I don’t wait until the Sterlings are done with their impromptu memorial. As soon as they’ve carted the flowers out the back door, the second they’ve rounded the corner for the stairs that will lead them down to the dock, I’m reaching for my cell. Chet’s number rings and rings, then pushes me to voice mail.
“Chet, call me. Sienna came to town with a necklace that connects Bobby to Jax. Did she say anything to you about it, or was she maybe wearing one? Either way, it’s MIA. Call me the second you hear this.”
I hang up and stare out the window, at the lake and hills and light that’s fading fast.
Being responsible for a man’s death would drive a person batty. It would drive me batty. Chet, too, probably. Maybe Jax ran Bobby off the road. Maybe Jax saw it happen and jumped in to save him, losing his necklace in the process. Or maybe it was worse than that—maybe he was sitting next to Bobby in the Camaro when they crashed. Maybe he was driving.
The thought wipes me clear inside, a bright white light that’s blank and blinding. For a second or two, I think I might pass out from the enormity of it. It would explain so much. Why Jax kept quiet about it for all these years. Why he traded his golden-boy status for a reputation as the town loon. Why he crumbled under the weight of all that guilt.
And now the necklace links Jax to Bobby Holmes to Sienna, a shiny, definitive token someone was willing to kill to make disappear.
And what about Paul? How much did he know? I stare out the window and will my mind to come up with a safe explanation, with an answer that makes some sort of sense. My brain bubbles with half-formed thoughts, but the same one keeps rising to the surface: Paul doesn’t have an alibi for the morning Sienna went into the lake.
Would he do that? Silence an innocent stranger in order to keep Jax’s secret safe? Would he weigh loyalty to an old friend over another life? I think these things until my bones are ready to jump out of my skin. The Paul I know would never do any of these things, but if the past few days have proved nothing else, it’s that I only know the Paul he’s wanted me to see.
The Sterlings are down by the shoreline now, standing at the far edge of the dock. Mrs. Sterling tosses the roses in one by one, while her husband watches from three feet away. The wind picks up her hair, whirls the petals from the flowers. There’s a storm brewing, the clouds low and heavy over the mountain and in my heart, and I don’t know what to believe.
My phone beeps with a text from Paul.
I grab my keys and race to the car.
The rain starts as I’m rounding the bend to Knob Hill, fat splatters on the windshield, knocking against the roof, sliding in rivulets down the glass. I flip the handle for the wipers and they squeak and whine, leaving greasy streaks on the windshield. It makes it hard to see past the next curve, to judge if the car coming at me is Paul’s or another SUV. If he was where he said he went, to the Curtis Cottage on the southern end of the lake, he’ll be taking a whole different road home than the one I’m on now.
A silver Toyota whizzes past, and I blow out a sigh of relief. The road before me is empty, and it feels darker than before. I reach down and flip on my headlights.
I dig my phone from the cup holder and call Sam on his cell.
“Kincaid.” It comes out gruff, the word hurried, and for an irrational second I wonder if he knew it was me when he picked up, if he still has my name in his phone.
“Sam, it’s me. Charlie. Is it true Sienna had Jax’s necklace?”
A pause. “I take it you’ve talked to the Sterlings.”
“Is it?”
Sam sighs. “That’s the rumor going around, but I’m still working to confirm. Nobody’s laid eyes on the necklace but the Sterlings and presumably the killer, and until we locate Jax, we can’t prove he no longer has his. I’ve got a call out to a detective in Ohio. They’ve gone to question the diver.”
“Paul owns all of Pitts Cove, Sam. He has for years.”
“I know.”
“Do you think he knew about Jax’s necklace in Bobby’s car? And not just because you hate the guy. I’m talking about real, concrete evidence.”
“Why, because trying to conceal what was at the bottom of Pitts Cove isn’t evidence enough?” A string of thunderous claps shakes the Civic down to the tires, and Sam pauses long enough to let it pass. “But okay, here’s what I know. I know Jax showing up on your back deck is a regular occurrence, once about every six or seven days. I know that his visits usually last somewhere between twenty to thirty minutes, and that by the time Jax leaves he’s showered and fed and wearing clean clothes. I know Paul never lets Jax leave without giving him a prepay card, which he pays for on the company AmEx. I know these visits are friendly and usually end in a hug.”
I stare out the slice of road lit up by my headlights, the way it goes blurry between swipes of the windshield wipers. “How do you know all that?”
“The cameras on the back of the house. You mailed me the log-ins, remember? They only go back sixty days, but there were enough of them for me to see all that. The prepay cards I heard about from a couple of cashiers in town. Apparently, Paul buys ’em in bulk.”
Sam gives me a moment for the message to sink in. Paul has been in touch with Jax all these years. He’s brought him food and clothes and a cell phone. He’s looked after him. I think of Jax stepping onto the back deck in Paul’s boots, the acres and acres of land he bought up around Pitts Cove, that time he made me ring him up for an expensive prepay card I assumed he wouldn’t use—and he didn’t. He tucked it in a pair of his old boots and gave them both to Jax.
It’s not some nefarious scheme to bury old bones, Paul said when I asked him about Pitts Cove, and I wasn’t sure I believed him.
Staying silent about a crime is a crime. If Paul knew Jax was somehow responsible for Bobby’s death, then he’s spent the past twenty years helping a man stay quiet about another man’s death, which in my book can’t be explained away. Jax should have reported it the second he popped to the surface, and Paul should have the second Jax ran blubbering to him.
“Where are you?” Sam says into my ear, and I almost drop the phone. I’d forgotten he was there, waiting on the other end of the line.
“Heading to town to find Chet.”
“Okay, well, be careful, and maybe lie low for a day or two, will you? Something’s not right here, and I’m still puzzling out what it is. My gut tells me everything’s connected, and that includes Katherine’s death. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got a handle on the situation.”
We hang up, and I’m dropping the phone into the cup holder when something darts into the road. A brown blur, flying across the windshield. I stomp the brakes and give a jerk to the wheel, and the tires Chet’s been hollering at me to replace for months now lose traction on the wet asphalt. The car slides sideways, hurtling me toward an incline that will drop me ten feet, maybe more, into a creek. I overcorrect, hands slapping at the wheel, then overcorrect the other way, but it’s too much for the old Civic. The car lurches into a spin, flinging me around like a fairground ride. After five or six turns, my back fender connects with something solid, and a loud, metallic chunk slams me back into my seat, snapping my head sideways. My skull slams into tempered glass, and everything goes deathly silent.
No, not silent. There’s the steady patter of rain, the wind in the tops of the trees, another rumble of thunder. And heavy breathing—mine.
I sit very still for a moment, taking stock. My head hurts, and my chest where the seat belt tried to cut me in half. I press a hand to my lower belly, but there’s nothing. No pain, no cramping. Other than the whack to the head, I think I’m fine.
My car, however, not so much. I twist around, looking out the smashed back window on the passenger’s side. I’ve landed flush against a tree, a pine at the edge of the road. The impact folded a deep dent in the Civic and stuck a branch through the glass, letting in the sharp tang of sap and green wood and rain. I twist the keys, but nothing happens. The engine’s dead.
I look around for my phone, which in the second or third spin flew from the cup holder. I search the passenger’s seat and console, stick my hand between the seats. I’m feeling around by my feet when, suddenly, the windshield lights up. Headlights gleaming in the gushing water.
Not Paul. Please don’t let it be Paul.
I freeze, peeking over the dash.
A flash of relief at the sight of Micah’s truck, followed by trepidation. Micah is one of Paul’s best friends. How much does he know? He rolls to a stop by my front fender, throws open the door and slides out, hitting the dirt at a jog. I eye him through the cracked windshield with suspicion.
He yanks open my door. “Are you okay? Jesus. Can you move?” Already the rain has soaked his hair, his clothes, splashing from him onto me.
“I’m fine, but I can’t find my phone.” Even I hear how ridiculous it sounds, to be whining about my phone when my car is crumpled against a tree, but it’s not the phone I’m worried about. It’s Chet. I need to talk to Chet. I need him to be a sounding board, to help me sort everything out. He’s the only one I can trust.
“Come on. You need to go to the hospital. I’ll take you.” Micah wraps a hand around my bicep to help me out, but I shake him off, a violent, physical no.
“I need my phone.” I unhook my seat belt and hurl myself over the console, reaching with both hands onto the floorboards. “I need to call Chet. He’s waiting for me in town.”
He slides his cell from a pocket, flips on the flashlight. “Here. Get out. I’ll find it for you.”
I stand in the pouring rain while Micah fishes around under the seats, finally locating the thing wedged between the back door and a box of tile samples I was supposed to return days ago. He hands it to me, and I check the screen. Other than a text from Paul—Home. Where are you?—there are no messages. No missed calls.
I dial Chet again, get his voice mail, again. I hang up and look around, eyes drilling into the rain and dark woods, trying to decide what to do. I could get Micah to take me to town, but there are a million places Chet could be by the time I get there, including back at the house. What if he’s there already, his phone charging on his nightstand downstairs while he’s busy in the kitchen? How do I call the house without talking to Paul?
And then something else occurs to me. “Did Paul send you to find me?”
“No. I was coming from town, headed home when I spotted you.” Water drips down his glasses, soaks his collar, splashes off his sleeve when he hitches a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we talk about this in the car?”
“What’s going on here, Micah? And tell me the truth, because I’ll know if you’re lying. I’m starting to piece things together.”
He squints at me behind his glasses. “What kind of things?”
“Nope, it doesn’t work that way. You tell me and I’ll know if I can trust you.”
“I understand that, but we’re in the middle of a police investigation. What I can tell you is that Jax has been a source of contention between me and Paul since the second he walked into the woods. Longer than that, actually. Paul was the reason Jax and I were friends. He was the glue.”
“Is Jax the reason Bobby was at the bottom of Pitts Cove?”
Micah nods. “There’s a piece of evidence putting him in the car, yeah. They’re still sorting out the rest.”
“That’s why Paul never talks about Jax, isn’t it? Why he bought up all of Pitts Cove. Paul knew what was down there, didn’t he?”
Micah watches me for a long time, the water dripping in streams off his chin. He sighs, his breath cutting a shaft in the foggy rain. “It sure as hell looks that way.”
His answer hits me square in the stomach because it makes a sick sort of sense. Paul knew. He knew, and then he left Bobby down there. For twenty years.
I look to the shoulder, a thin line of mud and puddles that ends in scraggly brush, searching for a good place to vomit. “I can’t go home, Micah. The Sterlings were just there. They told me about the necklace, which I’m guessing you’ve been looking for, haven’t you?”
He nods. “I couldn’t mention it. You understand that, right?”
“But…didn’t Bobby Holmes go missing around the same time Jax wandered into the woods? How is it possible nobody made the connection?”
“You didn’t.”
“I was a kid.” Six going on sixteen, thanks to my jailbird father and a mother who left me alone with a newborn baby for long stretches of time. Too busy caring for Chet to care why the trailer at the end of the park suddenly went dark and quiet. Of course I didn’t make the connection. But the police should have.
Micah lifts his hands, lets them fall back to his sides with a splat. “Selling drugs is a dangerous business. When Bobby disappeared, people assumed he skipped town or ended up at the wrong end of a drug deal gone bad. I heard a million scenarios, and not one of them involved Jax or the bottom of Pitts Cove. It wasn’t something people assumed because there was no reason to assume it.”
“And Katherine?” I say her name, and my voice wavers. “Is it true she and Paul were fighting before her death?”
Micah winces. “Everybody argues, even the perfect couple. And for what it’s worth, I regretted saying those words the second they came out of my mouth. Sam latched on to it like a bulldog, but he couldn’t prove anything. That’s got to count for something, right? Now can we please get out of the rain?”
I nod, and he grabs my arm and leads me to his truck. I’m numb, shaking from the cold and wet and shock. I let him pack me into the passenger’s seat of his truck, then sit there in the stuffy air while he jogs around the front to his side, his big body lighting up in the headlights like a firefly. The cab is thick with the smell of roasted chicken coming from the grocery bags by my feet, heavy brown paper with the gourmet market’s logo. It clings to my lungs and coats the windows in a milky fog, turning the woods and road hazy.
Or maybe that’s just my tears.
The cell phone buzzes in my hand. Paul, probably wondering where I am. I hit Ignore, and my cell goes dim, then black.
Micah climbs in, cleaning his glasses with a bandanna he pulls from the seat pocket. “Look, maybe you should…I don’t know…call him back and talk this out.”
“What’s there to talk about? Paul lied to me about Pitts Cove. He fed me some bullshit story about Walsh Capital and a plan he hatched with the mayor, but I’m no idiot. Swampland is not an investment.”
“No,” Micah murmurs. “It’s not.” He slides his glasses up his nose and cranks the engine. The radio kicks on, a country music station, as does the heat. He fiddles with the controls, flips on the defogger.
“And why is Paul always out for a run when women get sucked into the lake? What is up with that? It’s so awfully damn convenient, don’t you think? Especially since Billy Barnes doesn’t remember seeing him on Wednesday morning. Paul doesn’t have an alibi for the morning yet another woman washes up under his dock. Even Jax said as much. He said, ‘That’s two.’ He told me to watch my back, and I thought it was just Jax being batty.”
“Look, it might be nothing.”
“If you believed that, you would have just said it was nothing.”
Micah doesn’t respond, and his silence is answer enough. I turn to the window, feeling sick.
“What am I going to do? I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have a job. Knocked up with a baby I didn’t plan and don’t have the money to care for, not on my own.” I rake my fingers into the soaked hair at my temples, squeezing with the heels of my hands. “I am married to a criminal. I am having a criminal’s baby. Oh, God, I really am my mother.”
My cell lights up on my lap with another call from Paul. I hit Ignore, then pull up his contact card and tap Block. I don’t ever want to talk to him again.
Except I have to, don’t I, because of our baby. A baby attaches me to Paul until the end of time. It tangles us up in a bond so much more complicated than marriage. My throat goes thick, burning with coming tears.
Micah sits silent, watching me across the dim space, and his expression makes my stomach hurt. He doesn’t think the baby is good news, either.
“Maybe I should take you to Dr. Harrison, let him check you out just in case.”
“No, I’m fine. Really. I just need Chet.”
Micah’s phone buzzes in the cup holder. I know who it is long before he shows me the screen. Paul’s face jiggles in the air between us. “What do you want me to tell him?”
“Nothing. You haven’t seen me.”
“At least let me tell him you’re okay. If he gets wind of your car wrapped around that tree, he’s going to have a fit.”
“Not a word, Micah. I’m serious.”
Micah stares at me, and the phone rings and rings. He swipes to pick up right before it flips to voice mail. “Hey, Paul. What’s up?”
My husband’s voice comes through the phone in fits and starts, too faint to pick out anything other than speed. Paul is in a hurry, the words rushing out of him.
“No, sorry. I haven’t talked to her all day. Is her car there?”
A long pause. Micah gives me a reassuring smile.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much. She probably just ran into town or something. I’m sure she’ll show up soon. Hey, listen, I’m kinda in the middle of something here. Can I call you back in a little bit?” Another pause. “I know, but try to chill out, will you? I’m sure everything’s fine. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
He hangs up, tosses his cell on the console. “So what now?”
“I don’t know. Take me to town, I guess? That’s where Chet went earlier.”
“Let’s stop at my place first.” With a quick glance over his shoulder, Micah puts the truck in gear, pulls onto the road and points the nose toward home. “You need to get out of those wet clothes, and so do I. After that, we’ll figure out a game plan.”