JULIA COULDN’T BRING herself to go back to the office after the funeral and confront Marie’s moon-faced stare, the tinge of disdain in the young woman’s voice.
Instead—in the interest of researching the case, she told herself—she headed for the scene of the crime.
The creek that gave the town its name ran just two blocks from the courthouse, dividing the town’s business district from its residential streets. Paved paths lined either bank, populated during Duck Creek’s achingly brief and beautiful summers with runners, cyclists, walkers, and the town’s ubiquitous Labrador retrievers bounding sopping and ecstatic from path to creek and back again.
In winter, though, the creek froze in varying degrees of thickness, icy water running fast and black just below its treacherous surface, waiting to grab the foolhardy and pull them to their mercifully quick deaths. The creek’s high banks also formed a sort of wind tunnel, and winter gales screamed out of the mountains and along its surface, chivying the runners and cyclists into more sheltered areas.
The now-deserted path ran between the creek and the high school, and Julia had been in the habit, since she’d started seeing Dom, of waving toward his office window whenever she passed. If he saw her and he had a break in the myriad tasks that made up a principal’s day, he’d duck out and join her for a few minutes along the path.
They’d rarely speak during those brief walks, preferring to take in the beauty of the creek, which attracted great blue herons, ospreys swooping away with fish in their talons, chattering mallards, and fat beavers who attempted to dam the creek no matter how many times wildlife officers live-trapped them and moved them to the next county. An occasional bald eagle soared arrogantly above it all, hovering for long moments as though to invite admiration.
Today she didn’t wave—too soon, far too soon, to be able to face Dom again—but he must have glimpsed her through a window, because a moment later she glanced up to see him heading her way at a dead run.
“Julia!”
She waited, staring at her feet. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been clutching a sheet around his body, stumbling over the trailing fabric as he followed Elena back down the hallway, shouting his daughter’s name, much as he was calling now for Julia. At least this time he was dressed, albeit coatless in the biting chill.
He stood before her, gasping, a hand pressed to his side.
“Dom, I—” She stopped. What in the world did one say under these circumstances? So sorry your daughter saw us fucking like bunnies and is probably scarred for life as a result? As though it were Julia’s fault. As though it were anyone’s fault.
But what Dom said next was very much someone’s fault.
“Susan just called.”
Susan Parrish was Peak County’s former lead prosecutor, who’d resigned after Julia had humiliated her by providing proof without a doubt that Susan had bungled a big case. She was also Dom’s ex-wife.
Susan had moved to the university town in the next county, which as far as Julia was concerned was entirely too close, given her sworn enmity.
“Oh no. Please tell me she doesn’t know about this.”
He didn’t, glossing over the obvious and going straight to something even worse: that Susan had swooped into Duck Creek at nearly midnight after a tearful phone call from his daughter.
“She’s keeping Elena there. She’s already enrolled her in school, or at least started the process. And Julia.” His breath came ragged. His eyes shone with moisture, possibly due to the bitter wind, but his next words made the cold and wind seem inconsequential.
“She’s suing me for full custody. Said Elena wants it and that she’s of an age to choose.”
Julia moved toward him at last, her arms wide, wanting to fold him in them, lend him her strength, whatever comfort she could.
But he backed away, shaking his head.
“No. I’m going to fight this. And if I’m to have any chance of winning, we can’t see each other, at least not until it’s over. I’m sorry, Julia. But for now, we’re done.”