The Cabin
Carla Neggers
Greed and vengeance disrupt the quiet stillness of the Adirondack mountainsTexas Ranger Jack Galway knows his wife Susanna loves him, so when their marriage hits a rough patch, he supports her decision to take their two teenaged daughters to Boston for a break. But when a few weeks turns into several months, Jack heads to Boston to get his family back.Packing up the girls and her grandmother, Susanna heads to her cabin in the Adirondacks, trying to escape her fears, her secrets and even the man she loves. Little does she know she's being followed, not just by her husband but by a murderer….Ex-convict Alice Parker left a mess back in Texas, and she'll never forgive Jack Galway for killing her dream of becoming a Texas Ranger herself. Obsessed with revenge, she's got her sights set on Jack's family.Trapped in the mountains, Jack and Susanna must find strength in each other if they hope to keep their family together and escape the cabin alive.
Greed and vengeance disrupt the quiet stillness of the Adirondack mountains
Texas Ranger Jack Galway knows his wife Susanna loves him, so when their marriage hits a rough patch, he supports her decision to take their two teenaged daughters to Boston for a break. But when a few weeks turns into several months, Jack heads to Boston to get his family back.
Packing up the girls and her grandmother, Susanna heads to her cabin in the Adirondacks, trying to escape her fears, her secrets and even the man she loves. Little does she know she’s being followed, not just by her husband but by a murderer.…
Ex-convict Alice Parker left a mess back in Texas, and she’ll never forgive Jack Galway for killing her dream of becoming a Texas Ranger herself. Obsessed with revenge, she’s got her sights set on Jack’s family.
Trapped in the mountains, Jack and Susanna must find strength in each other if they hope to keep their family together and escape the cabin alive.
Praise for the novels of
Carla Neggers
“Well-plotted, intriguing and set mostly in the lushly described Irish countryside, the novel is smart and satisfying, and the paths of three couples growing even more devoted to each other are deftly woven into the suspenseful storyline.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Declan’s Cross
“With a great plot and excellent character development, Neggers’ latest thriller…is a fast-paced, action-packed tale of romantic suspense that will appeal to fans of Lisa Jackson and Lisa Gardner.”
—Library Journal on Saint’s Gate
“No one does romantic suspense better!”
—New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich
“Carla Neggers is one of the most distinctive, talented writers of our genre.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“This heartwarming tale is full of fascinating secondary characters, and enhanced by plot threads involving the long-term effects of a flooded valley, a search for jewels and long-ago passion.”
—Booklist starred review of Secrets of the Lost Summer
“[Neggers] forces her characters to confront issues of humanity, integrity and the multifaceted aspects of love without slowing the ever-quickening pace.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Only a writer as gifted as Carla Neggers could use so few words to convey so much action and emotional depth.”
—New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown
The Cabin
Carla Neggers
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To my daughter, Kate
Contents
Chapter One (#u4f6cebd5-69ff-5896-b4b9-e390f9784b6e)
Chapter Two (#ubd9fa273-06df-5a7c-8ead-82c0b88a69f4)
Chapter Three (#u03d91924-7b94-575e-b47f-059c69da1a19)
Chapter Four (#ua480f71e-4bbb-5dbd-b2ec-86f1a422daa3)
Chapter Five (#ubfbebdd3-6998-585c-b230-cba0cb3a2453)
Chapter Six (#uf80d4411-5892-56d4-89d3-f0ef57ce389f)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
One
Susanna Galway sipped her margarita and watched the countdown to midnight on the television above the bar at Jim’s Place, the small, dark pub just down the street from where she lived with her grandmother and twin teenage daughters. It had been a fixture in the neighborhood for as long as Susanna could remember.
An hour to go. There’d be fireworks, a new year to celebrate. It was a clear, dark, very cold night in Boston, with temperatures barely in the teens, but thousands had still gone out to enjoy the many First Night festivities.
Jim Haviland, the pub’s owner, eyed Susanna with open suspicion. He made no secret that he thought she should have gone back to her husband in Texas months ago. And Susanna didn’t disagree. But, still, she hadn’t gone home.
Jim laid a sparkling white bar towel on one of his powerful shoulders. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” he told her.
She licked salt off her glass. It was warm in the bar, and she wished she hadn’t opted for cashmere. Silk would have been better. She’d been determined to feel a little bit elegant tonight. But Jim had already told her she looked like the Wicked Witch of the East coming in there in her black skirt, sweater and boots, with her long black hair—apparently only her very green eyes saved her. Her coat was black, too, but she’d hung it up and tucked her black leather gloves in her pocket before sliding onto her stool. She hadn’t bothered with a hat since the bar was only a few doors down from Gran’s house.
“I never feel sorry for myself,” she said. “I looked at all my choices for the evening and decided I’d like nothing better than to ring in the New Year with one of my father’s oldest friends.”
Jim snorted. “I know bullshit when I hear it.”
Susanna smiled at him, unrepentant. “You make a pretty good margarita for a Yankee.” She set her glass down. “Why don’t you make me another?”
“Okay, but two’s your limit. You’re not passing out in my bar. I’m not calling your Texas Ranger husband and telling him I let his wife fall off one of my bar stools and hit her head—”
“Such drama. I’m not getting myself drunk, and you’d call Gran, not Jack, because Gran’s just up the street, and Jack’s in San Antonio. And I know you’re not the least bit intimidated because he’s a Texas Ranger.”
Jim Haviland gave her a half smile. “Sixty-eight degrees in San Antonio.”
Susanna refused to let him get to her. He was the father of her best friend in Boston, her own father’s boyhood friend and a surrogate uncle to her these past fourteen months since she’d been on her own up north. He was opinionated, solid and predictable. “Are you going to make me that margarita?” she asked.
“You should be in Texas with your family.”
“I had Maggie and Ellen for Thanksgiving. Jack has them for Christmas and New Year’s.”
Jim scowled. “Sounds like you’re divvying up dibs on the neighborhood snowblower.”
“It doesn’t snow in San Antonio,” Susanna said with an easy smile. She’d put an imaginary, protective shield around her to get her through the night, and she was determined nothing would penetrate it—not guilt, not fear, not thoughts of the only man she’d ever loved. She and Jack had done the holidays together last year. That hadn’t worked out very well. Their emotions were still too raw, neither ready to talk. Not that her husband was ever ready to talk.
“You know,” Jim said, “if I were Jack—”
“If you were Jack, you’d be investigating serial killers instead of making me margaritas. What fun would that be?” She pushed her glass across the bar toward him. “Come on. A nice, fresh margarita. You can reuse my glass. Hold the salt this time if you want.”
“I’ll hold the liquor before I hold the salt, and I’m not reusing your glass. Health laws.”
“There are six other bars within walking distance,” Susanna said. “I have on my wool socks. I can find somebody to serve me another margarita.”
“They all use mixes.”
But Jim Haviland didn’t call her bluff. He snatched up her empty glass and set it on a tray, then grabbed a fresh glass. His bar was impeccably clean. He offered one nightly dinner special and kept an eye on his customers, running his bar in strict accordance with Massachusetts law. People didn’t come to Jim’s Place to get drunk—it was a true neighborhood pub, as old-fashioned as its owner. Susanna had always felt safe there, welcomed even when Jim was on her case and she wasn’t at her nicest herself.
“I shipped Iris and her pals up a gallon of chili,” he said. “How do you like that? Even your eighty-two-year-old grandmother’s having more fun on New Year’s than you are.”
“They’re playing mahjong until five minutes after midnight. Then they’re calling it quits and going to bed.”
Jim eyed her again, less critically. He was a big, powerfully built man in his early sixties who treated Susanna like an honorary niece, if a wayward one. “You went home last New Year’s,” he pointed out softly.
And she’d meant for her and Jack to settle whatever was going on between them, but the one time they were alone, on New Year’s Eve, they’d ended up in bed together. They hadn’t settled anything.
Exactly one year ago, she’d been making love to her husband.
Two margaritas weren’t going to do the trick. She could get herself rip-roaring drunk, but it wouldn’t stop her from thinking about where she’d been last year at this time and where she was now. Nothing had changed. Not one damn thing.
Fourteen months and counting, and she and Jack were still in limbo, a kind of marital paralysis that she knew couldn’t last. Maggie and Ellen were seniors in high school now, applying to colleges, almost grown up. They’d called a couple of hours ago, and Susanna had assured them she was ringing in the New Year in style. No mahjong with Gran and her pals. She didn’t want her daughters thinking she was pitiful.
She hadn’t talked to Jack.
“There’s nobody here, Jim,” she said. “Why don’t you close up the place? We can go up on the roof and catch the fireworks.”
He looked up from the margarita he was reluctantly fixing for her. His movements were careful, deliberate. And his blue eyes were serious. “Susanna, what’s wrong?”
“I bought a cabin in the Adirondacks,” she blurted. “But that’s good. It’s a great cabin. It’s in a gorgeous spot. Three bedrooms, stone fireplace, seven acres right on Blackwater Lake.”
“The Adirondacks are way the hell up in New York.”
She nodded. “The largest wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states. Six million acres. Gran grew up on Blackwater Lake, you know. Her family used to own the local inn—”
“Susanna. For God’s sake.” Jim Haviland shook his head heavily, as if this new development—a cabin in the Adirondacks—was beyond his comprehension. “You should buy a place in Texas, not in the boonies of upstate New York. What were you thinking? Jesus, when did this happen?”
“Last week. I went up to Lake Placid for a few days on my own—I don’t know, it seemed like a positive thing to do. I needed to clear my head. I saw this cabin. It’s not all that far from my parents’ summer place on Lake Champlain. I couldn’t resist. I figured if not now, when?”
“You and clearing your head. I’ve been listening to that line for months. The only thing that’s going to clear your damn head is marching your ass back to Texas and sorting things out with your husband. Not buying cabins in the freaking woods.”
Susanna pretended not to hear him. “Gran’s practically a legend in the Adirondacks, did you know that? She was a guide in her teens and early twenties, before she and my dad moved to Boston. He was just a little tyke—I’m sure he doesn’t remember. Gran seemed a little shocked when I told her I’d bought a place right on Blackwater Lake.”
Jim shoved the fresh margarita in front of her, his jaw set hard. He didn’t say a word.
She picked up the heavy glass, picturing herself standing on the porch of the cabin, staring out at the ice and snow on the lakes and surrounding mountains. “Something happened to me when I was up there—I don’t know if I can explain it. It’s as if this cabin was just meant to be. As if I was supposed to buy it.”
“Moved by invisible forces?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Yes.” She sipped her drink, which she noticed was not as strong as her first one. “My roots are there.”
“Roots, my ass. Iris and your dad haven’t lived in the Adirondacks in, what, sixty years?”
He shook his head, plainly mystified by this latest move of hers. He hadn’t liked it when she’d set up her office in Boston with Tess, his daughter who was a graphic artist, then stayed on her own after Tess had moved up to her nineteenth-century carriage house on the north shore with her new family. Office space implied a permanence Jim Haviland didn’t want Susanna to establish in Boston. He wanted her back with her husband. It was the way his world worked.
Hers, too, but life wasn’t always that simple.
Plus, she knew Jim liked Lieutenant Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. No surprise there. They were both men who saw most things in terms of black and white.
Jim wiped down the bar with his white towel, putting muscle into the effort, as if somehow it might relieve his frustrations with her and make him understand why she’d bought a cabin. “The Adirondacks are what, a five, six-hour drive?”
“About that.” Susanna drank more of her margarita. “I got my pilot’s license this fall. Jack doesn’t know. Maybe I’ll buy a plane. There’s a nice little airport in Lake Placid.”
Jim stared at her, assessing. “A cabin in the mountains, a plane, black cashmere—how much damn money do you have?”
Her stomach twisted into an instantaneous knot.
She had ten million as of the first of October. It was a milestone. People knew she was doing well, but few had any idea how well—not even her own husband. She just didn’t talk about it. She didn’t want money clouding anyone’s opinion of her. Of themselves. She didn’t want it to change her life, except maybe it already had. “I’ve made some lucky investments,” she told Jim.
“Ha. I’ll bet luck had nothing to do with it. You’re smart, Susanna Dunning Galway. You’re smart, and you’re tough, and—” He paused for air, which he sucked in, then heaved out in a despairing sigh. “Damn it, Susanna, you have no goddamn business buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. Jack doesn’t know?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“That means, no, Jack doesn’t know. What are you doing, trying to piss him off to the point he gives up on you—or comes up here to fetch you?”
“He’s not coming up here to fetch me.”
“Don’t count on it.”
A young couple wandered in and sat at one of the tables, hanging on to each other, not bothering with First Night festivities, Susanna thought, for very different reasons than hers. Jim greeted them warmly and went around the bar to take their order, but he stopped to glower back at her. “Did you tell Iris you were buying a place in her old stomping grounds, give her a chance to weigh in?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “No, you didn’t, because you’re bullheaded and do what you damn well want to do.”
“I’m not selfish—”
“I didn’t say you were selfish. You’re one of the kindest, most generous people I know. I said you’re bullheaded.”
Her head spun. Maybe she should have consulted Jack. His name wasn’t on the deed but they were still married. She planned to get around to telling him—it wasn’t like her cabin was a secret. Not really. When she was on Blackwater Lake, her husband and her marriage weren’t the issue. The cabin was about her, her life, her roots. She couldn’t explain. She’d almost felt as if she’d been destined to go up there, see the lake on her own, that somehow it would help her make sense of the past fourteen months.
Jim took the couple’s order and headed back behind the bar. Before she said another word, he dipped her up a bowl of steaming chili and set it in front of her. “You need something in your stomach.”
“I really want another margarita.”
“Not a chance.”
“I live up the street.” She stared at the chili, spicy and hot on a very cold Boston night. But she wasn’t hungry. “If I pass out in a ditch, somebody will find me before I freeze to death.”
Jim refrained from answering. Davey Ahearn had come into the bar, easing onto his favorite stool just down from Susanna. Susanna could feel the cold still coming off him. He shook his head at her. “Pain in the ass you are, Suzie, I wouldn’t count on it. We all might leave you in the damn ditch, hope the cold’ll jump-start your brain and you’ll go back to Texas.”
“The cold weather doesn’t bother me.”
Of course, the cold wasn’t Davey’s point at all, and she knew it. He was a big man, a plumber with a huge handlebar mustache and at least two ex-wives. He was another of her father’s boyhood friends, godfather to Jim Haviland’s daughter, Tess, and a constant thorn in Susanna’s side. Tess said it was best not to encourage Davey Ahearn by trying to argue with him, but Susanna seldom could resist—and neither could Tess.
He ordered a beer and a bowl of chili with saltines, and Susanna made an exaggerated face. “Saltines and chili? That’s disgusting.”
“What’re you doing here, anyway?” Davey shivered, as if still shaking off the frigid temperatures. Boston had been in the grips of a bitter cold snap for days, and even the natives had had enough. “Go play mahjong with Iris and her pals. A million years old, and they know how to party.”
“You’re right,” Susanna said. “It’s not a good sign, me sitting in a Somerville bar drinking margaritas and eating chili with a cranky plumber.”
Davey grinned at her. “I eat chili with a fork.”
She bit back an unwilling laugh. “That’s really bad, Davey. I mean, really bad.”
“Made you smile.” His beer and nightly special arrived, and he unwrapped three packets of saltine crackers and crumbled them onto his chili, paying no attention to Susanna’s groan. “Jimmy, how long before we can stick a fork in this year?”
“Twenty-five minutes,” Jim said. “I thought you had a date.”
“I did. She got mad and went home.”
Although she wasn’t hungry, Susanna tried some of her chili. “Davey Ahearn annoying a woman? I can’t imagine.”
“Was that sarcasm, Mrs. Jack Galway?”
Jim intervened. “All right, you two. I’m opening a bottle of bubbly at midnight. It’s on the house. What do we have, a half-dozen people in here?”
He lined up the glasses on the bar. Susanna watched him work, the chili burning in her mouth, the two margaritas she’d consumed on an empty stomach making her a little woozy. “Do you think I had kids too young?” Susanna asked abruptly, without thinking. It had to be the margaritas. “I don’t. I think it was just what happened. I was twenty-two, and all of a sudden, I’m pregnant with twins.”
“I bet it wasn’t all of a sudden,” Davey said.
She pretended not to hear him. “And here I am with this man—this independent, hardheaded Texan who wants to be a Texas Ranger never mind that he went to Harvard. We met when he was a student—”
“We remember,” Jim said gently.
“They were cute babies, Maggie and Ellen. Adorable. They’re fraternal twins—they’re not identical.”
But Jim and Davey already knew that, too. Her chest hurt, and she fought a sudden urge to cry. What was wrong with her? Margaritas, New Year’s Eve, a cabin in the mountains. Not being with Jack.
Jim Haviland checked each champagne glass to make sure it was clean. “They were damn cute babies,” he concurred.
“That’s right, you’d see them when we were up visiting Gran. Her place was always my anchor as a kid—we moved around all the time. It’s no wonder I came here when push came to shove with Jack and me.”
She shut her eyes, willing herself to stop talking. When she opened them again, the room was spinning a little, and she cleared her throat. If she did pass out and hit her head, Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn would seize the moment and call Jack. No question in her mind. Then Jack would tell them a concussion served her right.
Susanna’s heart raced. “This is only the second time Maggie and Ellen have flown alone.” She narrowed her eyes to help steady the room, imagining Jack there with one of his amused half smiles. She couldn’t remember when she’d had two margaritas in a row. He’d take credit. Say she was lonely. Missed him in bed. She gave herself a mental shake. “I was a nervous wreck the first time they flew alone.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re doing much better this time,” Davey said.
She had to admit that a third margarita would put her over the edge. She was hanging by her fingernails as it was. That was why Jim Haviland had glowered and chatted with her and served her up the chili—not just to give her a hard time, but to keep her from freefalling.
“What if Maggie and Ellen end up going to college in Texas?” She gulped for air, looking over at Davey. “What if I stay up here? My God, I’ll never see them. And Jack—”
Davey drank some of his beer, wiping the foam off his mustache. “Are there colleges in Texas?”
His wisecrack cut through her crazy mood. “That’s not funny. What if Texans came up here and made stupid assumptions about northerners?”
“What, like we’re all rude and talk too fast? Maggie and Ellen tell me that all the time. Some of us also eat saltines with our chili.” He winked at her, knowing he’d made his point. “And you’re a northerner, you know, Suzie-cue. I don’t care how many times you moved as a kid. Your dad grew up right here on this street. When Iris can’t keep up with her place anymore, he and your mom will move in with her. They’ll board up the gallery in Austin before you know it.”
“That’s the plan,” Susanna admitted.
“A plumber, a bartender and an artist.” Davey shook his head in amazement. “Who’d have thought it? Although Kevin always was good with the graffiti.”
Susanna smiled. Both her parents were artists, her mother also an expert in antique quilts. They’d surprised everyone seven years ago when they opened a successful gallery in Austin and started restoring a 1930s home, a project seemingly without end. But they still spent summers on the New York shore of Lake Champlain. When Susanna was growing up, they’d moved from place to place to teach, work, open and close galleries and otherwise indulge their wanderlust. They’d been a little shocked when Susanna had gone into financial planning and married a Texas Ranger, but she’d always gotten along well with her parents and had liked having them close by in Austin. They didn’t interfere with her relationship with Jack, but she knew Kevin and Eva Dunning didn’t understand why their daughter was living with Gran. Their response to both Susanna and Jack had been the same: they’d come to their senses soon enough.
Jim examined a frosty bottle of champagne and said idly, as if reading Susanna’s mind, “You’ve never explained what it was that made you come up here. Did you and Jack have a big fight, or did you just wake up one day and decide you needed to hear a Boston accent?”
“Maggie and Ellen had already planned to spend a semester up here—”
“Like it’s Paris or London,” Davey said. “Their semester abroad.”
“Their semester with Gran,” Susanna corrected.
“Yeah, now it’s a year,” Jim said, “and it doesn’t explain you.”
“There was a stalker.” The words were out before she could stop them. “I suppose technically he wasn’t a stalker—he turned up where I was a couple of times, but I can’t prove he followed me. I didn’t even know who he was until he showed up in my kitchen. He said things.”
Davey Ahearn swore under his breath. Jim stared at her, grim-faced, neither man kidding now. “What did you do?” Jim asked.
Susanna blinked rapidly. What was wrong with her? She’d never told anyone this. No one. Not a soul. This was a secret, she thought. “I tried not to provoke him. He wanted me to talk to Jack on his behalf. He said his piece and left.”
Jim looked tense. “Then what?”
“Then...nothing. I decided to come up here with Maggie and Ellen. Stay a few weeks.” She almost smiled. “Clear my head.”
Jim Haviland held his champagne bottle to one side and studied her closely while she ate more of her chili, barely tasting it now. Finally, he shook his head. “Jesus. You didn’t tell Jack about this bastard in your kitchen.”
“I know it sounds irrational.” She set her fork down and sniffled, picking up her margarita glass, noticing the slight tremble in her hand. “I mean, Jack’s a Texas Ranger. You’d tell him if you had a stalker, right?”
“Goddamn right. It’s one thing not to tell Jack about buying a cabin in the mountains, but a stalker—”
“It seemed to make sense at the time.”
Jim inhaled sharply, then breathed out. “Tell him now. You can use the phone in back. Call him right now and tell him.”
“It’s too late. It wouldn’t make any difference.”
“This guy’s in jail?”
She shook her head.
Jim narrowed his gaze on her. “Dead?”
“No, he’s never been charged with anything. He’s a free man.”
“Because you never told anyone he was stalking you—”
“No, no one would be interested in my stalking story. He’d just explain it away. Coincidence, misunderstanding, desperation. The authorities would never touch it, now or then.” She sipped her margarita, the melting ice diluting the alcohol. “They wanted this guy for a much bigger crime than spooking me.”
This got Davey Ahearn’s attention. “Yeah? Like what? What else did he do? Kill his wife?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, Davey, that’s exactly what he did.” Susanna stared up at the television and watched the clock tick down to midnight. Four minutes to go. Three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Happy New Year. “He killed his wife.”
Two
Jack Galway woke on New Year’s Day to an empty bed, a raging headache and dark thoughts about his wife. Push was coming to shove between the two of them. He didn’t know when or how, but it would. Soon. He was tired of waking up alone in bed. He was tired of being pissed off about the things she hadn’t told him. Susanna and her secrets.
He’d celebrated last night with his daughters and about a million of their friends. No alcohol. They were under twenty-one, and he had to drive a bunch of them home. He was in bed by one. Alone.
Last year was better. Maggie and Ellen had gone to a friend’s house, and he and his slim, dark-haired, green-eyed wife had headed straight for the bedroom. He supposed they should have worked on some of their “issues” then. But they hadn’t. The emotions between them—the anger and frustration—were still too volatile. They were locked into their silence, stubborn. And it had been too many weeks without making love.
Jack gritted his teeth. There was no point in dwelling on last year, but the truth was, he’d thought a night in bed with him would at least keep his wife from going back up to Boston. Wrong.
Steeling himself against his pounding head, he rolled out of bed and pulled on jeans and an ancient sweatshirt. With Susanna in Boston making her damn gazillions, he tended to keep his jeans and sweats in a heap on the floor. What the hell difference did it make?
He headed down to the kitchen for aspirin. Maggie and Ellen, wide awake and dressed, whirled around him, pots and bowls out, the mixer, eggs, milk, lemons, a five-pound bag of sugar. Then he remembered their New Year’s Day Jane Austen fest. Tea, scones, lemon curd, clotted cream, watercress sandwiches and one Jane Austen movie after another. It was an all-day event. They’d invited friends.
Jack stifled a groan and gulped down two aspirin. He could feel his headache spreading into his eyes.
Ellen pushed past him with the scone bowl and set it in the sink. She was athletic and pretty with chestnut hair that was so like Iris Dunning’s before hers had turned white. Ellen’s eyes were dark like his, and she was better-tempered than either parent, a people person and a rugby player with a perpetual array of bruises on her legs.
She turned on the water into the bowl. “We’ve decided to start with the Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice. That makes sense, don’t you think, Dad?”
Jack nodded. “Sure.”
“You can watch it with us if you want—”
“Ellen.” Maggie swung around from the stove. She was dark-haired and willowy like her mother, hardheaded like both parents, but, somehow, she’d managed to inherit Kevin and Eva Dunning’s artistic streak. She, too, had her father’s dark eyes. “Dad is not invited. Remember? You know what he’s like. He’ll make comments.”
Ellen bit her lower lip. “Oh, yeah. What was I thinking? Dad, you’re not invited.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll go for a run and make myself scarce.”
He headed back to his bedroom and changed into his sweats, drawing on years of training and self-discipline not to fall back onto his bed and dream about his wife. He could hear East Coast tones slipping into Maggie and Ellen’s speech. At least they’d done Jane Austen fests and high teas before they’d moved north. He hadn’t objected to a semester in Boston, a chance for them to live with their great-grandmother and really get to know her. Iris Dunning was a special lady. But he did object to Susanna heading up there—not that he’d asked her to stay or come back. Not explicitly. But she knew what he wanted.
He hadn’t expected Susanna to last past the first hard frost. She was used to life in south Texas. It was home. She knew she belonged here, but she was just fighting it, hanging in up in Boston, because it was easier than fighting him. Easier than admitting to her fears, dealing with them.
Easier than coming clean with him.
He knew he’d contributed to the impasse between them. He’d tried to deny it for months, but now he couldn’t. He was still contributing by not talking to her, not telling her what he knew. What he feared—not that he was supposed to be afraid of anything. He definitely had his own sorting out to do.
He pushed thoughts of his wife to the back of his mind. Maybe some action was called for on his part, but he didn’t know what. The status quo was aggravating, but doing something stupid and losing Susanna altogether—that was unthinkable.
He slipped out into the bright, warm San Antonio morning, breathing in the slightly humid air and making himself hear the birds singing. He started on his ten-mile route through the pleasant suburban neighborhood where he and Susanna had raised their twin daughters. Everything about his home said “family man.” Husband, father. Their house had a big family room, a nice laundry room, pictures of sunflowers and chickens in the kitchen. He remembered teaching the girls how to ride bikes on this very street. Maggie hadn’t wanted any help whatsoever. Ellen had accepted all help but still managed to bust herself up a few times.
He hated to see them fly back to Boston in a couple of days. He knew he could go with them. He was due some time off.
His headache dissipated after the first agonizing mile of his run. Then he went into a kind of zone, jogging easily, not thinking, just putting one foot in front of the other. That was what he’d done in every area of his life for the past fourteen months. Put one foot in front of the other. Steady if not patient, pushing ahead but always coming back to where he started, never getting anywhere.
“Damn it, Susanna.”
He wasn’t waking up next New Year’s without his wife. Hell, he didn’t want to wake up tomorrow without her.
Probably he should tell her as much.
He came home sweating, breathing hard, purged of his bad night and recharged to enjoy his last two days with his daughters. He peeked in the family room, where Maggie and Ellen and two friends had set up their Jane Austen fest. They all held crumpled tissues and had tears in their eyes. Jack smiled. They’d be running the world in a few years, but right now they were crying over Darcy. Maggie shot him a warning look. He winked at her and retreated to his bedroom.
He showered, put his jeans back on and turned on a football game. If he could make it to the kitchen and back without someone offering him a watercress sandwich, he’d fetch himself a beer.
Ellen knocked on his door and told him they’d voted to invite him to tea, after all. “We all agreed we want to see you try lemon curd.”
“I went to Harvard,” he said. “I’ve tried lemon curd.”
“Come on, Dad. We feel terrible having tea without you.”
There was no way out of it. He’d had two perfect weeks with his daughters. He’d taken time off and did whatever they wanted. Shopping, visiting colleges, going to movies, tossing a rugby ball around the yard—it didn’t matter. They’d spent Christmas Day in Austin with his in-laws. Kevin and Eva didn’t understand what was going on with their daughter’s marriage, but they determinedly stayed out of it.
“Do you want Earl Grey or English Breakfast?” Ellen asked.
“There’s a difference?”
He was kidding, but she took his question seriously, as if her father couldn’t possibly know tea. “English Breakfast is more like regular tea. Earl Grey has a smoky flavor—”
“English Breakfast.”
They had the good china set up on the coffee table in the family room, with Susanna’s favorite cloth napkins, small china platters of crustless sandwiches and warm scones, little bowls of clotted cream, lemon curd and strawberry jam. There were two teapots, one with Earl Grey, one with English Breakfast. Very elegant, except the girls were in jeans, jerseys and sneakers, all but Maggie, who favored what she called vintage clothing and had on a housedress Donna Reed might have worn. She was on the floor, her back against the couch, studiously avoiding looking at her father. Her nose was red. Ellen would cry at movies in front of him, but not Maggie.
The Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility was playing. Susanna had dragged him to it when it first came out. One of the sisters was in bed sick. The sensibility one, as Jack recalled.
“You’ve all seen this movie a dozen times,” he said. “How can you still cry?”
All four girls waved him quiet. “Shut up, Dad,” Maggie said.
It was the sort of “shut up” he could let go because he’d asked for it and she wasn’t three anymore. But her time up north had sharpened her tongue. He was convinced of it.
Ellen handed him a china cup and saucer and a plate with a scone, lemon curd and a tiny watercress sandwich. “You know, Dad, you should rent some Jane Austen movies for yourself. You might learn how to be more romantic.”
“I know how to be romantic.”
Both daughters rolled their eyes. He drank some of his tea. The watercress sandwich was bearable, probably because it was so small. The scones were okay. The lemon curd had lumps that he didn’t mention.
“What about me isn’t romantic?” he asked.
“Everything,” his daughters and their two friends said in unison.
He was spared further analysis of his romantic nature by the arrival of Sam Temple. Maggie and Ellen liked to pretend they didn’t notice him, but every woman in Texas noticed Sam. He was in his mid-thirties, a Texas Ranger for the past three years, and he was unmarried, good-looking and smart.
He sauntered into the family room and glanced at the television. “Isn’t that the guy from Die Hard? He’s something. Remember when he shot that cokehead weasel?”
Maggie snatched up the remote, hit the pause button and glared coolly at the two men. “There ought to be a law against Texas Rangers watching Jane Austen movies.”
Sam grinned at her. “I thought you wanted to be a Texas Ranger.”
“That was when I was eleven.”
She eased onto her feet, elegant even in her quirky Donna Reed dress and black sneakers. Jack glanced at Sam, who was wisely showing no indication of noticing that Maggie Galway wasn’t eleven anymore. She put her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you two get all your comments out of your system? Then we can finish watching our movie in peace.”
“What comments?” Sam asked, pretending not to understand. “That’s the guy from Die Hard, isn’t it?”
Ellen started refilling teacups. Their friends weren’t about to say anything. “Dad and Sam actually want to watch Jane Austen movies with us, Maggie, but they’re afraid they might cry.”
Sam’s grin only broadened. “Hey, I read Jane Austen in high school. What’s the one with Darcy? I remember that name. Holy cow. Darcy. Can you imagine? It’s a girl’s name now.”
Maggie exhaled loudly and refused to respond. Ellen fixed her dark eyes on Sam. “You’re referring to Pride and Prejudice. We have the 1940 version with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and the 1995 miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, if you’re interested.”
“Oh, man. You girls are tougher than I am.”
He grabbed a couple of watercress sandwiches and headed for the kitchen. Jack went with him. Sam hadn’t stopped by just to rib his daughters.
Sam pulled open the refrigerator. “I need something to wash down these lousy sandwiches.” He glanced back at Jack, grimacing. “What was that, parsley?”
“Watercress.”
“Jesus.” Sam took out a pitcher of tea, poured himself a glass without ice and took a long drink. Then he settled back against the counter and looked seriously at Jack. “Alice Parker got out of prison yesterday.”
“Happy New Year.”
“She’s renting a room in town.”
“Job lined up?”
“Not yet.”
Jack stared out at his shaded patio, remembering how petite, blond Alice Parker had pleaded with him to look the other way when he’d come to arrest her just over a year ago. She was convinced Beau McGarrity had killed his wife—she just couldn’t prove it. McGarrity was a prominent south Texas real estate developer with political aspirations. Alice was the small-town police officer who answered the anonymous call to check out the McGarrity ranch and found Rachel McGarrity dead in her own driveway, shot in the back after she got out of her car, presumably to open the garage door. The automatic opener was broken.
She and Beau had been married for seventy-nine days. They’d known each other less than five months.
Jack could understand how Alice Parker might have panicked coming upon her first homicide. It was late at night, she was alone, and she was young and inexperienced. But she didn’t just make ordinary mistakes that night—she completely mucked up everything. Instead of immediately securing the crime scene and calling in an investigative team, she took matters into her own hands and contaminated evidence to the point that virtually nothing was of any use to investigators, never mind being able to stand up in court. The classic overzealous, incompetent loose cannon.
But before anyone fully realized the damage she’d done, Alice Parker tried to make up for her mistakes by committing a crime herself. She produced an eyewitness, a drifter who did odd jobs and claimed he’d seen Beau McGarrity crouch in the azaleas and shoot his wife.
That was when her chief of police got suspicious and asked the Texas Rangers to investigate. Jack unraveled Alice’s story within a week. She’d found her drifter, paid him, then coached, threatened and cajoled him into lying.
Jack refused to look the other way. Alice reluctantly admitted to fabricating a witness and plea-bargained herself from a third-degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor, then settled into state prison to serve her full one-year sentence.
As a result of her official misconduct—and incompetence—the murder of Rachel McGarrity remained an open, if cold, case. Jack was convinced there was more to Alice Parker’s story, but she’d kept silent all these months. And now she’d served her time and was a free woman.
A week after he’d finished the Alice Parker investigation, Susanna had headed for Boston. Jack didn’t believe it was a coincidence.
“She’s not on parole,” Sam reminded him. “She can go anywhere, do anything, so long as she doesn’t break the law.”
Jack nodded. “Let’s hope she puts her life back together.”
“She wanted to be a Ranger. That won’t happen now.”
But they both knew it wouldn’t have happened anyway. The Texas Rangers were an elite investigative unit within the state’s Department of Public Safety. There were just over a hundred in the entire state, generally drawn from other DPS divisions, not small-town police departments.
Jack turned away from the patio doors, hearing the closing music to Sense and Sensibility coming from the family room. “Alice Parker was in over her head as a patrol officer.”
“Maybe not as much as we think. Maybe little Alice wanted us to believe she’s incompetent. Maybe she did it—maybe she killed Rachel McGarrity herself.” Sam drank more of his cold tea, obviously giving this idea serious thought. “A year in prison on a plea bargain beats the hell out of a lethal injection for premeditated murder. Admit to incompetence and produce a phony witness, draw attention away from what you really did—shoot a woman in the back in her own driveway.”
Jack shook his head. “No motive, no evidence, and I don’t think it’s what happened. Alice knew the victim. She knew the husband. That’s one of the hazards of small-town police work. She had the whole case figured out in her own head and thought she could make it all come together, put Beau McGarrity in prison and maybe get a little recognition for herself.”
“Didn’t work out that way, did it? Dreams die hard, Jack.” Sam set his tea glass in the sink. “Watch your back.”
Jack knew this was the real reason Sam had come to his house on New Year’s Day, not to rehash the Alice Parker investigation, but to communicate his misgivings about what Alice Parker might do now that she was free. Sam Temple had good instincts. He’d graduated from the University of Texas and joined the Department of Public Safety, earning his master’s degree in criminal justice on the side. He was tough-minded, decisive and naturally suspicious, but also fair. People liked Sam—they’d probably make him governor of Texas one day, if he ever decided to leave law enforcement.
He was frowning at the kitchen counter. “What the hell is that?”
Jack followed his gaze. “An espresso machine. The girls gave it to me for Christmas.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Come on, Sam, you know what an espresso machine is.”
He grinned. “You start drinking lattes, Lieutenant Galway, and they’ll throw you right out of the Rangers.” But he turned serious again, calm. “If Alice Parker tries to stick her nose back into the McGarrity case or come after you—”
“We’ll find out. She’s not stupid. She knows she has to put this behind her and move on.” Jack started back toward the family room, clapping one hand on the younger Ranger’s shoulder. “You’re just looking for things to think about so you won’t have to eat any more watercress sandwiches.”
“Not me. You’re the one who needs distracting. Susanna was down here for New Year’s last year. Bet last night was a long one for you.” Sam laughed, then said out of the blue, “It’s cold in Boston, you know. High of twenty today. Wind chill’s below zero.”
“Good.”
“If that was my wife, I’d go fetch her.” Sam’s black eyes flashed. “I’d bring my cuffs.”
“Sam—”
He held up a hand. “I know. None of my business.” He sauntered into the family room and gave the girls more grief about the guy from Die Hard.
“His name is Alan Rickman,” Maggie said coolly.
Sam shook his head. “You and Ellen have been up north too long. You’re starting to sound like Teddy Kennedy.”
Jack smiled from the doorway, listening to his daughters give as good as they got from a Texas Ranger more than fifteen years their senior. They weren’t shrinking violets. Neither was their mother, although sometimes Jack thought his life would be easier if Susanna would be a little more of a shrinking violet, at least once in a while.
Not long after Alice Parker was arrested, it became apparent that Beau McGarrity wouldn’t be charged for his wife’s murder anytime soon. People were even starting to feel sympathy for him, believing he was innocent, the victim of police corruption and a rush to judgment.
Jack felt the familiar mix of anger and frustration assault every muscle, every inch of him. His entire body stiffened. He was mad at Susanna, mad at himself—but he knew what he had to do. One of these days, he and his wife were going to have to have a talk about Beau McGarrity.
* * *
Maggie and Ellen joined him on his run the next morning. They all did five miles before Maggie pooped out, declared she was on vacation and flagged down a neighbor to drive her home. Ellen would have hung in for the full ten miles, but Jack wasn’t up to it himself and veered off on a shortcut that took them back home, settling for a solid seven-mile run.
After lunch, the girls did their laundry and started packing for their trip back to Boston in the morning. They sat folding clothes in the family room, the Weather Channel detailing the frigid temperatures still gripping the northeast.
Ellen plopped a laundry basket on the floor and sat down cross-legged, pulling out a rugby jersey to fold. “Dad,” she said, “Maggie and I have been talking, and we’ve decided—well, we haven’t said much about you and Mom...”
“We’ve tried to stay out of it,” Maggie added.
Here it comes, Jack thought. He eased onto a chair, still feeling the seven miles in his calf muscles. Thus far, his daughters had generally avoided lecturing him on his relationship with their mother. But he knew they had opinions. He could at least listen to what they had to say. “Go on,” he told them.
Ellen took a breath, as if she were about to confess to something awful or embarrassing. “We think Mom wants to be wooed.”
“Wooed?” Jack nearly choked. This was a million miles from what he’d expected. “How many Jane Austen movies did you watch yesterday?”
“We’re serious, Dad,” Ellen said.
Maggie was sorting through a stack of her vintage clothes. She and Ellen and their friends had combed through every secondhand store in San Antonio, raving over sacks of clothes they’d picked up for a few dollars. Most looked like rags to Jack. “We know Mom’s independent and supercompetent and makes tons of money and all that,” Maggie said, “and she’ll watch football with you and talk murder and stuff—”
“But she needs romance once in a while,” Ellen finished.
“Wooing,” Maggie added with a glint in her eye that said she wasn’t as intensely serious about this conclusion as her sister was.
Jack shoved a hand through his hair. It was dark, more flecked with gray than it used to be, and not, he decided, just because he was forty. Life with three females had taken its toll. When the girls headed off to college, he was getting a dog. A big, ugly, mean, male dog.
“Girls,” he said, “your mother and I have known each other since we were college students.”
Ellen pounced. “Exactly! Dad, nobody likes to be taken for granted.”
“What does that mean?”
She groaned, shaking her head as if her father was the thickest man on the planet. She was in shorts and a rugby shirt, the bruises on her legs finally faded. The San Antonio sun had brought freckles out on her nose and cheeks, lightened her chestnut hair. As far as Jack knew, neither she nor Maggie had any long-term boyfriends. Fine with him. He was in no hurry to see guys “wooing” his daughters.
Maggie folded a pair of old-man striped golf pants, circa 1975, one of her favorites. “Everyone wants to feel they’re special.”
“This isn’t about blame,” Ellen said. “It’s not about who did what wrong. It’s about how you can take the bull by the horns and...and...”
“Woo your mother back,” Jack supplied, deadpan.
Ellen frowned up at him. “Yes.”
Maggie sank back against the couch. “This isn’t a double standard. We’re not expecting you to take on the wooing because you’re a man, but because it’s so obviously what Mom wants, and it’s so—Dad, come on. It’s so simple.”
Nothing involving Susanna Dunning Galway had ever been simple. Jack shook his head. “What kind of classes have you two been taking up in Boston?”
Neither girl was backing down. Ellen said, “You were distracted in the weeks before we moved north. Remember? You had that police corruption case. You hate corruption cases, you didn’t want to talk about it, and I think it affected you more than you or Mom realized at the time.”
Jack couldn’t believe he was having a conversation with his daughters about the ramifications of his work on his relationship with his wife. “I liked you two better when I could stick you in a playpen. My work and my family life are separate. There’s a fire wall between them.”
“There! You said it!” Ellen pointed at him in victory. “You keep a part of yourself walled off from Mom. You don’t talk to her.”
Who was the one still pretending she wasn’t worth millions? He got to his feet. He should have ended this conversation the minute they’d said “woo.” It could go nowhere he wanted to go. He started for the kitchen. “Your mother knows the score with me and my work. I don’t need to tell her. She knows where she stands.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said half under her breath, “she sure does.”
His spine stiffened, but he decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that one, if only because he was putting his daughters on a plane in less than twenty-four hours. They’d be off on their own soon enough. They weren’t kids—they were young women. He couldn’t control their every word, thought and deed. Sometimes he wished he could. Like now.
At least their instinct was to defend their mother. Even if he were willing to fall on his sword over the problems in their marriage, take the blame for her move to Boston, say everything was his fault, it wouldn’t solve anything. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than lavender sachets and fresh roses to repair what they’d had.
He stormed out to the patio and kicked a chair. “A little goddamn honesty wouldn’t hurt.”
And he knew where it would begin—with his wife, not himself.
He could be stubborn, too.
Wooing Susanna. Taking her for granted. What did that mean? Susanna was about as unsentimental and unromantic as he was. What would she do if he started writing her poetry? He stared up at the clear south Texas sky and thought about Boston and its high today of eighteen degrees.
Maybe he didn’t get it.
He was still thinking about kicking more chairs when Maggie and Ellen headed out to the mall with a couple of their friends. Two minutes after they pulled out of the driveway, Alice Parker showed up at his front door. He’d forgotten how small she was. It was a wonder she’d made it through the police academy. She looked pale and tentative—the effects of her months in prison. Her blond hair was longer, pulled back in a prosaic ponytail, and she wore a white T-shirt, jeans and a lot of inexpensive gold jewelry.
“Afternoon, Miss Parker,” Jack said, his voice steady, formal. “If you have something to say to me, it can wait until I’m on duty. Not now. I don’t want you at my house.”
“I know—I know. I tried calling you, but they said you were off today.” Some of the tentativeness went out of her gray eyes. She was attractive—cute—but she looked tired, even drained. She met his eye. “I served my time, Lieutenant.”
“All right. What do you want?”
“To apologize.” She breathed in, her jaw set hard, as if the words were hard to get out. “I shouldn’t have asked you to look the other way. That was out of line.”
“Apology accepted.” He didn’t ask about the rest of it—the trampling of evidence, the witness tampering, the sense he had that she was still holding back on him. A murder remained unsolved at least partially because of her actions. “Get yourself a job, Miss Parker. Move on. Rebuild your life.”
“Beau McGarrity—he’s still a free man.”
Jack said nothing.
“I guess I’ll have to live with that. My police department—they’re not going to solve the case. You know that, sir. They don’t want it to be Beau, they don’t want to stir things up again. You know, people think I tried to frame him.”
“Miss Parker—”
“I’m thinking about moving to Australia.”
“Good luck.”
She smiled bitterly. “You don’t mean that. What do you hate worse, Lieutenant, that I paid a guy to lie about seeing Beau in the azaleas—or that I’m a royal fuck-up?”
“What I hate is seeing Rachel McGarrity’s murder go unsolved.” Jack narrowed his eyes on the younger woman. “There’s nothing else you want to tell me, Miss Parker?”
“Like what?”
“Why did the anonymous call to check out the McGarrity ranch come to you that night? And your relationship with Rachel McGarrity. I think you two were better friends than you’ve let on. Her murder isn’t my case, but you still haven’t told the whole story as far as I’m concerned.”
“Like you said, some things you just have to live with. See you around, Lieutenant.”
“Stay away from my house,” he said. “I don’t want you near my family.”
She shrugged. “Understood, sir.”
She left.
Jack decided it might be just as well that the girls were heading back to Boston in the morning. That Susanna was there. Alice Parker obviously hadn’t put Rachel McGarrity’s murder behind her. She’d had a year in prison to stew. Now she was free, and if she wanted to knock on his door on a warm January afternoon, she could do it. It didn’t break any laws.
Three
She couldn’t breathe.
Alice Parker had to pull over and concentrate on the breathing exercises she’d learned in prison to stop her panic attacks. She hated being cooped up. Even as a little kid, she couldn’t stand sleeping with the door to her room shut.
Ranger Jack scared the living shit out of her. He always had. She remembered the day he’d shown up to ask her a few questions. She’d known her goose was cooked. He was a hard man.
He’d never forgive her. She didn’t even want his forgiveness—she didn’t know what had possessed her to go out to his house. She just wanted money. A chance to start over in Australia and forget who she was, a little screw-up cop who’d made sure a murderer walked. Beau McGarrity had killed her friend and mentor, and he’d never be brought to justice for it.
Yeah, learn to live with it. Forget that. She planned to get some money off the murdering son of a bitch.
Feeling better, Alice drove to the small town where she’d spent all her life, except for her year in prison. She was driving a rusted little tank of a car that she’d bought from a fellow inmate’s mother for seven hundred dollars. She had to watch her finances. She’d been out of prison three days, and she’d already plowed through a good chunk of her savings. She had a job waiting tables downtown, but that was more for show than real income—it sure as hell wasn’t going to get her to Australia.
She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, feeling the familiar tightness in her chest, the physical longing, whenever she thought about Australia. She’d gotten as many books out of the prison library as she could on Australia and dreamed of it every night from the moment she’d decided that was where she wanted to be, where she wanted to start over. Sidney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide—any city would do. They’d talked to her in prison about setting attainable goals. Australia seemed attainable to her. She just needed the money to get there and get started.
The McGarrity ranch was out of town. It hadn’t changed in the past year. There were still the pecan and cypress trees, the live oaks, the huge azalea bushes in front of the sprawling, one-story house. Alice turned onto the long, paved driveway. Before she’d discovered Australia, she used to dream of living in a place like this and being a Texas Ranger. She’d downloaded the names and pictures of all hundred-plus Texas Rangers off the Internet and memorized them. Rachel McGarrity used to tell her about how, if she wanted something, she needed to visualize it, make it real to her. Then it was more likely to come to be.
Alice wasn’t so sure about that anymore. She’d never visualized herself in prison, but she’d sat in a cell for a year. The stink of it was still on her, and her skin was still gray and pasty. She hadn’t curled her hair or done her nails in months.
She parked in the spot where Rachel had parked the night she died and started to hyperventilate. She shut her eyes, controlling her breathing the way she’d learned from her yoga books and prison classes. She’d done everything she could to better herself in prison. She hadn’t wasted a minute. Her grandma would have been proud of her for that part, but at least she wasn’t alive for the other parts-the humiliation of her arrest, the cowardice of her plea bargain, the defeat of seeing Beau McGarrity remain a free man. Grandma had missed all that.
Rachel had loved it in south Texas. She said it was so different from the rich neighborhood in Philadelphia where she grew up. She’d been drawn to the romance of Texas, marrying a Texan—it blinded her to what she was really getting. A mean, crazy bastard who’d shoot her in the back and try to frame her best friend for her murder.
Best friend might be a stretch. Alice sighed, remembering how they’d only met because she’d stopped Rachel for a broken headlight. She’d invited Alice to meet her for coffee. Alice thought that was kind of weird, but she’d agreed. Rachel had slipped into the coffee shop like she was working for the CIA, and she’d talked about flowers and antiques until she finally got to the point—she wanted Alice to do some private investigative work for her.
Rachel was so fine-mannered and naive, so sincere, that Alice went against her better judgment and said sure, she’d do what she could. They met almost every day after that, for a month, and Alice was never too clear on what it was she was investigating—just that it involved Susanna Galway somehow. Rachel had all the pieces, the big picture, and it all seemed to evaporate when she was killed. Alice hadn’t ever told Ranger Jack about it. No one else mentioned anything, so she didn’t. It seemed like an invasion of privacy.
And she’d been afraid she’d end up dead if she said too much. Damn afraid. She remembered her horror when she’d spotted her change purse in a pool of Rachel’s blood on the driveway. It was monogrammed with her initials. Her grandma had given it to her for Christmas one year.
Her only thought had been to get rid of the change purse and scour the crime scene for any other incriminating evidence. Let people say she was a moron cop—she didn’t care.
Later, she’d realized that was what Beau had expected her to do. Panic and contaminate the crime scene, make it impossible for the evidence to lead investigators to him. Alice had felt stupid, like an unwitting co-conspirator. In the midst of her self-loathing, she’d come up with the idea of her bogus eyewitness. Beau hadn’t expected that—she remembered the edge of panic in his voice that day in Susanna Galway’s kitchen, when he’d tried to get Susanna to intervene with her husband on his behalf.
But that wasn’t the only reason he’d gone to see Susanna. She had some connection to what all had gone on, but Alice didn’t know what.
In any case, her fabricated eyewitness hadn’t worked out. Jack Galway had seen to that.
Alice took the curving rock walk to the front door, which opened just as she got to the steps. Beau McGarrity came out. It was a clear, cool afternoon, squirrels chattering in nearby trees. In summer, there’d be a field of sunflowers out back, although Beau leased out most of his land to working ranchers. He just owned the place for show. Rachel had bought into the rugged image he wanted to project. He was a tall man with neat, gray hair, a square jaw and blue eyes. He had the broad shoulders and build that had served him well as a college football player. He and Rachel were married within weeks of meeting while she was in Austin on business. She was his second wife. His first wife, his high school sweetheart, had died of cancer three years earlier. She was a saint, a hard act to follow. No kids.
“Miss Parker,” Beau McGarrity said in his deep, twangy accent, “if you don’t leave at once, I’ll call the police.”
He didn’t like her coming around anymore than Jack Galway had. “Relax, Mr. Beau, I’m not here for a little vigilante justice. I have a proposition for you.”
“Miss Parker, there’s nothing you can offer that would be of any interest to me whatsoever.”
Alice shrugged. She felt tiny and pale next to him, isolated out here on his precious ranch, but not vulnerable—not like that night when she’d found Rachel out here in the dark. She remembered screaming like a damn fool, crouching behind Rachel’s car, expecting a bullet in her back, before she realized Beau needed her alive. As Rachel’s murderer.
“Susanna Galway taped you that day you showed up in her kitchen.”
His eyes narrowed on her, but he said nothing.
“Her daughters had one of those little digital tape recorders, and Susanna saw it and hit the record button.” Alice was matter-of-fact. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re making this up.”
“No, sir, Mr. Beau, I am not making this up. I am telling you the flat-out truth. It’s not a regular cassette tape. It’s a digital audiotape, about three inches by three inches. I’ve listened to it. You know all that sympathy you’ve been building up this past year? All these people who’re thinking, oh, poor Mr. Beau, he’s the innocent victim of police corruption and incompetence—well, let them hear you threatening a Texas Ranger’s wife.”
“I didn’t threaten her.”
“You were subtle,” Alice said, “but not that subtle.”
“Get off my property. You’re trying to set me up again. I’ve been under suspicion for months of killing my own wife—”
“You did kill your own wife, Mr. Beau. You killed her because you’re paranoid and crazy. Not twenty-four hours before I found her dead out here, I told you that if I were her, I’d smother you with a pillow while you slept, and you killed her—”
“I’m calling the police.” He turned to go back inside.
She held up a hand, breathing hard. “No, wait. I’m sorry. That’s all over with. Let me finish.”
He said nothing, but he stayed put.
Alice went on. “I happened to show up at the Galway house right after you left—I was hoping to catch Ranger Jack and plead my case to him. It was just a few hours before I was arrested, and here’s Mrs. Jack Galway, all pale and scared, telling me how you’d just walked into her kitchen and she’d taped you. I assumed she’d give the tape to her husband, but she never did, probably because everything was such a big mess by then. Why drag herself into it?”
Beau straightened, recovering a bit from his shock. “This tape. You believe Mrs. Galway still has it in her possession?”
This was the tricky part. Alice remembered how Rachel had often warned her against making things too complicated. But she couldn’t tell Beau that Susanna Galway had thrust the tape at her that day at her front door—Susanna obviously had thought Alice was still on Rachel’s murder investigation and wanted to be rid of the damn thing. “I don’t know if it’s any good,” she’d said, “but, please, take it.”
Alice had gone out and bought a tape recorder and listened to the DAT herself. There was nothing on it that would pull her own hide out of the fire, nothing a prosecutor would bother with as far as Beau went. The Texas Rangers wouldn’t like it, a murder suspect trying to get under the skin of the wife of one of their lieutenants. Jack Galway really wouldn’t like it. But, too bad.
She’d expected Jack to get around to asking her about it when he’d come to arrest her, but he never did. Alice didn’t volunteer. Let the Texas Rangers work for every damn thing they got out of her. Her world had crashed in on her while Beau McGarrity got away with murder, everything.
She’d put the tape out of her mind. It was worthless. Irrelevant.
Then, in prison, she’d started dreaming of Australia.
She still had the tape, and she was betting Beau would want it. It wasn’t enough to nail him for murder, but it was plenty to ruin his chances of any kind of political comeback—provided no one realized Alice Parker, corrupt cop, had had it all this time. If he knew that, Beau would never pay. He wouldn’t have to. He’d just say she was back to her old tricks, tampering with another bit of “evidence.”
She shifted away from him, looking out at the sprawling, shaded lawn. She loved the smells. “I happen to know Susanna still has the tape. That’s why I’m here. I can get it for you.”
“Miss Parker, you managed to get yourself thrown in prison because of your own incompetence and your zeal to pin my wife’s murder on me. Why should I believe anything’s changed? Why shouldn’t I believe this is just a ploy on your part to entrap me, frame me for something I didn’t do?”
“You can quit professing your innocence, Mr. Beau. You already got away with murder. There’s nothing I can do about that—I don’t even care anymore. It’s time I looked after my own interests.” Alice shifted back to him, squinting, noting that she wasn’t even slightly nervous. “I want fifty thousand dollars to start a new life.”
He scoffed. “Do you actually think I’d pay you fifty thousand dollars for anything?”
“Not just anything. For a tape of you creeping out Susanna Galway in her kitchen.”
“If there’s anything on this tape that should concern me—if it even exists—why wouldn’t Mrs. Galway have given it to her husband by now?”
“Probably because you scared her shitless that day. I don’t know.” Alice paused, shrugging. “Look, Beau, I know you, and you’re going to chew on this until you can’t stand it. The idea of that tape being out there, out of your control, is going to drive you crazy.”
“She could have made copies.”
“Unlikely. I think she just wants to forget it exists.”
“Then why not destroy it?”
“She’s the wife of a Texas Ranger. She’s not going to destroy potential evidence, even if she doesn’t believe it’ll amount to anything. If she has, end of story. I only get the money if I produce the tape and no copies of it turn up within a reasonable period of time.”
He tilted his head back, staring down at her in that superior way of his. At first, Rachel had said, she’d thought it was confidence—she hadn’t seen the truth until later. Her husband was one cold, arrogant son of a bitch. He’d put his first wife on a pedestal after she died, then tried to put Rachel on one, too, but she could never measure up. She was real. His dead wife was a mirage.
“Miss Parker—”
It used to be Officer Parker. She remembered that. She knew everyone in town, and they’d all called her Officer Parker. “Think about it,” she said. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
“This is extortion. Blackmail. You can’t—”
“I’ll be in touch, Mr. Beau.” She started down the walk, breathing in the fresh smells of his yard. She’d grown up in this country. It was home. But she could get used to Australia. She wanted the chance. She glanced back at Beau McGarrity, still standing on his front steps, probably thinking about where he could bury her out back if he decided to wring her neck. Just as well he didn’t know she had Susanna’s tape in her glove compartment. “Now, you aren’t going to tell the Texas Rangers about our visit, are you?” she called back over her shoulder.
“Get out.”
She smiled sweetly. “I didn’t think so.”
* * *
A nor’easter was blowing up the coast, promising to dump up to a foot of snow in Boston. Susanna noticed the first fat, wet flakes as she walked back to Gran’s from her subway stop. With a full schedule of client meetings, she’d avoided taking her car into the city. It had been a good day. Helping people sort out their finances and set up goals was one of the real pleasures of her work. It wasn’t just about money, numbers, calculations—it was about people and their lives. She had clients saving for their kids’ college, a first home, a year off to volunteer for something like Doctors Without Borders. One client was digging herself out of debt after a cancer scare and a deep depression that had nearly caused her to pull the plug on her life. Now she was excited, eager to knock off one credit card debt after another.
Susanna wasn’t as good at following her own advice. She always told couples to talk about money. What did it mean to them? What positives and negatives did they associate with money from their childhoods? What did they want it to do for them, individually, as a couple?
She and Jack had stopped talking about money beyond the absolute basics. If the bills were paid and they had walking-around money, Jack didn’t care about the rest. “Accumulating wealth” fell somewhere after “watching gum surgery” on his list of things he was excited about in his life.
Some days Susanna thought he wouldn’t care that she’d invested her money and a chunk of his money, and, now, together, they had a net worth of ten million.
Some days she thought he’d care a lot. And wouldn’t like it. That he especially wouldn’t like that she hadn’t told him. Not that he’d asked. Not that he’d shown any interest whatsoever.
In the months before she’d headed north to join Maggie and Ellen, he’d talked very little about his own work. Things hadn’t been right between them even before Beau McGarrity had walked into her kitchen.
The wind picked up, slapping her in the face as if to get her attention. Maggie and Ellen had been back five days, still filled with tales of friends, vintage clothing scores, Jane Austen, and Dad this and Dad that. Susanna was pleased they’d enjoyed their visit home, and they’d had the grace to say they’d missed her. She wondered if they’d be happy about the snow.
She turned up Gran’s narrow street of mostly big, multifamily homes built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Iris Dunning had managed to buy one of the few single-family houses on the street, an 1896 two-story stucco with a glassed-in front porch, an open back porch and a detached one-car garage, not that common in crowded Somerville. She’d planted flowering trees and perennial gardens, battling skunks, cats, raccoons and the occasional neighborhood miscreant.
Susanna kicked off her boots in the front hall and found her daughters doing their homework in the dining room. Gran was already off to Jim’s Place for clam chowder. She never missed chowder night.
“Dad called,” Maggie said. She was wrapped in a 1950s shawl she’d found in Gran’s attic and had on fingerless Bob Cratchit gloves. Drama, Susanna thought. Gran liked to keep the house cool, but not that cool. “He wants you to call him back. He said to call him on his cell phone.”
Ellen looked up from her laptop. “We told him about the snow. Mom, can you believe less than a week ago we were in south Texas and now it’s snowing? I hope they cancel school.”
Susanna smiled. “Be careful what you wish for. Gran’ll put you to work shoveling.”
She grabbed the portable phone off the clunky dining room table and sat in a chair badly in need of refinishing. It was a comfortable, lived-in room with its dark woodwork and flowered wallpaper. Her parents liked to tease Gran about coming in and redoing the place, stripping the wallpaper, tearing up the rugs, getting rid of all her tacky artwork, but she paid no attention. She was happy with her house just the way it was. As long as the roof didn’t leak, she didn’t plan to change a thing.
Susanna dialed Jack’s number, and he answered on the first ring. “I’m on the patio,” he said, laying on his slow, deep Texas drawl. “It’s a beautiful night.”
“Liar. It’s in the fifties and raining.”
“Ah. You checked.”
“Only because we’re tracking a nor’easter. Thank God it didn’t blow in last week when the girls were flying. What’s up?”
“I wanted you to know Alice Parker is out of prison. She took a room in San Antonio for a few days. Now she’s gone. Her friends in prison say she was obsessed with Australia. Maybe she’s headed in that direction.”
His voice was businesslike, but not matter-of-fact. Susanna glanced at the girls, both pretending not to be listening. Maggie was frowning over her math homework, Ellen tapping keys on her laptop.
“She’d need a passport, money—” Susanna took a breath, noticing that Maggie and Ellen were no longer making any pretense of studying. “Jack, are you worried she’ll come after you? You investigated her. She thinks it’s your fault no one’s ever been charged in Rachel McGarrity’s murder.”
“Alice Parker isn’t required to tell me or anyone else where she is or what she’s doing. Provided she doesn’t break the law, she can do whatever she wants.”
Susanna frowned. “Then why tell me she was released from prison?”
He didn’t answer at once. “No particular reason.”
What was that supposed to mean? Jack Galway didn’t do anything for no reason. Everything he did and said had a purpose. He was the most deliberate man Susanna knew. She felt hot, jittery, as if he had her in an interrogation room and she was lying to a Texas Ranger, not just having an ordinary conversation with her husband. “Well, I hope Alice Parker gets her life back on track. Do you want to talk to the girls?”
“Sure,” he said, his tone impossible to read. “Put them on.”
She handed the phone to Ellen and ran into the kitchen, diving into the half-bathroom. She splashed her face with cold water. Her eyes were hot with tears. She was shaking, her reflection pale in the small oval mirror. She touched her lips with wet fingers and could almost imagine it was Jack touching her. She’d loved him so hard, so long. What had happened?
Susanna, Susanna...you don’t believe I killed my wife.
Beau McGarrity. She could still hear his cajoling, hurt voice that day in her kitchen. He’d never made an overt threat against her or her children. It was in his gesture, his tone, the fact that he had walked into her kitchen from her patio, without knocking. She’d been doing a tai chi tape in the family room. The girls were at theater and soccer practice. She hadn’t thought to lock the patio door.
She’d started the recorder, not knowing what he meant to do or say. At first, she didn’t even know who he was, except that she’d spotted him twice before that week, once in town, once at the school. Susanna had told herself it was coincidence and chided herself for starting to think like a jaded law enforcement officer, taking the routine oddities of life and turning them into something potentially sinister.
She hadn’t known Alice Parker was being investigated—or that Jack would arrest her that afternoon. Giving her the tape when she showed up at her front door had made sense at the time.
Saying nothing to Jack about Beau McGarrity’s visit had, too.
When he came home that evening and told her about Alice’s arrest and never mentioned the tape, Susanna assumed the tape was no good, completely irrelevant—and that Alice hadn’t mentioned it to him. Why should she? She was on her way to prison, her career ruined. If there’d been anything useful on the tape, she’d have turned it over, if only to nail Beau McGarrity and prove herself right.
Jack had been so taciturn that night, even more uncommunicative than usual. He was glad to have the Alice Parker investigation over with. The local police department would continue with the investigation into Rachel McGarrity’s murder. He’d opened a beer, took a long drink and laid back his head, shutting his eyes.
All Susanna could think about was how he’d react if she’d told him Beau McGarrity had been to their house. His work had never touched his family this way. Never. They were both accustomed to her being afraid for him. But not for herself, not for their daughters.
She’d found herself unable to tell him what had happened. She didn’t know what he’d do.
Her own fear was irrational, visceral. Just pretend everything was okay and go to Boston with the girls, let the dust settle, clear her head...then tell him.
Now Alice Parker was out of prison, and Susanna still hadn’t told her husband what had happened on that hot, confused day over a year ago.
But she loved him.
Oh, God, she loved him.
“Mom!” It was Ellen yelling. “Dad wants to talk to you!”
Susanna dried her face and hands and slipped out of the bathroom. The girls were in the kitchen, and Ellen handed her the phone, whispering, “We told him about the cabin. We thought he knew.”
“He’s pissed,” Maggie added, more as a point of fact than a warning.
Susanna nodded and ducked back into the half bath. She wanted total privacy for this conversation. “A cabin in the Adirondacks,” she said cheerfully. “Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?”
“When were you going to tell me?”
There was nothing calm, professional or deliberate about him now. This was Jack Galway at his stoniest. “I don’t know. I hadn’t even thought about it.” But that was an outright lie, and when she caught her reflection in the mirror, she saw the guilt. “I’m sorry. It was a spur of the moment thing, but I should have told you—”
“Don’t be sorry. I don’t give a damn what you do.”
He hung up.
Susanna stared at the dead phone. Then she hit redial. He let his voice mail take the call. She hit redial again. More voice mail. On her third redial, he picked up, but didn’t speak. She did. “Damn it, Jack, did you hang up on me?”
“Yes, and I’m going to hang up on you again.”
“And I’m going to keep calling you until you knock it off!”
“That’s harassment. I’ll have you arrested, even up in Boston.”
No one could get under her skin the way he could. “Just try.” She took a quick breath, decided not to fight fire with fire. This once, she could be reasonable. “I can see how you’d look at the cabin as a thumb in your eye, but that’s not what I was thinking when I bought it. Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking—it was like it was meant to be. I couldn’t resist. It’s in the most beautiful spot, right on Blackwater Lake. Gran grew up there. You’ll have to see it.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated dumbly. The man drove her mad. He knew the worst, most awkward, most difficult and probing questions to ask her. But he was a trained interrogator. He could get people to confess to murder, never mind to why they’d bought a cabin in the Adirondacks.
“Yes. Why do I have to see it?”
“I don’t know—it makes sense. You’re my husband.”
“It’s an open invitation?”
She licked her lips. He had her off-balance, and he knew it. “I suppose so. Sure.”
“You know what Sam says, don’t you?” His voice lowered, deepened. “He says I should go up there, cuff you and haul you back to Texas.”
Susanna nearly dropped the damn phone in the sink.
“I knew that’d leave you speechless,” her husband said. “Good night, darlin’. Enjoy your cabin.”
He hung up on her again.
This time, she didn’t call him back.
When she returned to the kitchen, Gran was back, heating up a quart of Jim Haviland’s famous clam chowder on the stove. The girls were setting the table. It was a comfortable scene, three generations of women in Gran’s simple, clean kitchen with its tall ceilings, old painted cabinets and framed samplers from her cross-stitch craze fifteen years ago. Even at eighty-two, Iris Dunning retained her tall, graceful build. Susanna could picture her grandmother as an Adirondack guide in her youth. People assumed she was a widow when she moved to Boston, but that wasn’t true. She’d never married. Now she was in her sunset years, her hair white and wispy, her skin translucent and wrinkled. But her mind was sharp, and she stayed active and socially engaged—she was taking tai chi at her senior center. Before her granddaughter and great-granddaughters had moved in, she’d rented rooms in the house to university students to supplement her income and give her company.
Susanna sank onto a chair at the table. Her knees were wobbly from her talk with her husband.
Gran glanced back at her from the stove. “Jimmy Haviland says you’re avoiding him.”
“I’ve been busy,” Susanna said. But that wasn’t entirely true. Busy, yes, but the last two times she’d stopped at Jim’s Place, its opinionated owner had asked her if she’d told Jack about her stalker. He would keep asking her until she said yes. He wouldn’t squeal to Gran. That wasn’t Jim Haviland’s style. He might to Jack, though.
Ellen set a sturdy white bowl in front of her. “Mom, we’re sorry we told Dad about the cabin—”
“No, no, that’s not your fault. I was going to tell him. It just slipped my mind.”
Maggie shot her mother a dubious frown, but said nothing. Ellen sighed. “We tried to talk to him while we were home. We told him he should try to be more romantic.”
“Romantic? Your father?” Susanna smiled, shaking her head with affection for her two clueless daughters. “He just threatened to handcuff me and drag me back to Texas.”
Gran set the steaming soup tureen of chowder in the middle of the table. “I don’t know,” she said, a mischievous gleam in her very green eyes. “I think it’s a start.”
Four
After thirty years of running a neighborhood pub, Jim Haviland considered himself a good judge of character. It came down to experience and survival—they’d honed his instincts about people. Still, he had to admit that the woman at the bar had him stumped. He guessed she was in her late twenties. Slightly built, short, curly, dyed red hair and pale skin, almost pasty looking. She wore a lot of makeup and about a half ton of gold jewelry. Dangling earrings, rings on both hands, bracelets, a thin gold necklace with a tiny heart pendant and a thicker chain necklace. He wouldn’t want all that metal on him in a nor’easter. But the snow had finally stopped, and the cleanup was in full force. The plow guys would be showing up later for the beef stew special.
The woman’s clothes made her stick out in this neighborhood, too. She had on a close-fitting baby blue ribbed V-neck sweater, tight Western-cut jeans and leather boots that would land her on her ass on an icy sidewalk. She played up her femininity, but there was a hardness to her, a toughness that Jim couldn’t reconcile with the jewelry, the clothes, the painted nails. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had a .22 strapped to her ankle.
After making sure he didn’t use a mix, she’d ordered a margarita. Her accent wasn’t local, but Jim was no good at placing accents outside of New England. He drew a couple of drafts for two firefighters who’d come in, complaining about the hazards of space heaters and overtaxed extension cords. Davey Ahearn, on his stool at the end of the bar, was listening in, nursing a beer and keeping an eye on the woman with the makeup and the margarita.
“New in town?” Jim asked her.
“Two days. It’s that easy to tell?”
“With that accent?” Jim smiled at her. “Where you from?”
“Texas. A little bitty town outside Houston.”
“Hope you brought a good winter coat with you.”
She gestured toward the coat rack next to the door, gold bangles sliding down her slender wrist. “No, sir, but I bought one on sale this morning. They said it’s a basic parka. I never knew there was anything but. I bought a winter hat and gloves, too. I think mittens would drive me batty.” She raised her gray eyes at him. “I’m holding off on the long underwear.”
She had an engaging manner, whoever she was. “That’s one thing about owning a bar,” Jim said. “I can get through a Boston winter without long underwear. You’ll like it here in the spring. Are you planning to stick around that long?”
“I’m hoping to relocate here, but have you checked out the rents lately? Whoa. They’re sky-high.” She sipped more of her margarita, looking as if she relished every drop. “I don’t know why you put up with it. Aren’t you the folks who dumped the tea in the harbor?”
“That we are. You have a job lined up?”
“More or less, yes, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“Audrey,” she said. “Audrey Melbourne.”
Jim studied her a moment, noticing she didn’t flinch under his frank scrutiny. Definitely a tough streak. “What are you running from, Audrey Melbourne?”
She shrugged. “What do any of us run from?”
“The law and husbands,” Jim said. Davey Ahearn glanced down the bar, not saying a word, but Jim knew his friend’s suspicions were on full alert.
“No, sir, I don’t believe that’s the case at all.” Audrey Melbourne slid off her stool, looking even smaller. “Mostly we run from ourselves.”
She walked over to the coatrack and put on her new parka, hat and gloves as if they might have been a space suit. She left without looking back.
Davey breathed out a long sigh. “Sure. I hope she comes back real soon. That pretty little number is trouble.”
One of the firefighters snorted. “All women are trouble.”
Two female Tufts graduate students took exception to this comment, and the argument was on. Jim didn’t intervene. The Bruins and the Celtics were having a lousy year, the Patriots hadn’t made the playoffs, and pitchers and catchers didn’t report for weeks yet. People needed something to do. Maybe he needed to wonder about a redheaded Texan coming into his bar. It happened now and again, a stranger popping in for a drink. He doubted Audrey Melbourne would be back.
* * *
An icy gust bit at Alice Parker’s face as she climbed over a blackened, frozen, eighteen-inch snowbank to get to her car. The Texas tags were a dead giveaway, but what the hell—so was her Texas accent. She’d arrived in Boston in the middle of a damn blizzard, and now it was so cold her cheeks ached and her eyeballs felt as if they were frozen in their sockets. Her chest hurt from breathing in the dry, frigid air.
“I should have bought the damn Everest parka,” she muttered, picking her way over an ice patch. Even sanded, it was slippery. She supposed she’d need new boots if she ended up staying more than a few days. Damned if she’d move up here on a permanent basis. She’d rather sit in prison.
She did not understand why Susanna Galway was living here on an old, crowded street in a working-class neighborhood, with the salt and sand and soot making everything even uglier. She had a nice house in San Antonio. A Texas Ranger husband. What the hell was wrong with her?
Alice tried fishing her keys out of her pocket with a gloved hand, decided that wouldn’t work and peeled off the glove. Winter was complicated. She couldn’t believe she’d driven a couple thousand miles in her crappy car to track down Susanna, just so Beau could think she still had the tape. Not that he was biting—he kept telling her she could go to hell and threatening to turn her in for blackmail and extortion. She was calling his bluff. He’d pay her to steal the tape and hush up about it. She knew he would. Things worked on his nerves. He was paranoid and dramatic. She’d made that one little remark about Rachel smothering him in his sleep, and less than a day later, her friend was dead.
Alice was confident he’d come around. He deserved to pay for something.
Of course, he could decide to shoot her in the back and go after the tape himself, but that was extreme. Even Beau couldn’t think he’d get away with two murders. He’d let her do his dirty work for him. And pay her.
If he did end up shooting her, Jack Galway and Sam Temple could catch him. At least he’d go to prison for her murder, if not Rachel’s.
An old woman pushed open the porch door to the stucco house just up the street. She had on pants stuffed into fur-trimmed ankle boots, a dark wool car coat, a red scarf, a red knit hat and red knit gloves.
It had to be Iris Dunning. Susanna’s grandmother.
Alice had found out from Beau that Susanna Galway was living up north with her daughters and grandmother. He’d obviously expected this information would make Alice give up on her plan. She’d thought about it. It was kind of nuts, traveling two thousand miles, taking the risk of breaking into Susanna’s house to steal something that wasn’t there.
But what else was she supposed to do? She had the tape. Beau would not be pleased if he found out she’d had it all along—for one, he’d never pay her the fifty grand. For another, he’d probably shoot her. He was balking as it was. If this was going to work, Alice knew she had to go through the motions.
She climbed back over the snowbank. “Mrs. Dunning?” Alice stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, not wanting to slip. “Excuse me, ma’am, I didn’t mean to startle you. My name’s Audrey Melbourne—I’m new in town. Someone mentioned you might have a room for rent.” No one had, but Alice decided it was a good way to launch a conversation.
The old woman’s clear green eyes cinched it for Alice. They were just like Susanna’s. She had to be Iris Dunning. “I’m sorry, I’m not renting rooms at the moment. Are you a student?”
Alice shook her head. “No, I’m in the process of moving to Boston. This seems like a nice neighborhood.”
“It is,” Iris said. “I’ve lived here for years and have never been robbed.”
That would probably change, Alice thought, if she had to stage a robbery to convince Beau she’d gotten the tape off Susanna. “Well, ma’am, I don’t want to keep you out in the cold—”
“Have you had supper yet? Jimmy Haviland makes good, hearty food. His clam chowder’s the best in the city, but tonight’s not chowder night.”
Alice hated even the thought of clams. They had to be slimy. “I know—I was just in there. I think he’s serving beef stew tonight.”
“Come on, then, I’ll buy you a bowl.” Iris Dunning seemed ready to take Alice by the arm and walk her into the pub. “I was new in town and all alone once. My granddaughter and daughters are out for the evening. I’d like the company.”
“Ma’am, I don’t want to impose—”
“You’re not imposing, and you can stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ Iris will be fine.”
Alice was taken aback. No wonder Susanna had ended up here—her grandmother was a good soul who’d take in anyone. “I’d love a bowl of stew, Iris, but I’ll pay my way.”
They entered the bar together, and Alice immediately noticed the obvious suspicion of the owner and his friend with the handlebar mustache. If Iris noticed, she didn’t care. She headed to a back table. Alice smiled self-consciously at the two men, who continued to frown at her. Well, that was a good sign. At least Iris Dunning had people who looked after her. She was the sort of person people could easily take advantage of.
“Now, Jimmy,” she said when the owner came over to take their order, “don’t start lecturing me about strangers. I can have stew with anyone I want. Miss Melbourne is new in town.”
“Audrey,” Alice corrected with a smile.
“I’d never lecture you, Iris,” Jimmy said. “What are you drinking with your stew?”
“I think I’ll have merlot tonight. I haven’t had wine in ages. Alice, what about you?”
“Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t drink. I’ll just have a Coke.”
“And don’t skimp on the beef when you dip up my stew, Jimmy. I had a low-fat lunch.”
He still didn’t seem too happy.
Iris sighed at him, her green eyes vibrant. “Jimmy, I know about women on their own. They’re either widowed, divorced, broke, on the run or ex-cons.” She turned her bright gaze to her new friend. “Am I right, Audrey?”
Alice laughed. “One or more of the above.”
“There. I knew it. I guess that’s better than ‘all of the above.’”
* * *
Tess Haviland sank into the soft leather couch that Susanna had bought when Tess had moved out of their shared office space the summer before. She still had the remnants of her tan from her holiday in Disney World with Andrew Thorne, her architect husband, and seven-year-old Dolly. Harley Beckett, Dolly’s reclusive babysitter, had stayed home and worked on Tess’s nineteenth-century carriage house. She took possession of it last May and promptly found a skeleton in the cellar—something that hadn’t sat well with Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. Not that Susanna had told him about her involvement. The girls had let it slip. She remembered his call. “You and Tess Haviland crawled around in a dirt cellar looking for a body?”
“We didn’t find it.”
Small consolation.
Tess’s move to the North Shore, her marriage and new family seemed to agree with her. Her blond hair was longer these days, her dedication to her graphic design work still high but not as all-consuming. She’d hired an assistant. She had balance in her life. She also had strong opinions, which made her more like her pub-owner father and plumber godfather than she would ever admit to.
She’d brought her own latte, Susanna’s coffeemaking abilities the only source of conflict between them. She had on her business-in-the-city clothes. “I like the leather,” she said, sweeping a critical glance over the conversation area Susanna had set up in Tess’s vacated half of the office. A contemporary leather couch and chairs, an antique coffee table and three orchids painstakingly chosen for their forgiving natures. Tess smoothed one hand over the soft leather. “I didn’t think I would. I really wanted you to go with a Texas theme. At least it’s not stuffy.”
Given that her office was on the fourth floor of a late nineteenth-century building overlooking Boston’s oldest cemetery, Susanna had rejected a Texas theme. She hadn’t bothered to confront her friend on her ideas of what a Texas theme would entail—all spurs and Lone Stars, probably.
“Susanna, do you mind if I speak frankly?”
Susanna sat on one of the chairs, the sky outside her tall windows gray and gloomy. She’d worked at her computer most of the day. She smiled at Tess. “Since when would it make any difference if I minded?”
Tess didn’t return her smile. “Your computer’s dusty,” she said.
“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“It’s part of a larger pattern.” Tess leaned forward, holding her latte in both hands. “It’s like your brain’s gone inside your computer and won’t come out. It can’t. It’s all filled up with numbers and money things.”
“Money things?”
“Investments, annual reports, interest rates, bond prices—God only knows what. I’ll bet you know to the penny what each of your clients is worth.”
Susanna took no offense. “That is my job, Tess.”
She shook her head, adamant. “You go beyond what the average financial planner would do.”
“Good. I’d hate to be an ‘average’ financial planner.” Susanna glanced over at her desk, her monitor filled with numbers, which was probably what had unnerved Tess. “I want to be very above average.”
“You see? You’re driven. You’re a perfectionist. It’s causing you to lose perspective on the rest of your life.” Tess set her jaw, aggravated now. “Damn it, I’m making a good point here. Your life is out of balance.”
Susanna slid to her feet and walked over to the table where she had her coffeemaker, a tin of butter cookies, pretty little napkins and real pottery mugs for herself and her clients. “I’ve hired a part-time assistant,” she said. “She comes in two mornings a week.”
“You should have at least two people working full-time for you. You told me so yourself last fall.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
Susanna poured herself a half cup of stale, grayish coffee and turned back to her friend. “All right, I’ll dust my computer. Promise.”
Tess groaned. “You are so thick.”
“Hey, that’s my line. That’s what I tell Jack—”
“There. Jack.” Tess set her latte on an antique table Susanna had picked up at an auction, a nice contrast with the more contemporary pieces. Balance, she thought. If Tess approved, she didn’t say. She narrowed her blue eyes on Susanna. “You haven’t told him how much you’re worth, have you?”
“Why would I? He pays attention to money even less than you do.”
“Susanna, you have to tell him!”
Susanna returned to her desk, feeling stubborn now that they were talking about her husband. “Why?”
“He’s going to find out, you know. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? He’s a guy’s guy. He might not like having his wife sneaking around making millions.”
“It’s his money, too.”
“Uh-huh. And he’s a Texas Ranger. You’ve always said it’s all he’s ever wanted to do, even when he was at Harvard. Suppose he’ll think you’ll want him to quit?”
Susanna frowned. “I’d never tell him what to do, anymore than he’d tell me.”
“Yeah, what about all the other Texas Rangers? What will they think if one of their own’s suddenly worth eight million?”
“Ten,” Susanna corrected.
“Ten million? Damn, Susanna. Maybe it’s time to hire bodyguards—or make peace with your husband. Talk about armed and dangerous.”
“Nobody knows how much I’m worth. You, my accountant and my attorney.” Susanna could feel her heart pounding, but she kept her tone breezy, as if none of this really bothered her. She knew Tess wasn’t fooled. “It’s not as if I’ve radically changed my lifestyle.”
“Moving to Boston, buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. That’s not radically changing your lifestyle?”
Susanna dropped onto her chair in front of at her computer. “I was only worth five million when I left San Antonio.”
Tess swooped to her feet. “God, you’re impossible. If you get kidnapped and held for ransom, don’t expect me to come here and figure out how to fork over the money.” She hoisted her microfiber satchel onto her shoulder. “I’ve got to run. I have one more devil of a client meeting.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Susanna, please—you’ll think about what I said?”
“Tess, you know I will—I appreciate your concern. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Come up sometime. Bring the girls. I know it’s winter, but the ocean’s still beautiful.”
After Tess left, Susanna stood at the tall, arched windows overlooking historic Old Granary Burial Ground, snow drifting against its thin, centuries-old tombstones. No radical changes in her life. Who was she kidding?
Tess was right.
As if to prove her point, the doorman buzzed her and announced Destin Wright was there to see her. Susanna dropped back onto her desk chair and felt an instant headache coming on. She’d been putting Destin off for days. She sighed. How could telling her husband about ten million dollars and a murder suspect showing up in their kitchen be any harder than dealing with Destin Wright? She said into the intercom, “Send him up.”
He would take the old elevator, she knew, not the stairs, and he’d find a way to irritate her within twenty seconds of arriving in her office. She got up and unlocked the door, just so she wouldn’t have to let him in.
He didn’t knock. He pushed open the translucent glass door and grinned at her. “Yo, Susanna. How’s it going? Was that Tess I just saw leaving the building?”
“Yes, she stopped in for a visit—”
“I wasn’t invited to her wedding, you know.”
Susanna felt the blood pulse behind her eyes. “Destin, you and Tess aren’t even friends.”
“What? We grew up together.”
“You’re ten years older than she is.”
“So?”
Susanna gave up. Destin Wright had grown up on the next street over from her grandmother’s house, never, apparently, making a secret of his desire to get out of the neighborhood at his first opportunity. He was in his mid-forties and fit the stereotype of the preppy Harvard grad with his blond good looks, except he’d quit a local junior college after one semester. He’d started an Internet company a few years ago and made millions, then went broke almost overnight. He’d had a fun idea, but no real business plan, no profits—and wildly expensive tastes. Now he wanted to start over. With Susanna’s help.
“Destin...”
He held up a hand. “No, wait. Hang on. I’m not here to pester you about money.” He grinned sheepishly, as if he’d known he’d pushed her too far with his various comeback schemes. He was charming, energetic and incredibly self-centered, with a sense of entitlement that knew no bounds. He had on an expensive camel coat left over from his high-on-the-hog days. “I just wanted to tell you I followed your advice and wrote up a business plan. The whole nine yards.”
“Good for you, Destin.”
He scratched the back of his neck, eyeing her. “I was thinking you could take a look at it. As a favor.”
Susanna shook her head, adamant. “You know I’m not getting involved in this project. I’ve told you. This isn’t what I do, even if I thought it was a good idea to help out someone from Gran’s neighborhood.”
“One little look?”
“No. I’m sorry. I can recommend people—”
“I can’t pay anyone. Come on, Suze, you know the score. I need to do a deal, barter a little. I’ve downsized as much as I can. Hell, I’m about to have my BMW repossessed.”
How he’d ever pulled together the attention span and backing to start a company in the first place was beyond Susanna. Luck, guts, flare, charisma, just enough skill. If he’d come to her sooner, she might have been able to help him save some of his personal wealth when the dot-com craze came crashing back to earth, but the same relentless optimism that had drawn Destin Wright into starting a risky business made him stick with it too long. He just hadn’t seen the bottom coming. When he hit, he hit hard.
“I just need some angel money,” he said, unable to resist.
“If you have a good idea, you’ll get it. But not from me.”
“A hundred grand would get me off the ground—”
“Not a dime, Destin.” She’d learned from hard experience that she had to be very clear and very straight with him. Subtle didn’t work with Destin. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“You could be a founding partner. Suze, you’re bored, you know you are. This’d be exciting, a new company, your business experience and smarts hooked up with my ideas and energy.” He paused, obviously waiting to see if his words were having any impact on her. When they didn’t, he sighed. “Okay, okay. You’ve got a full well, and you don’t want me dipping in my rusting, leaking bucket. I understand.” He was remarkably good-humored for a man who’d been told no for at least the fourth time. He grinned suddenly. “I’ll just have to work harder to convince you. If you could take two seconds and peek at my business plan—”
“I can offer you cookies and a cup of bad coffee,” Susanna said. “That’s it.”
He dropped a shiny black folder on her desk. “If you get a chance,” he said, leaving it at that. He started for the door. “I’ll see you around the neighborhood. You know, people are starting to talk about how much money you have. I heard one guy say he thought it was at least five million.”
“People like to talk.”
“If you’re worth five million, you wouldn’t miss a hundred grand, even if you threw it down the toilet, and I’d—”
“Destin.” She shook her head, unable to suppress a laugh. “Look, I’ll talk to some people. If this idea doesn’t work out, another one will. You’ll be okay.”
But he barely heard her. He hadn’t come for a pep talk from her. He wanted free advice and money. He headed out, and Susanna sank back against her chair, wrung out. Destin never knew when to quit—and sometimes she wondered if she quit too soon.
She thought of Jack, what he might be doing late on a Thursday afternoon. Would he quit on her? Had she already quit on him?
Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she quickly shut down her computer and packed up her briefcase, turned off the coffeepot. It had been a lousy day, but at least tonight was chowder night at Jim’s Place.
Five
Jack unlocked the door to his empty house and stood in the kitchen, staring at a picture of Maggie and Ellen on the refrigerator. He’d taken it over the holidays. They had their midwinter break coming up, but they were spending it in the Adirondacks at Susanna’s new cabin. Snowshoeing. Cross-country skiing. “Freezing our butts off,” Maggie had said less than enthusiastically in their last conversation.
He could join them. He had that open invitation from his wife to see the cabin.
He smiled, thinking of what Susanna would do if he turned up out of the blue with a pair of snowshoes strapped to his back. He’d made it clear it was up to her to come home and figure things out here, not up to him to go there. It wasn’t just a matter of digging in his heels and forcing her to toe the line—it made sense. Maggie, Ellen and Iris would all be distractions. He and Susanna needed time alone, on familiar turf.
So far, that strategy wasn’t working. Whatever time they’d managed to have alone during this endless stalemate, they’d spent in bed. That suited him, but it wasn’t getting the job done—Susanna was still living with her grandmother in Boston. And he had to admit he was using his work to distract himself, taking the hardest cases, working the longest hours.
He got a beer from the refrigerator and went out onto the patio and found a spot in the late afternoon sun. There’d been nothing on Alice Parker since she’d cleared out of San Antonio a month ago. Her former police chief boss said he hadn’t heard from her. She had no family left in the area. Her parents were drug addict transients who hadn’t been heard from in years. They’d abandoned Alice to the care of her paternal grandmother when she was twelve, a good woman by all accounts, but she died five years ago.
“She’s probably feeding the kangaroos in Australia by now,” the chief had told Jack.
He wasn’t so sure. Alice Parker had unfinished business in south Texas, and he’d be happier knowing where she was.
Jack stared up at the vibrant, golden sunset. He supposed he should get some supper, but he didn’t want to move. He wanted to sit here a while and think about the Rachel McGarrity murder investigation, Beau McGarrity, Alice Parker, a contaminated crime scene, a fabricated witness and his wife.
He had a mind to check with a travel agent in the morning and see about flying into the Adirondacks. What was the closest airport? Albany? Montreal? Burlington, Vermont? He’d rent a car, and he’d drive out to Blackwater Lake, find this damn cabin and surprise the hell out of one Susanna Dunning Galway.
* * *
Susanna slid onto a stool at Jim Haviland’s bar and ordered a bowl of clam chowder. The girls were with friends, and Gran had already been in and was home watching a game show, still trying to decide whether she’d come up to Blackwater Lake with them on Saturday.
“Destin was in earlier asking for you,” Jim said, setting the steaming chowder in front of Susanna.
She groaned. “I hope you told him I never come in here anymore. He’s driving me nuts. I’m tempted to invest in this new idea of his just to shut him up.”
“Is it a good idea?”
“I don’t know. I won’t let him tell me about it. Jim, I just can’t give him the kind of money he’s asking for—”
He held up a big hand. “Hey, you don’t have to explain to me.”
She sighed. “Destin’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s an asshole,” Davey Ahearn blurted from the other end of the bar. He shrugged, apologetic, when Susanna looked at him. “Excuse my language. Ask Destin how much he gave back to the neighborhood when he made it big. See what he says. You’re rich, Suzie-cue. You give back.”
She tried her chowder, which was thick and creamy—perfect. “What makes you think I’m rich?”
Davey grinned. “I’m a plumber, remember? I hear things. I know what you pay for your office in town, and I know what you gave to the family of that firefighter who got killed over Christmas.”
She frowned at him. “That was supposed to be an anonymous gift.”
“One or two less zeroes in it, it might have stayed anonymous.”
Jim Haviland tossed a white bar towel over his shoulder. “Tess told me she stopped by your office a few weeks ago and gave you a lecture. She called this morning. Says she hasn’t seen you and asked if I saw signs it was taking.”
Susanna ground pepper into her soup, carefully avoiding Jim’s critical look. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her hell, no, it wasn’t taking. Look at you. Head to toe in black.”
She glanced down at her black sweater and black jeans. “I like black.”
“Wicked Witch of the East,” Davey said, humming a few measures of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”
“We never got to see the Wicked Witch of the East.” Susanna kept her voice steady, determined not to let these two men get the better of her. “Just her legs and her ruby slippers. Maybe she wore red.”
Davey shook his head. “Nope. Black. All black.”
Jim waited on one of the tables, then came back behind the bar. There was always a crowd on chowder night, not that it changed his pace of operations. “You haven’t been coming around much lately,” he told Susanna.
“I’ve been swamped.”
“All that money,” Davey said. “Must be time-consuming adding it up.”
“I’m ignoring you, Davey Ahearn.”
“It won’t work. That’s why you haven’t been coming around much. You know we’re not going to leave you alone about that guy who killed his wife.”
Her stomach twisted, and she stared at her chowder, suddenly no longer hungry. “Davey, for God’s sake...”
“You still haven’t told Jack,” Jim said gently.
She shook her head. “I told you, there’s no point. It’s been over a year. The woman who screwed up the investigation is out of prison, and Jack—I don’t know, he’s chasing escaped convicts or something. This thing’s over. Whatever happened to me is irrelevant.” She believed that, even if Jack would want the final word—even if Rachel McGarrity’s murder remained an open case. She added stubbornly, “Whether I say anything or not won’t make a difference.”
Jim dumped ice into a glass, working on drinks for his customers. “It would to your husband.”
“Don’t you think a wife deserves to have some secrets from her husband?”
Davey snorted. “Only about the occasional trip on the sly to the dog track.”
“When are you heading to the mountains?” Jim asked her, mercifully changing the subject.
“Saturday morning.” Susanna dipped her spoon into her soup and smiled. “I’m taking black pants, black shirts, black socks—”
“Black underwear?” Davey asked without missing a beat.
She couldn’t suppress a laugh, but said to Jim, “Can I throw my soup at him?”
“No way. I gave you extra clams.” He then shifted from one foot to the other in a rare show of discomfort. “Look, Susanna, before you go, especially if Iris is staying behind—you might want to meet her new friend.”
“Ah. Audrey. I’ve been meaning to. Gran says they eat together here once in a while.”
“Two, three times a week. She’s from Texas, you know. Houston.”
Susanna set her spoon down carefully, not wanting her shock to show. “No, I didn’t know. Gran’s never said, and I never thought to ask. Tell me more.”
“I don’t know much more,” Jim said. “Audrey Melbourne, from Houston, small, curly red hair, lots of makeup and jewelry. She turned up not long after New Year’s saying she was thinking about relocating to Boston but didn’t like the high rents. She found a place to live a few blocks from here, says it’s temporary. I’ll admit, I didn’t think she’d come back in here after that first night, but she and Iris have kicked up this friendship...” He trailed off, eyeing Susanna. “You okay?”
“Melbourne...” She almost couldn’t get it out. She was shaking visibly now, unable to contain her shock. Davey eased off his stool, obviously ready to come to her aid. She tossed her head back a little, trying to rally. “The next time this woman comes in, will you call me? You have my cell phone number? I want to meet her.”
“Susanna.” Jim’s blue eyes drilled into her, and she remembered he had long experience with his own daughter and her half-truths, including her recent dissembling about her haunted carriage house and the dead body in the cellar. He set the finished drink he’d been making on a tray and pulled her soup bowl away, dumping it into a dishpan to bring out back. “If there’s something I need to know about Audrey Melbourne, you need to tell me. Now. No screwing around.”
“She—I don’t want her near my grandmother.”
“That goes for Maggie and Ellen as well?”
Susanna stared at him dully, unable to think. “What?”
“The twins. They had soup with Iris and Audrey a few nights ago, when you were at your tai chi class.”
“Oh, my God.”
Before she knew what was happening, Susanna had fallen off the stool, but Davey Ahearn was there instantly, bracing her with a muscular, tattooed arm. “Easy, kid,” he said.
“I don’t usually come apart like this.” But her daughters. Maggie and Ellen. Gran. Susanna placed a shaking hand on her temple, as if that somehow would help her organize a coherent thought. “Damn it. I could be wrong—I hope so. I’ve been living with a Texas Ranger for so long...” She looked at Davey, managing a weak, unconvincing smile. “It’s because of Jack I could tell Tess about decomposing bodies.”
Davey continued his iron grip on her arm. “Susanna, who is Audrey Melbourne?”
She didn’t answer him, instead turning to Jim. “Do you know where she lives?”
“No,” he said, “and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You’d go over there and get yourself into trouble. I can see it in your eyes. Then I’d have to call Jack and tell him.” He picked up his drinks tray, straightening. “Answer Davey’s question, Susanna. Who is this woman?”
“I’m not positive—really, I could be wrong. The woman I’m thinking of is blond—”
“The red’s a dye job,” Davey said, not letting up on his grip.
Some of the adrenaline oozed out of her, some of the tension in her muscles released. They deserved to know. This was their neighborhood, Iris was their friend. “The man I told you about who killed his wife,” she said, pausing for a breath, feeling the clam chowder churning in her stomach. Davey remained at her side, steady, not interrupting for once. She tried again. “The local police officer who found her—the wife—ended up in prison for official misconduct. Witness tampering. She got out on New Year’s Eve. She took off a few days later. She was obsessed with Australia, and everyone thought—”
“Melbourne,” Jim said. “That’s in Australia.”
Davey released his grip now that Susanna was steadier on her feet. “I knew that was a phony name.” He gave her a hard look. “Are you going to call Jack, or do you want to leave that to me and Jimmy?”
Meaning Jack would get called, one way or the other. “I’ll call him,” she said. “Just first let me make sure I’m right about this woman.”
* * *
Alice knew something was wrong the minute she walked into Jim’s Place. It was chowder night, and she deliberately arrived after Iris would have come and gone. Alice didn’t want to draw too much attention to their friendship and tried to stagger their visits, not make it obvious the old woman was her focus.
With freezing rain forecast for the evening, the bar was relatively quiet, the television tuned to a repeat of an old Red Sox game. Davey Ahearn was staring up at it, his broad back to Alice as she eased onto a stool at the bar. Jim Haviland put a bowl of chowder in front of her even before she’d ordered it.
Definitely, something was up.
She’d never had particularly good instincts, but prison had taught her to tune in to her environment, notice the undercurrents, see trouble before it happened—not wait to get her ass kicked. She’d been trying to show her best side in Boston. She found herself wanting Iris Dunning to think well of her. It was as if she were adopting the new persona she would use in Australia—letting her real self out. That was what she used to tell herself about her parents. When they were sober and straight, that was their real selves. That was who they really were. Not perfect, but decent, interested in her.
When they were drunk or high on drugs, they weren’t their real selves. Her grandma said it was the devil, but Alice didn’t believe that. She could never see the devil in her mother and father, even when they were passed out in their own vomit. They weren’t mean, just a couple of no-accounts.
She wasn’t like them.
Her real self was pleasant, optimistic, empathetic, kind to old people and not one to hold a grudge. Sure, she was still trying her damnedest to extort fifty thousand dollars from a murderer, but she’d also learned in prison that she had to be practical, use what she had. Attainable goals. She hated to involve Iris and the Galway women in her scheme, but that just couldn’t be avoided.
If she had to sit in judgment of herself—well, she’d opt for forgiveness. She’d see a woman who’d been through a lot and was just trying to get to a point where she could make a fresh start, maybe put the screws to a murderer who was otherwise getting off scot-free. That wasn’t so bad.
Beau was still dragging his heels—but he’d crack. He was getting close. He asked questions about Susanna Galway. He repeated things he’d said to her in the kitchen that day, insisting he hadn’t said anything bad. But he wasn’t sure—he wanted to hear what was on that tape.
Every week, Alice told herself, okay, one more week. She had to stick to her guns, because it wasn’t a good idea to waffle with Beau. She couldn’t give up too soon or he’d wonder, and that’d make him dangerous. He’d wondered what she and Rachel were up to, wondered if they were plotting to kill him and get his money—wondered about Alice’s remark about smothering him.
Boom. Next thing, Rachel was dead, and Alice’s monogrammed change purse was floating in her blood.
What Beau needed was some encouragement—maybe she just needed to get on with it, break in to Iris’s house, search Susanna’s room and pretend she’d found the tape. Then tell Beau she was bringing it to him or the Texas Rangers, either one. Maybe the media. Something that’d rattle his cage.
She was dillydallying, she knew, because of Iris and clam chowder nights at Jim’s Place, fooling herself into thinking she could start over here, in Boston, and maybe not have to go all the way to Australia. That was her greatest weakness, always looking for the easy way out. She’d fall short of her goals and say it was good enough. Why be a Texas Ranger when she could be a small-town cop? Rachel McGarrity used to tell her to recognize that tendency and fight it. If she wanted to be a small-town cop, great—mission accomplished. If not, then go after what she wanted.
Alice hadn’t touched her soup. The pat of butter had already melted. She tore open her packet of oyster crackers. She had the most awful feeling of foreboding. She tried smiling at Davey Ahearn, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
Alice recognized Susanna Galway’s voice and felt a little like she did that day Lieutenant Galway had pulled her aside to ask her a few questions about the Rachel McGarrity investigation. A Texas Ranger, on her case. She knew it’d only be a matter of time before she was charged with official misconduct, or worse.
But this time, Alice didn’t bother trying to hide what she’d done. “Mrs. Galway, please, I know this looks bad.” Alice kept her voice respectful, but wondered if her cheeks were red or pale, revealing anything about how frightened and awful she felt. “I don’t mean you or your family any harm.”
Susanna tilted her head, her long black hair hanging down her back, her green eyes half-closed, but Alice could see she was rattled, scared. “You used a false name.”
“I’m in the process of legally changing my name to Audrey Melbourne. I want a fresh start.”
“Here? You didn’t just happen to show up in the same neighborhood as the family of the Texas Ranger who put you in prison—”
“Lieutenant Galway didn’t put me in prison,” Alice said. “I put myself there through my own actions.”
Jack Galway’s wife inhaled sharply. She was so tall and limber—Alice felt tiny next to her. She’d always wanted to be more of an über-girl. She almost didn’t make it as a police officer because of her size. People liked to tell her she was cute. She didn’t have Susanna Galway’s dramatic good looks.
“If you wanted a fresh start,” Susanna went on tightly, “you wouldn’t be here in Boston, in my neighborhood. That just doesn’t wash, Miss Parker.”
“I know.” She spoke quietly, respectfully, aware of Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn watching her, listening, ready to act if she did anything stupid. She had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in the past few weeks. “I came up here because I wanted to make up for any damage I’d done. I heard you’d left your husband after I got arrested—”
“That had nothing to do with you,” Susanna said stonily.
Alice wasn’t so sure about that, but she nodded anyway. “I can see that now. I probably knew it even before I got here.”
“But you stayed.”
“Where else was I supposed to go? I’m saving for Australia. Did Iris tell you that? I like her a lot, Mrs. Galway. I’d never do anything to hurt her. I mean, if I were up here to get revenge, I’ve had weeks.”
Susanna went slightly pale at Alice’s last words.
“Please believe me,” Alice said quietly, earnestly.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t believe.” Susanna stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, everything about her rigid, serious, determined. And scared, Alice thought. Susanna Galway wasn’t one who liked admitting she was scared. “I don’t want you anywhere near my grandmother or my daughters.”
Alice nodded. “All right. I understand.”
But her tone didn’t come out quite right, and she could see that Susanna had read her words the way Alice had really meant them—defiant and in-your-face defensive. She didn’t have to stay away from anybody. She was a free woman. She hadn’t threatened Iris or Maggie and Ellen Galway. She hadn’t stalked them. She hadn’t broken the law. Her presence in Susanna’s neighborhood was provocative, yes. But it wasn’t illegal.
“Stay away from my family,” Susanna said.
Alice didn’t argue, although she couldn’t imagine not seeing Iris again—at least to explain who she was, why she’d lied to her. She didn’t want Iris to think badly of her. She didn’t know why, but the old woman’s opinion mattered to her.
Susanna swept out of the bar, and Alice looked up at Jim Haviland, feeling her eyes fill with tears. “I suppose you think I’m pretty awful.”
“I think you’re scaring the shit out of Susanna Galway and used an innocent old woman—”
“I’d never hurt Iris. Never. I consider her a friend.”
But she could see she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, and down the bar, Davey Ahearn looked ready to take her out and shove her face into a snowbank. She jumped off her stool and tossed money on the bar, next to her barely touched bowl of chowder. She mostly choked down the clams, anyway. She couldn’t understand why New Englanders had clam chowder contests. It wasn’t even in the same universe as a good bowl of chili.
She sniffled, knowing she wasn’t eliciting an ounce of sympathy from either man. “I’m a free woman,” she said. “I can come and go as I please.”
“Then go,” Davey Ahearn said with an edge of sarcasm. “Please.”
She did, grabbing her parka but not bothering to put it on. One of them would call Jack Galway. Jim, Davey, Susanna. Jack wouldn’t stand by while a woman he’d put in prison, a corrupt fellow officer of the law, slipped into the neighborhood where his wife and daughters were living. It didn’t matter what was going on between him and Susanna. He’d be on the next plane out of San Antonio the minute he found out.
Alice pushed out the door into the cold night. There was a time when she’d wanted to stick it to Jack Galway for what he’d done to her, when she’d have been happy to think he was worried sick about his family because of her.
That wasn’t what this was about, she told herself. Revenge was pointless. This was about money for Australia and her new beginning.
Not that it’d make any difference to Jack Galway, Texas Ranger, but it did to her. She had a higher purpose in mind.
If he was about to find out she was up here with his wife and daughters, Alice couldn’t fool herself. There were no two ways about it. The squeeze was on, and she was running out of time.
Six
On the drive to the San Antonio airport, Sam Temple tried to talk Jack into calling Susanna and telling her he was on his way. “She’s the crack of dawn type,” Sam said. “She’ll be up.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not arguing with her.”
They were in Sam’s slick car, the beautiful early morning doing nothing to improve either man’s mood. “You don’t argue,” Sam said. “You say, ‘Suze, babe, I’m coming to Boston whether you like it or not.’”
“That’d work,” Jack said dryly.
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