69

Matt hit the accelerator almost before he got his car door closed, powered out of the cemetery, under the archway, away from the voices and the guards, away from Jane Ryland. What she’d told him. Could it be true? My father knows? That’s what Cissy was planning for tonight? He shifted, gears grating, turned onto the street, ignoring the stop sign, heading toward Boston.

He patted the seat beside him, risked a fast look under the dash. Where did he put his damn phone? His car swerved, crossed the yellow line, edging into the other lane. He steered back to safety, headlights flaring—too close!—in his side mirror.

“Asshole!” he yelled at the night as some jerk honked at him. Christ. He had to calm the hell down. He was fine. It was fine. He was out of there. And Cissy had told him to be at Lassiter headquarters at eleven.

For a family reunion?

He felt the beginnings of a smile. His first real smile in a long while.

He would make it. Just in time.

*   *   *

“Ma’am? Do you realize you’re trespassing?” The stocky man, wearing a dark nylon jacket marked PGSECURITY, growled at Jane, aiming his flashlight in her face. Her rear end and gloves soaked with mud, head throbbing, she’d watched the other guard race after Matt. He now trotted up beside his partner.

“Lost him,” he said. “What’s the status, McCray? Ma’am, we’re going to have to call the—”

“Oh, thank goodness you came,” Jane cried, holding out both hands, damsel in distress. There was the trespassing issue, sure, but she could explain. At least she was alive to explain it. And these two, pudgy and pudgier, weren’t so intimidating without the loudspeaker. Seemed they didn’t have guns. Only flashlights. “I was visiting a—”

“You not see the closed sign? It’s Halloween, ma’am. We’re closed.” The taller one pointed behind him. What looked like a microphone was clipped to his jacket, a miniature loudspeaker strapped over his shoulder. “You can’t be here, miss.”

“Oh, really?” Jane widened her eyes. Talking fast. “I thought it was open all the time. I was looking at the headstone, it’s so beautiful, in the moonlight … and then that guy came in, and I didn’t know what he was doing, and it was so scary, and then I tripped, you know, and—”

“Yo, McCray, check it out. She’s Jane Ryland,” the shorter one said. He waved his long-handled flashlight at her. “But with shorter hair. You’re on the news, right? What’re you doing here?”

“Leaving. Right now.” Smiling, smiling. “Like I said, I was visiting a friend’s grave. Is that okay? I’m so sorry. I mean, I didn’t know it was closed, and…”

The two guards exchanged glances. One shrugged, then the other.

“Don’t do it again,” pudgier said.

*   *   *

“Bad news, I’m afraid, Mr. Vick.” Jake put on a somber face as he entered interrogation room C. Arthur Vick, still seated in a folding chair, arms crossed on the long table, slowly raised his head. His eyes were rimmed with red, his drawn face the picture of defeat. Coffee-stained Styrofoam shards now littered the table. Someone had torn the cups into pieces, lining up the bottoms in a row of grubby polka dots.

“Huh?” Vick said. He squinted at Jake, blinking as if he’d been asleep. “What happened to the other cop?”

“Shut up, Arthur.” Henry Rothmann leaped to his feet, his metal chair banging against the wall. “What bad news, Detective? Bad news for you, maybe? You admitting this whole thing is a farce? You going to let my client go? The way you should have hours ago?”

Jake closed the door behind him, then stood in front of it. Vick lowered his head back down onto his arms.

“Maybe so,” Jake said. This was risky, and if the whole thing went to hell, there’d be Miranda violations out the ass. It would kill a murder case against Arthur Vick. Jake hoped that wouldn’t matter.

She was roofed up, Patti had said. How’d she know that? The cops kept that secret. Either Vick told his wife he drugged Sellica and killed her, which was pretty damn unlikely, or Patti Vick—scorned wife of the hooker-hiring grocer-about-town—killed the other woman herself.

Vick’s head lifted ever so slightly, only his eyes showing.

“I’m aware that I can’t direct my statement to Mr. Vick, since he’s Mirandized,” Jake continued. “And on the record here, I am not asking him to respond. However.”

He paused, giving his strategy one last gut check. “However, Mr. Rothmann. And I remind you all conversations in this room are taped. Patricia Vick has just confessed to the murder of Sellica Darden.”

*   *   *

“Answer the phone, answer the phone,” Jane said to the darkness as she drove over the Longfellow Bridge, alert for speed traps, headed as fast as she could back to Boston. She’d found a stash of paper napkins in her glove compartment, cleaned off her coat as best she could, wrapped a couple of them around her now barely bleeding hand. It stung like crazy, and she really needed an Advil for her head. She could already feel the lump behind one ear. But she’d live. Which, for a couple of moments there, she’d wondered about.

Those rent-a-guards might call the police about Matt. Good news and bad news—really nothing for them to tell.

Her call kept ringing, the speaker filling the car with the sound. “Come on, Jakey, pick up, pick up.…”

The names on that headstone.

Two children. Matt—Lassiter’s son. Could Holly Neff be Lassiter’s daughter? The ages were about right. What was she doing at the campaign? Why was she using a phony name?

Still. Had Matt killed his own sister? But Jake had said—girlfriend. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe everyone just assumes that. Or believes that. Maybe Holly Neff was Matt’s sister. Owen’s daughter.

The phone rang again. Jane hit the red light at the Charles Circle rotary. Watched the late-night traffic battle for right-of-way around the rain-slicked loop to Mass General and Beacon Hill.

Or. Maybe not. Maybe not Holly. Would she send such a sexy photo—to her own father?

Maybe Owen’s daughter was the other woman.

Jake’s phone went to voice mail. “It’s me,” Jane said after the beep. “I think I know where to find Kenna Wilkes. Matt, too. Call me. Right away. Call me.”