagued her since she found the knife. “What if one of my children did do this? I can’t turn in one of my own, but my goodness, Kell, I can’t allow any child in my care to become a murderer.”
“We’ve got time, Mrs. F. On Tuesday or Wednesday, we’ll know where we stand, and then we can determine how we react.” Kell spoke calmly, reaching for the confidence that convinced others to place their lives in her hands.
With those same hands, she gripped Eliza’s shoulders. “I’m not going to leave you alone again. I promise.”
CHAPTER 8
In the hallway beyond Kell’s room, a shadow lengthened and turned. Silent footfalls traced a path across the foyer and to the kitchen where the door stood slightly ajar. The figure paused in the airy, open space. Cabinets stretched along three walls, their surfaces pristine. On the far wall, a butcher block squatted on the granite. Slots held knives of various sizes and shapes, each held in its place. Every one. Black mask in place, he approached the block and found the knife he’d been afraid to find. The one flaw in an otherwise perfect plan. Because he’d relied on amateurs, an obvious mistake had been made.
One that had to be corrected if disaster was to be averted. One knife held the key. One knife worth killing for. Again.
He opened drawers slowly, searched methodically, certain he would fail. The missing knife, the murder weapon, had been taken from the victim’s leg before the police could find it and match it to the others. Logic assumed Eliza Faraday had the knife. That she had gone to Clay’s apartment that night and recognized the weapon.
Leaving the kitchen, he crept into the study. The drawers were unlocked, a testament to Eliza’s naïveté. After so many years, to still trust in the goodness of urchins born to hookers, thieves, and killers. To imagine that nature would be defied by a single woman’s vain attempt at nurture.
He carefully removed each item in each drawer, making scant noise. The house had settled to sleep hours before, and he understood the Center’s patterns. Which is how he’d slipped through the alarm before nightfall, had been privy to the touching scene between Eliza and Kell Jameson.
Another mistake left to reappear. His hand tightened in a burst of rage, snapping the item in his grasp. He opened his fingers and saw the plastic toy that had given beneath his fury. Kell Jameson and the other two had run that night, he recalled forbiddingly. When he would have acted, heads higher than his demanded no action. They wouldn’t tell, the others had argued, wouldn’t dare.
Then they’d vanished, the older two, and the younger one had been cautioned into quiet. For sixteen years, no one stirred the sleeping ghosts, no one dared. Until the need to act had become urgent. Time, for long their friend, had turned quickly. Decisions had fallen to him, and he’d made the choices others refused. Because he had the foresight to comprehend the full scope of their endeavors. To place the pieces into a whole.
Pieces that would fall apart if he didn’t locate the knife. He straightened from the desk and moved to the bookcase. For hours, in silence, he removed each volume and searched the crevice of every shelf. As dawn approached, he considered the shelves near the door. In thirty years, she’d never mentioned a safe. Indeed, when he’d quizzed her about one, she’d laughed that she had nothing to protect, nothing to hide. Every resident was free to peruse the library’s shelves, to borrow any book.
He examined the titles closely, noting their arcane topics. Bertrand Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy wedged between Diop and an anthropological text on race, gender, and religion. Surrounded by more books that no teenager would trouble himself to read.
Above him, noises began to creep through the house, signaling the waking of its residents. He moved faster, tossing volumes onto the carpet to land with muffled thuds. The dial resided behind a treatise on space-time. He steadied himself, and used the skills he’d learned over a lifetime. The tumblers of the old-fashioned safe revealed their combination with a disappointing ease. He opened the steel door and found the bundle wrapped in a kitchen towel. The worn fabric had not come from Eliza’s kitchen, which meant he’d not be able to use it as planted evidence. A pity.
With haste, he replaced the thrown volumes, spurred by the pink light that drifted into the room. Room intact, he sped across the foyer into the kitchen. And collided with a small warm body. The boy stared up, mouth ringed by purloined milk. Before he could scream, he cuffed the boy hard across the temple. His free hand caught the tumbler of milk before it could crash against the linoleum, while the boy slid gracelessly to the floor. He set the tumbler on the counter and stepped over the fallen body.
In the growing light, he rushed behind the Center, weaving between its imposing oaks, emerging into the dense wood that concealed his vehicle. At the proper moment, the knife would make its bow, if his contingencies fell through. Kell’s presence assured him that one or more would, but he cast aside doubt.
They’d worked for years, thriving and building and shedding those who betrayed their codes. Greed tempted ostentation, a trait he’d never displayed. His success, his power, required no outward validation of its existence. Empires grown from fallow ground and seized opportunities. Mistakes had been made, certainly, lives made forfeit because of them. One or three more would be meager prices for success.
After all, no one else had cared, why should they?
Kell burrowed deeper into her pillow, remnants of a pleasantly erotic dream clinging to the edge of memory. She recognized herself, and pretended not to know the identity of the man who’d done unspeakably wonderful things to her along a sparkling white beach. As wakefulness threatened, she tried to command herself back to sleep.
She’d spent the last ten weekends waking at the crack of dawn to focus on Brodie’s defense, and for the first Saturday in recent memory, she was on her own timetable. No motions in limine or briefs to file to suppress evidence that would sink her client for sure.
For one glorious, hard-earned Saturday she would lounge about, slough off, and otherwise commit herself to intentional relaxation. The reason for her visit to Hallden had hit a brick wall. Without an autopsy or an arrest warrant, the Faraday case wasn’t. She didn’t have an alternate theory of the crime to follow up on, and any questions she might pose to the sheriff’s department reflected badly on her client.
She had no choice but to stay in bed until hunger demanded she hunt through the Center’s well-stocked pantry for sustenance. Visions of pancakes slathered in maple syrup set her stomach to rumbling. She flipped over, as much to quiet the sound as to avoid the sunlight that had the temerity to sneak through the lace curtains hanging at her window.
The shadowy figure of her fantasies had begun a fresh assault on her senses when a scream pierced
the pleasant haze of sleep. From the sound, the screamer had been nearby. Kell vaulted from the bed, clad in the tank top and shorts she habitually slept in. She raced through the door and saw Nina standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
Kell crossed to her and saw Jorden lying prostrate on the cold floor. A bruise had already begun to darken the tender skin. “Nina, go call 911,” she instructed tersely, moving past the immobile body to kneel beside Jorden. She located his pulse, and looked up to see that Nina had yet to move. “He’s alive, Nina. Call 911. Now.”
Eliza appeared in the entrance and clutched Nina’s shoulders. She corrected Kell’s instructions. “Nina, go into the study and call Sheriff Calder. His number is on the desk. Do not call the police, call Luke. Okay, honey?”
Nina nodded, her emerald eyes huge in the pallor of her face. She shifted past Eliza and ran to the study. Eliza joined Kell by Jorden’s side. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Kell cradled his head in her lap, afraid to move him. “I heard Nina scream, came running in here and found him on the floor.” She stroked the bruised cheek tenderly. “He’s breathing fine and his pulse is good.”
“That bruise isn’t from the floor.” Eliza covered her mouth for an instant. “Someone hit the boy.”
“I think you’re right.” Kell angled her chin up at the counter. “He seemed to be getting a glass of milk. The milk is fine, but he’s down here. My guess is that someone hit him.”
“Not one of my children.”
“No, of course not.”
Kell knew the moment the true culprit occurred to Eliza.
“The knife!”
Kell nodded once. “Go, make sure it’s wherever you put it. Luke will be here soon.”
Eliza scrambled up, passing Nina on her way. She told the girl to report to Kell and then to wake the other children without alarming them. In her study, she shut the door and locked it tight. She moved to the second entrance, locking that door as well. But one look at the bookcase told her security had been breached. The volumes, carefully replaced, were out of the order she’d maintained for decades. Her hand trembled as she entered the combination and opened the safe. Papers and the stack of emergency cash she kept inside remained inviolate. But the knife and the towel it had been wrapped inside were both gone.
Putting aside the panic that bubbled into her throat, Eliza replaced the books and returned to the kitchen. Jorden had begun to wake, groaning softly. The brown eyes fluttered open and focused on Eliza. He jackknifed up and threw himself into her arms, which closed around him fiercely.
“Ow.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she exclaimed, loosening her grip. “I didn’t mean to hug you too tightly.”
“No, ma’am, not that,” he moaned into her chest. “My face hurts really bad.”
Gently, Eliza stroked his back and kissed his forehead. “Do you know what happened, Jorden?”
“A man in a black mask punched me in the face,” he announced, his voice muffled. “It hurt.”
Kell crawled over to sit beside him. “Did you recognize anything about him?”
“No. He was taller than me, that’s all.”
Before Kell could ask another question, Luke pushed open the swinging door. He took in the scene in a glance and joined the trio on the floor. Without moving Eliza, he thumbed Jorden on the nose. “Hear you tried to catch a burglar with your face?”
Jorden giggled, his chest puffing out. He wriggled away from Eliza in sudden embarrassment and tried to stand.
Luke fastened a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Jorden. Take your time. Though, if it were me, I’d rather be getting a hug from two pretty women than standing up myself.”
Relieved, because his face was on fire, Jorden returned to Eliza, though he decided it wasn’t too manly to lay his head back down. “Do you really think it was a burglar?” he asked Luke excitedly.
“Won’t know until I do an investigation.” Luke sat on the floor and stretched his legs out, then removed his notepad. “Mr. Abrams, I’d like to take your statement.”
“For real?”
“Absolutely.” Luke took his time turning pages. “You’re my eyewitness to the crime, aren’t you?”
Kell watched the exchange and tried not to notice the way Luke reinforced the boy’s pride and distracted him from his pain. Because if she gave him credit for kindness and sensitivity, she’d be in even more trouble than she’d already admitted.
Hoping to distract herself, she came to her knees.
“Kell, don’t leave,” Jorden demanded fretfully. “I might need a lawyer.”
Smothering a smile, she explained, “You’re not the perpetrator, Jorden.”
“But the cop shows always make the guy talking to the police have a lawyer,” he repeated stubbornly. “Can’t you be mine?”
“Yes, Kell. Mr. Abrams desires counsel. Will you deny him his Fifth Amendment rights?” Luke teased in mock seriousness.
Deciding not to lecture either of them on the rudiments of the Constitution, and catching the approving look in Eliza’s eyes, she sank down. “You may question my client.”
Jorden explained in dramatic detail how the man had run into him, then punched him in the face. As he recounted the story, Nina and other children arrived in the kitchen. Eliza tried to shoo them out, but saw the expressions of worry and fear. They wanted to know what happened, and to know it wouldn’t happen again. Slipping Jorden on to the floor between Luke and Kell, she quietly ushered the children into the kitchen. They took up posts along the cabinet, some sitting on the stools by the island. The older kids held the youngest ones as Jorden went through his story a third time, led by Luke.
“Did you hear anything when you came downstairs?” he asked a second time.
“No, sir. I didn’t hear anything. I wanted to watch cartoons, but I can only watch them in the TV room ’cause I wake up early.”
“Why did you come into the kitchen?”
“I was thirsty.” He gestured to the glass. “Mrs. F gets mad if you don’t use a glass and we have to have milk or water in the morning.”
“So you came down the stairs and into the kitchen. But you didn’t hear anything?”
Jorden squinted in sudden thought. “Well, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I heard a thumping noise maybe in the library.” He ducked his head. “But I didn’t listen too close.”
Alert, Luke prompted, “Why not?”
Jorden slanted a look across the room at the other children, then leaned in to Luke and Kell. “They said that ghosts live in the library at night. I thought it was one of them.”
Having told the same story herself, Kell patted his arm in commiseration. “I’ve heard the same thing. But I don’t believe the man that hit you was a ghost.”
The look of relief would have been comic under other circumstances. Luke asked a few more questions, admired the black eye, and sent Jorden off with Eliza to visit the emergency room. Main attraction gone, the other children scattered to begin morning chores, chattering excitedly about the dramatic events.
Luke lingered in the kitchen, and Kell decided to make coffee as a peace offering. And to keep her hands busy. “You were very good with him,” she commented as she filled the glass pot.
“I left my rubber hose in my other pocket.”
Kell smiled, then gave him a considering look. “He was frightened and embarrassed. You made him feel like a grown-up.”
A bit embarrassed himself, Luke scratched at the stubble he hadn’t had time to shave in his rush to get to the Center. “I was a nine-year-old boy once. And I like Jorden. He’s a good kid.”
“Will you do an investigation?”
“Someone broke into the Center for a reason. Eliza told me she didn’t see anything missing, and I expect who ever it was wore gloves. But I’ll have Cheryl and one of my deputies come and dust for prints.”
Nina pushed into the kitchen. Gone were the pajamas, replaced by a sundress
, and, if Kell wasn’t mistaken, a smidgen of blush.
“Kell, Mrs. F said that I should come and help you with breakfast.” Nina smiled shyly at Luke. “Hi, Sheriff. I’m so glad you came to help.”
“My pleasure, Nina.” He returned the shy smile. “You look very pretty in yellow. I’ll have to visit the Center more often. Surround myself with beautiful women.”
Kell didn’t have to hear Nina’s sigh, since she could scarcely contain her own. A man who was kind to frightened boys and able to flirt gently with teenage girls nursing a crush. Her heart took another timid step toward a precipice. Then alarm skittered into Kell’s eyes as the rest of Nina’s sentence registered. “Help me do what with breakfast?”
Nina sauntered to the refrigerator and laughed, practicing the husky sound she’d heard Kell make yesterday. On her, it sounded more like a cough. Abandoning the effort, she explained, “Mrs. F said you’d take care of breakfast while she took Jorden to the doctor. Faith went with her, and Brandon is upstairs supervising.”
“Brandon?”
“Brandon McLean. Tall, skinny quiet guy. He’s shy.” Nina grabbed eggs and a carton of milk. “We usually have—”
“Pancakes on Saturday,” Kell finished. “I don’t know how to make pancakes.”
Luke released a laugh too when alarm became abject terror. Realizing his task of saving the day had just begun, he beckoned to Nina. “If you can make sure everyone gets their chores done in thirty minutes, I’ll make waffles.”
“The ones with the blueberries?” she asked eagerly. “Mrs. F has some in the freezer.”
“Yep.”
Nina nodded and hurried out, remembering to slow down as she reached the door. “Thanks, Sheriff Luke. You’re the best.”
Left alone again, Kell finished preparing the coffee. “I can defend a cartel against drug possession charges while standing in the center of the drug boat, but I can’t cook to save my life.”
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